My Seoul @Starbucks espresso cup
[jc-mahalo starbucks]
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Jason@Calacanis.com | Mobile: 310-456-4900
http://www.calacanis.com | http://www.mahalo.com
Executive Assistant: admin@calacanis.com
GTDInbox extension for Firefox (Four Stars)
Yesterday, with 30,000+ emails in my inbox I declaired email bankruptcy and installed a really wicked Firefox tool called GTDInbox. It’s a tool based on the “Getting Things Done” management system and it’s fairly transfomative as a product. It allows you to group your emails in various pains in GMAIL assigning labels to them like Action, Waiting On, Finished and “some day.” It’s really elegent and simple and it frees your mind up because you basically “deal with” each of your emails–even if it’s to say “some day” or “waiting on stuff.”
Thanks to my buddy Ryan from CauseCast for suggesting it and showing it to me (CauseCast was in the TechCrunch50 last year, yes!).
[jc-mahalo GTDInbox]
[jc-mahalo Getting-Things-Done]
Me and my nephew Nick (circa 1996?) — thanks Mom!
My moms just sent me these photos of me with my nephew Nick on the
back deck in Brooklyn.
[jc-mahalo Bay-Ridge]
New York Times interview for Twitter "suggested user list" story today
Here’s my full email to Brian Stelter for his story on the Twitter
suggested user list.
best j
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jason Calacanis
Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: NYT interview request
To: Brian Stelter
> How do you view the suggested users list? (Is it a positive addition to
> Twitter, a troubling one, a valuable one, etc?)
It’s great feature for new users because they get to start with a
dozen or two vibrant followers as opposed to a blank screen.
However, it’s fairly obviously that being on this list is very, very
valuable so there are some early users who were bummed they were not
included. I was the #2 user on Twitter behind Obama in the early days
and I didn’t make the cut, but I don’t care. The fact that almost
70,000 follow my tweets is still mind blowing to me!
It’s funny, I get a couple of emails from celebrities asking me to
reach out to Twitter on their behalf to get on this list.
> What were your reasons for offering $250,000 to be on it? Was your offer
> sincere?
It was half performance art and half real. If they took it I would
have paid for it to promote our twitter.com/answers service (not my
personal account). If they had taken the money I would have two or
three million followers on that account and the $250,000 would have
been only .10 a follower–a bargain!
> Do you believe Twitter will ever monetize it?
They would be well within their right to monetize it because it’s 100%
opt-in. However, I think they have 100 other ways to make money–like
a payment system and professional accounts–and they will go after
those first.
At the end of the day this feature was for the benefit of new users
and in that way it is a huge success. It has a secondary effect of
showing folks the power of twitter–and watching celebrities beg to be
on the list–does hint at the power of the “Twitter dialtone.”
best j
> Brian Stelter
> Reporter, The New York Times
> brianstelter.com
[jc-mahalo twitter]
[jc-mahalo new-york-times]
@tauruscalacanis at the dog park
—————
Jason@Calacanis.com | Mobile: 310-456-4900
http://www.calacanis.com | http://www.mahalo.com
Executive Assistant: admin@calacanis.com
Marc Andreessen's Venture Fund–and how "micro VC is transforming the Valley"
Congrats to Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz on launching their–wait for it–$300m venture (angel?) fund. Andreessen plus unlimited funds to invest one or two million in 100-200 companies over the next five years is, well, game changing for startups.
This is like 100 new angel investors coming into the valley at once…. if those angel investors had created a couple of billion dollar companies and were really frackin’ smart. This is a big deal for entrepreneurs because it puts MASSIVE pressure on old-school VCs looking to put $3-10m to work in a company. It’s not going to kill old-school VCs, but it’s the continuation of the death by a thousand cuts that these new micro-VC firms are inflicting.
The juicy white meat of the series A is getting fought for harder and harder–every wants to be the first one to get a taste.
The technology industry has never been more inclusive, what with folks like Y-Combinator, BetaLabs and Founder’s Fund doing smaller investments and now this. If you’re looking to raise capital it’s fairly simple: go to the Valley, pick a growing market and get two or three qualified folks to work with you on tackling that market. The money will then show up–even for first time entrepreneurs–if you pick a growing market and try to kill it.
[jc-mahalo marc-andreessen]
[jc-mahalo venture-capital]
Why Facebook launched usernames
There’s been a lot of talk about why Facebook released usernames, and why their opening up their user’s data (i.e. the stream). One of the great assets of Facebook–and in fact one of the reasons why it grew compared to MySpace–was its “private by default” feeling. No more… now you can have Facebook.com slash anything.
When using Facebook your stream and userpage felt hidden and only viewable by your closet friends. Facebook data didn’t come up on Google searches and, in fact, folks didn’t even know how to tell you where their page even was. However, the pressure that Twitter has put on Facebook in their “open by default” system (note: you can make your tweets private if you choose to–but it’s open by design–as are your relationships!).
This is a fascinating flow we’re seeing from public social networks (MySpace) giving up ground to private ones (like LinkedIn and Facebook), that are now rethinking their default position thanks to the public-facing Twitter.
In one of the science-fiction (near-scifi) pieces I started writing but never released I thought about email boxes being public by default with a flag having to be turned on if you wanted a conversation flipped private. This basically lead to a level of “quiet-lifetime stalking” that would never be revealed in some cases, and in banks and banks of “life coaches” our of Indian who would email you tips on how to evolve your communications on a pay-per-intervention model.
Twitter is the start of the “public by default” email box…. and Facebook is now flipping their default positions on privacy to catch up. It’s only a matter of time before your thought-stream is public. How fascinating would it be if Robin Williams’ thoughts were streamed to the web non-stop in twitter posts: grey for thoughts that were unspoken, light grey for thoughts that were unconscious and black text for stuff we actually said.
[jc-mahalo facebook] [jc-mahalo robin-williams]
Another day, another @Starbucks at another airport off to another meeting… 6 flights in last 10 days.
[jc-mahalo starbucks]
http://www.mahalo.com/southwest
http://www.mahalo.com/lax
http://www.mahalo.com/mocha-latte
—————
Jason@Calacanis.com | Mobile: 310-456-4900
http://www.calacanis.com | http://www.mahalo.com
Executive Assistant: admin@calacanis.com
