SitDown. StartUp.

I’ve had several people ask me what my newest venture is all about and how it’s different from the other 100 NY/SV start-ups that are doing social media, ecommerce/ scommerce, sharing on facebook, etc, blah blah blah.

As many people will tell you (including my parents) entrepreneurs are passionately-delusional, bushy-tailed, utterly crazy individuals that think they will make some profound world-changing impact with their ideas. I probably fall into several of these categories and my Mom would agree.

My idea really has nothing to do with any new and revolutionary concepts but rather deals with leveraging something that is actually quite common; sharing and recommending stuff with your friends online.

To really get to the core of why I am so passionate about it (i.e. waking up at 8am and working until 2am with no form of employment and loving it) is that we are taking something that is fun (getting recommendations, shares, and emails from friends) and making it even better.

And surprise! This is still the most credible and effective source for buying stuff online.

In reality, every purchase you have ever made in your life, from digital cameras to Macbooks to a pair of jeans, have been more a result from friend/peer influence than the billions of dollars in advertising spent by the brand itself. Yes, Apple and E-Trade have fantastic commercials and incredible brand equity and resonance with consumers. But when it comes to actually making the purchase, your friends and people you trust are the most influential when it comes to pulling out your wallet.

For example, I read an interview yesterday on Hacker News that basically asked Guy Kawasaki what his favorite mouse was that he used with his Macbook. I was in the market for a new mouse. Guy said that the new “Magic Mouse” was really good. I went out and bought one the same day. I’ve never met Guy, but I’ve read his books and watched his interviews. He is someone I trust (although a former Apple evangelist) similar to how I would trust a friend.

The problem we are attempting to solve is to make it as easy and fun as possible to make these recommendations and endorsements online while providing significant value to major retailers. We are taking an action that is already taking place  (sharing products on facebook, email, twitter, tumblr, myspace) and improving it for the retailers and the consumers.

New idea? Kind of

New behavior for consumers? Nope.

A refreshing and disruptive way of doing it? Absolutely

Remember, if Zuckerberg told you in 2004 that he was starting a new social network, you probably would have laughed and said “There is already MySpace and Friendster. Good luck bro. You’re better off taking your degree from Harvard and working on Wall Street. :)”

Similar situation here. We are taking a new approach to social recommendations and this already exists online. The difference is that we feel strongly that our technology and UX is pretty well aligned with consumer behavior and that others haven’t tried doing it our way.

I’m excited to start sharing more about our venture in the upcoming months!

If your interested in joining our beta test group in the near future, shoot me an email and we’ll slap you on the list. That is all!

Biz Stone seems to be on the hunt to add some value to the existing Twitter through more acquisitions:

This was pulled from reuters:  ”That is something we are definitely interested in,” Stone told a news conference in Tel Aviv. “We made an acquisition last year that turned out to be an outstandingly good decision.”

and some more…

“As our attention is grabbed by some of these developers, we will take a hard look at them,” Stone said.

Twitter bought search engine Summize in 2008 for about $15M. If you have ever searched on search.twitter.com, that was Summize’s business and proprietary technology.

Stone added that Twitter will start making money next year through non-traditional advertising. He doesn’t feel pressured to make money since Twitter has plenty of funding in the bank.

The hot story in tech right now is “real-time,” thanks to Twitter and Facebook, so you’re going to hear a lot of noise over the next few years about “real-time” tech startups. Most of them will be useless and will flame out.

But here’s one that we think could actually be pretty cool: It’s called Hot Potato, and it launches today. The main idea: It’s an iPhone app (and Web site) designed specifically for people to chat about live events.

Specifically:

• It is for people to talk about the same concert they’re at, the same football game they’re watching (in person or on TV), the same bar they’re at, or whatever — as long as it’s a live event.
• It’s NOT for people to share vacation photos with their friends and family, as they do on Facebook.
• It’s NOT for people to describe their daily habits to complete strangers, as they do on Twitter.
• It’s NOT for people to share their location info with their friends, as they do on Foursquare or Loopt.

The idea: People want to be able to discuss events with each other that they’re all watching or participating in together. That’s not something that Twitter does well — even with hashtags, it’s a mess; and it’s definitely not something that Facebook status updates, when aggregated, do well.

The interweb told me today that Kanye West is Dead; I mean un-dead.

The whole thing was a massive PR-Hoax but impressive nevertheless for the traffic it’s received. If you check the Twitter homepage (above) the popular topics indicate “RIP Kanye West.”

I’m finding that a lot of these PR-Hoaxes, if done legally, are probably effective for whatever attention you’re trying to garner for an unrelated project. For Kanye, it may be for this new bizarre short-film directed by Spike Jonze, for the Heene Family, maybe they’ll land their ultimate dream of reality TV gig that can objectify their ideal family values into the stratosphere (“Falcon Knows Best”….anyone?).

Marketing/PR agencies take note…if you want major attention for a client proceed in one of two ways: send your client off in shiny weather balloon or tweet about a fake death. Results are intriguing….