I have to admit that I was a little sceptical when I first heard about the Blogher conference but it sounds like an amazing event and one where we can learn a lot from.

Here are some inspring user comments that were left:
____________________________________

Some readers said, this conference is a dumb idea. Bloggers are bloggers. Why DO we need these events. Blogging as a pracxtice, as a form, is a form of freedom. I wrote on my blog, a weblog is a First Amendment Machine. After hanging out with you I understand that a lot more. It is an exttension of free speech and press to the people. Not a press on their behalf. They do it themsefs. IF blogging is a practice of freedom, it is completely inadequate unless it is a whole practice and to be that it must have women.

****************************

I went to the brown bloggers session, because I have become aware that the list of blogs I read is all people who look like me, except without the red hair. I would challenge everyone in this room to find 5 blogs by people who don’t look like you. People tend to read things they are comfortable with. You might not get the cultural references or vocab. Read it for a few months. Get the hang of it. Learn something about other people.

___________________________________

To read more, here is an excellent blog of a lot more user comments:

http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm

blogher blogher+conference blog her blogging

If you are into web development and have not heard about AJAX, I would highly recommend that you start doing so right away. It is one of the coolest new framworks used for web development. The things you can do with Ajax are pretty sweet.

We are using it on BlinkList for many different features to improve the usability of our site.

Like most things these days, I would recommend getting started on Wikipedia to learn more. Just click here

AJAX

I found a great blog post that makes me even more excited about the future of the web. This is great stuff! I have a big grin on my face right now that is how exciting I think this it. The web is turning into the ultimate medium of self expression, turning all of us into creators! That is wonderful and the beginning of something new and profound!

2015
The Web continues to evolve from a world ruled by mass media and mass audiences to one ruled by messy media and messy participation. How far can this frenzy of creativity go? Encouraged by Web-enabled sales, 175,000 books were published and more than 30,000 music albums were released in the US last year. At the same time, 14 million blogs launched worldwide. All these numbers are escalating. A simple extrapolation suggests that in the near future, everyone alive will (on average) write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program. This idea is less outrageous than the notion 150 years ago that someday everyone would write a letter or take a photograph.

To participate in the discussion check out the blog where this thread was posted
click here

Mike

future+of+the+web web+2.0 internet future online+trends blogging podcasting

There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur because it’s never been cheaper to be one. Come on! Take the jump and start living the dream!

Here is a good blog post on how the costs of entrepreneurship are dramatically lower today than just 5 to 10 years ago.

"Excite.com took $3,000,000 to get from idea to launch. JotSpot took $100,000."
continue reading

If you are adventurous enough to outsource yourself to a lovely country like Malaysia, then you can cut your startup costs by another huge factor!

MindValley took two guys and a credit card to start and now we are self funded and have the money to re-invest in growing our business with a world class team of brilliant young, energetic, and passionate people that believe they can change the world!

Mike

entrepreneurship self+funding raising+money startup new+business jotspot excite

Lately there has been a lot of noise regarding:
- MyYahoo
- MyGoogle
- Start.com (Microsoft's start page)
- MyAOL

It looks like the launch / latest release of all these sites has been celebrated and every blogger and paper is writing about them. They are obviously going after RSS and news aggregators in a major way so that part is newsworthy. However, what I see is actually a lack of originality. While all of these sites are now offering RSS and give users the ability to customize their feeds and even move boxes around with some fancy click and drag javascript, I don't think this is all that exciting.

Ok, they are big improvements from the way things have been in the past. However, it begs two questions. First, why did it take so long to get here and second, why are all of these players just copying each other and not innovating further? I see little that is new, fun, and exciting.

Well, in any case, I think that is great news, because will just have to see if we can spice things up a little! Are we crazy enough to try to innovate in this space that is dominated and controlled by the titants! You better believe it. Will it go anywhere? We have no idea but passion goes a long way and why not have a little fun. We have some ideas that we are working on so stay tuned. Will be sharing that with you shortly!

Mike

blink My+Yahoo MyYahoo My+Google MyGoogle My+AOL MyAOL Start.com personalized+homepage rss

We're happy to say, we're looking for an accountant/customer happiness manager and another programming wiz kid. Visitors to almost all our sites are up and it looks like we're going to have to start hiring again.

We really love the Apple credo "Think Different" - so when it came to recruting we wanted to offer prospective employees something different from many other companies. Here's a preliminary draft of what we came up with...

Top 10 Reasons to Work for MindValley

1. Freedom: We understand that brilliant people hate rules and shackles and desire the freedom to do their work, in their way.

2. Thinking BIG!: We're not aiming to create an email software, we're aiming to create the biggest revolution in email since Gmail. We're not content with creating blogging tools, we aim to create the World's first "intelligent" blog. When we build an e-commerce site, we aim to put it in the top 1% of sites for performance rates. We aim to be as influential in improving people's lives through technology as Yahoo, Google or Apple. We love Big, Scary, Audacious Goals.

3. Profitability: We're fully profitable, and continue to see our profits grow by at least 10% month-to-month.

4. Great People: We hire only the best. For a typical position we shift through 100 resumes and interview at least 10 people. Make it in, and you'll be working with some of the best minds in the business. We understand that "A" people attract "A" people.

5. Treats: We treat our employees well. This includes rent-subsidization, occasional concert tickets, Starbucks coffee, dinners and drinks. Our founders have worked at Microsoft and eBay and believe in the Silicon Valley model of spoiling employees.

6. Creativity: Your typical work week is 45 hours. Of this time, we allow you to spend 5 hours a week working on your own projects or inventions. If your project is successful, we'll help you launch it. We've modeled this after Google and 3M's style of nurturing creativity within the organization.

7. Stability: We've never taken a drop of investment and so have no investors to pull the plug on us. Our business also spans multiple industries such as internet marketing, product development, publishing and coding. This protects us from short term market trends in any one industry.

8. Fun: We put the "Fun" in "Business Fundamentals". Don't get us wrong - we're a disciplined, well-oiled engine of growth. But we believe that business should be fun and people should look forward to going to work each day.

9. Idealism: 100% of our employees have spent significant time volunteering or working for non-profits. We started this business to change the world. Profits come second. As a result, we will devote our time and attention to causes that may not bring in short term profits, but may result in positive social change.

10. Entrepreneurship. We understand that great people dream of starting their own companies. We help you attain this dream. We provide training and mentorship to help you grow. We do not require any employees to sign a bonding contract. Simply, put, you're free to learn from us and then move on when you're ready and start your own business. We respect entreprenuership.

If our work mentality appeals to you - check out the available jobs here:
http://www.mindvalley.com/jobs/

~ Vishen

Ask and you shall receive! We are happy to announce several major improvements to BlinkList that our dedicated community of users asked for and several improvements that you did not ask for but are already starting to embrace!

Here is the list of new features rolled out this Monday:

1) Importing of bookmarks

You can now import all of your bookmarks from FireFox or Internet Explorer. So, now you really have no excuse not to be using BlinkList.

2) New auto-suggest script

We have developed and added a new autosuggest script that makes finding your personal and public tags even easier. The new "suggestions" are better sorted and the new underlining feature helps you move along even faster!

3) Improved sharing - contact list + auto-suggest

We have greatly improved the ability to share great links that you find with friends. Going forward, you only have to enter your friends email once. It is then stored in your BlinkList database and the next time you want to share a link we will automatically suggest the appropriate email address for you. It does not get much easier! This is now the single best way to blink articles, podcasts, or any other treasure you find online to your friends, even those that are not on BlinkList.

4) Blinklist live bookmarks for FireFox

You can now synch your blinklist account to your favorites in FireFox by using the live bookmarking feature. All you have to do is go to your personal account and click on whatever tag you want to synch in FireFox. Now click on the live bookmarks symbol at the bottom right of your browser to just synch the feed (tag) that you want. Voila, anytime you blink a new site for that given feed it will automatically show up in your (live) bookmarks in FireFox. In other words, your favorites get updated automatially! Sweet!

5) An easier new user guide

Finally we updated the new user welcome system so all new users will see their tag manager autofilled with some useful links on BlinkList help and tips. Hopefully this will make the system easier to use for newbies. Hopefully they will now get up to speed in the blink of an eye.

Personally, there are soooo many more ways to use BlinkList but we don't want to overwhelm new users and want to just keep it simple and give users a chance to explore and discover new features as they get more and more drawn into the BlinkList community.

All I can say is WOW! I am very impressed with our development team and in particular with Jiangti. Anyone that knows me, knows that I expect the best and Jiangti continues to amaze us. Nicely done and thanks for the hard work Jiangti!

To the rest of you, please keep those suggestions coming! As you can see, we listen and try to move quickly to give our community what it wants and needs to make saving, sharing, and discovering new sites more fun and easier to do.

Happy blinking!

Mike

tagging tags social+bookmarking bookmarking blinklist autosuggest RSS FireFox Live+bookmarks social+search social+web favorites

I just wanted to send out another quick thank you note to craig giving us, and I mean all of us, one of the single best websites online!

I am currently selling just about everything I own to get ready for my move to KL, and selling things on craigslist has been a breeze. I especially love combining Skype with craigslist. I recently became a SkypeIn customer (I now have a 415 number that rings on my computer) and listed my Skype number instead of my regular phone number on my craigslist listings.

Well, now I am officially even more hooked! What are the advantages of taking calls on a computer vs. a regular phone?

1) Having a GUI for your phone calls is wonderful. When you have lots of listings (I had over 10 at a time) you get a ton of calls. Well, on Skype you can listen to any voicemail message you want (vs. listening to them in order).

2) You can return calls by just clicking on one button. I mean talk about easy

Plus, if Skype were integrated with craigslist things would get even better.

1) People could just start a live chat with me. No more emails of "is this item still available."

2) Incoming calls could be tied to a specific listing. That way you know what listings drive what leads. This would be valuable information for any business.

3) If both parties would be talking PC-to-PC, then it is easy to open a chat window and just IM them a link of the address / location for example or additional pictures.

I think PayPer call and online presence is going to be a big deal. Not sure if for craigslist, but I am now hooked on making calls on the phone. Having a headset on is even better than holding a stupid old phone. You still have both of your hands free so you can continue surfing the web while you chat.

Ahh... just love both of these sites.

Mike

craigslist skype pay-per-call VOIP

Today I stumbled upon the single best review we have received to date of BlinkList. This was not only a stunning review because it was super positive, it was stunning because it was full of insights into the huge potential of "social software" and into how a site like BlinkList might help transform "social learning" and "social knowledge sharing."

Here are a few paragraphs from the review:
__________________________________________

The passionate crew over at MindValley have joined the social software party with a new web-based rapid bookmarking and knowledge-sharing tool named BlinkList. A curious name that accurately describes how quickly and easily you can manage, add, share, tag, or syndicate your links in—well…in the blink of an eye!

Knowledge tags:
- MindValley has come up with a slick way to help you to maintain tagging consistency.

Tag management:
- The ingenious Tag Manager provides users with multiple ways to organize and view their BlinkList.

The social web:
- Just a simple click of the "BlinkRSS" button allows users syndicate tag content to a classroom blog, student portfolio, school website, aggregator--or any other site for that matter! BlinkList even provides the HTML snippet for you to pop into your website.

MindValley vs. THE GIANTS:
- The MindValley folks are clearly on the verge of something big with BlinkList. And while they are more than aware of the fight ahead of them, their infectious enthusiasm (in conjunction with their terrific product) is sure to propel them to the front of the pack.
__________________________________________

I hope you are right that our passion and enthusiasm will be contagious and hope to win more users like you! Thanks for taking the time to write about BlinkList. To check out the full review click here

I honestly have never been more proud or excited about what our team is working on. This is going to be a fun ride! If you have not already, I hope you will give BlinkList a try!

Mike

web+2.0 social+search social+web social+software social+bookmarking tag tagging folksonomy blinklist

Here is an article you HAVE to read! It is by the MIT Technology Review and it is an article about web 2.0 and the future of the social web. Click here to read the article

Here are a few sections from the article:

_________________________________________________________

The third trend nudging us into a new era of computing is probably the most important and the least expected. It is the emergence of the Web as a platform for personal publishing and social software. The examples are as diverse as informational sites such as blogs, craigslist, and Wikipedia and services such as Gmail, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Delicious [and BlinkList of course! ].

All of these are examples of what software developers and Internet pundits have begun to call "Web 2.0": the transformation of the original Web of static documents into a collection of pages that still look like documents but are actually interfaces to full-fledged computing platforms. These Web-based services are proliferating so fast because they can be built using shared, standardized programming tools and languages developed, for the most part, by the open-source-software community.

The most radical ideas in Web-based software, however, are flourishing in an area that might be called "social knowledge management," represented in part by sites like Friendster, LinkedIn, and Ryze [and hopefully in the future "blink*" sites! ].

Such social-networking sites generated a wave of venture investment and new users in 2004. At their best, they are like human search engines: they exploit the "six degrees of separation" concept to help people make connections with friends of friends of friends who may share similar interests or business goals.

_________________________________________________________

As I said, this is a must read article! Pretty eye opening and right on the mark. They are really identifying some of the biggest shifts that are taking place online. The most interesting part of it all is that "community," "sharing," "reputation," and "social networking" are the cornerstones of this trend. Does this mean eBay will/should start looking in this direction as well?

Mike