Thoughts in Time

I haven’t posted for awhile because I’ve been super busy with transitioning from my role at Higher One and getting things rolling with the new business. We’re still keeping fairly quiet about what we’re doing, however I want to share a few things and then am going to be blogging consistently as the business, and my life, evolves. The business is a consumer Internet oriented company. It’s about doing things within the now socially connected internet. It’s about entertainment and fun with friends. The cool thing is that we’re going global from day 1. We’re building a great team. Johannes Larcher, who built Overture’s international business has joined as CEO. We raised seed funding from First Round Capital (Chris Fralic and Josh Kopelman). Most importantly, with the business I’m moving to London to get our UK office started. A second act in a second country - just thinking about all the things this involves is mind blowing. Starting with no network, no office, no place to live! It’s going to be a great new challenge, but hey - that’s why we’re doing it. Stay tuned

Haven’t blogged for a while. I’ve been really busy.  I’ve started a new company (Friendent), and am happy to let everyone know that I just self published my first book, Starting Hands.  You can take a look or buy a copy here:

Starting Hands 

Unfortunately, because it is full color and self published, the price is a little high.  Hope people like it.  I am planning on publishing the full book online as an e-book for free at startinghands.com - when I get around to it.  Please add it to your reading list. 

So… I login to Amazon the other day to make a purchase, and am confronted with “my very own plog” or “personal web log” as Amazon explains it to me. I did a web search to see if Plog had been used this way more generally. There are people on Technorati who use the terms plog and blog almost interchangeably. The question is, as Amazon now exposes this term to the world, will it become as common a part of the lexicon as “blog”… will it surge passed “vlog” in popularity? Only time will tell… Just for fun I purchased “BizPlog.com.” I figure if the term becomes popular, someone might like that domain .

At dinner the other night, Dean suggested an interesting idea. The idea of “the perfect post”. What is a perfect post? Basically it’s a post that ends a string of comments on a blog or message board, essentially killing the thread. We dubbed this “threadkilling”…. seems like a challenge, and kind of a fun game. Why not turn it into an idea and share it with the blogosphere….So here it is, and I’m going to launch www.ThreadKill.com to focus on that idea and share the gossible of stopping stupid conversations on the internet… If you want to participate, let me know.

Full Disclaimer - This experiment involves gambling - I don’t condone gambling - If you gamble, please do so responsibly.

So - I’ve been reading about people making money blogging and through their web sites through ad words. I haven’t seen too many blogs that detail exactly how people do this or how they’re doing. In the entrepreneurial spirit, I thought I’d start a little experiment. I like poker. I don’t like gambling… but online - the biggest payments for affiliates come from online gambling and poker sites… So - I thought I’d start a blog about gambling. Now - these sorts of blogs do exist - witness - the party poker blog, or Ken Smith’s Black Jack Blog, thus I would have to figure out a niche.

This got me thinking - why do people gamble? It’s the big payout right? It’s the chance to win the millions….It’s hard for people to understand that if they play slots, they will slowly lose 1% of whatever the house edge is…So -the most interesting way to set up a site in this genre would be to combine information about the games, tips, tricks, advice, how to’s, with reviews of outrageous items that you would buy with the big winnings. Think of it as “Card Player” crossed with “The DuPont Registry.”

Ok - so I have my theme. Now for a name… Win Big - Live Large… That works - also - I don’t want to do this on SeanGlass.com - I don’t condone gambling. It’s entertainment and should be treated that way. Set a limit, etc. etc. That being said (again)…

What next
1. Sign up for affiliate Programs
2. Setup Blog - I decided to use Google’s Blogger
3. Write first entry
4. (Repeat)

1. I chose to sign up for Party Gaming’s affiliate programs. Why? They’re a public operation in the UK, their sites have good brand names, and I doubt they will not pay me what I’m due. They also have casino, bingo, and poker sites. I will also sign up for traditional affiliate sites like buy.com and amazon as I’d like to refer people to books and nice items to buy with their winnings (ok - so Amazon’s not high end, but I’ll get there when I start writing those reviews… when I’ll have time- I don’t know… maybe I’ll let my brother write these and give him revenue sharing. He’s an aspiring director - Glass Bottle Productions - and could use some passive income.

2. I chose to setup a new blog outside of my site - as mentioned above - this is an experiment and I’d like to be able to easily shut it down at a later date…. The Blog to see and send to your friends is
WinBigLiveLarge.Blogspot.com…
3. It’s in progress…
4. I’ll let you know as they happen.

As I slowly build content on the site and start to get hits, I’ll post updates. My plan is to also publish my results each month. Will it work? I don’t know, but 20 minutes of writing a night is worth it for an interesting experiment.