Posted in Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized
I know a gal named Jen Friel. She’s dynamic, energetic and one of the happiest and most spontaneous people I know. She gave up having a home for a year, and she went on 103 OkCupid dates in nine months to study the science of attraction. And she blogged about every single one of her dates.
(You can read about them, if you’re brave enough.)
You see, Jen has a site called Talk Nerdy to Me, Lover (TNTML). It may not look like much (we’re in the process of a redesign), but the site has amassed a dedicated audience of young girls, social media nerds and curious onlookers. It has a slew of contributors talking about the intersection of life, sex, relationships and technology. And it has Jen, one of the most compelling people I have ever met.
For more than a year, she’s been able to live off the site and its sponsors, but now she wants to take it to the next level — to turn it into a brand that speaks honestly about the intersection of sex, technology and relationships. And a lot is happening to get that done.
I’m thrilled to announce that I am joining NerdsUnite Productions (the owner of Talk Nerdy to Me Lover) as a Senior Advisor. I’m not leaving Mashable — I’m as committed as ever to the cause — but I will also be immersing myself in the world of production as we work to to turn TNTML into a business and a bigger brand.
Jen and I (along with an incredibly brilliant and passionate team) are not only working on expanding the site, but on several related projects in television, media and more. I’m hoping that we’ll have more to announce early next year, but you can check out Jen’s announcement if you want some more info.
Technology has affected how we think of dating, sex, relationships and life, and that something that TNTML explores with unprecedented amounts of honesty and insight. I believe it opens up a huge opportunity. And most of all, I believe in Jen, a woman who is constantly underestimated but always gets it done.
We’re looking to build relationships with sponsors for Talk Nerdy to Me Lover, so if you’re interested (check out the video above for more), email us at sponsors@talknerdytomelover.com. And if you’re interested learning more about NerdsUnite Productions or becoming a contributor, reach out to us. We’re listening.
#NerdsUnite,
~ Ben
Posted in Announcements
Fireworks, torches and giant bonfires: welcome to the English countryside.
I’m currently in England on business, but I decided to take a trip to the English countryside with Mashable’s lovely Global Director of Advertising Lauren Rubin. During our adventure, we decided to visit the village of Fletching in East Sussex, where the villagers decided to march through the streets with fireworks, light a giant bonfire and put on a spectacular fireworks show.
The event was part of a tradition put on by multiple villages in Sussox, Surrey and Kent — the Sussex Bonfire Societies.
From the Wikipedia page:
“The celebrations mark both Guy Fawkes Night and the burning of 17 Protestant martyrs in Lewes’ High Street from 1555 to 1557, during the reign of Mary Tudor.”
The video above shows the villagers marching down the road with their torches. The one below comes from the fireworks display they put on (a well-choreographed show, by the way).
I’ll be in London until Tuesday, where I will hop over to Munich before heading to Dublin for f.ounders and the Dublin Web Summit.
Posted in Uncategorized
I was invited a few weeks ago to speak at Startup Grind at AOL’s offices in Palo Alto. During the 50+ minute talk, we chatted about everything from the evolution of tech journalism to Facebook privacy.
If you actually get through all 53 minutes of this interview, I’ll mail you a cookie*. Enjoy!
*cookie may come in the form of a picture of a cookie attached to an electronic mail
Posted in Uncategorized
Tracks.by co-founders (and my former roommates) Matt Schlicht and Mazy Kazerooni just go a really nice feature in Forbes.
To build the next great tech start-up, some people start by studying engineering, while others may try for an MBA. But two precocious teenagers, Mazyar “Mazy” Kazerooni and Matt Schlicht, who were 17 and 19 respectively, elbowed their way in to work at a Silicon Valley start-up–without even living there. They then became social media advisers to top rap stars such as Lil Wayne, and have now founded their own start-up backed by $500,000 in angel and venture financing.
I just had to feature this. Nice job Matt and Mazy! Check out the story if you want to learn more about their story and the startup they’re working on. I think it’s a great product, but (disclosure) I sit on Tracks.by’s Board of Advisors, so I’m biased.
Image via Forbes. Nice one, guys!
Posted in Uncategorized
I get several hundred pitches in the course of a typical day. It’s part of the job — startups, PR agencies and big tech companies pitch us on their products, and we decide which ones are the best fit for our readers.
But going through hundreds of pitches every single day is rough. We (journalists) can’t possibly go through every email, so we look for signals that help us sort out the stories we want to follow up on and the stories we need to trash.
One of the signals that can get your email trashed is the use of buzzwords. While not every pitch with a buzzword in the subject is a bad pitch, most of them turn out to be for crappy products that don’t stand on their own merits. There’s a strong correlation.
In the interest of killing the overuse of buzzwords, I have collected a short list of the worst buzzwords to use in a pitch. These are the worst of the worst. They are overused and add little to no value to a pitch.
(In the interest of being helpful and not just preachy, next week I’ll post some tips for what you SHOULD do to get your pitch noticed.)
Check out the list below. This is a living list — I intend to update it regularly, so let me know what words you’d like me to add the list in the comments.
In no particular order…
Image courtesy of ThinkGeek. Also, I really need to buy that stamp.
Posted in My musings
