The Jeff Pulver Blog: November 2007 Archives

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November 30, 2007

Declaring a “Life Major”

It has always been amazing to me how at a young age, just about everyone who attends university in the United States has to pick a major and make it their core focus for the time they spend at university. How does anyone at 18 or 20 know what it is that they really want to do for the rest of their lives?

How does anyone know what they really want to do when they are in school, and how do they know that they will really like / enjoy the profession they have chosen once they get their degree and enter the work force? It isn’t as if many of us are given the chance to be an apprentice and then make a decision for the kind of work we want to do based on our own life’s experiences. Maybe if parent, family friend or close relative is in that line of work, we know better what is involved, but never the details. Generally speaking we need make that decision based on our own idealist perspective on what the profession might offer us, but how many of really did know what we were doing? For many of us it was a quick decision to make, and once made, it cast us in our own job / professional boxes for the duration of the time we spend at school and for years thereafter.

Yes, the decision of what to major on for someone’s undergraduate studies is an easier one to answer if the plan is to go onto law school or medical school or business school or any number of other schools where one is getting a Masters and/or PhD... Still the decision to know what to major in should be a lot harder to make than what it is. Every decision we make has it’s on set of consequences, both intentional and unintentional and what happens next in our lives when we enter the work force is influenced by the decision we made at a young age.

Deciding on your first job when you leave university also can have a profound effect on the way you chart your future success. Of course to get there, chances are you were reduced to being an electronic document where you indicated your grades and accomplishments and maybe your life’s goals and desires. You were no longer the “you” that your friends knew, the “you” reflected by your social network, the “you” your professors knew. In the end, you got reduced down to being a number which got scored and compared against and eventually, you got notified about the opportunity to interview for the job you thought you were interested in.

Once you get that job, be in accounting, law, investment banking, it is expected that you have to “put in your time”, “pay your dues” and then after hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours of what can feel like meaningless work, you are given a chance to apply your brains and something that you actually learned in university. And while this is an extreme case, and everyone’s mileage will vary, it is something that does happen to a number of people.

And yes, eventually you will no longer be evaluated based on what school you graduated from, how well you did at school and/or if you went to school at all, but it generally takes some time to take the focus away from your education and onto your life’s work.

However, this is not typical of the life style of the start-up entrepreneur who is out there to challenge the status quo, who is self directed, self motivated and self driven to go out and change the world. When someone graduating from college asks me for career advice, I generally tell them to consider to follow their dreams, follow their heart and decide their own “Life Major.”

I define a “Life Major” as the thing I want to do RIGHT NOW. It is something I am passionate about, something I believe in and something I believe I can be great at. And something which may define the way others know of me…and not necessarily something I went to school for. Why settle for taking a job as a compromise which you don’t believe in when/if you can create an opportunity to do what you want to be doing. Where you have a chance to disrupt a marketplace, challenge the status quote and invoke fear in the established companies in that marketplace and identify a new space others will be driven by greed to be a part of.

And the thing is, we can decide our “Life Major” as often as we want to, and can decide to change our focus and declare ourselves to be focused in a new direction. So whether you are in a job and need a change or spent most of your adult life in charge of your own destiny, the opportunity exists at any moment, at any time to wake up one morning and decide that you want to in effect change majors and from that day forward you can change your focus and follow the opportunities to your new “Life Major.”

The hard part is actually doing it. But for those who experience this, it becomes a liberating experience and something that can have a positive effect because it allows us to finally do the things we want to be doing and gives us a chance to apply ourselves in a meaningful way, and get to do the things where we get to define our own world, generally with our own rules, rather than being dependent upon a system which has existed for a long time and has not evolved over time as the world has changed around it.

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And one day you make wake up and ask yourself…how did I get here?

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: college, Life Major, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (84)

The Week I tried to reinvent College, Business Networking Events and took on the PR Industry:

On Monday I shared ideas I had about reinventing College. Tuesday was the day I shared what I look for in a PR firm, Wednesday I hosted a real-time social network breakfast and on Thursday I shared the details about the real-time social networking breakfast.

Along the way, a number of people have posted blog posts where they shared their perspective about these various topics, including:

Regarding / Reinventing College:

Sui Generis: "Sui Generis" College.

Regarding/ What Jeff Pulver looks for in a PR firm:

BNET: How to Shop for a PR Agency
George Nemeth: DYI PR
Jon Arnold: Jeff Pulver’s PR Challenge
Dan York: Jeff Pulver on what he is seeking in a PR firm…

Reactions from people who attended Jeff’s Real-time Networking Event:

Christopher Herot: Eggs and Social Media
Len Edgerly: Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (Podcast)
Doug Haslam: Social Media Face to Face is Ace (Seesmic posts) and Utterz ).
David Fisher: Jeff Pulver's Social Media Breakfast Boston November 2007 (Set) (Photos)
Maria Thurrell: How am I dealing with it? Trials, Tribulations and Advice
Scott Monty: Social Media Takeaways #5
Bryan Person: Jeff Pulver, breakfast, and social tagging = a smash hit
Joyce Bettencourt: My thoughts on Jeff Pulver's SM breakfast event, Thoughts/Recap on Jeff Pulver's SM event

Regarding / Redefining the Business Networking Breakfast

Mike Ambrose: 8 Reasons Why Many Networking Events Suck

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Boston, Cambridge, Facebook, Scott Monty, Maria Thurrell, David Fisher, Joyce Bettencourt, Doug Haslam, Len Edgerly, Christopher Herot, Bryan Person, Sui Generis, Mike Ambrose, George Nemeth, Jon Arnold, Dan York, Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (82)

November 29, 2007

Jeff Pulver on Social Media:

“The virtual we become, the more we need to have face to face meetings.” – Jeff Pulver

Tags: Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (92)

Redefining the Business Networking Breakfast: Give Real-time Social Networking a Try

The S&S Restaurant in Cambridge, MA was the location for Breakfast with Jeff Pulver and his (Facebook) friends in Boston - “A Meshup of Social Media and Eggs” which took place on the morning of November 28th.

Bringing together a people who are part of my virtual social network from both twitter and Facebook and watching my virtual network transition into a physical face-to-face network was a pretty interesting experience.

The event was scheduled to run from 8:00 am to 10:00 am and at 11:00 am there were still a handful of people at the restaurant. Around 40 people came out for the event. To help with the networking, I provided name stickers and pens and asked the guests to include their Name, Company affiliation and include a “personal tag line.” While some people struggled to figure out their personal tag line, seeing it provided a great conversation starter for everyone attending the event.

I also provided smaller stickers to use for “Real-Time Social Tagging” and a stack of Post-It notes for people who wanted to post to each other’s Walls. An example of some of the social tags I was still wearing when I left the breakfast are included in the photos below.

For people who like to organize a “business breakfast”, I have found the social tagging/stickers to be a very good icebreaker and it makes it so much easier for someone to go up and talk to someone they never met before. And if you would like to host a similar event yourself, please look for a future blog post of mine - “How to Create and Run a Real-Time Social Networking” event.

Based on the feedback received, this was a successful event and something that I plan on doing again in Boston and in other cities around the world in the near future. There were a number of people who contributed to the event who I would like to thank including: Bryan Person and Scott Monty and the staff of Restaurant. And special thanks to all of my friends from Facebook and twitter from the greater Boston area who came out and helped make the event happen.

A number of my guests have shared their perspective about this event including:

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Boston, Cambridge, Facebook, Scott Monty, Maria Thurrell, David Fisher, ChrisBrogan, Doug Haslam, Len Edgerly, Christopher Herot, Bryan Person, Steve Garfield, Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (196)

November 28, 2007

Heading out to: "Breakfast with Jeff Pulver's Facebook Friends in Boston"

This morning I'm hosting a breakfast for friends at the S&S Restaurant and Deli in Cambridge, MA.

During our breakfast I expect to see both real-time social networking and real-time social tagging taking place.

I'm looking forward to having a little fun this morning. :)

Special thanks to Bryan Person for helping to set this up.

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Tags: breakfast, Cambridge, social media, facebook, Bryan Person, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (81)

28-Nov-07: Social Media Wednesday Links:

Orli Yakuel: Display your Facebook Status on your Blog
Taly Weiss: Poking on a trend: The “poke” phenomena
Kfir Pravda: HBO, NBC, ABC, FOX - PLEASE Take My Money!
Jeremiah Owyang: Ten Web Strategy Blog Posts I wish you'd read
Tom Evslin: What's twitter

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: twitter, Facebook, Social Media, Orli Yakuel, Taly Weiss, Kfir Pravda, Jeremiah Owyang, Tom Evslin, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 05:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (82)

November 27, 2007

Today’s unsolicited email: “Still looking for a PR firm/publicist?”

Today I received an email from someone whose name I knew from Vonage who in the subject of the email asked the question: “Still looking for a PR firm/publicist?”

Turns out I am almost always interested in being meeting PR firms that have experience in promoting people as brands.

So I opened the email. Which in turn lead me to writing this blog post about what I look for in PR firms.

Is it too much to ask someone who is soliciting me to do their homework and at least visit my blog and read some of my recent posts and try to get a feeling for the issues and topics I am focusing on these days? (Rule #1 whenever pitching someone – do your homework!)

So far during the past 12 years, I haven't found any PR firm that could not do for me something that I can do for myself. It doesn’t mean that it is something I had time to do myself or that it made sense for me to do on my own, but a lot of PR opportunities can be created by someone if they focus on it. The need for PR may always be present but who does the work – that’s the question. Turns out you do not always have to outsource your PR work.

These days I have zero tolerance for firms that bill clients on a monthly basis and take credit for the air outside. (Rule #2 when pitching Jeff – define the deliverables and be modest for what you take credit for.)

The next PR firm I hire will have to deliver on promises made from the start. Unless my account will have the attention of at least one of the owners, I have no interest in the firm. This comes from the experience of being an entry on a sheet of paper and being billed without the PR firm doing anything. And it happened at a time when I was consumed with many other things so I let it slide. I believe everyone matters and that in the world of PR, it is a personal service business and accounts should be treated as such. I refuse to knowingly allow myself to be reduced to a retainer and a monthly bill. (Rule #3 – Jeff will hold you accountable for promises made want to be treated as a person and want to know his account matters.)

My past experience working with PR firms has lead me to the point where I will no longer work with any interns assigned to my account, nor will I educate anyone on how I generate PR for myself. But I do ask that whoever does get assigned has an interest in the things I do, is capable of understanding what I’m talking about, and shows an appreciation for whatever it is that I’m trying to do at that time. (Rule #4 – The account manager should show interest in the work being promoted.)

Life is too short to deal with people who take credit for the work of others. Or take credit of chance stories that just happen. Or who repeat the same BS lines I've heard repeated over the years about why they focus on industry and trade press when I’m looking for coverage from the business and consumer media. (Rule #5 – Talk straight and don’t take credit for work that you didn’t do)

I look for a person who shoots straight and who can do the magic for me that I can't get done on my own.

Bottom line: I am looking for is someone who gets it, someone who has a great rolodex and someone who charges a reasonable fee for using their contacts. Most PR firms are good for one time thru their rolodex which translates into a 60-90 day shelf life. After that, unless that firm is that good, I'm outta there. I sign commitment letters with a 30 day out and I invoke the 30 day out the day after the contract is signed, making every PR contract a month-to-month experience. I see no other way in keeping the people I work with honest.

So I ask, if you are involved in PR, where does your firm fit when put up to this measurement? And if you hire PR firms, what rules do you look for when hiring a PR firm? How do you measure success?

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: PR, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (982)

Watch pulverTV: Tuesday November 27th at 2PM EST / 1900 GMT / 2000 CET

The next edition of the Jeff Pulver Show, my LIVE (unscripted) Internet TV Talk show on pulverTV will be airing on Tuesday, November 27th starting at 2PM EST / 2000 CET.

My scheduled guests include:
Steve Garfield ( SteveGarfield.com), Christopher S. Penn (Financial Aid Podcast), Ariel Schwartz (Living Room Productions), Erik Stripparo and Hilary Mason (NewBCamp).

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

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Tags: Internet TV, Christopher S. Penn, Ariel Schwartz, Hilary Mason, Social Media, pulverTV, Andrew Lipson, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)

Flash from the Past: VocalTec's Internet Phone in a 1995 Wired Article

My friend Jacob Ner-David just shared with me this flash-from-the-past Wired story about VocalTec's Internet Phone from October, 1995.

Back then I was "...a New York infoworker."

Tags: Jacob Ner-David, vocaltec, Internet Phone, voip, Jeff Pulver

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Posted by jeff at 12:06 AM | Permalink

November 26, 2007

Reinventing College: Some Random Thoughts about “Pulver College”"

My friend Christopher S. Penn started a conversation the other day about “What is the value of a college education?.”

And soon after Chris invited me to join the conversation where I answered his question.

Chris then wrote: “Jeff: An interesting perspective. Given that you’re a parallel entrepreneur, If you were to buy, say, a failing, outmoded college that was closing its doors, how would you reinvent the college? Distance learning, a la carte courses, and pay-as-you-go are trends emerging now, but given your reputation as a disruptor, what would a college need to look like in order for you to wholeheartedly recommend your kids go there?”

Which lead to this immediate reply:

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Chris you ask interesting questions. :)

If had a chance to buy a college and make it my own, I would look to redefine the experience and make college fun. At Pulver College I would look to reinvent the college from the bottom up and spend as much time as would be needed to build a core team that will be responsible for running the college, teaching the courses and doing the recruiting of students into the school.

I would turn to the startup team to propose the first set of courses to be offered across multiple disciplines. I would also reach out to some of the more successful entrepreneurs from the area and ask them to be available to share their lives’ experiences with the students at our college. I would have an advisory board of both undergraduate and graduate students and give these students a voice in the future directions of the college and help make sure we are keeping our edge.

Each professor will be treated as if they were a member of a startup team. I would require the professors to be committed to the school and ask them to be the ones who teach their classes and be the ones to grade their own student’s work. I would ask for the professors to be available for their students at times which are convenient for their students.

Pulver College would make college a hands-on experience.

Pulver College is something that will have to be experienced in person and something that doesn’t work well in a virtual environment. At my school, I would embrace the individual and look to attract people who believe in the “Power of One” – that one person can make a difference. And I would look to embrace the creative spirit and encourage our students to find their own private revolutions.

I would offer classes on “blowing things up” and classes on “how things work” and I would offer classes on creativity and the opportunity for the students to teach their professors about the things they are the most passionate about. I would look to offer classes which offer kids clues about life and offer a road map for the next steps in their lives. I would have courses that teach about “fear, greed and disruption” and ones that answer the question: “How did I get here?”

Pulver College would be at a minimum a 5 year experience where our students would be focused to take a year off and travel the world and experience life at its fullest. The college would have a travel department and help students plan their year’s journey into self discovery and adventure.

At Pulver College, our students will learn about how to take having fun seriously while at the same time embracing the creative spirit and helping the students embrace their passions and help them become the person they are trying to be.

I would look for each of the students to build their own social identity and their own social networks. I would look for the students to suggest to the administration technology platforms that we should be looking into.

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I now ask, How would YOU reinvent College?

Please also drop by and help answer Chris Penn’s Question What is the value of a college education?.

By the way, Christopher S.Penn will be one of my guests tomorrow on the Jeff Pulver Show on pulverTV at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.
Tags: college, Christopher S. Penn, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (93)

November 25, 2007

A look at Facebook's International Growth during the past 30 days:

I was wondering how much Facebook has grown since I first started tracking their growth numbers 30 days ago. When looking at the chart below, Facebook's rapid worldwide growth is especially amazing when considering that in 16 of the top 20 countries experiencing this rapid growth, English is not the primary language.

According to the number of worldwide Facebook Users in 31 countries as shared by Facebook on November 25, 2007 as compared to the information shared on October 26, 2007, Facebook's user population grew at the amazing rates seen below:

Growth in North America was “only” 8.85% during the same period.

In Region Growth – from Oct 26th to Nov 25th 2007:

Asia: 128.00%
South America: 59.91%
Pacific: 34.40%
Africa: 18.88%
North America: 8.85%

I also was wondering what the current penetration of Facebook usage was around the world and which countries Facebook was most popular in, where English was not the primary language spoken.

To get to these results, I did a manual mashup of the country statistics Facebook provides together with the country populations published by the CIA Factbook. My study was limited to only the 31 countries Facebook provides user information for.

Overall, Facebook currently has the highest penetration (when looking at users/population) in the following countries:

1. Canada
2. Norway
3. UK
4. Sweden
5. Australia
6. USA
7. Singapore
8. New Zealand
9. UAE
10. Lebanon

And in countries where English is not the primary language, the top Facebook countries currently are:

1. Norway
2. Sweden
3. UAE
4. Lebanon
5. Israel
6. Turkey
7. Switzerland
8. France
9. Colombia
10. Netherlands

And it seems the international market for social networks remains wide open.

Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (175)

November 24, 2007

A Look back at My Social Media Thanksgiving:

I may have been one of the few Americans who didn’t watch a football game this Thanksgiving. Instead, I spent my available time connected on the Internet with friends and family from around the world. Between the Thanksgiving greetings and reflections shared on seemsmic, Thanksgiving wishes shared on twitter and Facebook and thoughts shared in my friend’s blogs, I really enjoyed experiencing my first Social Media Thanksgiving.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: facebook, Thanksgiving, Social Media, seesmic, twitter, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

November 23, 2007

Social Media: Helping to make the smaller things in life matter

Whenever I’m in my “Social Media Living Room” I find myself connecting with friends all over the world, regardless of the time of day and their (and my own) location. The advent of applications like: Facebook, twitter and seesmic collectively have helped me better appreciate some of life’s ordinary moments, and make them all feel very special. Whether it is sharing a causal “Good morning” with friends on twitter, a sunrise on seesmic or a birthday greeting on Facebook, it is great to have access to platforms which brings all of these small things back into our lives and to our attention.

And in the end, it is sometimes the small things in life that matter the most.

Tags: facebook, Social Media, seesmic, twitter, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (37)

Breakfast with Jeff Pulver: Nov 28th in Cambridge, MA

Readers of my blog are invited to join me for breakfast in Cambridge, MA on Wednesday, November, 28th.

Details are available on Facebook. We have a limited amount of space, so please RSVP soon if you plan to join us.

Special thanks to Bryan Person for helping to set this up.

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Tags: breakfast, Cambridge, social media, facebook, Bryan Person, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (27)

November 22, 2007

“My Final Download, the Perfect 3 Minutes”: By Dee Deekster

Deek Deekster's passion and commentary on this song is fun to experience. This is one of the best seesmic videos I have have seen yet.

Tags: Social Media, seesmic, twitter, Deek Deekster

Posted by jeff at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Happy Social Media Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Day in the United States is a day that I have traditionally known as a day where: families gathered, upon reflection we offer thanks, the day I used to listen to "Alice's' Restaurant", a festive holiday meal is shared, and a time to watch a football game or two. This year I suspect social media will have a positive contribution to the way some families celebrate Thanksgiving.

Looking back at 2007, the advent of social media has had a tremendous impact on the way many of us approach the Internet. Facebook continues to bring together friends, relatives and families. There are a growing number of families on Facebook and for some of us it has become the default way we communicate and share our life experiences, be it photographs, videos or messages that detail life’s smallest and sometimes most important moments.

And besides Facebook, my mornings would not be complete without being about to send out a "good morning" tweet on twitter or share a video moment with friends on seesmic. I can’t help but appreciate how much has changed in a good way during the past twelve months.

Today is also one of those days when I really miss members of my own extended family who used to be there to share in our Thanksgiving Day festivities.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to All!

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: facebook, Thanksgiving, Social Media, seesmic, twitter, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

November 21, 2007

Chris Brogan: Thanks for the Influence

Chris Brogan shared some very kind words about me today when answering the “Who had a big influence on you and how did that affect the direction of your life or career?“ meme:

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“Jeff Pulver - Over the last 13 months, no one (that’s not related to me) has believed in me more than Jeff. He’s challenged me to grow at every step of the way, and has done more to influence my thoughts and views of this space than any one else online or off. Sometimes, Jeff and I have different approaches to things. But I believe that his passion for community is strong. I believe his understanding of disruption is important. And I think he’s doing more to help people’s dreams grow than you’d ever know from what he publishes on his blog. Jeff brought me up several notches in my game, and I owe him respect for that.”

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It has been my honor to know and work with and travel with Chris during the past 13 months. Chris is a man of vision. If someone were to ask me how I spell community, the answer is simple: C-h-r-i-s B-r-o-g-a-n.

Tags: Internet TV, Podcamp, social media, facebook, Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)

Looking for Early-Early Stage Israeli Start-ups:

If you are aware of an early-early-stage Israeli hi-tech startup that I should be aware of, please contact me and I will try to setup a meeting during my next trip to Israel in early December.

Tags: Tel Aviv, startup, Israel, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

November 20, 2007

Announcing pulverTV 24/7: Our 24 Hour Internet TV Channel

I recently asked myself the question: “If Ted Turner was launching his first UHF Channel today, how would he approach this in an era of Internet TV?” And while I hope to one day ask him this question in person on the Jeff Pulver show on pulverTV, answering that question lead to the inspiration of building pulverTV into a 24/7 Channel which will be available for worldwide viewing on the Internet.

In 2006 a number of companies helped popularize free “Internet Video on Demand” and 2007 a number of companies now offer the ability for anyone, for free, to broadcast their own show live on the Internet. What I didn’t see many other people doing was taking advantage of these abilities and turn it into an Internet TV channel with a published scheduled and one which was broadcast live 24 hours a day. This is in effect what pulverTV is doing.

What we didn’t do is invest millions of dollars in a studio or a production team or in obtaining our talent. What we did do was leverage our understanding of technology and where the market place is going and decided to create shows that will bring back a feeling of the shows which aired in the early days of broadcast TV from the 1950. Every live show continues to be a learning experience – both for the talent and for the production and our hope is that we get better over time. I believe we are trailblazing a new space and a new adventure and something which we hope we will be able to share with hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands of people over time.

pulverTV 24/7 is our attempt to leverage Internet TV technologies while embracing the creative spirit and provide a platform to provide people with a unique user experience. Our goal is to use available tools to create a new experience rather than simply emulate commercial TV. Our goal is to make TV fun and to provide an experience that engages both our viewers and ourselves.

In the next 30-60 days, pulverTV 24/7 will be launching and will begin it’s initial 90 day run broadcasting 24 hours a day on the Internet. Our schedule will include 14-16 hours of original programming each week and the rest of the content will be filled in with a variety of re-runs of our own shows together with shows from friends from the world of Internet TV. Our original programming will include: Sports, Music, New Age and my existing tech show, The Jeff Pulver show.

Amit Shafrir is the co-founder of pulverTV 24/7 and will be working closely with me and our production team.

More details will be shared as we get closer to launch. We are looking forward to this adventure and the challenges and opportunities which it will bring.

Open Call for Content: If you have your own Internet TV show and would like for us to consider adding it to our lineup, please send email to: jeffp@pulver.com.

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Tags: Internet TV, pulverTV, Amit Shafrir, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (94)

Social Media Anecdotes: The Facebook Status Message

Friends of mine on Facebook know I make it a point to update my Facebook Status.

During the past few months I’ve learned to appreciate the “real-enough time” nature of Facebook messages. Status message updates on Facebook can have the effect of a group SMS message.

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A few months ago Amit Shafrir and I were in a meeting and looking to name a startup. In my status message I wrote: “If you know Latin please contact me” and within 20 minutes, 3 people contacted me and within the hour I had a name for a new startup.

During my keynote at Fall 2007 VON, I wrote as my status message: “Jeff is doing a Facebook demo. Please message him if you see this.” I received 31 messages in the 18 minutes that followed.

And just last Monday, within minutes of setting my Facebook status message to “Jeff is visiting Boston tomorrow”, I ended up being invited for a meeting with my friend Israel Drori. I was also invited to give an impromptu guest lecture to the class of Pablo Baqués who is a professor at The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology which I gave the following afternoon. (These are two meetings which never would have happened if I didn’t mention I was heading to Boston.)

While the response you receive from your Facebook status messages will be a function of the size of your social network and how many people happen to be online when you post your update, you may be surprised to how effective it can be.

Social media is changing the face of communications.

[edit: you can now join this conversation on Facebook.]

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: facebook, Amit Shafrir, Social Media, Pablo Baqués, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (104)

November 19, 2007

“My Social Media Living Room”: Today’s focus on pulverTV – starting at 11AM EST / 1600 GMT

“My Social Media Living Room” will be the focus of today’s episode of the Jeff Pulver show today on pulverTV which is scheduled to start at 11AM EST / 1600 GMT / 1700 CET.

Scheduled Guests include: C.C. Chapman, Ben Lillenthal, Amit Shafrir.

If you would like to be an in-studio guest on a future show and/or join our in-studio audience, please drop me an email or send me a message on Facebook.

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

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Tags: Internet TV, facebook, Social Communications, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, pulverTV, Andrew Lipson, Ben Lillenthal,C.C. Chapman,Amit Shafrir, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Looking for a theme for a Holiday Party? Make it a Social Media Party.

In case you are looking for a theme for a holiday party, do something different and make it a “Social Media Party.” Based on the relative success of the “Real-Time Social Networking” events I have hosted during 2007 (see this blog post for an example), your guests may enjoy taking part in some “real-time social tagging” at your next holiday party.

Whether you are hosting a party of 40 people or 500 people, I recommend starting by asking each guest to fill out a label which includes their name and a “personal tag line.” From experience, it is best if you ask your guests in advance to think of what their personal tag line will be. With regard to the name labels, this is most effective when the guest fills their name labels as soon as they arrive.

I would recommend leaving plenty of small blank labels around the party area together with pens and markers so that your guests can socially tag the people they met during the course of the event. Depending upon the situation, you may need to explain the concept of tagging to your guests. The social tags should contain a word or a short phrase about the person and should be placed somewhere on the guests clothing.

To keep things interesting, ask some of your friends to bring their cameras to help capture the moment. Make sure you come up with and share the social tag your guests should use when blogging about the event and/or sharing images from it. You might want to encourage your friends to actively use twitter and Facebook during the party. Maybe record a video or two and uploaded it to YouTube and/or seesmic before the end of the party.

After two hours of real-time social tagging, you will get to see your friends with a new perspective. And you may learn something about them in the process.

If you decide to host a “Social Media Party” please send me an email and let me know how your event worked out.

Tags: Social Media, Real-time Social Networking, Facebook, twitter, seesmic, Social Media Party, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

November 18, 2007

Seesmic is the place where your social media friends come to life!

Ever since Loic Le Meur demonstrated seesmic to me at Fall 2007 Video on the Net, I have enjoyed being a member of the seesmic community, and watching the seesmic videos of my social media friends as they have joined in the testing of the platform. "Seesmic IS the place where your social media friends come to life!" (credit for the phrase goes to: warzabidul).

What I enjoy about seesmic is that it adds a video element I can share with my social media network as defined by those people who follow me on twitter.

Inside of seesmic there is an intimate but growing community of people who are using seesmic as a platform to share their thoughts and life moments with others. I am starting to see a parallel between the early users of Seesmic and the way people approached VocalTec's Internet Phone (iPhone) back in 1995. Something interesting is brewing.

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Some of the people who can be found this weekend on seesmic include:

philcampbell - [seesmic] - The LoftSpace
mrtopf - [seesmic] - What do you do on sundays?
ChazFrench - [seesmic] - In the dark...
loudmouthman - [seesmic] - In which i mention Holiday traditions
CathyBrooks - [seesmic] - Eating pizza at 3:00am
warzabidul - [seesmic] - seesmic, where friends come to life
richpav - [seesmic] - Hello from Japan
goldiekatsu - [seesmic] - A brief Visit in San Francisco
Pistachio - [seesmic] - Quick hi/bye
TedC - [seesmic] - Slow machine strobes vid :)
VinvinOriginal - [seesmic] - The end of a great love...
GeekGirlTV - [seesmic] - The Winnies? (Staring Ms. Indecisiva)
GSPN - [seesmic] - Really Liking Seesmic

(you can find more public seesmic video links by visiting twittersearch and searching on seesmic)

Tags: Loic Le Meur, warzabidul, social media, seesmic, twitter, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

November 17, 2007

2007: The First Social Media Thanksgiving

I am wondering how many people in the United States will be talking about Facebook and other social media platforms during their family gatherings during Thanksgiving this year...

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: twitter, seesmic, facebook, Thankgiving, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

November 16, 2007

Still looking for the cure for: “Too Much Asynchronous Communication Syndrome”

Back on October 31, 2003 I wrote the following:

“During the work day, if you wish to contact someone, it is generally pretty easy these days to send just about anyone an email or try to leave them a message on their office voicemail. What exactly happens to that message once it is sent is generally never known by the sender and in polite terms it becomes the burden of the recipient to deal with it, whether they want to or not.

While this is a basic assumption which one can generally assume, the reality is that when your message isn’t returned promptly, you never know if it was ever received at all. Does the person who you just left a message for screen their voicemails and/or emails and if you are not on their list of recognized senders do you not get a call back? Was it blocked by a spam filter? Is it just the corporate culture not to return calls? Is it a quirk of the person you are trying to deal with? Does all inbound communication to that office just fall into a black hole? Or what if the reality is that the person you just tried to contact gets swamped on a daily basis with too many calls, that even if they wanted to call you back, they just couldn’t. This is something that you just would never know.

At least when you email someone, unless you get an immediate bounce, you feel as if the message was delivered. What you don’t know is whether that person gets 25-50 emails an hour and it will be days (or never) before you get a response back. When you leave a voicemail for someone you just expect the person to call you back, since that is the polite thing to do.

But finding the time to call everyone back is challenging at best and even when you want to, if you are spending most of the day in meetings, or are just being flat out busy, remembering to take the time to call someone back is hard. I used to think the best thing to do would be to write down the list of people who called you and call them back late at night and just leave a message. But with so many people working virtual these days that is a dangerous proposition for the times when you wake someone up who works from their home just because you tried to do the right thing and leave them a reply voicemail.

In my daily business life I’ve been dealing with these “open communication loops” for years. If you email me and don’t get an almost immediate response, if you are in the same time zone that I happen to be at the moment, and it is not the middle of the night, then try me again. With email I try to respond back the moment I read an email whenever I can. From what friends tell me, I’m getting better at it.

I don’t believe that “unified communications” is the ~~immediate~~ answer to the problem, mostly because many of the makers of “unified communication” software don’t generally know the exact problem they are trying to solve and end up assuming that their application will force others to change their evolving work habits rather than the other way around.

But I am convinced that this syndrome presents itself in different forms to different people depending upon people’s work habits and that like a virus, mutates into different forms as it moves from person to person. My hope is that one day a solution for those of us who suffer from too much asynchronous communication will be found.”

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I rediscovered this blog post after reflecting back on one of the threads discussed yesterday at a meeting I attended at Union Square Ventures.

During the four years since I first wrote about this, my issues with too much asynchronous communication have gotten worse, not better. I understand that there now are outlook plug-ins which are helping solve the email loop issues. Or at least provide some feedback on how we approach email.

As the number of my daily email messages have continued to grow, I have more or less stopped listening to voicemail (but unlike some friends, I am not currently using SimulScribe. I just don’t listen.). And to add to my personal scaling issues, RSS, SMS and Facebook messages have entered my daily mix of communication methods.

However, when I look ahead to the future, I have reason to believe it will be thanks to the evolution of social media / social communications that some of us will be presented with a workable solution to the growing problem of suffering from “too much asynchronous communication” in our lives.

I would like to believe it will be my social media living room which will provide an easier way to personally prioritize the importance of incoming communications based on relationships and past experiences with the sender and where that person is ranked inside of my social circle (at that moment) and other related metadata, rather than whether just if the subject of a message is marked “urgent.”

What about YOU? Do you ever suffer from “too much asynchronous communication?” What do YOU do about this today?

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.
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Tags: SimulScribe, email, facebook, Social Communications, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, Phil Hollows, Matt Blumberg, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, Tom Evslin, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (210)

Oh, the people you will meet...on Seesmic:

Ever since Loic Le Meur demonstrated seesmic to me, I've been hooked. Seesmic is now part of my Social Media Living Room.

I just discovered the following "SeeSmiX Special" on YouTube that includes cameos from the following people: Vinvin, Cathy Brooks, Molly Stanberry, Chris Brogan, Chris Pirillo, Joi Ito, David Sifry, David Weinberger, Robert Scoble, Ben Metcalfe, Ewan Spence, Jeff Pulver, Laura 'Pistachio' Fitton, Yossi Vardi, Thomas Crampton, Veronica Belmont.

Enjoy!

Tags: Loic Le Meur, Vinvin, Cathy Brooks, Molly Stanberry, Chris Brogan, Joi Ito, David Sifry, Chris Pirillo, David Weinberger, Robert Scoble, Ben Metcalfe, Ewan Spence, Laura 'Pistachio' Fitton, Yossi Vardi, Thomas Crampton, Veronica Belmont, social media living room, social media, seesmic, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

November 15, 2007

Watch pulverTV: Monday November 19th at 11AM EST / 1600 GMT / 1700 CET

The next edition of the Jeff Pulver Show, my LIVE (unscripted) Internet TV Talk show on pulverTV will be airing on Monday, November 19th starting at 11AM EST / 1600 CET.

The topic for the show is: "My Social Media Living Room" which will include a discussion of the future of communications. If you would like to be an in-studio guest on our next show and join the conversation, please drop me an email or send me a message on Facebook.

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

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Tags: Internet TV, facebook, Social Communications, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, pulverTV, Andrew Lipson, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (35)

Thinking Aloud with Friends about the Future of Social Communications

This morning I am heading to NYC to join a discussion with: Matt Blumberg, Brad Feld, Tom Evslin, Phil Hollows, and Fred Wilson about the future of social communications. Tom sets the stage for our discussion in his blog post this morning.

Today’s gathering influenced my blog posts this week about: My Social Media Living Room and the Future of Communications.

As a side note, I find it interesting that almost everyone attending today's meeting had to travel some distance to be there. It seems that at times, despite how virtual we may have all become, we still have a need to have face-to-face meetings.

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Tags: twitter, email, facebook, Social Communications, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, Phil Hollows, Matt Blumberg, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, Tom Evslin, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

November 14, 2007

Social Media is changing the Face of Communications

“Communications as we know it is over” was the message I shared during my recent keynote at Fall 2007 VON in Boston. This was the conclusion I reached after thinking about the recent impact of social media on my life. While I may not have provided enough of a transitional bridge to help all of the Telecom executives in the Fall VON audience to connect-the-dots as to what my meta-message really was, I do hope that some of the people attending VON heard what I was saying.

Back in 1995, Internet Telephony was social. In 1995, the way I used Internet Phone was very similar to the way I would have used my ham radio, except that instead of being dependent on things like antennas, propagation and a ham radio, all I needed was connectivity, software and a computer. Just about all of my conversations took place with random people, in random locations. Back in 1995, it was the “fear, greed and disruption” of what it meant to empower an entire generation of people with the ability to communicate without the need of a service provider which brought a number of new faces to Davos in January, 1996.

It wasn’t until sometime during 1996 that many of the companies involved in the early days of Internet Telephony decided to focus on establishing themselves as players in what would become the trillion dollar telecom industry. Gone was the vision of empowering people to communicate without the need of traditional service providers. Instead their focus shifted to becoming the suppliers of gateways and other products used to interconnect between the Internet and the PSTN. This was later followed by the development of the Softswitch and other products which emulated with IP the functionality of a class 4 and class 5 switch.

And for years, as startups used IP Communications as a technology platform to build better IP based voicemail systems and IP based call forwarding systems, at VON and other place I spoke about the possibilities of using IP based technologies to build platforms to deliver things which were never before practical or possible before the advent of the Internet. This in turn lead me to introducing the concept of “purple minutes” as a way to differentiate from the “Black and White” minutes being created by Softswitches. “Black and White” minutes are minutes who share very similar attributes to the TDM minutes the softswitch technology was replacing.

Fast forward 12 years and with no thanks to the telecom industry, social media happened anyway. And with advent of social networks, we are now at a moment in time where it is only because of the Internet that an entire new generation of applications-driven communication networks have evolved and are starting to become on their own a much more efficient way to communicate shared common life experiences than a regular phone call can possibly offer. It is the underlying metadata social networks carry and the context and vantage points into our lives which they offer access to which is special. In fact, these networks are now offering a second chance for the people who pioneered Internet Telephony to once again embrace a world were people can communicate with people without the need for traditional service providers. And get much more out of the experience than ever before.

While our existing communication devices and telecommunications services are great for both synchronous and asynchronous communications, service providers today do not offer anything which can create the same feeling of being connected with someone as is now possible when one spends their time inside of their own social media living room. The fact remains that after 14+ years of being on the internet, my summer of social media has changed both the way I approach the Internet and expectations from my everyday internet experiences.

On days when I’m in Facebook for eight hours or more, it is not as I was once picking up a phone and speaking to someone for eight hours at a time or more. A phone call is not a substitute or replacement for: sending a video message to a friend, tagging someone’s photo or catching up with the Facebook groups that matter to me. Social media has helped me better appreciate “real-enough time” communications. Something in between real-time and non real-time. Status Messages on Facebook represent a good example of “real-enough time” communication. Readers of my blog who are also experiencing Facebook and finding themselves embedded in the lives of the people who are part of their social network know what I’m talking about. And for those of you about to experience this, being embedded in a social communications platform like Facebook provides an opportunity to experience the feeling of being connected with the lives of your “friends.” And if some of your friends were actually strangers when you started your Facebook journey, you will not remain strangers after spending some time in the world of Facebook.

Telecom companies which ignore the long-term impact of social media are at risk for being disrupted by those communication companies which choose to embrace it. This is as true for their approach to with dealing with customers as much as for the underlying future services they consider offering.

When I look to the future, I see one where the impact of Social Media provides a huge opportunity for the people who have been involved in the VoIP industry to establish another parallel line of business. We are moving to a time of people calling people and away from a time where people call a number and hope the person they are looking to reach is at that number.

Social media is changing the face of communications.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: twitter, telecom, facebook, Social Communications, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (101)

November 13, 2007

Video of Guitar Heronoid @ Fall 2007 VON

Tags: Kinnernet, Guitar Heronoid,Guitar Hero, GarageGeeks, Rafael Mizrahi, Tal Chalozin, Fall2007VON, Yuval Tal, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (76)

Facebook: The Million Dollar Application

My friend Nimrod Lehavi has developed and launched the first ”Million Dollar Application” for Facebook.

Nimrod was very up front that inspiration for the “Million Dollar Application” came from the Million Dollar homepage.
If you are wondering what this application is all about, according to his FAQ:

“Basically you buy advertising space. US 1$ per 1 pixel. after you buy you can send an image and a link and they will be placed on the application homepage. if you want to know more please read the terms and conditions.”

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If it was up to me, I might consider letting the marketplace set the bid/ask price per pixel. And as the pixels from the application got sold, my assumption is that over time, the price would change based on the availability of pixels and the number of people who are actively using the application.

Seems that if Nimrod can get some positive momentum, he very well may be on his way to having the first “Million Dollar Application” in Facebook.

Tags: Nimrod Lehavi, facebook, Million Dollar Application, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)

November 12, 2007

2007: The Year of the Social Media Living Room

While 2007 will be known for many things, the one experience which stands out in my mind much more than the others is what I felt this summer when I first experienced the blurring of synchronous and asynchronous communications, shortly after I became active on both Facebook and twitter.

When I try to explain my experience to others, the best way I can describe it, is that it feels like I am inside of a “social media living room.” When I am inside my social media living room, I am never alone, regardless of the time of day or night. In my social media living room I find myself involved in the everyday lives of quite a number of people. Sometimes it is the conversation that gets my focus. Other times it is the pictures someone posted on Facebook which transports my mind to another place and time. Maybe it was the video message I received from a semi-total stranger that resonated with me. Or maybe it was the URL Robert Scoble just shared on twitter. In my social media living room, the physical location of the person does not matter. “Distance is dead.” I can feel as connected with someone in Melbourne, Australia and Tel Aviv, Israel as I can with someone from Toronto or Boston. While every experience is different, and there are different people involved depending upon the time of day I enter my social media living room, the one thing that is consistent is that just about every experience is engaging.

These days I experience my social media living room on weekday mornings around 6AM (EST) when I am home and I happen to be on both twitter and Facebook at the same time. Adding seismic to the mix just makes my morning even more interesting. Using social media I am able to start a conversation using one platform and seamlessly carry the conversation back and forth across various platforms, including email.

Everyone is welcome to my social media living room. Hope to catch up with YOU soon.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: twitter, seesmic, facebook, Robert Scoble, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (206)

November 11, 2007

Facebook: Experiencing Viral, Rapid Growth outside of North America

After noting the viral growth of the Israel Network on Facebook yesterday, I wondered how much has the penetration of Facebook grown during the past sixteen days. When looking at the chart below, Facebook's rapid worldwide growth is especially amazing when considering that in 16 of the top 20 countries experiencing this rapid growth, English is not the primary language.

According to the number of worldwide Facebook Users in 31 countries published by Facebook on October 26, 2007 as compared to the same on November 11th, during these sixteen (16) days, Facebook's user population grew outside of North America at the amazing rates seen below. Growth in North America was “only” 7.24% during the same period.

In Region Growth – from Oct 26th to Nov 11th:

South America: 53.58%
Pacific: 33.48%
Asia: 16.10%
Africa: 14.67%
North America: 7.24%

(Facebook User Stats as of: November 11, 2007)

Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (997)

YOU: A Poem by Dylan Pulver

Last night in Chicago at a family gathering, my cousin Eric Pulver included the words of a poem during a speech he gave. After hearing the words, I had to ask Eric who wrote the poem because I wanted to share the words in my blog. Turns out the words were written by his son Dylan Pulver (yes there are two), when Dylan was 11 or 12.

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YOU

For what you do, is up to you
For what happens to you, is up to you
Not everything is under your control, but everything can be just like a bull
Fearless, and tearless
You must be
Like this bull in life
For you may find much strife
It is the extra thing that you do
That will make up most of you
That thing will seem unnecessary at the time
Undone the time will come where you will whine
Everything is possible though you may think that it is not
If you can picture it in your mind
Think about what you want carefully
Because that is who you’ll be
Don’t leave goals untouched
Because you will be such
Only you can save your date
I am just a dimwitted mate

By: Dylan Pulver

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Tags: Chicago, Dylan Pulver, Eric Pulver, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (53)

November 10, 2007

Watch pulverTV: Monday November 12th at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET

The next edition of the Jeff Pulver Show, my LIVE (unscripted) Internet TV Talk show on pulverTV will be airing on Monday, November 12th starting at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET.

Scheduled guests (so far) for Monday’s show include: Jonny Goldstein, Lux Nightmare, Phil Cambell and Pej Roshan.

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

If you would like to be a guest on a future show, please contact me on Facebook.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

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Tags: Internet TV, Lux Nightmare, pulverTV, Jonny Goldstein, Phil Cambell, Andrew Lipson, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Looking for Early-Early Stage Israeli Start-ups

If you are aware of an early-early-stage Israeli hi-tech startup that I should be aware of, please contact me and I will try to setup a meeting during one of my future visits.

Tags: Tel Aviv, startup, Israel, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Facebook is Viral in Israel: Now Approaching 150,000 people on the Israel Network

Back at the end of June there were about 18,000 people on the Israel Network on Facebook. This number grew to about 74,000 when I spoke at VON Israel on October 14th. Eleven days later the network grew by 35% and surpassed 100,000. And sometime today on November 10th the number will pass 150,000, representing another 50% growth in only 16 days. These numbers are amazing to me considering that English is a second language in Israel.

Any predictions on what the facebook penetration in Israel will look like in six months?

Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Israel, Moshe Maeir, Shel Israel, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

November 09, 2007

My Social Media Friday: I’m still having trouble adding friends on twitter

This week I’ve tried at various times to sync my followers/following list (used to be following / friends list) on twitter and something seems to be broken. So if you are following me on twitter and I haven’t added you back, I will. I promise. But it may take me longer than expected.

The following seesmic sums up my frustration:

Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: twitter, seesmic, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

November 08, 2007

Announcing the 2008 Israel Web Tour:

The California Israel Chamber of Commerce has just announced the return of their highly successful IsraelWebTour competition and road show. Current returning sponsors include Google, Yahoo and Adobe. The Tour will kick off on February 4th, 2008 when fifteen chosen CEO’s from Israel's most exciting startups will arrive in Silicon Valley for a week of activities. The companies will meet with investors, strategic partners, customers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders in a mix of private one-on-one meetings, roundtable discussions and ad-hoc networking events. The highlight of the week will be a public showcase on Wednesday, February 5th where each start-up will present their business to the industry and press. The Tour will end with a closing night party in San Francisco on Thursday February 7th.

The CICC is now soliciting applications for participating companies and sponsors. If you want to participate in this year's Israel Web Tour, submit an application to CICC by Monday, December 3rd at 5:00 PM PST. Conference organizers & Steering Committee will select 15 companies to participate in the tour.

Highlights From Last Year's Israel Web Tour:

- A series of private tours and meetings at Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Adobe, Ebay
- A week of panels and roundtable sessions were held with the following industry leaders:

Mike Moritz, General Partner, Sequoia Capital
Alex Kazim, President, Skype
Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch
Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Flickr
Gokul Rajaram, Director, AdSense
Keith Rabois, VP Business Development, LinkedIn
Sundaresan Neel - Director, eBay Research Labs
Amir Ashkenazi, CTO and Founder, Shopping.com
David Tenenhause, VP of Platform Strategy, Amazon
Geoff Yang, Founding Partner, Redpoint Ventures
Jeff Crowe, General Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
Michael Sippey, Vice President Product, Six Apart

The Bottom line
- Five of the 15 companies who participated in 2006 IsraelWebTour raised venture funds from US and Israeli VCs.
- One company was acquired.
- Four companies launched their US operations within 9 months of the tour.

"The Israel Web Tour had a great impact on Fixya’s ability to receive funding, form strategic partnerships with the biggest companies in the industry, and jump-start the process of positioning itself as a leader in its space."
Yaniv Bensadon, CEO, Fixya

"The Israel Web Tour is an excellent, well organized and orchestrated initiative; it exceeded my expectation and provided ample opportunities for networking with top players in the Silicon Valley and exposed us to new business opportunities. This helped us to accelerate our success and contributed to expand our growing affiliate and partnership network. Well done !"
Avichai Nissenbaum, CEO, Yedda

The 2008 IsraelWebTour Steering Committee:

Dr. Yossi Vardi, Chairman, International Technologies
Gil Ben-Artzi, Corporate Development, Yahoo!
Jacques Benkoski, USVP
Daniel Cohen, Partner, Gemini Israel Funds
Etay Gafni, Sr. Director, User Experience and Web 2.0, SAP Labs
Jason Harinstein, Corporate Development, Google
Eyal Keren, VP, Business Development, The Pudding Inc.
Jeff Pulver, Founder, pulver.com
Ido Sarig, Partner, Tomas Weisel Partners
Deborah Schultz, Social Software Strategist, P&G Global Advisor
Yaniv Vakrat, Director of Corporate Development, Adobe

November 07, 2007

Mark Zuckerberg talks about: Facebook, Friend Lists, OpenSocial and his new Ad System

At the Foursquare conference today I was fortunate to be in the 2nd row when Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed by David Faber. While there were a number of great sessions at Foursquare 2007, this was the only session of the conference that was “on-the-record.” Gone this year at foursquare were the Adidas flip-flops Mark wore to last year’s event. And for someone who is famous for his short answers, Mark was on a roll this morning during the “Face Time: Downloading Mark Zuckerberg” session.

Mark began the session talking about the Facebook Ad system. Mark said: “…we are trying to build an ad system that really aligns what our users are try to do on the site with how, would be the most effective system with partners.”

In terms of Open Social, Zukerberg, when asked “Why did you choose not to be a part of it?” He said “Who said we didn’t choose not to be a part of it?” “Well, we really didn’t find out about it until the end…maybe an hour after it launched…We have to see how it works and evaluate...we will evaluate what is the right thing to do…it is conceivable...if it does well, then it is something we will want to participate in.”

According to Mark, today Facebook has 52 million active users, as defined as people who have been on the site in the past month. Their users have been doubling every six months and it is possible for Facebook to be at 200 million users by the end of 2008.

When asked, Mark said he is visits Facebook everyday for about 2 hours a day. (Almost seems strange that I’m spending more time each day in Facebook than Mr. Zuckerberg…)

During the Question and Answers part of the session, I asked Mark about the 5,000 limit on friends and whether we will be able to segment our friends into business and personal friends and provide a different view for each group of friends. Mark confirmed this is something they are working on and this is a feature that will be available shortly.

On the way to lunch I caught up with Mark and asked him again about the 5,000 person limit on friends. Mark said that while they will not let everyone have an unlimited number of friends due to possible abuse, he could see moving the limit up from 5,000 to 10,000 or some other number.

(Jeff Jarvis also attended and blogged about this session at foursquare 2007.)

Tags: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Jarvis, Facebook, Social Media, Open Social, David Faber, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (76)

Tom Evslin shares his perspective on Open Social

Tom Evslin: OpenSocial – Developer’s View

Tags: FWD, Open Social, Google, Tom Evslin, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (27)

Watch pulverTV: Monday November 12th at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET

The next edition of the Jeff Pulver Show, my LIVE (unscripted) Internet TV Talk show on pulverTV will be airing on Monday, November 12th starting at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET.

Scheduled guests (so far) for Monday’s show include: Jonny Goldstein, Lux Nightmare, Phil Cambell and Pej Roshan. This is shaping up to be a very interesting show.

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

If you would like to be a guest on a future show, please contact me on Facebook.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

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Tags: Internet TV, Lux Nightmare, pulverTV, Jonny Goldstein, Phil Cambell, Andrew Lipson, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

November 06, 2007

VoIP in America: A Tale of Two States:

Last week two states – New Jersey and Missouri -- took radically different approaches to VoIP regulation that could have far reaching consequences for the future of Internet communication.

New Jersey – helping consumers take advantage of new technologies. On the one hand, New Jersey’s Governor Jon Corzine (D) -- joining a number of other forward looking states – signed into law new legislation prohibiting state regulation of many aspects of VoIP.

I couldn’t outline the justification any better than the bill itself which specifically states:

“The growth and enhancement of services using Internet Protocol technology provide consumers more choice in voice, data, and video service than at any other time;

The proliferation of new technologies and applications and the growth in the number of providers developing and offering innovative services using Internet Protocol is due in large part to a light regulatory touch, including freedom from traditional telephone regulation that these new technologies and services and the companies that offer them have enjoyed in New Jersey; and

These economic benefits, including consumer choice, new jobs, and significant capital investment, will be jeopardized and competition minimized by the imposition of traditional State entry and rate regulation on Voice over Internet Protocol service and Internet protocol-enabled service.”

I applaud the New Jersey legislature, Governor Corzine, and the many other states who have enacted similar legislation to help their consumers take advantage of the lower prices, new services, and advanced features that VoIP can deliver. Such legislation shouldn’t even be necessary. But Missouri reminds us why.

Missouri – stuffing tomorrow’s technologies into yesterday’s regulatory boxes. But last week the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) took a starkly different approach. After a year-long proceeding, the PSC found that Comcast’s fixed VoIP service, unlike Vonage’s service, is offering a telecommunications service in Missouri and therefore it is requiring Comcast to get certified by December 10th, or stop offering their VoIP service. Even though in the FCC’s landmark “Vonage decision” the Commission found that Vonage and Vonage like services should not be subject to state jurisdiction, the Missouri PSC has found otherwise. Unfortunately, while the Missouri Senate proposed legislation similar to New Jersey’s to prevent the Missouri PSC from regulating VoIP, the Senate adjourned before completing work on the bill. The bill found “that the provision of VOIP service free of regulation, regardless of the provider, is in the public interest.” And therefore the “public service commission shall not regulate or otherwise exercise jurisdiction over VOIP service regardless of how the service is classified by” the FCC. Passage of that legislation would have prevent the PSC from acting.

This PSC decision has vast and far reaching implications. It doesn’t just effect cable VoIP, it has the potential to affect any type of VoIP services that state Commission’s determine is unlike Vonage’s service.

Implications: This decision is likely to set off a chain of reactions including a possible appeal, and if left in place, unleash a number of other state actions similarly adopting state regulation of fixed VoIP. These actions are like to raise rates for consumers and slow innovation as state seek to require Internet technologies to subsidize the 100 year old phone network through the application of state universal service contributions, and the application of state access charges. It would be like having the first automobiles subsidize horse and buggy’s, or e-mail subsidize postal mail, or PCs subsidize mainframes.

Outside of this court, policymakers at all levels have taken approaches more similar to New Jersey’s. In Congress, at the FCC, in the states, and in the courts, policymakers have generally come to recognize that to unleash the vast benefits that VoIP can deliver, policymakers must avoid applying a potential patchwork of multiple and inevitably conflicting state regulatory models.

In Congress: 62 House members wrote the FCC is support of exclusive federal jurisdiction for Vonage and like services. Similarly last year a majority of the Senate Commerce committee voted to codify the Vonage decision and dismiss all court challenges to it.

States: 7 state legislatures have adopted bills preventing state regulation of VoIP, ALEC adopted a model state VoIP bill preventing regulation of VoIP, and the New Jersey’s governor signed into law such a bill just this last week.

Courts: Earlier this year, the 8th circuit affirmed federal jurisdiction earlier this year for nomadic VoIP. In its decision the court expressly noted that the FCC, “if faced with the precise issue” of state attempts to regulate facilities-based VoIP services, it would preempt” state regulation of such “fixed VoIP services.”

Throughout industry: Almost every high tech and telecom trade group has supported exclusive federal jurisdiction for VoIP.

These leaders recognize that the global nature of IP communications – traversing national and international boundaries – calls for a single uniform regulatory framework for VoIP.

This is one of the most important policy decision’s to get right. As many of you remember, I petitioned the FCC, and the FCC agreed with me, that pulver.com’s Free World Dialup service should remain free from unnecessary regulation at both the federal and state levels. Economists now estimate that ensuring continued VoIP competition can save consumers an astounding $100 billion over the next 5 years – putting real money back into consumers’ pockets through the power of competition. That is especially important today as mortgage mom’s are struggling to make ends meet, and as the prices of oil hits new highs. But the biggest advantages from adopting a uniform light-handed national regulatory framework for VoIP us the what it means for innovators using VoIP technologies to enable new ways to communicate never before possible. We saw some of these on display at last week’s Fall 2007 VON conference. Regulators need to create a consistent, uniform and light-handed regulatory framework (more like New Jersey than Missouri) for consumers across the country to be able to take advantage of them. This is something that the VON Coalition, which I founded more than 11 years ago, has worked tirelessly to promote. If you care about these issues, I encourage you to join the VON Coalition and its efforts.

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Tags: VoIP, Public Policy, FCC, VON, VON Coalition, Governor Corzine, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (74)

November 05, 2007

Tom Evslin on Video: The Third Stage of the VoIP Rocket that Never Fired

Tom Evslin's video from Fall 2007 VON discussing The Third Stage of the VoIP Rocket that Never Fired:

Tags: FWD, VON, VoIP, Tom Evslin, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Watch: Loic Le Meur, Mark Spenser, Bronwen Clune and Feed Me Bubbe on pulverTV!

On Wednesday, October 31, 2007, from the set of Fall 2007 Video on the Net, pulverTV broadcast a live 30 minute show. Bronwen Clue, Loic Le Meur, Feed Me Bubbe and Mark Spenser were all guests on the show.

Special thanks to Chris Brogan for covering for me for two thirds of the show as I was accidently double booked, pitching innovid to a friend of mine. This show was re-broadcast earlier today as the original archive of show, seen over 3,000 times, only had the last 11 minutes of the show. Our show archive now has the entire 30 minutes of the original broadcast.

The next edition of the Jeff Pulver show on pulverTV will be airing on Monday, November 12th at 2PM EST / 11AM PST / 2000 CET.

Tags: Internet TV, Loic Le Meur, Bronwen Clune, Feed Me Bubbe, pulverTV, Andrew Lipson, Mark Spencer, Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (240)

Jeff Pulver's "Five Things to Do on Facebook to Brighten Up Someone's Day."

Here are five things you can do on Facebook to help brighten up someone's day. Maybe even your own.

- Login to facebook.

- 1. Wish a friend, "Happy Birthday."

Go ahead and check to see if one of your friends is celebrating their birthday today. If so, wish that person a Happy Birthday. You will help make their day. If appropriate, repeat for each friend celebrating their birthday today.
(Once you have a few hundred friends you will notice that everyday is someone's birthday.)

- 2. Send a friend a video message.

Best if it is totally unexpected. Nothing fancy. Just use a built-in video camera of your laptop. And if you don't have a webcam, go out and pick one up. This is one of the best investments you can make to enhance your experience with social media. Turns out Asynchronous video on Facebook is video messaging the way it was supposed to be. You will be amazed to the way you can connect with someone using video.

- 3. Send a friend Voicemail.

If you are not feeling in a video state of mind, just leave someone a Facebook voice message. It is a lot easier to express feelings using voice rather than text. And again, you will be amazed to how positive some people react.

- 4. Send someone a Facebook text message.

Take a look at your friends list and send a message to someone who you haven't spoken to in awhile. Since you are "friends" you owe it to yourself to reach out and connect with these people every once in awhile. And once you open the conversation, you may be surprised to see where it leads.

- 5. Mention a friend's name in your Status Message.

Works pretty well, but not as effective as 1-4 above. And needs to be noticed to be effective.

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How would YOU use Facebook to brighten up someone's day? Please feel free to share your suggestions in the comments section below.

Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (158)

November 04, 2007

My Social Media weekend of orkut and Plaxo Pulse

After experiencing the blur associated with Fall 2007 VON, this was the weekend I was supposed to catch up on my email and disappear for awhile.

But with Google's recent announcement regarding OpenSocial, I figured now would be a great time to visit orkut and update my contacts and related information, especially since I plan on playing in Google's social media playground. The last time I was active in orkut was early 2006.

This weekend seems to be a tipping point for a number of my friends and their use of Plaxo Pulse, at least based on the number of invitations I've received to connect in the past 48 hours. In fact, when I logged in to Plaxo Pulse I was amazed to see 106 contacts waiting for me. I'm not sure what is driving it, but there are a number of people exploring Plaxo Pulse this weekend.

Tags: orkut, Social Media, OpenSocial, Plaxo Pulse, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (171)

The Loud Mouth Man Speaks and Debriefs on PodCamp Boston 2:

The Opinions of a Loud Mouth Man: Podcamp Boston Post Show Debrief

"Podcamp Boston was just that event. You could talk share and express Ideas and not spend your time playing the value incentive games with the people you were talking with."

LoudMouthMan talks about PodCamp on seesmic:

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What a great testament about PodCamp and PodCamp Boston 2.

Tags: Nik Butler, Social Media, PodCamp, PodCamp Boston2, LoudMouthMan, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Best Week Ever for pulverTV:

I was just looking at the viewing stats for my shows on pulverTV during the past week. In terms of our total on-demand views, this has been our "Best Week Ever."

We started the week on a roll when our broadcast from PodCamp Boston 2 set a blogTV record of 389 simultaneous viewers and the 2,500 unique people who watched us during the 2 ½ hour live broadcast.

Fans of Internet TV may enjoy watching the live show we produced at PodCamp Boston 2: (see parts: 1, 2, 3, 4).

I also enjoyed being a part of the two 30 minute shows we did where we attempted to keep each interview to 5 minutes. We were able to do two of these shows on the set of Video on the Net. You can watch both the Oct 30th Show, with: Jason Calcanis (Mahalo), James Tagg (TruPhone), Dan York and Bob Frankston and the Oct 31st Show, with FeedMe Bubbe and Mark Spencer.

Overall, these shows have been seen by more people than just about any of our previous shows.

I just wanted to thank everyone for watching. And to everyone who was a guest during PodCamp Boston 2 and/or during Fall 2007 VON. And everyone who spent time with us in the studio audience.

Special thanks to both "Tricaster Andy" (Andrew Lipson) and David "Wildman" Kowarsky for their contributions to the shows this week.

Tags: Internet TV, PodcampBoston2, pulverTV, Jonny Goldstein, Kathryn Jones, Phil Cambell, David Kowarsky, Chris Brogan, Andrew Lipson, Steve Garfield, Loudmouthman, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (93)

November 03, 2007

Loic Le Meur showing Jeff Pulver "How to seesmic"

My first seesmic.

Tags: Loic Le Meur, seesmic, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (52)

Pimp My Blog: Using seesmic to promote Jake Pulver's Blog

And drop by: MusikTekWeb for the latest on music, gaming and technology from the perspective of my 13 year old son, Jake Pulver.

Tags: MusikTek, music, technology, Jake Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Faces of PodCamp Boston 2:

Last weekend I had the opportunity to be part of the community at PodCamp Boston 2.

I appreciated the chance to meet a number of my friends from both twitter and Facebook and move the conversation from the virtual to the present and then back to the virtual. I especially enjoyed catching up with my friends from the UK who flew to Boston for PodCamp.

Overall PodCamp Boston was a great experience, something I would recommend to others to join and support and something I look forward to being a part of in the future Special thanks to everyone who contributed to the making of PodCamp Boston 2 and to both Christopher S. Penn and Chris Brogan who had the vision to create the PodCamp experience.

Below are some of the photos I took (or were taken using my camera) during PodCamp Boston 2:

Tags: PodcampBoston2, pulverTV, Jonny Goldstein, Kathryn Jones, Phil Cambell, David Kowarsky, Galacticast, Andrew Lipson, Steve Garfield, Loudmouthman, Christopher S. Penn, Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Watch the "Director's Cut" of the Jeff Pulver Fall 2007 VON Keynote:

Yesterday afternoon during my show on pulverTV, I had a chance to premiere Tom Evslin's Fall VON Video about what happened to the third stage of the VoIP Rocket Tom first spoke about at Fall 1997 VON. This was followed by a re-broadcast of the keynote speech I gave about the evolution of Social Communications at Fall 2007 VON. Except that for the re-broadcast, I was provided audio commentary and was part of the conversation in the chat room.

During the show I also had a chance to share some of my photos from PodCamp Boston 2 and reflect back on the live 2 1/2 hour broadcast pulverTV did from PodCamp.

Special thanks to everyone who participated in our show.

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

If you would like to be a guest on a future show, please contact me on Facebook.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

Nov 2nd Jeff Pulver Show - Part 1:

Nov 2nd Jeff Pulver Show - Part 2:

Nov 2nd Jeff Pulver Show - Part 3:

Tags: Internet TV, PodCamp Boston2, pulverTV, Social Media, Facebook, Social Communications, VON, Tom Evslin, voip, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (48)

November 02, 2007

Christopher Herot on FWD International

I had a chance to catch up with Chris Herot at John Harvards the other night and spoke with him about the evolution of social communications and my new startup, FWD International. I appreciated the kind words Chris shared about FWD International in his blog.

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Christopher Herot: FWD International

Tags: FWD, Christopher Herot, Facebook, Social Media, VoIP, VoiceMail, Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Thanks for a GREAT Week in Boston!

Just wanted to thank everyone who contributed to the success of Fall 2007 VON in Boston this week. For me, this VON was all about “the hallway conversations.”

It was great to see many of the people who have supported our events over the years as well as number of new faces who joined our community during 2007.

On a personal note, it was great to host the GarageGeeks and the Guitar Heronid on the Fall 2007 VON show floor.

I am looking forward to spending time today reflecting back on the week on pulverTV starting today at 2PM EDT.

Tags: Internet TV, pulverTV, Social Media, VON, Andrew Lipson, Video on the Net, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

November 01, 2007

Watch pulverTV: Friday November 2nd at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET

My next LIVE (unscripted) Internet TV Talk show on pulverTV will be taking place on Friday, November 2nd starting at 2PM EDT / 2000 CET.

Our next show will be a recap of Fall 2007 VON / Video on the Net.

As Fall 2007 VON comes to a close, the pulverTV team is in the process of transporting our set back to our studios in New York. The plan is for us to go live tomorrow starting at 2PM. The show will open with a replay of my opening keynote at Fall 2007 VON followed by the "director’s cut" comments. I will be active in the chat room during the replay of the speech. In addition, I hope to share some of the interviews I took during the conference.

Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv.

If you would like to be a guest on a future show, please contact me on Facebook.

Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook.

Tags: Internet TV, pulverTV, Social Media, VON, Andrew Lipson, Video on the Net, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)