Ampers & Dot

The subtitle for this post is: “And other stupid ideas for the startup community”. Boy, I hope people kept reading to this subtitle or you’re really going to get the wrong idea about my blog…

If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you’ll well know that I’m a pretty severe skeptic of the current start-up landscape. The supply well outweighs the demand in a way only the dot-commy boomers can relate to. But, as much as I like to throw my opinions around, I’m also an early adopter who loves new tech and new ideas, so I’m naturally fascinated with new startups.

Last night I attended PopSignal, along with 400 other of Boston’s techy/new media types for an open bar, free food and pretty solid networking. All in all, the event was well done and not remotely as shady as you’d expect considering it was held at Tequila Rain, one of the sleaziest bars near Fenway.

The event was targeted for Boston’s tech people to share ideas and make connections to help get startups going (or at least that’s the interpretation I’ve come up with). So naturally, throughout the night I constantly found myself having the same conversation over and over again: here’s an idea for a startup, what do you think?

Well, as a natural skeptic of the area, here’s what I think: what value does your company add. You’ve got a funny name? Good work. Cool logo? Great. What does your company do that brings value to the end user. This should be the number one question for all startups. Value.

During the night I got into a discussion with the guys from a WPI startup caleed MessageSling. They’re making a free (ad-supported) voicemail-to-text (either text, email, or whatnot) service that, as you might imagine, sends your voicemail to you in a readable format. Seeing as that while talking to them I had two voicemails on my phone that I couldn’t listen to because it was too loud and busy, I remember telling them that their company “adds value”.

To me, there are a ridiculous amount of startups out there, or as Compete’s Max Freiert said: “too much noise”. The VCs are throwing money at anything that moves and has a funny name, which is making anyone with an idea think they can game the market. But what we’re going to see, and I think this will be relatively soon, is the cream rising to the top (or is it bottom… I don’t do much dairy so this analogy is lost on me).

As explained in this venn diagram I just created on MS Paint, there are a lot of VC funded startups, few of which add value (and you can also note that there are a few valuable startups that never receive funding… I can’t name any, but obviously they’re out there).

The purple area represents all of the startups that are getting funding that don’t really do anything valuable. Yeah, that’s a lot. No, this isn’t remotely based on anything by my healthy skepticism, but it’s likely pretty accurate.

This post isn’t meant to discourage the startup community by any means, if anything it should jazz you up that your startup does something valuable. Because if you have a startup, the first person you need to convince of your idea is you. So ask yourself now: what value does my company bring.

Lastly, during the conversation with the MessageSling guys I said that if your company has value then the money will come, to which one of them responded “yeah, but you’ve got to keep the doors long enough for that to happen”. The way I see it, if you are making something worthwhile then someone will be knocking at your door soon enough. If you build value, the money will come.

Although I guess good ideas that don’t work is where the little light blue sliver fits in to my arbitrary diagram…

Oh, and Ken George at The Conversation - please note the horridly poor job of brevity for this post…

Ok, I’ve ranted long enough. What do you think?

Tonight I’ll be attending the Boston Gadgetry MeetUp, a group organized (by me) to bring together people who like to talk about fun tech-toys.

The general topic of the evening will be “Mobile Operating Systems”, to discuss the brewing battle between Windows Mobile, the iPhone OS, Blackberry, and the prepubescent Android.

For a little background reading on this subject, check out the following links:

• HTC’s Diamond featuring Windows Mobile 6.1: YouTube Video
• Blackberry’s newly announced “Bold” with new OS 4.6: Gizmodo Images
• A video walkthrough of the Android platform: YouTube Video
• And a few leaked details on the new 3G iPhone: CrunchGear

And here are a few notes that I’m excited to discuss this evening.

• That Palm OS isn’t even in the mixer anymore
• How the Diamond’s modded WM 6.1 is WM 6.0 with the addition of a number of features to make it more like the iPhone
• The fact that Blackberry can actually make hardware appealing enough to compensate for no touchscreen
• And conversely, how the iPhone can make an OS appealing enough to compensate for no hardware
• How each OS is targeted towards a different user group, but the hardware doesn’t necessarily match this
• How easily Android will be able to break into the market because of its minimal operating requirements
• The future of the mobile OS - combining a UI of the iPhone with functionality of Windows Mobile… and how this will most likely be seen in Android 2 before either WM or an iPhone…

So if any of these things interest you then stop by the Kinsale at Government Center this evening after work. And make sure to check out the Gadgetry MeetUp page for more details.

Hope to see you there!

By nature I am a pretty crazy mobile device enthusiast. I can name and detail more cell phone acronyms than just about anyone (CDMA, EVDO, GSM, HSDPA, HSUPA… I can do that for hours).  I can even explain to you the difference between 1G, 2G, 3G, 3.5G, and 4G data speeds and who they related to the 700mhz spectrum.

What I can’t explain is how the hell Sprint lost 1,090,000 customers in Q1 this year.  That’s about 12,000 unhappy customers a DAY.  That’s horrendous.  As someone who has switched cell providers only once ever (with Verizon for nearly a decade (Cellular One, which rolled into Verizon) of dissatisfaction before jumping ship to ATT (Cingular, which rolled into ATT) and have actually been surprised at the relatively positive service), I can only say that losing 1.09m customers in three months is truly amazing.

What went wrong?  According to the comments in the post I linked up there… a lot went wrong.  There are 75+ comments running on that thread and nearly every one of them is negative.  Although there isn’t one overwhelmingly strong central theme- people just don’t like Sprint.

For a long time I’ve been quasi-active on a few gadget forums and one of my strongest memories of one of my favorite communities, PDAphonehome.com, is the amount of conversation around Sprint and the PPC6600.  Looking at the 6600 threads you’ll notice that two of the top three most popular threads are about Sprint promising an update for a phone… and then not delivering. Over 2,000 replies and over 160,000 views of people pissed off at Sprint. And on the thread for Sprint’s updated model, the 6700, there’s an open thread with nearly 1,000 replies and almost 300,000 views about Sprint dropping the ball again.

Ok, so that’s enough with the boring phone stuff- let me finally get to my point in all this: social media is killing Sprint.  In the old days, way back when modems dialed numbers and eBay was still a legitimate website, the ability to discuss your dissatisfaction for something was relatively limited.  While now, when my phone connects over 83 times faster than my first modem and eBay is like craigslist mixed with a Nigerian email scam, spreading your unhappiness about a company is easier than ever.

Jumping online to rant about something is not only possible, but you’ll find a community that shares a similar distaste.  These communities enable dissatisfied customers’ hate to brew- by hearing other stories people get even more riled up and unhappy.

This wasn’t originally where I expected this post to go, but what I’m getting at is that Sprint has always sucked.  It’s just hit the tipping point where people no longer care to hold it inside.  And once they see how annoyed everyone else is, it makes it easier than ever to give up.

And not to fan the flame or anything, but should you be similarly unhappy with Sprint, like 1.09m others, check out this forum thread on how to get out of your Sprint contract.

Sorry Sprint, it’s nothing personal- but while reading PDAPhoneHome forums I met a lot of unhappy people- and I sympathize enough to be unhappy too.  It’s time for to utilize social media to fix your reputation and get your customers back.  Also, while you’re at it: roll out WiMax already.  No more delays, ok?

While working with people to better understand and utilize blogs, I am often asked about the requisite length of a blog post; often inaccurately phrased as “how long does it have to be?”.  The first answer to this is that if you think it has to be done at all, you’re going about it all wrong.  Blogging is supposed to be fun and enjoyable and if you ever feel burdened by it- don’t blog. 

Blogging has unlimited benefits, but if you aren’t enjoying it then, quite frankly, your blog will show it and you’ll be unable to reap the said benefits anyway.  For example: blogging well can build a community of conversation.  But if you don’t enjoy blogging and the posts suffer, then no one is going to be talking about it anyway.  So why do it?

Anyway- back to the length question.  The easy answer: not too much.  Far too often posts are longer than they should be and I can say with full confidence that it’s immeasurably better to have a shorter post than a post that runs too long.  Researchers recently determined that after 25 seconds on a page, people aren’t really reading anything anyway (only dedicating 4.4 seconds per 100 words, after the initial 25 seconds… that’s not good).  So it’s better to leave the post shorter and have that text read, than ramble on in a space no one is getting to anyway.

I usually like to avoid responding too directly to the question about post length, because then it is seen as an assignment.  If I say 300-500 words, then that becomes a goal to hit 400… when ultimately the goal should be to get the message across. 

My answer is as vague as possible: keep it between 100 and 1,000 words.  Introduce the post, get your message across, and wrap it up.  And it’s better to have a fun and interesting post with 100 words and a link, than a twelve page manifesto on your love of McDonald’s dollar menu (this is out there… I’ve seen it and it’s scary).

Ironically the point of this post was actually a test for me, to see if I’m actually able to just spit out a quick post about a topic I know.  Didn’t work.  Let’s just write this up in the series of “advice I’ll give on my blog about things I know really well but that I don’t do personally”.  I’ve already covered the blogroll and now length; next week maybe I’ll talk about how crappy my SEO is.

This short post: 411 words.

While reading the Boston blog aggregator/news/etc. Universalhub.com yesterday I came across an intriguing post on spam comments. In short, UH’s Adam noticed a few newly spammy comments on older posts he’d written. After a little digging, he learned the source of this mess comes from a company that basically sells comments.

For twenty bucks CommentHut will go around to 100 targeted blogs and post little spam comments that link back to your company. I know what you’re thinking: “wow, there’s a way to blow my company’s credibility and make us look stupid, and it’s only $20!? Sign me up!”.

Let’s talk about why this is stupid: as Adam points out, the spam comments he found on Universal Hub were on old posts and they were still pretty easily identifiable as spam. Even if the posts are indeed written by a human- they’re still fake and annoying. For example- take a look at this spammy comment that made it beyond my spam filter, but was pretty easily identifiable as spam.

This is inherently flawed for the following reasons

• Good blog admins are either notified of new comments, or check any new comment regularly enough to pick up spam
• Good spam filters will nab, or at least hold in moderation, comments with questionable links
• Posting spam comments on old posts only makes it look spammier, plus most blog sites have built in options to “delete comments on threads older than…”
• Fake comments stick out even more obviously when a site has a real community, like Universal Hub
• Readers aren’t dumb enough to click on fake comment links anyway

That last bullet is the most important: I mean look at the spam comment there- it’s horrible! “I’m at University…” oh, ok- I’d better check out your “credit-instent.cn” link! I bet it’s really good and can save me money… is there anyway I can just send you my credit cards and you’ll do the work for me? What if I also send you my passport, apartment keys, and a twenty dollar bill? Hopefully if you’re reading this, you are smart enough not to click on any link domain name that is spelled wrong… or links to Canada…

Seriously though, what does this accomplish? My thought: it’s a good way to throw away money and prove that you completely misunderstand social media.

The idea of comments section is that it’s an open dialogue between the author and the reader. It’s what separates blogs from news. By invading this conversation you are really only bound to piss off the author, disrupt the readers, and make a bad name for the company that paid you twenty bucks to spread the name around.

The first and foremost rule of social media is transparency. Let everyone know who you are and what you do. If you hide it, or fake it, you look just look dumb. So here’s my transparency disclaimer for today’s post: I help teach companies how to best utilize social media and I think fake comments are a horrible idea.

You might not have noticed, but I recently trimmed a bit of the fat from my blogroll (that little list over there- available about halfway down on the right there… for those who haven’t checked it out yet) in an initial phase of overall “blogroll rehabilitation”. This came about because it seemed hypocritical to have any blogs on there that I’m not passionately reading on a regular basis and as it turned out there were a few on there that I didn’t even read at all anymore.

What I realized was that in the first stab at creating my blogroll I reached a little too far and tried to include something for everyone. This is obviously silly because this blog isn’t for everyone, so why should I try to please those jerks who aren’t even reading this (obviously, I’m not talking about you).

Part of my day job is helping companies build better blogs, so it’s only fair that I have a good one of my own. In the coming weeks I’m going to spend some time redoing my blogroll and thought I’d turn this into a post about how to actually make one.

First off: what’s the blogroll all about? The way I teach the blogroll, is it should be links to other blogs that your readers will enjoy. If they like what they read on your site, they’ll like the content on the other sites too. It’s like Amazon’s suggestion feature- where they match up relevant purchases with the one you’ve already bought- “we see you just bought a Celine Dion CD; would you also like this handgun and bottle of booze combo?”

I use blogrolls every day to find new things to read. It’s a great way to learn more about an industry and it’s a perfect way find networks around topics you find interesting. So let’s just dive into it- tips to building a better blogroll:

• Relevance is bliss: The blogs you link to should first and foremost be relevant to the content you are publishing
• Relevant blogs, not relevant websites. A blogroll is a collection of blogs, who would have guessed. If you have a number of links you think your readers would also enjoy, create a “Links” section too
• Organize! Categorize the blogroll (or even links) into sections to give readers a better understanding. Boston blogger Scott Kirsner does the best job of this of any blog I know
• Use titles with descriptions help guide your readers. Hover works too, but give your audience a clue to what they’ll find in each link. A blog with a crappy name, like AmpersandDot.com means nothing- add a hover to explain the content
• Yes, we all think LOL Cats are hilarious, but unless your blog is about LOL Dogs or straight humor related, your readers are gaining nothing by linking to it. Same goes for StuffWhitePeopleLike.com
• Quality and relevance over quantity. If you have too many links then the relevance is drowned out by all the noise. Todd Defren and Josh Hallet, your blogroll reads like Con Von Hoffman’s category list (Important note: I love all three of these blogs and read everything that any of these guys writes. And you should too.)
• A mix of mainstream and lesser-known blogs (assuming they are relevant and you read them) will add a better variety. I’ve seen a number of blogrolls that only link Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, and Valleywag. This is lame (and I’m half guilty of it)
• Keep it current. A standard role in blog maintaince is to check dead links. A dead link on a blogroll is one that hasn’t been updated in a week
• Make sure the blogs on your blogroll are ones you read regularly. This sounds straightforward, but I think that once you link to a blog in your blogroll you should be accountable for knowing its content. Linking a blog in your roll is a compliment to the author that you want to give them traffic from every reader
• Hell, you should even be active on the blogs you list- comment on them and engage the author. Because a blogroll link creates a connection- on each page- not just a link in a post, but a static link for all to enjoy. And hey, if you comment on more blogs then you’ll be much more likely to get links back.

Blogrolls are an integral element to every blog. And sadly I haven’t been appropriately respecting the importance. Things I need to work on: a) more blogs b) categories (I’m thinking: Boston, Web “2.0″, Social Media, Tech Nerdery… but we’ll see what pans out) and c) better variety, not just Mashable and Engadet Mobile… ugh.

This weekend I’ll take my own advice and start working on revamping my blogroll. What else should be considered when blogrolling? What are your tips?