Jason Beckerman (Dank Apps CEO) and I will be out in Seattle this week to meet with clients and attend the Web Community Forum. We are both looking forward to speaking engagements at the Forum as well as getting to know the Seattle Tech Culture. We both feel honored to be in the land of Microsoft and Starbucks. (Although Starbucks is becoming ever more important to the Tech scene and Carrot Crew than Microsoft). If you happen to be attending the Forum, shoot me an email. By the way, does anyone know of some great places to eat in Seattle?

Today I will be part of a speaking panel at Web Community Forum. The panel will comprised of Teresa Valdez Klein and Dave McClure, and we will be discussing Facebook as a professional tool. Notes will be provided later on in the week, as it will be a collaborative effort of the entire Carrot Crew to summarize the events of this week’s forum for all of you. Web Community Forum Topic & Description.

Facebook for Professionals: A Session for the Community Building in the Age of Facebook Conference.December 5, 2007 • 11:30 amPresented by Mike Germano, Dave McClure, Teresa Valdez Klein

Now that Facebook has announced that it plans to include granular permissioning for different types of friends, the question on everyone’s minds is, “What does this mean for Linkedin?” Linkedin has long been the social network of choice for professionals. But its dominance in this space has been under attack as more professionals spend their time networking on Facebook. This growth has been limited somewhat by the fact that Facebook does not currently have a system for designating how well a “friend” is known to you, or by what means. This limitation has meant that some content — photos of a Saturday evening spent singing semi-inebriated karoke, for example — might be better suited to an e-mail among friends than a dedicated Facebook album. The restoration of the personal-professional barrier on Facebook is a boon to twenty-somethings like me —who have been on the site since college. With this type of content permissioning firmly in place, all kinds of people are free to start using Facebook as a professional network as well as a place for friends to congregate. This imbues a number of old questions with new importance:

• How do I manage my professional relationships on Facebook?
• What is the proper etiquette for a friend request?
• What are the special concerns for professional women on Facebook?
• How will these granular permissions play out?
• What features would make Facebook an even better place for professionals to network in the future?

We’ll be asking and discussing these questions and more in a session at the upcoming Web Community Forum conference in a session entitled “Facebook for Professionals.” What do you guys think? How are you using the site to network professionally? Personally? Where does the divide create conflict?

Well I am very excited to let everyone know that we are are launching our newest application with Dank Apps called BE SANTA. This is something that I am very excited about and we are def testing the Facebook landscape a little bit with your Virtual and Real goods ideas. Jason Beckerman and the entire Dank Apps team has worked really hard on this now it is up to the users. I did a little video blog to talk about the launch that day. As you can see my family and I have a lot of fun and my brother and sister wanted to get in on the action. 

Today is our last day in CO and I am very sad. It was a great trip and I am energized and excited about the future of our company. More importantly I am positive that building a company with my two best friends was the smartest most rewarding thing I have ever done. 

So we are spending the next couple of days at a nice Condo in Colorado. The Carrot Creative Colorado Condo if you will. This little work trip could not come at a better time. The three of us have been working insane amount of hours and need a break to clear our head and remember that we are best friends that share the same vision of building something awesome and positive together. I have included a little video showing off the place.  

This week, I attended ad-tech in New York City. I, along with the rest of the Carrot Crew, was interested to see how the advertising and marketing industries are responding to the emergence and progression of Web 2.0 tools. And although I was unable to attend the entire week’s worth of events, my overall impression of the conference is that the advertising and marketing industries still do not “get it”when it comes to Social Media. I attended the conference with good friend Danny Epstein, the CEO of Pmbuzz.com, a nightlife social network based in New York City. While it was great to talk with Danny, the majority of my day was spent in the Expo listening to advertising companies, about fifty that I spoke with, drone on about the same diluted niche services and mass publisher marketing without properly knowing how to access the value of Social Media. I felt like I was in high school all over again, listening to my “wise beyond his years” biology teacher tell me why biology was important but never showing me how this information benefited me.

After attending similar conferences on the west coast, meeting business professionals that understand the importance of Social Media and how to effectively leverage its benefits, I assumed that the same atmosphere would transcend to New York City at one of the most revered Ad conferences. Once again, the old adage about assuming stands true. Yet, while I was overly disappointed in the Expo, I remain resilient in the notion that there are a lot of talented and savvy business professionals on the east coast that know how to leverage the power of the Social Media to promote quality products.

On a positive note, I was able to get tons of free SCHWAG…I like that word…I bet its not the last time I will be talking about it. 

Wednesday evening I had the opportunity to attended Facebook Developer Garage in NYC with Jason Beckerman and Mike Radparvar. As part of a global effort to link Facebook-minded business professionals with developers, the event was held at Daylife.com’s new headquarters. A huge thank you goes out to DayLife for providing a great venue for the event. If you would like to keep track of future Facebook Developer Garage events, and you are in the tri-state area, check out the Facebook Developer Garage Group.

Overall, we enjoyed the Garage as it did provide for some new insight into the future of the Facebook platform, some libations and plenty of my favorite food—pizza. However, it was apparent that not everyone present was as committed to creative, quality content for Facebook as the Carrot Crew is. I can always expect to get a hearty chuckle out of these events, watching business slicksters in expensive suits beg and plead with young programmers, sporting a Home Star Runner T-shirt and ripped jeans, to get rich quick in the “Facebook Craze.” Still, there was a decent amount of new information available and always opportunity to connect with like-minded Facebook professionals.

I, along with Jason and Phil from Dank Apps, presented the LOTTO to the Garage and it was well received with congratulations and constructive comments. And, yes, we did give a small plug for any designers or developers interested in working for a cutting-edge, fun company, to join the Carrot Crew or Dank Apps. After the presentation, we grabbed a few Brooklyn Brews with a great crowd or developers, designers, professionals and friends alike.

First off, I want to send out a huge hello to all the great people I had the opportunity to meet in San Jose last week at Graphing Social Patterns: The Business & Technology of Facebook, is a conference designed for both technical developers and business professionals to better understand the current landscape of Facebook and discuss best practices in utilizing and distributing Facebook applications. The LOTTO, along with ten other applications, was presented at the conference and judged accordingly. Our presentation was strong and sparked intrigue and laughter as we love keeping these conferences light-hearted. And although we did not win the highest honors at the conference, our application received the most installs, so I would like to think we were the “peoples’ champ.” Rodney Rumford for Facereviews.com liked it so much that he interviewed us for his blog. 

An election defeat is never funny however you need to laugh at it sometimes. The other day a friend called me laughing hysterically and told me to look at the picture on Hamden Daily News This Gentleman was holding this sign that was at the polls all day along with several other  volunteers from the “Hamden Taxpayers Association”. None of the people that held the sign were from the district and most of them were not even registered democrats. The Taxpayers Association told me they could not support me because I voted against a phased in evaluation. I have my feelings about the group but I think this sign says it all    To think 6 different members of the “Hamden Taxpayers Association” stood outside with this sign and didn’t even realize they had spelt Taxpayers wrong. Priceless.  Picture Credit: Sharon Bass www.hamdendailynews.com I wish I could reference the article but she doesn’t understand websites and makes long webpages.  

Extra! Extra! Read all about one of my good friends and CEO of Teach The People & Dank Apps Jason Beckerman was featured at Wired Magazine online. I can not begin to describe my excitement in having my favorite magazine, one that I greatly respect and continuously reread every month, feature a client and friend that is near and dear to the Carrot. I am so proud of Jason and happy that my company and myself are working with him. Be sure to check out TTP in the upcoming months, and let us know what you think of the design