Written on July 26th, 2008 by 
Graham
The year is 2008 and in two blinks of an eye (a lifetime on the internet), TechCrunch has risen to the absolute pinnacle of internet startup culture, which involves a dizzying mix of entrepreneurs with crazy ideas, millionaire (and billionaire) investors looking for the next big thing, programmers, PR agencies (who may or may not be able to get you to the front page of Digg, or the New York Times -whichever is better), and everything in between.
Make no mistake, there is a profound culture percolating here. It is the Internet Startup Culture, and no where can you get a more raw taste of what it is than at the TechCrunch Summer Party.
I will never forget TechCrunch 2008.
It’s the year Jason Calacanis showed up in his Tesla, the first all-electric US-manufactured automobile. This car will go zero to 60 in less than 4 seconds, will go 250 miles on a single charge, and it will single handedly put an end to the biggest crisis facing humanity: global warming. Jason got his in orange.
It’s the year Julia Allison, the closest thing the blogosphere has to a Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, made the cover of Wired and was signing and posing for photos.
It’s the year I had a drink with the founder of MyBlogLog, Eric Marcoullier, and talked with him about his new groundbreaking work on data-portability, a concept that will affect all of our lives in the very near future. I was sure to tell him about how Entrecard was partially inspired by the company he sold to Yahoo for 10 million.
Of course, 2008 was also the year you could find Michael Arrington playing on his iPhone when he should have been doing more important things.
Of course, Gatsby made plenty of time for all us aspiring web moguls.
2008 was also the year my company, Entrecard, partnered up with SezWho, in a revolutionary pact to give people advertising dollars for their blog comments, to improve blogging for everyone. Here’s me with Ted and Jitendra, the two founders of SezWho who were instrumental in making my vision a reality.
And of course, the whole place was effing packed, because when Gatsby throws a party, anyone and everyone shows up, along with every press outfit and media bit in the country.
I’ve now seen more dot-coms scribbled onto nametags than I ever thought I would see in my life. I’ve seen a raw, erupting culture first hand, and have the education and knowledge of history to put it in a proper context. In many ways, internet startup culture is a renaissance, a movement, and it won’t be until people are reading history textbooks in the year 2100 that they realize exactly what was going on in the year 2008. Arrington’s name will go down in history, hand in hand with this cultural movement, like Da Vinci with the Renaissance of the middle ages. That’s not me sucking up. That’s just the way it is.
And I was there to see it.
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Written on July 25th, 2008 by Grey
Graham, the guy behind the E-Curtain, called me on my cellular and said, “Stan, I don’t care what it takes, I want you to hold the biggest Entrecard contest ever and give away thousands and thousands of credits!” “Well, I don’t exactly have–” “Give the people credits, Stan! Make them happy! Now I’m off to play Wii tennis with the founder of some important website.” “Hello? Graham?” And just like that, he was gone. So to get credits for all of you, I dropped cards for like forty days as I trudged through a desert with no water but the sweat from my camel’s brow. Also, FabolouslyJinxed gave me 1900 credits to help pay my gambling debts. But enough about me, this is about you, you winners:
CONTACT THE PERSON WHO OWES YOU CREDITS/PRIZES, DO not (lower case for emphasis, not whispering) CONTACT ME. AGAIN, DO not CONTACT ME. (Unless you have a great new money-making scheme. I love those.) Graham, drum roll:
*editor’s note:
ba-dummmmmmmmmmmm
Fantasy Baseball - 10,000ec — Aerten Art
Q3-n - 5000ec — Freebie Reporter
Øblog - 4000ec — Life From A Cat’s Perspective
Evil Woobie - 3000ec — E-Shakes
Turnip of Power - 1001ec — Sandy Jun No Sekai
Celebrity Pictures - 1000ec — Blogging Over Coffee
Evil Entrecard Kid! - 1000ec — Sites and Blogs Review Here
Modern Glam - 1000ec — The Daily Dollar Report
Dot Com Mogul - 1000ec — Nesting Buddy
Blabberwocky - 1000ec — Maria Boscardin
Looking For Scoop - 1000ec — Mental Health Humor.
Eyespi20.com - 1000ec — The Struggling Blogger
Travelin’ Show - 1000ec — Quiverfull Family
The Hypnotist - 1000ec — NanjoDogz
Diet Pulpit - 1000ec — Indo Contest
The Realtor - 500ec — Eyespi20
Romelo - 500ec — IT Job Openings in India
WebATBP.com - 500ec — EARNING MONEY while you online!
Inspire Emotion - 500ec — Dion Blogad
Sue Doe-Nim - 500ec — MyInternetLab
Thailand Land of Smiles - 500ec — She Lives
FitnessLifeClub - 500ec — Entrecard-Contest (How appropriate.)
Lisa Cooking - 500ec — I Heart Reviews
JunkieYard Dot Com - 500ec — Behind Sports
Movie Reviews - 500ec — SunEGRL Loves to Shop
PRIZES THAT ARE NOT CREDITS (BUT STILL WONDERFUL):
Aerten Art - A painting - Joan Joyce
ImpNERD - 125×125 ad for a month — Bald Eagle
PoemsofQuotes - A cheesy poem - WIFLBA
Eyespi20.com - A custom made 125×125 card. - Iowa Sports Guy
Diet Pulpit - One week ad spot right below the banner. - Fragile Heart
JunkieYard Dot Com - Three blogroll links. - In no particular order, the blogroll links go to NJ Babies, Seek No More, Simple Think
The Hypnotist - A Hypnotic Audio - Alluricious Blog
Fine print: Winners were chosen at Random.org. The first and last place for randomness.
Written on July 24th, 2008 by Graham
This blog series was recommended by a few Entrecarders, so here goes.
As you know, I Graham Langdon am the founder and President of Entrecard. In this blog series, you can ask me anything you like, and I will collect all the Questions and Answer them in a follow up blog post. You can ask me about Entrecard, what the future holds, what I think of the US economy, about Venture Capitalists, about California, about startups in general, about blogging, where the internet is heading… go for it! Ask away!
Oh but please try to make your questions as specific as possible. Nothing more frustrating than an overly vague question that I don’t know how to answer without writing a novel.
Written on July 23rd, 2008 by Lisa
When Graham put the call out for us to write about our favorite plugin, I immediately knew (okay, after a little bit of thought) which one I wanted to write about. There are some many great plugins out there, but only a few that truly standout. However, the Comment Email Responder is one of those that sparkle under the limelight.
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Written on July 22nd, 2008 by Graham
With all the recent hype about blog comments, and what a core component they are to your blog and it’s surrounding community, I need to take a moment to address another essential factor of your blog’s comments.
Today we’re talking about something that, once again, everyone should be doing. I’m talking, of course, about responding to your blog comments.
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Written on July 21st, 2008 by Graham
I believe I may have discovered a pattern for achieving critical mass in the blogosphere. Earlier today, I was studying a chart of the growth of the ever scandalous Pay-Per-Post. They’re a really huge company, and have a ton of bloggers. Actually, I’m not sure how many they have since Google declared war on them, but they did have over 100,000 by November of 2007.
Here’s where it gets interesting. To date, Entrecard’s growth has mimicked Pay Per Posts markedly. Here is a graph of Pay-Per-Post’s growth, with Entrecard’s growth overlaid in orange:
As you can see, I’m not talking about a line of best-fit or a “similarity” or anything like that. I am talking about the EXACT same growth pattern, rounded to the nearest user.
Does this mean we’ll have 100,000+ blogs by April? Time will tell. However, if I’m right, and if this is a pattern for achieving critical mass in the blogosphere, then you betcha.
Written on July 20th, 2008 by Graham
Whew! What a week it has been! Just to recap:
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Written on July 20th, 2008 by Graham
commentRUSH is a weekly Entrecard activity in which we highlight a blog and encourage everyone to go read a specific post and comment on it. By commenting on the post, we engage in discussion with each other, and the author, and show our support for others in the community. To participate, read the post, and leave a comment! Have fun!
I have to say, Things I Am Grateful for is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. It first came to my attention when the owner was one of the first people to enter the “Feature your Feed” promotion we held the other week, in which a hundred plus people lined up to pitch their feed to the masses. Things I’m Grateful For was the first blog to step up.
Their own description of the site is as follows: “I got sick of having a miserable life, so I tried making lists of things that I was grateful for, to cheer myself up. It worked so well, I posted them to a public website.”
So, right away this blog gets my vote. It embodies what I consider to be the true spirit of blogging, just someone trying to share a bit of their life with the world, and trying to bring a bit of happiness and perspective to others.
Today’s post, the one we are commenting on, is Things I’m Grateful For Sunday July 20 is short and sweet. A simple list of 21 things that they are grateful for today, something that has made them laugh, and some things they want, and have, manifested.
I promise that this read will make you think of at least one thing that YOU are grateful for today, and that will make you smile. So, without further ado, GO COMMENT!
Editors notes:
- The loading time of this blog is slow. I apologize, but I was so enthusiastic about using it for today’s commentRUSH that I didn’t want to penalize this wonderful blog because it is loading a little slow. Let it load in the background while you do other stuff on the web, and come back to it when its done.
- Perhaps someone can suggest a few tips in the comments to improve the loading time?
- This blog does not have SezWho, just to re-affirm that we do not exhibit a preference over members who participate in SezWho, and it will never exempt you from our community.
- The Entrecard widget on this blog probably won’t show up for the time being, because our widgets are actually down right now. We’re working to fix the problem. Sorry!
Written on July 18th, 2008 by jwag57
(Editor’s note: A lot of Entrecard members have been having enormous success with BlogBurst, having their posts published on Reuters, USA Today, and Fox News. I requested that Jennifer review the service for all of us.)
BlogBurst is a syndication service that matches up blogs and online news sites so that they can display your blog content on their site. There is absolutely no cost or downside to joining. BlogBurst almost seems to good to be true. However, they don’t accept all blogs.
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Written on July 17th, 2008 by Graham
Each week, Entrecard holds a scavenger hunt to go find blogs that contain a certain element. The goal, with the scavenger hunt, is to highlight in a fun way, ways that you can improve your blog.
For this week’s scavenger hunt, we’re looking for blogs that have photo galleries. Of course, as usual, the blog must also have an Entrecard widget and you cannot nominate your own blog.
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