Rev2.org

As many of you know, I am involved with several websites including VOIS, which I am a co-founder of. Please hear me out this is not a shameless VOIS plug. I have never written about my involvement with VOIS on here before, but I feel that what happened to me last week is lesson we could all benefit from. As I said something pretty exciting happened to me recently and I wanted to share my experience in hopes of helping others achieve the same possible results.

Like other dreamers out there, I come up with new ideas for websites often.  While many of them I feel are good ideas, they don’t always make the cut or become reality.  There is no worse feeling then to see some other visionary bring that idea to life, and watch as this new site receives accolades. Recently I had one of those visions and decided to run with it rather than let it remain simply an idea. Being I put together VOIS, I knew how simple it would be to just post the project on our site and see if I could find someone to not only build the application, but also find someone to design it as well. Here is how my vision for a site called “Tweexchange.com” became a reality, soared to almost being one of the top 10,000 visited websites in the world all within one week, and for under $1000.

A couple of weeks ago there was a tremendous amount of hype regarding Ashton Kutcher and his race with CNNbrk (not owned by CNN at the time) to see who could get a million users to follow them on Twitter first.  About the same time I had been daydreaming how awesome it would be to have a website to obtain a Twitter name that had already been taken.  So I jotted down some notes on my iPhone and pretty much stopped there.  After seeing the exposure CNN got for assuming the CNNbrk Twitter name (even though they claim that they didn’t exactly buy it, CNN claimed they had hired James Cox as a consultant and through some convoluted statement admitted that they had acquired his Twitter account) I quickly realized that Twitter had opened the door for anyone now to buy, sell, or “exchange” Twitter names as a consultant, and it would not be long thereafter that a forum for acquiring Twitter usernames would soon arise.

Feeling that someone would conceive a similar idea, I realized time was not on my side and I would have to act quickly if I was to be the first to create this forum or Twitter name exchange.  Being I had access to hundreds of the world’s most talented designers and coders at my finger tips as a VOIS member and since posting the project was free, I knew what I had to do.

I immediately posted two projects. The first project was to make my Twitter app and a second project was for a designer to design the sites homepage and theme. Soon thereafter I received bids on both. I found a local coder in Florida whose bid was priced right and he seemed to know the Twitter api well. The site designer, a regular fixture on VOIS from England came up with the design.    I awarded both projects and a few days later my site was ready for testing.  That is right….within one week, and less than $1,000 I had completed a website now named Tweexchange.com with a little help from my Vois friends, that was ready for the masses.   VOIS had worked great.  After Tweexchange was launched, I was so thankful to fellow bloggers like Pete Cashmore at Mashable and Leena Rao at TechCrunch for picking up the story providing instant exposure to the site and making Tweexchange a household name, receiving tens of thousands of views around the world and several offers of interest, all with in a few within hours. Also I have to give a shout out to my friends at The Rackspace Cloud. The Mosso servers did not let me down despite the barrage of traffic.

Yesterday Tweexchange had a traffic ranking on alexa of 13,251 all since Friday or just three days!  So for anyone who is sitting on an idea or moping around after being laid off, go post a project and see what becomes of it.  You never know, for a few hundred dollars, you too can make your dream a reality!

p.s… more to come part 2 soon……

Two weeks ago, MySpace’s owner, the News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch), dropped Myspace founder Chris DeWolfe and brought in Owen Van Natta of Facebook fame. This was a move meant to revamp the company and restore its popularity.

You see, Van Natta’s former employer is growing by leaps and bounds, adding new users at a breakneck rate. MySpace, meanwhile, is losing users nearly as fast as Facebook is gaining them. Most of the readers here at Rev2 probably realize why: MySpace has become the hangout for little kids, brainless “adults,” and plugin game freaks. If you currently have a Myspace profile, it’s probably as vacant as the Kmart parking lot.

So what’s the problem with MySpace?

Well, according to Stelter and Arango of the New York Times, it’s slow innovation and a failure to meet Murdoch’s revenue goals. This despite 130 million users globally every month.

Fox Interactive Media, which controls MySpace for News Corp, showed losses accross the board last year, so maybe blaming MySpace for all of it is a little extreme.

It appears to me that the reason MySpace is getting the negative attention here is two-fold: most of us could care less if MySpace goes under and Facebook has surpassed MySpace as King of the Social Network Mountain. The fact that MySpace users are disappearing is obvious to anyone who watches these things.

Source: TechCrunch.com

Trend analysts are also showing that most of MySpace’s users are teenagers under 25 with an annual income under $25,000. For websites seeking ad revenue, that’s almost bottom of the barrel there.

Whatever the plans over at MySpace, Van Natta is keeping mum on them (so far). My guess would be better targeting towards their primary user base: so expect to see MySpace get heavier with ads for bands, music, and gaming gear.

At least they stopped running those crappy weight loss ads.

Tom Siebel (Oracle, Siebel Systems) stated in a BBC article that he believes that Silivon Valley is beginning to see a wane in its force as a center of innovation and economical force.  “I think Silicon Valley has been toppled from its pedestal,” he said.  “I think information technology is much less important in the global picture today than it was even 10-20 years ago.”

Hard words from a guy who’s made his fortune in IT in the Valley.  He may be right, though.  He cites bio-engineering and energy as the next tech powerhouses.  Further, Siebel says, not many in the Valley around him realize the same trend.

Tim O’Reilly is one of those who disagrees with Siebel.  “Of course Silicon Valley as an epicenter still really matters,” he says.  He is the founder of O’Reilly Media.

John Hollar, curator of the Computer History Museum, agrees.  “I think Silicon Valley will remain the jewel in the crown for a very long time.”

Of course, Silicon Valley is the lode stone against which all other wannabe tech centers are compared.  News accounts in local papers about new tech startups in their area nearly always have the predictable headline: “Are We the Next Silicon Valley?”

Whatever the case, many are seeing that the influence of Silicon Valley is certainly beginning to wane.  On the other hand, one of the newly-emerging big business marketplaces is in alternative-fuel vehicles (electrics, hybrids, etc.) and the Valley certainly is becoming a hot bed for those as well.

So who knows?  Perhaps Silicon Valley will begin to step away from IT as its crowning achievement and in fifty years will be the automotive innovation hub instead.  It’s an interesting thought and the spread of IT business accross the nation has certainly made for interesting times.

When I was in eighth grade, the only one with a cell phone was the local drug dealer. Scratch that – it was a pager. We still had film strips. And the dozen of us who dialed up to America Online regularly threw sleepovers where we tried to find a scantily clad coed who took less than 20 minutes to download.

Now students type notes in smart phones, lecture halls are veritable movie theaters with stadium seating, and school libraries are more wired than the weird kid who sniffed the glue in the supply closer.

As someone who comes from an online creative and social media background, few things bother me more than how much people misunderstand how online networking tools can hook you up with your next job. It’s not really their fault as much as it is our education system’s fault, as this is a lesson that should begin when dudes voices are changing and ladies are still have pillow fights at sleepovers.

The news media is ripe with stories about how online social media can rev up your career search, but the problem is that everyone from guidance counselors to academic advisors don’t know the best protocol for leveraging these tools. The biggest misunderstanding about effectively using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to help you land a job is that you’re not looking for direct points of contact with potential employers. In other words, a hiring manager at a technology company probably won’t randomly locate your Facebook status noting that you’re “Looking for a software engineering gig work in Boston.” But an old high school buddy or long lost ex-lover might see this status and get the networking’ wheels a turnin’. Such was the case with one family man and job seeker CNN recently highlighted in its series on how to get hired.

The upshot of this all is that in order to effectively network and find a new job online, you need to be tech savvy and personable.  And a little lucky. Social networking platforms are simply an extension of traditional schmoozing; if you have a limp handshake or trouble making small talk with strangers, technology can help - but won’t solve these shortcomings. But teaching America’s future workforce how to deftly integrate technology into traditional job search tactics is key – and it’s simply not happening at the same pace it is abroad.

For example, across the pond in the U.K., primary school lads and lasses are being taught everything from keyboard skills to blogging and podcasting. In America, you’re more likely to see five kids huddled around a Tandy pecking away DOS commands.

When I was in my 20s, I wished my public schooling had taught me how to change my own oil, understand credit card interest rates, and fill out a 1040EZ. As an editor for a few social media websites, I now see a much greater need for teaching both basic job searching manners – everything from having appropriate email addresses to how to format an email cover letter – as well as how to harness the power of social media for their job searches.

Apple took another hit to their iTunes service yesterday when Walt Disney and Hulu announced a new partnership while current partners NBC, ABC, and Fox all re-upped their agreements with the streaming service as well.  CBS is probably kicking themselves for signing that exclusivity deal with YouTube about now too.

Gartner analyst Michael McGuire says that “Over time, perhaps the direct-payment model goes away.”  This is a direct reference to the iTunes pay-as-you-go model versus Hulu’s free-to-watch model with limited commercial interruptions during the show–the same model YouTube is using.

Rumor has it that Hulu might be in talks with some major cable television giants too, which would make them king of the streaming broadcasts online–much to Google’s chagrin, I’m sure.  iTunes, of course, still reigns supreme in digital music content.

Now for the ringer: Hulu is apparently working on an iPhone and iPod Touch app to stream content to those portables.

BusinessWeek’s Cliff Edwards writes that while all of this is happening, Apple has some summer surprises to release this year in the form of a “media pad” handheld.  He also mentions that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder–an interesting conundrum for the legendary geek.

The Deal with Disney took months to complete.  Peter Kafka at MediaMemo explains this.  The situation basically boiled down to coordination between five different parties in multi-million dollar discussions.

This joining of Disney to the Hulu venture is an interesting addition that will play out some exciting (to watch, at least) goings-on in the next few months.