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How a Good Name Turns out to be Crap – Literally

(Updated)
TechCrunch gave a pretty positivie review of Jobby:
Unlike other web 2.0 job sites like Indeed and Simply Hired (which aggregate job listings from around the web), Jobby takes information directly from job seekers, and then focuses on helping recruiters filter through job qualifications fast via tagging and tag filtering. The results are quite stunning

A good review by Mike always helps, so all is fine for the beta-service … except … hm… apperently the name has a special meaning in Scottish slang:
A Scots term for the brownish substance excreted from ones anus when the bowels are full or after a spicy cuisine.
Also the term for something that is disapproved of/ rubbish
.” (source: Urban Dicitionary).

Yuck. That’s pretty bad. The Jobb(y)ers are lamenting the right course of action:
So what’s the solution? The way I see it, we have three options.
1. Change our name.
2. Keep our name. Grin and bear it. After all, we showed the site to hundreds of people before anyone actually pointed this out. It’s pretty obscure… Right?
3. Change our logo to a little amorphous brown man in a lively plaid kilt
.”

My vote is on #2, keep the name. Although I’d like to see someone come up with #3.

Update : I guess now it’s fair to say these surfers in Hawaii had a jobby experience

Update (3/31): Here’s a thorough data-driven analysis into how sh*t (I mean “jobby”) happens. More here, and from Guy Kawasaki.

Update (5/24): Jobby no longer… they got acquired by Jobber. Hope the deal was not … “jobby” (in Scottish). Congrat’s to the team.

Update (7/16/07): Read/WriteWeb has a run-down of the 10 worst app names.

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Predicting Your Child Political Leaning

I’ve previously written about and expressed my doubts of a Berkeley Study on how to predict your child’s political leaning in the future.  A week later it’s on TV:  CBS is making fun of the study, too.

Worth watching just for the cute kids being “interviewed”.

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MySQL Acquires IBM and EMC…

That’s really funny … details at Zack’s blog

Other acquisition-related news or rumors:

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After the 43 Wiki Prank, 33 Wikis is Real

The 43 Wiki prank was just that: a joke and social experiment. Everyone could have their 5 (?) minutes of fame.

33 Wikis, on the other hand is a series worth keeping an eye on:  it will be a 33–day series featuring best practices in wiki-based collaboration.  You can nominate your own wiki-project in the comments area.   (hat tip: Ross Mayfield)

Unrelated, but should anyone wonder, 23 is a photo-sharing service, a’la Flickr, and 23half is a new information discovery service for mobile phones.

I think I’ll leave 13 alone, but perhaps it’s time to register 53 and 53quarter...

Update (3/27):  And now, thanks to Robert Scoble, we know what 72 Degrees are.

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Bush’s Candid Moment

Bush-mediacoverageSeveral posts (Steve Rubel, BL Ochman ..etc) picked on how President Bush acknowledged Blogs as increasingly powerful media.  The video is available here

The story is already widely discussed, I don’t want to echo it, rather pick a un unusually candid moment – or just a slip of the tounge? – when the Pres. acknowledges he’s just rambling:

“WOMAN: … and I’m sorry I’m rambling on like I have
BUSH: So was I though, for like an hour –
[laughter]”   

Related posts:

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Gates 2.0

The Scobleizer leaked photos of a supersecret meeting between Bill Gates and Michael Arrington.

According to sources close to Bill he was seeking advice on how to leave the Big Bad Corporation behind and launch an exciting Web 2.0 startup. 

Michael agreed to help him launch on TechCrunch.

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Business and Humor – a Bad Mix?

I suppose I can now officially declare my test a failure.  My “Zoli 3.0 Launched” post resulted in a spike of traffic,  but few responses, and some of those were quite surprising.

Inspired by a Scoble post and a few cases where I’ve seen it work, I wanted to test how effectively I can find a job by posting it on my blog, vs. the traditional route of sending out resumes.  (More then just a test, I am actually looking for a job or consulting gig).  Trying to stand out, I announced my availability as a mock product launch.  I thought it was a humorous approach, that still left my intent clear – especially since the detailed product specs  pointed to my professional profile.

Apparently some (many?) of my readers took it literally. Imagine my surprise receiving responses like these:

  • Would like to get invitation” signed by X.Y,, VP Business Development of and ERP/CRM type Consulting firm based in the US and China.  For the sake of US Business, I hope these guys stay with technical work and don’t get into a lot of business process consulting.
  • Would like to know more regarding your ERP software and I am interested to implement it for organization.”  Nice, I’ve just sold an ERP system I don’t even have.

So, other than it did not really work, I’m not sure what conclusion to draw:

  • I won’t ever get a job
  • Resumes are still a safer bet
  • I don’t have a sense of humor
  • Business and Humor don’t mix
  • I can sell any ERP system – even non-existent ones. Vaporware. (thanks, Vinnie)
  • All of the above

Update (4/20): Tom Raftery tries the same:  (good luck, Tom!)

 

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MyOraclr

This is cute: The Oracle FAQ site OraFAQ runs on… MySQL! (via Zack Urlocker).  Oh, the “r” in the title?  That’s just for 2.0 compatibility.

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Socializr Isolatr Snubster Networkr Backlashr

Isolatr, Snubster, Socializr – which is the odd one out?

TechCrunch has a humorous post about Isolatr and Snubster (hey, what’s with the “e”?).  
I’ve previously written about Socializr – Friendster 2.0? when all it had was a suspicious job post, a funny caricature on flickr, and the rumor that it’s started by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams.  I emailed my post to Jonathan, hoping to get clarification.  After a few weeks of silence I leaned towards considering it a prank.

Well, it may just be real.  Nothing confirmed, just a few signs of life:

Socializr’s Raising About Half a Million Funding: A new stealth social network, Socializr, founded by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, is raising about $0.5 million seed funding, and has raise about $0.35 million out of that, a birdie told me at the conf.

Toni’s Companies: Socializr, Inc, San Francisco, CA US, Executive Assistant, Office Manager”  Wow, the job post was not a fake!  Way to go, Jonathan, she is hot and sings in a band!

Examples include eVite’s latest attempts to include pictures and matching, Zvents, Socializr (the next great thing from Friendster founder, Jonathan Abrams.  The funny graphic at this URL I think is Jonathan’s stealth-mode dose of healthy cynicism at what’s going on in this space.) Jonathan is not showing Socializr publicly yet, but it’s very cool

So now I am starting to believe Socializr is real.  And we know they will be big, they have the secret formula that Friendster probably missed, the hot blonde who sings!   I’m proud that it was first announced here!

Update (3/15)  Related posts:

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Pay Or Get Ejected

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. We are currently 30,000 feet over Los Angeles. Fuel prices have risen 2.7% during this trip down from Seattle.  Please insert your credit card into the seatback in front of you in the next twenty seconds if you want to avoid being ejected before San Diego. Thanks.”

Relax, dear reader, it’s not real life (yet), just Paul Kedrosky   extrapolating the trend shown by Northwest’s announcement that they will charge extra for certain prime seats in coach — exit-row seats or aisle seats near the front of the cabin.  
As much as I hate the degradation of air travel (for someone having flown a lot in Europe and Asia, our domestic air travel is like taking a Greyhound bus), and being nickel-and-dimed, in this case I happen to agree with some of Paul’s commenters: if there are seats that passengers “fight for”, that means those seats represent premium value, why not use a market-mechanism to assign them, vs. random luck.   I still love the post, one has to appreciate Paul’s humor.

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