I’ve never been a person to make goals and if I do make them, I rarely stick to them. I’m the kind of person who makes most decisions on the fly…for good or bad. But, this coming year is going to be a big one so I figured it’s time for me to set some goals that I can achieve and stick to it. Also, I figure if I post my goals publicly then I’ll have more of an incentive to follow through.

So, here they are:

Get Healthy- I need to exercise, eat healthy and stick to my no smoking program. This should be a pretty easy thing except that I don’t like exercising. I normally eat well and I don’t smoke for weeks at a time. But, that damn exercise thing gets me every time. If you have any suggestions then please let me know.

Get my new company off the ground- This year is going to be a big year for me professionally, because I’m starting a new business and for the first time I’ll be funding a company myself. So, I guess the goal would be to buckle down and get it right. Stay tuned for yourville.com to drop in late March.

Stick to my goals- See intro

Network- Ever since leaving San Diego and Skateboard.com for Austin and my unknown adventures here, I haven’t spent much time trying to meet new friends or business contacts. I need to get out and meet new people for friendship and business contacts. Their is a lot going on here in Austin, so I should have no excuses.

Get organized- Enough said.

Travel more- Travel to at least one destination outside of the USA. This should be easy since my development team is in the Philippines. I guess I should say, travel to at least one destination outside of the USA for pleasure.

Write a Book- Get started on that book that I always wanted to write. My life has the makings of a good book. I just need to start writing.

technorati tags: austin, chris mullins, goals, 2006, texas

What’s with all of the 2006 predictions this past week? Is everyone thinking they’re Nostradamus all of a sudden? I’m not really a person to make predictions unless it’s something obvious. So, I decided to comb the web for my favorite ten prediction- top ten-if you will. The following is what I came up with.

10. Peer media will also be ground for rapid growth as new P2P tools will start to provide the ability not only to share and download content but also to edit, remix, mashup, select, and compile content in new valuable formats and styles. Personal Media Aggregators, branded and distributed to specific communities of interest will provide the means to share, collect, edit and republish content both within that network as well as to other related ones. While newspapers and magazines have been the first adopters of these future content delivery and distribution containers, other markets as commercial music, sports and even politics will find great marketing and communication value in them. Via- Robin Good

9. Google Analytics will again drop the hammer on the web analytics industry. After quietly humming along for half of 2006, Google will release new features that will put them on par with all the top web applications, and provide integration with other Google applications that make it an even more compelling offering. Via-Conversion Rater

8. Social sites will micro-segment as well, as the hosting companies and other service providers put out services for all to use. via- Now What?

7. Interest in attention and personalization of information will grow as searchers become increasingly desperate for an easy way to surface the good stuff from all the crap out there. We’ll see many new startups offering personalization products, most of which will be peddling junk. The hype will attract VCs. They will follow each other on in, bleating joyfully as they shower investment capital indiscriminately on good and bad alike. Via- Geeking With Greg

6. Web 2.0 will be looked down upon as a buzzword, and it’s usage will drop off dramatically. It’s already happening, but people will grow tired of the term Web 2.0 and the hype surrounding it. Via- Conversion Rater

5. Watch for sites like Amazon, Froogle and Yahoo to develop turnkey stores that can be integrated into blogs. This will take affiliate programs to the next level. It’s also possible that some electronic commerce sites will partner with the major blogging platforms to make co-branded social commerce even easier. Let’s not forget that startups are hard at work here too, as David Beisel notes. Finally, we may see bloggers who have built a following in certain subject matters, like Thomas Hawk who writes about photography, to go the Treonauts route as they become disenfranchised with e-commerce sites. Via- Micropersuasion

4. It will be a long year of head scratching and simmering disputes in the “content creation” business as the major platforms shift strategy on RSS, in particular, and blogging, broadly. In other words, we won’t get nearly as much accomplished as we hoped. At issue is how content creators export their business model through RSS aggregation platforms. Near the end of the year, though, there will be a breakthrough deal that clarifies business model standards in the RSS space. Via- Battelle Media

3. Grassroots Participation-The ability to leverage the willingness of hundreds of thousands of individuals to contribute, sing, perform, post, edit, filter, share and select content and ideas that are already out there is probably the greatest business opportunity thread to be surfed next. Via- Robin Good

2. Advertising on blogs will grow rapidly in the immediate future. Unfortunately the market still lacks effective tools and services that allow self-servicing of ads on blogs. Blogads, the undisputed market leader has long been lagging behind the need to provide much broader stats ad information on its inventory of blogs, easier ways for advertisers and identify relevant blogs for their campaigns, and prviding end publishers with an effective and fully functional user interface. That makes me think that if there is someone awake out there, with enough money and resources to match and improve upon Blogads clever idea, it would find thousands of good blogs and advertisers ready to support it. Via- Masternewmedia

1. Way too much money funding too many also-ran startups. We’re already starting to see the RSS, calendar, and desktop space clogged. Since this will be another bubble you’ll see a lot of carpetbaggers just in it for the money.
The great thing about the .bomb was that you were able to see who really cared about technology and who stayed in the valley. I know who was here and who left. Winer was one of the ones who stayed. Say what you will but that guy does care a lot about tech. Via- Kevin Burton’s FeedBlog

Regardless of whether any of these predictions are “spot on” or not. I predict that 2006 will be a great year and we’ll see a lot of new interesting companies.

technorati tags: predictions, 2006, feedblog, masternewmedia, conversionrater, micropersuasion

I’m not sure, but I think Technorati doesn’t work the way its suppose to. I claimed my blog on Technorati a few months back and started tracking my ranking at that time. My ranking then was 375,467 with 8 links from 4 sites, not bad considering I had just started my blog in July. Granted, allthatscool is not the best name nor has it been the most focused, content wise, but it is what it is. My unique visits have doubled every month since I started and I’ve had a few days with over 2k unique visits. The point is, allthatscool is getting more readers everyday. But, for some reason, my Technorati ranking goes up everyday and my links stay the same, even though Technorati shows that I have had 18 links in the past 18 days. Additionally, when I ping Technorati with my updates, it takes them either a very long time to show updates or it doesn’t happen at all. I guess it doesn’t really matter though. The majority of my traffic comes from links from other blogs or the occasional del.icio.us bookmark. I haven’t given up on Technorati just yet but it want be long before I do.

By the way, my current Technorati ranking is 533,808

technorati tags: technorati

There has been lots of buzz around the announcement by Alexa (Amazon) that they’ll be adding a API. I think this is good news for Alexa. I haven’t heard of many ideas of how the Alexa API will be used. However, I’m sure there are a lot of smart people out there that will come up with something cool especially since alexa has indexed 4.5 billion pages from over 16 million Web sites.

I think it would be cool (this might be the most obvious) if someone can use the Alexa API to create a search that will show results, in order, of the Alexa rankings or reach. If you had a search product like that, then for your website to show up, say, in the top 10 you would have to have a Alexa ranking of 10k or less. If you wanted high placement on said search then you would have to spend more time getting people to view your site than linking to it. Anyway, it’s just a idea.

If you have an idea for the Alexa API then post it in the comments here. That is of course, if you don’t mind sharing it with the world (my world is only about 25k uniques per month)

Read what others have been saying about the Alexa Announcement:

• Dan Farber at ZDnet
• Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web
• Michael Arrington at Techcrunch
• John Battelle at Searchblog
• Om Mallik at Gigaom
• Busines 2.0
  

technorati tags: alexa, mashup, amazon.com, search, web2.0

I was just reading David Hornik (Venture Blog) post entitled Social Networks 3.0 . He made some interesting observations:

“I am more than a little excited about Social Networks 3.0 because I believe that social networking will be a crucial element of virtually all online consumer experiences going forward. And truly compelling online consumer experiences will always make successful companies. Thus, I look forward to seeing how social networking continues to evolve. I see great things in the future for Social Networking 4.0, whatever that ends up being.”

Read the rest CLICK HERE

I’ve noticed that there are several social sites out there that I’m signed up for, but really don’t use (myspace , linkedin , orkut, yahoo360 ). I’m sure a lot of other people do the same thing? As a matter of fact Myspace is the only one that I use somewhat frequently, and I wouldn’t really call 2-3 times a month frequently. I do think that Social Networks are a great way to stay connected with friends and possibly “hook-up” with new friends. But, I would like to find one Social Network that kind of mixes Flickr , Yahoo360 , YouTube and SuprGlu together. Most importantly I would like for that Social Network to have a way for me to have a “friends-space” and a “family-space”. This way, you could keep your friends and family updated with your life but not have to subject your family to the MySpace type “smut”. What do you think? Is that something you would be interested in also?

technorati tags: social+network, myspace, orkut, linkedin, yahoo360

This deal is just to good to pass up. Starting tomorrow at 12pm, 3pm and 7pm (ET) American Express will be selling 200 Xbox 360’s for $150.00. It’s on first come basis so I’m sure there will be 1000’s of people trying to get their hands on one. You can check out the deal by CLICKING HERE.

As a part of the same promotion, American Express will also be selling 3 Range Rover Sports HSEs for $5000 each on Tuesday Dec 13. If you can get in on that deal it’ll almost be like winning the lotto.
I’ll be in line for both.

technorati tags: xbox+360, xbox, deals, shopping, american Express

Back on November 27th, Evan Williams, CEO of Odeo and the former co-founder and CEO of Blogger, wrote his “Ten Rules for Web Startups” on his blog, “Evhead.” As soon as his ten rules hit the blogsphere it was quoted on just about every business-related blog and made the top digg of the day (1277 Diggs). By making one post on Evheads blog, his traffic shot up from an Alexa ranking of 152,733 to 11,051. Take a look at the Alexa graphs below that show Evheads rank and page views, spike, considerably:

So, why was so much attention placed on this one post by Evan Williams? Is it because he’s such a notable expert that everyone’s interested in what he has to say? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that more and more people are understanding the benefits of being a entrepreneur in today’s Web space. I did a feature, last week, called “Why you should start an Internet company today” that provided some references to information on the Web that could help you start a company; or at least, inspire you to so. That post happened to be my most popular posting, to date. I really do believe that more people are empowered to start their own company today than at any other time in history.

Judging by Evan’s history, I would think that he knows a lot about the subject. If you’re one of the few that hasn’t seen Evan’s “Ten Rules for Web Startups,” then CLICK HERE to take a look. I believe, you’ll find it well worth your time.

technorati tags: odeo, blogger, evan+williams, evhead.com, alexa, blog, startup, ceo

Consumating announced today that they’ve been acquired by CNet. Looks like Ben Brown will be getting a regular paycheck and a nice upfront cash deal .

I was real impressed with what Ben has done with Consumating. I attended a discussion at University of Austin Business School in the beginning of November where Ben was a panelist. Ben and one of his friends built Consumating on a Bootstrap budget and attracted 5-6k users in less than a year. Now CNet has acquired Consumating for a nice chunk of change and has given Ben a regular salary. Congratulations to him and the others involved.

This deal just goes to show, that you can build value in a company with very little upfront capital.

You can read more about the deal at Alexander Muse’s blog and also over at TechCrunch.

technorati tags: consumating, ben+brown, cnet, austin, dating, tags , techcrunch

Yesterday Protopage launched v2.0. They added some cool new features to v2.0 including a full screen mode and a feed directory. You can see a full list of the new features at their blog.
However, as Michael Arrington at Techcrunch pointed out:

“Protopage was an earlyish entrant into the Ajax desktop market, which is now crowded with products like Netvibes, Google, Microsoft Live and Zoozio. Goowy is also a choice, of course, although they have chosen Flash over Ajax for their platform. Microsoft Live is the only extensible product, with a growing number of third party widgets available for use.”

I did a profile on Protopage back in September and actually tried to use it for a while. It just didn’t work for me. I ended up using Netvibes instead (I profiled Netvibes in September also). After a while though, I found myself moving away from Netvibes as well. I have to admit I like the concept of a Desktop page but after I started adding more and more feeds to it, it just didn’t make since anymore. It would be nice if someone could come-up with one useful product that would incorporate everything I use on daily basis. Maybe we’ll see something new in the future that will allow me to only use one web application instead of the 5-6 different ones I use now.

Click Here to check out Protopage v2.0

technorati tags: protopage, netvibes, desktop, techcrunch

With the end of the year quickly approaching, I decided to take a look around to see what kind of tax info I could find. While it may seem too soon to think of April 15th; like the holidays, not waiting until the last minute can prove an effective strategy for getting the most out of your taxes this year.

So when making your holiday plans, squeeze in time to give your taxes a once over. See how they measure up to our checklist below, and your pocketbook may thank you later.

I know that this post doesn’t really fit into my usual format but after getting screwed by the IRS for so many years I thought I would go ahead share this info with my readers. Hopefully you can use these tips to be more informed about your tax situation.

Year-End Tax Tips

1. Compare standard versus itemized deductions - Put the amount of your 2004 standard deduction next to your itemized deduction and see how the two compare. If your itemized deductions exceed the amount of your standard deduction, you will save tax dollars by itemizing. If your itemized deductions are close to your standard, then consider shifting some of them from one year to the next. For example, if you can’t itemize in 2004 but can in 2005, consider making your annual charitable donation in January instead of December.
2. Make flexible spending work for you - If you don’t rack up enough medical expenses in 2004 to meet the amount you set aside in your flexible spending account, you’ll lose the money. If you’ve got extra, it’s a good idea to start making a few last-minute appointments, and be sure to save your receipts for medications.
3. Keep track of medical costs - Keep track of your unreimbursed medical expenses all year long. You can deduct those only if they exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. If you think you’re close to the 7.5% requirement but not quite there, you may consider having an elective or necessary procedure before year-end.
4. Get serious about retirement - One way to effectively lower your taxable income for the year is to contribute to or open a retirement plan, such as a 401(k), 403(b), deductible IRA, SIMPLE IRA or SEP. Make contributions for 2004 up until December 31st for 401(k)s and 403(b)s. With some other plans, you have until April 15th to make those donations. Check with a tax professional to determine which move is best for you.
5. Adopt a charitable attitude - Donating clothing and household goods to charities before January 1, 2005, is not just a good deed; it’s also deductible on your 2004 return. Be sure to get a receipt from the organization you’re donating to, and keep in mind that the deduction is limited to the item’s current fair market value (what you could sell it for at a garage sale). So do a good deed, and let it work for you.
6. Save with the sales tax deduction - If you itemize deductions on your return, you can choose either to deduct your state income tax or the sum of your sales tax for tax years 2004 and 2005. For those living in states that don’t impose an income tax, the choice is clear. For everyone else, number crunching will point the way to the most advantageous option. Since the change went into effect only in October, the IRS has provided a sales tax table you can use to estimate your tax for 2004 prior to October. Next year, though, save those receipts.
7. Put off the wedding - If you’re planning on getting married toward the end of the year, it may be wise to wait until next year. The so-called “marriage penalty” occurs when you pay more tax on a joint return than you would have had you remained single and filed two separate returns. Couples whose taxable income puts them in a marginal tax rate above 11 percent can pay a higher rate. Plus, deductions and credits can be reduced or eliminated when the incomes are combined.
8. Sell off stock - If you have a large net capital gain so far this year, you might want to consider selling some stock to generate a loss before year-end. Doing so could reduce the amount of tax you pay this year. However, remember that if you do sell stock to generate a loss, you are prohibited from purchasing substantially similar stock within 30 days before or after the sale that generated the loss.
9. Give the gift of cash - If you’re planning on giving large cash gifts this holiday season, it’s best to know the rules. If you’re married you can gift up to $22,000 to one individual free of gift tax. If you’re single but the person to whom you’re giving the cash gift is married, you can gift each person up to $11,000 tax free. A married couple can gift another couple up to $44,000 with gift tax consequences. Keep in mind that a gift of future interest (contribution to a trust that cannot be accessed by the beneficiary until some date in the future) does not qualify the $11,000 annual gift tax exclusion.
10. Don’t let extra money sit around - If you have a large amount of cash to invest and want to shift some of your income to 2005, consider investing in a short-term CD or a Treasury bill that matures in 2005.
11. Strategies for the self-employed - If you’re self-employed and use the cash method of accounting, you can decrease your 2004 taxable income by delaying your December billings until January, setting up a qualified self-employed retirement plan (SEP) and deducting contributions you make on your 2004 return, and buying supplies and equipment this year instead of next.

technorati tags: tax, irs, tips, tax+tips