adpinion ftw

Curious about how online advertising would work for a mildly popular blog like mine, I signed up with AdBrite a little while back.

I'm not planning on retiring off of this blog, so gaining revenue wasn't really the goal (in true dot.com startup fashion). I wanted to see just how dismal the advertising would be.

I wasn't disappointed.Do people really send these things to their friends? Really?

I like Eeyore as much as the next person, but do readers of this blog really need some bling-bling for their MySpace pages? Maybe the folks at eComments.com know something I don't. True, most startup founders rave about their pimp juice animated .gifs -- that's what really goes on during those investor pitches.

Although I've been approving a variety of ads (and trying to weed out the really offensive seizure-inducing ones) the current leaderboard hasn't changed in something like two weeks. And as Rod Begbie pointed out in the comments a while back, it happens to be a reddit competitor -- repptide.Frankly, I just got tired of seeing this ad. Hopefully all of you have AdBlock on, anyway.

But if you don't, or your curious about whether or not it's possible to make online advertising not suck, I'm replacing all my ads with Adpinion. They're another YC company and I finally got my invite from them a month ago.

I think the secret was taking them all out for beer when they were in New York. Nothing quite like liquoring up a startup.

It's also a good litmus test -- if their alcohol tolerance is too high, they're not working hard enough. Maybe I should mention that to PG as a future metric for startups looking to get that first round of angel investment...

redditor builds his own sweet app or: why our users rock

Chirag Mehta, who you may remember from his fashionable victory at Mashup Camp, has created a clever tool for calculating your personal "reddit score card."

I'll stop writing about it, because you really ought to just try it for yourself. And if you think this is cool, you'd probably be impressed with some of the other stuff he's working on -- including a startup called Chime.tv, which I realized I've already shamelessly plugged. Oh well, this is a fun little app.

Hurry, it's racing up the hot page as I type...

redditors doodle: wednesday

Until yesterday*, this one was team reddit's favorite, so putting it here in the middle of the week seemed like the highest honor (traffic usually peaks for the week around Wednesday).

ElbridgeGerry creatively doodled this endearing chalkboard alien. Appropriately, Elbridge wanted to support his favorite charity, DonorsChoose.org, which a number of submitters also asked to plug.

DonorsChoose is indeed a splendid charity -- it's a great execution of a clever concept. I've done some shameless promotion of it in the past, ever since Joel Spolsky turned me onto it.

Celebrities are using it, too. The View host, Sherri "world is flat" Shepherd, is herself a donor -- a Chicago public school classroom received a globe and geography kit in her name. (And according to her comment, I'm getting lots of Heaven credits for it. Yay!)

Alas, Mrs. Shepherd did not submit a reddit logo.



*The inquisitive among you are probably wondering "why until yesterday?" The answer to that question will come tomorrow...

Don't get your hopes up for anything too interesting, you'll just be disappointed.

redditors doodle: monday

The first winner of redditors doodle the logo week.

Tim Peckham from Toronto sent in this lovely take on the reddit alien. He also mentioned in his email, "Love reddit! Read it every day," which I can assure you had nothing to do with our decision.

Tim used his promo opportunity just to plug the site he used to doodle and his tumblr blog:

I like to draw using http://artpad.com and then just screen grab.

me: hellotim.tumblr.com

So let me go ahead and give Canada some props. I hope some folks at immigration are reading this and will look kindly upon my future citizenship request (I call this "Operation President Giuliani").

Hope to meet you at the Toronto reddit meetup, Tim.

Oh, and there's some more Tim-related work at hellotim.com and timp.ca

a simple and useful website -- with a great name

I got word of a nifty web 2.0 startup last week that actually adds value to my life.

Doing a lot of travel for work is indeed fun, but it means a bunch of frustrating confirmation emails and trips between Gmail and Gcal. Taking those trips is significantly less fun than the one between SF and NY. Jetblue gives out little cookies. And animal crackers.

Here's the best part: it's dead simple. Just forward them your next confirmation email and an itinerary will be created. Once you view it, it'll ask you if you want to register (but yes, you can easily opt-out -- an excellent design choice) and collect all your future trips in an easy-to-read format.

Google, please copy this or just go ahead and acquire the site. In the meantime, I recommend the rest of you forward your next confirmation to plans@tripit.com. Oh, did I forget to mention that this site has a fantastic name?+19 points for the name (-1 point for not going with "trippit")
-2 points for not recognizing my Amtrak confirmation (only 2 points because of how lame Amtrak is)

corrections and retractions

We at redditall.com apologize for reporting some misinformation regarding Fuzzwich. We learned of this mistake during drankkit and would like to regain your trust.

In an entry from earlier this week, I wrote the following:

*Note: You may have noticed Ron Paul and the reddit alien still exist in separate fuzzwich universes and thus cannot be in the same mini-vid together; this was likely a conscious decision made in order to protect the balance of existence, one we must accept as for our own good.

This statement is false. I was just lazy and didn't page through enough characters to find the reddit alien. It is indeed in the politics section. Ron Paul is, too.

No word yet on the universal ramifications of this design decision.

And just in case you need proof, masterchef produced this mini-vid:

fuzzwich is like ytmnd 2.0 with style (and now a politics section)

FULL DISCLOSURE, to avoid PAA (Pulling An Arrington): I was a member of Y Combinator, as are the founders of Fuzzwich. I am not in any way invested in their startup or their success. Granted, I'd like them to succeed, just as I'd like any YC startup to succeed.

Except for Justin.tv, I really hate those guys. They still owe me a beer for their gorilla.

UPDATE: The last time I was in SF, the Justin.tv crew did indeed buy me a beer (2, in fact) as well as dinner. Fatwa over.

The concept of Fuzzwich is simple: easily build a quick and professional(enough)-looking animation, share with friends and family, bathe in their praise, repeat. Admittedly, despite how much I like the pixel art look of the site, I didn't quite get the concept at first.

It all made sense to me once I compared it to the 5 iconic letters of my Internet upbringing: YTMND.

"You're The Man Now, Dog" (long story) has always been a staple for finding quick n' dirty viral .gif animations, be they geeky, catchy, inappropriate -- or all three. This site single-handedly spawns (and/or beats to death) all kinds of Internet memes.

If Fuzzwich can become that source for anyone -- not just those of us who care about esoteric geek culture and don't mind reading that heinous WordArt-looking text -- who wants to create something cool to share, they'll be in a great place. I'm convinced that by flattening the learning curve so that such "creativity tools" were painless enough, even Steve could create some pretty neat things. And Fuzzwich does it with style, too.

But why does my spellcheck keep telling me "Fuzzwich" isn't a word?

To demonstrate the site's potential (and show off their recently created politics section -- take that, JibJab) I've created a minivid scientifically-proven to provoke any reddit user. It took me no more than 7 minutes; I had to get the song just right.

Hint: there's a Ron Paul figure included. No Mike Gravel character yet; I hope they can animate the rock toss. Or better yet, maybe they should add the reddit alien...

We all can't invest the time and energy of Andy Samberg and the SNL Digital Shorts crew, but it doesn't take much to create a viral online vid. Besides, Fuzzwich is about sharing creative works, not walling them in. We'll see how long this clip of "Iran So Far" (a tribute to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) lasts on YouTube...

Oh, Mahmoud...

eat like a startup founder: free thai iced tea/coffee with some great pad thai

Once we got our angel funding, eating out became a much more routine experience for us. We finally got back up to our old belt sizes. One of the places we loved most for grub was Benjapon's, near Davis Square (the greatest of squares, despite not actually being a square).

Steve and I (often with Justin and Emmett) would visit regularly. This was after kiko sold, but before Justin.tv launched, so they had a lot of free time (the 4 of us beat X-Men Legends). Anyway, Steve was a big fan of their pad thai; I usually stuck with the pad thai, but also switched between the drunken noodles and assorted curries. None disappointed. We really love this place. It's hard not to, everyone there is wicked friendly.

(Can you tell I've never written a restaurant review?)

FULL-DISCLOSURE: Neither Steve nor I am Thai, but we know yummy Thai food when we taste it.

Anyway, I've tried to keep in touch with the owner (guess what her name is) since we moved away last year (OK, I'll tell you, it's Benjapon). Since I know most of you are probably money-conscious startup founders in the Cambridge area, I thought it'd be worth mentioning her restaurant "startup" (not in the Paul Graham-sian sense of the word, but a startup nonetheless). Then I thought I could sweeten the deal by offering to pay for your thai iced tea or coffee (get it? They're sweet).

I suggested it in a recent email and she took me up on the offer. So if you order from Benjapon's this month and say "reddit sent you," I'll pay for your drink.

Hurry, before it gets any colder ;-) you'll just want that warm Thai food even more (yes, they deliver).

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