How To Split An Atom

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“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” -Stephen Leacock

. . . And the following ads do that job just a little bit better.

Kill Bill Bloodevator

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Last week I listened to the audio of a panel from PodCamp NYC. The panel featured Matthew Ebel, C.C. Chapman, Dan Patterson, Christopher Penn and Whitney Hoffman and covered the use of social media in the current presidential campaign. The panel discussion got me thinking about just how effective the use of social media has been in gaining support for the candidacies of the presidential contenders.

With so many solutions to the aggregation problem, I want to know what you think about the options currently available. Do you think that aggregators are doing their job? If not, what is the right solution?

Space may not be quite as far away as you think.

A California company, J.P Aerospace, is allowing anyone to send anything from a marshmallow to a small billboard into near-space on the cheap. The vehicle they are using is a small satellite that they lift into the upper atmosphere using nothing more than a pair of Helium balloons.

Safety is important, no one will argue that, but encouraging rampant paranoia is an entirely different bag of worms. Cue, Business Safe, a new initiative in Florida to help you turn in any “unsavory types” who might be prowling around a storefront near you.

How much information do you produce in a week? month?

Between Blog Posts, Flickr Uploads, YouTube Videos, Tweets, Texts and Tags for some of us the amount is frightening.

How much of that information can you find?

That was the point of aggregation, to collect all of the digital detritus floating out on the web and sweep it into one place. Services that currently exist for this purpose seem, at least, to fall short of that mark. It’s not that they aren’t aggregating our data, everything from Friendfeed on down does that pretty well. What they fail to do is give us a coherent picture of our digital identities.

Having spoken about advertising last week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at a product that does something a little different. Publicity Wheel combines a banner exchange with a game of chance. Once a week a site in the network is chosen and then promoted by all the other network members. The result is a large influx of traffic for that period. Mark Schumann, the sites creator explains the concept and a few things he has learned.

Ben Yoskovitz is the CEO & Co-Founder of Standout Jobs, which offers Reception, a software product to help companies build more engaging and interactive career sites.

Companies can give candidate’s the information they want and market their jobs more effectively. He’s also an active blogger on startups and entrepreneurship at Instigator Blog.

One of the hardest things for startups is hiring great people. And one of the big reasons is that too few startups devote enough time to hiring; they’re too busy with a million other things. Without a doubt, there are a million things you need to do in order for a startup to succeed. But one of the most important - if not the most important - is hiring.

With that in mind, here are 8 tips to help you hire for your startup:

We want to think that all the new tools that we use have ushered in a brand new conversation economy. The question is, has it really? Why do you use Twitter, Facebook or Myspace? Do you use them? Leave your vote and tell us your story.

This came to me via email, I thought it would be interesting for anyone who happens to be in the San Francisco area tomorrow.

Sun is hosting a free event called “Startup Camp” in San Francisco on May 4-5, 2008 to allow startups to participate in an un-conference networking event to hear from some web 2.0 authorities, meet other startups and apply to Sun’s Startup Essentials Program. The event also includes SpeedGeeking, where startup founders can compete in the Best Startup Contest by presenting a 5-minute pitch of their business to VC led groups of peers. Confirmed guests include: Pete Cashmore, Jonathan Schwartz, David Berlind, Om Malik, Matt Marshall etc. This event is a great way for startups to network and discuss ideas.

If you do make it out to the event, be sure to leave a comment here about what you thought.

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