I think sometimes I have trouble seeing the big picture. I have always loved the idea of working for myself, or starting my own company but have never really hit on what I believe to be my million dollar idea. Oh, I have ideas, tons of them. But I’m not sure if any of them have the legs needed to carry me or my family away from my 9-5 day job. I believe my problem consists somewhere in the initial steps of conjuring up my startup idea.
Step 1: Oh my gosh! I have a great idea! - This period lasts anywhere from 10 minutes to a few days. During this initial period of brainstorming an idea that I believe to be at least somewhat worthy falls into my head and I begin to obsess over it. I try to look at the idea from a few different angles, but honestly spend most of the time thinking about how good it will feel once the idea blows up to be way larger than it could ever possibly be. “Man, it will be so sweet when my blog about Polar Bears ranks inside the Technorati Top 100!”
Step 2: Groundwork/Research - I then spend approximately 5 minutes (max) Googling terms that are loosely associated with my idea. If I can’t find a match after a few searches I move on to step 3. If I do find something close to my idea I immediately give up on it. No use reinventing the wheel.
Step 3: Implementation - If I have made it this far in the process, then I begin the grunt work. Often times in this step I don’t put enough time or thought into the actual design hoping that the idea alone will carry the project. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Good ideas are one thing, but good implementation is what every startup needs.
Step 4: Loss of Interest - Inevitably I wind up here. For some reason I always become discouraged with my projects. If the idea is good enough to outlast this stage then maybe I’ll put a half-hearted version of my idea online. If not, then most likely the idea is scrapped and I am left with yet another unaccomplished item on my to do list.
Perhaps you have an actual success story about how you made your millions. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong 
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May 21st, 2008 | Posted in how to | 4 Comments
The standard for measuring your online success or failure has always been in easy to represent numbers. How else would we know who to trust? Any crackpot with a blog can spout his views, but I want my opinions to be determined and spoon fed to me by the industry elite. You know, like TechCrunch or Leo Laporte. However, the online metric system always seems to be changing.
1996: Visible Hit Counters
Back in the early days of the Internet, these visible hit counters were all the rage. If you came across a random number on the bottom of the page you could tell instantly how important this site was. If the number was somewhere in the thousands or *gasp* tens of thousands, you knew that this site was absolutely trustworthy.
2005: Feed Subscribers
A few years later, someone decided that hit counters weren’t good enough for describing the quality of a site. Anyone could just make a site and hit refresh over and over again until the hit counter number was high enough to be trusted. This led to the use of feed subscriber badges. These numbers represent unique people as opposed to just hits. Instead of having a number that shows the amount of people that have stumbled across your site for some reason, this number shows those who subscribe to your feed so they don’t have to to come to your site at all. The more people that you have coming to your site without actually having to come to your site the more established you really are.
2008: Twitter Followers
Today the game has changed yet again. Now, to be respected as on online authority you don’t even need a site at all - you simply need followers. A follower is kind of like a mindless zombie that obeys your every command. To get these followers you have to have something called a twitter. With one of these twitters you can catch followers and make them do your evil bidding. One common way to catch followers is to follow as many people as possible hoping that in return they would be stupid enough to follow you back. However, the best way to catch followers is to give away something. It doesn’t even have to be real, just promise that someday, somehow you will give something of some value to one of your followers. Who can resist the allure of such a deal?
So, if you’re really important or just want people to think of you as such online, you better get with the times. Remember, the person with the biggest zombie army will always be the one with the true power.
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May 20th, 2008 | Posted in web 2.0 | 1 Comment
It seems that Twitter’s growth rate is positively correlated with Twitter’s downtime. As the site continues to gather users, I am left staring at a “connection timed out” page more and more often. This leads me to ask myself, “What is a Twitter addict to do during the constant Twitter downtime?”
Pownce - Usually, my first instinct is to head to Pownce.com and try to rekindle the feeling of connectedness that Twitter provides. However, even Kevin Rose admits that that is not what Pownce was designed for. I don’t have near as many friends on Pownce as I do on Twitter anyway. At least I can get exposed to some new media files…
Facebook - I know I could always go to Facebook to look at all my friends’ status updates, but it just isn’t “realtime” enough for me. Joe added a few more pictures to his profile, and Jennifer sent me another application invite, but I want to know what my friends are doing NOW.
Catch up on RSS Feeds - It’s funny how impatient I’ve become since I started using Twitter. If I can’t read an entire item in 140 characters then I simply don’t have the time. Plus, all the important news is announced on Twitter anyway.
Write a blog post - Hey, there’s an idea. But what will I write about? Man, I wish Twitter was back up…
Go Outside - I know this one seems a little drastic, but when I can’t keep in touch with my followers, I feel very cutoff from society. It’s good to go out and make sure that the world is still moving at times like these. If you think Twitter downtime is bad, imagine if reality had the same connection problems…
May 15th, 2008 | Posted in tech news | 3 Comments
It has been a while since I have started a new site. So, to take advantage of this relative down time I’m experiencing I’d thought I’d introduce my new blog: 7ypo.com. This new site, pronounced ty-po-dot-com, started as a joke. I remember playing a game as a kid where we took turns giving names to random, useless phrases. Somehow, this game got lodged in my subconscious and I’ve unwillingly been playing it ever since. Whenever I come across something that is odd enough to attract my attention I spend countless seconds trying to think up a name for it. Well now it’s time to pass this mind virus on to the rest of the world.
At 7ypo.com there will be a random definition of a word that isn’t yet created (but should be) posted everyday. All you have to do is give it a name. Do this by signing up for our comment system and leaving your suggested name as a comment to each post. You can then vote on other peoples’ terms with handy little arrows beside each comment. The term with the most votes automagically floats to the top. After a week’s time, the term with the most votes is declared the winner. The thread is then closed and a new word is born. Sound simple enough? Then check out the site. You just may like it.
link - 7ypo.com
May 8th, 2008 | Posted in web 2.0 | 1 Comment
