I'm back

Well it's been over a year and I have finally been able to get back into this blogger account. Mainly for my own amusement, but also for anyone who is interested, I am going to start my rants and raves about life, the universe, the industry and anything else that comes my way.

The man who knows nothing is back. I'm glad to say that over the past year I have learnt a few things...how to mess up a carefully planned proposal in Paris by flubbing the words and coming out with the immortal line, "you wanna make it permanent". I also found out how hard it is to get back into the work place when you have not been "on the scene" for three years, even though I ran the most successful reverse merger fund in recent history through the largest recession and financial collapse in recent global history.

So let's examine the work environment:

A brief history in time...ran international programming for Hollywood Studio, launched three TV networks, two online networks, produced thousands of hours of TV, won two Emmy's, nominated for three, raised $85MM and turned it into the most successful reverse merger in SPAC history for a valuation of $173MM...and yet apparently there's nothing out there?

Not that every headhunter/job should be beating a path to my door...but you would think there would be some exciting things floating around. In my opinion my mistake is in effect, to disappear from the industry PR machine. When I ran KOL and RED at AOL, I must admit I was in the press a lot...but to be fair, we had a lot to talk about. When I left and ran the SPAC fund, there wasn't an opportunity to "PR myself", and so to the entertainment industry the profile faded.

So if the headhunters are not calling, and there's not big gig in sight, what do you do? Many people have said I should go and set something up and run it. The problem being that the one thing that really turns my lights on is original online content, and it's tough to raise money for that. VC's either think they know it and it's failed, or don't understand it so it's failed. The existing business model is broken, and I would need someone to really drink the cool aid to back me, and so far that person alludes me. The other problem is that the original online content world, unfortunately, is full of failures. Companies that did not sort on the one thing that you have to be able to do...make a profit. It is no use if your online blog is getting a million people reading and viewing it, if you can't sell the impressions and make a profit. The most basic part of business, it costs me $1 to do so I need to sell it for $2 to make a profit. Now call me crazy, but even without an MBA, I think I can work out that one.

Also, for some reason, people have this "web 1.5" attitude that whatever you do on the web will magically find an audience and then virally spread like wildfire and get a huge audience. Well I tend to go for the "web 3.625" version of, when you build a product you have to let people know it's there and market it. At KOL and RED I built the whole business on the back on online content and made a lot of original content. Off the back of that I built a business valued at over $150MM after three years, and an estimated five year value of $500MM.

It's a little bit like NBC launching and marketing a programming slate, and nobody watching...oh hold on, bad example. But, if you want to launch successful online content you have to have a successful marketing strategy.

So anyhow, back to jobs. Is it time for me to retire, buy a small radio station in Carmel and play "Misty"?

Are we living in the land of giants?

I have two nephews, Charlie and Toby, who are 13 and 14 respectively. They are both tall! I am not talking tall for their age...they are tall. Charlie the 14 year old is almost as tall as me and I am 6'1". I was walking through New York today noticing that the kids who are grabbing their last days of freedom before school starts, are all huge! I think this next generation is living in the land of giants!

OK so it's been a long time...

...apologies, things have been busy. So today let's talk social networking. Everyone used to talk about the revolutionary "Friendster", are you on Friendster, have your "friended me", things like that. The only problem was, it wasn't a great service and didn't attract enough people to gain mass. For example... AIM, owned and created by AOL, based on simple file server "pings", grew to such a mass, that it will always be around. The thinking is, everyone know is on my buddy list, therefore I will use it! MySpace, came along and it really blew Friendster out of the water. EVERYONE got a MySpace account. The problem there was, MySpace wasn't just MySpace, it became, everyone who wants to get at my space, and the social networking SPAM started. I got, on average 5 friend invites from busty blond women who "travel to DC, or NY" every day. I think they worked in a certain area of the entertainment industry! Now as much as I love pretty young things, these were not my idea of "Friends" and I certainly didn't go looking for them. MySpace grew to a huge level, and it looked like they would become the unbeatable "google" of social networking...but along came Facebook.

At first, Facebook was only open to students, but when they decided to open the gates, for some reason, everyone I knew, immediately signed up. Admittedly the UI was much better than MySpace, and it became a very quick addiction to myself and many of my friends.

So why did everyone immediately sign up for Facebook? People abandoned MySpace and jumped ship, it seemed almost overnight? What made this social network (we'll call David) beat the much larger network (Goliath)?? What makes a social network work????

A couple of weeks ago I e-mailed a cross section of people from my address book and invited them to a mobile app called "looped". It's a cool idea, you register and when you want people to knew where you are, you log on, it shows your location and the location of friends of yours, in your network who want to be found. Out of the 100 people I mailed, 4 signed up, and only two used it, and since then they and me have stopped. It just doesn't have the "magic sauce" to attract the mass needed to sustain and grow a social network. IF it did, it would be really cool, to walk down to Union Sq and find other friends in the near vicinity and grab a coffee. But it doesn't.

What makes a social network work. BTW, anyone with the correct answer and formula congratulations you are now very very rich, or should be :)

Lose It update

Well it's getting tougher on the weight loss. I am down to 197lbs, which for me is a milestone because my weight has a 1 in front of it and for the past 12 years it's had a 2 lol. I maintain 3 miles a day in the gym plus full work out, sometimes more, but have hit the hard last 15 lbs that everyone told me I would. Still keeping a religious count of all my calories on "Lose It", on the iPhone and it will get me to where  I want to be I am sure. Onwards!!!!!

Update - Paul Schmidi Schmidman

Family will probably be arranging a memorial in LA around September. As I learn more details I will pass on.

Paul "Schmidi" Schmidman - RIP

Yesterday I learnt of the sad news that Paul Schmidman, a friend and colleague from AOL had taken his life.  Sometimes you feel you know someone really well, sometimes you feel like you know someone quite well, but in Schmidi's case, as much as I spent hours and hours with him in, in-depth discussion, I really did not know the guy. The truth is, no one did, he is an enigma.  For those who knew Schmidi you know he had what could be called an "alternate" universe, where situations and stories blurred the edges of reality.  The thing that we did know, he was not a malicious person, but he sure did some crazy things. Schmidi we will miss you.  

"Lose It" app update. 20lb down!!!

For blog followers, you will know that for the past 9.5 weeks I have been using an app on the iPhone called "Lose It".  It's a free app and helps you keep track of calories in and calories out to help you lose weight. It also gives you a goal number of calories you can consume each day, (taking into account your age, height etc), in order to lose between 1lb and 2lb a week. I have been using this religiously and last night dropped to my first goal, 200lbs. This is a drop of 20lbs, and half way through my target. 

So why does this work where other things don't. If you use it, (and it's a bit of a pain at first), cataloguing everything you eat, all the ingredients in meals, and stay below your target line, you lose the weight. If you add exercise through the app, it will give you the calories burned in your work out and add it onto the calories you can consume, so there is a REAL incentive to work out every day, (I am now doing three miles a day in the gym plus a full work out, average work out is 550 calories that get added to my total that I can consume a day). So those 550 extra calories really become make or break.  The other thing that really works, is the app tells you how much calories are in any one item of food.  This makes you selective on the food you eat, thus helping you eat a more healthy, lower fat diet.

All in all, this app is just superb. Roll on the next 20lb!!!!