As an entrepreneur, whether you’re a one-man show or an established bigwig, you’re bound to run into considerable amounts of stress. The responsibilities and pressures of developing a business are endless – everything from making phone calls, to lunch meetings, to working against deadlines can take a toll on your emotional well-being. And sometimes, when the toll becomes great enough, you reach a boiling point and want to do something drastic – like throw your computer against a wall.

Personally, I probably think about throwing my computer against a wall three to four times a month, but due to reasons of finance and general practicality, I have never given into the urge. Not yet, anyway. However, I imagine many of you are in the same boat, struggling with the same urge, and perhaps closer to giving in than me. So, rather than write a post about stress management - there exist about a googabillion such articles across the blogosphere – I want to outline what you should do when your stress prevails and you prepare to throw your computer against a wall.

1. Concentrate on the grip. Your mind is probably racing with all sorts of anger and non-rational emotion, but if you’re going to throw your computer against the wall, make sure it’s a solid throw. I mean, this might not be a shining moment in your professional career, but nonetheless, it will certainly be a moment to remember. So make sure you wipe off your clammy palms before you pick up the computer, and grip the computer’s base firmly with both hands. You must maintain this firm grip as you rotate the computer towards your throwing side and propel the computer across your body towards the wall.
2. Clear the area. This one goes without saying: if you’re going to chuck a heavy metal object through the air, make sure no co-workers are standing in the way. Not only will they hinder the computer’s spectacular smash/explosion, but there’s also a pretty decent chance they could get hurt. At the very least, have the courtesy to yell “Four!”
3. Confirm the right people are watching. Throwing your computer against a wall is an act of epic proportions, something people often threaten to do, but in reality, never come close. Aside from immediate (and fleeting) moments of stress-relief, the single greatest benefit from throwing your computer against a wall will be the bravado you demonstrate to your co-workers. They may think you are a mildly crazed hot-head, but I’ll be damned if they’re not inspired by your decisiveness. Who knows? Maybe everybody will join in and throw their computers at the closest wall, as well. We all have stress, but we don’t all have leaders.
4. Milk the spectacle for all its worth. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but there’s this new, fun website that’s really taking off called youtube. Yeah, you know the one. Everyday over 100 million videos are watched on the site, the majority of which are created by no-name folks like you and me. So, if you’re going to throw your computer against a wall, why not cash in on some celebrity. People love watching others behave like jackasses, and by throwing your computer against a wall, yes, you immediately qualify as a jackass. Simply ask a co-worker to film you on his iphone, upload the video to youtube, and with a little luck (not to mention some effective word of mouth marketing), you could be a pop sensation before morning. Or conversely, maybe only a few people will watch the video, but your friends will thank you for sharing your insanity, and years down the line, when you’ve gained some perspective on your crippling stress issues, you’ll enjoy a hearty laugh.

All right, my friends. Those are the essential elements of throwing your computer against a wall. These elements, as I suspect some of you are wondering, apply to both laptop and desktop computers. Once again, I am not advocating such wild and crazy behavior, but if you must throw your computer against a wall, I implore you: please make the most of it.

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Exciting news out of Hollywood today: the town’s oldest and most prestigious talent agency, William Morris, has joined up with a couple venture capital firms (Accel Partners and Venrock), as well as AT&T, to form a vehicle for investing in Internet-based businesses. For those of you living outside Lala land, William Morris represents a huge portion of your favorite celebrities: everyone from Quentin Tarantino to 50 Cent to Jesus Christ - yeah, even Jesus needs Hollywood representation.

The goal is to discover, fund, and help build these businesses, which include social networking sites, platforms for mobile devices, video services, and advertising applications.

With this dip into new media, William Morris is expressing a particular interest for innovative systems, rather than innovative content creators. This distinction represents a change for the agency that has forged Hollywood’s path into web 2.0 talent – signing youtube stars like blamesociety films and bloggers like stuffwhitepeoplelike. At the same time however, the “innovative systems” are a way to encourage more web 2.0 talent to blossom – providing a stage for the Steve Shmoes of yesterday to morph into Steven Spielbergs of tomorrow. We live in an age when the power to disseminate information and entertainment is more and more democratized, and William Morris’ new endeavor will only speed along this process.

According to the Hollywood trade paper Variety, the fund is rumored to consist of “tens of millions of dollars, with the average investment in startups said to range from $300,000 to $500,000.” Other top Hollywood agencies are also starting to demonstrate an interest in new media. The United Talent Agency (UTA), for example, owns a significant stake in the digital entertainment studio 60Frames.

“It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time as a way of expanding our business,” said Jim Wiatt, chairman-chief exec of WMA. “It’s an opportunity for us to help foster growth, as well as help our traditional clients.”

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Don’t you hate unpleasant surprises?

Like the time you discovered that attractive woman was actually your best friend’s girlfriend? Or that fateful day you realized it wasn’t technically “cool” to listen to Phil Collins?

Well, I also hate unpleasant surprises. Thus, I hate these new “peel-away” ads that have cropped all over the glorious world wide web. Basically, these ads look like cute, snuggly bunny ears which, when you mouse over them, “peel away” to reveal an ad. Bunny fetish aside, I find these suckers irresistible to click. So naturally, when I noticed on Monday some peel-aways on ProgrammerMeetDesigner’s website (one of the start-ups in my shared incubator space; mentioned in this article), I found myself ready to click. And herein lies the unpleasant surprise: before even clicking the peel-aways, simply through mousing over them, I noticed they were disabling the site’s login button. I soon notified the PMD peeps about their advertising mishap, and they quickly took the ad down.

Fast forward to yesterday: I’m checking out John Chow and I noticed his peel-away ads, served up by his company, TTZ media. Low and behold, his ads made it impossible for visitors to both a) hit the search button and b) close that annoying yellow, top bar (ad) without scrolling away from the ad unit.

Next, I cruised over to TheTechZone (Chow’s other site) on a hunch he was probably running the TTZ unit there, as well.  Hunch confirmed, I noticed some more bugginess: after mousing over an ad, the links on the page covered by the larger hit area (a 500 x 500 px box) stopped working until I removed the mouse from the area all together - even after the ad had “peeled back.”

To surmise everything I’ve said thus far: peel-aways totally suck. Every peel-away ad I’ve seen is riddled with problems, small and large.

This phenomenon validates several points I’ve always found to be true. First, web 2.0 is always in search of the “next thing” - and we often rush to implement this “next thing” prematurely, without adequate test-runs. It’s like auditioning for a Shakespearian play the day after you overcome a major speech impediment: simply not practical. T-t-t-t-to be nor not to be. Definitely not to be.

Secondly, our tendency to rush into half-baked ideas is commonly driven by monetization goals. Most peeps in the 2.0 sphere – and John Chow is definitely an exception - are so abysmal at monetizing their traffic/users that they’ll jump on any bandwagon ad-scheme that comes their way.  Money, in other words, supercedes care and content- and in the end, poop gets rained over everybody. Dirty, stinking poop. Additionally, at the end of the day, as my friends at PMD confirmed, none of these new schemes monetize with vastly more success than the old ones.

As a corollary to this article, mark my words: the first ad company to make a bug-free peel-away unit is going to make good money. Private jet and house in the Hills money. Even enough money – sorry, John Lennon - to buy love. So, if any of you programmers/wizards out there can fill this need in the www, please contact me. I’ll find you funding tomorrow.

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What goes up must come down.

The expectations for “Quarterlife,” the first web-based series to receive a network broadcast, were monstrous heading into Tuesday night. The NBC show premiered at 10pm EST and received the worst ratings for that slot in at least 20 years, according to Neilsen Media Research.

“Quarterlife” was created for the Internet by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick. the producers of “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething,” The show has circulated around popular video-sharing sites like myspace and youtube for the past three months, packaged in episodes of seven to nine minutes. It details the lives of six twentysomething friends and their angsty struggles with life. By web standards, the show has proved a remarkable success- drawing in tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of viewers each week. However, network TV is a different beast with drastically different standards.

Tuesday’s broadcast received an average of 3.1 million viewers and a rating of 1.3 among the audience from 18-49 - the lowest in NBC history since Nielsen started measuring TV viewing by age in 1987. By comparison, the usual Tuesday 10pm show, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” typically brought in 12 million viewers and a 4.5 rating.

NBC’s plan was to take the show’s 36 “webisodes” and turn them into a 6 episode season. But now there are doubts that NBC will even air the second episode. NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman said on Wednesday that the series didn’t live up to expectations, but was “so worth the try.” Translation: it was cheaper than a Czech prostitute.

I don’t think that “Quarterlife”’s flop means the death of the Internet to TV crossover, but it certainly will be looming in the minds of network execs for at least the immediate future. At the same time, however, I personally don’t believe the flop was due to inferior production value or any other Internet stigma. Rather, the show just kinda sucks – lukewarm plot, clichéd characters, and abysmal acting. Check it out for yourself here.

More discussion on other Internet series phenomenon next week.

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Runners Up:

• “Brian, I have a really good idea. Would you be interested in
  hearing me out?” [Gary Lew]

• “Yes..YES… sharks with laser beams!!! Its perfect! Muahahahahah!” [Brandon Hoffer]

• “Hmmmm I’m starting to think I made a big mistake buying this mac book air. “[Destin L]

• Even Kevin Rose is not immune to goatse. [Matthew Hughes]

The first runner up is (to take the place of winner if it can’t fulfill its duties):

So thats what the one cup is for!” [David W]

And the winner is….

“Two inches in just seven days”

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I often hear people using “word of mouth marketing” and “viral marketing” interchangeably, when in fact, they have two completely different meanings. To illustrate these meanings, let’s throw our imaginations into cruise control and head back to high school.

If the wicked popular chick, Jacqueline Beantree, decides to sleep with the wicked popular dude, Joe Margolis, then both Jacqueline and Joe’s friends will soon start spreading the word – in bathrooms, during gym class, after the school day has ended. This spread will take place through several generations, through several demographics, before it eventually dies. Herein lies word of mouth marketing.

On the flip side, if the wicked popular chick, Jacqueline Beantree, decides to sleep with the wicked overweight dude, Trevor Tubblesome, then word will somehow leak out (it always does…), and everybody and their grandmother will soon be talking about the unexpected affair – at home, at the supermarket, even on the Internet. Word will spread at an exponential rate, through manifold generations, through limitless demographics, regardless of Trevor Tubblesome’s involvement, who most likely prodded the spread in the first place. Herein lies viral marketing.

To sum up, the distinction between word of mouth and viral marketing is the manner and speed in which the content is spread. Word of mouth marketing spreads like a common cold, and viral marketing spreads like a virus. Obviously, viral is the preferred mode, but let’s be honest with ourselves: how often does the popular chick sleep with the overweight dude?

(If the answer was “often,” high school would’ve been a happier time for me.)

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Last night, Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country For Old Men took home a shit-load of honors at the 80th Academy Awards, including Best Pic, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem). Although No Country was the odds-on favorite for Best Pic heading into the night, that wasn’t always the case.

Back in November, for example, New Line’s fantasy/adventure The Golden Compass looked primed to ride the coat tails of Lord of The Rings all the way into the winner’s circle. But a few lukewarm reviews and half-empty theaters later, the two-year, star-studded (Nichole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Fanning…) $180 million dollar production lost momentum and faded into Hollywood oblivion – right next to Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure and every film that has featured Shaquille O’Neal.

Then in January, Michael Clayton, starring the melt in your mouth, not in your hand George Clooney, was the irrefutable front-runner. Nikki Finke, the LA Time’s Entertainment editor, commented: “every Oscar voter I talked to at that time kept mentioning they liked [Michael Clayton] best.” But then, within a matter of weeks, No Country ousted Clayton building off Best Pic victories at a variety of contests, including the Screen Actors Guild and Critic’s Choice Awards.

Herein began the No Country word-of-mouth fever: the mainstream media and in turn, the movie-going public, rallied behind the Coen Brothers’ off-beat, episodic Cormac McCarthy adaptation. Next, the Academy members, who vote on all the Oscar nominees (and who hate appearing out of touch with the American public), jumped onto the bandwagon. The buzz was fucking palpable.

At this point, it’s worthy to note that although Academy members vote on all the Oscar nominees, they are not required to watch them. In other words, they often rely on their impression of the given film, which is obviously shaped by associated buzz. And oh, did I mention that the president of the Academy, Sid Ganis, is the producer of such gems as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo, Big Daddy, and Mr. Deeds? The Academy clearly isn’t without its flaws.

I am not trying to convey that No Country wasn’t worthy of Best Pic honors. I’m simply illustrating that the waves of word-of-mouth factored into this end result. And also, if I can leave you with one final word of wisdom, the Academy kinda sucks.

*By the way, the Oscar statuettes are made from 92.5% tin and 7.5% copper, with a gold plating. Gold plating, homies.

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Do you remember that feeling when you realized that Santa Claus was actually your overweight cousin or uncle? Or when you discovered that your father, your idol through infancy and childhood, was just an ordinary dude, capable of making mistakes?

I personally never believed in Santa Clause or in the perfection of my father (I was a cynical kid, I confess), but I honestly did believe Kevin Rose, the Founder of Digg, was a real-life superhero…until recently.

Rose has consistently maintained a popular ratio (percentage of articles that reach Digg’s front page) of at least 99%. Like a superhero, or at least a superhero of the Internet, he can pull a lever and initiate massive floods of traffic.

However, the recent Digg algorithm change, which is intended to create a more level playing field amongst Digg’s users, might be a mild form of kryptonite. Rose’s popular ratio has recently dipped to 98%, with four articles in the past three weeks failing to reach the front page. To give you some perspective, Rose has submitted a total of 347 articles since he birthed Digg in December 2004, and a whopping 341 of them hit FP.

So which articles have come up short? I’m glad you asked. I’ve dug them up (no pun intended) and compiled them for your curiosity and viewing pleasure. Check it:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

So what’s the deal? Why are Rose’s submissions underperforming?

Well, for one, the algorithm change seems to be making a discernible impact. It’s no longer as easy for a top Digger, like Rose, to reach the front page at will. Many armchair Digg experts and bloggers now point to the need for an increased diversity of diggs. In other words, the new algorithm puts even more weight on diggs that come from users who do not typically digg each other’s submissions. 10 diggs from strangers, for example, is more meaningful than 25 diggs from friends- now more than ever. This change displaces power from those users with tight-knit followings, often built up through track records of quality submissions.

But the algorithm encompasses more than vote diversity: the number of submissions, and the number of submissions that reach the FP, are also widely accepted as important factors. Both these numbers feed into a user’s popular ratio, which many consider to be the preeminent factor. This ratio is lowered for every submission that does not reach the front page, creating a negative snowball effect for a user who continues to submit articles that come up short. In this light, I ask the following question: is it a coincidence that Rose’s valley in FP success occurs simultaneously with a peak in the number of his submissions?

Since the algo change came into effect on January 22nd/23rd , he has submitted an uncharacteristically high 16 submissions. As JD Rucker, a popular Digger and blogger, pointed out in a recent Soshable column, “that’s more than [Rose] submitted in November and December, 2007, combined.”

Below are two graphs that illustrate Rose’s submission activity for both 2008 and 2007. Take note of the activity’s recent elevation.

Rose submitted a personal high of 22 submissions this January, closely followed by 21 subs in August of 2007 - when the algorithm change wasn’t even a bleep on anyone’s radar.

Of course, it’s possible that the only reason Rose isn’t making FP as consistently is a decline in the quality of his content, or perhaps in the gusto of his popularity. However, my bet is that the algorithm is simply leveling the playing field, exactly how Rose and his Digg homies intended.

But at the end of the day, even if Rose isn’t a superhero, he’s still pretty awesome. I mean…. he did invent Digg.

* By the way, we’re running a caption contest for the following Kevin Rose picture (courtesy of his Facebook profile). Please submit the best/funniest captions to me at brian.zafron@gmail.com, and we’ll let you know the cream of the crop next week.

[Your Caption Here]

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Boys and girls, chickity check it.

It seems like every day I meet another shmoe-rag who thinks his crackpot scheme or backdoor shinanagan constitutes what me, you, and Webster - you know, the guy who created that dictionary thing - understand to mean a “business.” In tribute to these shmoe-rags, who secretly hold a dear place in my heart, I present you with a shmoe-rific top 10 list, entitled: Top Ten Signs Your Start-Up Business Is Actually A Glorified Hobby.

Without further ado, the list….

10. Your office phone is shaped like Mickey Mouse.

9. The last “important” fax you received was a picture of your step-brother’s bare ass.

8. The only freelance worker you routinely employ is the Pizza Hut delivery boy.

7. Your office space doubles as your reception area and you parents’ bedroom.

6.  Nobody except you showed up to your office Christmas party, but everybody on the invitation list was there.

5. Your official website is your Facebook profile.

4. The only service you offer is photo-shopping pornographic pictures, but you still describe your business as “the next Microsoft.”

3. Your executive summary consists of only one sentence: “I am awesome.”

2.  Two of your childhood invisible friends sit on your board of directors.

1. Your clients regularly pay you with Monopoly money.

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Finding a business partner, temporary or permanent, is like taking home a girl from a bar. Certainly, she might seem attractive from a distance, and perhaps the chemistry is flowing, as well, but what happens when one thing leads to the next and you purchase your non-refundable ticket to Funky Town: what are the chances, you will need to ask yourself, that this girl has an STD?

The majority of my experience with freelancing, apart from my undergraduate journalism days at Northwestern, has come from the client standpoint. In this experience, I have endured a handful of nightmarish relationships that, in hindsight, should have ended at the bar, or certainly in the taxi ride back to my apartment. The following is a favorite/least favorite example.

My old company - which I founded sophomore year and sold shortly after graduation - had begun a project through a large outsourcing site and selected a very active freelancer with verified credentials. We drew up a contract and put all project money into escrow – to alleviate any potential concerns about receiving payment.

Despite our accommodation, the freelancer asked for more money before the project had demonstrated any meaningful headway. A mountain of problems soon amassed - which I won’t delve into because I might summon up dormant rage and end up strangling an adorable and innocent puppy – and even after we placed several additional thousand dollars into escrow, the freelancer refused to finish the project.

At this point, we attempted to backup any completed work - to ensure the freelancer wouldn’t take the money and leave us with nothing but a punch in the balls. But in the end, the punch landed on both our balls and our wallets: we soon discovered that there was a decoy connection script that was pointed at our databases (the MySQL queries were all being pulled from their servers) and that the freelancer created a malicious script with the sole purpose of destroying the rest of the files (executed remotely, of course). We ostensibly threw $8,000 down the drain and on a personal level, I aged about ten years in the span of two months. That’s faster than dog years, my friends.

In today’s world of interconnectivity, outsourcing is only becoming more popular. And naturally, everyone, whether they reside on the client or service end of the spectrum, is bound to run into someone who takes their trust and spreads Vegemite and raccoon poop all over it. However, I firmly believe, and my overarching experience supports, that most people are not seeking selfish, short-term gains. Most people strive to create cathartic working relationships that will transition from one project to the next, picking up a solid reputation and a slew of referrals in the process.

But - and this is a medium to medium/large butt - the risk of encountering the bad apple is very real. And, with this risk constantly looming in the background, it’s important to take whatever precautions possible.

First and foremost, you need to pay careful attention to how the other party responds to initial contractual negotiations. If you give them an inch, and right from the start they try to take a mile, then you’re probably entering into a problematic working relationship. Test the waters very cautiously, in other words, before you take off your clothes and dive into the pool.

Neither freelancers nor clients should tolerate adversarial relationships. Believe me: it’s dangerous to cater to people who neither initiate nor reciprocate efforts to build genuine trust. Along these lines, I ask: isn’t it great when someone, perhaps a friend, perhaps not, performs an unsolicited act of kindness for you? And don’t you, as the recipient, possess an urge to return the favor? If you answered no to either of these questions, then please quietly get up from your seat and exit at the back of the room.

Certainly, sometimes taking a blind chance on another person will pay dividends for current and future projects, but if you remain “blind” for too long, you’re playing with fire. Or, to return to this article’s initial analogy, you’re playing with a girl with some potentially nasty STDs.

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