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-centrisminvolved in a 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

  There are two features I really hate about Facebook:1. Email alerts that force you to come back to the website. When someone posts to a wall, sends you a note, or posts do a group Facebook will send you a notification. That's great, except the notification email is like ten lines long and contains everything BUT THE MESSAGE. Here's the standard message... it's just such a waste of time.... UGH!!!Cathleen wrote something on the Wall for the event "Blogger Dinner & Drinks.To see what Cathleen wrote, follow the link below:http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=19192752832#wall_postsThanks,The Facebook Team___Want to control which emails you receive from Facebook? Go to:http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications2. Having to autoconfirm each friend request with a two step process. UGH. Can't I just accept folks like on Pownce with one click without all this fancy popup nonsense!?!?!? It's such a waste of time. I think Facebook is moving away from their efficient design and starting to get caught up in the short-term page view trap. I'm sure someone doesn't want to send the notes saying "oh, 8% of our traffic comes from those notes!" What they don't realize is that folks might use Facebook 20x more for emailing notes if it wasn't so horribly designed. Also, folks might add more friends, more often if it wasn't so poorly designed. If you want to build the best social network out there make it the easiest to use with the least page view refreshes. Please God.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  A group of folks are getting together for some dim sum in NYC tomorrow night. Details at the Facebook group here:http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=19192752832We are looking at three different locations right now:1. Chinatown Brasserie 2. Jing Fong3. Golden UnicornChinatown Brasserie is more expensive highend, Jing Fong and Golden Unicorn are old school madness. Anyone have thoughts? If you're coming RSVP at the Facebook group ASAP.40 folks have RSVPed already... crazy.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  The Mahalo Daily video show starts Monday with the wonderful Veronica Belmont. You can find the show at http://daily.mahalo.com (MahaloDaily.com forwards you there). You can subscribe here. The video is also on Facebook, where you can join the Mahalo Daily Group. Oh yeah, you can vote for the trailer on digg too.I'm REALLY excited about it!For those of you who don't know V, she was the rising star at CNET over the past couple of years. She started as an engineer, but her on-talent and knowledge of all things digital quickly brought her out from behind the camera. She became the co-host of Buzz Out Loud with my friends Tom and Molly, and quickly developed a very loyal fan base. Over the summer Veronica and I were talking about her booming career and I asked her if she would be interested in doing a daily show for Mahalo. The concept was pretty simple: every day talk about something you find really interesting that is related (broadly) to technology, internet culture, or the media.Basically, just be Veronica! She was looking for a project to focus her talents on and... well... the rest is history. It took us a little while to get the show to the point at which we felt it did justice to VB's past work and what her fanbase would want.... be three months later we're there, and Monday it starts! (remember, remember the 5th day of November!). The topics would be researched by our team of Guides before and after we taped the show. So, if our researches at Mahalo were doing search pages ("SeRPs," for search engine result pages) on Halo 3, playing a guitar, or the Tesla electric car, Veronica could then go do a show about those topics. In some cases Veronica might find something interesting (as she is very apt to do) and send that topic down to Mahalo researchers for further investigation. So, imagine mashing up a daily video show like WallStrip or RocketBoom and combining it with the Wikipedia or digg... or something like that. The metaphor is not perfect, but it doesn't have to be... I think you get the idea: show + research = goodness.Yesterday we released a fun trailer that I make a cameo in (don't worry, it's my first and last time on the show!). Starting Monday we'll be (almost) daily at four days a week. After some feedback we'll go to five. Some folks asked me "what does a daily video show have to do with a search engine?" Well, what does having a blog have to do with running a company? That's the question I would get every day four years ago when I said that every CEO/executive should blog. Today saying executives should blog sounds, well, obviously.In the future every company will have a video show, not just a blog.There is nothing like video to communicate a brand's value proposition than video. Imagine if Jetblue had a show about working at the airline? Well, Southwest Airlines does on A&E and it's really amazing! Now, Mahalo Daily is not going to be about the inner workings of Mahalo (we're not so vain.. sorry!), but it is going to be about what Mahalo is about: helping people. Our core value proposition at Mahalo is that we can help you find interesting, high quality stuff on the web. Some folks call it discovery. Our tag line is "we're here to help," and the Mahalo Daily will convey that message to folks in an entertaining, fun, and informative way. Again, it's not a commercial for Mahalo. It's entertainment that will stand on it's own, but after you watch the show if you want to godeeper we're going to have a bunch of links for you researched by our super motivated and growing team of Guides (both full-time and freelance). Really looking forward to where Veronica and Tyler take the show... I've seen the first 10 or so episodes and they're great. I'm sure with some feedback from the audience Mahalo Daily will become a must watch.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  { photo by lexn }Anyone want to grab dim sum/Chinese food on Thursday night in NYC?I've started a Facebook group... This is a totally open invite... anyone who wants to get together just join the group. When we get a headcount we can pick a place.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Productivity at Mahalo has gone off the rails this weekend as Guitar Hero III was released... I had no idea how popular the game was, so instead of fighting the productivity drain we've taken another approach: embrace it.We're going to be playing the game for the next 72 hours at the office and we've got a bunch of Guides working on SERPs for things like:Guitar Hero 3 HyperspeedGuitar Hero 3 Secret AchievementsGuitar Hero 3 Song ListGuitar Hero 3 TTFAFGuitar Hero III CheatsGuitar Hero III ReviewGuitar Hero III Walkthrough Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock If you're playing the game and you want to help build these SERPs start suggesting links or posting to the message boards (when you do the guides get an email with your suggestions instantly!). Perhaps we should host a "flash conference" for GH3. ;-)Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Join the Facebook Group now... that's all I can say. :-)Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Yesterday I wrote about how my new Klipsch speakers were going bonkers with a wild blaring alarm sound and how I could have avoided it if I had just researched the speakers in their forum or the Amazon reviews. Well, the speakers are working now (no idea why) and last night at 9:33PM--while I was doing Kanye West's STRONGER at the Mahalo karaoke party--I got an email from someone at Klipsh.My post was written at 12:32PM. So, due to my blog I was able to get direct customer support within nine hours. That's kind of rad and I think it's the future. I have searches setup for the "calacanis" and "mahalo" and I respond to folks who blog about us in two minutes to two hours on average I would say. In fact, if you go do a search for Mahalo you'll see that many time I'm the first comment under a blog post. For me engaging with customers is one of the most important things you can do in business.In fact, if you want to be on my radar the best thing to do is blog about what you think about Mahalo because you can be 100% sure I'll read it. Some of the folks I have a really deep blog relationship with right now are folks like the SEO GreyWolf, Technosailor who loves to predict my doom, the self-loathing gossiper Owen Thomas, and the highly-cantankerous CenterNetworks. I've secretly (and loving) named them the "Calacanis Wack Pack" (hat tip: Howard) since these guys are exactly the kind of folks I WOULDN'T hang with in the real world typically. Online? They take half my attention! They're very smart... they fight up, bust my chops, and keep my honest. I love them... I mean, I hate them often... but I love them for caring and speaking their mind--even when they're wrong. As they say on Facebook, it's complicated. Now, is this Klipsch early response because I'm a (supposed) "A-list" blogger or because they are tracking such things? Did someone email them my post? Who knows, who cares... they are on it! Frankly, I don't even know what the team "A-list" means and I've never bought into it since anyone can be on the A-list if they blog intelligently for a couple of months/years. In fact, being the A-list of a bunch of misfits--which is what bloggers (myself included) typically are--is like saying you're the Mayor of an insane asylum.Congratulations! Put the ball in the basket Chief! It's easier than you think, Chief. But I digress... the Klipsch speakers that I hated yesterday because of the problem that went away I now love because I feel like someone at the company will solve the problem instantly for me if it comes back. NowI can recommend to folks they get Klipsch products because a) they sound great and b) if they have problems at least you know they really care.That's more than I can say about the @#$%#$% folks at Asurion! OK... I'm off to the speaking gig at UCLA. Here's the email name removed... j~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hi Jason,My name is [TKTKTK]--I work in the [TKTKTKT] departmentat Klipsch. I came across your blog concerningthe trouble you've had with the 2.0s. I'm curiousif you have contacted us for help in getting themexchanged? They carry a one year warranty. I'malso aware of other complaints on our forum andamazon.com, but we do analyze our data closely tofollow product trends and address issues asnecessary. The internet is an extremely skewedexample of how well a product is performing, andin the case of the 2.0s, they are a solid systemoverall.I'm sorry you feel no one at Klipsch is listening,but honestly nothing is further from the truth.We absolutely honor warranties on all ourproducts, and if there was a defect discovered inthe design of any model, an engineering changewould be made promptly--implemented in the nextproduction run.Our forum is a peer to peer support network, andnot all posts are responded to by Klipschpersonnel. We do have a very sincere relationshipwith our customer base however, and allcalls/emails are answered as promptly as possibleby customer service and tech support reps who workfor Klipsch at our engineering and administrativeheadquarters. Any reoccuring complaints arephysically walked downstairs to our engineers tobeaddressed promptly. We have nothing to gain byknowingly selling defective merchandise!Please also note that the Ultra 2.0s have been outof production for many months, replaced recentlyby the Groove PM 20 model.If you have any questions or need help setting upan exchange, please do not hesitate to contact me.Thank you![TKTKTKTKKT]Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  EdWords@polledemaagt Calacanis heeft wel meer herrie gemaakt de laatste maanden, o.a. in SEO-landin Rotterdam11hours ago Polledemaagt@bas Heb je die herrie een tijd geleden meegekregen tussen Calacanis en Winer (als ik me niet vergis)in Tilburg11hours ago basvandenbeld@Polledemaagt, ja grappig bedacht he van die Calacanis? Aparte vent, maar wel slim...in VoorschotenPermalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  How to Plan a Killer Halloween Party How to Trick or Treat Safely How to Plan a Kids' Halloween Party How to Carve a Killer Pumpkin How to Have the Best Halloween Costume at the Party How To Cook Pumpkin Seeds Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  I bought these well reviewed Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 PC speakers and they sounded amazing--for 30 seconds. Then they let out a high pitched scream that won't stop. I woke up the whole house, puppies and all... GRRRRRRRRR.... If only I had read this review at Amazon... or the Klipsch forums where folks are venting on the Klipsch folks--and NO ONE FROM Klipsch seems to be listening!!! Ummm... hey guys are Klipsch... if you're going to blog and put up forums you might want to interact with your customers! Anyone has any ideas for great speakers for my computer? [ Note: As with all customer service problems, it is bestthat bloggers link to each other, write thing up on Consumerist, and post to delicious so that the customer support people get the clue when they see a bad review on their Google SERP. ]Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments