Realize that before you succeed it will seem like you have failed

Anand has referenced the Texas startup blog that lists some advice on would-be entrepreneurs:

• Commit 13 months to making the business a success.
• Prepare your family for the 13 month commitment and get their buy-in.
• Work on and in your business for 12 hours a day (including weekends).
• Be prepared not to make any money for the first 13 months.
• Be prepared to change your business plan over and over until you get it right.
• Be prepared to do everything yourself.
• Be prepared to fight with your partners, spouse, friends and family.
• Realize that before you succeed it will seem like you have failed – don’t give up.
• Realize that if it was easy everyone would do it

I particularly liked the “Realize that before you succeed it will seem like you have failed – don’t give up.” I believe that is true to a great extent for any non-traditional, move that has enough risk in it, to make it an opportunity. There are times before you see the success that it would seem that you’ve failed.

PodTube – Download YouTube videos to your iPod in 1 click

With PodTube you can download YouTube videos to your iPod in 1 click.

PodTube can download, encode to MPEG4, and add to your iTunes librairy any YouTube video your are viewing with Safari. Enjoy!

BillMonk Video by Co-Founders, Gaurav Oberoi & Chuck Groom

The co-founders of BillMonk.com share in this video, at the Google Techtalk, their background, design & UI decisions that they made when working on BillMonk and the lessons learnt.

ABSTRACT The web 2.0 bubble inflates as geeks pump out an astonishing number of web-based solutions to daily problems. But a lot of these solutions only appeal to a small niche. What goes into a service that appeals to a broad range of people?

How can it start and grow without a generous helping of capital? The two guys behind BillMonk.com, a service for helping friends with the casual borrowing of money and stuff, will share their views from the trenches. They will share the story of what it took to quit their comfy jobs at Amazon, how a handful of philosophical axioms dictated the entire site design and interface, anthropological observations about the 18-26 year-old demographic with respect to money and computers, and some of the technical challenges they’ve faced. There will be room for discussion about Ruby, Linux, when to open-source parts of your platform, and business lessons for geeks. 

VideoEgg Hatches $12 Million in Funding

I have been using VideoEgg a lot these days. Their service is simple, easy to use & powerful.

They got another $12 million in Round C funding.

VideoEgg, a social video ad network which launched on Monday, has just announced it has received $12 million in round C funding, headed by venture firm Maveron. August Capital and First Round Capital, two of VideoEgg’s existing investors, also contributed.

VideoEgg will use the new funds to expand the ad network and make VideoEgg videos more attractive to publishers. Currently users of sites like Bebo, Hi5, AOL, Dogster, Tagged, and Current TV can post videos from any devices using the VideoEgg system.

Yahoo acquires Web video-editing company Jumpcut

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Internet media giant Yahoo Inc. said on Wednesday it had acquired Jumpcut, a site that provides simple-to-use online video-editing tools, its latest bid to enhance its Web video services offerings.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Six-month-old Jumpcut of San Francisco provides Web users a free set of online video editing tools that give people the ability to manipulate moving video images without the need to own or install software on their own computers.

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mxGraph – Javascript Graphs on Steroids

mxGraphs is a Javascript library that uses built-in browser capabilities to provide an interactive drawing and diagramming solution. mxGraph outperforms all existing solutions in startup time, interactivity and functionality. Watch the screencast here.

Leveraging the latest in browser and web technologies, mxGraph is the ultimate solution for drawing diagrams in a browser. Using open standards, mxGraph does not depend on any third-party plugins and proprietary software. mxGraph works straight out of the box, no client configuration, no plugin installation, no platform dependencies – it just works!

It allows drag & drop of shapes, lines, images with various colors & pens. It also lets you specify opacity, fill colors, gradient color etc for the shapes, all thru pure Javascript, pretty amazing. I have been using Gliffy for a while that provides the same functionality but is built in Flash. mxGraph is a great example on how much you can do with pure JS and the browser.

VoIP, Skype Blocking in Third World Countries

Russell Shaw writes about VoIP blocking in third world countries. Namibia is going for people using VoIP and five people have been busted for using Internet for VoIP. 2 years ago, there was a bust in Belarus as well and there is complete prohibition of VoIP in Bangladesh.

It reminds me that it wasn’t long ago  (little over 4 years) that VoIP was completely banned in India as well & you had to sign a contract with VSNL (state owned only net provider at that time) that you won’t be using net for anything else than viewing web sites, and sites such as Dialpad etc were not allowed in India.

Compared to that, VoIP is on a huge rise now, Skype & Yahoo Voice messenger are extremely popular. Calling cards rates have dropped about 800% and you can call New Delhi now for 3 cents per minute & Hydrabad for 1.5 cents per minute. It is also important to note that India still doesn’t have huge infrastructure, in terms of phone lines, compared to most European countries.

Splogs or Spam Blogs on the Rise

Increasing popularity of blogs has given birth to another industry called Splogs or Blam!. Splogs or spam blogs are the blogs that are created purely for the purpose of promoting affiliated sites. It is often used for providing links to other affiliated sites and monetizing on pay-per-click programs such as Google Adsense.

Contrary to spamming blogs with Spam content, Splogs have fake articles and often that content that is just syndicated from other legit sites. Sploggers are using commercial softwares to scrap content from other sites and then posting them as blogs on Blogger.com or WordPress.com  

Here is a paper that lists out various toolsthat are used by Sploggers. and sites such as blogging to the bank that are being used for Splogging.

Here in an article in september edition of Wierd edition on Splogs: Spam + Blogs = Trouble

Pakistan: U.S. threatened to bomb us back to Stone Age

Pakistan president in an interview to 60 minutes says that United States threatened to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the 9/11 attacks if he did not help America’s war on terror.

“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,’ ” Musharraf said in the interview to be shown Sunday on the CBS television network.

President Bush in an interview earlier with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer when asked if someone points to the location of Osama will he send the troops into Pakistan, he said “Absolutely!”. To this Musharraf has said he would oppose any such action by US in it’s territory and that they will take action themselves.

Many people including a lot of people within Pakistan have tried to figure out the reasons behind Pakistan’s support for US led war on Terrorism. People have alleged in past that Pakistan who is notorios for supporting Terrorism heavily was bought by US as tens of billions of dollars of economic debt was waived of as Pakistan’s co-operation for the war. In any case, It is really unfortunate that a key ally in US war on Terror has made such remarks.

The meeting between Bush and Musharraf tomorrow at White House would be an interesting one after these opposing comments from both of them and specially Musharraf’s allegations against US.

PodCampWest Announced – San Francisco, Nov 18-19th

PodCamp West has been announced. It would be held in San Francisco on Nov 18t-19th. The Wiki is up and running. Go ahead and Register, if you plan to attend the PodCamp West.

PodcampWest is Free BarCamp style UnConference, for bloggers and readers, podcasters and listeners, VideoBloggers and new media of all types. PodcampWest is free to attend and was inspired by PodCamp Boston.

Podcamp is for people interested in new media. Bloggers, Podcasters, Video Bloggers (Vloggers) are who the conference serves best. If you’re interested in doing something with new media, you’ll want to attend. Are you an individual or school or library wondering how to incorporate podcasting into projects and community events? Are you a corporation type wondering how you should get involved in new Media. more…