The Rest Of The World Is Great Place For Entrepreneurs

I couldn't agree more with Fred Wilson's response to last week's New York Times' article, It’s Not the People You Know. It’s Where You Are.

Even though 1/3 of the venture money is flowing to Silicon Valley start-ups, where is the real innovation happening? Silicon Alley is booming with interesting new start ups and I have friends in Texas, Canada, all over Europe, Australia and Brazil who are doing the same. And I am seeing real practical products and services being developed -- things people in the real world actually need and would use.

I don't mean to make this a West Coast vs. the Rest Coast sort of thing, but most of the start-ups I see coming out of Silicon Valley are tech-centric plays. The next wave of innovation is going to be technologies, services, platforms, networks, products, sites, communities, etc. that help "real people", not just tech geek insiders.

Don't believe me? Take a road trip across America and ask how many people along the way know what Web 2.0 is...ask them how they use the Internet...ask them what a Podcast is...ask them what RSS is.

We've got a long way to go in making new technologies and the Internet more accessible to the rest of us. And my bet is, it's just as likely to be someone from Iowa as it is Sand Hill Road.

This American Life Finally Offers Free Podcasts

TAL has let you listen to their archive online for a while and they have sold the show via audible.com, but at last they have set it free! You can now subscribe to the best weekly radio show there is on your mp3 player.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

One Man Moves 22,000 lbs.

Looks like Wally figured out how Stonehenge was created. Pretty incredible to see how elegant, imaginative and ingenius his solution is. [link: SVN]

The "Free Online" Publishing Trend Continues: Clue Train Manifesto Now Online

You can now get the complete version of The Clue Train Manifesto Online here:

http://www.cluetrain.com/book/.

As I mentioned in my last post, Getting Real is doing the same thing. Both sites, wisely link to ways you can buy the print version for those who don't want to read online.

These are great examples for the publishing world. You can give your content away in one medium, and make money off the same content in another.

Looks like smart marketing to me. Especially when you consider that Clue Train Manifesto was published in late nineties and this opens up the same content to a whole new audience.

Getting Real Now FREE Online

The good folks over at 37Signals.com have made their amazing e-book, Getting Real, available for free oneline: https://gettingreal.37signals.com/

You can also buy the PDF version or order a print version from Lulu.com.

I've been recommending this book since it was published to friends, family, and colleagues. It is particularly useful to entrepreneurs, but it also pertains to any job and life in general.

Read My Interview In Today's HealthCareVox

HealthCareVOX has been one of the leaders talking extensively about the benefits and drawbacks of health-focused user-generated content.

Today, Fard Johnmar from HealthCareVOX, posted a recent email interview he conducted with me that covers these issues in-depth.

Read the full interview by clicking here: http://www.healthcarevox.com/2006/10/trust_transparency_knowledge_a.html

The conversation covers a lot of important ground about the credibility of user-generated content and how OrganizedWisdom is different from vertical search engines like Healthline and Healia. Here's a list of the questions I answered:

Q1: Please tell me a little bit about why you decided to develop OrganizedWisdom.com.

Q2: What are the major differences between OrganizedWisdom and other health search engines like Healia and Healthline?

Q3: OrganizedWisdom relies on users to develop health content. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this strategy?

Q4: How do you ensure that users contribute high-quality content?

Q5: What do you think it will take for people to view OrganizedWisdom as a trusted source of health information?

Q6: How can marketers ensure that they are engaging people using OrganizedWisdom.com and resources like it appropriately?

Q7: In recent months, some marketers have posted content on Wikipedia without disclosing that they are doing so for commercial reasons. What is your opinion of this practice and do you think it could occur on OrganizedWisdom.com?

300,000,000!

The nation's population officially hit 300 million at 7:46 a.m. EDT today. How they figured that out makes no sense to me.

It takes six days to determine if North Korea launched a nuke or not, economists can't agree on whether or not the job numbers are accurate, and no one's quite sure how many "mole" people live in the underground tunnels of New York City.

But we do know, that at 7:46 a.m. EDT today, the U.S. population officially hit 300 million.

NYT article here.

Happy Birthday Cayenne!

Let the good times roll...!

All sorts of OrganizedWisdom Updates

We had a great week with OrganizedWisdom. Here's a quick list of some of the happenings going on:

We sent out our official launch press release.

Mashable.com reviewed our site, gave some great feedback, and helped drive lots of traffic to OrganizedWisdom.

The HealthCare IT Guy, published my guest article on 10 Ways Social Computing is Transforming the Healthcare Industry.

HealthCareVOX featured OrganizedWisdom this week, and is publishing an interview with me in the coming days.

We've been working on lots of new features, fixes, and improvements based on your feedback. Click here for a complete list.

And best of all, check out some of these inspiring WisdomCards people have published:

Shared WisdomCard on - Hodgkin's Lymphoma Disease
Shared WisdomCard on - Epilepsy
Shared WisdomCard on - Alzheimer's Disease
Shared WisdomCard on - Bipolar Manic Depression
Shared WisdomCard on - Lyme Disease

You Tube Co-Founder Comments on The Acquisition Price of $1.6 Billion

You've gotta love this quote:

Asked what he thought of the acquisition price (which was $1.65 Billion), Mr. Karim said: “It sounded good to me.”

Read the facinating article on Jawed Karim in today's New York Times.

Stephen King Wisdom: Everything you need to know about writing successfully (summary)

Another great post from CoppyBlogger (link).

In 1988, The Writer’s Handbook reprinted an article by novelist Stephen King entitled Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes. In it, King told the story of the fateful 10 minutes to which he credits his success as a writer.

Here's the summary:

Omit unnecessary words.

News Release From OrganizedWisdom

We distributed our official launch press release today for OrganizedWisdom.

Health Seekers Get Their Own Social Networking Site

Former iVillage and Privacy Council Executives Launch OrganizedWisdom.com to Help Families, Groups, and Health Care Professionals Collaborate and Share Health Knowledge

New York, NY – October 3, 2006 -- OrganizedWisdom, LLC today announced that it has launched the first health-focused social networking site, where consumers, health care professionals, and health organizations can collaborate and share knowledge on more than 6,500 health topics. OrganizedWisdom.com was founded by Internet industry veterans Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes to improve how people find and share health information by linking trusted, evidence-based information with practical user-generated health advice, ratings and recommendations.

Read the entire press release on the OrganizedWisdom Blog here or on PrimeZone News Wire here.