Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Jason Shellen Ustream Archive

For anyone interested, here's the ustream archive of Jason Shellen speaking with our students that I blogged about previously. He starts speaking right about the 5 minute mark. Ustream allowed me to "cut" the video so it should start at that point, but it appears to be inconsistent so you may have to fast forward to the 5 minute mark. (It appears that if you go to ustream and watch it there, it starts at the almost 5 minute mark. If you play it in the blog, it starts at the beginning.) My live tweets are below the ustream.



108. Starting ustream now. Class starts in about 5 minutes. http://bit.ly/13MP8H about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

107. Students are hearing from @shellen started with Pyra labs, bought by Google when they brought in Blogger, then prod manager 4 Google Reader about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

106. He's now at Thing Labs, makers of Brizzly. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck


105. He was an art major in college. Didn't think he would need any business knowledge. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

104. Graduated college in 96, web was just coming on the scene. He took a class called "web publishing" about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

103. He thought it was fantastic as an artist that he could put his work out there on the web and control the way it looked. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

102. http://bit.ly/16U1hw for the live stream about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

101. In 1999 started Blogger - a way to get yourself online easily about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

100. about five of them working together in a basement in San Francisco about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

99. He joined them and worked with them to build relationships with larger companies to try to make a little money with Blogger about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

98. In 2003 we had the opportunity to sell to Google - so we did. We had about a million users at that point. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

97. We could accept venture financing and see what happens, or we could join Google and hope that blogging explodes. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

96. We chose to join Google to raise awareness of blogging. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

95. Once he joined Google they though things were going well, but he wanted to find a better way to read and keep up with blogs about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

94. Built a prototype called Fusion (looked a lot like Facebook does now) with one other guy at Google about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

93. It then developed into a product called Google Reader. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

92. It's one of the best ways to subscribe to content on the web. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

91. Stayed at Google for about 4.5 years. 600 people when he joined, 16000 when he left. He liked working in small teams. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

90. He wanted to get back out there and solve problems with people, so he started Thing Labs in June of 2009 about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

89. In January they launched their first product. It's done okay, but he's not really excited about it. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

88. So now he created something he likes better. Brizzly. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

87. A social web reader. Twitter integration, coming out with Facebook support next week. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

86. Trying to streamline your interaction with Twitter, Facebook, etc. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

85. Also focused on the growing phenomenon. People are talking about current events on the web. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

84. Easier to get your news from real people now, not just CNN, MSNBC about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

83. Live stream at http://bit.ly/16U1hw about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

82. You're okay with hearing things through a status update, doesn't have to be highly polished. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

81. Tries out new things and see what sticks. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

80. None of these tools wouldn't be anything without the people involved with it. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

79. Now kids are going to ask questions. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

78. Q: What actually happens when a large company approached a small company and offers to buy it? What's the process? about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

77. They were approached by a friend of a friend. Sergie Brin approached them through a friend. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

76. He thought they were going to talk about a business deal, not buying them. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

75. .@shellen is speaking to a Business Principles class, so they're asking about how to run a business, startup issues, venture capital about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

74. Hard to value these things. Google wasn't a public company, so hard to value them. We said we think you're worth $1 billion, they came back about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

73. with we think we're worth $3 billion - hard to figure out what things are worth when no public share price. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

72. Q: Kylie asks: How does a product like Brizzly make money when you don't charge for it? about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

71. Difficult to make money from day 1. For any sight that deals with people, it's visually repellent if you ask for money up front. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

70. We do have a long range plan, a way to monetize something other than just visiting the web page. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

69. Try to build users first, then monetize it. Now talking about Twitter in relation to that. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

68. Facebook didn't turn ads on until they had 100 million users. The economics change when you have enough users. Can make large amount . . about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

67. of money from a small amount of ads. Not as intrusive. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

66. Most models are advertising based. Next model is subscription or pay for upgraded services. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

65. With Blogger they had a free offering, but you had to pay for more features (images, spell check) - sounds silly now, but it was new then. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

64. Q: Eric asks: What will Thing Labs work on after Brizzly? about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

63. They just launched Lets Be Trends dot com about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

62. It's an application interface. Brizzly shows lots of the trends on the web. Last night it was football as a trending topic. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

61. Lets Be Trends open up that data, and let Brizzly users explain what's trending on the web. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

60. We might develop Lets Be Trends into something else, but we're asking our users right now to make the data more attractive to other people. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

59. But it's too early to really tell what's going to happen with it. We're working hard, but things change quickly. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

58. Q from Ryan: If you want to setup a website for a group or club, but didn't want to use Blogger, what would you use? about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

57. Talking about weebly.com - met the guy at a ball game. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

56. Turns out Blogger is very bad at creating a group web site. He would suggest checking out weebly - his Mom is very happy with it. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

55. Lots of people are also using Facebook fan pages, but he's not a fan of having Facebook bradning on everything. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

54. Q from Shelby: Did you ever think of a product or service, but never tried to start it? about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

53. Yes, more good ideas than there is time to implement them. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

52. The execution is so important, doing it really well. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

51. When he has an idea, he thinks about how hard it would be to do well. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

50. Sometimes it's crazy to try to build your idea. So he thinks about the simplest possible thing he can do that people can use, about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

49. and is transformative for people, and that I can do really well. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

48. Save the good ideas, because sometimes they pop up again in unlikely places. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

47. 2nd Question: Do you ever have regrets over not going with an idea? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

46. Not really. He has regrets over poor execution of ideas, or not seeing a different angle on his products. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

45. Q from Richard: How do you account/track for every action that a person can take on Brizzly? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

44. He's now talking about Google Analytics in terms of analzying what's happening on your page/product. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

43. The trouble is there's too much data, so they aggregate all user data to see trends. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

42. Brizzly is a little different - it's javascript. So they are implementing some of their own, also using Kiss metrics (sp?) about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

41. There are always bugs in any software. But he hires the right people in the first place, tries to minimize that. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

40. They use "test driven development" - write some code, test it, make sure it should work, then try it themselves. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

39. Users are then pretty vocal about letting them know. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

38. Started working on Brizzly in May - it was part acquisition so he brought on a good engineer about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

37. Rolled it out to users in the beginning of August. So about 2 months - that was fast, and it wasn't ready for prime time about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

36. It's still in private Beta, but rolling it out to more folks every day. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

35. Q from Matt: How do you name your products? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

34. There's a saying in computer science that naming is one of the hardest things. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

33. He wasn't particularly happy with the Google Reader name (he liked Fusion). about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

32. With Brizzly they came up with two terrible names. A new employee was joining them and he asked about it. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

31. They shared the names and they hated even saying what they had. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

30. Went to Brand Market (sp) dot com - found what was available. Really hard to find something not taken. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

29. Q: How do you advertise your products? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

28. Started by talking to the press. After a a few thousand users, let their users give away Brizzly invites. So relied on their users to say about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

27. they liked the product and invite their friends. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

26. Some call it viral marketing, he prefers organic. Nobody wants a virus, everybody likes organic. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

25. Q from Katie: Did you ever think you'd be where you are when you were a kid? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

24. I thoughts I was going to be a cartoonist, working on my drafting board each day. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

23. Q from Adam: Where did you get your inspiration to create Brizzly from. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

22. Talking about Evan Williams and Biz Stone. They left Google before him, they created Twitter. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

21. When they created Twitter, they invited a close group of friends, including him. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

20. By using that early version of Twitter, he got to thinking about all the ways Twitter could be better. (Facebook too). about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

19. He's always thinking about optimization, how to make thinks a little bit better. It's not revolutionary but evolutionary. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

18. When he thought about how to make Twitter/Facebook better, he thought about trends. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

17. The thing that would make this better is to have your friends with you on websites. That then moved to trends. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

16. Q: How do you find a domain that hasn't been used, then purchase and use it? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

15. There's a huge market - he uses namecheap but there are others about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

14. You enter something in, search for it, see if it's taken. There's also an aftermarket - like Brizzly was already taken, he bought it. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

13. There are also word combiner tools, help you come up with permutations, then you see if it's available. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

12. Q from Alex: How difficult is it to create your applications? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

11. (Sorry if this is too much - thought some folks might benefit from it) about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

10. Start out with a huge list of what you'd like to do, then figure out what you can actually do. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

09. IF you like sleep, then it was hard. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

08. People bring their ideas to me, because I'm sort of known for this. It's a great position to be in. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

07. Thanks @shellen, that was great. Archive should be on ustream a little bit later. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

06. .@shellen Well, did you think it went as well as when they do it on Oprah? From our end we thought it went great. Thanks again. 41 minutes ago from TweetDeck

05. Archive of the ustream with @shellen is available at http://bit.ly/lIL5N - starts about 5 minutes into the recording. 37 minutes ago from TweetDeck

04. Check that. Ustream now allows you to "cut" your video so I'm able to position it so it starts playing right before he starts speaking. Nice 31 minutes ago from TweetDeck

03. Apologies to everyone if it [the massive number of tweets] was annoying. 30 minutes ago from TweetDeck

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