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Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Domains A Dozen, Startups Galore

January 8th, 2010 1 comment

I’ve been hoarding domains for years, while brainstorming countless hours on various startup ideas with the intention of one day putting one or more to good use.

This practice has been tapering on and off in waves ever since I knew I was going to be a father. But I literally don’t go by a day without some new startup idea or improvement for an existing startup/service. And sometimes, like this week, I feel like I’ve had an epiphany (again) about the next big thing. Admittedly, this feeling often lasts long enough for me to end up purchasing another domain that ends up collecting cyber-dust. I am still determined to manifest something on my own though, so I keep at it, believing that one day I’ll either actually managed to finish the training necessary to manifest these ideas (i.e. learn programming), or I’ll actually come up with something someone else gets equally excited about to hop on board with the resources necessary to make it happen.

I’m to the point, it seems now, that I’m willing to air those ideas. Since so many have already come to be, I might as well just put the intention out there plain for all to see. That way the odds are greater that someone might align with me on one or at maybe I’ll find some small measure of solace/credit if it was documented prior to someone else doing it.

Anyway, as usual, I’ve been noodling around with one of my startup ideas and was wondering what it would take to create some sort of auto-posting feature that takes news headlines (via Google Alerts, etc.) and posts them to Twitter and/or blog simultaneously.

Is this something that can be developed easily or is it more of a time-consuming project? Seems like it’s a common feature with some websites/services these days.

The startup idea stems from my own interest in finding something to do, either in a melting pot like Los Angeles where there’s just far too much to choose from or the polar opposite, with a place like Akron, Ohio where seemingly nothing happens. So this particular startup is an idea that originated with lawknds.com, where I planned to basically list events, with blog coverage of them, reviews, etc. Initial monetization would come through advertisements (naturally), from both event organizers and related products/services, with the possibility of a premium account for users that offered perks negotiated through relationships with event promoters and others on the site, i.e. discount tickets, vip packages, advance purchasing, etc.

However, since this idea sat for so long others have come along and begun offering similar services, laist.com comes to mind (they have one for most major US cities). So I’ve been thinking about narrowing the focus of mine to strictly wknd coverage, hence the name and the series of domains I’ve started collecting for this purpose: lawknds.com, sfwknds.com, nycwknds.com, vbwknds.com, miwknds.com, lvwknds.com, dcwknds.com (I thought these were the most notable US cities to start with anyway).

Anyway, not sure if this is worth pursuing, especially since I don’t have the best idea of what’s involved code-wise. Anyone out there have any input or interest?

p.s. Another idea in a similar vein was for artistlofts.org, since years ago I was living downtown in a loft and didn’t have an iPhone yet or other location-based services, I thought a directory of lofts with locally based goods and services would have been handy…

Lurkers and Lookers

September 22nd, 2009 No comments

As stated on Twitter previously, it’s amazing how many lurkers there are out there. Not sure what the formula would be, but seems an easy 2-3x as many than those who actively comment on blog, Twitter and other posts.

It’s all well and good that people do what they do (or don’t do), I’m just generally curious and eager for some dialogue and feedback from my contacts. In light of this, I’ve begun recently to try and participate more with other people’s content. And even if it doesn’t change much with regards to this, I can enjoy my own output to them as I know what it means to receive it.

SolarHoster.com and Design

March 12th, 2009 No comments

Today I threw together a quick little sidebar banner for SolarHoster.com’s Twitter profile, nothing special. Just a 5-min cut and paste effort.

solarhoster_twitter-panel_full-sm

Categories: 2009, art, design Tags: , , , ,

New Blog Theme Up

January 22nd, 2009 No comments

I’ve switched out my theme for a brighter, cleaner and more professionally looking and functioning one. I really dug the previous design, with its black, red, white, and full moon with treeline:

But it functioned even more poorly with the default WordPress widgets on than the current “iNove 1.1.1″ one does. Also, I was unable to get my Twitter badge installed on the previous one nor any of the Twitter plugins, and this one has incorporated it nicely.

I’m hoping that once I upgrade to WordPress v2.7 that the Lavinya theme will work better. Until then, I think I might just stick with this.

The one thing I have noticed as being a major issue and I think this has more to do with my hosting at Network Solutions, is that my pages: about, contact, etc. aren’t loading promptly. And when they do finally load, there seems to be some broken code/errors at the footer. Oh and also, tags over a certain number are jumbling up, guessing it’s an issue with the css.

Not sure what this is about, but I think I can live with it for now.

Update 1.22 2:38pm EST: Hmm, looks like blog posts are loading slow too now. Maybe my ISP is having issues connecting with NetSol again.

Twitter Opening Applied For

January 21st, 2009 No comments

Today I submitted my resume, along with my LinkedIn profile, to Twitter for their Founder Associate position.

I asked Alissa, an old west coast friend, what she thought of this and she graciously offered to put in a good word for me.

I’ve had minimal luck getting jobs I’ve gone after previously, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of feedback, if any, I get on this.

Update 1.22 9:07am EST:
I’m questioning the appropriateness of this post right now…I’m so used to posting on just about anything I do, it’s become so ingrained that it was an automatic reflex to do the same with this post. Hopefully I’m not committing any sort of faux pas by doing so.)

Inauguration Day

January 20th, 2009 No comments

Today was inauguration day for the 44th president of the US. Obviously.

It was interesting to watch through a wide range of channels: TV and Twitter mostly, RSS feeds, Google News, CurrentTV, etc. And for the first time that I recall seeing, satellite imagery’s been taken; an impressive view from space:

It was definitely an inspiring event, even if for nothing other than the scale of its production. From the crowd control and transpo logistics, to porta-potties and parking, it must have been a nightmare of an operation, no matter how well rehearsed.

One thing I didn’t hear mentioned about the inauguration ceremony was its environmental footprint and what steps, if any, the inauguration committee had or would take to mitigate this. Probably nothing. Not a great way to begin a presidency pushing for cleaner and green days, but then maybe it was beyond Obama’s control.

Still it would have been nice to hear of some initiative to address this too.

Tristan and I were hoping the delivery would be today as the contractions started coming on around 3 and have been holding steady on and off since then. But so far no dice. Just a lot of time watching the inaugural coverage, the clock and Twitter.

Anyway, many wishes for safe travels to everyone who’s made the trek to DC!

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