Shared by Kristopher
max klein

I use google wave every single day. I start off the day by checking gmail. Then I look at a few news sites to see if anything of interest happened. Then I open google wave: because that's where my business lives. That's how I run a complicated network of collaborators, make hundreds of decisions every day and organise the various sites that made me $14.000 in december.

It was not always like this. There was a time just a few months ago when I did not have google wave. I think of that time with horror - because that epoch was marked with conflicts, total chaos, money was being lost every day, fights were happening between me and my collaborators. Google wave came in, and within a couple of weeks, a heavenly peace had descended on my business.

But let me start from the beginning. I am involved in about five different web based businesses. Niche sites, iPhone apps (simple ones), developer tools, downloadable desktop software and a subscription based web service. They all have varying degrees of success, but all bring in some income every month (well, apart from the web service one). Each business has a different set of collaborators (people who work with me on them, partners, employees, freelancers). Each business requires quite a lot of management, because they all are made up of a lot of individual software that have an update cycle, reaction to new releases, customer email answering and so on.

Before google wave, I was in a period I like to refer to as the age of chaos and anger. This was when I collaborated by email. When something needed to be done, I would send out an email. When I discovered something new I would send out an email. After two months, one of my freelancers replied my email with a screenshot. It showed his inbox, and there were about 50 unread emails from me, 10 of which where various threats about why he was not replying my emails. We would use skype messaging to communicate and skype conferences every two days, in addition to the emails.

At the time, we would also send designs and screenshots by email - needless to say, things would get lost - hardly anything would get done on time, and the most common reply I would get back is that they missed the particular instruction in the mass of emails I would send.

To compound my trouble, we were collaborating across multiple time zones - UK, US Pacific Time, Indian time and Singapore time. Emails would arrive in the night and it is depressing to wake up to 35 new emails from different people.

Then I got my google wave invite. First of all, I didn't really get it. I was not really sure how this would help me. However, after I had a skype conference and one of my partners complained for 15 minutes about how I would write unimportant emails like

"I need a status update next week"

I decided to try something new. All emails that were NOT time critical would be done with google wave, and all important emails could be written normally. We started off doing that.

Things changed.

Suddenly, communication habits of everyone changed. People started grouping their communication into topics and resurrecting old 'waves' when it was about the same topic. For example, if we were talking about bonuses, and then spoke about something else for two weeks, then came back to bonuses, we would simply resurrect the old wave. Business became structured.

Then something unexpected and suprising emerged. Google Wave took over from skype chat. Previously, we had been using instant messenger to communicate things quickly, but the problem was that because of our time zone differences, we would have 3 out of 4 people usually on. So one person would totally miss the entire conversation. But with google wave, we could hold long discussions as a chat, then when the other people woke up, they could contribute.

Another suprising effect was that chats became slower and more thoughtful. Because google wave functions both as email and as chat, it is not unusual to wait 5 minutes to get an answer to something you wrote. On skype, this would not happen. This slowness is very beneficial, because it makes the answers more permanent (like an email) and not so hurried (like an IM).

And Google Wave is even great for massive fights. The indentations and the ability to review what you said in the past means that you can go back and answer to an accusation. It's like a WWF cage rumble for fights, multiple people can rage on about different topics at the same time. But the thing with it is that because the fights can last for days, they slow down, and then people are no longer angry and solutions start to appear. Contrast this with IM fights, where one person shuts his messenger and that may be the end of your partnership.

What has Google Wave done for me?

* My stress level is way lower
* Conversations are now organised in topics, and no longer flat
* Fights have become more constructive
* Working across multiple time zones is no longer a problem
* I can share screenshots, design documents with multiple and different people with ease
* I have a single control panel to manage all my conversation with everyone I am working with
* Before Google Wave, I felt like I was working very much and getting very little done. After google wave, I feel I am doing little work, but I am making more and more money every month
* I feel in control of my business - with my iPhone I can access the heart of my business anytime and anywhere

What's missing from Google Wave?

* You cannot manage your contacts or create contact groups. It's easy to add people to waves that you don't want in there.

But in general, if you are collaborating with people and you have not tried Google Wave, then you are perhaps missing the greatest thing to happen to small web based businesses since Dropbox.

Shared by Kristopher
genius.

By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

If you are, then WordHustler is for you! If you don't know what a word hustler is, then listen up!

Similar to pixel pushers and glyph tossing typophiles a word hustler is trying to make it in this world with the written word. And that is where WordHustler comes in.

WordHustler was started by two word hustlers writers, John L. Singleton and Anne Walls, out of their frustration for the costs and time of submitting their works in an analog world. In short, the hustle took to much time away from being able to write.

Sure, there are always elements of every hustle, job or hobby that are tedious and simply part of the process. When someone chooses to be a writer they're not making that decision based on the amount of time they're going to spend at OfficeMax buying envelopes and the right paper. The choice is made because they love hardship have a voice that needs to be heard.

With this in mind the founders of WordHustler brought the hustle into the digital age by creating a hybrid CMS that doesn't display a writer's work online but submits it to traditional publishers.

WordHustler is one of those impressive web services that is focused on serving a niche market and was developed by people in that niche. By solving their own problems first they were able to take the code and create a service for anyone like them.

No more printing, stamping, less formatting and no more paper cuts as WordHustler automates this process for their users. There's also no more searching for contests or publishers that might want to review your work. It is all here inside WordHustler.

Beyond the obvious benefits to writers in easing their submission pains there is the additional benefit of a powerful, easy to use interface. WordHustler has one of the best search landing pages I have ever seen. It elegantly integrates a standard search box, results, rankings, standard filtering and my favorite, elements of advanced search visually.

What I mean by advanced search visually' is the ability to begin filtering content at an advanced level without presenting it that way. Typically this is done through an advanced' search form with 10+ text input boxes with labels like all these words,some of these words, or none of these words.'

WordHustler presents filtering tools like an AJAX slider to limit the amount of description to display and words, tags' to filter results on the page. At this time tools like this are often used in backend administration interfaces or like this one, only available on this site. Developers and designers would do well to look at this model and tinker with it to create solutions for users to filter at an advanced level with beginner skills.

The service has a very reasonable price tag for users when compared to the cost of going analog and creating the number of submissions that WordHustler will allow for writers. It is extremely reasonable when compared to the price of building ones own platform to do the same. That is, if you are the enterprising type.

Now that you know about WordHustler and have decided that you are a word hustler or maybe want to submit that long stowed screenplay you wrote right after college, you have no excuse not to give it a try.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Future of collaboration platforms (vator.tv)
• The Shock of Every Writer's Life. (marksarvas.blogs.com)
• How To Write News For Your Website (woorkup.com)
• Sometimes you just have to write (trishussey.com)

Are You A WordHustler? is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

On any given day there is so much information that becomes available that it is impossible to make enough time to sift through all of it. Instead things pass us by in this river of news that we might have found valuable.

I've written on this blog extensively about shared feeds from Google Reader and other systems for filtering content and watching it bubble to the top. Slurb is a great example of that at a high level.

Nearly two years ago I walked about from this river of content since the current was a vortex of time suck. I made it to the banks, picked up a bucket and waited for my friends to fill it with what they found valuable. And since I call them friends I most likely value the same types of content.

It took quite a bit of trust and some long hours coding. That trust I mention was both in the people I was choosing to fill my bucket and trust that I was picking the right ones. I did. And I haven't looked back.

However, if you're not feeling that you can take the steps up the river bank away from your river of news to fill your bucket, I've put together a short list of 5 unfiltered shared feeds that I can't go without. They are trusted sources that filter everything from politics to geekdom to science to local events.

1. http://www.filome.com/1/robdiana.rss
2. http://www.filome.com/1/tamihania.rss
3. http://www.filome.com/1/Proto.rss
4. http://www.filome.com/1/RickKlau.rss
5. http://www.filome.com/1/mattg.rss

You might notice that I have gotten a little sneaky with these feeds by adding pagination to them. Just trying to give you access to older posts that they have shared.

For fun, check out page 76 of RickKlau's feed to get a sense of what he was sharing and I was reading this summer.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

5 Daily Shared Feed Favs is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Like any great lesson this one is short.

Know your audience, deliver and charge.

The movie Precious didn't win the overall box office this weekend Carol did. But what Precious did is set the record for average gross at $100k per theater. Compare that the to the gross per theater of Carol at $8k and some change. Slight difference.

Precious was a limited release in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Atlanta at 18 theaters. Attendees were 68% female and 50% black, according to Variety. The filmmakers and backers of this film were able to maximize there investment and start the word of mouth ball rolling by focusing on regions with the highest number of potential audience members.

This is a precious lesson in understanding an audience and delivering a product or experience that they are willing to pay for. It is proof that indie projects, which most online projects are, have value and can be monetized when the right audience is engaged.

Finding the right audience for content is possible producers just need to be open to maximizing their investment through limited and targeted releases.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

A Precious' Lesson is a post from: TechStartups.com

Dogster has never been a Web 2.0 darling. At first glance a social network for pets isn't the most innovative idea, and its audience is limited to the kinds of wackos who make name tags for their dogs at conferences or create elaborate fictional personalities for their cats.

But with the benefit of hindsight, Dogster has done two things very, very right: It never raised venture funding and never relied on an ad network for revenues. The result is its network of sites Dogster, Catster and Snuzzy that focused on maximizing revenues early on instead of aiming for user growth for the sake of user growth. While many other Web 2.0 names are struggling to raise more money to stay in business, Dogster has been profitable since the second quarter of 2007 and is solidly in control of its own destiny. (Full disclosure: Michael Arrington was a very early angel investor. His statement about his investments is here.)

Not only thatpremium ad sales for the sites are up 20% this year. Why? Because while hot sites like Digg and Facebook outsourced ads to big players like Microsoft and smaller sites outsourced them to Google, Dogster has invested five years in building direct relationships with big pet food, supply and other consumer packaged good brands. We figured each $50,000 ad deal was like getting another angel investor, says Ted Rheingold, Dogster CEO.

These aren't lame banners. These are coupons, contests and other things that incent users to interact with the brand. A recent example was a coupon from Royal Canin Cat Food. The company was hoping for 500 takers and it got 5,000. As a result Dogster and Catster charge $10-$12 CPMs and as high as $40 CPMs for their newsletter. (I interviewed Rheingold about this strategy back when I was co-hosting TechTicker. The clip is below.)

But there's a problem. Dogster is still a small site and even happy advertisers will only continue to pay so much to reach the same users. So Dogster has solved that by deciding to become in essence the thing that it always argued startups shouldn't work with: Ad resellers.

Dogster will now sell ads for the much larger Cheezburger Network of Lolanimal-related sites that include IHasaHotdog and ICanHazCheezburgera never-ending meme that will hit one billion page views later this week. That's 10 billion cat pictures served, says founder Ben Huh. At 72 pixels per inch, if you laid them out end-to-end it would reach the moon and back four times. (I'm guessing that moon part is actually true. Huh also told me that under the new deal every time they sold an ad, Dogster would ship them a free dog.)

The two have just closed their first sale to Clorox for Fresh Step Kitty Litter. Sexy? Maybe not. But it's lucrative. But Dogster is no longer in the one million-unique category, it's selling for six million uniques and until the CPM dies, this is still a volume industry. Neither company would comment much on the economics, but Dogster is taking a smaller cut than a traditional ad network would. In exchange, Cheezburger Networks has to do more work to make sure the ads are effective, whether it's creating a contest or just tracking the metrics the way Dogster already does in house.

It's an interesting announcement, since ICanHazCheezburger is so much larger and better known. Typically it's the smaller site that outsources inventory to the giant. But the founders Huh and Rheingold were long time friends who'd frequently ask each other's advice: Rheingold would ask how Huh got those gaudy user numbers and Huh would ask how on earth Rheingold was so good at monetization. Looks like the two will now be able to actually share those areas of expertise: Dogster now gets a network of six million uniques and Huh gets much higher revenues.

Neither of the deals is exclusive. Dogster plans to add more complementary sites to its ad inventory and Cheezburger Networks plans to ink similar partnerships for properties with non-pet user profiles like the FailBlog and newly launched ItMadeMyDay.comwhich has already hit one million page views.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

File sharing veteran Limewire released a new version of its gnutella/bit torrent client Wednesday that lets users share files with their Facebook friends, download files faster via bit torrent, and seed files back into the bit torrent network.

Version 5.2 also revamps the program's private sharing feature, launched in December. Rather than sharing each file with specific people, you can now create a list of files to share with all of your personal contacts, making it easier to share vacation photos, videos and so on while keeping any potentially racier content private.

Rather than creating its own social network, Limewire put its hooks into the networks people already use, which is a wise strategy. Between twitter, blogs, email, Facebook, instant messaging, text messaging, and something called a telephone, we hardly need another way to keep tabs on our friends.

Those who prefer to organize media on their own computers, rather than trusting it to Flickr, Vimeo and so on, will likely appreciate the way Limewire lets them serve media directly to their friends, even if the hey, I just shared something with you alert comes through another service (i.e. Facebook).

The main drawback to Limewire's private sharing feature is that both users need to be running Limewire at the same time in order to share. If Limewire's creators intend for us to keep the app running at all times, they might want to think about creating separate preferences for maximum upload speed for friends and maximum upload stream for strangers, to avoid running up against ISP file bandwidth limits. Limewire product manager Nathan Lovejoy told us via phone that he'll consider adding that suggestion to a future version.

Interesting business lesson learned on a bicycle: it's very difficult to improve your performance on the downhills.

I used to dread the uphill parts of my ride. On a recumbent bike, they're particularly difficult. So I'd slog through, barely surviving, looking forward to the superspeedy downhill parts.

Unfortunately, I had a serious accident a few years ago (saving the life of a clueless pedestrian by throwing myself onto the pavement). Downhill might be fast, but it's crazy.

Lesson learned. Now, I look forward to the uphill parts, because that's where the work is, the fun is, the improvement is. On the uphills, I have a reasonable shot at a gain over last time. The downhills are already maxed out by the laws of physics and safety.

The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset. The moment you earn your keep as a public speaker is when the room isn't just right or the plane is late or the projector doesn't work or the audience is tired or distracted. The best time to engage with an employee is when everything falls apart, not when you're hitting every milestone. And everyone now knows that the best time to start a project is when the economy is lousy.

Most of your competition spend their days looking forward to those rare moments when everything goes right. Imagine how much leverage you have if you spend your time maximizing those common moments when it doesn't.