About Me 0098: January 2011

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Tailored online reputation management Plans

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Making Money Without

We cannot know how many little advertisers are doing the same thing as Make-My-Baby.com, only on a more discreet scale. If Facebook could not spot a company which was its third largest advertiser, it must have been rather more difficult to spot smaller ones. Obviously, there are legal ramifications to changing people's browser settings without permission, and there may be lawsuits. Facebook may have to restate its earnings, after everything comes out in the wash. The last time around, there were cases of people who were supposedly making large profits, and eventually turned out to be running losses, burning through the investors' money.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110118/02531712708/facebooks-3rd-biggest-advertiser-acc used-being-affiliate-toolbar-scam-facebook-says-its-never-heard-company.shtml

My experience with blogs, and before that, with bulletin board sites, back in the 1980's, is that huge numbers of nominal registered members are people who signed up, decided it wasn't for them, and moved on, leaving derelict accounts behind. Obviously, you can't make any advertising revenue from someone who hasn't accessed his account for years, and has in fact forgotten the password. Likewise, the user might have bought a new computer, effectively discarding installed software. Someone might have moved his bookmark file, his e-mails, and his address book for him, but all the other stuff might not have gotten transferred.

The third point is that there simply aren't that many people with first-world incomes, only a billion or so. If five hundred million people have, in effect, taken the introductory offer, and either stayed or moved on, one is beginning to get to the upper side of the S-curve. Growth will become increasingly problematic. Facebook will be increasingly trying to sell to people who do not behave like teenagers, and do not want to be treated like teenagers. All this "friending" stuff, for example.

The historian A. J. P. Taylor once observed that a generation of college students is only four years, and this would presumably apply to Facebook, which is nothing if not collegiate. That said, buying Facebook on the basis of "twenty year's purchase" is highly unrealistic. A new "generation" may start doing something different, while the current generation "outgrows" Facebook.

recently leaked figures of Facebook's income appear to be in the neighborhood of five hundred million per year. On that basis, Facebook might be worth two billions, not fifty billions.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/01/07/1648251/Facebooks-Revenues-Leaked?from=rss

[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

Whenever you hear a business executive or politician use the term "American competitiveness," watch your wallet. Few terms in public discourse have gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.

President Obama just appointed Jeffry Immelt, GE's CEO, to head his outside panel of economic advisors, replacing Paul Volcker. According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Immelt has "agreed to work through what makes our country more competitive."

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post announcing his acceptance, Immelt wrote "there is nothing inevitable about America's declining manufacturing competitiveness if we work together to reverse it."

But what's American "competitiveness" and how do you measure it? Here are some different definitions:

It's American exports. Okay, but the easiest way for American companies to increase their exports from the US is for their American-made products to become cheaper internationally. And for them to reduce the price of their American-made stuff they have to cut their costs of production in here. Their biggest cost is their payrolls. So it follows that the simplest way for them to become more "competitive" is to cut their payrolls -- either by substituting software and automated machinery for their US workers, or getting (or forcing) their US workers to accept wage and benefit cuts.

It's net exports. Another way to think about American "competitiveness" is the balance of trade -- how much we import from abroad versus how much they import from us. The easiest and most direct way to improve the trade balance is to coax the value of the dollar down relative to foreign currencies (the Fed's current strategy for flooding the economy with money could have this effect). The result is everything we make becomes cheaper to the rest of the world. But even if other nations were willing to let this happen (doubtful; we'd probably have a currency war instead as they tried to coax down the value of their currencies in response), we'd pay a high price. Everything the rest of the world makes would become more expensive for us.

It's the profits of American-based companies. In case you haven't noticed, the profits of American corporations are soaring. That's largely because sales from their foreign-based operations are booming (especially in China, Brazil, and India). It's also because they've cut their costs of production in the US (see the first item above). American-based companies have become global -- making and selling all over the world -- so their profitability has little or nothing to do with the number and quality of jobs here in the US. In fact, it may be inversely related.

It's the number and quality of American jobs. This is my preferred definition, but on this measure we're doing terribly badly. Most Americans are imprisoned in a terrible trade-off -- they can get a job, but only one that pays considerably less than the one they used to have, or they can face unemployment or insecure contract work. The only sure way to improve the quality of jobs over the long term is to build the productivity of American workers and the US overall, which means major investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D. But it's far from clear American corporations and their executives will pay the taxes needed to make these investments. And the only sure way to improve the number of jobs is to give the vast middle and working classes of America sufficient purchasing power to get the economy going again. But here again, it's far from clear American corporations and their executives will be willing to push for a more progressive tax code, along with wage subsidies, that would put more money into average workers' pockets.

It's politically important for President Obama, as for any president, to be available to American business, and to avoid the moniker of being "anti-business." But the president must not be seduced into believing -- and must not allow the public to be similarly seduced into thinking -- that the well-being of American business is synonymous with the well-being of Americans.

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Phase One has released the IQ180, IQ160 and IQ140 medium format digital camera backs with 80, 60.5 and 40 megapixel CCD sensors respectively. All three backs feature 3.2" multi-touch rear ...

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning Chiefs fans. Another super thin day for Kansas City Chiefs news. There are quite a few hits on the Hali & Berry to Pro Bowl story, but they are all basically the same info. Here are your two stories... Enjoy.

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

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Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Mideast Peace As Seen on TV « Liveshots

The Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the fragile Peace Process is now back on the priority list of.

Phase One unveils IQ series digital backs: Digital Photography Review

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 1/24 - Arrowhead Pride

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Making Money With Website

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]
Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

BigGov Claims Chevy's
Green Efforts "The Kind of Business Model That You Get When Leftists Take
Over." A January 13 post on Andrew Breitbart's blog Big Government
mocked Chevrolet's Carbon Reduction initiative, which focuses on "investing in
greenhouse gas-reducing projects...like wind farms, solar and energy efficiency,"
according to the initiative's website. [Chevycarbonreduction.com, accessed 1/14/11]

Including a video clip of a
recent ad for the Chevy Volt, the Big Government post
claimed:

There was a time when Chevy built
cars and trucks. The Corvette and Camaro were legendary sports cars, and the
Impala offered full size comfort [sic] a middle
class price. But that was before Change came to town. The brand that used
to compare itself to Baseball, Hot-Dogs, and Apple Pie is no longer content to
just make reliable vehicles, it is now as green as a wheatgrass and algae
smoothie.

For instance, in the following
commercial: Chevy isn't just building cars anymore, it's "investing" in
windmills, and planting trees.

[video clip]

This is the kind of business model that you get when Leftists take
over. Before 2008, GM just tried to make cars that people would buy, for a
little more money than they cost to build. Now, they have to plant a forest.
[Big Government, 1/13/11]

BigGov Claims GM
Using Taxpayer Money On Green Effort. The Big
Government post also
suggested that GM is using taxpayer money to "plant windmills and trees." From
the post:

It's for reasons like this that General Motors is never expected
to fully pay back the bailout money. According to the
Congressional Oversight Panel, Taxpayers will lose about 19 billion dollars on
the General Motors bailout.

That's a lot of green. You can't really blame General Motors. When
you have an extra 19 billion to play with, why not plant windmills and trees?
It seems like the corporate suites, are working on a bigger Buzz than the one
they hired to do the voice-over. A more rational voice might ask about the
forest that had to be cut down to print all that money. [Big Government, 1/13/11]

In Fact, Chevy's Initiatives Are Not Government Mandated, Do Not Use Taxpayer Money

Chevy Carbon Reduction Site: "The
Government Had Absolutely No Role In This" Project. On the Questions and
Answers section of Chevrolet's site about the green
initiative, Chevrolet states that the government "had absolutely no
role" in the project and that the company "is making this commitment
voluntarily." From the site:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com, accessed 1/14/11]

Chevy Site: "Funding For This
Initiative Comes From Existing Advertising Budgets." In response to the
question, "Is Chevy spending taxpayers' money on this initiative?" the website
lists the answer:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com,
accessed 1/14/11]

Chevy Site: Project To Cost An
Estimated $40 Million. The site also states that the projected cost of the
project is $40 million:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com,
accessed 1/14/11]

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]
Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

Including a video clip of a
recent ad for the Chevy Volt, the Big Government post
claimed:

There was a time when Chevy built
cars and trucks. The Corvette and Camaro were legendary sports cars, and the
Impala offered full size comfort [sic] a middle
class price. But that was before Change came to town. The brand that used
to compare itself to Baseball, Hot-Dogs, and Apple Pie is no longer content to
just make reliable vehicles, it is now as green as a wheatgrass and algae
smoothie.

For instance, in the following
commercial: Chevy isn't just building cars anymore, it's "investing" in
windmills, and planting trees.

[video clip]

This is the kind of business model that you get when Leftists take
over. Before 2008, GM just tried to make cars that people would buy, for a
little more money than they cost to build. Now, they have to plant a forest.
[Big Government, 1/13/11]

BigGov Claims GM
Using Taxpayer Money On Green Effort. The Big
Government post also
suggested that GM is using taxpayer money to "plant windmills and trees." From
the post:

It's for reasons like this that General Motors is never expected
to fully pay back the bailout money. According to the
Congressional Oversight Panel, Taxpayers will lose about 19 billion dollars on
the General Motors bailout.

That's a lot of green. You can't really blame General Motors. When
you have an extra 19 billion to play with, why not plant windmills and trees?
It seems like the corporate suites, are working on a bigger Buzz than the one
they hired to do the voice-over. A more rational voice might ask about the
forest that had to be cut down to print all that money. [Big Government, 1/13/11]

In Fact, Chevy's Initiatives Are Not Government Mandated, Do Not Use Taxpayer Money

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com, accessed 1/14/11]

Chevy Site: "Funding For This
Initiative Comes From Existing Advertising Budgets." In response to the
question, "Is Chevy spending taxpayers' money on this initiative?" the website
lists the answer:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com,
accessed 1/14/11]

Chevy Site: Project To Cost An
Estimated $40 Million. The site also states that the projected cost of the
project is $40 million:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com,
accessed 1/14/11]

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

Police: 2 teens shot at California high school – This Just In ...

[Updated at 4:05 p.m.] A suspect in an apparently accidental shooting at Gardena High School in California has been caught and handcuffed by police, according to footage aired by CNN affiliate KTLA shortly before noon PT.

News of the World feigns shock at new twist in the phone-hacking ...

Who is the paper trying to fool with its 'internal investigation' - the public or Rupert Murdoch?

Iranian men to be stoned to death over gay sex - Pink News

Two young men who filmed themselves having sex have been sentenced to death by stoning in Iran. The film was discovered on the mobile phones of Ayub and Mosleh, 20 and 21 years old, by agents of the Iranian regime in the Kurdistan city ...

Friday, January 14, 2011

Free rental agreement forms in europe

How do you usually start your morning? Lunatic rush, eternal lack of time, work, where we come sleepy, irritated and seedy? Delaying the time for getting up to the critical moment and again being late, we convulsively invent excuses about a stuck lift or traffic jams.

Getting up earlier you can clear up your head and thoughts. Morning hours carry silence and peace, which we are usually lack of during the noisy day. This is the time of solitude, when we can read, reflect, and just take a breath.

http://Free rental agreement forms.org

It can be very hard when you are applying for a bad credit mortgage, and it feels like all the odds are stacked against you. The feeling of going in to see a loan officer just hoping that they will be favorable toward you and that you might just have a chance of buying a home. The situation may be grim and you're feeling completely overwhelmed anyway, but know that millions before you have been in your same shoes. There is light at the end of the tunnel no matter how dark it may seem. Here are three simple steps that you can use to help you apply and possibly get a bad credit mortgage.

buying Free rental agreement forms online

Apple, News Corp delay The Daily's debut | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple, News Corp delay The Daily's debut. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Apple, News Corp. Delay "Daily" iPad Newspaper | Peter Kafka ...

Turns out you'll have to wait a bit longer to see The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's long-awaited iPad news service. Apple and News Corp. have made a joint decision to push back next week's planned launch. The delay is supposed to give Apple ...

Launch of News Corp.'s iPad newspaper delayed | VentureBeat

The launch of The Daily, News Corp.'s iPad-only newspaper, has been delayed. The Daily was set to be unveiled in San Francisco next Wednesday. The delay will last “weeks, not months,” a source told All Things Digital. ...

Thursday, January 13, 2011

foreclosure investing

In a decision that jeopardizes potentially thousands of completed foreclosures in Massachusetts, the state's Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the fundamental and long-established idea that a bank must own the mortgage it's foreclosing on before it forecloses. In this case, because both Wells Fargo (WFC) and US Bancorp (USB) could not prove they owned the mortgages when they foreclosed on two homes, the court held that the foreclosures did not give the banks clear title to the properties.

Moreover, since the legal principles involved were so well established, the court refused to limit its ruling to future foreclosures only. That means all completed foreclosures that had similar flaws also failed to give good title.

How many is that? It'll take a while to figure out, but for the reasons below, it may include any foreclosure of a Massachusetts mortgage securitized in the last several years, which would be thousands. The only sure thing right now is that Massachusetts real estate ownership is a mess, and title companies that have insured the sales of foreclosed properties in Massachusetts might see a flood of claims.

Investors were quick to react: In afternoon trading, the S&P 500's financial sector was off 1.8% vs. a decline of 0.9% for the broader index. In addition to Wells (down nearly 4%) and US Bancorp (down 1.5%) , the biggest losers were JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Travelers (TRV) and Bank of America (BAC).

Banks Couldn't Prove Ownership of Mortgages

As "proof" of their ownership, the banks gave the court three types of unacceptable evidence: documents dated after the foreclosure was done that claimed to transfer the mortgage to the foreclosing bank (something that has been done nationally); a very incomplete set of documents from the securitization of the mortgages that purportedly gave the mortgages to the securitization trust (something that I've heard of happening elsewhere); and assignments of the mortgages "in blank," that is, not naming the person the documents were assigned to.

The court rejected the idea that a mortgage could be foreclosed on first and acquired by the foreclosing bank second. That ruling alone jeopardizes thousands of foreclosures because apparently this was standard practice in Massachusetts. The court also explained why the incomplete securitization docs were insufficient. For example, the banks submitted unsigned copies of key contracts, failed to submit other relevant contracts and generally omitted the attachments to those contracts that would prove the mortgages were governed by those contracts even if the contracts had been signed and otherwise complete.

This failure to submit key documents seems inexplicable -- unless the banks really don't have them -- because at the initial trial the judge allowed the banks a special, extra opportunity to submit the documents.

Assignments "In Blank" Don't Cut It

But perhaps this difficulty in getting complete signed copies of all the deal documents for the securitizations at issue is relatively limited. That is, each securitization deal theoretically is memorialized in a "closing set," binders holding complete sets of all the deal contracts, which are hiding out in law firms' record departments.

James Altucher is a columnist for DailyFinance. He writes for The Wall Street Journal, was the founder of StockPickr, and formerly wrote and appeared in videos at TheStreet.com. He is the author of numerous investment books, including Trade Like A Hedge Fund and Trade Like Warren Buffett.

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

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Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Keira Knightley is Single and Other News - The Superficial ...

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money Jobs

Business cycles and the essence of long-run economic growth are distinct issues. Preventing recessions is not the key to growth, as these are regrettable but unavoidable companions to an economy directed by a capital allocation process that is susceptible to systematic failure. Preventing the last failure is pretty irrelevant, because the next systematic failure will be different. Last I checked, only the US government is offering low-down payment loans, and no one offers no-documentation loans, so our government is not really helping here. As for creating growth via something new, if centralized governments could do that, the Soviet Union would still be around.

That decentralized, self-interested, people can collectively make such large errors seems irrational or corrupt to many, but they should remember that growing economies require people to be making things better, which means, new ways of doing things. New ideas are often wrong. Economics has gone onto intellectual cul-de-sacs many times (socialism, Keynesian macro models, input-output models, Hilbert spaces in finance, Arbitrage Pricing Theory, Kalman-filter macroeconomic models, etc.). Other scientific disciplines have their own mistakes, and political mistakes--stupid wars--are also common. These are rarely conspiracies, but rather, smart people making mistakes because the ideas that are true, important, and new, are really hard to discern, and tempting ones are alluring when lots of other seemingly successful people are doing it.

My Batesian Mimicry Theory posits that recessions happen because certain activities become full of mimics, entrepreneurs without any real alpha who got money from investors looking in their rear-view window of what worked and focusing on correlated but insufficient statistics. For example, people assumed a nationally diversified housing prices would not fall significantly in nominal terms, because they had not for generations; people assumed anything related to the internet would make them rich in the internet bubble, conglomerates would be robust to recession in 1970, that the 'nifty fifty' top US companies had Galbraithian power to withstand recessions in 1973, that cotton prices would not fall in 1837, etc.

As in ecological niches, there is no stable equilibrium with when mimics arise to gain the advantages of those with a real, unique and costly, comparative advantage. Every so often there are too many mimic Viceroy butterflies, not enough real poisonous Monarch ones, and a massive cataclysm occurs as predators ignore the unpleasant after-effects and start chomping on all of them. The Viceroy population grows until this devastating event occurs, a species recession. Next time, it won't happen in butterflies, but rather, among frogs or snakes. They key is, some ecological niche is always heading towards its own Mayan collapse (distinct from the 2012 Mayan apocolypse).

The key to wealth creation is doing less with more--destroying jobs at the micro level and creating jobs at the macro level by reallocating capital and labor to more valuable pursuits. The computer got rid of things from typesetters, secretaries, to engineers working with slide-rules, but these people didn't stay unemployed, they did something else, making the economic pie bigger. This is antithetical to government and unions who think creating a permanent 'job' creates productivity--stability at the micro level and stagnation at the macro level. Wealth is created by having decentralized decision-makers focused on simple goal of making money, which means, they oversee transactions where revenues collected are greater than expenses paid. If externalities are properly priced (I know, most liberal think this never happens), this implies value is created. The continual improvements in method (ie, productivity, wealth creation) merely maintain profits in a competitive environment; to do nothing would see their profits eaten away by competitors would could easily copy what they did and just undercut their prices.

The key to this is having managers who keep their workers focused. A good example is a story I heard second-hand about a football player for Minnesota Vikings in the 1970s. Coach Bud Grant called this marginal player into a meeting, and said, 'Here's what I need you to do...'. The player, an articulate fellow quite confident in himself, interrupted with an explanation of why he wasn't doing better and suggestions about how to correct it, mainly focused what others were doing wrong. Grant cut him off: 'You don't understand. This isn't a negotiation. Do what I'm telling you, and you have a role here. Otherwise, you don't.' Hierarchies only work well when people have clearly defined goals, and managers who manage their direct reports singlemindedly.

Private firms can do this much more quickly and often than government, and are rewarded with investment and retained earnings to the degree they do it well. When the government wants to do something, like build a light-rail system, it instead satisfies all its stakeholders who have no financial downside, only veto power, and so the cost/benefit calculus is almost irrelevant. The probability that benefits will outweigh costs when not prioritized is negligible, as highlighted by the fact that companies have to work very hard to make this positive when all those other considerations are ignored.

Thus, Minneapolis's light rail, at the cost of $1.1B for 12 miles of track, takes me longer to go downtown than a car because it stops 19 times at places no one wants to go because these 'hubs' were then sold as development opportunities, and an unusual number of ex-city councilmen are part owners of coffee shops and stores near these stops. Ridership does not even cover their marginal costs. It could have worked if they had an express train that went non-stop from end to end, but doesn't because it was not designed with the goal of making money, only the hope.

Good companies like Facebook, Apple and Google, have this sense of really understanding their users. Lots of simple things that making going to their sites and getting what you want. Their inferior competitors are relatively ugly, cluttered, and clunky. These generally weren't genius ideas like the ideas needed to create the first transistor, or Cantor's diagonal argument, in that there competitors had similar raw competence in these field, but it did take people looking to do things better than others, and decisive people who could empathize with their customers created really great things.

Robin Hanson had a neat article about the Myth of Creativity, where he criticizes Richard Florida's vision of bohemian lead productivity:

This is a Star Wars vision of innovation: "Feel the force, Luke; let go of your conscious self and act on instinct." And it is just as much a fantasy as that celluloid serial. Innovation is no more about releasing your inner bohemian than it is about holding hands, singing Kumbaya, and believing in innovation.

In truth, we don't need more suggestion boxes or more street mimes to fill people with a spirit of creativity. We instead need to better manage the flood of ideas we already have and to reward managers for actually executing them.

Sure, it's good to punish fraudsters, and be wary of the stupid ideas that were passed off as brilliant in the prior cycle (eg, Angelo Mozilo winning the American Banker's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, celebrated by politicians on the right and left, prized by Fannie Mae, and Harvard, is now an example of the 'unregulated predatory private sector'). But this is like learning not to put one's hand on a hot stove--good to know, but old news to most. Our priority at the top level should be to get out of the way, and so government should focus on its essential but limited perennial tasks as opposed to creating some new engine of growth. Leave that for the millions of people making sure millions of small changes are constantly made to daily procedures. Such changes do not require vision from politicians, subsidies, or tax breaks, but are rather the natural by product of people trying to make a buck. It's the standard Hayek/Friedman view of macroeconomics, and it's still the best description of how the complex adaptive system of our economy works.

Until this week, the lies about death panels were some of the worst spread by Sarah Palin and the Republicans to scare seniors about health care reform and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Now there's a real death panel, and John Boehner is in charge -- it's the Republican legislative campaign to undermine the ACA. Boehner and the Republicans want to give our health care back to the insurance companies, kill strong consumer protections that end the worst insurance company abuses and sentence more than 30,000 Americans a year to death because they can't afford health insurance.

As one of the first acts of the 112th Congress, the Republicans plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and all the benefits and consumer protections that are making a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans right now. What are they replacing it with? Nothing. They're referring that question to a bunch of committees that will deliberate for months and play political football with our lives and health. What does that really mean? It means letting the insurance companies off the hook so they can run roughshod over consumers and deny our care and jack up our rates whenever they please.

Here are some of the things that will happen in the real world if the Republicans are successful with repeal:

Seniors who received $250 checks from Medicare last year to help buy prescription drugs will have to return the money to the Treasury Department.

Seniors will lose the 50% discount on brand-name drugs when they have reached the "donut hole" of their prescription-drug plans - a benefit worth more than $12,500 over 10 years to those who qualify. Instead of closing over the next several years, the "donut hole" will stay open permanently.

Seniors will stop receiving no-cost annual physicals, mammograms and cancer screenings under rules that had just taken effect this week. Also, a voluntary program to enable seniors to live independently would be wiped out, forcing more people to crowd into nursing homes.

Millions of consumers, including children, will be denied coverage and care due to pre-existing conditions and branded "uninsurable." Health plans will go back to kicking young adults off their parents' coverage instead of providing benefits until age 26.

Many Americans with sick family members will be forced to file for bankruptcy protection when insurers restore lifetime and annual caps on benefits.

Health plan premiums will resume their double-digit increases as insurers return to grabbing however much they want from your premiums to pay for excessive profits, CEO pay, an army of lobbyists and a bureaucracy that turns away the sick. New programs to block unreasonable rate hikes would be dismantled.

Taxpayers would pay hundreds of billions of dollars in excessive fees to private health insurance companies that enroll seniors in Medicare Advantage plans at much higher costs than if the government provided benefits directly. The Medicare trust fund's projected solvency will give back the 10-year extension it got from the ACA.

You can see an excellent overview here of what we will lose if the ACA is repealed. You can also see the district-by-district impact of health reform here.

After a century of legislative and political combat, working families and small businesses finally won and ended the insurance companies' stranglehold over our health care. Naturally, Boehner wants to roll back the new health care law and let the health insurance companies resume their reign of terror. That's why Boehner and his band of corporate shills, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a raft of presidential wannabes, have made repealing the law the Republican Party's top priority for 2011.

The Congress needs to fix the economy and create millions of jobs to put American back to work, but instead Cantor prefers to make bogus claims about an election mandate to repeal the health care law. Nevermind that 68% of Americans favor consumer protections such as allowing people under 26 to remain on their parents' plans, and 60% don't want health insurers to turn away sick people. Cantor isn't deterred by facts because his mission is partisan politics, not governing.

And so is this typically understated comment from Boehner:

"I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country... That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care."

Wow. Sounds like the end of the world as we know it.

Boehner and his fellow Republican repeal-mongers dismiss economic projections they don't like, such as those showing that the ACA will create millions of new jobs, that the law now requires insurers to use a new minimum acceptable percentage of premium dollars for actual medical care instead of profits and bureaucracy, and that the ACA will reduce the federal budget deficit.

The Republicans are kowtowing to right-wing extremists, corporate executives and billionaire investors who secretly spent millions of dollars to help Republican election campaigns last fall, including deceptive ads attacking the health care law. Those deceptions continue still. The ACA protects consumers from the worst health insurance company abuses and provides seniors with better health care through the Medicare program.

Thankfully Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate will stop Boehner in his tracks. However, when you cut through the political hyperbole, the GOP's search-and-destroy mission is serious business. The repeal vote in the House scheduled for next week is part of an all-out assault on the new law in the Congress, the courts and state legislatures. And it's an assault with well-funded corporate sponsors.

Everyone already knows that the Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry and other profit-hungry corporations. In case there was any doubt, the Republicans have begun hiring insurance and health care industry lobbyists for key positions on committees and members' staffs. So far, two health care industry lobbyists have joined the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care legislation. One of them was named staff director. In addition, a top lobbyist from the medical device industry has joined Boehner's staff as policy director, a post he will undoubtedly use to try to roll back the new tax on medical devices that is part of the ACA. Expect to see more hires like these.

If that picture isn't disturbing enough, look at the cynical demagoguery of GOP presidential hopefuls, like Fox News personality and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee has been running TV commercials trashing the health care law and offering a petition to demand that Congress repeal it. It turns out that Huckabee hired a notorious scam artist to help him with the exploitative ad campaign, which is nothing more than a front to raise money. Three days after Think Progress reported about the scammer, Huckabee was forced to fire the guy. A few months ago, Huckabee, a Baptist minister with a pre-existing condition of his own, said it was OK for health insurance companies to turn their backs on people with pre-existing conditions. Like Boehner, he's the new face of the Republican Party on health care. He works for the insurance industry and other big corporations, not the rest of us.

The interests of middle class and working families are of no concern to Republican Party leaders. To them, it's just smart business to spend political capital on protecting the financial interests of the billionaires and big corporations who make up their base -- the "haves and the have-mores," as President George W. Bush famously described them.

And yet, these are the same Republicans who complain about having to wait a few weeks for their health benefits to take effect while they rush into the 112th Congress with a plan that will revive working families' fear of going bankrupt because of crushing medical expenses and of getting dropped from your insurance if you're sick.

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This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Last month, All Things Digital reported that News Corp.'s forthcoming tablet-focused news publication, The Daily, appeared likely to debut sometime the week of January 17th. Forbes has now confirme.

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

It pretty clearly seems to be a sarcastic remark about the large volume of Verizon iPhone stories. This one seems pretty redundant, of course Verizon plans to make news, why else would they call a press announcement? ...

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This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

This Week's Health Industry News - NYTimes.com

An F.D.A. panel considers what to do about menthol flavoring in cigarettes.

'The Daily' iPad News Publication to Debut January 19th - Mac Rumors

Verizon Wireless is ready to make news on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac ...

Friday, January 7, 2011

Help Making Money

Now that it’s 2011 and we’re back in the swing of things, a lot of startups are already undoubtedly laying out their launch plans for the year. And while anytime seems like a good time around these parts, a lot of startups pencil in the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas as a good potential launching point. Why? Because it’s early in the year (early March), with a ton of people and hype, and a few of the most successful launches in recent years took place there.

You can always tell the most successful launches because the press the following year will say, “who is going to be this year’s ______ of SXSW?” The two most obvious companies that fit that bill are Twitter and Foursquare. (Well technically Twitter didn’t launch at SXSW, but that was definitely their coming out party in 2007.) And coincidentally, two founders of those two companies have taken to Quora today to both answer the question: What is the process involved in launching a startup at SXSW?

Yes, I get to write about Twitter, Foursquare, and Quora in the same post.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams notes that Twitter launched prior to SXSW “to a whimper”. He says that the company made a decision to target SXSW for some publicity in 2007 simply because it seemed like a lot of the then “thousands” of Twitter early-adopters were heading there. He specifically credits two things they did there with helping the explosion of interest.

First, they set up a tweet visualization screens and negotiated with the conference to put them in the main hallways in the Austin Convention Center. “This is something they’d never done before, but we didn’t want a booth on the trade show floor, because we knew hallways is where the action was. We paid $11K for this and set up the TVs ourselves. (This was about the only money Twitter’s *ever* spent on marketing.),” Williams notes.

The second thing they did was to create a SXSW-specific feature that allowed people to join Twitter simply by texting “join sxsw” to their 40404 SMS shortcode. When people did that, they would show up on the screens around the conference. And you’d be following the half-dozen Twitter “ambassadors” that were other users at the conference (consider that the first SUL).

Williams notes, however, that it didn’t seem like a ton of people signed up for the service that way.

“I don’t know what was the most important factor, but networks are all about critical mass, so doubling down on the momentum seemed like a good idea. And something clicked,” he concludes.

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley offers a different take. His big launch was two years later, at SXSW 2009, and the conference was already much larger at that point. His two main keys to a big SXSW launch are to “hustle” and to do everything in your power to get viral word-of-mouth buzz just before the conference. “Start telling friends and stranger to try out your app,” Crowley writes, saying that they spent $0 on marketing that year.

As for hustling, Crowley says that “we started in January and flipped the switch on 4SQ the Thursday before SXSW. Me & Naveen [his co-founder] were both coding in the airport, on the tarmac, on the runway.”

Crowley also says that you should take advantage of Twitter early on for both feedback and support. “Try to answer as many support + feature requests tweets you can. Get people to spread the love,” he writes.

He also suggests using a service like GetSatisfaction to gather a collection of “superusers” to help out with troubleshooting and bugs.

Finally, he says that it’s probably wise to have someone not at SXSW watching the ship during the actual conference. “It’ll help while you’re doing your thing in Austin,” he says.

But Crowley’s most interesting tidbit comes in a comment below his answer:

don’t focus on the press / media / bloggers.

Focus on making something you think is awesome. Focus on making something you think other people will also think is awesome. The rest will prob just happen.

In an answer below that, Kevin Marks leaves another crucial point:

FIrst of all, be sure that your startup makes sense for SXSW – both Twitter and Foursquare (and indeed Dodgeball) were highly suitable for thousands of geeks crammed into a smallish downtown with intermittent net connectivity and a desire to co-ordinate with each other.

If your startup is an Enterprise Sales tool, you might be better off launching somewhere else.

Consider this the official countdown kickoff to the “who will be this year’s ______ at SXSW” stories.

I recently watched the movie Exit Through the Gift Shop from well-known artist Banksy. I got a kick out of this film for multiple reasons having liked Banksy's artwork for years now.

What most amused me though is how well it goes about making you question what celebrity is and how much you can achieve by becoming famous. The key point for me is questioning whether you really need to be creative and innovative above and beyond being famous.

Then Mike Butcher over at Techcrunch went and posted something this morning about startup teams trumping celebrity tech entrepreneurs. In summary, he too is making the point that execution far outweighs celebrity.

Basically, what I'm getting at, is all the parallels you're starting to see between the startup world and the movie business. I am definitely not an expert on the movie business and can only imagine what it's truly like from afar. Yet, we've all seen enough of it to realize a bit how things work in Hollywood. You basically have a couple large companies or studios as they're usually called. There you have management at the top who are the power-brokers in the industry. They back films which are used as vehicles to market actors who either succeed or not. If they do succeed, they are cast in further films and a ton of marketing is thrown at these films, regardless of whether these actors have talent or not.

Ultimately, the goal is to make as much money as possible and if you're the one making all this money, keep other people out so you can continue to make as much money as possible. Sure, there are some stand-out actors, managers and studios who go against the grain but basically it's an industry optimized to make money. Simplified by me immensely but I believe you understand what I am saying.

Now let's switch over to the startup world. It's no longer Hollywood and we're now a bit north in Silicon Valley. You have a couple firms who call all the shots and are known as Tier 1 VC's (with some major players like Google, Apple, and Facebook thrown in for good measure).

These VC's fund firms instead of films run by entrepreneurs instead of actors. Some of these entrepreneurs are successful and some are not. Those who are get funded further by these Tier 1 firms. Lots of companies are started and sold since these power brokers in the Valley sit on each other's boards and pass deals back and forth. The power brokers continue to make money and those entrepreneurs who don't lead to successful exits get weeded out (where's the reality TV version of "out to pasture" for entrepreneurs?)

Ultimately, as in the movie business, you make as much money as possible and keep out the riff-raff who would keep you from making tons of money as long as possible.

Now don't get me wrong. I am in no way arguing about whether the movie or startup business is right or wrong or skewed in someone's favor or not. I'm also probably simplifying it too much as well. But the point I am making is that we are in a world where it's about making money. Sure, you can get your touchy-feely on and say you're changing the world but ultimately you wouldn't "work" if it wasn't about making some money.

Hence, my advice to any entrepreneur is to take advantage of whatever you have if you ultimately want to be successful. If you are naturally good looking, get your face out there. Be on TV and in the press. If it helps you make money, go for it.

At the same time, if media attention doesn't help you make more money, don't focus on it. Get your pretty head down to business and execute like hell to innovate, optimize and sell your product. Or have the best of both worlds. Be a CEO focussed on getting your brand or product out there and have a number two (great blog post by Ben Horowitz) who takes care of business. What you need to focus on is making money and being the scrappy entrepreneur that you are, you'll optimize wherever you can to achieve your goal.

In the end it's never about who was most popular that determines success. Just think back to all those football players and cheerleaders in high school. (I've seen some of them from my high school....thank you Facebook.....and had a good laugh!) So often there are people you never hear about making tons of cash since they don't need to focus on media.

On the other hand, if Twitter/Foursquare/Zynga/Groupon hadn't received so much media attention, you think they'd be where they are now? I highly doubt it and I guarantee you that they had a clear strategy in place to use media (and position their founders) from the start. Hence, don't waste time focussed on the wrong things. If you're a celebrity entrepreneur who's counting his millions hats off to you. If you've become a media darling and are broke, well tough luck kid. Try something new.

By the way, here's what Exit Through the Gift Shop is about cut and pasted from Wikipedia. Think what you will about whether it's a real story or not but reast assured the dollars earned by "Mr Brainwash" were real!!

Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Film is a Gonzo Documentary which tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles, and his obsession with street art. It is presented as a documentary, but reviewers have questioned its factuality. The film charts Guetta's constant documenting of his every moment on film, to his chance contact with his cousin, the artist Invader, and his documenting of a host of street artists with focus on Shepard Fairey, and also Banksy though the latter's face is never shown, and his voice is distorted to preserve his anonymity

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

In Fact, Chevy's Initiatives Are Not Government Mandated, Do Not Use Taxpayer Money

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

In Fact, Chevy's Initiatives Are Not Government Mandated, Do Not Use Taxpayer Money

Friday, January 14, 2011

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Monday, January 10, 2011

Friday, January 7, 2011

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]
Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]
Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers