Unfortunately this suits me to a T.  I’ve been a very happy Kindle user for a few years now but the concept of being able to check email, surf the web, watch a movie…AND read ebooks is extremely appealing.  Of course we’ll see if the readability on the iPad is even close to the Kindle, which I very much doubt.  The question then will be, will the pros outweigh the cons.

Any other Kindle lovers considering making the switch?

via CHART OF THE DAY: Kindle Owners Already Wishing They Had An iPad Instead.

I read this on Fred Wilson’s blog and couldn’t agree more. He lists the 5 characteristics he sees the most in successful entrepreneurs:

1) A stubborn belief in one’s self

2) A confidence bordering on arrogance

3) A desire to accept risk and ambiguity, and the ability to live with them

4) An ability to construct a vision and sell it to many others

5) A magnet for talent

What would you add to this list?

And its for wearing a seatbelt.  I almost never post a spot like this but damn, so simple but SO well done.  I love this.

According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites.

via Facebook directs more online users than Google.

In case you missed this, thought I’d point out how massively HUGE this data is.  Social media has always been the best way to engage with customers, typically focusing on the end of the sales funnel.  If it starts encroaching on Google’s dominance over search…game over.

I’ve got two conferences coming up that I’m really excited about.  And I won’t be speaking at either one which is great because I can just show up and soak in the smarts :)

The first is The Art of Marketing which is in Toronto on March 2nd. Among other speakers, Seth Godin will be there. Read his books and blog but never seen him speak. Very excited about that. And check out that skyline above, who wouldn’t want to go there?!

The second is South by Southwest. It’s tagline is, “Tomorrow Happens Here”. I’ll be there from the 12th thru the 16th (the interactive portion). I’ve never been, but its always been known as one of the best conferences for digital, music and film.
Let me know if you’ll will be at these conferences…

Hollrr is the newest social product that’s getting a lot of attention lately (TechCrunch, Mashable, etc.). I posted a blog recently about Hollrr but the easiest way to describe it is FourSquare for products.

I reached out to their “Chief Hollrr”, David Hegarty (his Hollrr page), to find out more about this new service. I find founders of companies like this extremely inspiring and he certainly didn’t let me down with his answers in this interview.

Tell me how you came up with the idea for Hollrr.

David: I’m a sucker for discovering new stuff. The discovery of an awesome new product makes my day! It makes me happy to find out that someone has been thoughtful or clever enough to create something that brings joy or solves a problem I had.

All the really good discoveries I make … come from the recommendation of a friend. I wanted a better way to hear about all the cool things my friends were discovering.

So why Hollrr? There are a few other services trying something similar, what is it about Hollrr that is different and most likely to make it succeed?

David: Hollrr is about the little guy… its about rooting for that awesome new product that none of your friends know about yet. Its about getting giddy on finding a really cool new product…. or discovering that someone already makes a solution for that problem that’s being really bugging you the last couple of weeks. Its about finding that perfect birthday present for your mum.

We’ll succeed because that’s what we’re passionate about what we do…

What’s the team look like at this point?

David: There are five of us in total: Me, Benny (co-founder who looks after tech), Noonie (our stellar community manager), and two rockstar engineers (Jozef and Marcin) in Poland who are the driving force behind development.

You guys seem to be getting a lot of great press. And advice to other startups on how you’ve achieved that so quickly?

David: I dunno… i guess we’ve been lucky. I LOVE Hollrr… I love what it stands for… I like telling people about it… I guess if you tell enough people, some of them will start to write about it.

Outside of press, are there things you’re focusing on to drive usage? And do you have any tangible goals for users at this point that you’re trying to reach?

David: Hollrr is about building community. Its about building connections between people who are passionate about discovering new products. That’s the phase we are in now…building community. The next phase is about about connecting that community with the Entrepreneurs and Business behind those products. We want to recognize people who are great at identifying great new products… and allow companies of the products they support connect with them.

Are you able to talk about whether you’ve received funding or if you’re actively pursuing funding?

David: Hollrr is 100% bootstrapped. We are currently talking with investors….. but to be honest, we’d rather focus on building product and community that pitching!

Are there any plans to integrate Hollrr with online retailers? For example you could have a Hollrr This button in a confirmation email after a purchase. Are you looking at partnerships like this?

David: Yes! In fact there are already a couple or retailers that have the button on their site. Check out one of our favorites: http://www.appstandstore.com/

Any features we should be looking out for in the near future?
David: So many features to build… so little time! We definitely want to build bookmarks and plugins real soon, and an iPhone app in the very near future!

If you have questions for David, ask them in the comments section!

Every once in a while our VP of Digital Strategy suggests I try something new that I haven’t yet tried, and I begrudgingly try it, and my first reaction is “Well, this sucks”. Then I see him use it some more and I try it again and damn if I don’t start seeing the value. This actually happened with Twitter, which is why my first Twitter post was on April 30th, 2007 and my second one wasn’t until August, 27th 2008.

So lately he’s been on a kick for Aardvark.  Aardvark uses the people in your network to answers questions that you might have.  I’m not even sure they use “your network” because the example I’m about to show has someone I’ve never met answering a question for me.

So I started wondering what real question I could ask, something I actually wanted the answer to so I could test this sucker out.

And then it hit me.  I remembered some kind of animal Olympics cartoon being on when I was a kid.  I just remembered loving it but when I’d searched online I couldn’t find it.  Enter Aardvark.

I asked this question:

And I very quickly got back this:

I checked and yep, its exactly what I remembered as a kid.  So, I saw there were 9 different YouTube files for the movie.  Wanting my kids to see the movie in its entirety, I jumped onto KeepVid, pulled down the tracks and assembled them into one video file.

So thanks to Aardvark my kids were watching Animalympics today in all its glory.  Oh, and if you wanted to get started, here ya go:

Have you hollrred yet?

If you haven’t heard of hollrr, its kind of like the Foursquare of products. With Foursquare you tell people where you are and what locations you like, with Hollrr you tell people what products you’re using and why you like them.

Mashable wrote up a nice piece on the service so rather than me doing that, it’s best to check out their post.  Oh, and Hollrr at me here!

So…early predictions?

The Associated Press has decided that they are going to be pushing people via their Twitter account to their Facebook fan page to read articles. They post a bit.ly link and an article heading on @ap and the link takes you to the “Notes” page on their Facebook fan page. Apparently a lot of people think this is unbelievable dumb, or at least TechCrunch and their readers believe so.

I posted this comment on the article:

I’m having trouble understanding why everyone seems to have such a problem with the AP’s approach here. What’s the difference for the user? You click a link, you get to the full content, you read it. Perhaps people are confused and don’t realize you a) don’t have to be logged in to Facebook or even have a Facebook account to read the article, nor do you b) have to become a fan of their page to read the content. So why is this such a negative thing? (LINK)

There are many benefits (they might pick up new fans on their Facebook page, people can more easily share the content with their friends, etc.) but I don’t know why everyone is having a problem with this unless they misunderstand that you don’t have to actually have a Facebook account to view the content.

What I think is happening is that people don’t really understand the very different value that Twitter and Facebook allow publishers to tape into. The people commenting negatively on this seem to think they’re brilliant for saying, “Why would anyone use one social network to point people to another social network?”.

Well, maybe because Twitter is more of a publishing, directional medium than it is a social network. What’s the difference between what the AP is doing and someone posting that they have a new blog post on their Twitter feed, only to then <GASP> have a link on Twitter that takes someone to <DOUBLE GAPS> their blog, i.e. another social network.

I get really tired of people thinking they’re so smart when they don’t realize what they’re saying.

If you aren’t familiar with Startup Riot, according to the website its a:

…one day conference on February 17, 2010 in Atlanta, GA. Throughout the day fifty startups will take the stage and present themselves in 3 minutes and 4 slides. Presenters and attendees will have the opportunity to win prizes throughout the day.

If that doesn’t sound like a great time, I don’t know what is. I realize that most of the time this blog is focused on social media so I thought I’d give you some reasons why I wouldn’t miss an event like Startup Riot.

1. I’m an entrepreneur. A startup junkie. This will always be my #1 passion. I started my company in 1998 at the age of 21 and never looked back. In 2008, I sold my company to Engauge and I’ve stayed on as Engauge’s Chief Digital Officer, leading the Digital Innovation Group out of Atlanta. And although I don’t technically have my own company any longer (though I’m on the board of Engauge), I still remain connected to the startup community and have invested in several startups over the last year and a half. For the one person reading this that’s interested, you can read about my story in more detail here.

2. I want to support any efforts like this that support the startup community in Atlanta. I’m a staunch believer that Atlanta can and will be a mecca for entrepreneurship success and I’ll always fight for that to be the case. Some friends of mine and I started Shotput Ventures last year with that goal in mind.

3. My friend and one of the most active people in this space in Atlanta and a very successful entrepreneur and investor, Sanjay Parekh, puts this event on and anything he puts on is worth going to.

4. Bo Peabody is giving the keynote. Psyched about seeing him present.

5. Robert Scoble is going to be there. I need to meet that guy.

6. Lastly, I believe its imperative for someone in my position at a company to attend these types of events. If you are tasked with leading innovation within your company then there is no better place for you to be than at a startup event like this. In fact I wish all of my clients could come to this event. It would REALLY open their eyes. In the course of one day, I’m going to get to see 50 startups!  Fifty.  Five Zero.  That’s unreal.  You want to talk about tapping into the newest new? This is one of the only ways to do it. And damn if its not happening right in my backyard. I’ll also be attending SxSW in Austin, TX, next month with the same goal in mind.

So if you’re not going to be attending Startup Riot this year, make a note on your 2011 calendar and sign up for the mailing list so you don’t miss out next year.  You should be here.

For more about Startup Riot, check out this video:

Startup Riot 2009 Video Mashup from www.TechDrawl.com from Producer Celia Dyer-TechDrawl on Vimeo.