My buddy Tom just landed on the front of Consumerist. Seems his bank, Chase, penalizes people for saving money.

Here's Eliot's take:




Go get `em Tom!! Viva la internet!

Helped Launch Netscape.com

It was June 15th that we put the beta Netscape online. Love it or hate it, we certainly made waves ;)

It was a project I wasn't initially supposed to be involved with, at least, not to the extent that I was. When Jason and Brian took over the netscape.com domain, I was offered the opportunity to go to AOL sort of as a netscape/weblogs, inc contact for Blogsmith. Gavin, Mike and I had been working on Blogsmith for a few months and Blogsmith was a small indie startup still. Moving one of us to the "inside" made sense.

At some point last March, the three of us flew out to meet the Netscape team at the Viceroy in Santa Monica. One thing led to another, and I was asked to be the lead developer for the project through the product launch. The next couple of months were absolutely insane. Kathryn was out in California so I was left on my own in DC and pretty much worked around the clock. We launched the beta on June 15, 2006 and then spent the next month or two cleaning things up. We overloaded the servers, we got hacked, we had less functionality than we initially anticipated, we had scope creep into areas we didn't plan for -- you name it, and we dealt with it, all in a very short amount of time for a project of that size.

My reason for joining Netscape was to tackle the challenge of launching under such a tight deadline. Once things calmed down and things were humming along, Blogsmith happened to be purchased by AOL. I was able to slowly (perhaps without his full knowing/understanding) delegate most everything to Tom (suckah!), and transfer back to rejoin Gavin, Mike and by then, Celly on the Blogsmith project.

I was the first to drop off Netscape I guess, soon followed by Jason and then C.K.. The current team though is absolutely incredible and firing on all cylinders. The developers over there are top notch and working on some amazing technology that will certainly shake things up when its released.

It's been a hell of a year and a half personally, and Netscape is a big part of the story. I'll never forget someone ease dropping on our conversations out in LA, seeing it posted in the Digg comments and then everyone successfully burying it before it gained any strength. Riding segways around Venice with groups of people yelling "Freaks!!" at us and Jason, for some reason, acting like a Robot the whole time. Or discussing the merits of the Viceroy's amazingly delicious bacon with Wil Wheaton. Of course, using the then newly launched Emurse.com to staff up was enjoyable as well ;) (nod to Finke) (yea, I know, a plug.. I couldn't help myself)

I think the biggest lessons I learned was to sleep when I'm tired (oops), how to work with a boss like Jason (notoriously demanding) , script kiddies will always find a way, script kiddies don't like being called script kiddies, when talking to the press you're always on record and most importantly, anything in any amount of time is possible if you have a dedicated and focused enough team. Distance be damned.

Congrats on a successful first year for Netscape.com (the social edition). I absolutely can not wait to see the things planned for the next year. Trey and his team are men amongst men, and Tom's dedication and leadership holds great promise for the entire Netscape brand. Keep it up guys -- NETSCAPE FTW!

UPDATE: I've been quoted in the Netscape article on the same topic, "Happy Birthday, Netscape"

Finally!

Congrats to the entire Netscape team on getting this thing out the gate!

Go download it now :)

Happy New Year :)

Links:

• Netscape named best "Peer Production News" site. - And in my obviously biased opinion, I think it's most certainly well deserved.
• Saddam Video: Journalism or Voyeurism? - Corey Spring has a great article dissecting the merits of airing the Saddam execution video, which he disagrees with. IMO, lot's of folks are labeling the video as a "snuff film,", which I suppose to a degree it is, but not anymore than the JFK Assassination, 9/11 documentary, Mussolini execution, or any other morbid historical event captured by film or photo.
  
• Lifehacker book? - Very cool. Would make for a great birthday present ;) (ahem)
• 25 funniest analogies collected by English teachers - "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."
• The Truth about Rich Dad, Poor Dad - "What Robert Kiyosaki Does Not Want You to Know"

Nothing really Portland specific, just.. you know. ;)

Links:

• Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history - "The indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades." When you factor in Stalin, Hitler, and all the other brutal attempts at establishing a godless society, it's a pretty strong argument. One has to wonder what the death tolls would be like if the crusaders had nazi war planes though...
  
• C.K. Address the Netscape Universe - Jason is a tough act to follow, but I have full faith in C.K.'s ability to take Netscape to yet another level. From my conversations with the team over there, expect some really innovative moves in the somewhat near future. Exciting times continue at AOL.
• Black Friday Coverage - Deal News black friday shopping coverage. It's that time of year again..

I love this show. Perfectly casted, amazing dialog. Ryan got to sit down for some interviews over there, check it out.

One year ago today, after speaking briefly with Brian twice on the phone, I quit my job as a contractor on a military project to join my business partner on a little startup project called Blogsmith. I left the office and went straight to the airport to board a plane for NYC. We were up all night coding the parts of the CMS that were slated to be demoed the next day at Winstock 2005. The next day, we streamed the UCF game in the 75 Rock boardroom while Mike passed out on the floor. I went from a government mandated 40 hour work week, to working a 30 hour day. There was no contract, no written agreements and I wasn't even sure there was going to be a paycheck. Gavin and I figured, at best, we had food on the table until February.

The past year has been a great one professionally. First Blogsmith as an independent company, then AOL for the Netscape re-launch, then back to Blogsmith as an AOL property. We wrote Emurse the July before all this started, which admittedly we had to shelve for a bit, but it too found traction. We juggled 3 major projects this year and I've spent more than 75% of the year living out of a suitcase (I just added it up...). I feel as if I haven't stopped since I boarded that plane to New York. It's been a heck of a trip.

Links:

• Netscape Blog: Another thing to come out of Blogsmith CodeJam this past week was the the Netscape.com blog. Props to Craig and Andy for getting it out the gate.
• Studio 60 online: I'm not a huge T.V. guy, but seriously.. Studio 60 is amazing, and what's cooler is that they stream it online. (hat tip, TV Squad)
• No Frills AIM: Seriously.. About damn time. (via Calacanis.com)
• Battle over YouTube: I know, I know -- everyone's sick of the conversation already. But seriously. We're staring down the second coming of the tech bubble.
• Speaking of online videos: It's not hosted on YouTube, but this is the type of content we're talking about being worth $1B? Surely, nature's humor is worth something, but... (gracias, sorta, to Paikai for the send ;)

It's been known internally for awhile now, but it's time for me to transition off of the Netscape.com project and back to Blogsmith. As some of you know, Blogsmith was the project that I worked on prior to Netscape and is something that I thoroughly enjoy. It's the CMS that powers Weblogs, Inc., TMZ, and a host of other major sites in and out of AOL.

The Netscape project has been an amazing experience and I am thankful for having had the opportunity to participate. My involvement with the project related more to redesigning things quickly and getting it out the door on time. Tom, Trey, Craig, and Andy have been amazing to work with, and if it weren't for them, there's no way we would have succeed in that. Michael Rhing and Gavin Hall were also huge key components in all that, and aren't mentioned quite as much as they should be. The entire AOL hosting team we deal with as well has just been absolutely great. Forward looking, Chris Finke has come on board and I think he's going to be a fantastic addition. Tom will be taking the lead position, which I think is a perfect fit as well.

Next week a host of new changes are coming online at Netscape. Tons of bug fixes, polish, and security fixes (ahem..;) to help give this thing some legs. Trey and Tom both have busted ass trying to get it ready and out the door. I can only hope that we can one day switch the design over to Andy's double secret uber layout.. but.. thats probably a bit further a way. I really think a fresh design, combined with finishing the feature list, will give Netscape the unique personality and identity that it needs.

Also, we have a number of open dev positions on the netscape team -- if you're interested, send me your Emurse link and I'll throw your name into the mix (alex at newnetscape.com).

Wayjer just bought UCF season tickets.

Wayjer just became a Netscape Navigator.

Certainly, correlation doesn't mean causation.... I mean, Wayne's a beast of a bookmarker. I'm just pointing out a coincidence, that's all. Me, Celly, Gavin, Trey and now Wayjer. Interesting.

Support UCF -- It's good karma. ;)

GO KNIGHTS (and welcome aboard to all the new navigators!)

I swear we didn't start Emurse to fill open positions at Netscape. In fact, Emurse existed before Gavin and I were even a twinkle in Weblogs, Inc's eye. Gavin used the Emurse organization tools when he was undergoing that same job hunt.

But it is kinda nice.

People were posting resumes, and well.. I just happened to be looking for a special new someone at Netscape. I saw one particular resume link float to the top of the popular list, and it looked like a perfect fit.

Welcome aboard, Chris.

It's going to be fun.

Things are busy on multiple fronts.. Hoping to get 100% of the netscape.com traffic pointed to the new site soon (we've only taken on about 50% of it so far, bleh.)

Netscape link:

• Jason blogs about why the old netscape.com site was tossed.

Emurse link:

• I recently did some Q&A with C.M. Russell over at Secrets of the Job Hunt. The last couple of interviews I've done have simply come from people emailing me and asking. If anyone else is looking for information or content for a blog post, feel free to do the same ;) alex at emurse.com

Fun: