Startups on Sirius Stuff

MyAd Display Case for businesses

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:06:06 -0700

We’re starting to talk about some of the things that we’ve been working on with MyAd.com. One of my favorite features is the

Example of a display case

Display Case, which lets you put items you’ve posted on MyAd in a widget on your own site.

Many businesses have a site that doesn’t get updated very often. This is an easy way for a business to show what they have to offer on their own site.

Testing MyPages linking

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 01:01:01 -0700

We’re experimenting with linking back to blogs who reference a business on mypages.com For example, a business that listed itself recently was Hammy’s Pizza. It’s in the Portland Pizza category.

Zillows Make Me Move Feature

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 01:01:01 -0700

Redeye VC: Deja vu has a nice write-up on Zillow offering “Make Me Move”:

A homeowner can easily post a Make Me Move price without exposing any personal information. Zillow then enables interested buyers to contact the owner through an email anonymizer.

It’s a feature that I wish we had when my wife and I were looking for a new home. We knew - from driving around and around - that there were certain houses that we would be interested in. In retrospect, I wish we’d done the simple thing of leaving a letter on the front steps saying “if you ever sell ..”

Excellent case study and analysis of HotOrNot

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:11:11 -0700

Nisan Gabbay has an excellent analysis of the site at HOTorNOT.com Case Study: Mixing free and premium services

My wife and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary a few months ago. I’m happily married, so I haven’t visited HotOrNot in years. I was fascinated by the description of the dating service, which I don’t think they offered when a friend first told me about the site.

“Thus HOTorNOT was able to fill some pretty basic human needs in a way that no other online service had before. This would later translate into financial success once HOTorNOT offered its premium dating service because their cost of customer acquisition was so low - zero. The largest cost associated with operating a traditional online dating site is the cost of customer acquisition, which even for successful sites can be 50% (or more) of revenue. Because HOTorNOT attracted users with its free rating service, it could offer its dating service for the low price point of $6 per month. This is a price that traditional dating sites can’t compete with because it generally takes $15-$30 to acquire a subscriber for a traditional dating service.”

Good summary of FaceBook

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:11:11 -0700

There’s an excellent summary of how FaceBook came to be and what its possible valuation might be at: Facebook Case Study: Offline behavior drives online usage - Startup Review Blog

Nice to see MyPages revisions

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:08:08 -0700

It’s good to see that MyPages is changing to be more interactive. Portland Yellow Pages and Portland, OR Guide by MyPages.com

Something neat is the ability to link to specific businesses:

BodyAware Massage - MyPages.com

Why I don't subscribe to Netflix

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:07:07 -0700

Do you use Netflix? Did you ever use Netflix? I did and ended up cancelling after a few months. The problem was, I didn’t want to dedicate 2 hours of my time to watching a movie. 200 hours/month or more of time surfing the net was OK but hey, that’s another story. Having access to a huge supply of movies didn’t change that. There just weren’t that many movies that I really wanted to watch.

Neat article on the importance of cash flow

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:07:07 -0700

My Great Lesson in Cash Flow is a nice article on the importance of cash flow in a start up. No deep lessons but just emphasizing that you have to watch the cash, watch the cash, watch the cash …

Jobster and its slightly ominous title for a jobs site

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:07:07 -0700

Pete Cashmore of Mashable writes that Jobster has relaunched as a social networking site for job seeking. Theory is that you can connect with people and add faves. You can add tags to other users, which has interesting implications: who’s going to be the first to be labeled “brown noser”?

“Meet Your Future” is their slogan, which has Big Brother-ish overtones to me. Though I suppose they don’t actually have pictures of a McDonald’s fryer or a Wal-Mart cash register.

Good summary of what Google Base means to vertical web sites

Tue, 23 May 2006 05:05:05 -0700

Bill Burnham has a nice summary of what Google Base in general and the real estate section in particular might mean for vertical web sites like Trulia.

It’s not a lot of fun competing in a section where Google is competing. I can vouch for that first hand.

Stop the paper ... and make millions

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:03:03 -0700

OK, I’ve wanted this for years and it’s still not available.

I don’t want paper statements. From anybody. I don’t want to file them away. I don’t want to scan them myself. And I certainly don’t want to pay someone to do it.

I want electronic statements that are secure. I want them backed up regularly. I want them authoritative - one of the big reasons that I don’t go electronic is that I figure the original statements will carry more weight with the bank, company, etc. Or the court, if it comes to that.

Interesting Week for a Community-Based Website

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:33:34 -0700

The week outside MyPages started with an article in the paper about LiveJournal, based here in Portland, being sold to Six Degrees. Because we consider user involvement so important for MyPages, I’m very interested in hearing what happens with any community-based website. Whether the community is online, as with LiveJournal, or more local like Craigslist.

No outsider is going to know the terms of a deal between two private companies unless something goes very wrong or very right. Either somebody sues or they’re written up in Fortune or Forbes. But it seems like a good time to be running a community site.