3by9

A Purpose Served

When I came up with the idea of 3by9 (yes for once I can honestly say that it was just me that came up with the idea…I know it’s a complicated idea that only brilliant minds like myself could think up) I knew that it wouldn’t have an extended period on the web. I was with two geniuses of the web and figured we all had something important to share with people. However, doing it over at the 9rules blog didn’t seem appropriate so I figured we could start another blog to share these ideas.

Since then over 200 entries have been published during the past 18 months and each of them showing how different our personalities are, but how similar our views of the world around us are. When I brought up the idea of 3by9 to Mike and Tyme I informed that every 3 months we would revisit the site to see if it was time to put it away. Well we did that the first 3 months and haven’t looked back since. However, we all agree that now is the time because we are moving in our own directions.

We are still very much a team when it comes to 9rules, but have started to diverge into our own projects and this has taken time away from the site. So instead of keeping a site dragging along it is time to put it to rest. It served its purpose and it was a relief knowing that we didn’t intend on making the world’s greatest blog, just a blog that was great to us.

If you are interested in what we are doing I suggest you subscribe to Flyosity and Tyme Said. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter: @scrivs, @tyme and @mike9r.

With all of that said thanks to everyone that reads the site and who has commented. It was a joy writing for a site with no restrictions, no concerns of traffic or worries about money. It was a blog that started the way blogging itself started, to share ideas and have our voices heard.

Pushing your limits

2009 was the year where, coming from two crappy years (medically), I was determined to pick up life where I left it. Where it was sort of ripped away from me. It’s not the end of January but so far I’ve:

• Had a party I wasn’t expecting to have in Vegas. Met a bunch of new people and inadvertently increased my exposure.
• Reached Level 80 in World of Warcraft.
• Ran an instance and raid in World of Warcraft.
• Made a couple of dishes I swore would cause my oven to explode if I tried them.
• Resolved the “where do the missing socks go?” dilemma in my house.
• Did some break-dance moves and didn’t break anything.
• Started the process of having some customized Dunks and AF1s made. So slick…
• Finally decided a direction I wanted to go with my career that I am satisfied with (not that I won’t tweak it).
• Found three new programs to watch on TV. Expand my horizons.

That doesn’t include the goals I achieved with the munchkins. The odd thing, looking back, is that I didn’t say “let me see what I can do different today”. I just did it. I wouldn’t say I’ve changed because I’ve always been that way. I’m picking up where I left off. Now let’s look at another example…

My ex-guild leader created a guild called Hell. It had several hundred members in it. The guild leader had a dream that God would be mad because he created a guild name Hell. When he became ill the next day, he freaked out and disbanded the guild without telling anyone, clearing the bank, etc. Poof, the guild was gone. Next he joined a guild named Hate. Then changed his name to TotalLoser. Then made a one person guild named Worst Player Ever (or something like that). He went from straight PvP to PvE. As I am typing this I looked on my buddy list and he’s changed his name again to Ezeil and he’s in another guild. Last night it was TotalLoser. I told my friend (who was in the guild too) that something was up with the dude and he said I was nuts. He spent a lot of time with him in voice chat and the guild leader was cooler than ever. As a new person I saw things my friend didn’t see.

Then we all watched his public melt down puzzled at what the “real” reason that was pushing him in the direction he was going. Let me be clear, I never would have guessed he’d have a meltdown like he had. I could tell something was bothering him from the way he spoke and what he did. My friend felt bad because he didn’t see it coming. It looks like he’s re-invented himself, moving on from his meltdown. He’s back PvPing which is great because he was really really good. I wish him the best of luck.

My point is that we all fall down (make mistakes, have tough situations to over come, etc.) but what we do after we fall makes all the difference. You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue on in life (what I did) or you can make the situation worse (what my guild leader did).

But to survive you have to dust yourself off and continue on. It’s not easy…recovering from what I went through while I having to be strong for my family was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m sure Ezeil felt bad dismembering the guild, not distributing the guild bank and the guilt from that made things worse (it was so public).

In the end, it really doesn’t matter does it? The end result is the same: to survive you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue on with the hand that has been dealt to you.

“I didn’t think….”

People start new businesses everyday. Online ventures are easy and cheap to start. Cheap many times translates to “I don’t have to put a lot of thought into this”. Let’s be real, ok? When the internet was more expensive to access people thought out their plans more before hopping online. The by the minute access charges added up quick. If one is interested in starting a more traditional business (for example a store) the overhead costs alone would cause one to stop and think about what he or she is getting into. Online, for some warped reason, the thought processes go out the door.

Not warped actually. I’ve been told many times the business owner didn’t think anything bad would happen to them (and that’s why lawyers will always have customers). Why? I have no idea. Like they are exempt from bad things happening or something. I’ve had people argue with me about editing comments when the law in their state says if they edit they will be financially responsible if someone sues. Yet these same people 1) can’t afford the fight and 2) would be the first in line looking for free help if something went down. What comment is worth taking potential unnecessary financial burdens?

Let’s look at an example of someone not thinking. Designer Carter Bryant lost the right to sell Bratz dolls because he thought of the idea while working for Mattel. He started the Bratz empire in 2001 - it took a long time for the legal system to catch up with him. Business school 101 will inform you that there is a huge conflict there - he came up with the concept while working with the company that would turn into his competition.

Mattel sued MGA Entertainment for $500 million alleging that Bratz creator Carter Bryant was working for Mattel when he developed the idea for Bratz. On July 17, 2008, a federal jury ruled that the Bratz line was created by Carter Bryant while he was working for Mattel. The jury also ruled that MGA and its Chief Executive Officer Isaac Larian were liable for converting Mattel property for their own use and intentionally interfering with the contractual duties owed by Bryant to Mattel. On August 26, the same jury found that Mattel would have to be paid US $100 million in damages.

The manufacture of the dolls must stop immediately and the dolls have to be removed from shelves after the holiday season. 1500 jobs potentially down the toilet. Because he didn’t think.

Why do I say that? Because if he thought about it that tidbit - that he came up with the idea while working for Mattel - would never have seen the light of day. He would have saved up his money, quit, waited a decent amount of time and then launched his business. Yes, he would have made a reasonable effort to make sure Mattel couldn’t touch him. But who would think Mattel would come after him?

Duh. I mean seriously. Duh. No brainer. Please. Just like Hasbro wasn’t going to protect their rights…right?

If you are attempting to do something that makes money think about what you’re doing and ensure you’re treating your business like a business. You’d be surprised how many of the big boys didn’t think their businesses would become as big as they are.

Mall, err…site, shopping FTW!

It’s Black Friday - a heavy shopping day in the United States. I know some people who got up at 4:00am to be the first in the store. I was up but I’m not that type of woman.

Because seriously, if I go to pick up something and someone tries to take it from me, they best be prepared to get their teeth knocked out. It has happened when someone was that stupid. I’m not sure if it was my deadly voice saying “let it go”, the look on my face, my fist balling up or my body stiffening up - but they put it down. Goes with the theme I wrote about last week - be prepared on how someone will react to what you do before you do it. Crazy people on a shopping high acting rude isn’t where I want to be. I’m more down for the “hug random people cause I’m happy” type of behavior seen often in Vegas (I’d say per trip I get at least 25 random hugs from happy people winning money. I can’t help but be happy for them).

For years I’ve done my shopping online and I absolutely love it. I get it done early because I enjoy site shopping. Browsing the isles pages, being able to compare items and prices while I sip on some wine (rocking to my favorite tunes) thinking about the reaction people will have to the things I’m getting them is priceless. It’s the perfect shopping atmosphere for me. Then it is delivered to me, in a box, where I can whisk it past the kids’ prying eyes and they don’t know what it is.

No lines.
No crazy attitudes.
No “they don’t have the color I want”.
No trying to remember where the car is parked.
No going to the store to find they don’t have what I want.

Another option is to shop online and pick it up in the store. I know many who do this because they work and can’t accept deliveries during the week. And if you need to budget, if you haven’t gotten your lay-away scheduled you’re running out of time.

Christmas is right around the corner. If you want to get your loved one geeky stuff start now! Like those netbook (under $500) computers - get those now because they are selling like hotcakes. I picked up one the other day and there were four other people getting them too - smack in the middle of the day.

Happy shopping!

Making money doing what you love…maybe

One of the popular pieces of advice when entering into business is: do what you love. I’ve said it a million times and it is advice I follow myself. I realize as an adult I have to do things I don’t like to do (I do them everyday) but when it comes to work, I’ve been there, done that and I promised myself if possible I would never do it again.

But what if you can’t monetize what you love? Seth Godin wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. There are pitfalls to doing what you love and he nailed two of them on the head:

1. In order to monetize your work, you’ll probably corrupt it, taking out the magic in search of dollars

and

2. Attention doesn’t always equal significant cash flow.

Doing what you love is as important as ever, but if you’re going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea. Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. Go find a job you can commit to, a career or a business you can fall in love with.

Do your art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.

(And the twist, because there is always a twist, is that as soon as you focus on your art and leave the money behind, you may just discover that this focus turns out to be the secret of actually breaking through and making money.)

When I had my first gaming site I started it for fun and my passion for gaming showed as I built the site. Then it became very profitable because I would do things (work) that didn’t feel like work to me. I wanted to talk to game developers. I wanted to spend the time in games thoroughly picking them apart.

With my second gaming site I’ve been slacking royally because I wasn’t having fun with the game. I was exploring areas I had not been to before but everyone else had so what was the point in writing about it? The character I really wanted to play wasn’t released yet. I was completely blah about the site. It didn’t help that it doesn’t cost me anything to have the site online. I had zero incentive and it showed when I attempted to write something.

I was talking to a friend about this and we were saying that with our upcoming new things the beauty of it was that we didn’t have to worry about monetizing it. We could focus on finding our groove and building up the content on our perspective projects. I realize one day the site will be monetized but I will have found my voice, the perspective I want to take with the site and it will be “strong”, instead of building something TO make money - which might take it completely away from what I really want to do.

Which is exactly what I felt myself doing and why I was slacking. I was thinking four or five steps ahead and thinking “this would be best since I’m monetizing it” instead of digging deep on what I want to do, which is not the norm for a gaming site. As the ideas first started to form into my mind I immediately rejected it because it “might be” tough to monetize it. My displeasure showed itself in my lack of enthusiasm for the game. If I had not figured it out even with the new expansion I still would not have fun in the game because playing the game I can’t help but think about the site.

Gaming is my source of entertainment. When I’m done with “work” I’ll play a game. There is a delicate balance turning entertainment into work. That is the main reason why, although I love clubs and my parents used to own a club, I don’t want one myself. I thought I did at first. I thought it would be a good fit but I realized when I go to the club for fun, the last thing I want to do is work. The “fun” is going there, having a good time, and not having any responsibilities.

I’ve seen many times people corrupt their work to pay the bills. I understand this completely but many times people don’t realize it is happening. Once you drop to rock bottom prices to compete it will be incredibly hard to raise them. If you cut corners on quality the end product suffers, opening the door for competition. Throwing up articles just to get them up doesn’t fool anyone if they don’t compare to the previous ones. Having millions of pageviews no longer means guaranteed ability to sell ads on the inventory.

Look at what you’re doing and more important why you are doing it. You might learn something.

Making That Bank With An iPhone App

There are a lot of stupid apps available on the iPhone App Store. The ones where you click and it farts, or there’s some fish and they move around, or it fills your screen with a bright color, or it scrolls some text, etc. These work great because most people are stupid, so catering to your main audience is always a good way of being successful.

Fortunately for the rest of us there are some seriously great apps to download, and one of them is Trism from Demiforce.

It was one of the first applications I purchased when the App Store came out and I had been anticipating it for awhile as it was already out for jailbroken iPhones via Installer.app. It’s a Bejeweled-type game where you match colored puzzle pieces, but you do so on 3 planes as each piece is a triangle. The app sells for $4.99 and it’s one of the highest-rated downloads in the Games category.

Recently the developer of Trism dropped the news of his earnings and it caused a lot of people’s ears to perk up. How much did Steve Demeter, the creator of Trism, pull in? Over $250,000 in his first two months of being in the App Store. That’s some serious coin.

I had some ideas for App Store programs but they weren’t “fun” in the sense that they could be played in your downtime. They were more like little utilities.

I’ll tell you one thing: I’m now fully entrenched in thinking up a relatively easy-to-code game for the iPhone because I see an opportunity that’s still totally open with a market ripe for the picking.

Bandwidth Caps Would Kill The Internet

In 2002 CNET wrote an article regarding the use of bandwidth caps by ISPs, or at least the “proposed use” of them.

Now many of the biggest high-speed ISPs are considering capping the amount of bandwidth that their subscribers can use per month, a move that could undermine subscribers’ free swapping ways–something that many lawsuits have not yet been able to achieve. If people know they have a limited amount of bandwidth available, the thinking goes, they’ll be less likely to download voraciously or allow people to upload songs and music from their computers.

This was 6 years ago and as many of you with broadband access to the Internet (in the U.S.) already know, these never went into effect in any scale. Bandwidth flows freely to you if you pay for the all-you-can-eat package, and regardless of if you’re checking email or streaming high definition video, it’s all the same. Well I hope you enjoyed your World of Warcraft and movie streaming as it’s a pretty good bet that’s all going away fairly soon.

In an article published yesterday by the New York Times, they broke down the steps that ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable have been taking to make the free-for-all bandwidth we’re accustomed to a thing of the past.

All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.

Millions of people are moving online to watch movies and television shows, play multiplayer video games and talk over videoconference with family and friends. And media companies are trying to get people to spend more time online: the Disneys and NBCs of the world keep adding television shows and movies to their Web sites, giving consumers convenient entertainment that soaks up a lot of bandwidth.

Approaching A New, Difficult Stage

When you’re low on gas you can look at the meter on your dashboard to know when to refuel (or when to stop driving as much). You can get instant access to how many minutes of cellphone usage you’ve used in the past month by texting your provider or accessing your account online. We, as consumers, take this for granted. When we get charged based on usage, we’re accustomed to having instant access to our usage at all times to prevent huge overages. The problem with bandwidth caps on Internet usage is that ISPs considering this action haven’t given much thought to how they’re going to present usage to customers on an ongoing basis. Yes, we understand that only a small percentage of total broadband customers are going to be affected by these caps, but those are most likely the most vocal customers. If bandwidth caps are put into place then there needs to be a way to track your usage every single day, or else there will be serious issues. I have no idea how much bandwidth I eat up on a monthly basis so I have no way to know whether I should be throttling my Internet usage back or if I’m in the clear.

Here are some prices that are being kicked around:

In that trial, new customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.

This is rough. Really rough. If you head over to Hulu.com and watch a full, feature-length movie, then you’ve just downloaded a couple gigabytes. Buy and download a movie at the iTunes Store? That’s another couple gigabytes. Stream Internet radio? Well you better stop doing that as soon as possible.

I’ll venture to guess that bandwidth caps are almost as damaging to the Internet as charging for the types of websites you visit, also known as Tiered Service, which is what big Cable companies would move to if they end up defeating Net Neutrality. Tiny caps on bandwidth limit the type of information you can download, and on the other side of the spectrum, limit the messages that people can disseminate across the Internet.

Bandwidth caps will be a serious issue for consumers moving forward, especially as content on the Web gets more interactive. Expect a huge step backward for the history of the Internet if caps arrive.

Do what you’re passionate about. Maybe not.

In my personal experience, when I am working on something I am passionate about, I excel much better than if I’m just “going through the motions” mainly because when I’m passionate about something I’m dedicated but more importantly thorough. To every positive there is a negative (theoretically) and for those that excel doing something they are passionate about there are people who are the opposite. People who work at something they are passionate about can be a bad idea, if the person is unable to detach their personal feelings (passion) to make the right decisions. Last weekend I went to a club and the business owner suffers from being so passionate about his club he made a ton of bad mistakes rushing to reach unrealistic goals.

• Unrealistic perception of his club – to him, the club was the bomb. To everyone else, it was inadequate in comparison to the other clubs in the area.
• Because he was leading his decisions by his emotions he was irrational to talk to. He only saw things through his own eyes and did not properly consider the people coming to the club nor the vendors that would need to work with the club.
• Anxious and excited to open the doors he took shortcuts that are impacting his business now.

A person that is ruled by emotion more than objective thinking doesn’t tend to do too well in business. How did the opening weekend go? Opened with almost everyone leaving early on to go the next best spot.

What Happens Offline Happens Online Too

Ever came across a site that was overly pink? I pulled a random color so feel free to replace pink with a horrible color combination, bad fonts, etc. MySpace pages are an excellent example of a person having so much passion for their profile they put so many moving, blinking, and color clashing items on the profile it takes a determined person to read the profile, let alone come back. If you notice on those profiles the people who comment and interact with the profile owner are people that admire, know, like (ie: are passionate) about the profile owner. Just about anything could be on the profile and those users would accept it because they are “into” the profile owner.

Unfortunately outside of social sites, that analogy doesn’t work as well and can fall flat on social sites if the person isn’t social. I think we can all think of sites that wanted traffic, received it and couldn’t handle the load. Why ask for the traffic without the proper hardware/software in place? Think about that – if the site owner wants millions of people on the site is the excuse, “we didn’t anticipate…” a valid excuse?

Most times not.

This happens all the time. Person wants comments but doesn’t have the time to interact with people. Or has crappy hosting that couldn’t support that type of interaction in the first place. Site owner wants traffic but again, has crappy hosting or worse a zillion widgets on the site to slow it down to a crawl on a good day. Oh wait…they want the traffic to monetize the site but does the person have the contacts to get the ads or are companies supposed to pick their site out of the blue instead of the hundreds of other sites that have a lot of traffic to give them their money?

Be careful what you ask for.

Launches - not the most important thing

This is a topic I’ve been meaning to discuss for a long time and it applies since we are experiencing something similar with the new sites. Launches are important to the owner because it marks a milestone of a level of completion. Many companies, particularly online ones, make the mistake of putting too much into The Launch.

I was reading Seth Godin’s article called Not so grand and I agree with his point:

The best time to promote something is after it has raving fans, after you’ve discovered that it works, after it has a groundswell of support. And more important, the best way to promote something is consistently and persistently and for a long time. Save the bunting for Flag Day.

How many times have we seen companies throw the elaborate launch parties to fade into the shadows? Honestly, how many people can remember the companies spotlighted by TechCrunch’s conferences and those that won - do you use it?

The “big” companies that are successful weren’t successes at launch. Twitter began in March 2006, Twitter launched in July of 2006 but didn’t get their big break until SXSW 2007. Unfortunately, they were unprepared for the massive amounts of usage they receive and failed to properly define their company. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, did a presentation about Twitter and there is a definite divide with how a large portion of their users use Twitter and how they envisioned the service to be used. Twitter was not built to handle the amount of use it receives today and the challenge to upgrade and keep the service live is a challenging one. The focus for Twitter was scaling (not monetizing). A better idea? Focus on building the architecture so when the people are there, scaling would not be so challenging.

See, that’s the mistake most companies make - the rush to get the people before the cement of the foundation is dry. Easy to do but usually has detrimental repercussions. While Twitter has irked many people it gave competition the opportunity to enter the space or worse, piggy back on their services. Twitter will probably come out of it okay because they have a ton of money being thrown at them that puts them in a better position to fix the issues.

Most companies do not have that luxury - millions after millions being given to them.

Let’s look at another example, Digg. It was launched in 2004 but really didn’t begin to gain traction until 2006, exploding in 2007. They scaled with traffic but then encountered a problem, a problem that could have been sorted out earlier. The company wants to take Digg more mainstream; their users prefer it stay focused on technology. Again, a divide between how the users want to use the site and what the owners envision for the site.

Launch is great but it’s just the beginning of (hopefully) a long journey to success that has to be achieved and more importantly maintained. Taking the time to make the right decisions, ensuring the foundation is strong and the challenge is easier to win and the road to success a smoother journey. Focus on the wrong points and watch your company slip through your fingers into a deadpool.

Kleiner Goes For The Same Old Same Old

Kleiner Perkins iFund was announced a few months ago with the goal of producing “market-changing ideas and products” funded with KPCB’s cash. Today, BusinessWeek breaks the news that the first iFunded company is yet another answer to the mystifying problem of not being able to find things to do around where you live.

For those not entrenched in the industry, creating a hyperlocal product or directory is almost as cliché as starting your own ad network. Everybody and their brother is in the space, and it’s crowded like Free Beer Night™ at Fenway.

The company working on the software is pelago and their app is called Whrrl. It’s been around for awhile and has been in use on other mobile phones, but with the new influx of cash they’re doing a native iPhone version.

First off, I’m not saying that the application is lame, I’m just saying it’s boring with regards to the all-encompassing, world-changing, hyphen-phrased launch of the iFund. iFunded companies will cure cancer. iFund money could create a dozen Googles. The iFund will save children in Africa. Instead, we get a native iPhone version of an application that’s been out for awhile. It’s not a new product, it’s not a new idea, it’s an iPhone port of an existing app. Not all that world-changing in my opinion.

The first thing that someone tied to Whrrl will probably say when they read this entry is that I have no idea how much time and effort it takes to build an iPhone app and that learning Objective-C is hard when you’ve never used it before. Well guess what, I never knew ObjC before the iPhone SDK came out and I’m doing just fine with it. Hell I never even learned C before I learned ObjC so I had to learn that as well, and I did. I produced a prototype of the iPhone project I’m working on in 3 days. One guy, no money, in my spare time.

To be fair to pelago, I think it’d be useful to produce a list of iPhone applications I think would actually be amazing and that would grab my respect. I don’t know if any of these are already out there or in development, but here we go:

• Use your iPhone’s built-in camera to scan barcodes of items, any item, and the application looks out on the web in real-time and figures out competitor’s prices and reviews.
• A golf game that used the built-in accelerometer and touchscreen to control the action. I’d pay anything this. Okay, up to $15.
• Language processor and translator. The software listens to the outside world via the microphone and figures out what language is being spoken and a rough idea of what has just been said. Speech-to-text-to-translation.

I don’t have any iFund money so I can’t come up with any more great ideas at the moment, but I’ll be sure to ideate it later once I’m swimming with cash.

And to pelago: is this the best you can do? Tracking things that you and your friends have been doing, on a map? Share your location with friends on the go? Reminds me of dodgeball but 2 years after the fact.