Category: Uncategorized

SILICONVALLEY.com — Mar 1 — Craigslist plans to collect millions of ads and beam them into deep space May 15, accompanied by a videotaped greeting from craigslist founder Craig Newmark. "We believe there could be an infinite market opportunity.''  Users consent by checking a box next to their listings: “OK to transmit this posting into outer space.'' CEO Jim Buckmaster won an eBay auction over the weekend — at $1,225 — for the chance to send a message into outer space.  Rumor has it that Hollywood has already commissioned a TV show about the event — called “List in Space.''

Mark Brooks: Jim/Craig, what side of the light do your mushrooms grow on?  A brilliantly bizarre word-of-mouth/PR ploy in keeping with characterful Craigslist.

HARVARD CRIMSON — Feb 26 — They wanted to make a website that would connect the Harvard campus with $1k startup money. They didn't anticipate meeting the CEOs of Friendster and Google—or that they would take time off Harvard to share a house in Silicon Valley with the co-founder of Napster, Sean Parker. TheFacebook.com serves 1.5 million. Zuckerberg estimates he’s been to 40 meals with interested VC's and other companies, like Google, to discuss investment. Advertising income exceeds their operating costs; $50k monthly server costs and salaries for eight employees. “We’re in a really interesting place because if you look at the assets we have, we’re fucking rich,” says Zuckerberg. “But if you look at like the cash and the amount of money we have to live with, we’re dirt poor." ConnectU filed suit in September '04 charging that Zuckerberg used their source code, business model, and original ideas to build TheFaceBook. Normally investors shy away from companies facing a federal lawsuit, but Peter Thiel—co-founder of PayPal—was willing to take the risk.

The full article was originally published at Crimson, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Peter Thiel, Ram Shriram and Tim Koogle were the power triage (smart money) involved with Friendster as Jonathan moved from homespun startup to VC darling.  (I worked with Friendster when Jonathan was working out of his apartment).  Ram and Tim are also on Plaxo's board.

INQ7 — Feb 26 — A 15-year-old student was barred from school after she admitted that she, and two classmates, created an account for their "enemy" at "Friendster.com," where they wrote testimonials full of obscenities and vulgarities maligning her reputation.

Mark Brooks: Friendster discourages and removes ‘Fakesters.’  Anonymity anon.  Unlike online dating sites, anonymity is not allowed on Friendster.  A factor that makes the Friendster service seem more ‘safe.’ 

ZDNET AUSTRALIA — Feb 24 — Which will have a greater impact on the history of humanity–Friendster or penicillin? Coined by futurist Ray Kurzweil, Kurzweil’s Law, otherwise known as the Law of Accelerating Returns, states that building on past accomplishments, the pace of technological change doubles every decade–leading to a Moore’s Law vision of progress.  Early stages of technology–the wheel, fire, stone tools–took tens of thousands of years to evolve and be widely deployed. A thousand years ago, a paradigm shift such as the printing press took on the order of a century to be widely deployed. Today, major paradigm shifts, such as cell phones and the World Wide Web, were widely adopted in only a few years time.  The social networking site Friendster debuted in 2002. Penicillin was invented in 1928.  FULL ARTICLE @ ZDNET

Mark Brooks: We have yet to see the best of Friendster.

ABS-CBN NEWS — Feb 22 — Friendster endured three CEO's during 2004 and has seen a spate of senior executives depart in recent weeks.  New CEO Scott Sassa "has figured out how to make a business of this," said John Doerr (VC Google, Amazon). Doerr said they would announce a partnership deal in February and "reach profitability within the next 90 days."  Friendster has 16 million registered users, MySpace has 7.6 million.  5x people visited MySpace as Friendster in December and they spent far more time there (Friendster – 17 mins, MySpace – 78 mins) according to Nielsen/NetRatings.  According to MediaMetrix, MySpace logged 2 billion+ page views last month compared to 152 million page views at Friendster.  "Unique visitors and page views drive revenues, not registered users," said MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. MySpace now hosts sites for 110,000 musicians. Users IM, play games, contribute to blogs or browse events.  Geoffrey Yang, VC with Redpoint Ventures, said he is days away from investing in MySpace; "these guys in a sense are trying to be an MTV for the Internet."  Marissa Mayer, who manages Orkut, acknowledged that it and Friendster have "similar capabilities and similar limitations." 

Mark Brooks: Friendster has been out-Friendstered.  What has Scott Sassa got up his sleeve?  Your comments please?

SFGATE — Feb 20 — For 11 years, father of blogging, Justin Hall documented his life online at www.links.net.  Then he released a short film, "Dark Night."  Hall speaks directly into the camera.  He is visibly upset, crying at several points.  "What if intimacy happens in quiet moments?" he said. "I think the Web makes me not alone and I feed it my intimacies, and the Web is my constant connection to something larger than myself … but what if something you do, something you practice like religion as a dialogue with the divine, drives people away from you?"  Hall’s dramatic statement fits the scale of his endeavor.  He was one of the most committed advocates for the bonding powers of interactive, web-based writings. But now, his sudden expression of doubt over the Internet’s ability to foster intimacy marks a huge change in attitude from the one expressed in work over the past decade and shows that his philosophy may be evolving with the medium in which he works."  FULL ARTICLE @ SFGATE

Mark Brooks: This seemed a little off topic for OPW at first glance, but there’s a very powerful and important message here…  Online ‘community’ is a facade.  Community only comes into a truly fulfilling existence when people actually meet in the real world.  The promise of online personals sites > to put compatible people in front of each other, in the real world.  Your comments please…

LA TIMES — Feb 19 — Spimmer arrested for broadcasting 1.5 million instant messenger ads on MySpace.com for pornography and cheap mortgages.  Federal prosecutors said it was the first criminal case involving this new form of spam — known as "spim."  Anthony Greco, 18, was arrested at LAX, where prosecutors lured him from his upstate New York home for a bogus meeting with MySpace president.  Greco had threatened to tell other spammers how he sent the unsolicited instant messages to MySpace users if he wasn’t given an exclusive marketing contract with MySpace, which has 9 million users.  about 1% of traffic on AOL Instant Messenger is spim.  Greco, faces 18 years in prison if convicted.  He was released under a $25,000 bond.

ZDNET — Feb 16 — Jambo Networks users start by registering and building a profile via the company's Web site. Tell Jambo anything you might want other folks to know, such as your alma mater, occupation or musical tastes, then Jambo assigns you an ID number and provides software that works with a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth wireless networking connection.  Jambo contracts with organizations such as universities, trade show organizers and Wi-Fi hot-spot providers to sponsor its service in a given area. The software alerts users when someone with similar interests is within wireless range and starts an instant messager. "We'd love to partner with someone like Match.com," Jim Young said. 

The full article was originally published at ZDNet India, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: WiFi users will love this idea!  Proximity based matching will be huge fun, and huge business one day. 

PRNEWSWIRE — Feb 16 — Celebrities flocked the Viper Room for Star Magazine’s Pre-Grammy party. GuessWhatiHeard.com was a main attraction for celebrities as they fashioned the sites latest slogans and attire. GuessWhatiHeard.com allows people to talk about their ex-friends, flames, business associates, and classmates. In turn, this information can then be used by others when considering whether or not to date, befriend, or do business with these very people. Founder Kelly Felix created the site after hearing websites such as Friendster and MySpace were boring.

Mark Brooks: Friendster is getting it’s act together.  MySpace is anything but boring.

BUSINESS WIRE — Feb 13 — Jambo Networks announced a service that enables people with common interests and WiFi-enabled devices to meet each other when nearby.   "Jambo takes advantage of a little-known ‘ad hoc mode’ in WiFi cards, which allows people to use their devices to directly communicate with each other, whether they are in a WiFi-enabled area or not, so Jambo keeps searching for personal matches, whenever a laptop or other portable device is active — even on an airplane at 30,000 feet," said co-CEO Jim Young.  Travelers will be able to communicate with any other Jambo member throughout the La Guardia airport in a few weeks.

Mark Brooks: Proximity based wireless services hold great promise for the online personals services of the future.  (Check out the Mobile/Wireless internet dating conference)