Andy Boyer

I stumbled across a cool little search engine in beta, called Viewzi.  Now I'm not making this out to be a Google killer or anything, but it's a kind of fun way to troll through web sites if you are looking for a visual representation of the page.

My favorite of their searching options was the "Web screenshot" view.  Now, my take is that this will be less helpful for certain types of searches than others.  For example, I think it did better with a search on Cristiano Ronaldo (below) than the Georgia-Russia conflict (above).  And the algorithm isn't perfect.  When I searched on my own name, it at first attached me to the usual places, but then attached me to a bunch of web sites with "Spring Creek" in the name.  So, it was a good effort to look at say, AndyBoyer.com, see a link to SpringCreekGroup.com and make that connection, but then it took it to far when it surmised I also must be part of SpringCreekFishing.net. 

But I'm not here to criticize.  It's kind of cool to play with, and there are a few target markets I'm sure they are already very popular with.  Check it out at Viewzi.com

So, this "marketing" web site is about as cool as it gets if you are into sports and technology.

Supporting their Olympic effort, Nike has launched NikeLab.com, a place to see all the latest gizmos and gadgets their athletes will be using at the games.In addition to product specs, you see interviews with the actual product designer.It's a place you could get lost for a while in, so save your viewing for the evening.

Some technologies you may want to check out include the following:

• Precool Vest
  
• Basketball Uniforms
• Volleyball Zesti
  

• Rowing Omada

Seattle Craigslist is a favorite place for millions of people to buy and sell used items online.  As they say in their tagline, Seattle Craigslist "provides local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events."

 I've recently come across an alternative to Seattle Craigslist, at www.bonanzle.com.  (Full Disclosure - I like their idea so much, I am helping them with some marketing.)

While Seattle Craigslist is simply a text based classifieds section, Bonanzle is built on Ruby on Rails, and offers easy image upload, advanced communications between buyers and sellers, easier ways to create stores, and a host of other useful features.

So if you use Seattle Craigslist, and are looking for an alternative with more bells and whistles, check out Bonanzle, and let me know what you think.

Seattle Craigslist Alternative Bonanzle

I suppose we all should have seen something like this coming.  With nearly every key executive who is not named Yang fleeing the sinking ship formerly known as Yahoo, a few enterprising young folks put togteher this web site to make it easier to write your resignation letter.  Ah, must be good times down there. 

Down the road it will be fasicnating to review the complete company history of Yahoo, and analyze their strategic decisions.  Can you think of any other company that had such a specacular rise and (possible) fall in just a 15-20 year period? 

If you have not booked out every  Saturday or Sunday for the next 3 weeks, try to book some time to check out the All Nations Cup 2008. This is truly one of the most unique events in Seattle, and a great example of what makes the city a pretty cool place to live.

The All Nations Cup is an amateur soccer tournament where every player competes for their home country.  It's like the World Cup, but for amateurs.  (This weekend's schedule here.)

I've been sporadically over the last few years, and the soccer is always of high quality.  But the real fun is seeing the fans.  You have these small communities of people from Ethiopia, Bosnia, Gambia, etc....There may only be a few hundred in the whole city, but most of them come out to support this group of amateur players.  Everyone has their flags, songs, drums, etc...

All games are at Starfire down in Tukwila and it's like $10 or $15 or something per day.   With 4 games going on at once, you can shift from field to field and see some pretty strong players.

If you get down there, let me know. 

One of my favorite things over the past four years has been the UW Business Plan Competition.  As a grad student, in 2005, I had two ideas and we went nowhere.  In 2006, I jumped on another student team and we won "Best Consumer Product."  Last year, I was a first round judge and merely observed the rest.  And this year, thanks to the kindness of some of my favorite people, I was invited to judge the tradeshow round.

Quick moment of clarification for those who don't know anything about this.  Every year, about 60-80 teams submit a business plan.  Some teams are made up of 4 students, some teams are established companies with a student consultant.  It's a broad range, so you see a lot of neat ideas.  These 60-80 teams are whittled down to 32, who then fill a room and pitch their idea to about 100 judges in a tradeshow type setting.  That list gets cut down to 16, then down to 4, and a winner is chosen.  So, Wednesday, we had the tradeshow round of 32, and our job as judges was to "invest" 1000 fake dollars into at least 5 companies.  You are free to split that 1000 however you like, as long as 5 or more companies are given money.  The 16 teams who receive the most money move on to the next round.

Now, my favorite part about this whole competition is that since most of the people you talk to are undergrad, MBA or PhD students, they still have this sense of optimism and naivety.  For example, you ask an undergrad with a dream, "What's your exit strategy?" and his response is pure and good.  He says, "Exit?  We're going to make this a profitable business.  I don't want to sell it.  This is my idea, and it's going to work."  Wow, as a human being, you love hearing that.  But then you have to crush his hopes and dreams, and invite him to join the real world.  You have to tell him, "Well, here's the thing.  If I'm a VC, and I put money in, there better damn sure be an exit.  Because I'm not really in the business of giving you a bunch of coin so you can build a company that doesn't make me rich.  You will sell, and you will sell when I tell you to."

Anyway, the whole thing is great.  Wide eyed, naive students getting creative and coming up with some crazy cool ideas.  It's the kind of place that you walk out of wishing they all would get the money they need to build the product they want to build.  Sure, there were some plain dumb ideas - but only dumb from the standpoint that they were unfundable.  Every idea itself had merit.  Even the ideas with terrible business plans and execution were at least interesting ideas.     

I'm being lazy and not going through the whole list of companies.  But here were some ideas that stood out for me.  I'm not saying all their business plans were great, but the ideas stuck in my head

• A way to deliver medicine through the nose to the brain, to get cancer medicine pas the blood brain barrier.
• A company who developed a new strain of algae that they could farm for oil.
• An exercise device specifically tailored for people in retirement homes.  A kind of "soloflex" for people in wheelchairs.
• A system for capturing excess carbon from buildings to decrease heating costs.
• A career web site specifically tailored to kids right out of school.
• A "match.com" for tradeshow attendees, where you fill out a profile, and the site suggests other people attending the show you should meet with.
• A company that produces organic clothing.
• A sunflower village in Kenya so villagers can earn money.
• A Web site for coaches to help them manage their teams.
• And other cool ideas....

Congrats to all the teams who made it to the next round.   And I hope those teams that didnt make it, continue to tweak their plans and shoot for success.

 

Here's a neat little web site that you can get lost in for a few hours if you aren't careful.

KillerStartups.com says they review 30+ sites a day, so that database gets pretty big pretty quickly.  The site prolies a wide range of companies, from the goofy to the geeky, and they mostly accentuate the positive.  After all, no start-up isperfect, but you have to root for someone willing to throw it all out on the line like that.  Plus, it doesn't look like you need a +$10k a month PR firm, work at a VC firm or be a close friend of Michael Arrington to be profiled on KillerStartups.com, so it's almost like the "anti-TechCrunch."

 

I love when I run across something hilarious with a Google Page Rank of 1.  It makes me feel as if I have found something before anyone else.  Such is the case with Dickipedia.

Word of warning - If you start reading this site, you may not stop laughing for a few days.  Take in small doses...   

Now here's good marketing.  You take a product that is inherently boring, like tax software.  And rather than being all professional, you sponsor a user generated comedy contest on YouTube.  Now, I don't know if it's successful, but it's certainly a smart attempt at reaching a younger demographic.

 

So check out the Turbo Tax Comedy Showcase.  But don't just watch.  Make sure you interact.  And here's a good way to interact. 

1. Go to the showcase
   
2. Click on the vote tab
3. Search for "DiMuro"
4. Watch the 3 minute routine
5. Vote Thumbs up.
6. You feel good, Turbo Tax feels good, and Greg feels good. It's happiness all around.  

A few months ago I was at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, and I was amazed at the cult icon status some of the influential bloggers had achieved.  It was really quite cool to see these bloggers in person, and to see them interact with their readers.

So now we see the rise of a new web startup based on this phonomenon.  You have your tech moguls like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  You have your giants without household name recognition like Larry Ellison, Sergei Brin and Jerry Yang.  And then you have your web celebrities who are really only famous inside the Web 2.0 community.  And darnit, these guys deserve press as well.

This is the theory behind Pop17.com a webcast dedicated to the semi-stars of Web land.  So if you have your Andy Warhol 15 minutes of tech fame scorecard, you can now add the hosts and writers of this webcast to the list of semi-celebrities who all of us in this alternative world love.  Please someone create, "The making of Pop17.com - Behind the Show."