Inbound Thinking

Last week Google published the sessions for the upcoming I/O conference. There was a little buzz about one session in particular, “Developing extensions for Google Chrome.” Although it was really surprise to see it announced: Google has previously stated that there would be an extension API for Chrome eventually. But now we know that it will happen sooner than later, as the I/O Converence takes place at the end of May.

Another interesting session (to me anyway) is “Growing a SaaS-based services business with Google Apps.” I’m a big fan of the SAAS model and I hope it’s one that more entreprenuers are going to embrace. Of course Google is going to push their own agenda in this session but in reality the technology is interchangable, the important thing is convincing the thinkers and hackers to go down the SAAS road in the first place.

The session “Building a Business with Social Apps” seems a bit of an outlier. The description is:

Get some real world advice from developers that have created successful businesses around their social apps. From monetization strategies to analytics, learn how to turn a fun idea into a real revenue stream.

It doesn’t sound like this session really fits the Google agenda, but maybe they will be talking about using OpenSocial as the method of making your app social. Or maybe Google is just throwing developers a bone here and giving them interesting content without a sales pitch.

The last session that looks interesting to me is “Best practices for writing great, monetizable YouTube apps.” It would appear that Google is actually looking to make a platform play with YouTube. I know it’s already a platform of sorts, but this session shows that Google really wants to help developers get comfortable with the YouTube APIs and build more apps. I’ve been noticing the increased amount of advertising in YouTube videos so maybe Google has figured out the monetization model for their video darling and they’re ready to start piling on the traffic?

Here’s a cartoon featured on the Inbound Marketing Blog. I got a laugh out of it, hopefully you will too.

Last night I had dinner at Dante in Cambridge with HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah. It a nostalgic meal: My whole experience in Cambridge started 18 months ago when I met Dharmesh for dinner at Dante. Little did I know that dinner would be the catalyst for many (good) changes in my life. Dinner was also a bit of a celebratory occasion, in honor of the successful launch of Facebook Grader, which I developed with Dharmesh.

I was pleased to find that Dante is now serving a prix fixe 3-course menu. For ‘primi’ I had the truffled potato gnocchi, beef carpaccio and Parmigiano Reggiano. The gnocchi were fantastic, flavorful and delicate, not the overly tough potato gnocchi I’ve experienced elsewhere. The carpacio was also excellent, cut to just the right thickness and served with a slight glaze of balsamic vinegar which amplified the beef flavor without overpowering it.

I ordered the lombatello for my ’secondi’ which is basically an Italian take on Steak Frites. Dante uses the hanger steak which has great flavor and is quite tender when cooked properly, that is to say not over-cooked. I ordered mine medium-rare and it was perfect. The steak was about a 5-ounce portion which is a nice size when eating three courses; I was able to enjoy my meal without over-eating. The patatine fritte were shoe-string style, fried crispy and coated with herbs and Parmigiano. They serve an addicting garlic-thyme aioli for dipping.

After the first two courses I was craving a bit of sugar and indulged in the zabaglione as my ‘dolci’ course. The zabaglione was smooth, rich and delicious but the warm hazelnut cake was the star of the dish. Many chocolate cakes are too rich or over-sweet, but this one was wonderful. Its light and fluffy texture accompanied the custard perfectly.

With my meal I enjoyed a glass of 2005 Hitching Post Pinot Noir. I really liked the wine, I need to see if my local store has any bottles. It was flavorful and accompanied the carpaccio and lombatello well.

Overall, it was a delcious meal. Honestly, even if the food weren’t great it would have been a fun night, Dharmesh is great company and we always have very interesting (albeit nerdy) dinner conversation. It was a great way to both reminisce and celebrate the success I’ve enjoyed since joining HubSpot. Thank you, Dharmesh!

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks quietly developing Facebook Grader, a tool to measure a person’s reach and authority on Facebook. Soon I will post more details about the application and how it was built, but for now I wanted to share some of the drama that has come about because of it.

Last night, TechCrunch wrote about Facebook Grader and a battle between Loic Lemeur and Michael Arrington broke out in the comments.  I have to assume this is a (mostly) jovial exchange, but the comments are definitely amusing. In the article Arrington wrote, “French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur is ‘outraged’ that it doesn’t take into account that he has a fan page, for example (I find fan pages obnoxious myself), and gave him a score of only 97.6. C’est la vie.”

Arrington later commented, “Somebody should just spoof up a new tool for Loic that gives him a 100 every time.”

Lemeur eventually responded, “Michael, you are just brilliant, and I don’t even mean like licking your ass.”

Later the exchanges switched to video, using Seesmic, the company where Lemeur is CEO:

Arrington’s (final?) response:

All in all the launch of Facebook Grader has been an eventful one, with coverage from both TechCrunch and Mashable, two sites I love and I’m honored to have them feature my work.

Last year I privately wrote down my new year resolutions. I found it helpful to have them referenceable throughout the year. What better way to stay motivated in 2009 than to share my resolutions with the world? So here are my 2009 resolutions, in no particular order.

Get fit
Beyond just going to the gym I want to actually improve my fitness level. Build muscle, lose fat, increase stamina, all that good stuff.

Blog more
I wrote 20 posts on this blog in 2008, that is miserably insufficient. I think 2-3 posts a month is a respectable goal for 2009.

Charity volunteer work
I’m extremely fortunate and I know it. Beyond just giving money to charity I want to give time.  I consider my time much more valuable than my money and I may meet some cool people in the process. 

Learn to fly
This one might be tough to fit into 2009, but if I can take just a couple of lessons I’ll probably get addicted and keep it up. I’m a licensed driver, motorcyclist and SCUBA diver, so a pilot’s license is my next horizon. Maybe I can take one airplane lesson and one helicopter lesson?

Skydive
As much as I hate the idea of being strapped to some stranger and flung out of a plane it’s the only way I’m going to get started skydiving. So I’ll just have to deal with the tandem jump and I’ll be on my way to solo-skydiving, which is what I really want to do.

Make music
I made a bunch of music in 2008 but not as many finished tracks as I would have liked. I’ve got a decent understanding of music and production now so I can hopefully be more productive in 2009.

Watch less TV
I’ve got a bad habit of turning on the TV whenever I am bored. In 2009 I’ll try to do other things like reading, making music, going to the gym, programming, etc.

Learn one programming language each quarter
I tried to start this one at the end of 2008 by learning Python, but other than buying a book and writing some basic stuff I didn’t make much progress. I still want to learn Ruby, Perl and Erlang so hopefully I can tackle those in 2009.

Continue DJing
I played a gig about once a month in 2008 and I’d like to keep that going in 2009. I’d also really like to play in some new cities like New York or Los Angeles.

Get into MIT
I’m considering applying to the Computer Science Graduate Program or the Sloan SDM Program. If I  choose to pursue either of these then getting into MIT is going to be a major priority in 2009.

I went grocery shopping this weekend and noticed a new trend in product packaging. I was looking for Tropicana orange juice but walked right by it because the packaging has changed radically. Pepsi has also done a major redesign but I heard all about it on HubSpot TV so I wasn’t surprised to see the new packaging in the store.

There are some definite similarites between the new Tropicana and Pepsi packages. Both are fairly minimal and use relatively desaturated colors. The thing that really stands out is the choice of sans-serif, very round fonts on both packages. It looks like Tropicana went with ITC Kabel which is actually the same font as the HubSpot logo.

I have a feeling this is just the beginning and we’ll see many more packages with this type of design. If I had to guess I would say these companies are picking up on the minimalist packaging that has helped to make Apple products the subject of many unpacking photo sets. Or maybe a one-trick design shop got contracts for both Tropicana and Pepsi? Either way I like it, I think both are much cleaner, modern designs.

At the end of 2007 I wrote down and saved some New Year Resolutions. I figured I would share them, along with the outcome. I’ll share my 2009 resolutions in another post soon. Here are 2008’s resolutions in review:

Get a gym membership, GO!
It took until March, but I did finally get a gym membership. My attendance is not perfect but I try to go 2 days a week usually Saturday and Sunday. I think I satisfied this resolution.

Do some volunteer work
It was a busy year and this one slipped through the cracks. I still want to volunteer for a charity of some sort so this is going on my list for 2009. I live an awesome life and I want to help out those who are less fortunate.

Make some music, even if terrible
A definite success here. I managed to make a bunch of music in 2008. Not all of it was amazing but a couple of tracks were good enough to get released on record labels.

Watch less TV
I’m not sure about this one. I still watch TV every day, probably more than I should. I’m okay with it, but I intend to reduce TV time more in 2009, except for LOST, I have to watch lost. Maybe I can skip American Idol this year?

Read more books
I did not read as many books as I would have liked. I have a bunch lined up and always have trouble actually reading them. I do so much of my reading via blogs, magazines and websites that I have trouble getting to the books. When I used to have a commute I would listen to books on tape daily, I miss that (but not the commute).

Go on vacation outside the US
I never made it out of the country. I went to Las Vegas for a few days in March but that was it. Not a great year for travel anyway, fuel prices made tickets expensive and the airlines tried to squeeze every last penny out of passengers. I’m okay with my lack of travel, I still had a lot of fun right here in Boston.

Continue DJing – do not put gear into storage again!
Another big success in 2008. I managed to DJ throughout the year playing almost monthly at RISE and a few other gigs at Felt and Green Room. I also played a lot at my friend’s apartments. My own DJ gear is not in storage but I don’t use it as much as I should.

Learn to fly?
This was not a “real” resolution (hence the question mark) but I still want to do this. Now that my roommate is a helicopter pilot I want to learn to fly even more.

Skydive?
I didn’t do it in 2008. I think this will go along with learning to fly, if I’m going to be up there I better be familiar with bailing out. Or maybe I can talk some of my friends into joining me for some skydiving in 2009?

One of the great things about living in New England is watching the seasons change. Below is a time-lapse of 41 photos I took from my HubSpot office window between August and November of 2008. Kendall Square in Cambridge is in the foreground along with the eastern side of the MIT campus. In the distance you can see the Charles River and the lights of Fenway Park and the iconic Citgo sign.

As an admitted twitter-holic I find this quite amusing.

From time to time the marketing folks at HubSpot come up with simply awesome ideas, this is one of them. HubSpot is the inbound marketing company and there was lots of material to use for the parody song. I hope others find this as funny as I do.