First, it is incredible that around 30 companies are actively attacking these categories, whether directly or indirectly, on Craigslist – more if you dig deeper and include competitors within each set.

Second, some of these companies have been competing in the space for a long time such as Indeed.com (USV portfolio co.), Elance.com, and LegalZoom.com while others are very new such as Listia.com, TeachStreet.com, and AirBnB.com

I think you will continue to see small niche categories getting full blown solutions and entrants to markets that would otherwise not be possible in the past. This is due in large part to lower cost of capital to get started, lower production and development timelines, and the fragmentation of attention as people are willing to go to the best possible solution vs. a one size fits all portal.

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The Spawn of Craiglist – A Visualization

The site was designed by Phoebe Espiritu who did a great job working with our team and iterating on our design direction and brainstorms. We ended up with a very clean design with a few dynamic features I have wanted for a long time. As Albert noted, we now have a focus page that is updated when a new post that shows some insight into our investment thesis gets written.

We have an updated blog running the latest Moveable Type software as well as added dynamic content to the USV team pages and portfolio company pages all powered by Magnify.

This was a great project for me as I was able to deliver on a lot of feedback I have heard in a way that did not require a lot of work from anyone, and can now be a living dynamic site without much effort.

Each portfolio company now has its latest blog posts, tweets, pictures, videos, and job listings automatically aggregated by Magnify.

This is great because this is the best way to understand each company in their own voice, without putting the burden of updates on any of the executive teams.

For a great example checkout Clickableto see these modules in action. You can see their latest blog posts, job openings, and get a good idea of what they are talking about recently.

As Fred pointed out, the site now updates in real time as it should be.

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Launching the new USV.com

This remains one of the core investment thesis ideas in my mind when I look at a company that lives on the web. In an inverse relationship to environmental exhaust where usually the more left behind the worse the system, the web works in just the opposite way. The more data left behind, that can be harvested, the better the underlying network. This process of collection can be done via a lazy login, a deliberate subscription, or a federated login system – in each case allowing the underlying infrastructure you are traveling across (or consuming) the ability to retain this data.

The data retained from data exhaust can be use for many different things. The first and most obvious is to make your experience better. Your profile and activities give off information that can be used and processed with a system, making your experience better the next time you arrive. This presents a sparse data problem for new users and new systems, but once the data asset is in place you have more of an incentive to return.

This dynamic behind a new web service shows the importance of allowing users to traverse across an already present data asset.

Many services do this well today, while others built up this asset of data over time. Being a new user on a service is tough, but the opportunity to grab the data exhaust of each of those new users to turn around and use of for the betterment of the system and other users is great.

Federated login systems such as Facebook Connect and Google Connect enable you to bring your data with you, something that I think will become common place over time. As these paradigms solidify in peoples minds, and the value of such activity becomes apparent I think you will see demand increase to bring a customized set of decisions, opinions, and “personality” with you whenever you sign up for a new web service.

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Data Exhaust

Since then a lot has happened and since I missed providing a 3 year birthday update this year I thought a post was due. If you want to catch up on previous milestones see Year 1 and Year 2.

What prompted this post is that I had the pleasure of attending Lee’s wedding a few weeks ago where Lee Jones and Eliza Funston had a beautiful ceremony up in Sudbury, MA. Lee and I caught up about our journey so far, and I thought sharing this picture and our brief story was worth a post. Below is a picture of us at his wedding in the backyard of Eliza’s house where the ceremony took place.

I have not told this story on the blog before, but told many people in person and thought I would finally get it down in writing.

Lee and I started Marketing.fm while we were both working at Grey Advertising in NY. Specifically, we both worked at MediaCom with Lee doing TV buying and me working on traditional Media Planning. We collaborated on the inaugural MediaCom University class where the goal was to learn about the media business. From there we went on to work together on a few client projects all the while becoming good friends. Having a background and interest in technology and all things Internet related I soon worked for Beyond Interactive, working on many of the Grey brands and coming up with digital strategies.

We both were at the absolute bottom of the pecking order, getting paid next to nothing, and had a lot to say.

We also both talked a big game about articles in our field, conferences we were not attending, and a slew of other things related to marketing and technology.

It was not long before the entrepreneur in me broached the subject of writing a blog. Lee had a background in teaching and writing English, and I thought we had collaborated well together so we took the plunge in March of 2006.

At first, we blogged anonymously because we thought we would lose our jobs if Grey found out. I know this sounds crazy in hindsight, but this was at a time where corporations had not exactly embraced blogging, let alone employees blogging about their industries.

We knew we had a niche topic, but the goal was to provide ourselves with the soap box we did not get elsewhere. Emails and notes sent into AdAge went unanswered, conference organizers ignored our pleas, and anyone above our level wanted nothing to do with two entry level worker bees.

Thus Marketing.fm was born and we joined the conversation.

We soon attracted a following of marketing and advertising professionals and knew we were onto something when comments and emails came in from others like ourselves.

Our thirst to add value to the blogosphere was quenched, but this put the focus back on our day jobs. We both knew it was time to make moves.

In the next chapter of my career I joined a Search Marketing startup called Reprise Media. I joined the account management side of the business working with direct clients and agencies on SEM, SEO, and Social Media campaigns. I stayed for a few years, learned many lessons and gains a few mentors, and rode through an acquisition by IPG. This was certainly one of the most influential jobs I have ever had, but I will save that for another post.

A few months later Lee also left MediaCom and joined a startup called Reviewed.com.

As you can see we are both inherently entrepreneurs and working at a large corporation just didn’t seem like a good fit.

Fast forward a bit and I found myself wanting to work more with startup companies and get even more entrenched in the web. Largely through this blog I got my next job at Union Square Ventures, which I described here.

Lee also left his next startup stepping stone, and with polished sales skills joined an awesome team at ValueClick.

Rather than providing links to posts from year 3, I thought I would provide a history of the Marketing.fm founders. We have certainly come a long way since we decided to start an anonymous marketing blog. It may not be the biggest and most subscribed to blog on the Internet, but that was never the goal.

We continue to use this platform as a catalyst of conversation and a test bed for new ideas. Doing it all in public has been a learning experience, constructive, and certainly a lot of fun – so thank you!

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Marketing.fm is growing up (or year 3)

It was a great day overall and we had a great group of attendees who are now all invited to continue the conversation on the Hacking Education open wiki

Some highlights and tweets from the day:

http://twitter.com/aburak: #hackedu had a few great teachers that I would never replace with computers, but they were probably more game designers than teachers
(source)

http://twitter.com/morganchrisp:Schools must treat their students as customers. Need better feedback architecture. Ratemyprof is early example, where could it go? #hackedu
(source)

http://twitter.com/heif:#hackedu http://homeschool.meetup.com/
(source)

http://twitter.com/Idit:#hackedu some of the learning is happening out of school. Learning networks should build bridges.
(source)

Giving students broadband access solves nothing – it’s the tools that matter

Solving problems via the web is important. Getting access to the data at the right moment is the key.
-Fred Wilson

Teachers are bank tellers of the 1970’s and will be replaced soon.
-Bing Gordon

Most education Intranets are defunct – you cannot have the wisdom of the crowds with the crowds. – Alex Grodd of http://www.betterlesson.org

http://twitter.com/opencontent: Diana Rhoten: The functions previously performed by home, church, and school have all been dumped on schools – without the funding. #hackedu
(source)

http://twitter.com/jonbischke: Must-read book 4 #hackedu is Turning Learning Right Side Up. Fav quote=”The righter we do the wrong thing the wronger we become.”
(source)

Best up to date instruction on how to learn computers? The Apple Store
-Terri Flemal

Fred Wilson has a great list of thoughts on the day

And the thoughts and insight continue right now via Twitter #hackedu

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Hacking Education