The PayCheckr Promise

Allan Hoving showed up in the comments section of this blog post: New York Times, Don't Die, Live. Maintaining my good blogger practices, I replied to his comment. We moved from the comments sections to email to the phone to a three way with someone on his team. Some of his demo round people who had gone to sleep came back from the dead.

I have ended up with an arrangement with PayCheckr that leaves plenty of room for my primary startup, and my three active blogs. There is the promise of creating major value with the button, but then there are also the learning opportunities.

Allan took me to a media conference along the L line near the Apple store. The famed NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen was the star attraction. I got up to ask a question.

Image via CrunchBase

The team has been telecommuting for the most part. Skype works great for conference calls. And of course there are meetings, with investors, potential partners. Allan is a big picture person. He is the visionary type.

I think PayCheckr is after something big. News, if anything, is more important than ever before. News is not dying, it is thriving like never before. But newspapers are dropping like flies. The blogosphere is expanding like the universe after the Big Bang. Somewhere in there is big money for publishers small and large. That is what PayCheckr is betting on. Money is going to be made.

Image via Wikipedia

PayCheckr is a good thing for me to get involved in on the side. I have three active blogs and two startups. My involvement with PayCheckr is good for my own startup: JyotiConnect Inc..

What we have out there is PayCheckr demo. We are working on PayCheckr 1.0. I am hoping PayCheckr 3.0 is a button that an entity like the New York Times would want to put on its site.

What could be PayCheckr's exit strategy? One would be to get the button on 10 million

Image via CrunchBase

blogs and sell it off for 10 million dollars. But then the MySpace guys sold MySpace for $500 million and Rupert Murdoch, in weeks, turned around and got Google to pay him $900 million to be allowed to serve ads on the MySpace property. Why did not the founders cut that deal?

Steve Outing: PayCheckr: the ‘ShareThis’ for donation, pay options

As author of this blog, I’d love to have lots of options for readers to send a few cents (or dollars!) my way if they like my writing or find value in it. But this blog could easily get overwhelmed with donation graphics from all the different services! ........ I’ve been looking for the solution, which is an obvious one: a ShareThis-like widget that aggregates all the solutions for payment and/or donation. The first such solution appears to be PayCheckr........ I’ve been looking for someone to come up with something like this, and PayCheckr founder Allan Hoving appears to be the first. Somehow he evaded my radar, since minOnline gave the fledgling service a write-up in late July.

Steve Smith: PayCheckr: Let ’Em Pay! Any Way They Like

“We have customized everything else [online], why not let us choose how to pay for it?” Hoving says. ...... the button is designed to aggregate the monetization opportunities a site already uses and let the visitor decide how they want to

Image via CrunchBase

remunerate the owner. ....... “We may be the delightful, easy-to-use interface between the publisher and the reader,” Hoving says. “We make the introduction and then get out of the way. Another way is to get more involved in transactions and perhaps fulfillments.” ....... At the very least, PayCheckr could be a clearinghouse and analytics engine for monetization opportunities. ...... Hoving has worked in a variety of magazine positions over the years at New York, Rolling Stone and Thomson Financial.

Netizen is the very first blog that put the PayCheckr button on. Let that be noted. History got made.

PayCheckr - Keeping what's read in the black
PayCheckr.com (PayCheckr) on Twitter
PayCheckr
Netizen: PayCheckr Potential
Netizen: PayCheckr: Bringing Money Into Blogging?
PayCheckr: Let 'Em Pay! Any Way They Like :: MinOnline
#hashtags - paycheckr
PayCheckr: Let Em Pay! Any Way They Like :: MinOnline
Twitter / PayCheckr.com: @Mediabistro @NiemanLab @T ...
paycheckr.com - Steve Outing - FriendFeed
USER-CENTRIC ONLINE REVENUE MODEL (pat. pend.) « PayCheckr
PayCheckr: This content is sponsored by PayCheckr.com
Allan Hoving - FriendFeed
Yes, News Sites Are Facing A Crisis, But Aggregators Aren't The ...
Mark Cuban Is a Big Fat Idiot—News Will Stay Free
Flickr: ahoving's Photostream
The death of snail mail & Sunday papers « BuzzMachine
Allan_Hoving on HuffingtonPost
digiday:DAILY - FT Editor Finds "Inexorable" Revenue Model
Raise Your Hand If You Think Media People Have a Future

The PayCheckr button is a piece of real estate that will increase in value as online publishing steps up to the plate, and as the button itself morphs and makes itself valuable and easy to use for publishers and bloggers in general. The challenge is to benefit from the first mover advantage but also spring forth the muscle and finesse of latecomers. It is going to be a wild ride, that's for sure.

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Netizen: The First Blog To Place The PayCheckr Button
The PayCheckr Promise
PayCheckr Potential
PayCheckr: Bringing Money Into Blogging?

NY Tech MeetUp: Gravitas

September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

The September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp was really something. You had some NYU and Columbia folks demonstrate some cutting edge stuff - taking image and video search to a whole new level - and you had the inventor of the spreadsheet show up: Dan Bricklin.

Image via Wikipedia

Dan was introduced by Anil Dash. Anil is a Desi like me. He has been blogging for 10 years now. He started blogging when the word blog did not exist yet, and is friends with the guy who coined the term: blog.

I shared a small anxiety with Anil: [WordPress #336657]: Not Being Able To Leave Comments.

Anil Dash On Google Wave

I showed up half an hour early and saw the point in showing up early. I bumped into Mark Peter Davis on the way up. We briefly chatted about our mutual friend Adam Carson. Adam and I met first through the NYTM mailing list.

As I walked into the hall, Nate Westheimer walked up and out.

"Is there an early bird special?" I teased him. He laughed.

Showing up early meant I got to chit chat with Anil Dash, then Dan Bricklin, and Bricklin's son in law who I sat next to the entire show.

Nate: Why Tomorrow Night's NYTM Is So Important

I lingered afterwards until they kicked us out. Then I got to hang out with two members from ScienceHouse on the sidewalk. Gabi was officially the last person to vacate the premises an

Image via Wikipedia

d has a picture to prove it.

I guess they did not announce a bar for the after party for this one. Usually they do.

It was a relief to experience a long presentation by Bricklin. Usually the demo people get five minutes. Next you know Nate is breathing down your neck. I guess that is how he creates spots for many presenters.

Towards the end I met a Desi, a Pakistani, who had moved from Dubai only a week or so ago: Adnan Rafik. He claimed to have visited my blog. He recognized me from my picture. "Robert De Niro has only one of these!" It helped that I left a comment on the NYTM page of MeetUp that had my blog's web address.

If you have a startup, you likely have a small team. You need to show up once a month for the tech meetup to imbibe the energy of the hundreds in attendance.

I had the honor of asking the first question to Bricklin. MeetUp CEO, Founder Scott asked the second. This was my first question ever at a tech meetup. It helped that I had got to know Anil right before the show started. He spotted me and handed me the mic.

"With HTML 5 and beyond, do you think the online spreadsheets will end up with much richer functionalities and features than the desktop versions?"

He said they already have. People get to collaborate online. Many people can be working on the same spreadsheet.

"Hi, I am Paramendra with JyotiConnect Incorporated," I began.

For me personally the most touching part of Bricklin's presentation was when someone from the audience asked him if because of the One Laptop Per Child people are getting smarter everywhere.

"People are smart everywhere before the laptop," he said. "They are human." This was the utter, matter of fact non-racism of an extraordinary mind.

Before the show began, and I positioned myself behind Anil's seat and did not realize I was sitting only two seats from Bricklin - at one point I was about to ask him, excuse me, but are you someone famous - and I got into small talk with Bricklin and realized here was a guy who knew Bill Gates and Bill Gates knew before Bill Gates became Bill Gates.

"What was he like?" I asked.

"Oh. He was and is the same guy you see on Charlie Rose," he said.

I found the answer so very disarming. Bill Gates is just human.

http://twitter.com/paramendra/status/3718180749
http://twitter.com/DanB/status/3719386089
http://twitter.com/DanB/status/3718554278

Dan Bricklin CNet Video

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Ultimate Paintball

The Ultimate Paintball online store provides you with everything you need to get into the game. The prices are reasonable and shipping is free. You can choose from many brands.

Where is your paintball gear?

Get colored. Get colorful. Spread the joy.

They sell "Tippmann, Spyder, Smart Parts, Dye, Empire, Draxxus paintball gear plus many more brands."

Shipping is free.

The top selling items: "Tippmann A-5, Tippmann 98 Custom, Smart Parts Ion, Tippmann X7, and Spyder MR1."

Get in the zone, the color zone.

Zenni Optical: High Fashion Eyeglasses

Remember Zenni Optical during this back to school season when you are shopping around for glasses for your children. Do you have children who wear glasses? Do they sometimes break them or lose them? Or perhaps even often? Does that end up costing you a lot of money? Are you looking to be able to afford ($ 8 Rx eyeglasses) fashionable glasses for your children?

• Zenni Optical on TV!!!
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Heritage Lists

American Heritage Data Corporation is among the leading list companies in America.

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Mailing lists stand toe to toe with search engine optimization as essential marketing in today's online economy.

American Heritage Data Corporation serves businesses of all sizes. It integrates mailing lists with broad marketing solutions. It has assembled some of the top minds in direct marketing. It has more data than the competition, "the most active, unique, and responsive in the industry." Get your no obligation first consultation.

American Heritage Data Corporation not only has the best lists in the industry, it is constantly updating those lists, and constantly conducting data mining into those lists to refine them and better target them. Lists get assembled, expanded, polished for better results.

Are you in the Inbox yet?

Webimax

Webimax is a name associated with Search Engine Optimization. SEO is key to online marketing. If you can not show up in the search results that go with the key terms associated with your business, it is as if your business does not exist. You don't have a storefront.

Search Engine Optimization is not necessarily about gaming the system. It is about making sure you are doing the best you can to help the search engines find you. The search engines do want to find you. With a little help from your side, they can find you better, easier. That is where Webimax comes into the picture.

Webimax is a top name in the SEO game. "The owner, Ken Wisnefski, was recently named to the Philadelphia Business Journal's 40 Top Entrepreneurs Under the Age of 40."

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Firstrade

Firstrade: Online Brokerage Firm

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Simple and affordable. For you. For the casual and serious investor alike. One of the lower charging online brokers. 10,000 types of mutual funds offered.

Firstrade: Online Brokerage Firm

• Online Trading
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This is a great online only place for early investors. It is cheap, it is easy. They don't ask for a minimum amount in the thousands of dollars before you can start investing.

The site is very easy to navigate. It scores high on functionality. Firstrade does stocks, bonds, mutual funds. Many reviewers have ranked it above Schwab, Ameritrade and Etrade.

Anil Dash On Google Wave

Image via CrunchBase

Best Of Anil Dash

• In Defense Of Marriage
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• Six Years Of Blogging
• Brooklyn (Pretty Much) Rules
• Google's First Mistake
• On Being An American
  

Anil Dash: What Works: The Web Way vs. The Wave Way

Google Wave is an impressive set of technologies ..... whether Wave will succeed as overall in becoming a popular standard for communications on the web ...... I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way. ...... When RSS feeds were new, it was easy to understand their potential immediately ........ Combines chat, document editing, and message threading — wikis + blogs + comments + IM ....... Delivered as a very polished rich user interface

Bill Gates, Chrome OS, Natal, Wave
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September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

A special talk by Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of the spreadsheet, followed by an interview with web luminary Anil Dash.

Demos of mind-blowing tech developed at our local universities:

- GreenDot (computer vision tech developed at NYU)
- CuZero (advanced video search developed at Columbia)
- Musically Intelligent Machines (developed at Columbia)
- "Teaching Robots to See" (technology developed at NYU)

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What's The Big Deal About Real Time?

Image via CrunchBase

Real time has been all the rage. Twitter opened up the Pandora's box. Now everyone wants to do everything real time. The fact that something is real time seems to be more valuable than the content thus delivered. I think this whole thrust for real time is the web wanting to reach its promise. If some event took place 10,000 miles away, I should know about it in real time. That just makes sense. So, no, my attempt is not to belittle real time.

I have tried to content from another angle. What if there were a search engine that would take minutes to find exactly what I am looking for, or even days, months? What if I am doing cutting edge research and there are unanswered questions. I don't know where the answer will come from, but once it does, I want to be able to know, in real time. But can I put my query in now, and have my search query result delivered to me when it is finally available? The result should come to me no matter where it pops up on the web. That is real time, but then it is not. That would be a really smart search engine that knows exactly what I am looking for, and that keeps searching, and that is still searching when the right result is not available yet. But once it is, the engine delivers me the result. In real time.

I want to be talking to people I don't personally know, I want to be talking to dead people, I want to be talking to people not yet born. With real time, sometimes you can get caught among people you already know. That is not a bad thing, but that is such an incomplete circle.

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CubanSpeak: Controversial Take On Entrepreneurs

Success & Motivation: What Entrepreneurs Should NOT Do Mark Cuban

If you got a billion dollars, and you claim you have people pitch business plans to you every day, I believe you. But I don't have to take the rest of the rant.

Cuban's blog post tells me it is as hard to be an investor as it is to be an entrepreneur. How do you figure out which horse to bet on? Even the obvious ones are not obvious, or Yahoo would have bought Google when Google offered to be bought not long after launch.

If you want to keep your money safe, keep saying no. You will have your treasure minus the inflation. But if you are wanting to grow your money, or even grow it like crazy, then not being able to find that dark horse must really itch.

And as for tall talk, only a handful of companies engage in paradigm shift products and services in each generation. It is hard to spot them, it is hard to get in once you do spot them. But a young Steve Jobs always talked in terms of changing the world, and changing the course of world history. He did deliver. He invented an industry.

How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? That is harder than picking the winning stocks on the stock market. You need instincts, instincts that deliver.

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Memory Upgrade

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LinkBuildingWiki.com

I don't know if someone told you, but we now live in a link economy. You might have great content, you might even be a big brand from the pre-web era, but unless many many websites and blogs link to you, you are not going to show up high in the Google search results. And if you don't, it is like you are not even around.

Links are all the rage. Links are the currency that the web economy thrives on. Link building is a fundamental activity. If you are convinced link building is important, and are now looking to learn how to do it, one great option you have is to visit LinkBuildingWiki.com that lists hundreds of articles, blogs, and websites that will help you with the exercise.