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 College.com is a direct competitor to Facebook, it’s pretty smart of them (minus opening the door to a lawsuit) to try and bleed away some of the traffic by taking advantage of the fact Facebook doesn’t get it when it comes to typo protection of their domain. This is why we registered a whole bunch of typo’s of our domain before we even got off the ground floor

IMHO unethical and nothing I would ever do, but if your biggest competitor leaves the door wide open like that…

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.

* 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:

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!

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.

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

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 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…

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.

“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.

Needless to say I’m still working my way up the WordPress learning curve, and I’ve lost allot of the links built over the years due to some quirkiness in the way Blogware created permalinks, but thanks to Frank (Thanks Frank!) and his wonderful DNS skills, I at least have my feed redirected and all of my permalinks go to the monthly archive for the original posts so you shouldn’t get lost trying to find the right article.

My next step is to look for a good stats package since the one my Hosting Provider gives by default melds all of the domains I have associated in the account. If anyone can share any recommendations on something free I can try, or something that doesn’t cost too much but does a fantastic job, let me know.

Goodbye Blogware, after over 3 years I’m truly going to miss you (sniff)

Although I never received a call that day, or the next, or the next… actually, I totally forgot about it again for a few weeks since I made due with some ‘Post It’ Easel Pad Papers, one day last week I received another call from Tracey again. She informed me that they finally found a store with one in inventory and my white board was going to be delivered the next day. The next morning I held my breath in sheer anticipation, and sure enough that afternoon I heard a knock on the door and there was my shiny new white board wrapped in a slinky outfit of sexy brown packing material. I just finished installing the unit and it looks great, so although it wasn’t as easy as it was supposed to be, I’m happy we have it and thanks to posts like these, hopefully Staples will always be listening in the future…

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.

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

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.

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.

On Domain Monetization

We note that there is a meaningful difference between Domain Tasting and Domain Monetization. Monetization is a straightforward arbitrage between the cost of domain registrations and the revenue from as much pay-per-click traffic as the domain owner can get from people who visit web sites in the domain. It’s a fundamentally sleazy business, since the web sites have no useful content and the way they get the traffic is basically by tricking people, either via typos or recently expired domains. More importantly, the presence of such website makes web-surfing by ordinary users far more difficult and confusing than they should be.

We do not think it is appropriate in this case to make ICANN as a regulator to watch and prohibit the Domain Monetization practices per se. Instead, on behalf of ordinary Internet users, we call upon those commercial enterprises such as Google or Overture to take appropriate measures such as to stop paying for clicks on pages with no content, thereby dealing with a problem that is not limited to typo and expired domains. We’ve seen click arbitrage, people buying Google ads to drive traffic to pages that are simply other Google ads. This kind of self-generating traffic for pay-per-click advertising is confusing and unnecessary for ordinary Internet users and, in the long run, not healthy for the development of Internet as a whole.

Since Domain monetization is a relatively new phenomena, the impact to the ordinary users and the wider Internet community is hard to measure at this point. It seems clear, however, that it does not improve the user experience at all. We think it is worth to keep watching on how it develops and may seek for specific actions when we have clearer understanding of measurable impact.

I haven’t read anything in recent years that didn’t shock me with its ignorance and arrogance more than these three paragraphs. It’s obvious to me this group has no idea of the impact or value Direct Navigation brings to the search market or to Google and Yahoo’s bottom line. Direct Navigation is a true form of search; it’s a way for a user to find a search term through the address bar of their browser without having to wade through pages and pages of organic search spam to find what they’re looking for. Although Typo’s and Expired traffic is an exploited portion of the market that has ethical concerns that need addressing, it is a small portion and doesn’t come close to outweighing the benefits the larger percentage of true generic domain monetization pages bring to the search space.

Thankfully there are groups being put together to fight this ignorance …

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.