This is pretty funny. One of the massive advertising screens in Times Square blue screened.

Entrepreneur.com gives us the 17 most common mistakes startups make.

Interesting conjecture: will Apple launch a mobile phone?

First it just makes sense. Apple is making a ton of money off of the iPod. They’ve already made that first step into the consumer products category and have seen how successful it has been for them. The iPod mini is really close in form factor to a modern mobile phone, so the experience in designing and building a new device like that could be used as Apple wades into the mobile phone market. Those are the logical thoughts. They’re already making the iPod, a phone isn’t that much of a leap (sorta), so it just makes sense, right?

My old Holliston friend Ed Moloney and his wife Christine are participating the Breast Cancer 3-day next July, Christine walking and Ed helping with walk support.

Go read their story, and, if you can, help them reach their fundraising goals.

Interesting article from the Globe about how higher education debt prevents grads from entering public service.

Wondir seems to be doing many of the things we did a few years ago.

John Battelle writes them up.

Wondir is, at its core, a question answering service. Wondir itself is more than two years old, but Koll only recently took the “beta” off the service and turned it into a for-profit enterprise. While there are loads of question answering services on the web, this one is different in some important ways. First off, it feels like a search engine. That’s intentional, Koll told me, as he feels the process of finding answers through chat rooms and usenet like forums is cumbersome and unintuitive. Secondly, Wondir aggregates questions and answers through the architecture of participation, essentially getting its questioners to become answerers, and vice versa. This is non trivial - getting people to answer questions is not as easy as it might seem. But Koll has thought through all of this, and I like where this service is going..

There’s nothing new under the sun.

Amazon’s broken this morning. I just received error messages adding something to the cart, and then later trying to sign in.

This is not a good weekend for a shopping site to go down.

I’ve taken Life Times Voice out of stealth mode. You should go over there and check it out!

Kevin Sites tells of his experiences in setting up a one-person software shop, or as he calls it: a micro-ISV.

Last month I offered six of these so-called “hypotheses” about how to make micro-ISV successful:

* Don’t start too big.
* Don’t quit your day job yet.
* Don’t fake the plural.
* Don’t forget the Law of Focus.
* Don’t spend much on advertising.
* Don’t hassle your users.

I’m following many of these in setting up Life Times Voice. Except for the “Don’t quit your day job” part, of course…

This just in: credit card companies are evil.

But increasingly, they say, what should be a warm embrace has turned into a painful squeeze as lenders employ new tactics to extract more and bigger penalties for even the slightest financial transgressions. In the last few years, lenders have more frequently raised customers’ rates because of slip-ups elsewhere, like late payment of a phone or utility bill, or simply because they felt a customer had taken on too much debt.

The practice, called universal default, started after a rash of bankruptcy filings in the mid-to-late 1990’s and has increasingly become standard in the industry. While MBNA declined to comment on any specific customer’s account, its general counsel, Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director, said in a statement that it was being prudent by raising rates when it had reason to think the risk of not being repaid had increased.

This is joint investigation between the Times and Frontline, so if you happen to catch Frontline this week, make sure to watch it.

And, this may be the squishiest defense of price-gouging ever:

But MBNA, in the statement from Mr. Freeh, said: “If we see indications that a customer is taking on too much debt, has missed or is late on payments to other creditors, or is otherwise mishandling their personal finances, it is not unreasonable to determine that this behavior is an increased risk. In the interest of all of our customers, we must protect the portfolio by adjusting a customer’s rate to compensate for that increased risk.”

Seth Godin analyzes the relative sales of the paper, e-book and pdf versions of his Bootstrapper’s Bible.

The key point is this: “Can you make any money giving away an ebook? I think you can. I think you do when the idea spreads and people want to interact with you in other ways. And those interactions are the currency of the future.”

This is why I tell everyone to blog on their areas of expertise. Not only will you meet interesting people, but you’re showing your ideas and your thinking.

People will pay you money to generate ideas for them.

I have to go to my dentist to have a cavity filled.

I haven’t had a cavity in twenty years. I’m not looking forward to the needle. Or the drilling. Ugh.

Dan Gillmor talks about Drupal, an open-source content management and blog system.

It’s not easy enough to use for average people yet, however. Some of the arcane terminology shouts that programmers have written this. Let’s hope the Drupal community can make it more user-friendly.

In creating the Life Times Voice system, I investigated all the major content management systems, including Drupal and its derivative, CivicSpace. They’re all very powerful; from an engineering perspective, they’re worthy of respect. However, none of them were as simple as I needed to make the product for my customers.

As these tools move from the early adopters to the early and late majorities, they will not succeed unless they adapt their metaphors and interfaces to normal folks’ sensibilities.

It’s finally happened. My formerly 20/15 vision has deteriorated over the past 15 years to 20/30, which is a borderline need for glasses.

So, I’ll suck it up and get a pair of glasses, for those times when I’m driving at night, or just really want to look distinguished.

Sorry for the relative lack of posting recently.

Sales and development for the new company are keeping me pretty busy. I’m climbing about 500 different learning curves at the moment, but it’s fun. I’m learning a lot and working on something I really care about.

Bootstrapping is fun! Check out Seth Godin’s Bootstrapper’s Bible over at ChangeThis. It’ll be available for only a couple of weeks.

Business Week: Venture capitalists are betting on tools that power blogs.

My mother pointed this out to me: telephone poles all over Holliston bear signs memorializing those who’ve died during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The signs, a temporary memorial that will be up until Sunday, have become a sight all too familiar in town. This is the third time resident and veteran Bobby Blair has created the display to remind passers-by of the human toll of war.

I’ll try to get pictures of this when I’m out in Holliston this weekend for my father’s birthday.

Jay’s new focused product-review blogs: Kitchen Contraptions and Shaving Stuff. These build on the successful template for Single Serve Coffee and Fast Food Fever.

Why cartoons that look too lifelike are really really creepy.

Stupid trademark abuse: Monster Cable sues Red Sox over Green Monster seats, among other in no way competitive users of a common word.

Microsoft’s Robert Scoble: Must the industry always be “us vs. them?”

Tonal languages promote perfect pitch.

This is a gleefully off-color rant against our friends down south. Don’t click through if you don’t enjoy salty language.

The next [jerk] who says, “It’s your money, not the government’s money” is gonna get their [rear end] kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal [goshdarn] dollars and pay the least… can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, [pal], they’re red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, [chief], they’re blue states. It’s not your money, [chaps], it’s [really] our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own [lovely] stop signs, [gov’nur].

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Hiring Hub? Great content, useful tools, pretty design.

It’s one of things I’m proudest of from my Boston Globe tenure.

Mary Helen Gillespie in the BostonWorks Hiring Hub tells us about “the worst-kept secret in town.” Everyone is looking for a new job.

After years of sitting tight in a wishy-washy economy, folks are no longer reluctant to make the first move when it comes to their careers.

There’s a definite buzz in the air. Phones are ringing, and e-mails are dropping. Our informal networks are chattering away about new opportunities. For many managers, the ability to recruit talent, as well as lose it, has once again become a priority. And it is truly about time, because there is also a great deal of not-so-quiet whispering about how awful local workplaces have become as a result of New England’s harsh economic pattern.

As I’ve been saying for a while, those companies and managers who decided it would be great fun to abuse workers during the employment downturn are going to get their comeuppance. Hard.

Life Times Voice has been in a closed beta one period for a few weeks. I’m about to go into beta two, and I’m looking for a few more betatesters to play with the product.

If you’re interested in online communities, nonprofits, and weblogs/social software, and you are interested in beta testing, please drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks!
Jason

Here is MSNBC’s list of history’s 10 greatest entrepreneurs.

Not that I would ever consider this myself (unless of course the check was really really big), but more and more startup founders are defining success as acquisition, not IPO.

Once upon a time, venture capitalists defined success in the companies they backed as an eventual initial public offering. No longer. In today’s world of churning and uncertain stock markets, an IPO is the exception, not the rule, for most fast-growing private companies. Increasingly, venture capitalists invest in companies with the expectation that they will be acquired by a major corporation or an investment group.

So, the new business is doing pretty well; so well in fact that I’m spending most of my time selling instead of building. So, I need a little help of some of the engineering and development.

Before I go to elance, I wanted to make sure I gave you folks a shot at it. I’ve got a decent amount of chunked work (about 10hrs or so per week for at least the next couple of months.) in PHP and MySQL.

If you’re interested, or know someone who’s pretty good, please drop me an email so we can talk.

Thanks,
Jason

Wow, this looks really really good.

Mark Cuban analyzes the music industry.

This is the only industry in the world that can see thousands of its retailers close, reduce the number of products it sells via cutbacks in artist rosters and albums released, cut back marketing and promotional dollars and then blame a reduction in sales on someone or something other than themselves.

Trying to intimidate critics into shutting up generally backfires.

This is a case where a person set up a website to complain about a company’s shoddy product. The company calls up the lawyers and tries to intimidate them. Person doesn’t cave, and the company gets lots of bad publicity.

Companies have threatened scores of criticism sites with trademark infringement and have lost many of the cases that have actually gone to court, Seltzer said. But most of the time, she said, the site owners simply agree to stop before a lawsuit is even filed. Thus, the boundaries of their rights are never tested.

The t-shirt makers are on the ball.

As many of you know, my friend Dan Dunn ran for state representative for Arlington on the Libertarian ticket.

He didn’t win — as you might guess, Arlington is a bit of a Democratic town — but the Arlington Advocate lauds the quality of his campaign.

Dunn especially was a welcome addition to the race. A Libertarian running in a decidedly Democratic town, Dunn featured a campaign of ideas - not rhetoric.

Take 30 seconds and read the whole thing.

“Oh…oh, gosh…you know, I’m not much on speeches, but it’s so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you’ve made. You’re screwed, thank you, bye.”

– Deposed sanitation commissioner Ray Patterson upon being asked to come back and fix the mess, “Trash of the Titans“

Here’s a handy guide to your election night tv schedule.

Plan your bathroom breaks between :50 and :58 of each hour. By agreement of the networks, no state can be “called” (the networks love horse-racing analogies) until all of the polls have closed in that state.

Plus, CNN has some nifty maps. You can also see how Holliston and Cambridge vote.

Ohio voter suppression blog. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I seldom get angry, but this is horrible stuff. I hope all the dirty-tricksters in this campaign get their comeuppance.

A. and I just walked down Brookline Avenue to the polling place and voted. I hope we have a clear decision tonight.

My 10th-grade French teacher is off the hook.

Richard Melpignano, 58, of Bellingham was cleared after Framingham District Court Judge Robert Greco ruled that the poems’ contents did not measure up to the legal standard to convict him of disseminating harmful material to a minor.

Make sure to check out the text of the poems, excerpted in the article.

The size of each state is distorted to emphasise its share of electoral votes.

Repercussions of Amazon entering DVD rental business.

Allow people to use a credit card to borrow against their 401(k)s?

Prepare to get screwed by digital rights management

A nice story about a biotech company renovating an old Holliston building to be its headquarters.

Rock’s 10 wildest myths.

“We always assume that our emotional states will last much longer than they do.”

Interesting advice on buying a car from an ex-salesman.

Now that the Red Sox are done, I can change all the radio stations in my apartment from WEEI to WBUR.

Woo Hoo!

We live on the top floor of an apartment building populated by MIT grad students and young professionals. So, we were a little surprised when there was a knock at the door last night at 7:30.

“Trick or Treat.”

“Uh uh.” Scrambled around the kitchen. Saltines? Pecans? “Here you go!” I said, handing over a 3-box of Pop Secret.

“Uh, thanks.”

“Happy Halloween!”

At about 6:30 last night, A. and I were watching the Patriots game, a little confused. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves when the Patsies were getting blown out.

I guess the sports gods were never going to allow us to have both the Red Sox and the Patriots on top of the world at the same time.