Good luck to these guys and anyone in a startup or looking for a job should read about this one and they are just around the corner from me:

Every so often I come across some entrepreneur who reminds me why it is so much fun covering this beat. That happened Tuesday when I sat down with the energetic founders of Eggsprout, a Bellevue startup that is trying to transform the way people find jobs online.

It wasn’t so much the business. After all, enough people have attempted to revolutionize the job search category over the years(Jobster, anyone?) What caught my attention was the passion and drive exhibited by Brian Ma and Hsu Ken Ooi — the former University of Washington whizzes — that are leading Eggsprout.

They’re young (all five employees are under the age of 25); smart (Ma graduated early from the UW with a dual degree in computer science and electrical engineering); thrifty (the Bellevue basement where they work has limited heat); and hungry (They are foregoing salaries, surviving on chicken nuggets.)

Furthermore, the Eggsprout team — which is launching their service today after months of development and less than $10,000 in startup costs  — are not letting something like the worst economic recession in years stand in their way.

>>> Full Story Here

I’m a big fan of John Battelle, which is why Federated Media represents DHADM and Transbuddha on media buys.

I’m also a big fan of his yearly predictions which are often very accurate. Here are the headlines, check out his site for the details.

When you go a read his predictions for 2008 and how they turned out it’s worth reading his predictions for 2009.

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1. Macro economy: We’ll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by Q4 09. In other words, the economy will begin to grow again by the end of the year, but it won’t feel like we’re out of the woods till next year at the earliest. …

2. The online media space will be hit hard by the economic downturn in the first half, but by year’s end, will have chalked up moderate gains over last year in terms of gross spend. ….

3. Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever. It will also struggle to find an answer to the question of how it diversifies its revenue in 2009. Search is the ultimate harvester of demand, and Google has become search’s Archer Daniels Midland - wherever a seed of demand might pop its head through the web’s soil, Google is there to harvest it. …

4. Despite #3 above, Google stock will soar in by Q3-4 of 2009,…

5. Tied to #3 above, Microsoft will gain at least five points of search share in 2009, perhaps as much as 10. This is a rather radical prediction, I know, but hear me out…

6. Yahoo and AOL will merge.

7. However, in the second half of the year, Microsoft will buy its search monetization from the combined company.

8. Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes. I sense this will happen for a number of reasons (), but I think the main one will be brand related - a brand based on being cooler than the other guy simply does not scale past a certain point. I sense Apple has hit that point.

9. Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media." They will take budget reserved for media spending (IE buying banners and building out branding campaigns) and start to become publishers in their own right….

10. Agencies will increasingly see their role as that of publishers. Publishers will increasingly see their role as that of agencies. Both can win at this, but only by understanding how to truly add value to real communities - not flash crowds driven by one time events…

11. Twitter will continue its meteoric rise. This is a very hard prediction to make, because so much depends on the company’s ability to execute two crucial - and exceedingly difficult - new features: The integration of search into the service, and the monetization of that integration…

12. Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. I am not certain what, but it won’t have a "status quo" year. It might be a merger with a traditional media company, a major alliance with Google, hiring a head scratcher as CEO, or something else at that level of "WTF!?" …

13. Lucky #13 is reserved for my eternal mobile prediction: 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web….

14. Lastly, I promise, I will have sold my book and will be hard at work on it. And yes, still running FM too. I think I have a way to do both, given I wrote 15K words last year without even knowing it….

This is worth 40 seconds of your time. I wish 2008 had gone by that fast.

from on .

I’m really liking what Flickr/Yahoo are doing with the digital assets you already have on there. The direct blog posting from an image, the embed video code…just smart and very useful.

BTW- this is just a silly quick video of things I have worked on over the years as a test file.

The first heard about Johnny Rollins was from a post we did here on DHADM regarding a Comcast post: Comcast Workplace | How’s It Going Frank? which is a great commercial and got people talking about the song.

In the comments, Johnny mentioned that it was him that did the song for the commercial (people in the string wanted to know who it was) and so I dug into this and website and have had a great email exchange.

If you like his sound and want to help out a musical talent (even if it’s not your cup-of-tea) support your artists with some love and in this case, buy his CD or on .

This is worth watching if only to realize that JC Penny did it. Watch it and tell me if the brands you work for, or like would have done something like this. Good for you JC Penny.

Thanks M for the link.

I have seen the commercials and I finally went to the site to see what this testosterone driven campaign was all about. Yes, I did.

You have 4 teams that are racing against all kinds of odds, driving obstacle courses in the RAM 1500.

I must admit that the production quality and the online events are engaging, the site has plenty of interactive juice behind it and the video quality is damn impressive (if you are willing to wait for the load time).

I’m not a Cowboy, Fireman, Military or Contractor and I’m not the demographic for a manly truck (software and design don’t typically lean towards commercial needs that require what the RAM provides, not going to throw all my No. 2 pencils and drawing pads in the back) but I can definitely appreciate the effort behind this campaign.

Although this is not a truck for me, the creative idea and execution are worthy of paying notice of.

Here is the other video I talked about in the previous post.  Here is Death Ring, so you better give me what I want.

Enjoy the madness.

At&t has put out a couple “I found the internet” commercials towards their campaign to bring notice to their laptop connect card.  It’s not that they are funny, but they have a certain quirk to them that gets your attention, i.e. the yeti in the background.  I wonder if he can find the internet in the Amazon jungles, hmm…