This morning marks the start of an 8-day trip through California. I am taking off this morning to San Francisco where I will be attending the Techcrunch50 event. Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis (conference founders) set me up with a press pass again for the 3rd straight year. It’s been pretty wild being part of the press team at these events. It’s like… Wall Street Journal Reporter, NY Times Reporter, CNBC Camera Crew, Forbes Reporter, and ummm ME!. They give out less than 10 press passes total so I feel very honored.
There is no conference that has made as big of an impact on my business as the Techcrunch40/50 conferences.
For those not familiar with the Techcrunch50: the “conference” is an opportunity for start-ups to pitch their new website or company to people to try to get funding. And there are a TON of them! Only 50 hand-picked companies make it on stage but tons more in the demo pit. Some of the companies are truly amazing. I remember the day before the conference in ’07 started talking with the CEO/Founder of Mint (I think I was the first website ever to cover Mint) and I said I think they should win the event (which they did go on to do).
While Mint was a “startup” it was almost unfair to the rest of the competitors. It was an amazing product and stole the show.
But for Every Mint there are 20 sites that are developed by 2 kids living with their parents in college full time who have a really sweet idea. These are the people I love to network with most. They are like a week away from giving up and bagging groceries and only need like maybe $10k to keep them going. Some really awesome opportunities there.
After TechCrunch I am headed to ThinkTank in San Diego until next Sunday. I am meeting up with my 2 daughters, wife, and nanny in San Diego so we also will be taking some time out for a mini vacation.
We were featured last week on the failblog for the AzoogleAds Magazine ad check pic :
Even though it clearly has stated on the image page:
This is not a real check it was for a Magazine Ad for AzoogleAds. Yes its photoshop’d (badly). It was an amazingly good campaign for them. Its been on numerous websites who think they have discovered it was fake… even though it says it here. Good for traffic
.
I am still amazed how all these sites get duped so easily. . It’s great for traffic though so I will take it.
I do want to straighten out some weird misinformation out there. Some people have asked me if I own icanhascheezburger.com and failblog and the rest of the network and using it to promote my own stuff. I’m not sure where that came from. I am very good friends with the CEO of the network and have advised them on how to make more money with the sites but I do not have any control over their content at all.
We have been on Good Morning America twice in the last couple weeks and I just did another interview with them on Friday. They are all over the “Make Money With Google Scams” and were really interested in our court cases.
We have settled several lawsuits so far this year from people using our copyrighted Image to promote these scams. I think the next show/article they put out will be pretty informative.
I will go into this in more detail after it airs/posts.
So this week I am going to be AFK quite a bit and will be posting guest posts and other stuff. I will be making some posts from Techcrunch50 but a lot of the interviews I will save until I get back. Everyone have a good week and be nice to the guest posters =P
September 13, 2009 at 7:21 am
Sometimes, the only thing that is holding something that is great which being created by simple person is funding. If not, there must be another thousands of amazing things that are around us which probably we use in the daily basis. Am I right, Shoe?
By the way, there is actually a TV show which runs the same way with the Techcruch50. It is Dragon’s Den – budding entrepreneur will pitch their business, business model and idea to 5 businessmen/woman to get funding for their show.
I think sometimes we have to give more to more and more. The world is not all about us – world is about living together, share our wealth and help others who need and would like to change through that help.
Cheers!
Huzzer Magazine
September 13, 2009 at 7:26 am
Are you driving all the way to Californ-eye-ay in the black Hummer shoemobile?
September 13, 2009 at 12:50 pm
are you insane
September 14, 2009 at 11:43 am
Good cause if that badboy is seen on the road in Cali, Governor Arnie and The Hoff are likely to be brawling over it!
September 13, 2009 at 8:30 am
I remember seeing that picture over at failblog.
September 13, 2009 at 10:52 am
It’s a great pace what I can see here. I read the story of mint. Very interesting concept. Have a great week ahead.
September 13, 2009 at 10:56 am
It’s a cool ad, wouldn’t it be really great – to have been a real cheque though? I could use one that big!
September 13, 2009 at 11:30 am
Have fun while you’re here in San Diego. The weather has been great (isn’t it always), and the ocean is about 75 degrees right now, so get down to the beach with the fam.
September 13, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Haha, yeah I saw this over at failblog. Thought you didn’t know about this.
September 13, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Have fun with your family!
September 13, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Note to Self-
Make an ad with a very bad photoshop picture so it can get featured everywhere as a “mistake”
September 14, 2009 at 5:09 pm
yeah, but that would work only if you were as known as Jeremy..
September 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I think the internet has become almost impossible for a newbie to make an honest living anymore and that is why there are so many scammers now. I also feel Google is part of the problem at so many levels.
September 13, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Just saw your photo after seeing it in Failblog, i just couldn´t believe it |: But after founding the photo on your gallery and seeing the description i understood it xD
About your vacations, i wish the best to you
Unfortunately, mine are almost in the end
September 14, 2009 at 6:30 am
Glad to hear you were able to straighten out Good Morning America’s lack of info on the “Google scams”.
Is the failblog pic the one from the Website magazine ‘article’? Ironically I remember seeing that and posting about it on DP a couple years ago I think. I thought it was a legit article at first…..you had no idea that was being used that way at the time if I remember correctly??
September 14, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Betcha there are more Spanish speakers in California than in Nebraska, huh Shoe? Que pasa amigo?
September 14, 2009 at 5:11 pm
That was a great campaign you did with AzoogleAds. Lots of people failed for it.
September 14, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Idiots. I could clearly read your caption when you first published it…not like you were trying to pass it off as real. Like you said though. Free traffic and possibly a backlink.
September 15, 2009 at 1:39 am
Interesting concept.
September 15, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Love how someone calls you out for a shitty photoshop job and you get all defensive. So funny.
September 17, 2009 at 9:43 am
the failblog pic part was really funny
September 25, 2009 at 2:15 pm
LMAO.
September 26, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I had to laugh when I saw that on Fail Blog.