Ignighter Blog is Moving Home!
Hey Ignighter friends, the Ignighter Blog is finally coming home to nest at Ignighter.com.
So update your bookmarks to http://www.ignighter.com/blog and update your RSS feeds to http://feeds.feedburner.com/ignighter/Wltj.
New content will be coming more frequently than ever on the new location so stay with us!
Why the Entrepreneur Matters in Today’s Crappy Economy
We Ignighter folks really enjoy reading Roger Ehrenberg’s blog, Information Arbitrage. Recently he posted this poignant piece, The Halcyon Days of Entrepreneurship about the rise of (and the importance of) entrepreneurship in today’s struggling economy.
He points out -among other things- that we can potentially turn a negative into a positive by thinking outside the box. And he’s not just talking about creating ideas that come from outside the box, but even the act itself of thinking of an outside of the box entrepreneurial idea is outside of the box behavior for many of the mature, smart professionals who have recently been laid off after years of corporate employment.
The importance of this rise of entrepreneurship, he says, is that it “can help spur innovation, solve seemingly intractable problems and help energize the economy both today and tomorrow.”
I don’t really have much more to add because Ehrenberg’s post is comprehensive and well-written, and I’m starting to confuse even myself by writing about it. It’s definitely worth a read though, really good stuff.
Should TechCrunch use MLA? Or maybe Harvard Referencing style?
Yesterday TechCrunch posted this story about the potentially treacherous future of many Facebook Apps. The blogger, Mark Hendrickson, discusses the “rough road ahead” for what he calls “low engagement apps” like SlideWall. He also quotes Naval Ravikant of Venturehacks as saying that the apps with the brightest future are the high engagement ones like travel, dating (right on!), book, and game-related, whereas “everyone else is kinda screwed”.
I guess we should feel pretty damn flattered because this is exactly what we predicted three weeks ago in this post. Now granted instead of “low and high engagement” apps, we were referring to them as “passive and active involvement” apps. And yes, it’s true we didn’t cite quite as many “figures” or “experts” to come to the same conclusion.
But it’s the conclusion that matters. So we’re certainly flattered that TechCrunch is hopping on the Ignighter bandwagon.
We’re also happy to hear that they’re still truckin’ along over there…Don’t forget to breathe!
From Russia
Does anybody out there speak Russian? Somebody in Russia is talking about Ignighter, but we don’t know what they’re saying…
UPDATE: Thanks to Ignighter friend, Kristin Gaul, for tracking down a translation of that Russian blog article:
It’s a site started by a few recent graduates and it has a social networking component for young people, but how effective it is, will ultimately be up to you to decide…
Russia…always leaving the power in the hands of the people.
My New Bumper Sticker Says – Save the Bloggers
Just last week we reconfigured the design of the Ignighter Weblog and added a couple new posts. At the time it seemed completely harmless, what could possibly be dangerous about spending 4 hours playing around with WordPress blog templates and typing into a box? Apparently, everything. Little did we know that we were skating on ice thin enough to beat out Keira Knightly for the part of a waifish Shakespearean boy. In retrospect, spending that much consecutive time on the blog was one of the most foolish, utterly idiotic things we’ve ever done.
Our newfound appreciation for life comes In light of this New York Times article from Sunday. The article goes into detail about the intense stress that frequent bloggers – most notably Tech Bloggers – undergo as a result of trying to cover as much web news as possible and to be the first to do so. According to the article, constant bloggers have been gaining and losing large amounts of weight, not getting nearly enough sleep, and two prominent bloggers have recently died from what is suspected to be an indirect result of blogging too much. I’m not kidding. Bloggers have actually been dying.
At the outset of the Ignighter Weblog, I wasn’t so good about blogging frequently. Maybe I could inherently sense the dangers associated with a hard-blogging life. But recently I’ve seemingly thrown caution to the wind as I’ve been hitting the blog sauce pretty hard.
So from now on if a couple days go by and I haven’t zealously blogged, don’t think of it as “oh they’re being lazy bums again”. Instead try to take the approach of “ahh those poor guys must be too scared to blog today”. Because the truth is, we probably are. It’s not that we don’t love blogging. In fact, that’s just the problem.
Now that dangers are being associated with the blogger life, I predict that many will have a new found respect for them. Insiders are even saying that on next year’s list of the world’s most dangerous jobs, it could actually come in at number 3; Just behind deep-sea fishing and coal mining, but a hair ahead of Olympic Torch carrier.
In fact I’m feeling like a bit of a daredevil myself, and I love it. Little things like redesigning the blog layout now seem way more exciting, kinda like the modern day equivalent of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But also not entirely like that at all.
I guess the real lesson to be learned here is that blogging, like most things in life (alcohol, extra virgin olive oil, books), are great in moderation but fatal in excessive quantities. The Times quoted Michael Arrington, founder and co-editor of Tech Crunch as actually being surprised that he’s physically alright (despite gaining 30 lbs. in the last few years), “I haven’t died…At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen….This is not sustainable.” These people seriously need to cut back. I mean we all love hearing about what new languages Facebook is now available in, but do we really need to hear about it at 4am?
Maybe for the sake of these bloggers and their families we need to take a stand. If we make a concerted effort not to read their blogs in the middle of the night, then I predict that they’ll stop the nocturnal postings. In the article, Arrington jokes about how it would be great if all bloggers could reach an agreement to not post in the middle of the night, but he knows this is an impossibility. What they’re missing though, is that the power to save these croaking bloggers lies in the hands of the readers. You know what I’m sayin’?
Ignighter Leads Last Night’s NY Tech Meetup!
By “leads”, I merely mean we went first.
Hats off to Adam for doing a great run through the app, a tough thing to do in the mere 5 minutes allowed–4 minutes after my intro. (As viewers, we do greatly appreciate the 5 minute cap- keeps things moving along.) The 120ft video wall at IAC is a cool backdrop, though the trek would be even more welcome in summer months.
Catch a video of our demo here. (the audio’s a little echoey, but you should be able to hear us fine.)
Some other coverageof the Meetup:
- http://www.centernetworks.com/ny-tech-meetup-december-2007-recap
a nice overview of the whole tech meetup process, and links to videos of all presentations - http://newtech.meetup.com/1/calendar/6691558/ (some attendee comments)
- http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/12/ny-tech-meetup-the-meta-meetup.html
- http://sanford.blogspot.com/2007/12/dec-2007-new-york-tech-meetup.html
- http://www.michaelgalpert.com/2007/12/december-ny-new-tech-meetup-review.html
Nice photos, too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsgalpert/2088487176/
Also, Scott presented a project that’s dear to my heart: http://www.meetupalliance.com/
(Disclaimer: As a co-founder, I am a stockholder in Meetup.) Alliance is a platform-agnostic spin-off of Meetup that connects local groups from Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, Meetup, Facebook, and anywhere else. It’s the missing link between all these disparate groups, and could really help them unite into powerful multi-chapter organizations. Elections in ‘08 should make for some interesting use.
Peter
We’re Big in Japan
Yesterday, Dan came across this entry about Sparkker on a Japanese blog called Nice Meets. You have to take a peek at that.
It’s very likely that they came across Sparkker via the Daily Northwestern Article as it is referenced two-thirds of the way down the page.
I, however, choose to believe that they found Sparkker after seeing us on the Japanese Network News.
My friend and fellow TEFL teacher, Skye Lee, teaches English in Japan. He provided the following translation of the blog:
It says that you made Sparkker, a way to make groups, events, and meet up in real life situations. It (Sparkker) gives one the opportunity to go on a date, meet new friends, or meet a partner in real life. Some jerk named Adam Sachs and a friend made the application that is a combination of social networking and online dating. If one adds the application to their facebook profile, they can use the service. A group leader (ambassador) decides what each group will be like and what type of group they will search for. Also, the ambassador looks for and plans events. It is an idea that came about after graduation and moving to New York. After graduating, there were less opportunities to meet people and because of the millions of facebook users, you thought it would be a good platform for meeting new people. You didn’t have the know-how so you contacted the founder of meetup.com for help. According the the manager of the blog Sparkker.com the owner (of sparkker) moved to New York after graduation and never had the opportunity to meet people. According to the owners experience, it isn’t too hard to make friends in general, but it is difficult to meet people outside of your social circles. As a result, Sparkker is a mix of a dating site and a social networking site. It is only in its beta version, but it is already a success.
Some jerk named Adam Sachs? Already a success? Hmmm… Does Dan write for this blog?
Many thanks to Skye!
Adam Sachs
Chief Friend Maker, Sparkker
