Last weekend Mike Arrington wrote that people who blog are basically automatically associated with the companies they work for even if it the content is on their own personal blog. While I disagree overall with his view, I do believe there is one group of people to whom the association does apply. That group are CEOs, more specifically startup CEOs. I’ve written and spoken for a long time about how tools like blogs and now Twitter will ruin careers because they make it so easy to say something you regret a moment later. With today’s Internet services, a moment is all that’s needed to wish you could DVR back and change what was said.

I’ve noticed a number of startup CEOs making comments that are just out of line either about a person, a group of people, a subject, etc. I’d like to share two of the most recent comments that have been pointed towards me in the hopes that if you are a startup CEO, you will pick up some tips on things not to do. Remember, whatever you say today, will follow you forever. Think before you hit the update button.

Last week I posted a column looking at the NY Tech Meetup and what it takes to present. I used iminlikewithyou CEO Charles Forman as my example because he was one of the evening’s presenters who was able to present multiple times and was able to use slides when that’s not allowed for others. I don’t know Charles, the only interaction we’ve had was saying hello at the meetup. Charles sent me an email after my post requesting that I post his video because he wanted to see it. I obliged and posted the video for him to use an hour later.

Charles Forman, the CEO of iminlikewithyou, decided to post a comment which was picked up on Valleywag. You can read the entire comment on VW but nearly moments after his comment I began to receive emails (including from his friends) noting how horrible it was for him to use personal attacks when they weren’t warranted. Here are a couple of the things he said:

• If you have a problem with fairness, why aren’t you paying $20? You very realistically take up 2 seats.
• I think the real problem is that you are jealous of my ability to run a mile in under 3 days. Maybe its that I date hot girls?
• You are a sad, lonely, disgusting man. I hope you don’t die of a coronary before we have a chance to patch things up.

If I was an investor in his company, I’d be seriously concerned that this type of person is running a company with our money. Most experts note that when this type of behavior goes on outside of the company, it typically goes on inside as well. I can only imagine that if he made these types of comments to an employee, a suit could easily be filed.

Perhaps Charles should focus more on his business as from the charts below, it looks like even with all of his self-promotion, it’s gone nowhere.

Shortly after Charles posted his comment, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis responded with with the following message, "mega-troll Allen Stern crushed by Charles Forman over a "meetup" - wow". What that says to me is that Jason encourages this type of behavior. We’ve seen these type of attacks many times before with Jason. If you don’t write fluff posts about Mahalo, you are instantly a "hater". The entire SEO industry is a bunch of haters, 37Signals apparently are haters and when Andrew Baron noted that Mahalo traffic was flat, he too became a hater. What does it say to the Mahalo employees, both in the U.S. and in other countries, that their leader encourages unwarranted personal attacks? With the rate of departures from Mahalo over the past few months, could it be that this behavior goes on inside the office as well?

Based on the chart below from comScore and most of the online analytics services, perhaps Jason should too focus more of his energy on Mahalo rather than encouraging this type of behavior. comScore reports Mahalo’s August U.S. visitors at 1.688 million and a decline for September to 1.383 million, about a 20% drop. Other services, Quantcast and Compete show a similar drop.

Again, my hope with this post is to get you to think about the things you say and how you act in public. Don’t say or do something that will not only hurt you today, but more importantly in the future.

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If you hadn’t noticed, I got married and went on a honeymoon. Did you miss me? Apparently so. Gizmodo gets banned from CES. Golson asks Calacanis for a job. Our very special correspondent pickets against the new pay system. Where’s was Denton with the “too insidery” warnings? Oh that’s right, blogging for Gawker. Here’s what really happened during the first two weeks of 2008, according to a speed-read of my feeds. On my next honeymoon, I’m bringing a laptop.

• Facebook is slower than a bunch of social networks you’ve never heard of, according to Watchmouse. Yes, Zuck’s baby is slower than RateItAll, Infield Parking, Buzznet and most especially, Consumating. Which is of course everyone’s favorite. MySpace is not on the list.

• The Pew Internet & American Life project discovered that Web video was more popular in 2007 than in 2006.
• Robert Scoble appeared on television. Twice.
• Iminlikewithyou founder Charles Forman told an audience of 450 that, despite what you’ve heard, he’s not actually an asshole.
• Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler posted seven times. 6-word version: Things are great. Ignore stock price.
• Jason Calacanis has 11,900 friends on Twitter, LinkedIn, Mahalo and Facebook. And 495 on Mahalo. By the way, he wants to have dinner with all of you.
• Yahoo’s CEO unveiled a new mobile Web platform at CES that will save the company. Just like it did last year.
• And, most notably, the Flight of the Conchords performed at CES:

(Photo by ThrasherDave)

Tonight was the January 2008 edition of the NY Tech Meetup. Six companies took to the stage, my comments and videos are below. I am quite disappointed that neither leader Scott nor his assistant replied either here on CN or in the mailing list to the ideas I raised. Oh well I guess. I’ve decided to provide my raw notes and immediate feedback on each startup that presented.

GoMobo

GoMobo lets you place an order for a fastfood joint you like online or by text message so that you can avoid the line and go directly to the pickup point. It’s a good idea, and the demo looked good but will it really save that much time? I just know that when I get to Dunkin Donuts to pick up the coffee that I just ordered, that they won’t have it ready, it will be in the wrong place, etc. They currently have 200 locations in NYC in the system and are in 8 other cities. Establishments are reporting a 5% uptick in incremental revenue. I am not sure it’s incremental since I would go to the place anyway and wait on line. This demo left me wanting to learn more, I will try to get a real interview with the team later this week.

TagItOn

I can’t comment on TagItOn because I have no idea what it does. The demo left me wondering what it is, does and why it’s alive. It’s not tags for content, I guess it’s like "tag you’re it". Apparently you can friend people in different degrees and then do things with them. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. They really need to work on this demo before they show it ever again.

Gilt Groupe

You should know Gilt by now, they’ve had several posts on Silicon Alley Insider stylish friend Patricia could provide more insight into Gilt Groupe. If you want a login - go to “www.giltgroupe.com/vip/nymeetup”

Blockles

iminlikewithyou sure gets a lot of love from the Tech Meetup - perhaps the most I’ve seen to-date. They presented several months ago and "got away" with a flash demo and tonight they got to pimp both iminlikewithyou and their new game Tetris Blockles. I wish I could remember the name of the game that was the same as this back in 2000. I think it was on AOL but Blockles is basically a multi-player tetris. It’s very good looking. You get gems which give you superpowers and you can screw with your opponents. It’s not a new concept at all, but the iminlikewithyou crowd will eat it up like a hot Krispy Kreme. Dude from the service says current average time on site is 45 mins per day per player. Dude uses a lot of curse words for cheap crowd cheers.

TableXchange

Here’s the idea. You have a reservation at your favorite top-of-the-line, you ain’t getting it if you ain’t Jason Calacanis kind of place. But you can’t make it. Rather than call the place and tell them you can’t make it, you can slap your reservation up on TableXchange and make money on it! This Hannah Montana! The audience immediately asked why you couldn’t just make reservations all over town and put them on the site. I already signed up an offshore team to start making reservations in the morning. I think the idea is a good one, the execution will be the downfall of the app. It just sets itself up for abuse.

US First

Not really sure how to explain USFirst but it’s a site that helps kids get the most out of technology. They put on various competitions — the one they showed us was from the Georgia Dome with 27,000 kids and robot technology. The group was founded by the guy who developed the Segway. Check out the video to get more about the company. They are looking for people to participate - either in time or financially.

You’re a spaz with the ribbons and paper. And of course, as an engineer it’s all about optimizing for my time, etc. Don’t show up with sloppy giftwrap this year. Take your gifts to the nearest poshtastic shopping center and let someone who knows what they’re doing handle it. I called ahead for you, and Gridskipper helpfully mapped out the coordinates.

San Francisco

Westfield San Francisco Centre
865 Market St.
San Francisco, CA

Papyrus, on the 3rd floor. While you’re almost there, may I recommend the top-floor spa to get away from the holiday craziness. Bring lots of cash for that.

Macy’s
170 O’Farrell St.
San Francisco, CA

Go to the 6th floor of the main store, not the separate menswear building. They’ll gladly wrap your non-Macy’s purchases for a few bucks.

That other part of San Francisco

Macy’s
1 Stonestown Mall
San Francisco, CA

Again, they’ll wrap non-Macy’s purchases for a tiny fee.

Palo Alto

Stanford Shopping Center
680 Stanford Shopping Center
Palo Alto, CA

WaMu — the bank, not the killer whale — has an outdoor stand in the center of the mall near Abercrombie & Fitch.

San Jose

There are two gift spots. One by Nordstrom’s, and one by the food court and Armani Exchange, where you should ask if they carry Armani (Red) sunglasses for Africa and if they don’t, tell them Bono and I are personally hurt.

Westfield Valley Fair
2855 Stevens Creek Blvd.
San Jose, CA

East Bay

Bayfair Center
15555 14th St.
San Leandro, CA

Don’t go to Bay Street in Emeryville. They told me to go to Bayfair. No one answers the phone at Bayfair, so I haven’t verified this one.

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”Blockles.flv”, 475, 376);
Here’s the infamous Blockles, the Tetris clone from Iminlikewithyou founder Charles Forman. “I dont know what Tetris is,” Forman told me. “Blockles is a falling block puzzle game.” Right. One that I kicked your ass at, boyo. (Check out the sweet swap move I pulled about 25 seconds in. Bam.)

Compete.com says Iminlikewithyou, Forman’s online dating site, has grown 58 percent in the last month. But that’s only up to 21,000 or so “people,” so big deal.

Even if growth keeps up at that rate, marketing expert Seth Godin — who otherwise raves about Forman’s site — will tell you, “There’s no way, none, that tradtional online ad models will generate revenue for sites like this.”

No revenue? No problem! Forman just wants to own the market, he says: “You look at games on the internet in the U.S., and they are all shit. I will own the casual gaming space in the U.S. within the next year.”

Keep in mind, this is the guy whose business card reads, “So … chances are, you were in like with me. And … chances are, I gave you this card because I didn’t feel like talking to you anymore. Just kidding! LOLZ!”

Ads by Pheedo

Source:Valleywag

Back by popular demand, we bring you part four of our three-part Valleywag quiz, “Googler or Muppet?” For our encore, we’re going straight to the top. Guitar-wielding Janice may be the the driving talent behind the Electric Mayhem, but the rockers would never have gotten anywhere without band manager Scooter. Likewise, Google CEO Eric Schmidt brings order to Google’s chaotic creativity, when he’s not flying to see his girlfriend on his party plane. Can you tell the two apart?

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Missed the first three parts?

• Valleywag Quiz: Googler or Muppet? Part one

• Valleywag Quiz: Googler or Muppet? Part two
• Valleywag Quiz: Googler or Muppet? Part three

Source:Valleywag

Charles Forman is currently building Blockles, a surprisingly Tetris-like online game for his dating site, Iminlikewithyou. Why do we suspect he’s not going to be making any friends at Tetris owner Electronic Arts?

“I have a reputation for being an asshole,” Iminlikewithyou founder Charles Forman told me at the Reddit party in Greenwich Village the other night. “I don’t know why.” Truth is, Forman does occasionally transcend his reputation. Witness, for example, this photo here where he wears a Mark Zuckerberg name tag. But, folks, after a quick look at the business card he was handing out Saturday night, you will at the very least be able to understand the roots of this misunderstanding.

Here it is. Forman told me he made it to parody some of the custom business cards he’d been seeing around Manhattan. Fine, but truth in jest, right? Click to see it in its full glory.

MC Hammer’s rap career may have been over more than a decade ago, but to the startup kids at Y Combinator, he’ll always be a superstar. First, he awkwardly pitched Weebly’s MySpace profile editor SnapLayout to lifecaster Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine of Justin.tv. Now, Hammer has made an iminlikewithyou profile. The washed-out rapper hopes to extend his attempts to revive his career beyond being a hanger-on of startups by fighting Vanilla Ice. Only problem — he needs someone with a videocamera, and he’s trolling the iminlikewithyou community for volunteers. So what does that tell us about the state of Hammer’s career?

The Y Combinator guys may be acting starstruck, but maybe its MC Hammer who’s playing the fanboy here. Y Combinator’s coterie of entrpreneurs could easily return the favor by providing the rapper with real video services. Everyone, including MC Hammer, knows they can. Why would the startuppers reduce the Hammer to begging for volunteers — if not to subtly put him in his place?

(SnapLayout Demo Video by Dan Veltri)

Note: this is only a rumor submitted by two CN readers. I have not confirmed this so please take it only as a rumor regarding the upcoming announcement about TechCrunch40. Yesterday TechCrunch announced that Yahoo and AOL would be launching new products at TC40 which is very exciting. I sure hope for both it will be one of those "a-ha" moments where everything clicks and the launches can help both companies. I still stand firm that a merger between Yahoo and AOL would better both companies in the long-term.

Here is the rumor: Sun will be the other "BigCo" that Mike alluded to in his post. Sun (along with Agoracom) has been added to the sponsor list this morning. If you have any further details, please send them in.

Source:CenterNetworks

Last week we posted a demo of iminlikewithyou’s new Flash interface. By the way, the cool cats call it, "iilwy". Today I have come across three great overviews of the product worth sharing:

• Muhammad Saleem - Very detailed review, notes that this app is like hot or not for the web savvy. Muhammad ends the review with, "with the new design i was blown away. you can seamlessly jump from one part of the site to another without having to wait for pages to load, and every aspect of the site looks flawless."
• Molly at DemoGirl - she has a great flash screencast of how the app works - she notes several times how iilwy is basically a way to waste time.
• Dan at Alley Insider - product overview, he notes, "At some point Charles may want to figure out how to make money with I’minlikewithyou, perhaps by selling ads. But did we mention it looks great?"

I have requested a demo at their office and will report back once confirmed. I have two invites so drop a comment if you want one. DO NOT post your email in the comment box, I will grab it from the email field.