Just Do It. (The Day after First Filming of Linkspank TV)

My favorite mantra for entrepreneurship these days: Just Do It.

There, I did it.

All so often, 50% good is good enough.

How would you rate this blog post? Would you have written it? :-)

Toolbar

Today's a crappy post but I'm keeping the flame alive... :-)

A linkspank toolbar is in the works - something you install in Internet Explorer or Firefox with nice buttons to help you spank and do other stuff across the web. We already have a QuickSpank button for your browser - the toolbar will have additional functions.

The design is not quite finalized. A toolbar is a pretty obvious idea. It was central to our original conception of linkspank, but we jettisoned it after research showed that most people don't know what toolbars are, and a mighty percentage of the other people are unwilling to install toolbars. (Basically any service that requires the installation of a toolbar is either willing to settle for a very small community, or they are clueless.)

On the other hand, the people who DO install toolbars are very important spankers so they deserve all the spanking equipment they want. Plus, this toolbar is going to be bitchin. So it's on the way.

What do YOU want in the toolbar? Let us know.

Spank Statistic

As of now, 19% of spankers have actually sent a linkspank. This percentage includes those individuals who merely sent a spank as part of a tutorial.

I had been estimating the figure to people as 10%, so it was nice to find that the truth was shinier than my expectation. But the most important question might be whether 19% is a great figure or one indicative of some failure.

I believe it's a good figure. It's much higher than the percentage of users of other user-generated contest sites that actually are generating the content. (The comparisons are difficult because not everything is obviously comparable but I still believe that statement is true.) And the number will go up, by virtue of user experience improvements and consumer awareness of the spank.

Of course, 19% is much smaller than the % of people who have ever shared a link by email or IM (north of 90%). We have a long way to go toward being as used as email and IM :-).

Linkspank TV: Planning the Pilot

Our Linkspank TV team had its kickoff meeting today. I think we have an awesome team and I feel lucky to be working with such skilled, creative, chill dudes and dudettes.

The goal: create a pilot (or some pilot segments) by end of October or early November. It will be a bit experimental and we have no need to be perfectionists about this so we can move fast.

Before I described some of the segments we were thinking about. For now, we're going with a "video montage" (summarizing the week of spanks), a "superlatives" section (again, regarding the week of spanks), and a "street report" (a variation on the oh so so classic theme).

How to Create the Greatest Site Demo Ever.

We've created a Video Introduction for linkspank (a "site demo").

A little part of our Video Introduction to Linkspank

Ok, so may it's not the greatest site demo EVER. But I'd put it in the top 95th percentile.

How to make one the way we made this one:

1. Explain what your site is to dozens, hundreds of people, verbally. In doing so, your pitch and explanation will evolve naturally to becoming increasingly effective - and you'll learn what people need to be explicitly told about your idea. Everyone helps you in this step, because you want your idea to be clear to anyone.

2. Create a positioning for your site. This is marketing mumbo-jumbo. People who actually know marketing and don't pooh-pooh the 3C-4P framework are useful for this step.

The reason you need to do this step is that it helps you figure out how to convey your message. Should your demo be slick or goofy? Is having a caveman in it a really dumb idea? Once your positioning is set, it provides the answers magically to all of these questions.

3. Storyboard the demo/video introduction. Pretend you are a cartoonist (even if your demo won't involve animation, as ours does). Long before anyone draws cartoons, they create "storyboards" describing, in excruciating detail, what happens in each "scene" of your demo. If this process sounds too creative to you, remember that you can always do it in Powerpoint.

4. Get a Flash artist/animator to executive your demo. Once you have the storyboard, you can show it to candidates and discuss whether they are the right person for it. In our case, we needed someone who knew flash and who could draw, but e.g. javascript skills were not required.

Notes:

+ This process has creative components - how do you make sure it goes well? The answer is to put as much of the creative work into step #3 by storyboarding everything in exquisite detail. You should let your Flash artist help you improve the idea in step #4, but any gaps in your description are areas of risk going forward.

+ Despite doing our homework, we have no way of being sure at this point how our audience will react to our site demo. But I will say confidently that if your site demo appeals to everyone, and everyone thinks it's unqualifiedly great, then you may have failed to stick to step #3 and maybe you created something too generic.

Just sharing my experiences! Don't forget to share your wisdom back with me ;-).

Seeking PR rep, plus a secret tip

We're seeking a PR rep! Someone who can get us on the cover of Wired, etc. Please pass along the word to any PR ninjas / divas. Inquires can be sent to prdiva [@] linkspank.com.

One of the PR-worthy things we are doing is launching a new contest, possibly on Monday. This contest is going to be crazy. The bling factor will be magnified. Stay tuned and strengthen your spank hand.

A Formula to (actually!) Use LinkedIn... and an Answer to the Classic Puzzle

This post will be rough but I wanted to share a formula for using LinkedIn.

Background: I want to start having some conversations on the Linkspank contest sponsorship program. To get various industry perspectives and advice, I need to make some connections.

The Formula:

1. Have a purpose. Most people on LinkedIn don't have a purpose for networking. Which is fine (unless you ask the Never Eat Alone guy). But you need a purpose to do this - getting a job, hiring someone, or in my case, setting up chats with people to get advice.

2. Search for the people you want to contact. E.g., I want to speak to someone from Orbitz, so I search LinkedIn for "Orbitz."

3. Sort your search by degrees of separation from you and throw out everyone higher than degree 3. They are too far away. InMail, referrals, all that stuff on the site - not going to help you with these guys (or anyone).

4. For each person you'd like to contact... (we'll call that person the "match")
a. Visit their profile and confirm you want to contact them.
b. See on their profile page which of your contacts connects you DIRECTLY to that person. We'll call that person the "connector."
c. Contact "the connector" and ask if that person is willing to send you the "match"'s contact info, and also to send an email to the "match" mentioning as much.

5. Contact the "match" by phone and email... and do whatever it was that you were setting out to do.

Notes

(i) Referrals on the site don't seem to work too well.

(ii) Anyone further way than 2 is not really reachable. Who gives a fuck if the CEO is your mailman's chiropractor's husband?

(iii) Observation (ii) gives us our answer to the Classic Puzzle - "who is worth adding as a contact on LinkedIn? Is it worth it? Why am I always logging in just to approve requests and then leave immediately?"

"What is the point of this crap?" Answered!

Answer: connect with someone if you know them enough to ask them the favor in #4. Which is not really all that well - you don't have to have worked with the person. But it's a good reason to build your network with acquaintances who you respect and know a bit about.

More on the TV Show

As I mentioned we're going to have a Linkspank TV Show.

The team is almost formed - we're working out the details. This is slated to be a weekly, low-budget show viewable via YouTube or another source. It will highlight some of the best spanks of the preceding week.

Here are some of the segment concepts we've tossed around (how's that for openness!):

1. Commentary on Recent Linkspanks.

• Example: let’s replay this video, “Snake coughs up entire hippo” and attain a deeper understanding of what’s going on J. Also commentary on more serious spanks, so this could vary a lot in tone.
• Comparable to shows that comment on viral videos. Talk show quality.

2. Lightning News.

• We actually report the news. Maybe a headline blitz – all the week’s news in 30 seconds.
• Comparable to real news + MTV news or something.

3. Interview: Viral Video Creator.

• We track down and interview the people who have created popular spanks.
• Comparable to a talk show / news.

4. Interview: Portrait of a Spanker.

• We interview prominent Spankers. Who is the mastermind behind KidBaby? How did he reach Level 5 with such a low quality rating? Do we think he’s in the running to win the secret Spankathon prize?
• Comparable to ESPN sideline reporting. (How did it feel to score the winning touchdown? What will it take to win next week?)

5. Street Reports.

• We interview people on the streets and review local establishments. This is usually pretty fun.
• Comparable to : that geography quiz video.

6. Caller Segments.

• We let people call into the show and discuss a concept that we just shared or something from last week.
• Comparable to : radio or TV talk show.

7. Reporting and Analysis of Current Contests.

• We give John Madden X and O diagram – type analysis of current contests- who’s winning, how, predictions, analysis, opinions.
• Comparable to : ESPN shizzle.

8. On-Air Games

• Game show type activity oriented around linkspank, with opportunity to win points on Linkspank and/or sponsor prizes.
• Comparable to : game shows, Linkspank itself .

9. Workplace disruption missions

• Visit spankers in their workplace or try to convert bored workers to the spank. Try not to get sued!
• Comparable to : nighttime TV skits, YouTube stuff.

Jason Fried and 37signals

I trekked to Providence to hear Jason Fried of 37signals speak this week.

Random picture of Jason Fried from somewhere else

I'll quote here:

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that's not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn't).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don't.

Lightning summary:

• I know and agree with his philosophy (maybe from influences of Google, non-tech aspects of my background, friends, my own laziness) -- this is definitely Super-Official Linkspank Philosophy...

• ... but I still found the talk useful and will probably check out their book (which you can read free online - go smarties). Based on my limited experience I have admiration for the products as well.

Cover design was not important to this book.

• The limitations and influences of Jason's theory are not well explored. When asked how Google had influenced him, Jason said he didn't know. C'mon! Google was the start of this with its pristine homepage back in '98.

• Another limitation can be inferred from Google's experience - this method doesn't work well for integrating products. Don't things become more complicated at some point? Isn't the process of managing many simple tools complicated, and isn't there some way technically to help a person do that? (Of course - like any operating system, microsoft office, your Google account.) The more you hammer on this point, the more the general philosophy starts to fall apart and becomes nothing more than "we prefer to focus on building simple products" :-).

The whole thing and especially the last bullet raises a question for Linkspank - which is its scope? How complicated should it be and how wide should its set of features be? Example: people often ask for features that other sites have, especially adding more photos :-).

Short answer: I think Linkspank's feature set can grow, but we still DEFINITELY have work to do around the core idea.

List of Things on my Mind

The irony of blogging: we tend to do it least when we are busiest and have the most to share :-).

In that vein, I will simply list some of the things on the radar screen:

+ Forming team for linkspank's weekly Internet TV show
+ Polishing design for browser toolbar
+ Working on model for corporate sponsorship of contests
+ Iterating over and over on site UI
+ Sit-down and A/B tests with users on UI
+ teeing up formation of advisor board
+ coming soon: new site preview / demo
+ very excited about MBA team helping with business plan / pitch
+ possible upcoming event: National Sticker Day

We're doing a TV show

We're going to have a Linkspank Internet TV show.


How freakin' cool is that?

Goal is to have a rough pilot by the end of October.

We have two co-anchors for the show, to be introduced later. Can you guess who they are???

Facebook Apps for Linkspank, Part 1

Development began and almost completed today for a baby Facebook app for Linkspank. It will hopefully debut next week.



I would bet any sum of money that if you were to guess what the app did, you'd be wrong! :-). I'm trying something slightly different from what the sites most similar to ours (as if any other site could be placed in the same category as linkspank) have been doing. To be discussed more later.

I must say, the development environment is great. Wow! I personally don't think the open apps environment is strategically the best move for facebook (I know I'm a lone warrior on this) but I must give the development environment, tools, and wiki big props.

The Death of Business 2.0

I got my last issue of Business 2.0, which has been canceled. While I didn't consider it a paragon of journalism, and did find its predictions of "What's Next" a little repetitive, I am still quite sad to see it go. I joined the Facebook group to save the magazine but to no avail.

bye

What will I miss? I can put it in these terms. One of my entrepreneurship professors presented our class with a series of new businesses, a great many of which turned out to be no-go's. When asked if this was a dirty trick to fool us, he explained that we are too accustomed to studying success cases, and ignoring failure cases.

One thing I liked about Business 2.0 was that it reported on not-yet-successful cases-- so, as in my entrepreneurship class, you got a flavor of the failure in with the success. That was a good thing. On the other hand, the magazine had a tendency to depict everything it reported on with glowing optimism, which was not realistic (and maybe the opposite of realistic). Reporting with more skepticism would have improved the usefulness of the publication to everyone (except maybe the companies being covered).

I guess now I'll just have to read even more blogs as a substitute. Sigh. Maybe blogs are the way of the future, but it's a pretty disorganized shuffle right now. Maybe Linkspank can help someday...