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Dave Schappell moving into Comedy

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dave schappell and chappelle

That’s right, _____ (substitute Chappelle’s favorite word there…)

I’ve been itching to get back to the for-profit/net world for a few months… have had an unbelievably fulfilling 14 months at Unitus and I think I’ve made a positive impact on the organization, as is has on me. I’m a big believer in the Unitus approach to fighting poverty — by acting like a venture capital firm, to find the highest potential ‘banks for the poor’ and then investing in them to rapidly expand their outreach. I invite you to watch the Unitus 14-minute video and then get involved!

But, I was also ready to get back to a world where:
– you have a measuring stick in dollars/revenue (in the nonprofit world, metrics are scarce, and people can both take advantage of your services and then not recognize them; in the for-profit world, this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that they need to purchase your services and by doing so, they are recognizing value)
– technology/new media was the primary driver — in the end, I’m a bit of a geek — I get turned on by new technology and the latest toys. I was able to leverage that at Unitus to greatly increase our Internet traffic (from help from Tim Stay and Dave McClure) and in turn help to significantly increase our donations.
– my work was driving the main organization benefit — in the nonprofit world, I was working to drive funds for the organization and raise our awareness; but, our primary impact was on the ground in India, Mexixo, Argentina and Kenya. I just didn’t feel connected enough to the end customer

So, when my friend Gregg called and told me that his company, JibJab, just got funded and needed help with their marketing (online traffic generation and offline brand transition), I jumped at the chance! Many of you are familiar with their big hit political video, This Land — all I can tell you is that they’ve not only done a ton of other hilarious and creative work, but also have some huge ideas for a new brand called JokeBox — I’ll be helping them to launch that brand and transition JibJab to be something even bigger — I couldn’t be more excited about it!

What does this mean? I’ll be:
1) I’ll be setting up shop as a contractor / consultant (yeah… if you need help with online marketing and/or project work, please let me know)
2) commuting to Santa Monica, CA where they work (you can see a quick video that shows the work environment and gives you a little more background on Gregg and Evan)
3) racing to learn a ton about the online media/comedy space (hence my recent reviews of sites on this blog!)
4) wrapping up work at Unitus

Onward!

www.secondlife.com — third time a charm for second life?

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I admit that I’ve heard a lot of good things about Second Life — so, I continue to just think that I must be too old to get it. I heard Eric Rice talk about it with such animation and excitement at GnomeDex last week that I decided to give it another try.

Alas, it was another disaster.

Their Tagline – Your World. Your Imagination.

Broader Intro – Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by 307,031 people from around the globe.

* From the moment you enter the World you’ll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you’ve explored a bit, perhaps you’ll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.

* You’ll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents.

* The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online currency exchanges.

Welcome to Second Life. We look forward to seeing you in-world.

What Second Life Does Well:
– 3D graphics are really amazing, especially considering the online world that you play in
– Fairly easy to get the basics of moving around the Second Life world
– Promoting itself — again, I’ve heard so much good about Second Life from people who tend to understand new technologies before everyone else (Eric Rice, Adam Curry, etc.)

What Second Life Doesn’t Do Well:
– Making it relevant for newbies — honestly, I’ve now lost 2-3 hours trying to figure out Second Life, and I’m not getting those hours back! I mean, why aren’t there tutorials screaming themselves out to newbies literally escorting new people like myself around the Second Life kingdom? Explain the top 5-10 things someone may want to experiment with, and then give an easy way to take future lessons
– Filtering the porn. I know, I know… that porn is always the first supporter of new technologies. But, honestly, I don’t really want to have it be MY first experience, especially given how difficult it can be to navigate around in the world for the first time.
– Maybe mail out an instruction guide (to the game, not the porn 🙂 ) a week after a person signs up? Especially if you’re not seeing high conversion of trial to user.

I can see how Second Life could be very interesting for people, advertisers and technologists. In Eric’s words, it really does bring together blogging, gaming, instant messaging, fantasy, 3d modeling, economy, etc. But, it just still seems incredibly hard.

I’ve signed up on MeetUp for the Seattle Second Life Meetup group, if it ever forms. I’m betting that some more experienced second-lifer’s would be able to make it more relevant for me, and others. So, if you can help, let me know!

www.facebook.com — another site i’ve spent even less time on

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From what I’ve heard, Facebook is a site similar to MySpace and others, but has more of a specific focus on connecting students at specific schools (high school and college), and has actually become a primary way of hooking up, if you know what I mean 😉

As I showed in a previous post, their site traffic is approximately 1/6 that of MySpace, and I wondered why? Well, the differences are striking after having spent 1-2 hours on each.

Their Tagline – Facebook is a social directory that enables people to share information.

Broader Intro – Launched in February 2004, Facebook helps people better understand their world by giving them access to the information that is most relevant to them. Facebook’s website has grown to over 7.5 million people and, according to comScore, ranks as the seventh-most trafficked site in the United States. People with a valid email address from a supported college, high school or company can register for Facebook and create a profile to share information, photos, and interests with their friends.

What Facebook Does Well:
– Very good at ensuring attendance at a school — that is, they require you to have a working email address from a school or employer (because they have you confirm your email) — this is much better than MySpace, which allows just about anyone to join a school or employer group
– Good interface for collecting indexable information (enabling sorting/tagging)
– Great tagging interface for photo uploads (ala FlickR)
– Some fun features like ‘Poke’ that allow you to show some interest (ala poking a girl in highschool who you may like… but i’m not sure how well that translates to work interactions!)

What Facebook Doesn’t Do Well:
– Terrible and boring design — did I mention it was bland as well?
– No brand extension beyond personal connections — now, I’d almost prefer nothing to the lame extensions that MySpace made, but at some point, FaceBook will need to extend beyond their hookup niche, I’d think
– Inability to join networks without having an active email — I assume they’re working to extend their networks, but if I wanted to join an alumni group for my undergrad, that would be impossible, because email didn’t even exist when I was there!
– Nothing beyond photos… no video… limited discussion boards… really just a photo/linking site… pretty lame in this day of age with YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, etc.

I can imagine that this would have been addictive like crack when I was in school, but I don’t see a use for it for anyone who’s left college… I was really underwhelmed by this experience… expected a lot more…

www.myspace.com — a site i’ve spent little time on

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Well, I’ve heard about MySpace for quite awhile, but I must admit that I’ve spent very little time on it. I decided to do just that today, to try to understand what the draw is.

First, people should understand how much traffic MySpace drive — they’re blowing Facebook.com out of the water. So, what’s the draw?

Their Tagline – a place for friends

Broader Intro – “MySpace is an online community that lets you meet your friends’ friends. Create a private community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and interests with your growing network of mutual friends! See who knows who, or how you are connected. Find out if you really are six people away from Kevin Bacon.”

What MySpace Does Well:
– Great signup process – they do a great job gathering indexable user info/background
– Slick media viewing – nice media players (I think they make these easy to insert in your blog posts as well, but am not sure if they do this as well as YouTube)
– Tons of young users – seemed to be 99% under age 30, and even more under 23
– Good interfaces to edit – they also did a good job of making things not intimidating (e.g. when i went to blog area, it invited me to start one, and pointed out that I could always delete it if I didn’t like it)
– Easy to create a personal page – I now own www.myspace.com/daveschappell

What MySpace Doesn’t Do Well:
– Lack of innovation outside social networking space — I mean, they seem to just be creating another portal ala Yahoo and MSN — they’ve added a ton of categories recently like books and video, but they just weren’t compelling experiences
– Enabling user generated content outside sexy photos and teen/video content — seems like their categories like comedy are very ‘professional’ and don’t seem to easily allow people to create a list of videos/content that they really like
– Doesn’t seem to be intelligent — that is, with Amazon.com, it learns your preferences over time and makes better recommendations. But, outside of sharing friends with friends, it doesn’t learn what you like and then help improve your discovery process
– email notifications force you to return to their closed communications network to read them — I HATE THAT — I hate it as much at evite as I do here, but I don’t think this is a sign that they trust their users to return; instead, they force them to return — not a good sign
– limited activity by older people — i did a number of searches of people I know — had almost no participation — even when I specifically tried to find some who are younger/hipper/dating, I didn’t do well. That tells me that they really skewing younger with their audience, which probably means less commerce
– broken video player in comedy area — maybe it was because this is a more popular video and/or comic, but I couldn’t get this video from Brian Posehn to work (by the way, this guy looks a ton like an ex-coworker named Ryan Williams!)
– doesn’t let you get your info out of MySpace — they make it very easy to pull in all your friends to see which of them are in MySpace, but they don’t seem to make it easy to get them out… that sucks

All in all… for a non-teen/dater, it doesn’t seem to be a very useful service. Seems to offer things similar to Yahoo Groups, MeetUp, eVite, etc… but not enough of a draw to pull me in for the long-term…

Sites I’ve never spent time on — what’s going on here?

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You ever wonder what’s going on in the new world of the web? That is, the sites that college and high school students spend their time (and limited money) on? I’m going to check some of them out, and given my short summaries. Please send me comments on what I’m not understanding, or on other sites I should check out.

Some ideas… are they more than just video, dating services and light porn?

1) www.myspace.com
2) www.facebook.com

What’s going on in Second Life? Will this really reach critical mass?
3) www.secondlife.com (www.lindenlab.com)

And, entertainment and humor specific…
4) www.heavy.com
5) www.nationallampoon.com
6) www.youtube.com

Others?