Dull thoughts in a sharp world.

In a big city like SF with tons of students and entrepreneurs, you would think there would be more late night spots to work and study. Been trying to find the best ones, so I’m going to keep an ongoing list of spots open late in the city.  Here is also a pretty thorough list: http://www.posthoc.com/24hours.htm  (Will update as I visit them)

24 hours

Laurel Heights – Starbuck – http://www.yelp.com/biz/starbucks-coffee-san-francisco-110

Polk Gultch – Bob’s Donuts – http://www.yelp.com/biz/bobs-donut-and-pastry-shop-san-francisco

Noe Valley – Happy Donuts – http://www.yelp.com/biz/happy-donuts-san-francisco-2

Inner Richmond – Allstar Donuts & Sandwiches – http://www.yelp.com/biz/allstar-donuts-and-sandwich-san-francisco-2

Laurel Heights – Lucky Penny – http://www.yelp.com/biz/lucky-penny-restaurant-san-francisco

SOMA – Starbucks – http://www.yelp.com/biz/starbucks-coffee-san-francisco-136

Union Square – Cafe Mason – http://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-mason-san-francisco

Open till 2 am

Union Square – Sugar Cafe – http://www.yelp.com/biz/sugar-cafe-san-francisco

Open till Midnight

Open till 10 pm

Western Addition – Cafe Abir - http://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-abir-san-francisco

Inner Sunset – Blue Danube – http://www.yelp.com/biz/blue-danube-coffee-house-san-francisco

We’ve organized a solid panel for SXSWi this year centered around the idea of Designing Products for Real People. We as in Rob Spiro, founder of Vark.com, Rahmin Sarabi, founder of unclasses.com, and Amit Gupta, founder of Photojojo.com. Here is the description:

There is more to building a product than iterating as quickly as possible. Behind each metric is a human, and it’s critical to speak to these humans beyond the numbers. We’ll explore both sides of the coin and share best practices from each of our respective (and varying) experiences.

There are obviously two philosophies of thought in building product.  One is to rely on data and the other to connect with your users.  In the panel, we’ll talk about how each panelist has been successful in building a product, service, and community and the methodology behind each experience.  Last, we’ll attempt to provide some concrete examples, strategy for implementation, and personal insight in how to designing product.

Last, and I hate self-promoting, we need votes to get this panel to happen.  Vote here if you have an extra 27 seconds.

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3193

Thanks and we’ll see you all at SXSWi.

Wired recently published an article on “Why Craigslist is Such a Mess”, highlighting the history of Craiglist, the personalities involved with Craigslist, and some interesting insight into Craig Newmark.

This is old-fashioned. But craigslist is old-fashioned in any number of ways. It relies on email and the telephone in an era of SMS and social networks. It sticks to traceless transactions in an industry that makes its living collecting data from every touch. And just as people who run technical companies are reaching an apex of confidence in their ability to invent new forms of community based on sharing everything, craigslist still treats social life as dangerously complex, deserving the most jaded caution. Corporate isolation, user anonymity, refusal of excessive profit, glacial adoption of new features: These all signal Newmark and Buckmaster’s wariness about what humans, including themselves, might do if given the chance. There may be a peace sign on every page, but the implicit political philosophy of craigslist has a deeply conservative, even a tragic cast. Every day the choristers of the social web chirp their advice about openness and trust; craigslist follows none of it, and every day it grows.

Seems that though Craiglist has it’s problems with spam, scammers, and immortal and unethical community members, it continues to thrive.  I’ve seen startup after startup attempt to solve the “Craigslist” problem, but come up empty handed.  Seems that consumers choose free over reduction of spam/risk of being scammed and improved functionality.  Solid article and worth a read… view here.

Had dinner with a few entrepreneurs/ a few VC folks; group included the COO of italki,com, CEO of Circolos.com, folks from DFJ… My takeaway is that entrepreneurship in China is a vibrant and growing opportunity, especially for ABC’s.

Seems that business models that work in the US are being quickly brought to China and working well. Literally, exact knockoffs of the US sites down to the pixel. Makes me wonder how much is about management teams, iterations, marketing, branding, community outreach, etc… when it just seems that the marketplace is the core component here in China. Be a fast follower on a solid product and maybe that’s enough.

Other technologies that I think can do well as a knockoff in China:

Vark.com
Techmeme.com (or any meme site)
Anything mobile. Cell phones are everywhere.
Yelp.com

Pretty impressed that the Chinese gov’t would block both Facebook and Twitter.  I understand the “logic” behind blocking Twitter (and youtube); it’s a tool to broadcast ideas.  But Facebook is similar to email, more a communication tool to your network than a broadcast tool to the world.

The web is still an equalizer, but seems to come with some caveats here in China.

14 hour flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai was a bit exhausting, but I’m finally here in Shanghai.  Literally at a Coffee Bean near Jing An Si (Jing An Tempe).  It’s been 3 years since I’ve been back to China, 6 years since I lived here, and it’s changes quite a bit.  But here are some random notes in Day 1:

1)  Sat next to a US citizen who’s teaching english in Shanghai.  He pays $60 a month for his apartment.  Might as well be stealing from the Chinese.

2)  After sitting on the runway for an hour, they announced we could get off the plane.  The entire plane went up in a loud cheer.  Chinese people – 1 Swine Flu – 0.

3)  Taxi driver spent the entire 45 minute ride explaining to me the system behind Shangna’s… chinese brothels.  I proceeded to tell him that is illegal in the US, and he prompted relied in Chinese, “That is stupid.”

Man, there are lots of people here in China.  I forget what it’s like to get bumped on a minute by minute basis.

This past week, I took a trip to Costa Rica with a few friends including Rahmin Sarabi, founder of unclasses.com, James Gross, VP at Federated Media, and Matt Jessell, Stategic Programs Manager at Federated Media.

With collectively over 15 years of web experience, most of our conversations were centered around how the web is changing media, consumer behavior, and our daily interaction – typical for a group of web guys on a vacation. Sorry, no bikini girls taking body shot stories here.

But in the context of a third-world country, heavily influenced by the US recession, the web seemed more relevant than ever.

It has become an equalizer; a channel of communication to connect and broadcast to anyone and everyone around a topic in real-time.

Before the leaving for the trip, James had connected with the founder of SurfingNosara.com, Erik Antonson. Erik has been experimenting with social media as a distribution and communication channel and wanted to meet with us to “get advice and talk strategy”.

What came next was a surprise. In an hour conversation with Erik, I realized that I had very little to offer. The specific strategies in using Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages, Blogs, Video, and other social media mediums are elementary. The technology is simple and the additional tools such as Twollow, TwitterHawk, Involver, etc can be found in online resource guides.

So how is it that a group of web dudes from San Francisco couldn’t give Erik a more concrete social media strategy?

Because he got it. Living in Costa Rica, thousands of miles from any technology hubs and in the middle of the jungle, he got it. He may not have the best SEO or SEM strategy, or may not be utilizing the best tools to scale his consumer engagement, but understood the foundation the social web was built on.

He knew to:

1) Focus on relevant and real-time content.

Erik posts regularly with interesting and engaging content. No automated content rss fed content from an api of twitter search with geotagged stories from ghost bloggers (I think I got most of the bs terms used). It’s real content from him and his crew.

2) Be authentic.

He’s not going to pretend to be a brand, or hide behind a logo. He is the founder, owner, the company, and a person you can ask questions and talk to.

3) Be passionate about what he is doing.

Erik is a realtor. But he actually cares about what he is doing, and it is easy to recognize that. It is apparent from in his posts, his videos, and the community he has built.

4) Use marketing channels as means to communicate, not sell.

He understood that these mediums are a means to communicate and engage around conversation. He actually cared about your experience, the relationship, and building an online community around Nosara. He makes it nontransactional. (Yes, he’s a realtor and yes, this is possible)

5) Make decisions as if he was 16.

He thinks about his life and his company as if he were a young, optimistic adolescent. He makes it fun, appreciates the process, and in the end, is doing more of what he enjoys. Why does this matter? Because making an extra dollar is not the end goal.

Again, the web has become as equalizer. Understanding the trends, tools, and fundamentals of the social web are no longer restrictive to those in the microcosm of San Francisco geekness. All too often we associate “living in San Francisco” with technological know-how. Sure, the entire globe isn’t using FourSquares or Vark, but Erik started with a solid foundation of focusing on content, his relationships, and his passion; and with these principles in mind, he is going to crush it.

Check out his shiznits at SurfingNosara.com.

As the NAA Conference nears, I’ve been thinking about questions the industry would want to ask Tony Hsieh, Jeremiah Owyang, and Pete Flint. Instead of guess what the space would want to ask,

What would you want to ask Tony Hsieh, Jeremiah Owyang, and Pete Flint?

Put your questions in the comments below and I’ll try to ask it during the Thought Leadership panel Saturday morning.

See you all this week!

About the Panelists:

Panelist #1 – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com

Tony Hsieh has grown Zappos.com from $1.6 million in 2000 to over a $1 billion in revenue in 2008. Before Zappos.com, Tony co-founded LinkExhange which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million. After LinkExchange, Tony founded a startup incubator called Venture Frogs, which invests in early stage startups.

Panelist #2 – Jeremiah Owyang, Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research

Jeremiah Owyang is a senior analyst at Forrest Research and a leading expert on social computing, social media and interactive marketing. Jeremiah’s blog was ranked 19th by Advertising Age, he has consulted for large brands such as Hitachi Data Systems, and he is a speaker and educator at many conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW and CES.

Panelist #3 – Pete Flint, Founder of Trulia.com

Flint founded Trulia.com in 2005 and it now is one of largest and fastest growing real estate Web sites in the United States. Trulia.com has over 5 million unique visitors a month and has raised more than $33 million in funding. Prior to starting Trulia.com, Pete was part of the original launch team of lastminute.com, Europe’s largest online travel company where he was responsible for Interactive Marketing and Business Development. During his 5 years with the company he helped it to grow to more than 2,000 employees in 12 countries and over $1billion in annual transactions. The company was acquired by Travelocity in 2005 for more than $1.1 billion. Pete earned his Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Oxford and his MBA from Stanford University.

In 1997, I can recall my older sisters saying how cumbersome email was.

In 1999, I can recall high school classmates saying that Napster will never replace music CD’s.

In 2005, I remember friends saying how stupid Facebook is.

Today, I have my own friends and peers asking me the value of social media as a distribution, marketing, and communication tool.

I think it’s important to note that we’ve seen disruptive technologies and changing consumer behavior change industries. This seems particularly true in the newspaper and television industries as of late. And the inability to adapt to this change has caused large print and television corporations to lose market share.

What should have happened is these well-funded and well-positioned companies should have identified the trend, and set up division to experiment, explore, and develop new technologies in line with consumer demand. In essence, Gannett should have created Blogger, NBC should have created YouTube, and Yellowpages should have created Yelp.

In terms of the Multi-family housing industry, I’m not defending the value of Twitter as a lead generating service for the apartment industry. It may never provide significant results as a lead generator. And I am not saying that Twitter, FriendFeed, or Facebook is the next platform that will change the way we find apartments. But I think it is a mistake to make all decisions based on measurable results.

Here is why:

1) It takes time to build and adapt to new technologies.

There is a learning curve involved. You cannot just get a PageRank of 9 overnight. You cannot build a network of followers for your blog with one post. You cannot build your online content presence by creating a Facebook Fanpage.

2) Social Media is also an engagement, communication, and customer service tool.

Not all results of customer service are immediately measurable. I do not need to defend the value of transparency; we all use UCG and review sites everyday. But I feel like I need to convey this… The way we (consumers) communicate, interact, and consume information is changing and for the most part, has changed. The social web, reviews, and UGC influence our purchasing decisions.

Conclusion

Social media is a rapidly growing consumer trend and many companies are still figuring out how to use it effectively. However, it has changed the way consumers make decisions and it is important that companies understand how to employ it to their advantage.

The recent months, the hot topic in the multi-family housing industry has been social media. There are those who understand it, those who are experimenting with it, and those who deny it’s existence.

As we gear up for the NAA educational conference and the social media panel with Tony Hsieh, Jeremiah Owyang, and Pete Flint, I have noticed that there are some people that have never heard of large companies like Zappos.com. 

So to reward those who know what Zappos.com is and want to see Tony, Jeremiah, and Pete discuss Social Media, but cannot afford tickets, NAA has graciously sponsored a contest to give away 1 FREE NAA CONFERENCE TICKET and 50% off 1 NAA CONFERENCE TICKET.

Enter the contest and see if you are a social media guru.