Joe Kraus, one of the founders of Excite , has started a blog called Bnoopy, an entrepreneurship blog on September 14. Already there are two riveting posts about persistence in starting up and getting ahead with business you believe in.

The first is a story about Excite and its concept-searching technology and about meeting Vinod Khosla who funded Excite. After many a presentation to VC firms, the Excite team were still looking for funding:

By then, our deal had developed a certain "smell" -- smart guys with interesting technology but an uncertain business plan. The demo to Vinod started off like they all did, but about 10 minutes into the meeting things got very different. He interrupted

"Can the technology scale? can you search a large database?"

Big Pause. It's not the money question. No one has ever asked us this before. Ummm.

"We don't know, we can't afford a hard drive big enough to test."

Then, an amazing thing happened. Ten minutes into this meeting, his first introduction to the company and us, he pulls out his his cell phone, dials his assistant and buys us a $10,000, 10Gb hard drive.

How refreshing. Although the heady days of dot.com and technology spending were nigh, this does not make this approach less effective. In fact, in the long run, it probably saves a lot more money.

But the phrase to take away from the blog post is "unencumbered by reality"...

The second post is taking persistence to a whole new level, relaying the story of Netscape putting the destinations of the NetSearch and NetDirectory buttons up for bid.

Fact 1: There were at least three bidders for the two buttons: us, Infoseek and MCI (they had a yet-to-be-launched web search and directory product that, I think, was going to be called Genuine).

Fact 2: We had a little less than $1,000,000 in the bank.

Fact 3: We were screwed.

To find out what happened, here's the rest of the story.

via Venture Blog

Lots of good stuff in defence of small talk from David Weinberger, Suw Charman and Stowe Boyd at Get Real. In case people still need reminding in 2004: Employees are people, not workbots with motherboards and hard drives where their brains and hearts should be. The company that devalues informal social networks not only devalues its employees, but limits its own success.

Speaking of which, Perry and I had a nice meal at ASK last night when I returned from seeing our friends and clients at the ASI. Several non-work-related subjects were discussed, and we also came away with plans of action for several projects, but it would have been worthwhile even if all we'd done was talk about our favourite colours and what trees we'd be if we were trees.

Daniel pretty much sums it up:

I have a job that makes you lie. To everyone. All the time. It's tearing at my soul.

Check out the lie-filled email he had to write to one director who has produced what Daniel calls "the worst, most offensive movie I've ever seen," which he closed with:

Thanks and best,

[too humiliated to sign my own name]

But at least it gives him good fodder for amusing blog posts.

A very interesting project called Eyetrack has been conducted by the Poynter Institute asking what people see when they view a news website or multimedia feature. Is it what the site's designers expect? ... Perhaps not.

The Eyetrack III study literally looked through the eyes of 46 people to learn how they see online news. Here is the review the study's key findings. For example:

We observed that with news homepages, readers' instincts are to first look at the flag/logo and top headlines in the upper left. The graphic below shows the zones of importance we formulated from the Eyetrack data. While each site is different, you might look at your own website and see what content you have in which zones.

Advertising is also taken through its paces:

We found that ads in the top and left portions of a homepage received the most eye fixations. Right side ads didn't do as well, and ads at the bottom of the page were seen, typically, by only a small percentage of people.

These are but two highlights. Prove them right and read the whole thing, here are the directions:

Doc Searls has some wise words about the good news of Technorati VC funding:

I always thought bragging about bagging VC money was kinda strange in any case. If you were starting a new business in a non-tech sector, would you send out a press release bragging about your banker, and how much he loaned you to get going? I know it's different in tech, but does it have to be that much different?

He also recalls a buzzword onslaught from an acquaintance who was on his Nth startup at the hight of the dot-com bubble who presented his business as "an arms merchant to the portals industry".

When I pressed him for more details (How are portals an industry? What kind of arms are you selling?), I got more buzzwords back. Finally, I asked a rude question. "How are sales?''

"They're great. We just closed our second round of financing."

Thus I was delivered an epiphany: every company has two markets--one for its goods and services, and one for itself--and the latter had overcome the former. We actually thought selling companies to investors was a real business model.

That is probably one of the best and certainly the most succint analysis of what
was wrong with the dot-com era I have come across. It is true that with innovation, a new language needs to be invented too, sometimes. But there is no excuse to underwrite non-existent business model just because something is new, revolutionary and exciting.

What dot-com era has not really taught most companies is that the user rules. It wasn't the bloated IPOs and young CEOs that sank the companies, it was the markets that found their offering wanting...

On the other hand, you need capital for development in the technology sector. It is a dilemma of most entrepreneurs that need and can get investment face at some stage. Do you keep your independence or have some money to try more new things before your business grows big enough to accumulate it?

Yeah, it's a tough one.

Mailinator - anti-spam solution (one of many) or how to avoid giving out your email to strangers, online or off-line.

Welcome to Mailinator(tm) - Its no signup, instant anti-spam service. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Whereever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give it, you're gambling with your privacy. On the other hand, you do want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give them a mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make it up on the spot. Pick jonesy@mailinator.com or bipster@mailinator.com - pick anything you want (up to 15 characters before the @ sign).

Later, come to this site and check that account. Its that easy. Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you're done - you can walk away - an instant solution to one way spammers get your address. Its an anti-spam solution for everyone. The messages are automatically deleted for you after a few hours.

Let'em spam.

via Get Real

Robin Good has ask a question that puzzles us also... Why are companies reluctant to redesign their websites?

He links to an interesting interview covering the reasons for why companies and organizations have so much trouble when deciding to improve the look and accessibility fo their Web sites:

For larger companies, everyone from management on down is short on staff. The last thing they want to do is "assign" themselves another big task. As long as the webmaster keeps abreast of the technical problems, marketing and sales are looking elsewhere to generate revenue. On small business sites, often one or two people wear all the hats, including webmaster and CEO. They spend all their time selling their services, so creating a website project is a low priority.

Getting all the input in one place at the beginning of the project can do wonders for project success. When this is applied to Internet planning (or any technology plan), it removes the barriers and helps each group apply its best creative knowledge. Regardless of the process, you should gather a diverse group to strategize together.

He then gives a list of likely mistakes that people makes in the process of website (re)design.

• Lack of good testing.
• Lack of multiple distribution formats.
• Failure to solicit participation and feedback from customers.
• Redesigning without clear goals in mind.

Design is indeed very important and closely connected to accessibility. It is a great fortune to find a web developer who is an artist or vice versa. We know, we have done.

Testing, feedback and distribution formats are all subjected to the purpose of the website. One of the first questions we ask when someone wants a blog is - Who do you want to talk to?...

When it comes to blogs, design is perhaps more obvious as there is an expectation of individuality by those who read them and some of the blog functionality lend themselves to more creative designs - the banner, blog post dividers, blogroll etc.

The best thing is that you cannot have a blog in flash. Flash websites are one of our pet hates, as we simply cannot see the point. Yeah, they look good to the creatives and obviously to the people who pay for them, but the user is left out from that happy party. I guess the reason I hate flash sites is because they are made according to the 'old media' mind-set. You are supposed to sit back and watch what they prepared here for you. Sod that. As a user, I want to find what I came here for, not watch an animated performance. A virtual resource, if you will. Anyway, feel free to join my 'flash websites are eeevil' movement...

Note: Our Design Guru is in the process of designing, like, the best blog design ever. Well, at least a pretty damn good one.

Seth Godin notes how asking people for advice about a new project may not be such a good idea. This realisation was sparked off by a piece on Jeff Bezos in Fast Company's cover piece this month:

My favorite part is when he talks about asking other people (experts, even) for their opinion about new projects. Inevitably, people say no. Don't do it. I don't like it. It'll fail. Don't bother.

When I think about every successful project (whether it's a book or a business or a website) the people I trust have always given me exceedingly bad advice. And more often than not, that advice is about being conservative. Or it involves focusing on things that will require a lot of work, rather than things that will make it remarkable.

I think he gets the incentive thing right too. Trying to make new and innnovative project a success means you have to get more things right before it works and potential for mistakes is huge compared to staying with tried and tested methods. I noticed that to many people competition means doing what others do but better. That is a valid understanding of competition but does not account for trying out entirely new ways of doing things. I guess that takes more than business acumen, it requires an attitude.