100% Cotton

Sequoia Capital Invests In Bump Technologies, The iPhone-Tapping Data Swap App

Steve Cotton — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:23:00 -0700

Sequoia Capital Invests In Bump Technologies, The iPhone-Tapping Data Swap App

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Startup School: Mark Pincus Talks About Becoming A Great CEO, With Tony Robbins

Steve Cotton — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:33:00 -0700

After start-up school he still is using VC - I guess the lesson plan was a little muddled.

Startup School: Mark Pincus Talks About Becoming A Great CEO, With Tony Robbins’ Help

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CBC News - Technology & Science - Microsoft shares soar despite profit drop

Steve Cotton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:29:00 -0700

How does that happen? Amazing this company continues to do well - in fairness its tough to support multiple hardware platforms vs. Apple that supports only its own.

CBC News - Technology & Science - Microsoft shares soar despite profit drop.

A Black Hat Loses Control and Demands Ransom From Kaspersky

Steve Cotton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:58:00 -0700

Check out this story: A Black Hat Loses Control and Demands Ransom From Kaspersky

http://feeds.digg.com/~r/digg/container/technology/popular/~3/hnF7fZIEuXM

RSS Reader Review

Steve Cotton — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:54:00 -0700

RSS Reader Review for Mac Users - Let me know what you like :)

Start Up School

Steve Cotton — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:33:38 -0700

This is a good article on how Twitter was started - I always knew good wine fostered good ideas:) - I was surprised their Series D was $100MM - Enjoy

How Twitter was Founded

Screen Jelly from Veodia - Easy Screen Recording.....

Steve Cotton — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:42:58 -0700

Very interesting product from Veodia for screen recording. The product allows you to screen record up to three minutes video that you then can embed in your blog, facebook or twitter. Whats cool is its a very lightweight application. I simply dragged my book mark to my browser and created a screen recording. check it out for yourself. www.screenjelly.com.

Protecting your brand from Social Media Bandits

Clifford Duvernois — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:40:14 -0700

It's hard to imagine companies not using Social Media to help build their brand. There are a number of tools (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc) that you can use to convey your message. But if you're not using these tools to build your brand, is someone else using them to hurt it?

Read this.

Image you've worked hard to build your business and your brand. One day while surfing the web, you stumble upon a Facebook page with your company name and logo. This page is filled with completely wrong and erroneous information about you and your company. How many people have seen this page? More importantly, how many potential customers viewed this page?

Not good.

Fortunately sites like Twitter and Facebook have methods of having profiles removed. The turn around is usually 24 hours.

Make sure to periodically scan Twitter or Facebook, looking for your company name or company product. Everyone always talks about building a brand. Now we must also be vigilant and protect the brand.

UK Perspective on Startups

Steve Cotton — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:58:34 -0700

When ever you start a new business you get lots of people whispering in your ear as to how you should execute your start-up. Just yesterday I had a respected technologist tell me that I would have to take on Venture Capital because thats how it always works as your business gains traction. The reality is that was their perspective, based on their experience, based on a different time. Needless to say I assured them they were wrong - I hope I'm right :)

But I do think it helps to get many perspectives on building your business - it does not mean you need to act on them. Different perspectives are part of the process we use to get our own unique perspective and to get grounded in our business beliefs. So in the spirit of sharing, I came across a short video this morning that gives a British perspective on Start-up's - it makes the case for being centered on what you believe. Enjoy.......

Videos impact on the world

Clifford Duvernois — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:44:01 -0700

This morning, I couldn't help but to notice YouTube is now getting 1 billion views per day.

Truly remarkable. A couple of guys started a video sharing site in 2005 and now it's world's most watched channel. One billion views per day is not hard to imagine. YouTube can we watched on any computer, anywhere at any time. Mobile devices support this medium so you can literally watch it on the go.

The question is no longer "Can we use this service?" but rather it must be "When are we going to start?" If you're response was anything but NOW then you'll be left behind.

But before blindly creating content, think about what kind of message you want to send. You've captured their attention for a minute. What do you want them to see?

Think about our current state of technology. We live in a collaboration environment. People share ideas, concepts literally at the click of a button. Questions posed to search engines are "How do I do XYZ" or "What is XYZ?" More and more, answers are coming via video. Anyone with a screen capture program can say "This is how you do XYZ".

Create video content that:

Educates
Challenges paradigms
Gets people thinking about a problem differently
Inspires communication/dialogue

Even if your video is not viewed by millions on the first day, impacting the minds of just a handful of people means you've achieved your goal. Starting dialogue is powerful and something everyone wants to be a part of.