As you can see, the current Curious Office site is a bit of a mess. I’m rearranging the blog and overall layout and installing a new, more powerful base theme that supports it all. The theme, K2, is getting hacked a bit to accommodate my design and so the site [...]
Tripped over this on de.licio.us today. Anybody creating web apps knows how annoying it is to discover that one browser (usually IE) renders your work differently than another. “Resetting” CSS, as many of you know, is essentially a practice that is intended to tackle the built in browser style sheet [...]
The team sent me some great pictures from our Imagekind customer fulfillment center down in Portland Oregon. The entire organization has done an incredible job building this business. Check out the rest of the pics!
Curious Office is sure to develop another of our own companies. Sitting in a board meeting today reminded us that we have made good progress with Imagekind - the first company we developed internally. Rewinding a bit, it would probably be a reasonable question to ask why we incubate our [...]
This is a pretty cool service. Most of my friends live on their cell phones. Many of them are constantly traveling. Ever needed to forward details contained in an email to a phone? This is a handy way to do it.
Teleflip’s [...]
I’ve been reading with interest about a few companies such as Huddle who are developing an productivity application that tightly integrates Facebook and your desktop. I’ve long joked that Facebook is “the other Internet” and I’m finding that the lines between my social interactivity and my business networking is [...]
Could these rumors be true? Hmm. Makes sense to me!
[...]My wife surprised me with a brand new MacBook Pro today! Wow. Now that’s what I call a SURPRISE. So fun!!! Something about setting up a new machine is just a total geek party.
Whether it’s a grid based system of design or the ever present Helvetica font, there is a good chance you are using some Swiss design origins in your web process and you didn’t even know it. In any case, one of my latest flickr contacts has some great vintage Swiss [...]
For those of you who love cheat sheets, you’ll find these PDF documents handy to keep on your desktop. Of particular interest is the cheat sheet to remind you what all those Wordpress files are meant to do. The HTML and CSS docs are pretty rudimentary but handy for beginners [...]
This is a problem of epic proportions and yet we in the West aren’t seeing Congo nightly on our mainstream news channels.
[...]OK, I tripped over this link today and got a pretty good laugh. Thanks to the folks over at Woot for throwing this together. Check out some of the funny things you may have missed at CES. For example:
Most Ridiculously Unpractical Oversized Tote Bag
If you can’t find a [...]
No, I probably won’t actually produce these for sale. I was just trying to make a point.
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I worked with Alex Alben and Alex Castro over at Pluggd to help out with the development of new materials as part of their evolved positioning. I finished a redesign of materials, logo, developed a new site on the Drupal content management system and [...]
Everyone will love the new MacBook Air for its obvious small size and sexy nature. What I didn’t know, until watching this guided tour, is that there are actually a few new features that ship with this product that are pretty genius. The new, larger [...]
We had a great holiday season with sales higher than expected. So, why not a shameless plug for Imagekind to showcase new artists, new content and a great place to buy gifts? The site is thriving and traffic is great. Congrats to the whole team.
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Yesterday I mentioned that Curious Office made another small investment - this time in Fanzter - the folks behind a new concept called CoolSpotters. A lot of people emailed me trying to figure out what Fanzter does. The answer is that Fanzter is the development company [...]
Fanzter, an early-stage new media development start-up, has raised a first round from Richard Barton (Benchmark Capital, Expedia, Zillow.com), Second Avenue Partners and ourselves here at Curious Office, as well as angel investors from media and entertainment. Founders Aaron LaBerge and Eric Kirsten go way back with Mike Slade over [...]
I just posted this over on my personal website today. Maybe some of you readers will get a kick out of this compilation. Did you even KNOW there were this many media types out there??
Just posted this over on my personal site.
Like many who came before me, I’ve always liked Helvetica. It’s so…neutral. Yet somehow makes being neutral look so cool. So cool in fact that I wanted to make some fun patterns with nothing other than variations of [...]
This bad boy processing 20 petabytes of data PER DAY. By now you all know that these aren’t huge Cray beasts either. They are PCs. Crazy! A standard machine cluster node consists of two 2 GHz Intel Xeon processors with Hyper-Threading enabled, 4 GB [...]
This just hit my inbox. Might be interesting for someone out there. If so, contact Halley Bock [halley at fierceinc.com]
Company: Fierce, Inc.
Job Title: VP, Business Development
Description: Description
This is a unique opportunity to be part of a fast-growing and successful leadership
development company. Fierce, Inc. is looking for [...]
Now this looks well executed. Another way to view full length TV shows without having to be stuck in front of the TV. Cool. I’d like an option to view videos full screen but I do like that it’s well integrated with my existing Comcast service [...]
One of the more prolific bloggers, Robert Scoble, apparently got booted from Facebook for violating their terms of service. I have no idea if he’s back up yet since I’ve never tried adding him.
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Ever been to slideshare? It’s a cool place to share presentations. I was recently checking out this presentation called Logic + Emotion: Visual Thinking Archive and I learned that I am a “Synthesizer”. A synthesizer is actually a great way to describe certain people in [...]
Wishing you all a healthy and happy 2008!
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Whether it’s an online product, a physical product, a service, or an event — your implementation should give the viewer an epiphany of communication and understanding. When it all comes together, pretty astounding things can happen. That’s what happened for Burkey Belser, the designer of every [...]
I’ve known Matt Hulett over at Mpire a long time now. I was just reading one of his email updates regarding WidgetBucks. Over a billion impressions served in three months. That’s crazy. Congrats to them.
[...]The company that Adrian Hanauer and I quietly launched as a wobbly beta in July 2006 is now expertly run by Kevin Saliba. We’re lucky to have Kevin and this is a great time to be in retail - particularly a segment with gross margins between 40%-60%. We’re doing [...]
There are no parallels to technology start-ups within this video but it is sure helpful to occasionally remember how lucky you are. Friends, family and health take precedent over financing events and big exits. Right?
I have been grinding on a new start-up idea lately and I’ve begun to realize something about presentations. As most people know, Powerpoint has long been the preferred “new business presentation medium” for investors. But there are a lot of things wrong with Powerpoint that I think make it a [...]
Have you heard this song? No matter. The lyrics are far more important:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ‘97… wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest [...]
I had two interesting meetings today. One was with Ken Myer, President and CEO of the Washington’s Technology Association and the other was Nathan Kaiser over at nPost. Both Ken and Nathan are working hard to bring value, services and camaraderie to [...]
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Facebook is the other Internet. There isn’t a web investor out there that isn’t thinking about how Facebook will play into any new consumer start-up’s marketing plan. Seriously. But, what exactly is an entrepreneur supposed to do with it? Get guerrilla! [...]
Much thanks to Erin Hakansson over at Condenet for the invite and free tickets to the Mashable Open Web Awards in San Francisco on January 10. Most people are familiar with Condé Nast right? CondéNet is the unit that manages the online properties such as STYLE.COM, Epicurious.com, Concierge.com, [...]
Couldn’t agree more. Well, maybe his rule about no more than 6 words on a single slide is a little too hardcore but I get the point.
[...]A friend was talking to me on email today about the ongoing discussion about the tech bubble. He asked me what I thought about it and whether or not I agree we’re in the middle of a big, bad one. I figured I’d just share my email response here for [...]
Since starting Imagekind in July 2006 I’m often amazed, surprised, humbled and flattered how many people I’ve met who have heard about the service, sold something or purchased something there. A few weeks ago I met an artist at a Dandy Warhols concert who was telling me that she [...]
I am sorry to report that Jerry Hanauer, father of longtime friend Adrian Hanauer and brother Nick has passed last Sunday December 2, 2007. Over the 13 years I’ve known Adrian, I came to appreciate Jerry as a creative and eclectic businessman who had an incredible infatuation with history, [...]
People my age like to remind me that I’m not getting old but as I near 40 I can’t say that I’m necessarily feeling young 
Oh sure, I know that 40 is supposed to be the “new 30″ and 30 is the “new 20″ blah blah [...]
Next Tuesday I’m on a panel at WOMMA - an organization that is trying to bring some structure to the concept of “Word of Mouth” marketing. Spending time at one of these conferences and bookmarking the site expose you to valuable news, strategies, case [...]
Well, ok, not me but that’s what this list of wonders did for Mike Duncan. So why am I mentioning it here? Because a lot of the stuff he lists here isn’t developer specific at all. If you spend time working in the technology space, you’re bound to get [...]
There wasn’t much discussion around one of the latest tech financings in Seattle and that could be because the round was relatively small. Still, I’m pleased to report (late) that the $1.1 million Series A for SEOmoz was concluded last week. Ignition led the round though [...]
David Rumsey has collected nearly 16,000 maps and almost all of them are available with a high resolution preview. It’s always fascinating to me to see how others viewed the world over the ages. Definitely an online effort worth a few minutes of your time.
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I recently found a very unassuming looking blog called Better Explained. The author applies some great “every person” language to some very common yet complicated topics. For example, how exactly does the stock market work? And how about business accounting? I can’t believe how many [...]
In the last 4 months I estimate that approximately 50% of my personal electronic communications is done within Facebook. Most emails coming into my Outlook email inbox are primarily business related. Is Facebook the end of mainstream personal email exchange? Could be for me anyway. [...]
Wanted you to go check out some “non-work” fun stuff I’ve been doing lately.
Every once in a while you’ll meet somebody only briefly but you immediately feel like they’re a friend. Know the type? Founder of Fantasy Moguls, Brenda Spoonemoore is like that. I met her in the Second Avenue offices a few months back and didn’t [...]
I was excited to hear about Movaya’s new product launch today. For those of
you who don’t know Movaya, it was started by an old friend and former
RealNetworks colleague, Phil Yerkes, about a year and a half ago. Movaya has
built a slick end-to-end [...]
Long time friend Adrian Hanauer finally realizes at least one of his significant dreams! Major league soccer in Seattle in 2009. Congrats to everyone involved in the effort. It’s a great contribution the city.
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I’ve long been a fan of Marcelo Calbucci and it’s great that TechCrunch is keeping Sampa in mind. Putting aside the fact that good development is just hard for anyone to do (and therefore to be respected), I applaud Marcelo for working so hard to [...]
Last night I was asked to sit with a few other panelists at a Washington Software Association dinner and talk about some 2008 technology predictions. My crystal ball fell off the kitchen counter and broke recently so I just made a bunch of reasoned guesstimates. One of the questions [...]
I watched a rather interested movie the other day on the recommendation of a friend. It was called Peaceful Warrior and it was inspired by true events in the life of Dan Millman, a university student and locally famous gymnast who dreams of winning an Olympic Games competition. It’s [...]
“We often miss opportunity because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison
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I’m speaking with a panel of other Seattle tech folk as to our tech predictions for 2008 at the Westin Hotel tomorrow (November 13) from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
[...]I’m my own worst critic. Lately, I’ve found myself in some situations where I realize that professional enhancement is less about “what you know” or “know how to do” and it’s more about the basics. It’s wonderful to have amassed a wide range of skills in your career, whether that’s [...]
Marcelo Calbucci over at Sampa has updated the Alexa ranking for his Seattle start-up list. You can check it out here. I’m happy to see the high traffic levels for those that Curious Office is involved with to include Imagekind (20,334) and Shelfari (8,443). Not included is [...]
The hardcore out there already know about Blueprint - the CSS framework loving compiled by Google and posted in its Code repository. There are thousands of CSS tutorials out there but the best way to learn is to look at a variety of code snippets [...]
It seems that the concept of an extranet has been something I’ve had to tackle at almost every enterprise company I’ve worked at. Each company had a few different requirements to include sharing of sensitive corporate documents with remote employees. But in general, the common task was a solution to [...]
Business writing is apparently different than writing a novel. If you want to make a buck, don’t try to impress people with big words, technical words or unfamiliar words. I’m guilty of using words that are unnecessary because it makes a document or email sound nicer. For example, I’ve [...]
Like most people, I have my morning information digestion routine. I’ll browse some stuff to see if I get any ideas to put on my personal blog. I’ll fire up my customized Netvibes home page which I’ve gone to great lengths to populate with all my favorite sites over [...]
Wow, yet another reason to spend money on tech toys. I guess this is probably a fine occassion to finally break down and get that new 8-core Mac Pro.
A few of the new features you won’t find in Vista that I love:
Quick Look:
Look inside [...]
I suppose the most notable announcement was Microsoft’s $240 million dollar purchase of 1.6% of Facebook. It was only a month ago that Steve Ballmer was trying to figure out if this was all a fad or not.
What he said:
There can’t be any more deep technology in [...]
This week I’ve heard multiple viewpoints on the outlook for 2008. Some are bearish - I suppose primarily fueled by the incessant launches of new “web 2.0″ start-ups with no apparent revenue models. Others still see a strong market for new ideas and a slew of big companies with deep [...]
Imagekind investors, Marc, Oliver and Alexander have announced their latest move - Jimdo.com.
The boys in Munich have a reputation for successfully cloning US websites that appear to do well. Their roster of investments is formidable and they seem to have a deep [...]
Ok, so by now a lot of people are already familiar with jQuery. We used it at Imagekind and I’ve used it messing around with various other projects too. jQuery is a JavaScript toolkit designed to simplify various tasks such as element selection, DOM manipulation, event [...]
I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw this post tonight. I love TechCrunch but this post shows that Arrington certainly isn’t above getting very personal with his public platform. BBC this is not…
This story was recently sent to me by a friend, and, operating Curious Office, I read it very closely. For the last few hours since reading it I’ve had mixed feelings about it. For my own sake I thought I’d try to obtain some clarity [...]
I like this story over at the Alarm Clock. It makes on think a bit more about GPS doesn’t it. I don’t feel like I’m almost 40 years old. As such, it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was standing at a RealNetworks tradeshow booth [...]
Did you know that the average tenure for a Chief Marketing Officer in a technology company is about 23 months? That’s about half the time for a CEO or COO. In my mind, the reason is two-fold. First, most CMO’s do not accept responsibility for revenue generation in a way [...]
Ok, I admit to being a bit enamored with Pownce. Kevin Rose of Digg fame seems to really understand how the InterWeb works. I can think of at least a dozen failed attempts at file sharing apps over the last few years. A whole [...]
When I posted the updated Alexa rankings for Seattle companies I was made aware of ActiveRain who has an Alexa ranking of about 7,200. Activerain is a kind of social network for real estate agents and the community seems to be pretty devout.The company was founded back in 2003 [...]
The Seattle Sounders have won their fourth USL soccer championship on Saturday night. The Sounders now have the most titles in USL-1 history. What a fitting way to end the season as Adrian prepares to bring a major league soccer team to Seattle in 2009.
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A long time Swedish friend of mine runs an interesting incubator in Stockholm called iQube.se He has close to 50 companies in his portfolio for whom he provides a great building, operational infrastructure and seed financing. iQube is funded in part by Niklas Zennström (founder [...]
So it was great to see some familiar faces at the Picnik party last night. The crew has done an amazing job executing on this thing. I’d go so far as to say that it is one of the most polished web apps I’ve ever seen. If they weren’t so [...]
Google cheat sheets!
Thanks to Nancy Blachman, for this interactive tutorial and search reference for users at all levels.
Google Guide for Advanced Operators.
Mary Ellen Bates: Little-Known Google Tools.
Google itself has posted a rather rudimentary cheat sheet, here.
[...]I know that Marcelo Calbucci of Sampa has been traveling for the last month down in South America. In his absence I’ve decided to update the Alexa rankings for his original list of Seattle start-ups for the month of September. These were accurate as of September 7 so some [...]
I’ve had a few people ask me more about the Wishpot value proposition over the last few days. I saw this post over at the Alarm:clock describing Wishpot as “Welcome Tool For the Mobile “Daddy I Want A Pony” Generation”. I hadn’t talked much about the mobile side but [...]
Ever thought it would be a good idea to be able to maintain and share your product wishes in one universal place? Ever wondered how you might manage gift ideas online even when the site you’re visiting doesn’t have a registry or wishlist function? Ever wondered [...]
Some of you may have noticed that the Curious site is new. In fact there was even some placeholder text in several paragraphs up until just a few minutes ago. Sorry about that. I did this new site and blog design and spent a fair amount of time trying to [...]
Yesterday I needed to set-up a dial in bridge for two parties in South Africa that I needed to communicate with. In the past, I’ve found most conference bridge services to be really expensive…particularly for people calling in from all over the world. I found TeleJunctions who offers FreeBridge - [...]
While the deal isn’t fully closed as of today, I’m pleased to confirm a report that Curious Office and Ignition Partners are working hard to finalize the partnership and investment in SEOmoz. SEOmoz is a great information source for anyone looking to understand how to [...]
Not everyone who visits Curious Office also visits my personal site over at Kellysmith.com No matter. Sometimes I’ll post something over there that I realize might also be of interest to anyone that stops by the Office of Curiosity. Below is a recent post on Reputation Management.
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I [...]
It wasn’t that long ago that I was writing about BuddyTV’s financing by Gemstar. Today PaidContent.org writes that Comcast has acquired BuddyTV. Andy Liu and team raised just about $3 million and developed the highest trafficked independent television online social network on the web. This was simply a [...]
It’s weird but it seems like I’ve been saying this phrase a lot lately. I’m looking for really interesting developers or seed stage companies but so many things popping up strike me as late arrivals targeting over saturated categories with business models that seem so, uh, “2006″. I had a [...]
Ever wanted an objective comparison of leading web analytics packages used by most webmasters?. This blog post titled 2007 Web Analytics Shootout - Final Report covers ease of implementation, use, and reporting. Very valuable stuff.
[...]I actually found this link on John Cook’s blog today. Rich gave a great little interview as to getting a start-up going from scratch. Covers just the basics but sometimes a reminder of the basics is helpful. It’s high level but worth a watch.
Someone told me today that Shelfari could claim “hundreds” of thousands of users. That means you have to have at least more than 200,000 to say that
C’mon Josh and team…make us proud! Seattle has a long history in online books. [...]
Snapfish users will now be able to take advantage of the millions of framing combinations possible on Imagekind, including tabletop frames, photo frames, custom frames and more! This latest development allows all Snapfish users to have their very own gorgeously printed, [...]
It wasn’t long ago that Curious Office took an interest in Peter Cooper’s project called FeedDigest. We used the system ourselves on several sites. FeedDigest is a professional service (built on Ruby on Rails) that blends and converts RSS and Atom feeds to other formats for publishing. Based in [...]
Take a look at what search terms are more popular than others on Yahoo, Google, MSN and more. Identify which keywords and keyphrases are most popular (at this time) on Google and all the other big search engines.
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