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So facebook is now valued at $15 Billion. How real is that valuation? I’m not 100% sure. It’s probably part hype and marketing to fuel Microsoft’s advertising services, but it does go to show that user activity is a good and valuable thing.

This was one of the reasons behind our mantra that users should be paid for their participation. If a company can play people’s participation online into a valuation of that amount, we felt those same people should get at least a piece. In fact, half of everything we earn with our future model.

Considering we’re combining social networking with product reviews here at SharedReviews, I’ve been following the progress of companies like Judy’s Book for a while that focused on the local service space. I thought the move that Judy’s Book made last year to re-focus their business model on local deals versus local service reviews based on mounting competitive pressure was a good one. I noticed on Andy’s blog, and Techcrunch this morning that they’ve announced they’re scaling operations, letting go of most of their staff, and re-focusing efforts to find a strategic acquirer for the assets of the company.

If you’ve ever doubted Andy’s abilities at communication, read his post on the subject here. If I ever have to face such a hard decision and announcement that affects so many, I hope I’ll be able to do so with similar style and grace as he did in his post. Good luck Andy, and we’ll miss Judy’s Book. You were all doing some very cool stuff we’re going to lament not seeing come to fruition.

We launched the referral program over at SharedReviews yesterday. It’s pretty basic to start, everyone who signs up and references an existing member earns a free review credit which is worth about $2 each. The person who was listed during the signup receives a great bonus themselves, earning up to 4 review credits ($8) when their referrals achieve certain milestones of approved reviews themselves. Specifically:

* 3 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit
* 10 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit
* 25 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit
* 40 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit

We’ve also launched some buttons that people can use on their site. When someone clicks on any one of them, the sign up page locks the user name of the account that generated the button so make sure you login and get your own button code. Since I don’t want to earn any referral credits for my own account, I figured I would reward our top 3 reviewers by placing their nicknames behind the sample buttons below.

Here’s the Button:

Here’s the Banner:

Here’s the Medium Rectangle:

We’ve finally launched the beta, quite a while after we had hoped. Little did we realize that to get the necessary pieces in place so that we can release the full site later this year without issue, we would have to build out over 80% of the backend just to expose the portions of the site that launched yesterday. Either way, we’re still on track for our full release which is great, I’m just hoping we didn’t lose any of the goodwill with all of you who have signed up pre-Beta.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen an email yet, we’re just working through a couple of things on the email side and testing a few last minute fixes before we send them out this afternoon. If you happen to see this before our user emails go out, you can already login and start the process anytime so, ready… set… Share your Reviews!

Not as easily as some may think. I came across this post today on Jason Calcanis’s blog commenting about a potential reality call in the Web 2.0 market due to the credit crunch that’s threatening the economy right now. I disagree, and wanted to expand on a couple of points that I feel justify my opinion.

1) Credit crunches and economic slowdown inevitably result in less consumer spending. This means that less is spent on entertainment or going out, and any remaining luxury spending is qualified a hell of a lot more, resulting in more consumer research and less impulse buying. Not so good for Walmart, but IMHO a potential short term boon for the Internet. With over 90% of Internet users increasing the efficiency of their spending by researching products online, this will definitely benefit quite a few Web 2.0 startups.

(Disclaimer: Not only am I a founder of an Internet Startup, but our startup is dedicated to helping consumer’s research purchases online)

2) He states “The stock market correction is going to have an impact on advertising…”, implying a negative effect for the Internet ad industry. My experience is that businesses that see a downturn in sales tend to get more aggressive with their marketing tactics to find those consumers that are still spending in the short term. This means that even though they may start to cut ad spending, a need to increase efficiency with their remaining marketing budgets will inevitably lead them to focus on one of the most highly measurable and effective advertising verticals… Internet Advertising. More consumers spending time online combined with more advertising dollars being spent to capture a decreasing revenue stream in a more measurable way, to me equals enough of a boon for Web 2.0 companies to offset any consumer negatives in spending.

He closes off his article speaking to the pains and scars he received from the bubble. I can tell you I personally have a few of those myself, but even with the fear built from the last explosion, the one thing I take away from the trending downturn is that things aren’t the same as when the bubble burst. Instead of tech companies leading the charge down that rolling bear of a hill, this time we’re a bystander and actually in a pretty good position to see some insulation from any shakiness in the market.

After spending several years catering to it, I still closely watch what’s happening in the domain aftermarket. In the last couple of days there’s been a flurry of activity from a Business 2.0 article on Kevin Ham by Paul Sloan. I think the article’s great since it gives some well deserved credit to Kevin and Colin for the fantastic domain empire they’ve built over the years. Although I never had the opportunity to interact with them directly, I’ve been afforded many an insight into how savvy these guys are from a few of the competitors they and I both dealt with over the years.

An interesting thing occurred since that article was posted, the overwhelming focus seems to be a public backlash on the deal they did with the Cameroon government to wildcard the .CM CCTLD. What this means is that any traffic that goes to an unregistered .CM domain (such as sharedreviews.cm) resolves to a page with advertising hosted by these guys out of Vancouver. Although I won’t comment on the brand infringement that could occur from .com domain typos that I find unsavory, overall it was a shrewd business deal and one that I’m sure many an individual are kicking themselves for not thinking of first.

To me, the biggest benefit in the article is the exposure of the light side of the Direct Navigation search market. With our new startup, companies like Marchex, Hitfarm, Demand Media, and many others who are looking to develop their domains into microportals are great targets for us to license content from our startup in order to generate additional lucrative revenue streams for our community. Take a look at a post I made on our startup blog yesterday that touches on the power of product reviews, and what they can do for anything from ecommerce providers, to corporate sites, or even microportals such as those that Kevin, Marchex, and Demand Media own.

In either event, maybe Mark is right… this may have more to do with reader political affiliation than any real issues with these guys directly

Our Press Release went out this morning almost a day after the site went up, but we wanted the extra padding to make sure we had a chance to implement any last minute changes we wanted to do. [inside Voice] Submit your release for distribution a minimum of 24 hours prior to the timing you’re looking for.[/inside Voice]

A special thanks goes out to John who gave us a hand in refining the text, and another to PRWeb for helping with the initial draft.

You can read the entire press release on PRWeb here and our blog here, but there’s an excerpt for you below

Toronto, ON (PRWEB) May 16, 2007 — SharedReviews.com, a product review marketplace, today announced the launch of its website at www.SharedReviews.com. Beginning early next month, the site will accept reviews from signed up contributors on any retail product, ranging from baby cribs to cell phones and everything in between. Individuals can visit SharedReviews.com now and sign up to participate in the site’s beta contributor release, earning direct cash incentives for the experiences that they submit.

We’ve finally launched our startup SharedReviews.com. We’re all exhausted and a bit wiped from burning the midnight oil trying to ensure everything went smoothly today. So far everything’s gone extremely smooth (knock on wood), but there’s definitely a mental note in there somewhere to invest some additional time prepping before the next launch.

We’ve had some blog exposure that’s helped the generation of consistent signups since we opened the doors late this morning, although we do hope to get even more soon. Such a long road, but we are extremely excited to see all of the positive reactions we’ve received to what we’re trying to do.

Here’s a link to our first corporate blog post. The excerpt is below and I’ll keep posting as more developments happen or when I catch my breath, whichever comes first.

It’s been a longer road than I thought it would be to get to this point (isn’t it always), but we’re finaly here and really look forward to throwing our ideas into your hands for some feedback. I thought long and hard about what to put into this first post and decided to start off with the ideals behind what we are attempting to accomplish before getting into the gritty details of how we plan on doing it…

I’m an avid reader of Guy’s blog and I have to say I’m a huge fan. I’ve posted about how my favorites were his posts on the top ten lists of lies by both VC’s and Entrepreneurs that elicited a few smiles to say the least. Although, there was one thing that kind of perturbed me as I read them. It almost appeared to me that he had a bias against or negative perception of entrepreneurs in general.

Now I’m not saying Guy intended this negative tone on purpose. He was on the other side of the table for many a “pitch” by hungry entrepreneurs, and I’m sure a few of them left their ethics hats in the closet that day incorrectly thinking it would get them closer to achieving their dearly needed capital. Although I never agree with a “ends justifies the means” approach, it does happen with the unexperienced and desperate so I could see how facing it repeatedly could lead to some negative stereotyping.

That’s why I found the newest post on Guy’s blog especially interesting. He’s switched sides and became an entrepreneur himself with a new venture called Truemors. His latest post was about a previous request he made for testers, and a few of the resulting comments that blasted the business idea. His new post basically stated that as an entrepreneur you have to take negative criticism with a grain of salt, and if every entrepreneur believed all the ‘naysayers’ then nothing truly innovative would have ever been created. Very true, and it’s great to see that he now sees the playing field from the other side of that table.

I can support that by highlighting some of our experiences. I’d say that out of all the startups I’ve worked on, the new one we’re launching next week has the best foundation from an operational, user value, and potential revenue perspective than the others combined. I know, like I would say anything different, but we’ve had some extremely positive feedback from experts in many Internet verticals so these aren’t just a bunch of pie in the sky statements I’m making here folks. We’ve even been in the unique position (at least for me) of having to turn down investment offers due to a lack of strategic fit. (Disclaimer: We already secured enough seed capital to get to launch so we wanted more on the table than cash alone.)

With all this going for us you’d think the skies the limit, but I’ve been both successful and unsuccessful with investment groups that gelled strategically. No matter how solid your business idea or the fit, you will come across those that just don’t “get it”.

That’s why I can’t extol the need to grow a thick skin more, especially when dealing with critics before your business model’s been tested. Be prepared for those that make negative assumptions without doing their research, those that misunderstand your goals or vision, and even those that will break your efforts down just for the sake of not wanting to see you succeed.

No one will believe in your ideas if you don’t have unwavering faith in them yourself, and for those that will never believe, your proof can always be in the pudding.

One of the first questions I ask during interviews to increase the ranks here at the startup is

“Do you have any hobbies or other ways to vent stress?”

That’s a very important question, and I’m reminded of it more often now that things are ever approaching our new site launch where unmovable deadlines rear their ugly heads. Stress can be a wonderful thing, it inspires heights of production and creativity you can’t imagine, but you have to have the stamina and the outlets necessary to be able to cope with it in a healthy manner. Otherwise, it can quickly run you down and pop any bubbles of grandeur your vision may have portended.

Stress is something I’ve personally always thrived on, if I don’t have stress I feel like I’m slacking or not progressing down the road of goals I’ve set out for myself. I live, breath, and eat stress, and the only times I can truly say I had concerns for my ability to cope at work was when stress was completely removed from the equation. It’s probably one of the biggest reasons I’ve always gravitated towards sales environments where you only get to eat what you catch.

Now stress does not mean conflict, although conflict will happen in any work environment especially when inevitable levels of brow furrowing startup stress builds within the ranks. It’s important that any conflicts that arise are put to good use such as challenging preconceived notions, or communicating your ideas with vigor and passion. That type of conflict I can handle everyday. It’s when you let conflict become the crux of a problem, instead of being used to solve problems that things can go awry.

When any conflict arises it’s important that those involved always take a step back and communicate after the fact to ensure everyone felt things were constructive and helped you down that path to achieving your goals. Copious amounts of communication can move mountains, and especially at critical times like these should be used without abandon to ensure that misconception and miscommunication don’t ruin the great chemistry that you’ve worked so hard to develop with your partners and co-workers.

Remember that stress is an integral part of any startup, and especially for those who are stress junkies like myself; the way you handle it is one of the most important ingredients to being a successful entrepreneur.

As we fast approach the new site launch within the next couple of weeks, I started to think about the Web 2.0 Expo and what some of the important takeaways were for us as a team.

I’ve played MMORPG’s in the past, the last one I devoted any real time to was Earth and Beyond which took up a few weeks worth of my waking life back in 2002. From my guildies to my character growth the game play and social dynamics were completely immersive and very addictive, which is one of the reasons why I haven’t moved on to any others since it was shut down. I now prefer to relegate my online gaming experiences to short tactical based shooters such as Counterstrike Source and Battlefield 2142. It’s something I can dive in, acquire an hour or two of fun, and turn off without issue since there are no real strategic ‘goals’ I can lose myself in trying to achieve. Are these tactical shooters more rewarding than a good MMORPG? I don’t think so. You don’t get the same immersion or social reward that you can from games like WOW, but I also don’t face the issues I did in 2002 like a fiancé screaming for attention or work being put to the backburner that negatively affected my progress towards goals that influenced my real life.

This startup is my new immersion since I can lose myself on a daily basis, acquire the social interaction I desire, and accomplish the goals I set out to that materialize on a daily basis. Plus, I still have the fiancé screaming for attention so I know the addiction has to be similar in some way. The key difference though is that this immersion is also moving me forward in real life, as opposed to the fake one I create in someone else’s world who I have to pay to participate in on a monthly or episodic basis.

The reason I’m explaining all of this is because a few of the sessions we attended focused on how the science of online gaming is leading the world in social interactive immersion, and that the basic principals of this science are applicable to online social networks. I totally agree, with the important difference being that social networks can provide the same or better rewards emotionally, but similar to how this startup rewards me, some of them can also help you become more knowledgeable and powerful in this thing we all call real life.

We’ve designed our platform to have immersive features that allow users to socialize and interact in an environment with a shared goal. Similar to online gaming it’s a goal that all users share to one extent or another, and our community members all have to collaborate and work together to achieve their goals. Those that focus more at working with others will be more successful than those that are interested in the altruistic rewards, but all users will acquire the gratification they are looking for no matter what they want when they enter our community. The key difference though is that the rewards they will be able to achieve add to their real life existence on a daily basis, and it’s something where members will be able to earn tangible financial incentives for the effort they invest into the community versus us charging them for their contributions.

There are some very exciting things about what we are planning to launch, and I can’t wait to hear feedback from all of you when we pull back that curtain and show off what we’ve been working so very hard to create for you.

I have to say that the conference is very well attended, from Entrepreneurs to Investors to Services Providers, right down to a ton of Enterprises all looking to leverage the “user revolution”. I would estimate almost three thousand attendees have come here from around the world, and even though some of the sessions were a little disappointing from a content depth perspective, we’ve acquired some valuable learning and the networking has been amazing so far.

To our surprise we’ve run into quite a few domain professionals here at the conference. It’s refreshing to be able to connect with these contacts in a non domain centric environment and talk about some of the stuff they’re working on in terms of integrating a little “web 2.0 sprinkle”, as Richard Rosenblatt likes to call it.

The keynote yesterday was a little disappointing since it appeared to be more of a pitch on Amazon’s new development services, but it was pretty cool to watch Tim O’Reilly poke Jeff Bezos over the Alexaholic incident in front of such a huge crowd.

Today’s keynotes were much better. There was some fantastic data analysis from Dave Sifry of Technorati and Bill Tancer of Hitwise on traffic trends, new site growth, and the health of the blogosphere. Also, there was a great interview with Eric Schmidt where they delved into everything from Google’s new presentation addition to their docs and spreadsheets family straight to comments on the recent Double Click acquisition.

That’s about all the time I have to blog for now, but hopefully I’ll be able to do a more in-depth write up once I get back from the conference. In the meantime I’m going to lose myself in some more 2.0 goodness.

I’m off to San Francisco tonight to attend the Web 2.0 Expo this week. There are a few of us from the team flying down together so we’re really excited about losing ourselves in the scene, exploring as much learning as there is available, and hopefully generating a bit of a buzz about our little project.

I’ll blog a bit about the conference during the trip, so stay tuned…

One thing about a startup is that you’re continually being challenged by your budget. It’s a nasty beast that threatens the vision you’re trying to shape on a daily basis, and unless you learn how to tame it and make it work for you, you’ll face huge challenges down that final mile to your launch date.

One important factor in shaping the use of that budget is defining your weak points and addressing them. It’s pretty easy to identify strengths, but defining the areas you’ll need help with is something you should work hard to identify earlier rather than later. It can be scary, but identifying your weaknesses early is a key to any success in early stage companies. Once this has been achieved, you have a few choices of addressing them dependant on how strategic they are to your plans where consultants and contractors offer a boon of resources that usually provide a hell of a lot more bang for the buck than hiring staff.

You like to think you’ve covered your bases when it comes to the key components of your management team, such as technical, marketing, sales, finance etc… but working with experts who live and breathe one of these verticals daily makes all the difference. Working in a startup requires a generalist’s approach even when focused on a particular area, and just the mere distractions that occur on a daily basis can take away from the output in areas you consider yourself to be an expert in.

One thing I truly believe is that when it comes to certain key areas, you can’t “No Frill” your way to success, and I was reminded of that after a 3 hour brainstorming session with the brilliant Marketing/Design team we contracted to help us with the brand strategy of our closed beta. We went through a thorough RFP process to identify our vendor of choice, but after the legal contracts were out of the way the fruit really started to shine as we’ve progressed to digging in on actual work.

I’ve learned it’s very important to focus on quality versus quantity when outsourcing important segments of your project. Identify the best, because even though they may be pricier than someone in your family or network, the output is almost always worth the expenditure. Top firms, whether they are a law firm, design firm, marketing firm, or tax consultants, attract the best talent when they consider new additions to their team. That talent and the associated deep resources are what you’re trying to leverage with your limited budget. Even though they may take a somewhat bigger piece of your budget pie, the odds are in your favor that they’ll have the resources and creative to go beyond your expectations in filling out your weak points.

A somewhat interesting fact has come to light as we go through the hiring process to fill gaps in our infrastructure. One of the key things I personally qualify through the interview process is the fact that a startup usually has a fun, relaxed, results oriented environment that allows participants to acquire equity, and be rewarded for their contributions in making passionate ideas become a reality.

This can be a double edged sword, and although I highlight the benefits I like to make sure the negatives are clearly communicated since it takes a certain personality type to thrive and contribute in this structure. It’s important to note that a startup can also be a hectic, stressful, chaotic environment with a lot of pressure on your adaptive skills to conform and succeed in an ever changing landscape.

When going through this process, it was surprising to me when asking applicants why they wanted to become a part of a startup to hear a few of them state that a flexible work structures was something they found most attractive. Meaning, working from home, leaving early, and taking days off were benefits they expected as compared to their current or previous structured corporate lives that required minimums of work hours on a weekly basis.

I have to disagree, and its import to note that although a relaxed process does translate into a more flexible results oriented “fun” approach to accomplishing goals, due to limited resources the environment is usually more labor intensive. With a vested interest past just a salary, there should be incentive to put in as much effort as possible while still balancing your personal life to offset burnout.

In either event, the important note is to ensure you qualify both the positive as well as negative aspects of a startup work environment so you can find the right people who will be successful in helping the project become a reality.

Since our project’s heading ever so near a public unveiling, I’m making this my inaugural article relating to our startup experiences. Although some details will emerge, don’t expect our whole story to come out until the timing’s right, but I hope that you can find a few of these tidbits valuable if you’re going through a startup process yourself.

Some of the most important feedback you’ll receive on your business plan will come from potential investors. The unfortunate thing is that investor feedback, at least at the VC level, can be harsh and is usually comprised of a “no” without much explanation or detail on the “why”. Take a look at Guy’s list of the top 10 lies by Venture Capitalists to understand where I’m coming from, but as a side note also take a look at his list of top 10 lies by Entrepreneurs to understand what to avoid on your side. In both of these articles however, one of the key’s highlighted to acquiring a favorable response from a VC is to ensure you clearly articulate your differentiation in the marketplace.

For us in particular, the User Generated Content monetization market is rife with success stories and failures over the last few years. One thing I don’t think anyone has done well enough is cornered the market on UGC consumer experiences even though a few startups have already been repositioning or sold due to competition in their particular choice of approach. Personally I see a lot of depth in what a consumer experience is or could be, and I break it down in a number of ways. The most important of which is drawing a line between whether it’s about a service or a product. In my mind the former relates more to a particular business or provider, and the latter relates more to the particular purchase where that distinction can end up with very different results.

Two real life examples I can use to highlight this is the difference in approach between yelp.com and epinions.com. One focuses on service providers in geographic locales, while the other focuses on the product itself, yet they are both services we feel we have little in common with. If we aren’t similar to either of them then where do we fit since there’s little perceived real-estate in between? That answer is one we’re working on attempting to articulate in word since we know there’s an unexplored gap between the two that we hope to leverage. Although reviews have traditionally been relegated to the periphery of user content generation with little emotional investment on the part of the reviewer, we feel that has more to do with the platform and the process than their actual interest level.

What this all means is that we have a significant challenge in clearly articulating our differentiation on paper without examples of our ideas in action, and if no one has really done it yet how do we articulate it effectively, especially if a VC is mired in what already exists today? Almost everyone we have had the pleasure of carefully sharing our plans with has provided extremely positive feedback. Someone I highly respect in the 2.0 space even went so far as to say “I think you have a winner here’, which for us meant the world, but I have yet to look at our executive summary and find myself 100% satisfied with the clarity of our message, then again as a typical perfectionist I probably never will.

The biggest thing I can share is that no matter how perfect or flawed your business plan, you are going to have to find the VC that has the square hole to your square peg, so don’t obsess over the details at the sacrifice of the product. Just make sure you explore multiple investment sources that make sense strategically and get help if your writing skills don’t meet the requirement. If your vision is realistic as well as profitable you should find the capital to help make it a reality in no time if you're persistent. No matter what keep at it, in my last startup during the bubble I was turned down by more than 10 VC’s before we were considered final four out of over 1500 business plans by the 11th, so timing and fit mean everything.

If I could ensure you take anything away from this article, it’s that the keys are making sure you understand your vertical well, have passion for what you’re doing and as someone who I highly respect attributed to his personal success… be persistent no matter what.

As we went through the office build out, we ended up buying some office furniture from staples which we found pretty cheap yet not bad quality at all. A couple of examples would be the desks and the office chairs, where for a leather manager’s chairs $69 CDN was a fantastic deal. I guess the only bad experience I’ve had with Staples Canada is their online store, and the frustrating story that started on February 9th when I ordered a whiteboard…

I went online, and when comparing a few retailers found their pricing for a decent sized 4’ by 6’ whiteboard to be competitive at just over $100… comparable sizes from other suppliers ranged from double to triple the pricing so I was pretty happy I found a good deal. Staples promised next day delivery so I decided to go for it.

The next day I get a call from a very nice lady stating the whiteboard was on backorder, and I’ll have it delivered in about a week and a half. I thought why not, no super rush so no problem. A week and a half goes by; the Friday February 16th comes and goes, no whiteboard, no phone call. Hmm, that’s strange; they’ve been very responsive so far, so on Monday February 19th I give them a call and spoke with a nice gentleman who tells me the whiteboard was on backorder, but they do have stock now and it will be delivered on Friday February 23rd. Great, I thought, so I went about my business working on all the myriad of things that had to get done and next thing I knew it was Tuesday February 27th before I realized that they still hadn’t delivered the whiteboard. I gave them another ring, spoke with someone… “The whiteboard was on backorder. It will be delivered Friday March 2nd. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but it is showing up in stock now and you will receive it this time”. Although it's a little funny, I have to admit I was also getting a little frustrated by this point as well.

I had been so consumed by work that it was Wednesday March 14th before I was reminded of the elusive whiteboard again…  of course no deliveries on either Friday since my last communication, nor any phone calls. So I call them up and this time, understandably, a little miffed to say the least. The response I get? “Sorry sir, the whiteboard was on backorder, but they have stock now and it will be delivered on Friday March 16th”… yeah right… I explained that this was the 4th or 5th time I’ve heard the exact same story, and the person tells me “You’re right, I’m not exactly sure why but *someone* at the warehouse keeps delaying your order by a week every week. Let me look into it and call you back” Thankfully this time I did receive a phone call a couple of hours later “The Mississauga location that was earmarked to make your delivery has been out of stock, and although we're showing a shipment being received on January 27th, it was never delivered so we’ll call you when we receive stock.”

Yesterday, Tuesday March 20th I gave them a call to check on the status “Sorry sir, the whiteboard was on backorder, but we do have them in stock now and you WILL receive it this Friday march 23rd”… <sigh>“If you have it in stock, why can’t you deliver it tomorrow instead of Friday?”… “Sorry, the order is locked so I can’t change it, but I am showing it in stock so you will receive it this Friday”

I’m not holding my breath….

I buy a lot of stuff, from gadgets, to clothes, to cars to all kinds of things my fast paced modern lifestyle requires. Throw my wife and family into the mix and there’s a whirlwind of consumption that makes Twister look more like a board game than a blockbuster movie.

With all of this hard earned income being spent, what are we gaining? Allot of stuff, sure, that’s why we’re buying things in the first place, because we need stuff… but I mean what do I gain as a consumer? What power am I acquiring and effectively using to improve my life?

They say the consumer has the ultimate power; they can sway markets and dictate the growth or demise of any business all through how they spend their dollars. Sure, where I choose to spend my money combined with all of the other buyers out there does affect the market, but is that the end of where our power lies?

I personally question whether my power as a consumer ends there. I think that with all of the hard earned income I dispose of on a daily basis I can influence things much more than just through my buying choices. With the advent of the Internet which allows me to interact with others in ways never dreamed of there has to be a better way that I can band with other consumers so that we may influence the market to meet the needs of our specific lives.

Specific life is the key term in that statement, feedback to manufacturers has been around for a while but that isn’t what I’m talking about. Some unnamed feedback form will never give the manufacturer the data they need to cater to my specific needs. I’m talking about something different, a vehicle that will allow me to leverage my buying power to its utmost, and maybe even assist with future purchases down the road.

That to me would be the vehicle that would enable me to fully leverage my true power as a consumer, and we hope to bring that vehicle to the market very, very soon.

As time progresses, pressure builds and we have so much to do with so little time. I can see competitors start to “get it”, I can see users start to demand it, I can see us working toward delivering it, and it's just not happening fast enough. Although I have to say that weirdly enough it's happening much faster than any of us originally anticipated.

We're hoping to have an Alpha launch of a portion of our service by the end of March, and although that may be a little too aggressive we're striving to put ourselves into a position where we can talk more feely and acquire more feedback, since without the feedback how can we design our service to meet our future user's needs. In the interim we plug away, focus on recruiting and building the best combination of contractors and employees we can find, and reveal little pieces of the puzzle as we can.

Speaking of which, I am very proud to be able to publicly announce that my Co-Founder is now in a position to reveal himself. Frank, welcome to the front lines, I look forward to you contributing publicly as much as you have been behind the scenes up to now…

I ended up heading down to the domainfest conference in the Hollywood hills this week, mostly because there are a few aspects to our new startup's business model that tie into the domain monetization market, but also because I knew it would be an opportunity to see all of the great people I've had the pleasure to get to know over my many years in the domain industry now that I’ve headed off on my own into a somewhat different vertical.

There were quite a few interesting sessions over the two days I was in L.A., but the one I found most intriguing was a keynote by Michael Arrington of Techcrunch fame where he touched on a synergistic convergence between what a ton of people are calling the web 2.0 phenomenon and the domain monetization space. Specifically, he cited the examples of what Demand Media is doing with a few of their micro portals, and how the learning from those efforts are fueling the hinted launch of a new Enom parking service that integrates social networking and user generated content sometime this year. Although Enom will more than likely require you use them for monetization in order to leverage this new platform, imagine if a new startup came out that offered something along the same lines which was also able to plug into any monetization provider you wanted? Well, enough hints for one day…

All in all the decision to head down was a big success. I received a ton of positive feedback on the little that could be divulged about our plans as well as lined up potential new partners and future customers for after we launch.