I spend about 3 hours a day reading stuff. Alot of that time is spent reading TechCrunch and Mashable and Business Insider and several other blogs about Technology and Business. But the really interesting stuff is found in the second level - the links and sources that those sites embed in their posts to attribute thoughts, ideas and specific data. Those links have a more focused approach to specific data points and thought patterns that give you a better insight into that line of thinking. A better insight into what is happening in the world.

I read an interesting quote today - “The beauty of the internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people.” ( - Jaron Lanier) Its very true. The value of the internet is in discovering what other smart and experience people have to say, and have to reflect about their world. Because our world is so interconnected, shared experiences are much more common - even if we don’t know each other or are on opposite sides of the globe.

Reading is a great way to focus your mind and absorb new information that inspires you. I feel like as I read, my unconscious mind is absorbing all the data I read and locking it away in my brain only to be accessed randomly at some other opportune (or inopportune) time. It brings the value of other people’s experiences, their thoughts and advice related to those experiences, it brings that all together and helps me better form an idea of what needs to be said or done here. Reading about how Google is positioning its new operating system, and how a brand new start up is unrolling its new location based social game. Those things matter, they are minute case studies on how to run a business in todays world. Real time case studies - this is happening NOW.

Of course the ultimate action is always up to me, but knowing that this company in Santa Cruz did this crazy thing when they were faced with this really bad situation and it worked brilliantly, or it was the last straw. Well thats not in you’re marketing textbook, or your finance book.

Its a little lesson you learn in the school of life, the school where you are the professor and you decide how well you do - but the rest of the world grades you. Do good things and you will do well.

Reading and absorbing is one of my favorite ways to relax, and it helps inspire me and focus on my ideas because I am always asking - “How does that apply to what I’m doing?” Always ask questions, and question the answers you get.

I was in the gym today and Fox News was on. I’m a hating fan of Bill O’Reilly (the guys an idiot but hes so awesome). But Hannity came on next and I just cant stand him. He is so negative. He opened the nights news with an announcement that appeared like it was daily. “Today was day 35 of False Hope and No Change” REALLY? Can you not support the President of our country now!? After spending 8 years bashing anyone who critized Bush for “being unpatriotic.” I digress…

People are too Negative these days. It affects the way we work, the way we think and the way we interact with each other. Our moods are down, and they rub off on other people.  This article on LifeOptimizer.org (what a sick name) goes into the details of why you shouldn’t watch the news too often. This isn’t news to me, and it came out a few days ago, but it brought some thought to me today. I had a great day, I cleaned my inbox out, got my list done entirely before noon - it was great. I didn’t check the news or twitter all afternoon becuase I was so busy. And I’m psyched I didn’t.

The market tanked again today. Theres nothing I can do about it, so there is no reason to worry about it. Of course there are lots of reasons why I should, but they are all worrisome, depressing thoughts. Lets just call this a recession, realize it sucks and stop sh*tting on ourselves everytime bad news breaks.

Or maybe we could just ignore the news for a few days and relax. Gain some inner wa.

Time is vicious. There is never enough of it. If time were listed on an index, I’d buy all I could of it. I’m starting to feel the cramped style of trying to do a million things. I thought I was busy before, but now I really understand what busy is. Busy is what state am I in today? Tomorrow? How do I answer 27 emails all of which came in before 9am? How do I answer the additonal 25 that came in between 9 and noon?

Its fun searching for answers to these questions. Its never easy, I just never realized I was going to be this busy. I love it.

I’ve been extremely busy for the past 5 weeks. There has been so much going on in my life from polar ends of good and bad. Both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer this year, my Mother’s is very serious and out of left field. Just another thing to conquer in this game of life, which has become much more serious to me. Not to harp on the negative, but this economy isn’t exactly brightening my mood. At the same time, some of the best things have happened in the last 5 weeks. Our company is expanding quietly and well positioned to handle whatever new curveballs this economy is going to throw at us (im sure there will be some more between now and the end of the year).

I haven’t posted anything at all in some time, I feel rather guilty about that because it helps me get my thoughts out and I love to hear what other people are thinking about (especially in regard to my thoughts). My thoughts on the economy I feel are pretty clear, and its nice to see other people around the blogosphere agree and to see some people with like-minded thoughts on this ridiculous message being sent to many businesses. (I’m paraphrasing here) “If your business model isn’t good enough, there is always someone else to throw some money at the problem.” With the exception of Lehman, and hopefully the freaking auto industry, we need to stop bailing out companies - big and small.  And I think that attitude is over for now, at least for the time being.

Anyway, I’ll try to stop the politically motivated ranting in the future, and get back to my thoughts on local, sweet, sweet local. A place where everyone and there mother suddenly has to be. Well, keep throwing money at it and then tell everyone about how much money you threw at it.

One company I’m a huge fan of CitySquares, although my direct competition, they just got an investment from Marc Cuban (well 2 weeks ago). TechCrunch didn’t have a mention that I could find. That is sick. Mark Cuban invests in your company and no party, no flashy press release to every news org ever. Although I’m sure there was a veritable party going on at their office… Congrats to CitySquares and to the whole industry of Local Search. Cause that is a huge name in a very small space. Either the space has to get bigger or the  name has to get smaller. I’m putting my money on the space getting bigger.

Warren Buffet is the man.

America was founded on the belief that all men were created equal. That each and every person who came to our shores should be afforded the same freedoms and liberties and their piece of the American dream. Over the last 232 years the definition of the American Dream has changed and morphed as the quality of our life has increased and recently decreased, but it has always been a symbol of hope that everyone can become anything they want.

In 2000 John McCain ran a campaign on his values, his ideals and his belief that everyone could be the American Dream. I supported him then, I saw him speak twice - he was an American hero - and he still is. Unfortunately today he has become everything he despises, everything he ran agains 8 years ago. If he had been elected 8 years ago I have no doubt the world would be a better place. However today he is running a campaign to divide a stake in the middle of America. His choice of a running mate is an embarrassment to our country, the country he nearly gave his life for. His choice of Sarah Palin was one of the most sexist, outrageous and egregious decisions made in thie country in my lifetime. She is unqualified, unaccustomed to dealing with “real” issues and a blaring example of how out of touch he is with the world today.

Quantifying “real” America as a place where people are “pro-America,” having surrogates demand examinations of “pro or anti-American” congressmen - thats Socialism. Need Mr. McCain be reminded that it is a Republican administration, supported by a bill he voted for, that is currently nationalizing our banking system. Apparently his campaign needs to be reminded of some of the more ominous tenets of Socialism, particularly in the specter he is using, that Socialism creates a tangible fear of speaking out against your government. Socialism demands you listen to your government, not question it; Socialism puts a blanket name on all those who disagree or dissent. Socialism is what Russian was for 70 years, Socialism created massive starvation, gulags and trembling fear amongst the people - that they might be next, just for thinking ill thoughts of their government.

Real America is asking why the people in charge aren’t doing a better job. Real America goes to college, learns about the world outside of America - not just in a “liberal elite” manner where students are taught to hate, but where students are taught to think.

Real America is in New York City, its in Seattle, Washington, its in Nebraska, its in Wyoming its in Missouri and Florida. Its in Ivy League schools, its in southern baptist high schools, its not black or white and its not Catholic or Muslim. Its America - we’re the melting pot. Where good ideas and good people come together to form the best nation on earth - the best nation ever.

I try to keep politics out of this blog, but I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Its insulting to me, and its insulting to the people founded this country. If you’re reading this, chances are you feel the same way. Because I am Pro-America. As Pro-America as anyone in this country. And if you’re voting for McCain this election, you’re not voting Pro-America, or for “Real” America. If you are voting at all this election you are voting for Pro-America and for “Real America.”

I believe we already fought a war to keep the United States of America - united.

God bless America.

I’ve been somewhat out of the loop for the past couple weeks, for reasons which I will go into soon, but I’m taking a few minutes this morning to catch up on my feeds. I found a few intersting posts about the rediculousness of this panic and gloom:

• Seth Godin, my man. He usually manages to inspire me or to articulate significantly better what it is I am trying to get at. In this case he writes a post “Too Small To Fail” - Read it its great
• Howard Lindzon, new to me from a blogging perspective but I’ll be back for certain.  He also wrote a post “To SMALL to Fail!!!“  - Read it.

Most important to me in all of this was his comment on the rediculously obvious message some VC’s were sending to their portfolio in the midst of this crisis.

No offense, but get over yourselves.

If you have a good business, these letters are ridiculous in the timing. Maybe force them to read this letter upon funding and make them memorize it, but at this point, it reeks of panic and fear.

Now Mr Lindzon is in a much better position to say this than me, because as he says “they’re rich, and I’m not.”

Say what you want about Joe Biden he has a good quote: “Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up.”

Thats what this country has to do right now - Get Back Up. I’ve no doubt we can do it.

I love Pandora. It has added some amazing new features and I’ve discovered some old ones as well. I haven’t written anything in a while, and something I saw on Pandora just got me motivated. For those of you who don’t know Pandora, here’s the Wikipedia: “Pandora is an automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on the individual song choices — approval or disapproval — which Pandora takes into account for future selections.”

I use it all the time, when I have a long bought of work to accomplish I get a station going and I take full advantage of the thumbs up, thumbs down. Just now I noticed that when you click the thumbs up button, not only does it remember this and adjust the playlist accordingly, but it leaves a giant thumbs up in the background of the current song tile! So silly, but I loved it and it made me think about the devil in the details pitch I always try to give myself.

Pandora does it, they have all the details and they are loved by their users - over 40,000 new listeners everyday. It is a shame that the music industry is pushing them towards closing their doors soon.. (I can’t imagine that actually happens, its such a great service). I know alot of people are fans of last.fm, but I’ve never been to the site. No reason why not, just fell in love with pandora and stuck.

The devil is in the details and so is the the beauty. Keep goin Pandora, I’m pulling for you!

You can view my profile on pandora here

Ok, don’t panic. Its just me, I’m heading up to the Adirondacks for a few days to do some unplugging. I can use it and my girlfriend is going to kill me because she thinks I spend too much time on the internet.

There has been a lot of interesting data coming out in the past few weeks that I’d like to touch upon but I haven’t had a lot of time lately. Things have been moving along rather quickly, we’ve launched a new site, two more to come out of beta in the next 6 weeks and there is always more to do. On top of that I’ve been doing some heavy lifting with our business model, restructuring it and building out the formal BP. Its very exciting to go back into the basics of the business; you get to re-imagine your vision for what you wanted the business to be, but then tweak it to adjust to all the things you’ve learned and actually done. 2 years and 300 clients later…

Anyway, if you’re in Saratoga this weekend you’ll probably find me at Travers.

Its been a few days since my last post. I’ve been completely buried with work, working 9 of the last 10 days. Last Saturday I played golf and turned my BlackBerry off for almost 12 hrs! Its been a good week, I’ve been all over the place but we’re seeing alot of growth across our sites, both in traffic and in advertising. We are preparing to launch 4 new sites over the next 4 weeks, which is a pretty intense schedule for us. Things are great, I’m just awfully tired and haven’t had much time to put my thoughts down here.

Its getting into the heat of summer, so there really isn’t a heck of alot going on, but there are a few. Look for a post a day from me for this week, I have alot of thoughts I need to get out.

How was your day today? How’s business? Good to hear.

I use these words everyday, in every little, seemingly meaningless conversation I have. It makes life easier, and dare I say better. Ask the cashier (if there still is one where you shop) how she is doing today. Speak to the call center guy like he is actually a real person. Engage your audience.

See how I slipped that in there? Engage your audience, thoughtfully. Make them understand that you care. It doesn’t matter who your audience is, and it doesn’t matter what you are talking about. Don’t make them think you care, show them that you do. Its all part of the story you tell; about you, about your product, about your business, about how you got here.

People are receptive to caring, especially when they are least expecting it. Make someone smile, and you will smile. See how much happier you are?