Messages using linked and ping.fm to blogger

Using Hoot Suite www.hootsuite.com as an agent. Online, columns for types of msgs, delayed posting, stats, nice layout, try it out >> amiv2

http://ping.fm/Bde85 a simple way to feed short messages to networks + applications inside + mobile > these mgmt apps = mushrooms after rain :) :)

Israeli Venture Capital Start-Up Process Broken

Tel Aviv stock exchange dipped 50% during 2008-2009 (1,200 to 600 to 1,000.) Start-up activity still down and slower to recover

It is not a secret that the Israeli technology sector is taking a nap. A big component of Israel's success in the technology sector was start-ups. Israel's entrepreneurs and engineers got into the business of starting up companies and selling them to American companies. This business has been going for over 10 years until about 2005. American venture funds bring investment capital from Wall Street and American retirement funds. Israelis start companies and usually sell them to American companies. The return in this sector is usually higher than the stock market. Everyone is happy. Until something changed!

In 2006, 2007 and 2008 there have been very few "exits". 2009 is not much better. These are sales of companies or initial public offerings in the stock market. Exit(s) is a buzz word in the Israeli start-up sector. It is what Israeli entrepreneurs seek more than anything else: cash for a 5 to 10 year hard work. Selling a company brings good returns to the investors and does not involve the process of taking a company public. But the shift in technology from software and networking to Internet and software services has slowed down the investment-development-exit train. Established venture capital funds were dealt a blow, many small ones are completely gone. Entrepreneurs in many tech sub-sectors needed to reformulate their ideas and start working on new prototypes. What Israel can teach the world is how quickly change happens. In US and other large markets change does not have to happen as quickly. The market's momentum can hold up companies and financial pipelines. But then they eventually crash. In Israel small scale reveals quickly what changed and where the new developments are going.

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Blogging: Timing and Style for Starting Out

Lorelle one of the first popular blogger wrote a tips book, order on her site or Amazon [Amazon Link ~ http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Tips-Lorelle-VanFossen/dp/1424343615]

This post follows the one on blog services cost. Timing and style are extremely useful factors in starting and maintaining a blog. Timing article posts, promotion, social network ties, promotion and background work is crucial. Style is also crucial in your image, reader bounce rates and the overall blog's caliber.

Timing for better blogging results and motivation

Timing is one of your driving factors when starting out a blog. The speed in the blogosphere is driven by the blog's audience. There is no delay between your article's posting and the reaction from the outside world. Your writing and editing speed is essentially the most crucial factor to take into account. The other factors, building a blog, content writing and editing, promotion, advertising, tagging... all the "stuff" it takes to put up the posts and drive people to them are secondary (and completely up to you.) If you put time and resources or hire someone to produce the blog you can get going in days. If you have resources or money to promote and advertise you can get people to notice your blog in hours. The same goes to your ability to promote your blog in other blogs, social tagging and networking sites. Timing also means how your blog relates to your readers and the rest of the industry (competitors, traditional media.) Some bloggers have made a name for themselves by quickly posting breaking news. Some bloggers write opinion and analysis articles, specially in politics, finance and international affairs. Opinion and debate blogs are also knows to keep a fast pace. In business and retail there are also blogs centered around breaking news. In consumer electronics and gadgets such as portable devices and communication services also break news quickly. In down times like weekends it is time to maintain, try new designs and perform background research and writing. With Web20's injection of vitality into our Internet use there is plenty of things to do: twitter announcements, FaceBook excerpts of posts, Linked-In group announcements. Tagging on Stumble-Upon, Digg and Technorati can also be done on off times. There is plenty of things to do in communicating your message to the world.

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Seth Godin's Books: WEB2.0 by Trial & Error

If you are not familiar with Seth Godin you are in for a treat. Godin is a Fast Company contributing editor turned blogger and book author. In this talk he tells the story of how he got blogs and books noticed by trial and error. His blog is a stream of ideas about the none technical aspects of WEB2.0. Actually, I do not think WEB2.0 is the best term here, maybe more the interaction of Internet use with everyday life. This is a refreshing change to many people that are not interested or do not understand the technology itself. To make a technology useful and relevant there are many aspects which need to be clear and simple. Social networking as an idea and in services like Linked-In, MySpace, Twitter and FaceBook are simple and useful. Godin is a writer in this vain. In this video clip he highlights both the good and the bad of the changes due to the Internet, it's use and the way people benefit in the end. Eventually business models are used to explain the financial part. Since Godin is not a technologist he brings a practical viewpoint: how do people communicate and how technology is useful for them. This discussion can go on and on. Here are just two points on what Godin has to say:

Seth Godin for Technologists:

Technologists usually are not good in simplifying ideas. Seth Godin's writing and blogging is useful in their simplicity. They are also useful in cutting through the detail explanations and getting to the core benefits. Godin is not shy about describing the shift from paper based publishing to the electronic format. He does not put down the old business model. But he also clearly points out how "unfair" the shift is for the older businesses. It is interesting that someone in the publishing world is more clear about the situation than the technologists themselves.

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Pausch's Last Lecture as a Learning Example

An opportunity like this only comes once in a long time, certainly once in a few years. An example of a really inspirational talk by a   R E A L     G E E K ! &nbsp: NOT A MARKETER or a slick salesman. A real technologists and a college professor of virtual reality. If you are a technologists or an engineer turned marketer here is a great example of how to talk and get not just interest but respect and admiration. The topic is nothing too technical, actually for most technologists it may seem boring to hear a professor talk about his career half way through... but once you see the video and read the story, it will give you lots of ideas and inspiration about what you are doing and how to tell your story.

See on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Summary: Randy Pausch was a VR (virtual reality) professor at Carnegie Mellon. This puts him in the Uber-Geek category in my book. In 2007 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and as the tradition in academia goes he was asked to give "the last lecture". This is a tradition of retiring professors imparting their last bit of wisdom to their students. But this is the last bit of tradition and sentimentality in this story.

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Learning from Pausch Beyond the Grave

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