Popular At Quora, PlanCast

General Assembly: A Floor, A Building, A City Block

Image by Laughing Squid via FlickrGeneral Assembly is such a good idea - and right now it is two floors - that I think it deserves to be an entire building, perhaps a city block. If you have not visited already, you should. Go make your pilgrimage.

It has been designed just right. When you are in front of your computer, you are in front of your computer. And there should be a headphone rule. When your ears are covered, you are saying do not disturb.

But then there are times when you want to be in a big, open space. There are times when you want to hold meetings. Small meetings, big meetings.

And it has a great business model. If it has 90 occupants paying $500 each, I am doing the math and the numbers are looking great. And there is a long waiting list, 100 strong, I think. General Assembly could easily occupy another floor.

The Real Time Social Graph, Transient Social Graphs

Image by Laughing Squid via FlickrWhen you say social graph, you talk of friends, as in people you have known, people who were you friends yesterday, are today, will be tomorrow. That is a long tail. And there are many services that have done a good job of curating those social graphs. Facebook, of course, is the grand daddy of them all.

But I see a major void in the real time social graph.

I use several services to plan what events I wish to go to. And that is another space that could use much better services. I use PlanCast, but PlanCast is not populated enough with events. Users find it too hard to create events, and not enough events get created. And not enough event organizers are using it yet. I also use Charlie O'Donnell's events newsletter.