tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58459199433604495162008-07-16T16:38:51.837-07:00the FunAdvice Blogfunadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-65987453654215511622008-07-12T23:07:00.000-07:002008-07-12T23:11:52.041-07:00Sping, marketing and plain old BSOne of our competitors has a long standing feature now (well, for over a year...) where they showcase how fast the questions on their site gets answered. It took me over a year to figure out that the numbers they show are pure, unadulterated BS :)<br /><br />Why is that, do you say? Well...it's grossly misleading to say "latest question answered in 2 minutes" when in fact, there are several questions that have been waiting for hours to get a response.<br /><br />However...it does sound nice, doesn't it? Kind of like communism, really - all good on the surface, but when you start trying to practice it, things fall apart and they reek of poo.<br /><br />Ah...and, while I'm on the subject - two of the top answers sites like FunAdvice sort their categories by "most popular" by default, instead of "recently asked" which results in new questions being harder to find, BUT, very popular ones with lots of views and answers being easy to find. Is that better, do you think? Eg, should FunAdvice follow their path? Imho, it's wrong, simply b/c the whole point for people to view the questions is to find the latest ones be it their own or their friends, so they can help out, see what's on people's minds and more.<br /><br />Though there are a lot of similar sites out there, I think we (biased, yes) have the best mix of features and functionality. And as I mentioned when I pointed a link to the photos section, we're trying - hard - to make the site even better all the time. If there's ever a burning issue you want us to address or feature you'd like to add, please let us know.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-38171861548968570362008-07-10T07:44:00.000-07:002008-07-10T07:50:49.139-07:00Latest features - our photos vision is coming in closer than everThe photos feature we envisioned a long while ago (over a year and a half ago, to be exact) is finally coming into focus. The <a href="http://www.funadvice.com/photos">top level photos page here</a> shows more what we wanted to do way back then - however, we've learned a few things since we designed the page, so we're not "done" just closer to where we want to be :)<br /><br />And finally, you can limit photos to friends, because we realize not everybody (gasp) wants to share their photos with the world. You can also remove all ratings from your photos, in case you don't feel like having people rate them...as one person pointed out, they really don't want people judgin their baby pictures. I can respect that, as I have yet to upload even one photo of my family, as I generally appreciate my privacy. Of the three co-founders, I'm the only one with a photo of myself on the site...and while in person, I'm generally out going, the whole concept of showing photos of me, family, friends, etc to the world...well, I'm not there, yet. Might never be, so I am excited that people can share, but they can also do it within their personal space.<br /><br />As usual, we have tons of stuff in the works, and last month we expanded our programming team from one and a half people to two and a half people, if you include our co-founder, Ericson, it's a total of four people that make up the engineering team. Now that we have three web servers in total running the site, and more than 70K visitors on a good day, it's becomming an increasingly new experience to coordinate, manage and push forward on the vision we have for the future of FunAdvice.<br /><br />If you're here, I'm excited you decided to join us for the ride. We have, as they say, big plans and I'm certain that there's something in it for everybody.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-9804520257856299652008-06-11T16:17:00.000-07:002008-06-11T16:21:55.394-07:00One of the funniest support emails we've ever had<div> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 9:46 PM, <<span style="text-decoration: underline;">removed</span>> wrote:</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Shame on you for using your fame and money to support Obama. I believe in God, if you don't then you should both move to another country that believes how you both do. You have bitten the hand that has fed you, I think you and half of Hollywood should leave our country. Any respect I had for you is long gone.<br /><br />-----<br />Username:<br />IP Addr : <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><removed></span><br />Browser : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.1)<br />Time : Sat Jun 07 21:45:49 -0700 2008</span></span></p> Do you believe this is a REAL ESTATE AGENT? And writing from their *work* email address.<br /><br />I'm sorry but if I found out one of my employees was using company time to send a b!tchy email to the *wrong company* to complain about their politics...I'd be STEAMED.<br /><br />Not only that...but if this is any indication of the intelligence level of those who support the guy who nearly got us into a nuclear war (as Admiral McCain) with faulty information...then, well, I have more fear for the general public than ever :)<br /><br />However, I'm sure he's changed, right? It's not like the last guy who stepped into office with people knowing he wanted to go to war, didn't act in the best interests of the American people...?<br /></div>funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-16743191467341437312008-05-30T15:02:00.000-07:002008-06-02T11:32:41.089-07:00Search Engines, the twenty first century soft drinksLet me start by saying: some companies inspire us to do better things, be better people and make the world a better place. This got me to thinking: search engines are the modern day soft drinks, in some ways.<br /><br /><br/><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB6BBgLLqI/AAAAAAAAABQ/5X8PRK-rsUs/s1600-h/googlecan.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB6BBgLLqI/AAAAAAAAABQ/5X8PRK-rsUs/s320/googlecan.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206295327242137250" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Number one:</span><br />Google is the number one search engine, Coca-cola is the number one soft drink. Google is, in many ways, equivelent to search. Coke is the same thing, for those of us who worship the red can, for soft drinks & soda. It's the real thing, pure, refreshing...and it's biggest enemy is itself. New Coke was a failure, let's hope that Google doesn't try to become "new Google".<br /><br /><br/><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB7GhgLLrI/AAAAAAAAABY/RtX0-zIcTc4/s1600-h/yahoocan.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB7GhgLLrI/AAAAAAAAABY/RtX0-zIcTc4/s320/yahoocan.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206296521243045554" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Number two:</span><br />Yahoo is the number two search engine. With their life engine campaign, they confirmed one thing: they've been confined to an era of time, a period where the term "engine" has meaning. In the past, it was "horse power"...and in the future, it'll be a "power source" or "flux capacitor"...by claiming synonym-ship with "engine" Yahoo has confined itself to an era. Pepsi, the number two soft drink, claimed it was the Pepsi Generation when I was growing up. Again, claiming a period in time, putting their stamp on some folks - and leaving eternity, everlasting dominance, to the number one player as a result.<br /><br/><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB8PBgLLsI/AAAAAAAAABg/_GeRlq0PCFk/s1600-h/msncan.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB8PBgLLsI/AAAAAAAAABg/_GeRlq0PCFk/s320/msncan.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206297766783561410" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Number three:</span><br />MSN (and Live) are the number three search engines. Mountain Dew is also the number three soft drink. I've never been able to fathom MSN search results...they seem capricious, unclear...not as murky as Google or Yahoo, but, with a definitely opaque, inconsistant and odd twist. Mountain Dew, I've never been able to understand, either. With it's almost but not quite citrus and X-games positioning...it'll never be The Real Thing (Google) but, perhaps, just being itself is OK.<br /><br /><br/><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB83hgLLtI/AAAAAAAAABo/UJG1vIfIg0M/s1600-h/aolcan.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB83hgLLtI/AAAAAAAAABo/UJG1vIfIg0M/s320/aolcan.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206298462568263378" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Number four:</span><br />AOL Search is the number four among search engines, and in soft drinks, fourth place is claimed by Dr. Pepper. When I was younger, I had a certain affinity for the Dr. It was different, cola like yet with a certain special flavor that appealed to my youth. AOL is dominated by those new to the internet, who have yet to throw off their online training wheels & get a real ISP...or those who want a walled garden experience. With maturity, they leave AOL behind. However, there will always be those who are young and new...or young at heart. For those, then, AOL will remain.<br /><br /><br/><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB_lBgLLwI/AAAAAAAAACA/t7o7Gw1DMZ0/s1600-h/askcan.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB_lBgLLwI/AAAAAAAAACA/t7o7Gw1DMZ0/s320/askcan.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206301443275566850" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Number five:</span><br />Ask, or as it used to be known, Ask Jeeves, is the fifth place search engine. As Sprite is clearly not a cola, nor is the experience confusing, so Ask has a simple mandate: get answers to your questions. Their positioning was clear, unlike a typical search engine, where the queries are ambigious and the results extraordinary. Ask is simple, efficient, and clearly, not a cola.<br /><br /><br/><br /><br />These five search engines have changed the world, and will continue to do so. Hasn't "have a coke & a smile" changed the world, too? Did you know somebody who was part of the Pepsi (Yahoo) generation? They grew up, and so, too, did their desire for something new. If you do the dew, then you definitely do MSN search...bold, different and unexpected, breaking the rules as it goes. When you had your training wheels on, was Dr Pepper (AOL) beholden to a special place in your heart? Last...if you need answers, is it a search engine, or do you just want to ask? For a minority, it's ask that's clearly the answer. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB-XRgLLvI/AAAAAAAAAB4/MUShnzql4kg/s1600-h/searchcans.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_txSNEGJNyzE/SEB-XRgLLvI/AAAAAAAAAB4/MUShnzql4kg/s400/searchcans.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206300107540737778" /></a>funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-87396588314200531672008-05-16T11:27:00.001-07:002008-05-16T11:36:08.755-07:00New partners and interesting antics from other companiesThe second largest social network in Norway (biip.no) has agreed to become a partner of ours. For now, that just entails sharing of traffic...longer term, it's pretty simple: they can have Norway, and we'll take the US, UK, China & India :)<br /><br />In all seriousness, though, I think they are great guys & we are trying to figure out when we have time, what we can do that's a bigger deal (crossing fingers...).<br /><br />Also we have two non profits that signed up for our program, which has been a great success for Eco-libris, and Global Giving both of which we're excited to be working with.<br /><br />On another note, some funny stuff: site removing links to us...<br /><br />So an up & coming (well, downward spiraling now, per their chart on quantcast) publisher of articles has started removing a bunch of links to FunAdvice.<br /><br />That seems petty, to me. Several people I know personally have contributed some great articles to their site, and the links were the only "payment" we ever received for the contribution. This is also a site that offers "revenue sharing" for their members...well, in this instance, they just committed theft, imho. I'm not going to name names, all I'm going to say is that, well, you reap what you sew. Considering the downward spiral of their publicly available, accurate visitor stats...we're not the only people they've decided to whack with the ugly stick.<br /><br />Whoops.<br /><br />I don't know about you, but we are in this for the long term. So, thanks to all the companies that have decided they'd like to help us in mutual world domination...:)funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-85566221326139672832008-04-28T11:16:00.000-07:002008-04-28T11:18:07.074-07:00Hey Sports fans, a quick updateSo, you may have noticed a new category, "Sports" by popular demand :) Also, you might have noticed another category is gone...can you find it?<br /><br />If not, no worries - people weren't using it anyway. Real Estate is now part of "home & garden" as it was our least popular category, and, well, home is where the heart is and real estate is a big part of home. <br /><br />Before, if you were hesitating to ask a sports type question because you didn't know where to put it...well, go for it! Ask away, I know we have a bunch of sports fans on the site.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-85495946599187221342008-03-19T12:13:00.000-07:002008-03-19T12:19:39.872-07:00Google launches non profit portal, and I think we'll do something similarNot 100% the same, of course, but working with non profits is a fantastic idea. Google is one of the companies I personally admire a lot for their philanthropic efforts, their "do no evil" philosophy, and their employee programs.<br /><br />Of course, we don't have nearly the same level of resources, but we're planning on doing something for non profit organizations on FunAdvice. Why? Well, for one, it's the right thing to do - proactively getting involved in helping spread the message of companies who lack resources, are trying to improve the planet, society and the human condition just feels right.<br /><br />As we get bigger, so too will our own philanthropic efforts go. I'd like to think that given a choice between various similar services, the one that will win (eg, be the biggest, generate the most revenue, etc) will be the one that does the most for the community.<br /><br />Club Penguin, for example, was giving away 10% of it's profits to charities...they were making a mint by all accounts and didn't have to do that. However even when they negotiated & sold to Disney, they insisted that the donation program continue. That is applause worthy in my book, and something to aspire to. Even in the face of the biggest pay day for the Club Penguin team they might ever obtain they stuck to their principles and goals.<br /><br />Bravo.<br /><br />Once we get to where the entire team (not just two full time & two part time employees) can be supported by the FunAdvice business, we plan on doing even more. However, I'm excited that soon we'll be taking our first big step towards our amitious goal of helping worthy non profits reach people and raising awareness for their missions.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-44901877250988070552008-03-12T15:10:00.000-07:002008-03-12T15:12:42.096-07:00Amazon's Askville decides that SEO is the way to goWhat else would you call this URL format?<br />http://askville.amazon.com/36329/SEOTopic.do?tag=electronics<br /><br />:)<br /><br />I rest my case. <br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/askville" rel="tag"><img style="border:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-left:.4em" src="http://static.technorati.com/static/img/pub/icon-utag-16x13.png?tag=askville" alt=" " />askville</a>, is it <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/spam" rel="tag"><img style="border:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-left:.4em" src="http://static.technorati.com/static/img/pub/icon-utag-16x13.png?tag=spam" alt=" " />spam</a>, or is it just good <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/promotion" rel="tag"><img style="border:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-left:.4em" src="http://static.technorati.com/static/img/pub/icon-utag-16x13.png?tag=promotion" alt=" " />promotion</a>?funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-66547935890100426022008-03-06T14:23:00.000-08:002008-03-10T10:11:03.569-07:00Q&A Space: who's winning, who's losing, and why it mattersFirst, let me say that a picture is worth a thousand words:<br /><a href='http://siteanalytics.compete.com/funadvice.com+sodahead.com+yedda.com+minti.com+wis.dm?metric=uv'><img src='http://home.compete.com.edgesuite.net/funadvice.com+sodahead.com+yedda.com+minti.com+wis.dm_uv_460.png' /></a><br /><br />Ok, that done, consider the following:<br />1) Sodahead = raised 4.25 million in Funding.<br />2) Yedda = raised 2.5 million, had 20 people on staff, and beat us out to get acquired by AOL last year for a rumored 15-20 million.<br />3) Wis.dm raised 5 million in funding.<br />4) Minti.com raised 1.5 million in funding.<br /> <br />So the average here is somewhere around a few million dollars to do...what, exactly? Our team is 7 people: 2 full time, 3 part time, and two "occassional" (aka, the other owners than me who help, but not on a regular, routine basis).<br /><br />Is <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/?source=funadvice">Mike Arrington</a> listening? Nope. (and as an FYI, I did have a personal introduction email sent to him by his business parter, who copied me on it as well). <br /><br />Do you here me, <a href="http://www.mashable.com/?source=funadvice">Pete Cashmore?</a> Nope. And the number of times I've written (3) and commented (dozens) on their continued coverage of sites like these (above) that are doomed to failure, AND they continue to ignore us, when our business model is working & traffic, visitors, and engagement are all taking off...well, it's odd. :)<br /><br />Did <a href="http://www.gigaom.com/?source=funadvice">GigaOm</a> want to say something? Nope, and I even had him on the phone for about a half hour. He still didn't give us the time of day in any of his write ups.<br /><br />Why oh why is it that we get ignored? FunAdvice is in the top 5 Q&A sites in the world. We don't work together, all in the same office so between our virtual collaboration AND lack of investment capital, isn't it an amazing story? Yep.<br /><br />Couple that with our commitment to <a href="http://www.funadvice.com/doc/about">making the world a better place</a>, FunAdvice is a business like no other in our category. Every larger Q&A site is part of a publicly traded firm, OR larger parent co with hundreds of millions in investment capital.<br /><br />Our story is unique, compelling and getting more interesting. However, if you want to read a story like this, you CAN'T read it at places like TechCrunch, Mashable, or GigaOM. G4: Attack of the Show even gave us some air time ;) A dozen or more radio stations have also given us some air time.<br /><br />However, leading blogs & other print publications apparently believe we aren't press worthy. Sigh.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-32148031982526930902008-03-04T16:28:00.000-08:002008-03-04T16:37:39.633-08:00Quantcast agrees: we're at a million uniques a monthOf course, the real number for US uniques last month was 1.15 million, but I've noticed that QuantCast has gotten closer the bigger we've become.<br /><br />http://www.quantcast.com/funadvice.com<br /><br />Their estimate puts us at the 2,722 largest site in the US. Awesome. Well, we're even bigger than that (their estimates don't match their dashboard data, eg, they haven't updated the top site number list yet).<br /><br />Ah, and for the 'bowl of cheese' guy, this is funadvice:<br /><a href="http://www.funadvice.com/">FunAdvice US</a>. Click the link & off you go ;)<br /><br />Pity: Compete hasn't updated their Feb data yet.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-60235090618283574142008-02-11T23:17:00.000-08:002008-02-11T23:32:41.807-08:00Quantcast's related sites feature: hi squidoo, 43thingsI've been watching quantcast stats for a long time now. It's been amazing to see Seth Godin's site (he's a former Yahoo, like me, though far more famous) Squidoo do incredibly well. Not only that, but now, http://www.quantcast.com/squidoo.com - FunAdvice is the 3rd most related site in the discussion / chat category.<br /><br />Personally, I feel flattered. Then looking at 43things, which launched around the same time as FunAdvice, but had a far more mature product at launch...well, take a look:<br />http://www.quantcast.com/43things.com we're the most related chat / discussion site there. Which makes sense, given the Squidoo comparison.<br /><br />What does all this mean? Well for one, we're sharing customers. People who use 43things are using FunAdvice, and people on FunAdvice are using Squidoo, etc.<br /><br />This means, for me, a few things that we need to keep in mind:<br />1) product impovements are a must - if it bugs me, odds are, it bugs a customer<br />2) if it bugs a customer and we don't fix it, we lose them AND we look like idiots - not cool.<br />3) bugs need to be fixed regularly, as there is always something broken, for somebody, somewhere.<br /><br />:)funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-69453625643881552942008-02-11T12:32:00.000-08:002008-02-11T12:35:22.707-08:00Welcome to 2008, Webmasterworld: adding the "quick reply"I've been posting at Webmasterworld for nearly 8 years...wow.<br /><br />And, we've been running funadvice for nearly five years. So, when I visited webmasterworld and saw the "quick reply" text box at the bottom of a discussion (something we've been doing for over a year on FunAdvice) I smiled :)<br /><br />Welcome to 2008. People don't want to *work* to use a website. And WebmasterWorld is still about 3-5 times bigger than FunAdvice. However, we're growing faster. As they're run by professional webmasters with, combined, more experience than our small FunAdvice team, I must say I'm flattered that they took the concept & ran with it.<br /><br />Continual improvement is hard. And, with any larger size site, you constantly find stuff that, once fixed, scratches an itch your members might not have even realized they had until you fixed the problem.<br /><br />So, anything you see on FunAdvice today that bothers you? Let us know.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-14640362238239655692008-02-11T11:14:00.000-08:002008-02-11T11:17:26.152-08:00Why do we have a funadvice blog?You tell me, if you read this: is it worthwhile for us to do this? Or not?funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-572720059342240962008-02-04T14:21:00.001-08:002008-02-05T15:19:57.039-08:00How does the Yahoo & Microsoft Offer affect sites like FunAdvice?First, we should say that Microsoft has merely bidded for Yahoo. The whole landscape could change.<br /><br />Most of the chatter in the blogosphere has been about the financial side of the deal. I have not yet read about the thing that could torpedo Yahoo if its taken over by Microsoft.<br /><br />See, Yahoo is an open source company.<br /><br />What does that mean? Yahoo depends on open source and open standards to run their business. Internally, Yahoo is more like Google than Microsoft in that regard. And if Microsoft takes over, it will affect <a href="http://www.funadvice.com/">startups like ours</a> in a substantial way.<br /><br />Yahoo has contributed so many programming tools, from Mapping to my favourite -- Content Analysis. There's also the Yahoo User Interface Library -- YUI including Yahoo Grids. And they've really taken accessible websites to heart and gave people who build startups a lot to ride on. Oh, and they've also use REST in a whole-hearted way, thus moving the industry in general away from the heavier and less intuitive SOAP.<br /><br />Not to mention PHP, MySQL, OpenBSD, Linux, Qmail and tons of other things.<br /><br />That's incredible stuff that I can't see Microsoft maintaining. Since all they want is the pageviews, and likely Panama. But Panama's not worth much itself. Microsoft already has ad serving technology which is arguably better than Yahoo's but still light years behind Google's Adwords and Adsense simple-as-pie-that-gets-your-ads-online-in-15-minutes technology.<br /><br />If I were a programmer at Yahoo, I'd be looking to the exits at this point. Despite the economy, there are still tons of programmer jobs out there that are oriented towards PHP, Java and open source in general.<br /><br />Can you see Microsoft keeping the open source ecosystem that Yahoo has built and shared with startups like FunAdvice? Would you create your new startup with ASP.net given the availability of free tools like PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and other great open source technologies?<br /><br />Check out:<br /><a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/">http://developer.yahoo.com/</a><br /><a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/">http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/</a>Esconsult1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02755735454113573431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-48304085174992365702008-01-29T10:15:00.000-08:002008-01-29T10:27:26.419-08:0055K visitors on monday - we're thrilledThe reason this blog is seldom, if ever, updated is pretty simple: we're really busy. Case in point. Last month, we had 1.17 million visitors.<br /><br />So far month to date for Jan, we've had 1.3 million, and on Monday, we had 55K visitors to the site. Thus the run rate for the month is 1.4 million, more than 20% above December (which was our previous record).<br /><br />Thus any number of things change:<br />1) Gui needs constant tweaking (it can always improve)<br />2) "Minor" issues become bigger, faster, because of scale<br />3) Despite the team being larger than ever, and devoting more time to the site, there is simply too much going on for us to keep track of it all.<br /><br />Though I'm very, very curious what'll happen in the next 6-12 weeks, mainly becuase for Jan, we'll finally be over 1 million US visitors for the month. A lot of the tracking services that people cite (comScore, Quantcast, Neilson, Compete, etc) leverage a US based panel, which means that despite having more than 1 million visitors a month since November, we've not shown up as a site with more than a million uniques becuase they aren't all in the US.<br /><br />At least, until this month.<br /><br />Looking back to January, 2007, we had 190K visitors for the month. That's a 736% increase over the last 12 months, which is great.<br /><br />Tip for anybody who's ignoring us still in the media (yep, that'd be you, you, and most definitely, you):<br /><a href="http://blog.funadvice.com/2007/10/techcrunch-shows-top-23-social.html">fastest growing social sites</a> a blog post I made after reading a list over at TC.<br /><br />Given our growth rate & the knack panel based data has for being very wrong sometimes, I'll expect the reporting agencies to take another 6 months or so before we make such a list. :)<br /><br />However, I'd have a ton more respect for all the mainstream bloggers if they didn't wait for flawed sample to give them an idea, and instead, actually report on the news as it happens.<br /><br />Any bets on whether or not they finally notice us?funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-23401020792768575552008-01-25T12:19:00.000-08:002008-01-25T13:15:44.227-08:00Sutree are a bunch of spammersSo, our terms of service clearly prohibit somebody from signing up & posting, repeatedly, links back to their company website.<br /><br />If the spammer wasn't international and was based on the US, I'd be emailing my lawyer instead of blogging this incident.<br /><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/sutree" rel="tag"><img style="border:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-left:.4em" src="http://static.technorati.com/static/img/pub/icon-utag-16x13.png?tag=sutree" alt=" " />sutree</a><br /><br />:) Have a nice day.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-59258064733741281952007-12-18T12:42:00.000-08:002007-12-18T12:46:32.196-08:00We're all on macs nowSo the site is doing well. However, it's an odd feeling: all the principals of the site (Ericson, me, and Widhadh) are now on Macs. Yep, not a PC or Windoze box anywhere in site.<br /><br />Odd that. So for bug reports on Windoze, I'll have to fire up a secondary computer to check it out, if it's platform specific.<br /><br />OR ask Dara, Harish, or Adam to check it out (our trusty & faithful employees). :)<br /><br />It's a funny feeling, being on a Mac.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-14989597930281406022007-12-04T09:46:00.000-08:002007-12-04T09:49:06.731-08:00Downtime last night: big server migrationJust to let anybody who reads this know, we had a lot of downtime last night, because we migrated servers (again). This time, we put in place a two server setup, one for the database and one for the web related stuff, which helps us scale.<br /><br />Next time, if we need another server, it'll be child's play to add another box to the front end to help with growth.<br /><br />A year ago, I wouldn't have believed we'd get to 1.2 million visitors a month, but that's where we're at now. It's an exciting place and we still haven't put together what I'd describe as our vision for what FunAdvice could become.<br /><br />So, don't panic, we're back now. And it should be faster than ever. :) Let us know if you have any questions, comments, or recommendations, we'd love to hear them.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-70341143624670765242007-11-30T15:19:00.000-08:002007-11-30T15:30:17.829-08:00Comcast, traffic shaping, and FunAdvice: a scary 30 minutesSo if you haven't followed the on going net neutrality issue, you should. The US government has failed so far to pass legislation to make it illegal to discriminate via access to various websites.<br /><br />In effect, it's not illegal, technically speaking, for Comcast to do as it's been reported which is fake traffic to various P2P networks to make them unreachable by customers. I'm fine with that, and in fact, I think it's a novel way to try to stem the tide of piracy. As an aspiring author (I dreamed about writing novels as a kid) I want if I chose to write a book, to be able to earn the expected reward.<br /><br />However, earlier today, FunAdvice was unreachable by two Comcast customers. Both myself and my sister in law couldn't reach the site. However, our hosting provider (ServerBeach, in Texas) could, as well as Ericson, in Florida (co-founder and engineering guru), and even my in laws, in Geneva, Switzerland.<br /><br />While on the phone with Comcast, they suggested I power cycle my modem. I refused, telling them that only made sense for general connectivity issues, NOT for being unable to reach a single website.<br /><br />After about 25 minutes of arguing, FunAdvice came back. Now, they still haven't told me why, and insist that nothing was wrong. However, given their public history of traffic shaping, is it out of the question that they might be doing this to mid teir websites to save money on bandwidth?<br /><br />They can't do it to Google, or Yahoo, because too many people would notice. And if they picked on very small websites with less than a few visitors per day, it wouldn't save them any money. But, if they selectively limited access to mid sized websites with audiences in the one million visitor range, they could effectively curtail some of their network traffic, and potentially not arouse much suspicion.<br /><br />I'd rather be an optimist, and say this can't be true. However, with no logical explanation from Comcast, my curiosity is piqued. <br /><br />If you run a website, please sk your customers if today between 2-2:30 PST, if they couldn't connect to your site if they use Comast Cable for their internet access.<br /><br />Especially if they live in the bay area, in California. With enough data, we can get to the bottom of this, and make sure to hold Comcast responsible for it's actions, OR the unreliability of it's network.<br /><br />On one hand, it could have been a "glitch"...but, if it was, there would be evidence, and Comcast has never been slow to admit network issues in the past. The only alternative is that they are indeed prioritizing traffic, which is evil, violates the 1st amendment, and must be stopped.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-84793433483885259962007-11-20T12:17:00.000-08:002007-11-20T12:19:38.527-08:00Ning is smaller than FunAdvice according to TechCrunch & Comscore<a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/ningcomb.jpg">A picture is worth a thousand words</a>. Ning, backed by famed entrepreneur, social networking platform 3.0, etc, etc...has less traffic than we did in October.<br /><br />Per the chart, they look like they're about 10% behind us. What's $55,000,000 in funding get you? Not sure, exactly. They have a killer team and a killer product, imho...but, apparently, money isn't everything.<br /><br />:) This made my day.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-46887369568615145662007-11-15T09:28:00.000-08:002007-11-15T09:34:31.888-08:00Friend feed launched, a million unique visitors, and moreSo we crossed the million visitors mark more than a month ago, which means, the total number of people (including repeats) that visit the site. Which was cool.<br /><br />However, as of this morning, we crossed the million unique visitor mark. Very, very cool. That means, one million unique people (unless they visit from home + work + cell phone, etc) visited FunAdvice over the last 30 days. Wow.<br /><br />This week (Mon - Wednesday) we've averaged 40K unique visitors per day, which is very cool, as that continues our run rate of 15% or so monthly growth that we've had for more than 13 months. <br /><br />Now, on to the new feature mentions:<br />1) Friend feed - this has all your friends activites, photos, profile comments, photo ratings, answers, questions and new friendships listed on your profile page. I'm excited about it, and I think it's one of our coolest new features in a long time.<br /><br />2) Better friend management. When you add somebody as a friend, you go on their friend list, and they go on yours. You can set to "must approve" which enables you to decide who becomes your friend, and who doesn't.<br /><br />There is list of 20+ enhancements to the features in the queue already, and even more growth and infrastructure related work to be done as the site continues it's rampant increase in members and activity.<br /><br />Thanks everybody, I truly never imagined almost five years ago that FunAdvice would reach this place. And to be honest, I firmly believe our product will be ten times better in the year ahead, as we continue to improve the features, functionality, and overall experience.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-82229569817855325472007-11-13T08:40:00.000-08:002007-11-13T08:42:25.163-08:00Don't panic: update in progressSometimes, we can't time things perfectly. For example: our update that's in progress. I apologize for any frustration, annoyance, or disappointment for our site being down this morning, however, it's for a good cause.<br /><br />The update in progress has a number of exciting, wonderful, and for us, ground breaking enhancements.<br /><br />All this & we had more than 42K visitors yesterday ;)funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-84493174488390726612007-11-12T09:15:00.000-08:002007-11-12T09:19:22.396-08:00So very very confused about a number of things<a href="http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/yedda.com">first, this traffic chart</a> indicates almost zero traffic on yedda.com going anywhere other than their default subdomain.<br /><br />Then, I read that <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/11/aol-gets-into-qa-business-acquires-israels-yedda">yedda was acquired</a> and that 90% of their traffic was through partners.<br /><br />Now is Alexa that wrong? I've known they are off before...but, according to that TechCrunch post, Yedda or AOL is claiming Yedda received 8 million visitors in October between partner sites and their own site. That makes them the 3rd largest Q&A site overall.<br /><br />However, I've been watching them for a while. I have a hard, incredibly difficult time believing that they had 8 million visitors between their site & partners. When I worked at Yahoo, I was involved in any number of things. Even for the world's largest internet portal, partner sites don't drive that kind of volume unless they're publicly traded, massive organizations.<br /><br />Yedda's partners are neither. Well, the truth will come out eventually :) In the meantime, congrats. They couldn't sell to Yahoo a few years ago (how do I know that?) but they did find a buyer.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-9631822102337269802007-11-06T12:47:00.000-08:002007-11-06T12:55:08.222-08:00Quality versus quantity: Wiki Answers hits a million questionsHoly smokes batman, that's a lot of questions. Congrats, they've certainly increased the noise on the acquisition they made last year for a reported $2 million (I reviewed their SEC filings because at some point, we might be entertaining offers).<br /><br />However, check this answer out <a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_change_the_rotors_on_a_98_Tiburon_FX">bollocks</a> as they say in the UK. Why is that?<br /><br />The person who asked the question *never* got an answer. They answered their own with a follow up question, "I need an answer". Other answers in the same category boast similar quality.<br /><br />One other thing about Wiki Answers, does this look like <a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_the_sky_blue">search engine spam</a> to you? The small text, there at the bottom.<br /><br />How do we do at FunAdvice? Sure, we miss it sometimes, and I'd like to do better. If you have any ideas on how we can improve, <a href="http://www.funadvice.com/contact">drop us a note</a> and we'll look into implementing your suggestion.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845919943360449516.post-38025341678637585822007-10-30T16:10:00.000-07:002007-10-30T16:11:23.051-07:00Pirate rap song video for halloweenI think the title says it all. Original rap song, original music, special effects, and more. Check out our <a href="http://www.funadvice.com/doc/piraterap">halloween pirate captain rap song</a> and let us know what you think.<br /><br />Argh, do ye be a pirate now? Happy halloween.funadvicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058708246453920318noreply@blogger.com