UPDATE: My peeps at AOL respond instantly and they've reported to me that there were some freelancing sales folks/ad placement folks who went off the reservation. It's not going to happen again. Kudos to my AOL peeps for locking this down. All you have at the end of the day is the brands... you have to protect them. Today I noticed on Joystiq (a brand we created at Weblogs, Inc. and then sold to AOL) a popover, blocking, obnoxious advertisement. I did not allow this kind of advertising on Weblogs, Inc. blog before or after the AOL acquisition... but I don't own them any more so I have to sit here at my desk and just shake my head.Tip to my peeps at AOL: This is the kind of stuff that will drive users away from Joystiq and over to Nick Denton's video game blog. DON'T DO IT! It's short time advertising gain that will drive away the loyal users. STOP IT NOW BEFORE YOU DO ANY MORE DAMAGE TO THE BRANDS!Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
This "man on the street" stuff is just ever green... find out who won our San Francisco street poll on today's Mahalo Daily.Also, it is very important that you do two things right now:1. Digg this story... :)2. Add Mahalo Daily to iTunes! Subscribe via iTunesPermalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
... and now the top 50 pages on Mahalo... people love them some video games (and naked celebs!).jTop 50 Mahalo Pages Guitar Hero III Cheats Halo 3 skulls Seinfeld Larry King Video Halo 3 armor Vanessa hudgens pictures How to Play Guitar for Newbies Vanessa Hudgens Nude Photo Victoria Schattauer Naked Photo Veronica Belmont Guitar Hero III Walkthrough Monique Shinnery Halo 3 silver skulls Guitar Hero 3 Song List The Simpsons Game Walkthrough Guitar Hero 3 Secret Achievements Manhunt 2 Walkthrough Ron Goldman Crime Scene Photos Guitar Hero 3 Unlock All Best Yvonne Strahovsky Pictures Guitar Hero 3 Xbox 360 Cheats Dr Oz Green Drink Guitar Hero 3 Hyperspeed Guitar Hero 3 Precision Mode Tesla Roadster How To Train For Your First Marathon (Even If You're Out Of Shape) Music Is My Boyfriend Lyrics Guitar Hero 3 Wii Cheats Maria Sharapova Crotch Shot Photos Halo 3 armor hayabusa Thanksgiving Cupcakes Playmate of the Year Timeline How to Win at NaNoWriMo Guitar Hero 3 Performance Mode Halo 3 IWHBYD Skull Yvonne strahovsky COD4 Review Dog Chapman Guitar Hero 3 PS3 Cheats Dancing with the Stars Fart Video Tiffany pollard How to Use Photoshop to Make Your Photos Look Great Guitar Hero 3 Lou Battle Katie Holmes Marathon Photos How to Get Pregnant Guitar Hero 3 Air Guitar Thanksgiving Pictures Celebrity Sex Tape Timeline Joshua J. Cody Brunner Hoang Thuy Linh Sex Tape Thanksgiving MySpace Layouts Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I'm a huge fan of Google Analytics... it's the best product out there in my mind. At AOL we had to use Omniture and I found it HORRIBLE compared to GA. Anyway, the How To team at Mahalo has created this AMAZING page on "How to use Google Analytics for Beginners." Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Om is hosting a great conference next week in SF... he's got an all star lineup. Should be a great event. It's gonna sell out so buy your tickets now!Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Today on Mahalo Daily we learn a bunch of YoYo tricks... very cool stuff.Vote for it on digg! (and don't be bashful sending me your diggs!).Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I'm a huge fan of Call of Duty and the new version, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, comes out tomorrow... we've got a whole crew of video came folks here at Mahalo that will be doing some live coverage of the release which you can track at our Call of Duty 4: Live Coverage page.Other pages you can watch and contribute to in real time include:COD4 Review COD4 Cheats COD4 Walkthrough COD4 Weapons COD4 Videos COD4 ScreenshotsPermalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
This is a very cool... someone made a graphical representation of the users on Twitter called twitterposter. I'm the Mahalo flower on the top right. Veronica is to the left and down of me, and scoble right in the middle.so cute...Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
The Mahalo Daily show starts today with a test drive of the Tesla Roadster... Veronica was VERY excited about this one and she told me that she wants Mahalo to buy her one (they run about $100k). I'm trying to come up with some sort of challenge for Veronica... like if she hits some absurd traffic numbers (suggestions?) we get her one.Vote on digg!Make sure you subscribe to the Mahalo Daily in iTunes right now!Join the Mahalo Daily Facebook GroupSubscribe via RSSSubscribe via iTunesSubscribe via EmailPermalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
1. Craig Newmark is one of the smartest business folks I've ever met. I was watching CNN recently and they were talking about a women who had been either killed or attacked--I was half listening--by a person who tried to hire her for a job listed on Craigslist. Now, for any other online service it would have become a "MySpace killed this women" type discussion, as if a website or domain name could reach out from behind the monitor you're reading this on and strangle you. However, for Craigslist it was a different story. The anchor said something to the effect of "are the authorities in touch with Craig from CraigsList?" Brilliant. Craig has put him out there so much and has been so helpful for so long that the anchor on CNN a) knew who he was and b) gave him the benefit of the doubt. Take note people: being responsible for your brand on and offline is VERY important.2. I'm really tired of meeting the same folks over and over again. Dim Sum 2.0 on Thursday night really sent it home for me, and to acertain extent the same reasons were why I didn't go to The Lobby conference. Now, I love Dave Hornick, and I was really flattered to be invited. HOWEVER, spending $2,500 for a ticket to a conference with no agenda to spend time with 100 folks I already know really well and can take a meeting with at any time is, well, not so important to me right now. What's important to me right now, on a business and creative level, is meeting people I don't know. 3. In a related note, my favorite part of the TechCrunch40 event, which we are in planning stages for 2008 on, was meeting all these new companies and entrepreneurs. Getting to hear people's visions, hopes, dreams, and fears is really special and I don't take it lightly. The TechCrunch40 event took 10 days of my life--and those days are important when you're running a startup. Those days were well spent given the amazing insights and inspirations they gave me. For me spending the week up to the event with the presenting companies was like going to a Yoga retreat. It was pure Zen. I can't wait until next year!4. People get odd as they get older. I've started noticing this more and more both in myself and other people I know. They get locked into certain ways of doing things without even knowing it. The way our dry yourself when you get out of the shower, the way you read the newspaper, and the way you interact with people can all of a sudden--over 20 years--become set. I think it's important to change that and break the synapses in your brain. I think that's what Twitter did to me with regard to five years of blogging and what blogging did to me after 10 years of writing. Blogging let me communicate in a conversation tone and now Twitter has allowed me to speak in fragments. The next step is obviously to speak in gestures. 5. Looks like we lost the tape of the Gillmor Gang we tapped on Friday. It's a damn shame because EVERY member of the old Gillmor Gang was on the show and it was probably the best show ever ALMOST taped. I seriously think the GG is cursed... every time we try to bring it back something, or some lawsuit, comes and smacks it back down.6. I noticed that a number of other folks have picked up on my "Random thoughts from..." style of blog post. That's kind of cool.7. Had drinks with the Weblogs, Inc. team last night and I have to say in some ways I was depressing for me. Most folks have left the brands they helped build and the ones who stayed are dealing with, how do I say this in a nice way, umm... "challenges." Of course, it was inspiring at the same time because so many of the folks had moved on to bigger and better things, or were plotting bigger and better things. One of the great joys of my life is seeing the talented folks who I've hired over the years go on to do things that are 1,000x better than the things they did with me. Certainly there is a certain amount of ego-centrism involved ina statement like that, but truth be told I think that one of the things that happens when folks work with me is that they say "well, if Jason could make it happen why can't I." That's a perfectly reasonable statement and it's true. As I said at USC on Friday night when talking about entrepreneurship it's all about how many times you try because even a blind man can hit the ball if he swings the bat enough times. 8. The Knicks played a strong game last night against LeBron James and four other guys in Cavaliers uniforms. They lost, but they kept LeBron under 50 points, so I guess that's success. 9. The Knicks play again tonight against the Kevin Garnett-less Timberwolves. It should be a blow out... I'm just hoping the Knicks put up a fight.10. The Knicks have a great chance of making the playoffs this year... if Boston and New Jersey wind up involved in a betting scandal and get suspended for the season. 11. Seriously, I kid, I kid.... I love my Knicks, I've just set my expectations so low at this point that if the Knicks break 40 wins I'd be happy... that is, 40 games over the next two seasons. ZING! POW! Thanks everyone I'll be here for three more nights... do try the veal and take care of your waiter--those guys are working real hard for you.12. I'm off to LA.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
We have some serious nerd power at Mahalo, including our Editorial Director CK Sample. CK posted a flicker photo about something called Eye of Judgement, which is apparently a way to combine card and video games to create a nerd implosion. It never ends.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
1. I'm loving the Google + Everyone vs. Facebook smackdown... it's amazing that in one month's time social media has hit such a tipping point that the entire industry is spinning into a frenzy that, ultimately, will benefit users. 2. If you look at the social media timeline MySpace created a free-for-all open platform to take down Friendster, Facebook made their platform open to advertising and app developers to take down MySpace, and now Google and everyone is going open across networks to neutralize Facebook. What a chess match! The best part is that the space continues to move toward more open.3. We're taping a not-the-Gillmor Gang right now... the whole gang is on the line. This is my favorite hour of the week on a business level. I hope Steve Gillmor can keep it going. It's just such an amazing festival of discourse, debate, and friendship. It's like us sitting around a table having steaks and cigars until late into the night--every week. These are the good days boys... let's cherish them. Speaking of boys, why are there not girls on the Gillmor Gang?!?!? 4. New York City is packed. There are people everywhere, the subway is packed at all hours of the day, and cabs can't move to the point at which I had to get out of cabs 2x and get on the subway this trip! I've given up on cabs and moved to 100% subway... it's the only way to get around. 5. Dim Sum 2.0 last night was AMAZING! I thought it would be 10 folks who I already knew, instead 50+ folks showed up and I only knew five or six of them. I met so many interesting folks who were doing interesting things. A lot of developers, bloggers, media folks, and just hustlers trying to make something happen. I'm enjoying these FLASH Dim Sum Mobs over uber-conferences like Web 2.0 where I know everyone and it's all "very high level." Out industry is not about being "high level" it's about breaking things down and making it happen on the *street* level. I gots mad love for the streets yo! Let's do it again soon!6. Twitter has become my most essential communications tools--ever more than email and IM. Certainly more than social networks. If I could invest in one company (our side of Mahalo) right now it would be Twitter. I communicate with thousands of people all day long over Twitter and I've developed many more relationships thanks to Twitter than any social networking software--ever. 7. That being said, Facebook was an AMAZING tool for putting together the Dim Sum Flashmob... those cats really know how to build a great product--if only they would put the data in the email alerts! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191927528328. I've had 10+ serious meetings in New York... it's been great to have some many important organizations show interest in Mahalo and what we're doing. We've made so much progress I can't believe it's only been five months. 9. I've done six speaking gigs in 10 days--three at universities (USC, UCLA, and NYU). I love speaking to students... great energy. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I love it! PayPerPost changed their name to IZEA today... a desperate move by a smarmy company that is the direct result of Google smacking down folks who sell paid links (which is what PayPerPost is--paid linking). The PayPerPost name might as well be "get your blog removed from Google Index" or "How to commit search engine Sepuku."I called it back in April... http://www.calacanis.com/2007/04/15/google-checkmates-payperpost/That being said, the CEO of PayPerPostIZEA, Ted Murphy, is one of the most stubborn and most delusional entrepreneurs I've ever met... I mean, the guy let me write "CalacanisCast" on his forehead.. come on! I'm sure he will keep changing his ideas around until a) something works or b) he runs out of money. I wish him luck and hope he moves from scams like convert marketing to transparent marketing.... and now we pray to the Google Gods:Google is good...Google is great...All hail the Google Gods for removing this plague from our village!We thank you Google for you love and kindness.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
