I just read through a very interesting article by Marc Andreessen entitled “The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 1: Why not to do a startup“.   This is a guy who knows what he’s talking about:

My specific experience is from three companies I have co-founded: Netscape, sold to America Online in 1998 for $4.2 billion; Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), a public software company with an approximately $1 billion market cap; and now Ning, a new, private consumer Internet company.

But more generally, I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in and exposed to a broad range of other startups — maybe 40 or 50 in enough detail to know what I’m talking about — since arriving in Silicon Valley in 1994: as a board member, as an angel investor, as an advisor, as a friend of various founders, and as a participant in various venture capital funds.

You can hop over to his site to read the full article which is very detailed or check out my summary below.

PROS To a Startup

• The opportunity to be in control of your own destiny
• The opportunity to create something new
• The opportunity to have an impact on the world
• The ability to create your ideal culture and work with a dream team of people you get to assemble yourself
• Money

CONS To a Startup

• Emotional rollercoaster
• Absolutely nothing happens unless you make it happen
• You get told no — a lot
• Hiring is a huge pain in the ass
• At some point you’re going to have to hire executives
• The hours
• It’s really easy for the culture of a startup to go sideways

I started out as a huge Bloglines fan.  I use it throughout the day to get the latest articles and posts from all of the sites that I like…roughly 300 as of today.  I used to think it was a really helpful aggregator that saved me time and kept me up to date with the latest info.  When I load it up it shows me all of the sites I’ve saved and highlights those with new content, showing me how many new articles or posts there are to view on the site.

But, lately it is starting to piss me off.

More and more I’ll click to view new posts and all I see is the same old shit I’ve already read and seen at least once if not twice.  I don’t know if the feed owner is specifying that the post has been updated or if its a Bloglines bug, but it wastes my time as I have to sift through old posts to get to the good stuff.  Look, if I’ve already clicked on a highlighted site and viewed the NEW articles they should not be highlighted again, or at least not in the same way.  This appears to be a relatively new issue…or maybe it’s just happening more frequently now.

Anyone else having this problem?  Know of a solution?  Is it time for me to switch aggregators?

Was just making the casual rounds to Digg.com and noticed that the site is down.  It’s 12:01 AM PST…..

Anyone else seeing this?

Wonder what’s up…..

According to Mashable iLike has become among the fastest growing music services, with over six million registered users, gaining a whopping three million just since the launch of its Facebook app only two weeks ago.

iLike has gotten a reported three million users since its launch last October, and its growth is exponential, now that it’s on Facebook. The music website is gaining nearly a million new users every month, and is looking to become the most used music application on Facebook. iLike’s Facebook app lets you personalize incoming information based on your Facebook music and that of your friends, and get alerts for when your favorite artists will be in town.

Are you building a Facebook widget?  Have one live already?

Why try to build your own community when you can utilize one of the largest ones out there for free?

There’s a new meta search engine on the block: Sputtr.   It doesn’t really matter as everyone uses Google, but my initial reaction to it was positive.  I like the design and layout of the website…it has a “web 2.0″ feel to it.  Big font. Bright colors.  Etc.

It’s a fairly user friendly interfact that allows you to easily search all of the major search engines and social media websites within a few clicks.  Just enter your query and then click on the icon of your choice to view the results at that engine or website.   There are plenty of options listed on the site but Sputtr also gives you the option of suggesting a new search site if you feel there is a good one missing.

From their about page:

Welcome to Sputtr. A refreshingly clean way to search the things that matter the most.
Now you can save valuable time by having all the right searches on just one page!

It’s simple - reeeaal simple.
It’s fast - faster than most others out there.
It’s a collection of all your favorite search engines - all on just one page!
It’s pretty - at least we think so.

Not much time to post, but check out this excellent article by Muhammad Saleem at Copyblogger.com entitled “Writing Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines, and Social Media“.

He breaks down the three styles and shows some good examples of titles and headlines.