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	How To Add Your Foursquare Checkin History To Your Google Calendar Here's a cool Foursquare trick that I haven't seen anyone mention. Foursquare makes it super simple to add your check-in history to your calendar. Just go to foursquare.com/feeds/ (login) and copy the .ICS feed. Should look something like... http://feeds.foursquare.com/history/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.ics Now head over to your Google Calendar. Under "Other Calendars" click "Add->Add by URL". Paste in the feed you copied from the Foursquare website and click "Add Calendar". Thats it! Now you'll see your past checkins on your calendar. It would be cool if the checkins were set to Repeat Yearly so next year I could see where I was this year. Maybe someone knows how to hack the feed to do it? 17 Jul 2010 Disqus Comments »

	Subliminal Autosuggest Advertising What if software like Microsoft Word, Google Docs or even the iPhone OS autosuggested contextually relevant "sponsored words" while you were typing? For example, you're writing a blog post that mentions advertising and the next time you started to type a noun that started with the letter "A" the program "suggested" Adwords. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's not alone, its part of a campaign. Do this a couple times, before exposing you to banner and text ads promoting Adwords and I bet click through rates go up dramatically. Why? Curiosity will kick in. You'll see an ad promoting Adwords and think, "I know I've heard of this before... What is Adwords?" and you'll click. Just wanted to throw this out there. Maybe its already happening? 14 Jul 2010 Disqus Comments »

	Who asks the best question? I noticed something strange today during all the "Buzz" around Google. All these services that ask you to update your status ask a different question: Twitter: What's happening? Facebook: What's on your mind? Buzz: Share what you're thinking So the questions is... Who asks the best question? Which question motivates you to post? Which one doesn't? Do you think this matters at all? Knowing Google, I am sure they tested 10,000 iterations of their "question" before deciding. Let me know what you think. 09 Feb 2010 Disqus Comments »

	Replicating The Google Maps iPhone App I know its ambitious task to take this on as my first Google Maps API Project, but what the hell. If you can help me get this working, you can use it for yourself. Hows that for incentive? =) 19 Jan 2009 Disqus Comments »

	iPhone Safari Dev Stuff So I have been doing a lot of web dev, particularly for an iPhone project I am working on and wanted to share some of the things I stumbled upon. I usually don't write posts like this, but since The Googster made some of this info overly complicated to find I thought: Why Not? Some of this stuff might make you say "Duh!" while others might make you say "Ahh. Interesting...". So anyway here we go... 18 Jan 2009 Disqus Comments »

	How I Almo$t Tricked Google Into Making Me Millions Ever wonder how Mozilla stays in business? First, Mozilla makes Google the default search engine on FireFox (I'm sure some mula comes from that alone). Second, every time you use that search box and proceed to click an Adsense ad, Google shares the revenue with Mozilla. You can even watch them track it. Go to Google.com and search from the web page, the search url looks like this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Greg+Gerber&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= If you use the search-box built into FireFox the resulting url looks like this: http://www.google.com/search?q=Greg+Gerber&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a See the difference? In 2006, that relationship earned Mozilla $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. That's right... $57,000,000 dollarsss worth of clicks in one year! When I found that out, I wanted in. Who wouldn't right? Read The Full Article & Leave A Comment... 23 Dec 2008 Disqus Comments »

	Twitter Turned My Blog Into A Ghost Town As you may (or may not) have noticed I havn't been posting much at brainbackup.net lately. But don't mistake my lack of posts for having little to talk about or laziness. No I blame it all on twitter. Every big thought and small action I have taken over the last few months has poured out of me in the form of mini sub 140 character posts on twitter. And my blog isn't the only tech that misses me... I am sending less email, using less instant messaging, making less phone calls and sending almost zero text messages. How has this tiny service that hardly anyone knows about replacing almost all of my other forms of communication? Writing a blog post or email is time consuming. Sure I love to back up my thoughts in their full entirety on the blog, but is it really necessary? Lately I find myself condensing thoughts, projects and ideas I have been working on for days, weeks or even months into short 140 character twits. I could go on all day about the various reasons you should be using twitter but I will just leave it at this: Twitter makes sharing and communicating dead simple. (and thats only 52 characters) Convincing people that twitter is actually useful and makes life easier is a hard sell. To most, it seems like another time consuming activity to throw into the mix. Try explaining it like this: Imagine meeting a ton of new people and never sending a text message, updating your facebook status or emailing someone a link ever again. That usually does the trick. They will figure out the million other uses for twitter on their own once they give it a shot So if you want to know what I have been up to for the last few months just hop over to my twitter profile. I am going to try posting more detailed thoughts, projects and ideas on the blog again, but no guarantees. Either way you can follow both by just following me on twitter. Dont even bother commenting on this article. Just reply to the twit of this article that was automatically posted to twitter via twitterfeed. 22 Oct 2008 Disqus Comments »

	My Week At The TechCrunch50 I spent the last week at the TechCrunch50 watching startups present and listening to the tech elite discuss various topics ranging from fundraising to tech's new clash with Hollywood. I learned a lot, took a ton of notes, and am officially mentally and physically exhausted. As for the majority of the companies presenting, I truthfully wasn't all that impressed. There were of course some great stand out startups, but of the 52 who presented, I can honestly say I was only impressed with a few. Maybe I expected too much, maybe my ass just hurt from sitting in those uncomfortable chairs all day, but there were a lot of companies presenting extremely unimaginative ideas. For example AdRocket was building an advertising platform that delivered targeted ads in company newsletters/emails. How a startup like that was chosen to present out of the 1000+ entries boggles my mind. I even want as far as to predict that this event officially popped the Web 2.0 bubble. My favorite of the presenting companies were: 1) Yammer- Twitter for the enterprise 2) DotSpots- Annotating the web 3) ExchangeP- Virtual stock exchange for private companies 4) Mytopia- Developer of RUGS, a framework for developing and compiling native applications that will run on EVERY mobile operating system. 5) Akoha- A real world game where missions can be tracked online 6) GoodGuide- The world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. In the end, six companies were brought on stage, five as finalists and one $50k winner. Surprisingly, Yammer took home the check. I love the idea of Yammer, I signed up for their service while I was listening to their pitch, but I'm not sure they should have been the winner. There is a lot to learn from the judges' decision though. The main thing I take away is that it's not about how cool or innovative your product is, it's about having something that is (super) simple, useful and profitable. The startup presentations were boring at times, but the panels and discussions between sessions completely made up for it. Below are a few of the interesting quotes and advice I jotted down while listening to the various investors and geeks talk shop. "Solve ONE particular pain point... then build the platform" - Effen Roelof (Sequoia) "Follow the money, not the users" - Mark Cuban "If I were raising money for a startup, I would use the angel investors, not VC's." - Raj Kapoor (Mayfield Fund) "We like to invest in companies that have an unfair advantage in customer acquisition." - Navin Chadda (Mayfield Fund) "I think the term viral marketing is an oxymoron" - Joss Whedon By far the highlight of the event for me was the Mark Cuban interview. I have been a big fan of his for a long time and even more so now. Below are some of the great notes and quotes I took while listening to him. - Broadcast was making 23 million the quarter when they sold for 5.7 billion - We had over 1 million uniques a day when we sold broadcast.com - Do things that people say wont work, do what people say can't be done - I look at industries that I know are messed up - Always put yourself in a position where you can control your own destiny - Sales cures all - If you cant make money/sell your product, move on - I will not invest in a company if you come to me with an exit strategy - When we sold broadcast.com, we had 300 employees and 130 were in sales - Everybody's got the will to win, the feeling that this is it, but not many people have the will to prepare - Bobby Knight - You have too know your market better than anybody All in all it was a great event and I want to thank TechCrunch for accepting my student application (at least now I can say college was good for something!). I look forward to attending and possibly presenting next year ;) . Check out all of my twits from the event here. 10 Sep 2008 Disqus Comments »

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