eric goldstein's blog

What i don't get about Katrina

Maybe i'm thickheaded, naive, stupid or whatever.  But there is something very firghtening that i just can't understand about Katrina.  My question is:

How is it possible that with all the alerts we're given about potential terrorist attacks of catastrophic proportions that this country doesn't have an immediate, coordinated response procedure in place to bring in water, food, shelter, transportation and security to people within 24 hours at any time.  But i'll go one better, how do we not have that procedure in place when there is a full week's notice of the catastrophe in an area that is well-known to be particularly susceptible to horific damage?  This is totally insane to me and impossible to understand. 

If anyone can answer this question, please do.  I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one asking it.

The 4 Questions

I'm often asked the following 4 questions, so i figured i'd preempt anyone who wants to ask them by trying to answer them here:

1) What is our business model:

We're not exactly sure yet, though i can say with certainty that Clipmarks will be free.  Most likely, we will at some point serve ads on the web site.  I'd like to think that ads such as those served by Google, Yahoo, etc. alongside their search results would enable us to make enough money to be successful as a company while not interfering with everyone's ability to enjoy the site.  I don't expect that to happen for at least a few months, as we simply have too many other things to focus on right now.  We will also explore potential licensing opportunities, whereby another web site would offer custom-branded clipmarks on their site.  For example, if you are on a particular news site and you want to save something you find on the site you would be able to save it your own Clipmarks file on that particular web site.  Again, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon because we really want to stay focused on making Clipmarks great and don't want to be distracted by other things just yet. 

2) Are you building this to sell it to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc?

Who knows!  If the right amount of money was offered we'd clearly have to consider it.  I really don't know what the "right amount" is, though i assume it will change over time as things develop for us.  Truthfully, we try not to think too much about money.  Our goal is to make the Clipmarks software and site as good as possible, gain alot of users and become an important part of people's online experience.  If we achieve that, other things, including money, will play themselves out.   

3) It sucks that you're a download.  People are weary of downloads because of spyware, adware and other junk like it. 

Believe me, i know it sucks.  Providers of software that littered people's (including ours) computers with junk have not only wreaked havoc with people's computers, but they have made it very difficult for legitimate companies such as ours because everyone is so skeptical.  I guess there's not much we can do about that except promise to offer ad-free, spyware-free, junk-free software and hope that our users will spread the word and give us the credibility we lack out of the gate.

4) Why wouldn't i just bookmark a page when i want to save something?

Bookmarks are great for saving pages.  I have no beef with bookmarks whatsoever.  But i definitely love being able to use Clipmarks when i just want to save a specific thing on the page.  My brain + bookmarks just isn't enough for me to remember or manage all the things i find online.  Think of it this way... just like you can tear out an entire page of a newspaper or a magazine, have you ever torn out just an article, or just a paragraph, or maybe just a picutre from the page?  if so, then you should understand why you might sometimes want to create a clipmark of specific content instead of a bookmark of an entire page. 

Bottom line is bookmarks + clipmarks = complete web information management.

The Google factor

The NY Times ran a piece (cover story) today about Google becoming more like Microsoft and less the Internet darling it once was.  Very interesting piece i thought.  I wanted to quickly comment on the section that discussed Google making it difficult for small, start-up companies to develop because venture capitalists all say to them "if this is so great, won't google just do it."  All i can say to this is that i hear it everyday and think about it all the time. 

Maybe i'm naive, but my response is, embrace it.  The  same could be said for every company in every industry at every time in history.  There are always going to be established 800-lb gorillas and there are always going to be new companies that grow into them.  And if not into 800lb gorillas, into formidable, valuable companies that will likely be bought for alot of money by the 800 lb gorillas.  It's our job to work our asses off to be great...so great that we can honestly say that we're not scared of google, microsoft or anyone else.  That's what we're doing and that's how we feel. 

To blog or not to blog?

One thing i have to say about bloggers, even the ones i really like to follow, is that they have too much to say.  It's like they're addicted to the ability to speak and can't contain themselves.  So often, i go to Bloglines, sroll thru the blogs i follow and think to myself "what made you write that and why would anyone care.  It's not quantity of posts, it's quality."   

Interestingly, and totally unplanned, i think that Clipmarks will serve as a cure for this problem.  What i've been finding is that as i read  things on the web, i love being able to clip and comment on things i find and then throw it into the public clipmark library.  My hunch is, that without clipmarks, i'd be just like the bloggers i'm referring to who write a blog post about everything that pops into their head.  Perhaps Clipmarks will give people the satisfaction of being able to communicate and share information persistently bout anything that pops into their mind while leaving the bigger, more focused talk for their blogs. 

Windows Vista

Neil Charney, a Director of Product Management at Microsoft recently explained that the meaning behind the name Vista is because it is meant to, among other things, "give focus to the things that are important to you."  Here's a link to my Clipmark that includes a few of Neil's comments that i found particularly compelling.

It's interesting to read more and more lately about how companies are recognizing the despearate need for people to have a better ability to manage the online information that matters to THEM in a way that works for THEM.  One of the things we've always said is that while search is critically important, it only starts there.  What's also important, perhaps even more important, is being able to easily and quickly retain and organize whatever you find.  We created Clipmarks with the goal of solving that problem.  Hopefully we accomplished that...i guess we'll start to know soon. 

Alternative Energy needs a new name

Aside from Clipmarks, i've got a real passion for transitiing from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy.  I find it nearly impossible to believe or accept that this isn't a bigger issue in Washington.  It should be this country's number one priority.  It will help stimulate the economy, enhance our security, have an amazing political and cultural ripple effect throughout the middle east and help the environment.  Plus, we're eventually going to HAVE TO make the transition anyway!  How could something capable of doing all that not be our number one focus???

I'll be clipping a number of things i read online about this subject, so here's a link to my Clipmarks Alternative Energy folder. 

http://clipmarks.com/folder/egoldstein/Alternative+Energy/

One last thing is that i think the name "Alternative Energy" is hampering its acceptance.  It sounds like something far-out and weird.  It should be called Green Energy or Energy without Oil or Clean Energy or just Better Energy.  Any ideas?  I really beielve that if we spread the word and perhaps come up with a better title for the industry we can help spur development and adoption of 'alternative' energy.

eric

Clipmarks close to being ready

the last of the bugs (we hope!) was resolved today.  Clipmarks is working great and the site is progressing rapidly.  A great way to end the week.                                                                  

eric

Eric's 1st post

this is my first post.  my hope for this blog is to provide a helpful resource for people to understand what we're about.  in the spirit of full disclosure, i wouldn't describe myself as a geek and i'm certainly not a techie (crazy that i feel like i have to apologize for that).  i'm a user.  i like to use technology alot.  i just don't know the first thing about how it works or how to create it.  that's derek's role.  he's our resident geek (though, again, in the spirit of full disclosure, he may have all the qualifications of a geek on paper, but he's actually quite cool).  to be clear, he is the man behind the curtain. he's developed just about every aspect of our technology so if you like it, he gets the credit.  if any of you have read the book Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper you'll appreciate our approach to developing Clipmarks.  Derek's (techie) and my (non-techie)combined perspectives have hopefully created a powerful solution for enabling all people, techies and non-techies alike, to better manage the content they find online in a way that is simple, easy and fun. that's our goal and we'll continue working to achieve it.  we'd love your feedback, good or bad so please let us know what you think.  Though we're still about a month away from releasing Clipmarks to the public, I will likely be posting about our experiece getting things ready...if these posts aren't interesting now, then perhaps they will be in hindsight :)