Entries from September 2006 ↓

It’s been a wild week to be in the eye of the storm. My new company, ViTrue, is smack in the middle of what’s starting to legitimately feel like a revolution in advertising. Video is a medium I’ve always been interested in because when placed online, it has gigantic advantages over traditional ads for engaging the consumer. I’ve always asserted that TV advertising’s primary pull is its ability to evoke an emotion in the viewer. Banner ads, newspaper ads, and Google text ads can’t do that. But video absolutely can, just as it does on television. Everyone’s found a lump in their throat while watching a television commerical at one time or another. For me it was the Cindi Lauper/Kodak “True Colors” ads during the ‘96 Olympics.

So ViTrue’s starting with online video, and leveraging the web to make it flow both ways between the consumer and the product. This week we finalized a deal with Turner/TBS to power their user-generated-video site, “Am I Funny or Not?” We’re also providing the technology for Friendster’s “Get Political” video contest that allows people to upload their own political ads. Check out one I uploaded on Arnold’s behalf: sharkle.friendster.com

And if that weren’t exciting enough, the grey lady got around to picking up my career move: www.nytimes.com/swansonarticle

It wasn’t long after I started working from home for the first time that I realized there were going to be challenges. Yes, the challenges of making sure you get out of your house occasionally, that you don’t merge your “real” life with your work life, and all that. But friends had warned me of those potential pitfalls. No, what struck me immediately were two altogether unexpected elements. First: the HEAT. Yes. I decided to begin working from home at the only time of the year when San Francisco warms up a bit and reaches the 80 degree range: September-October. And my apartment is south-facing, gets a lot of sun, and gets good and toasty. All day. Oh, and it turns out my 9th grade Science teacher was right. Leaving the refrigerator door open does *not* work as a makeshift air conditioner.
And then there are the parrots. For some odd reason the 50 or so famous Wild Parrots of Telegraph hill have decided to make the tree directly outside of my window into their home for a significant portion of the day. And those mo-fos are loud. Crank your volume and check this video I took of them to get an idea of my new office’s soundtrack.

In other news, Burning Man was a hoot. I don’t know What else to say about it. This was my 7th year and well, I keep going for a reason: it rules. Mad props to my False Profit campmates this year for running the tightest burning man camp I’ve ever seen in action. And by tight I mean dope.

I also attended “The Future of Web Apps” conference which provided me some insights on building passion-centric communities and the various platforms du jour for building your new fancy webapp. Also some good talk about launching companies, getting funding, revenue models, etc. I was struck by how many people in the audience had laptops open and were checking email and surfing the net during the conference (me included). I’ve noticed this phenomenon occuring in business meetings now too. With wireless in every nook and cranny, and laptops ubiqutious, it seems an excellent way to feed the ADD tendencies of your average Silicon Valley hipster. Yes, this conference proved to me that people talking to groups is not nearly as interesting as minesweeper.