Google custom meta-feeds are on the way.

If it wasn't already obvious, it is now. RSS is changing the face of the web....

RSS and Google Base: Google Feeds Off The Web

Google...you're beautiful. stop it.

Google is releasing products at an impressive pace. Today's is Google Base.

I can't help but be impressed.

From Google's PR

Google Base is an extension of Google’s existing content collection efforts such as our traditional web crawl system, as well as Google Sitemaps, Google Print and Google Video – all which enable content owners to easily make their information searchable via Google.

Google Base is a place where you can add all types of information that we'll host and make searchable online. Among the types of information you can make searchable by Google are cars, jobs, news articles, products, reviews, and wanted ads.

From Business 2.0 Blog

Yes, it's a Craigslist killer. But it's also much more.

There is a whole dark Web out there that Google's bots cannot crawl, so they want you to be helpful, please, and become unpaid data-entry clerks to fill up their index. Why would you do this?

It seems obvious that people will do this. User driven content continues to drive the growth of the web. Social networks, people sharing content, products, services you name it. It's all about having tools that make it easy to publish and search to help people find what they're looking for.

When you have a little time read this ariticle written in 2002 by Paul Ford.
August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web

Google on a roll

I just read this great article on Google, I've been impressed in the past by what they are doing. This article opened my eyes a little bit more to the real impact that Google is having on the world. Enjoy. What Lurks in Its Soul?

Finally back online

Colleen and I just recently moved, and I've finally got the Internet up and running again. Great to be back online at home. Simply can't get to reading and blogging from work. More posts to come...

Why Search Engine Optimization is Six Times More Important than Paid Search

A great post by Paul Allen( managing partner of Infobase Ventures).

Why Search Engine Optimization is Six Times More Important than Paid Search

A friend alerted me to a great article at searchenginewatch.com. The article explains how humans view search results (there is a natural "F" pattern, starting at the top of a page, going down along the left side scanning for keywords, and then going to the right when something catches the eye.) It also reinforces Jupiter Research last December that claims that 6 out of 7 commercial search engine referrals come from natural search engine rankings, and only 1 out of 7 come from paid clicks. So why are so many search engine marketers and agencies only focusing on paid search? Because it is easy and instantaneous. Search engine optimization requires a great deal of technical skill, time, effort, energy, and outreach.

Finally an arcade game worth the money.

It seems like it's been forever since there was an acrade game that was actually worth the money. Well this puppy would certainly pull a great deal of coin out of my pocket.

A virtual Gundam robot arcade game is demonstrated by its developer team staff Hisaharu Tago during a strategy briefing by the president-elect of Namco Bandai Holdings Inc., the soon-to-be joint entertainment company set up by Japanese toy and game makers, Bandai Co. Ltd. and Namco Ltd., in Tokyo Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005. Facing toward a 180-degree wide screen, the game allows a player to sit inside a cockpit-like room to control a virtual Gundam robot. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)

Personal Broadcasting

A new photo sharing service is coming online soon. I know, with Flickr being so popular do we really need another site out there? Well looks like Flickr is a couple steps behind this new service called Slide, sounds pretty interesting:

From Business 2.0 Blog: Instead of just being a Website, Slide is an application you download to your computer. It indexes all of your photos, and then lets you publish albums so that other Slide users can see them, as well as lets you subscribe to albums that other users publish.

Really like the idea of being able to set up RSS feeds of your photos (and video) so that people can subscribe to updates. The only drawback may be that it is a desktop app - then again Picasa is pretty good, so we'll see. The service is in beta right now and you need to be invited. I sent an email to inviteme@slide.com, hopefully they'll let me try it out.

The term “personal broadcasting” seems to be trademarked on the site. What a great term. Makes me think of my earlier post about where the web is headed. Personal, relevant content being distributed and consumed. Great to see this trend continue on.

New Video Search Engine

I just came across this and thought it was interesting: www.blinkx.tv

From the site:
blinkx.tv allows you to search the web for video and audio clips. Unlike other search providers, blinkx.tv not only lets you search using standard keyword and Boolean queries but you can also use conceptual search. This type of search is provided by blinkx only, and allows you to enter normal text for which blinkx.tv will return results whose content is conceptually similar to your search text.

Give it a try, let me know what you think.

Google Vs. Yahoo

It’s great to see Yahoo and Google battle it out on who can build and release more cool stuff into the market. At http://next.yahoo.com/ we see a bunch of new tools related to blogging, podcasts and social computing. While over at http://labs.google.com/ they have all things search related, but with one very cool addition – the next step from Google maps - yes, Google Earth. http://earth.google.com/

I installed this when it was still “Keyhole systems”, but it looks like Google has certainly expanded on the original product. You can see all the top examples here.

Speaking of Google, seems that with incredible success comes increased risk. You may have heard over the last little while about an article on CNET that talked about Google’s immense collection of personal data – and what is truly at risk if someone gained access to it.

If search history, e-mail and registration information were combined, a company could see intimate details about a person's health, sex life, religion, financial status and buying preferences.

It's "data that's practically a printout of what's going on in your brain: What you are thinking of buying, who you talk to, what you talk about," Bankston said. "It is an unprecedented amount of personal information, and these third parties (such as Google) have carte blanche control over that information."

Seems that Google is taking their time responding to this article….

Google could not be immediately reached for comment. (Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.)

But what about Yahoo? Considering the size and maturity of Yahoo’s long list of personal services - wouldn’t they be a bigger threat to privacy than Google is? Probably…but Google is still a sexier target…at least for now.

The real impact of RSS

I was reading Alex Barnett's blog about an article that he read on CNet about the "RSS Effect".

Bill Flitter, writes:

RSS, like other time-shift technologies such as TiVo, will change the way traditional media consumers interact with their content. When people get an RSS feed, they need not go through standard Web site navigation patterns that we are accustomed to tracking. They look at just what they want, when they want.

While this is great for the consumer, it can be detrimental to publishers that have heretofore ignored the impact of RSS. Suddenly content that used to take a few clicks to get to on a Web site--providing ample room for profitable ads to appear--can be accessed in one page view, sans the ads. That's a huge change that most publishers have yet to grasp.

Smart publishers need to wake up and smell the RSS coffee because it's not just a flavor-of-the-day trend for bloggers. RSS is a permanent and fundamental change in the way content is delivered and experienced online. If they don't watch out, their Web sites just might die along with the traditional viewership model.

Welcome to the age of consumer-controlled media.

Pictures better than real life!

Recently, just across the lake in Rochester, NY Kodak laid-off 10,000 employees as part of their overall strategy to lay-off up to 25,000 in the near future. The obvious reason being the huge impact that digital photography has had on the company.

As I’m sure you know Kodak has been around for a long time and built their business in traditional photography business. Although somewhat slow to make the change to digital, they have certainly demonstrated a commitment to be a leader in the space, although the losses are still pretty dramatic.

Anyway, the reason for my post is on the Kodak easy share gallery site the opening statement is pretty amusing:

Tell you Story. Share your photos.
Get pictures that look even better than real life.
100% quality guaranteed.

I laughed when I read this. Pictures better than real life? What a joke. Seeing as Kodak is cutting and slashing, I'd suggest adding the moron behind this to the pile.

All for now...

Always know when to sell...and when to buy.

So…been quite a while since my last post on this blog. If you’re interested in what I’ve been up to outside of work you can always see on http://pain-is-weakness.blogspot.com/ .

Anyway, I came across an interview with Nathan Kaiser, CEO of Webshots in March of 2004. Shortly after this interview Webshots was acquired by CNET for $70M, but that’s not everything….

From www.paidcontent.com This is the craziest bit: the history of Webshots is very interesting: Webshots co-founders Andrew Laakmann, Narendra Rocherolle, and Nicholas Wilder sold the company to ExciteAtHome for $82.5 million in late 1999. Then, when the doomed broadband portal and access company went bankrupt, the founders back it bought from the bankruptcy court for $2.4 million in 2002. And now, they've flipped it again, for $70 million, to CNET, out of which $60 million is in cash.

These young guys (all of them in early and mid-30s) are brilliant, and crazily rich now...

Talk about making the right decision at the right time. I hadn't heard of these guys until now, but I have to say I’m impressed. I liked the interview, have a read…

Media RSS

Been hearing some interesting things about Media RSS lately. Yahoo is talking more and more about RSS and using Yahoo services to create, distribute etc. They also support the new Media RSS format (similar to podcasting). As I was reading through these articles I came across a use case written in 2001 (yes 4 years ago) that is probably the easiest to understand explanation of what Media RSS is and why it's so important in changing the landscape of the Internet.

Blogging leads to RSS > leads to podcasting > leads to Media RSS > leads to relevant content delivered to me when I want it. But what is missing? That is the million dollar question - would love to hear anyone's comments.

Your Content is King

Just came across this article about the user generated content movement on business 2.0:

Let's face it: People are fascinated with themselves. That's why when it comes to content-driven websites -- and what websites aren't in that category? -- there is nothing more viral or compelling than content generated by users. Whether it's travel journals, group calendars, event listings, product reviews, or personal photos, people love to put their stuff up on the Web. Look at the popularity of photo-sharing Website Flickr.com, the consumer-written online encyclopedia Wikipedia, or consumer reviews on Amazon.com and Epinions. Hell, nobody makes customers work harder than eBay (EBAY), whose entire business depends on sellers uploading descriptions, prices, and photos of their auction wares.

It's a good article, very interesting how the Internet is changing.

Also, read about the size of the online ad industry. Amazing how fast things are growing again.

Will the real Internet please stand up?

Things are sure moving fast these days, lot's on the go. I came across this article today and thought it was post worthly.

The Internet Has Just Begun to Make an Impact
Consider the top five global Internet market cap leaders: Google, Yahoo, eBay, Yahoo Japan and Amazon, which combined for a $2 billion market value in pre-2000 IPO. That soared to $178 billion in market value at the Nasdaq's peak in March 2000, only to fall to $32 billion at the trough on Oct. 9, 2002.

As of April 22, 2005, these five companies had a total market value of $197 billion. That new peak resulted from the Internet's ubiquity and widespread consumer acceptance."

Pretty amazing when you consider how early on we are in the growth and impact of the Internet. I've said it before and I'll say it again, what an exciting time to be alive.

Google better keep an eye on MSN

I just saw this post on Alex Barnett's Blog. Some interesting developments:

Internetnews.com:
"MSN Messenger 7.0 will also introduce the concept of shared search on the IM client. Using integrated MSN Search capability, users will be able to search and share results of search queries while having an IM conversation. According to Holden, MSN did a lot of research into how people use PC-to-PC calls and they specifically looked at upstart VoIP vendor Skype.
...Microsoft claims that over 2.5 billion instant messages currently traverse the MSN Messenger network every day. The service also boasts over 155 million users each month. "

Also, MSN Spaces is out of beta. From PC Magazine:
"Spaces hasn't changed all that much from its initial beta release, but there have been two noticeable improvements. You now get 30MB of photo storage space — up from a mere 10MB. Plus, there are now over 50 new "themes" you can use to define your blog's basic look and feel."

Infoworld:
"Over 4.5 million people have already signed up for the free service, Microsoft said. "

I've written about how impressive Google is in the past, and they certainly continue to be impressive. Although if you take a look back at the innovators (like Netscape) it's very hard for them to continue to lead. I'm sure the folks at MSN are not thinking that Google's dominance is out of reach. All I can say is watch out Google. MSN has some deep pockets and lots of smart people.

The Long Tail

As with everything I find on the Net, by the time I come across it I feel like I've missed so much. As is the case with "The Long Tail".

Last year a guy named Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired Magazine about a concept known as "The Long Tail", this concept hit home with content owners everywhere. Chris now maintains a blog on The Long Tail which is a great source for up to date info.

I'll paraphase for the sake of this post, but the best thing to do if you're interested is to read the wired article first and then keep an eye out for it - It's everywhere nowadays. The Long Tail looks like this:

The basic premise of the Long Tail is that the market of niches is larger than the mass market content. Take music downloads for instance, the top 10,000 songs make up less market share than all songs outside the top 10,000. This is very compelling concept that is only possible online. With no distribution or warehousing costs (to speak of) virtually all content can be made available and if there is an audience for that content it can be sold to at a profit. Applying this thinking to types of content really opens the door to the future and where a new opportunity lies.

I've got lots of thoughts around this and plan to post them in the coming weeks. I know my blogging has slowed to a crawl lately - work is a busy place these days - but I'm committed to the 5 people that read this blog. So stay tuned!

Wireless report

I was just reading through the business2.com wireless report. It’s a series of articles on what’s happening with mobile virtual networks like Virgin Mobile and a whole slew of new competitors – P Diddy being the most interesting. There are also articles on mobile gaming and mobile music services...

So far, Nokia has been the most aggressive pursuer of digital music. Last year the company shipped 10 million phones with built-in MP3 players. At the 3GSM conference in Cannes this week, Nokia announced agreements with Microsoft (MSFT) and Loudeye to create a mobile music platform and make it easier for consumers to transfer music between their PCs and phones. Nokia also unveiled several new handsets with built-in music players.

Archrival Sony Ericsson, the world's sixth-largest handset maker, recently said that music is its focus in 2005 and that, in the next few weeks, it will unveil several new handsets designed to mimic MP3 players. Late last year Motorola (MOT) announced a partnership with Apple (AAPL) to bring iTunes to mobile phones.

I have to agree with Matthew Maier when he says that cell phones probably won’t become the music player of choice this year. But as technology advances what is stopping the complete convergence of all devices? Doesn’t seem like anything. What makes the ipod so great (aside from marketing and content) is it holds 40GB, is easy to use and looks cool. But if it could be connected that would be great and then why not be a phone too?

I wonder if Slingmedia could be streamed to your handset? Probably not video yet – but streaming audio would be great.

Although, carriers would rather you purchase the content (music or video) through their networks, but if they could provide a copy of that libray, people would certainly pay for the access. This would allow carrriers to not have to get involved in the content side of the business (which they know very little about) and focus purely on the network.

To bring this post full circle, I wonder if any of the mobile virtual networks are planning this? Offering consumers this type of service would be a very compelling offer.

hmm anybody want to start a cellphone company?

Plaxo on my phone please

Thanks to Adam from Plaxo for adding a comment to my posting about phones. Seems they are offering WAP access as part of a Beta program. I went to the site, but because it’s beta and there is a “chance” I could lose info I chickened out. Adam also mentioned there is a lot of stuff coming down the pike – I’m very interested to see what they have in store.

I would love to see all my Plaxo information available as an option on my cellphone bill. I check it off and my phone and all other systems are sync’d - I would gladly pay a little charge for that each month, no problem.

I’m sure it will only be a matter of time until Plaxo makes a deal with a phone company or gets bought by one...

Digital Entertainment

In my previous post I talked about my trip to Best Buy on the weekend. For the first time I saw Microsoft Media Center in action. It was on a 52inch flat DLP, with surround sound, the computer was an HP Digital Entertainment Center. I was pretty impressed. It was great to have one central access to your computer, along with dvds, pictures and recorded/live tv. The resolution must have been 1280 pixels across it was great.

It seemed to work great as a computer - XP, easy to navigate with the remote keyboard, quick access to web, email, IM no problem. It would be great to work/play on this at night or on the weekends. Sitting on your couch and being able to multitask everything – convergence is here – where is AOL when all this is happening?

But then again, having a nice wireless laptop and a sweet TV is still probably better. Computer stuff is always better close up anyway, changes when it’s on a big screen and multiple people using it.

Having said that, it would be great to have a laptop with media center and use the dvd on the laptop to “broadcast” to the flat panel. This would be just like Apple’s Airport and Air Tunes expect for video that would be very cool.

A while back I was at a conference where a guy from HP was talking about the next wave for HP being the media center and the idea of digital entertainment. HP had started with digital photography and would be extending into what he called the “digital entertainment”. The concept being having all your media accessible from one system and through your flat panel, all your photos, music, home movies accessible in the living room.

Was this Carly’s vision for HP - to own digital entertainment?. HP certainly is leading the push – but it’s still early adopter. Was this her downfall? Being too early in an emerging market? We all know how long that strategy lasts…turns out she only got $45 million in severance – rough being a CEO these days.

About “digital entertainment” I certainly think it’s the future, but it will take time. The missing piece for me at the moment is that it is about storing data locally on your system. These systems have not incorporated the ability to share files across the web but things like slingmedia are changing this.

I think I need to buy a new TV soon. So now that’s a new phone and a new flat panel. Man oh man - I have to stop visiting Best Buy for a while.

My next phone

Yesterday afternoon I went to Best Buy, there was a lot of cool stuff there. I like visiting it every so often to drool over the latest gear. Cell phones were disappointing though. I was hoping to see the Motorola Razor, but they didn’t have one. Guess you can only get it from Rogers here in Canada.




I’ve heard that you can sync your outlook via USB on a Razor. I think this is because it runs on Windows Mobile (Here’s a bunch of smart phones that run windows mobile.) I think my next phone will have to have this, seems perfect – all the info I want (no email but that’s ok). The Treo 600 is pretty nice, but I think it’s a little big for an everyday phone. I do like the new Blackberry 7100, although I haven’t seen one in person yet so it’s hard to say how big it is.




I wonder if you could sync your outlook calendar to your phone via a web service. Something like Plaxo connected to your phone. Having a USB sync is alright, having it sync automatically would be way better. I use Plaxo and couldn't find anything about this.

If anyone knows of a service that can sync your phone contacts and calendar via the web let me know.

Where is the Internet headed?

I mentioned in my previous posts about some thoughts I’ve been having around information becoming more important than the destination and where the Internet is headed in general. Well, here it is – let me know what you think.

So where is the Internet headed? Over the last year or so we’ve seen a number of things change. With the coming years things will (obviously) continue to change and evolve. Here’s my take on what the next wave of how we access news and information is going to be:

First we had web sites, check news on each one, time consuming and a hassle to go out and browse web sites – different navs – different structures – takes time to find what you are looking for. Because it’s a hassle to find new sites, you end up only going to the same sites over and over again.

Then we had email newsletters, which looked to be better, but with spam and the amount of email we get they now seem less effective + its a hassle to have to go to each site to sign-up and manage your subscriptions and you always risk the site sharing your email which equals more spam.

Now, with RSS you can get real time headlines from blogs and news sites. You just access the information that you’re looking for, no more navigating to different web sites or having to manage different email subscriptions.

With RSS readers you can set up multiple feeds from different sites and remain completely anonymous. You are not subscribing (in the traditional sense) to a list, just accessing the feed in real time. As content is posted it shows up instantly. You can also set up filters within your reader so that only relevant content is displayed.

Some RSS Readers now have notification options – when content arrives that meets specific filter criteria you can be notified by email, txt, whatever (check out Bloglines Windows Notifer). Today readers are mostly stand-alone apps (Top RSS readers) however RSS is quickly becoming a standard (MS and Apple have stated that their next operating systems will have built-in RSS readers). With this kind of support it seems obvious that RSS will soon be a standard method for distributing content in all channels and applications (desktop, portals, outlook, etc.).

The problem with this model at the moment though is that you still have to manually find and sort these blogs, although services like Technorati, Feedster and Fagan Finder are making it easier to find what you are looking for. The next evolution will be to apply an automated search concept to these services. A learning search that knows your preferences and what you are interested in. Some settings you make yourself and others are suggested because they meet your criteria. No longer will you have to search out RSS feeds, the system will always be searching and will uses your filters to “pick up” information that is relevant to you. The Blog Portal/RSS Search space is quickly becoming very competitive, companies like Technorati, FeedDemon, Bloglines, Syndic8, Del.icio.us, Blogdex, etc all provide an impressive array of services that relate to blogs and RSS. It’s just a matter of time until this competition leads to automated, personal content delivery. It just makes sense.

Now think about hand held devices and wireless broadband.

Devices are merging: cellphones, cameras, pda, media player and universal wi-fi access (Check out urlgreyhot for updates on cool device stuff). Now imaging the concept of RSS and real-time information down to you hand, at broadband speeds. You are tapped into the information flow of the world. Content, blogs, video, pics, mp3s, you name it. Your filters sift through the data and pick out the information that is relevant to you. (btw, you can already download RSS feeds to your PDA)

Now think about it the other way. In your hand you have a device that records everything, a picture, a video, a message, etc. Imagine being able to record and post into the data stream knowing that people that share your interests will see it instantly. How will this change the way that we obtain news and information? Something happens ½ way around the world, and it is instantly delivered to me? This content includes not just what the newsmakers and marketers of the world want me to see, but the daily occurrences of life itself: an inspirational thought, an innovative idea, a scientific breakthrough, a funny video. This will be a level of sharing and connection that we have never seen before. Imagine what is possible when ideas can be shared across the world in an instant and in an automated and personal fashion, the exponential growth of knowledge will be incredible.

There are people that would say, “people won’t want to share”, but they are simply wrong, we do want to share. We want to share, we want to learn, we want to connect. When the Internet first came along people said it was making us more isolated from each other. But now take a look at a site like Flickr (you can see my photos here). Millions of people posting personal photos, sharing them with the world, talking about them, connecting with each other. Amazing.

The Internet and technology in general is simply a mirror of humanity – it is what we want it to be, it just takes a little bit of time and trial and error to get there.

I don't know about you, but I sure think this is an exciting time to be alive.

Search Engines and SEO

Been thinking about how Google (and other search engines) function and the importance they place on links and anchor tags. Does this strategy really provide more relevant content to me? It did initially, but now with so many SEO professionals out there the relevancy of search results seems to be going to those companies that know how to manipulate the results the best.

To illustrate how results can be manipulated - do a search for "miserable failure" on Google. You will see that the first result here is George W. Bush's biorgaphy. This has been accompllished through a technique known as Google bombing - a high number of sites place links to Bush's bio using the words "miserable failure" as the link - this creates a high page ranking for Bush's bio when the term "miserable failure" is searched for.

If you think back to search engines in the mid/late 90s you can probably remember them not being that useful. As more and more people understood how to manipulate the results, the search engines themselves became less and less effective of finding anything useful (because marketers had taken over).

Could SEO and organic search marketing be the downfall of today's search engine? Probably not, seeing as the resources Google has to improve it's technology, but an interesting thought none the less.

Google presence

I was just reading story about Google Hacking. It's crazy the amount of information that is available online these days. Recently I've been thinking alot about RSS (great post on Ventureblog about RSS) and how it's changing the nature of the Internet, (I'll post more about this thought soon) this article helped me see that the thoughts I've been having could be quite true. Here's a quote from the article:

"The most practical thing I can tell people is to be fully aware of what their Google presence is. Companies and even individuals should be aware of what they look like through Google," he said.

Google presence? I've done a lot of work with SEO and search marketing, but I've never thought of it as maintaining a presence. Very interesting.

PS - if you're interested, find out why Google is going to rule the world.

An End to Chaos

My name is Darrell Heaps. I am 32 years old. I run a company called Weave Communications. Been doing this for just over 3 years now. Previous to this company I led a start-up web development company called NKaos Interactive Media. It was part of the Internet bubble and all things that it represented (except getting rich). It was an amazing experience that went from 3 of us using school computers at night to 25 people and 2M in sales, to almost bankrupt, then layoffs and finally a merger and trying to stay alive. The last couple of years have been tough, but things are changing. That leaves to where I am today, on the verge of another cycle, another opportunity that represents the dream from the early days.

I’ve decided to start writing this so that I can keep a record of the professional life I am living. My intent is to write about experiences and ideas from the past and today. I truly think there was an incredible amount of vision in the early days of the Internet, before the realities of what was achievable came into play. Even today, with all the advancements being made, we haven’t even scratched the surface.

I read recently read a post titled "That 1994 feeling" . It was about RSS and it's similarity to the impact of HTML. As I read through it I couldn't help think that I can feel it. We are entering into another renaissance period. The Internet is changing the world, it’s just taking slightly longer than we had thought. Instead of taking 5 years, it’s going to take 10. What is the world going to look like 5 years from now – in 2010? That’s an interesting number to look at isn’t, seems futuristic. Think about how much the world has changed from 1990 to 2000 and the Internet only gained steam in the late 90’s. Yes it’s true, I believe there is a great deal of change and opportunity in how the Internet and technology are going to make our lives better and I’m really glad to be a part of it.

But for now, I’d like to go back to the beginning, before all of this happened.

It was spring 1994, I had completed my 2nd year at York University, taking a dual degree in computer science and business administration. It was late spring and I was looking for a summer job. My dad ran a company that provided travel information services and this guy had come in selling Internet access. My dad thought it would be a good idea for me to see if I could get a job with them. So I called, got an interview and got the job after the first meeting. The company was called Altcom Internet Marketing.

It was a small company that started out doing fax broadcasting, then branched into Internet dial-up and websites. I was hired to sell websites and figure out how to build them. I worked with another guy (who’s name I can’t remember) that I think did some scripting and ran the dial up side of the business. A guy named Micheal Scriven ran it, he was in his mid to late 30’s and had a lot of things on his mind other than running the company. There was also an outside investor that I never talked to.

It was an interesting time. 1994 was when the first version Netscape came out. It was like a revelation. I remember seeing web pages display with really simple graphics and a grey only background. I was in awe. In previous years you never saw anything like that, the Internet was a text only world; BBS had some graphics but nothing like this. I thought, wow this will be just like video one day, this is going to be huge. That day I started to learn how everything worked. I found stuff online about HTML, printed out a ton of stuff and bought a book on the way home. It was a Friday and by Monday, I was good to go. Although I had a lot to learn – I began cold calling and trying to sell web sites.

Exciting as it was, I don’t have to tell you the hell that cold calling is. Anyone who had done this knows what I mean. It’s uncomfortable and when you don’t know what you are doing it’s even worse. So needless to say I wasn’t very good at calling people and trying to sell them on the “Web”. Some people had heard about the Internet and email, and some even the web. But a business having a web site – huh?

Eventually some of the existing dial-up customers wanted a site so I went about building them, graphics and all. I wish I had a copy of what they were because they would be funny to see now. Anyway it didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was the one selling and then building the sites, while the guy running the place was no where to be seen – hmm. As I said, it didn’t take long. By the time school was back in session (Sept) I had started a company with two brothers, Ian and Bryce Hough and we called it NKaos Interactive Media.