On Being a Nomad

A couple days after declaring to my facebook friends that I was "home, taking a break from being a nomad," I saw this.



Boy is that true for me. I have been visiting cities for 5-10 days, working, spending time with friends, getting opinions and advice on Linkspank. I started to envision a life like that in 2001, shortly after getting my first cell phone, when I was living in Europe. Now I'm living the dream. As the article points out, it can be done without having a lot of money. But so many many things are more important than money... to me at least.

the very first video blog post ever.

What makes a good video blog?

I ask you, after admitting my ignorance. Click through the video to comment your wisdom and subscribe, and the world shall be enriched.



And now, some real art. Found at Diesel Cafe. I need to credit the artists but I don't know who they are.

June Goal and Funding

I had a meeting today with a classmate from Chicago GSB and we went over the Linkspank pitch and discussed funding stuff. The pitch still needs some improvement but I'm happy with how it's coming along. The business model is laid out a bit more clearly too and some of the questions from the Investor Roundtable a few weeks ago helped me. Facebook makes about $5 of revenue per user per year based on advertisements. With its current activity, Linkspank would make about $1.50 per user per year. So you set the baseline for revenue that way and make arguments at growing the $1.50 to $5 and beyond, while keeping costs lower than a Facebook say.

His insights were different insights though, and they were quite helpful. He strengthened my resolve to gun for 10,000 spankers ASAP (June is the goal). So returning from Chicago I'm quite refreshed to prosecute the many prongs of this growth plan!

a rounded element.

Those roundy buttons are a small new experiment

This is a pretty microscopic issue, but it's a little piece of shared thinking lovingly from me to you.

In setting up the UI of linkspank, I wanted something that was clear and non-trendy. To this end there has been little in the way of rounded elements, which are cute but maybe a bit cutesy too.

Now though I'm trying to highlight that the spank and more buttons are buttons, so we're playing with the rounded corners. The size and redness of them appears to be appropriate for the inbox, but a bit overwhelming perhaps on the browsing pages where there are lots of spanks. Generally they are helpful for the newbies, a bit outspoken for the experts.

Smack Talk, Big Talk

I've scheduled some smack talk to appear on the blog soon. Some of it will be directed against others, as proper smack talk is.

You? If you're our competitor, probably. More coming Soon

First, though, I will engage in some Big Talk.

Our Next Goal: 10,000 Spankers by June.

Daunting and difficult. We currently have 2,000 spankers. So we are looking to multiply by 5 or so, in three months.

Can we do it?

Your momma can sure do it.

The Ad Model I Want: More like Gmail, Less like AdSense

Linkspank has no ads on the site, but if and when we ever put any on there, this is what I want.

NOT: Traditional AdSense style

• Ads based on content of entire page
  
• Ads driven heavily by words in URL and page title
  
• Ads load pretty much only on page load

WHAT I WANT: Ads behaving like Gmail Ads

• Ads load specific to a portion of a page (e.g., a Gmail message)
• New ads load when a new page loads (e.g., a Gmail message)
• Ads don't care so much about the URL or header.

This would be useful in particular for the Linkspank Inbox, where you pop up messages of interest to you. If you have tips on the subject, let me know! :-)