Web X.0

Startup Nation

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Dan Senor, author of Startup Nation, at the most recent TechAviv meetup. I just bought 10 copies of the book, and will be giving them away to 10 Outbrain customers. More details on that below. 

Yaron Samid did a great job describing what Startup Nation is about: 

"...the book asks and answers the question; How is it that a nation only 60 years old, 7 million people strong (smaller than New Jersey), literally surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding and with no natural resources, has:

• Highest concentration of startups in the world
• Most VC investments per capita in the world
• More NASDAQ listed companies than any country besides the US, more than all of Europe, India, China and Japan combined
• Economy barely hit by global economic crisis

In short, how do we kick ass with such little feet? The book and its answers are particularly timely for a world struggling out of a global economic crisis. Most agree that there’s only one way out; Innovation, and Israel is its hotbed..."

(Yaron's full post - here). 

If you're interested in the book, and want to help get more people to read it by pushing it to the Amazon Best Seller list, go ahead and buy your copy here. 

Or, if you want a better deal, I will be giving away 10 copies of the book to the first 10 people who submit a link to Outbrain's sponsored link service - Outloud. With Outloud you can amplify an article or blog post of your choice on our network of thousands of sites and newspapers (including USA Today, Slate, Fox, Tribune, Golf.com, SportingNews, etc, etc). The cost is only $10/month for each story you choose to submit, and there is no long term commitment. You can promote any story you want to on the web - it could be about your company, a blog post you wrote, or a great article about a cause you'd like to support. Hey - you can even help get the word about Startup Nation out to more people by sponsoring this article on Newsweek! 

(More details on Outloud here). 

All you need to do is go to Outloud, submit your story, and let me know (either by Twitter, or on a comment here, or shoot me an email to galai[at]outbrain[dot]com). The first 10 people to do this will get a copy of the book (which, btw, sells at book stores for $27, not including the shipping... so you'd get over $40 in value for a $10 investment, and help promote a great book in the process). 

In the mean time, here's a short interview with Dan Senor, author of the book:

Outloud

Today we (=Outbrain) are announcing the launch of our sponsored link program called Outloud. Outbrain now powers the recommended/related article links ("People who liked this article also liked these:") on thousands of blogs and newspapers including USA Today, Slate, Fox, Tribune, Golf.com and SportingNews.

Using Outloud, companies and bloggers can now submit links to stories into our index. We then show links to those stories on the most relevant pages in our network. The cost is a flat $10-per-month for each story you choose to submit via Outloud. There is no long-term commitments or anything like that, so this is practically risk-free. 

Here are a few examples of what Outloud is perfect for:

1. Amplifying earned media - Having bloggers write an authentic, positive review of your company or product is one of the most powerful endorsements you could ever hope for. But once that blog post is written - how many people actually read it? How do you get more, interested people to read those reviews? With Outloud you can submit links to authentic reviews of your company or product, and we'll show them to people who are actively reading related content.
2. Amplifying PR - Similarly, PR folks are focused on getting press and blog coverage for their clients. But once your client gets the PR, how can you maximize its effect. For $10/month on Outloud you can amplify great press coverage and get many more people to hear about it.
3. Getting new readers - If you're a blogger looking to get new readers exposed to your content, Outloud is a great and affordable way to do it. Choose the 5-10 stories on your blog which you think are best, and submit them to Outloud for $10/month each. We will then show your links on the most relevant pages in out network of thousands of blogs and newspapers.

The idea around Outloud is simple - we want to be able to show the best sponsored links possible on each page using our service. And to do that, we don't want you thinking twice of whether you should or shouldn't be submitting stories to Outloud - we've reduced the price barrier to the lowest reasonably possible.

The links you submit can be on your own blog, or on any other website in the world. If Walt Mossberg covered your company on WSJ, you are more than welcome to submit that link to Outloud as well. In fact, we think that the best links to submit would be authentic stories writen about you by other people.

But what we do insist on is that all links in Outloud be pointing to interesting, real content. We will be gladly rejecting any links to spam, scams, non-disclosed self-promotions, fake content, splogs, etc. Outbrain has always been about providing readers with the most interesting and relevant links, and we plan to continue doing so whether the links are free or sponsored. 

Here's an example of how Outloud links might look on a site using our service:

 
So go ahead and submit your stories to Outloud, and get them read!

(Thanks Eze and Jay for the coverage!)

Moneyball - highly recommended

Last week I participated in a roundtable organized by Carmel Ventures, with probably 20-30 entrepreneurs in the room. I recommended they all read Moneyball by Michael Lewis - a book I read a couple of years ago. I think most of the people in the room didn't have a chance to take note of the recommendation, so I'm repeating it here. 

Moneyball is a must-read for any entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with entrepreneurship (it's about baseball), and it's not a very good book (in the literal sense, I mean). 

But if you read it with an entrepreneur state of mind, there are great lessons to be learned... 2 have been particularly useful for me:

1. Look at the same game differently - Most startups compete with many other companies for the same market share. In the online world in particular you are likely to be competing with hugely successful companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc. You can't win by playing their game. But you can absolutely win by playing a different game in the same space. An example that comes to mind is Yelp - while all other yellow pages and review sites are focused on getting readers and selling to advertisers, Yelp seems to be playing a completely different game. It looks like they are focused obsessively on their reviewers - giving them tools, recognition, community etc. Yelp is looking at the exact same market as all other yellow page companies are, but playing a totally different game.  
2. Understand what metrics really matter for your business - the metrics that *seem* to matter for your business might not be the ones that really determine your eventual success. Moneyball shows how the Oakland A's found that most of the metrics that baseball teams have been using for decades (batting average, # of steals, etc) had little or nothing to do with how successful the teams were. Another example is a post I wrote recently about how PV's and ad revenues might not be the best success metrics for publishers. 

Bottom line - highly recommended. Get it here at Amazon or here at Audible. 

Magnes Sisters handbags

Disclosure: I'm highly biased on the subject on multiple levels...

The Magnes Sisters are three sisters (surprise..) who design wonderful handbags. They are among the nicest entrepreneurs I've ever met + they are passionate about creating a wonderfully designed and crafted product. Their bags are in the moderate price range - $150 - 350 - but offer probably the best value you can find for a nice handbag. 

If you're not part of the handbag-ing 1/2 of the population - believe me - a Magnes Sisters handbag is a *perfect* gift for a special occasion.

I'm far from being a fashion expert (especially on woman's accessories..), but here are a few comments I picked up from this site:

• "Love these girls and love these bags - they are amazing, well made and very cool!" - Sari from Brooklyn, February 13, 2007.
• "These handbags are terrific, every detail is figured out, they are worth every penny." - Anne from NY, NY, February 14, 2007.
• "I own a gorgeous red on red Magnes Sisters Bag and I have more people stopping me and asking me about it than you can ever imagine!!! It is roomy and classy -- a perfect bag." - Lisa from NJ, February 14, 2007.
• "Such classy bags, perfectly finished, and goes equally with a relaxed jeans look or a dress! Wait till you open one and see every detail inside... amazing:) Love them!" - Jennifer from NYC from US, February 14, 2007.

Go here to read more. If you own a Magnes handbag and have any feedback, please submit a comment below. Magnes Sister handbags are sold at Nordstrom's and hundreds of other stores (a full list is on their site).

If you're in the NY area tomorrow (Thursday, November 20th 2008), you can meet the sisters (and buy a bag!) at a special event they are doing before the holidays. Full details are below (click the invite for a full size version):

Cosmic VC

Charlie Federman - a VC and a friend - has recently launched a new and excellent blog about VC's, startups, etc.

One post I couldn't agree more with:

"Try as you may, but no young company, founded with a growth oriented DNA, that I remember, has ever slashed their expenses to victory. Many companies appropriately encouraged to slash budgets find themselves with now unproven markets, or a value proposition which has not yet resonated. Nevertheless, if a company has momentum, this environment presents an incredibly capital efficient time to garner market share as distribution, R&D and customer acquisition expenses are in a deep downward spiral."

As bad as things are today, it's important to keep in mind that there will be big big winners in 2010-12, and those winners are being incubated right now. The smart companies are going to figure out how to provide clients with great value in a down market. They're going to have massive access to great talent and cheap office space. They're going to have the full attention span of their potential clients.

VC's that are panicking out of investments today are probably missing out on the companies facing the best opportunities in nearly a decade.

Favorite podcasts, part 3

TED Talks has to be my all-time favorite podcast. Here's an excellent talk by Robert Lang on origami... wow...:

TED Talks are generally so good, you can hardly go wrong. But as a service to Webx0 readers, here are a few that I particularly liked:

• Craig Venter about designing artificial life
• Joshua Klein about the intelligence of crows
• Deborah Gordon about ants
• Ken Robinson - a classic about education and creativity
• David Gallo with incredible undersea creatures
• Robert Full on evolution and engineering
• Blaise Aguera y Arcas demoing Microsoft's Photosynth

Point your iTunes here to subscribe to TED's video feed.

The post every software engineer and PM should read

Here's why Joel Spolsky has one of the most popular blogs in the software world. This post is a must-read for anyone developing a software product (and definitely for all the software engineers and product managers over at Quigo and outbrain!):

A game of inches

Don't let the slow start detract you.

Momix - Highly recommended

My wife treated me yesterday to the Momix show at the Joyce Theater. And what a treat it was! This is easily one of the best shows I've ever seen. As far as I could tell, there's no deep philosophical layer or storyline (or at least I was too stupid to notice any...), so the highly intellectual among you might find the show disappointing.

But Momix is simply stunning to watch. The dancers are incredible, and the scenes and music are all beautiful. It's really amazing to see how ~8 dancers with a minimal set and minimal accessories (3 sticks, a ball, a hoola-hoop, etc) can create magic. Highly recommended.

Here's a video of one of my favorite scenes in the show:

(if you're reading this in an RSS reader, you may need to click here to see the video)

Momix is showing daily at the Joyce through June 10th. If you're in NYC this week - go get your tickets now.

Graffiti 2.0

MomentaryExposure.com is an addictive little experiment from my fellow Quigo'er Yigal. It'll take me more time to explain what this does, than it would for you to check it out. So go and graffiti something, and get your 15 moments of fame!...

This post seems to have been dugg:

Sea Breeze and Biz

My old friend and fellow outbrainer, Ori Lahav, has joined the blogosphere with his new blog - Sea Breeze and Biz. He's writing about his two favorite topics - outbrain and yachting.

If the first few posts are any indication, this blog is well worth subscribing to.