December 2011
4 posts
[TRIP REPORT] Taking a break in Turks and Caicos →
Photo trip report of the Turks and Caicos.
AddThis Recaps the Year in Sharing →
2011 was an incredible year for social sharing. We turned a year’s worth of AddThis data into an awesome infographic reviewing the top social moments.
The Syracuse University Scandal Reinforces How We... →
The scandals at Penn State and Syracuse and the reactions or inactions of university officials, ESPN, the Post Standard, police and DA, go beyond the evidence or lack thereof. The shock of these allegations paralyzed everyone into inaction and disbelief. It clouds our judgement and makes us say things we regret later.
November 2011
4 posts
Racing from NYC to DC…Planes, trains and... →
I have always wondered which is faster, flying from NYC to DC or taking the train. The results are surprising to me.
Joe Paterno, Penn State and Morals →
Would Joe Paterno, head coach, at least for today, of Penn State University football, stop to help someone who was injured on the side of the road? Based on his behavior and the behavior of leadership at PSU, I am guessing he would not.
Big East and West Virginia Sue Each Other, Who... →
Funny post about how the Big East has created such a mess that they are now suing and counter suing their own members while at the same time inviting new members 2000 miles away in Idaho. Desperation stinks.
WordPress or Tumblr, Which Is the Right Blog... →
WordPress or Tumblr, its a question many of my friends are asking as they start blogging. Here are some observations and stats that show some really big differences in each platform’s ability to help you get visitors. Very helpful in understanding why Tumblr is better than WordPress.
Entrepreneurial Success Happens in Places Other... →
Mark Zuckerberg says if he started Facebook today he would have stayed in Boston. Silicon Valley is just a place on a map, great ideas, people and execution can happen anywhere.
October 2011
7 posts
Using Social Media Trends to Help You Get A Job →
On November 15th, I am speaking at Syracuse University about how social media is changing the way we network and get jobs. I will be covering social trends and how your online brand impact your chances of getting a job or that key business connection.
My iPhone4S after 3 weeks →
Helpful review of the iPhone4S if you are still on the fence on purchasing one.
5 Years of Sharing, millions of domains, billions... →
Here is an awesome infographic on 5 years worth of trends in social networking and sharing. It is amazing to see how Facebook and Twitter have grown up as major social networks.
My memories of Steve Jobs →
A great post about the influence Steve Jobs had on so many people, whether you got the chance to meet him or not. Or in this post’s case almost ran him over!
Oh the humanity…iPhone5 is actually called... →
Apple may have disappointed the media by not incrementing the version number of iPhone4 to iPhone5, but consumers will not care. Here is a great post on why the press is panning it, why they are wrong and some of the best features of the new iPhone.
The next iPhone is going to look like iPhone4 and... →
Tomorrow Apple release the next iPhone, called iPhone4S, and while it has the same look and feel of iPhone4, the guts of the phone will be a marked improvement over iPhone4.
September 2011
6 posts
Best Feature of the New Facebook Timeline – See... →
With the new Facebook Timeline you can now see who has un-friended you over the years. The simple check is really interesting if you have ever wondered why you stopped getting updates from certain people. No it was not the magical Facebook algorithm, it was that they un-friended you!
Step by Step Guide to Enable New Facebook Timeline... →
Here is an easy step by step guide to enabling Facebook Timelines on your profile. Mark Zuckerberg announced today at F8 that the profiles are available if you are a developer, well with these simple steps you will easily get access to the new profile even if you are not a developer.
Netflix Moves in the Correct Direction →
Due to copyright laws and Hollywood, Netflix wised up to separate their businesses. While the execution has been awful, the reasoning is sound. Here is the outline to why the changes are happening and why Netflix is pissing off their customers and the stock price is tanking.
How does Syracuse stack up against the ACC? →
Now that the news is official and Syracuse is headed to the ACC, its time to break down the how Syracuse stacks up against its new competition.
8 years late…Syracuse is going to the ACC →
UPDATE (11:56 PM EASTERN) - ACC Conference call at 930AM to announce SU and Pitt being admitted to the league.
Amazing that 8 years after the last flirtation with the ACC, in a matter of a weekend Syracuse is no longer going to be part of the Big East.
Remembering 9/11 →
Remember my day in Dulles VA with planes landing 500 feet over my head. One of the scariest days of my life, a day I will never forget, and yet life does goes on and we must not live in fear.
August 2011
6 posts
7 tags
Messi Cleans Up - Barca wins Super Copa
FC Barcelona Forward Lionel Messi proves why he is the best player in the game today. Not once…
…but twice.
5 tags
Category 5 Hurricane - Scandal Rocks University of...
You have to hand it to the Miami Hurricanes and their football program. A constant source of controversy for 30 years, the most recent allegations are by far the most serious. Before we touch on the latest mess, lets review the past 3 plus decades of scandals at The U.
1978 - Miami players throw a man in a lake which results in the coach, Lou Saban, getting fired. The players threw the man...
8 tags
Riots Coming to a City Near You?
Let’s be honest, Planet Earth has issues right now, and its citizens are not happy. Droughts, floods, debt, corruption, its no wonder why the riots we have seen in the UK, Arab Spring across the Middle East, and other protests in Greece, Spain and even in the US in the state of Wisconsin, people are fed up and scared. Places and people that are seen almost apathetic about their governments...
6 tags
LinkedIn Advertising Controversy
LinkedIn made changes to start using your picture in advertising on their network. After getting inundated with negative feedback LinkedIn announced they were going to turn off this feature.
Ads With Images:
Ads Without Images:
Users can turn off LinkedIn’s ability to use your name or photo in advertising by following these steps:
1. Click on your name on your LinkedIn homepage...
9 tags
Come Join the Team at Clearspring and AddThis
For those that follow the blog know I work at Clearspring and I am in charge of AddThis which is the largest sharing platform on the Internet. Our product enables over 9 million web sites all over the world to get their content shared to hundreds of services from Facebook to Google+ and Twitter. Our sharing tool supports 70 different languages and is used by over 1 billion users per month.
...
5 tags
The Starbucks Secret Menu Is on a Need To Know...
Starbucks has said for years that it offers over 87,000 drink menu combinations, but just recently a new secret menu has been revealed by loyal Starbucks customers. There are some famous other secret menus, the best being In-n-Out’s Super Secret Menu.
I definitely need to check out some of these awesome new drinks at Starbucks.
Biscotti Frapuccino: Buy a biscotti and ask the barista to...
July 2011
10 posts
7 tags
Investing in the Debt Crisis
I made a bet back in April that the government was not going to be able to avoid a down grade in the rating of the US debt. The bet was to move money out of the market onto the sidelines. I went from 90% of capital in the market to 35% of my money in the stock market. I left my holdings in Apple and Amazon and few low risk mutual funds.
My bet was slow to start working in my favor, but I just...
Ross Tucker Dishes Dirt on the Redskins and Steve... →
I still get tons of laughs from the last 13 years of Washington Redskin history. As someone who never missed a home game growing up, I have only been to 2 games at FedEx field. Of all the hilarious coaching mistakes, many fans overlook the Steve Spurrier era preferring to focus on the Jim Zorn era. Well Ross Tucker who was an offensive lineman during the Spurrier tenure reminds us on the...
8 tags
No Hard Knocks for 2011...Why HBO?!?!
I am very happy that the NFL is back from its extended lockout, but one of the casualties of the lockout is HBO’s Hard Knocks program according to Sports Illustrated Peter King.
No “Hard Knocks” this year. I repeat: No “Hard Knocks.”less than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet ReplyPeter King SI_PeterKing
The show gives all fans a behind the scenes...
5 tags
Atlantic City - Failing to Deliver on a Promise
Like a gambler convinced he has an edge, Atlantic City thought it had an edge in being a gambling destination when New Jersey’s attempt to revitalize the city by legalizing gambling in 1976. Atlantic City’s heyday was in the 1920s when prohibition was in place, the city served as an escape where visitors could drink and gambled. HBO’s Boardwalk Empire tells the tale of...
7 tags
Google+ Thoughts
Google+ has been out for 3 weeks now, and what has started out as an Emerald Sea has turned into a tidal wave of excitement and opinions. The first night Google+ opened up invites, I posted to Twitter, Facebook, and to everyone at Clearspring that I had invites, and after 2 hours had handed out over 100 invites. I had never seen anything like that, including when GMail launched. The fervor has...
7 tags
Bike Beats a Plane in Los Angeles
Dating back to the dawn of man we have been obsessed about getting from point A to point B the fastest way possible. As we developed various modes of transportation the obsession became a debate as to which vehicle could move us faster and which route to take.
From “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne to Top Gear’s 5th episode in the 10th season, we have been racing...
7 tags
Welcome to America Spotify
Many US Internet users have never heard of a company called Spotify, but tomorrow morning that is going to change. Spotify launching in the US is significant as it will trigger a change in the way we consume our music. Some of us here in the US have had access to Spotify via a variety of tricks and knowing the right people.
I have used Spotify for the last 6 months and the thing I love the...
4 tags
Netflix and the Separation of DVDs and Streaming
When Netflix announced their change in plans tonight it was not greeted warmly by the web. There have been a lot of speculation about why Netflix did this:
Increased costs for mailing
Netflix is trying to kill off DVDs
My guess is that Netflix has pressure on multiple fronts. First, the costs of mailing DVDs has to be increasing. The USPS has been saying for a while that stopping Saturday...
4 tags
Delivering the Goods
In the six months since arriving at Clearspring, I have been very impressed with the team I get to work with every day. At AOL the team always used to say we had to act like a startup, but I never realized how far from reality that was. It goes beyond our 2 week release cycle, rather it is the camaraderie of the team working passionately and with a sense of urgency. We are all in this together,...
5 tags
Summertime in DC, Time to Play the License Plate...
For those of us who sit in traffic for hours on end in the DC, summertime brings a new rinkel to the mundane commute. So many cars pass through DC at all times of the day, my nine mile drive to Clearspring each day provides me with ample time to play the license plate game.
For those of you uninitiated in the license plate game it is a game in which you try to identify as many different...
June 2011
4 posts
4 tags
Importing Facebook Friends into Google+ and...
When I first started using Google+ two nights ago it was a little bit of a ghost town. With the exception of my friends who work at Google and a few members of the Silicon Valley elite, I could not find anyone else to friend. Last night Google turned on invites which turned the ghost town into a little bit more engaging community. The challenge is to find people you are already friends with on...
Coach: U.S. World Cup win over North Korea caused... →
I love the North Korean propaganda engine. If true, then this is was an amazing recovery by the players and perhaps we are not putting enough emphasis on Eastern medicines. Though I am not sure it beats the invisible phone that the North Korean football coach used in the 2010 World Cup to talk to Kim Jong-il.
1 tag
WatchNice cameo from our fearless leader Hooman Radfar here at Clearspring
Tim Armstrong Just Killed the AOL Brand →
In a swift move that should have happened his first day on the job, Tim Armstrong just killed the AOL Brand in lieu of Huffington Post. If content is the future of AOL and all the other stuff is just window dressing, then it sounds like only Huffington Post and Patch will be the brands left.
May 2011
7 posts
Haters Gonna Hate — But Google Wallet is... →
Apple better deliver at WWDC with iOS 5.
Why Can’t Lance Armstrong Just Admit He Used... →
AIM and Google Talk Federate…Off with the... →
Great news for users, and hopefully this gets the other networks to move faster in turning on federation with each other.
Gizmodo’s Obit for AIM →
Oh the memories! Gizmodo’s obit for AIM makes me nostalgic and take a look back at my favorite AIM application over my 11 years writing AIM software.
AIM Moves to the Web with AV →
Great job by my former colleagues at AOL. This is the most usable video experience on the Inter-webs.
It’s Not Just the Size of the Data but How You Use... →
Big Data in DC…Check out how we are processing data at Clearspring.
Why Microsoft Had an $8.5B Over-Reaction with... →
March 2010
7 posts
7 tags
Keeping Austin Weird - Movie Edition
After 6 months of waiting, the day has arrived. It’s time to head down to Austin for SXSW to take in music, movies and some geek stuff too. We can cover the geek and music stuff later, but this years conference gives us a bunch of eclectic movies, everything from the MacGruber premier to No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, which seems appropriate given the latest news about his...
8 tags
One Cheesy Implosion
BASEKetball’s vision of sponsoring and naming every arena, stadium and field, is one step closer to becoming reality. The Dallas Cowboys have sold the naming rights to the implosion of the old Cowboys Stadium to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. While I am sure no one will miss the old stadium, no one will forget Kraft for lending their name to this ridiculous event.