I'm Adam

Sure, I’ll take one of these. Makes me like Bubba even...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:02:13 -0700

Sure, I’ll take one of these. Makes me like Bubba even more.

Amazing sunset tonight in Santa Monica. (Taken with Instagram at...

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:33:40 -0700

Amazing sunset tonight in Santa Monica. (Taken with Instagram at Hallo, Inc.)

My New Venture: Hallo

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:51:00 -0700

A few months ago, I was having coffee with my buddy, Abdul Khan, and we began discussing mobile communication. Namely, we began discussing our own communication patterns and our desire to maintain better communication with more people and more people, while also having less time.

That led to a conversation about how text messaging (being quick and asynchronous) has enabled that, but yet also removed many of the personal and rich aspects of communication that voice allows. We then started going a bit further, discussing social graphs, group communication patterns and open and social sharing.

Out of those initial few conversations, a new company was born — Hallo (http://hallo.me/).

We, along with Christine Dummer and Adrian Rodriguez, recently launched Hallo — a mobile application that lets you send quick voice messages to individuals, groups or the world — as a solution the problem we were discussing. It quickly allows you to communicate with friends, family and the world (like text messaging), but preserves the personal nature of voice.

We created Hallo because we believe that with less time, communication should be simple, easy and quick. Yet, it’s just as important that it continue to be personal. Voice allows you to connect with people and express feeling, emotion and subtlety and nuance in ways text cannot.

We also believe everyone has something to say and has a voice — thus the ability to post public voice messages on both the application and to Twitter and Facebook.

We’re just getting started with Hallo and what you see now is only the beginning. Check it out and let me know what you think (adam@teamhallo.com).

Hallo for iOS: http://itunes.com/apps/hallosocialvoice

Hallo for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hallo.android

Uncle Drew. Belongs in the hall of classic hoops-related...

Thu, 24 May 2012 11:46:19 -0700

Uncle Drew. Belongs in the hall of classic hoops-related commercials.

Humbling. The largest single-shot photo of Earth ever...

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:31:04 -0700

Humbling.

The largest single-shot photo of Earth ever taken.

(via This 121-Megapixel Photo of Earth Will Make Your Jaw Drop)

Great video from P&G about moms. I am blessed to have the...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:37:45 -0700

Great video from P&G about moms. I am blessed to have the best mom in the world who has always supported and loved me. Thanks, mom. Love you.

Caine’s Arcade. Awesome. Inspiring. Donate to the...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:42:31 -0700

Caine’s Arcade. Awesome. Inspiring.

Donate to the Caine’s Arcade scholarship fund: http://cainesarcade.com/

Music is powerful. “I feel the band of love … of...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:15:00 -0700

Music is powerful. “I feel the band of love … of dreams.”

Bon Iver at AIR Studios.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:07:46 -0800

Bon Iver at AIR Studios.

Startup lessons on the wall at the office.

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:44:00 -0800

Startup lessons on the wall at the office.

Love this … bravo, Chrysler.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:43:27 -0800

Love this … bravo, Chrysler.

8-bit MJ. Awesome.

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:59:00 -0700

8-bit MJ. Awesome.

Reunited ... And It Feels So Good

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:43:00 -0700

Last Friday, at 5:45 am while catching a flight up to San Francisco for the TechCrunch/August Capital shindig, I clumsily left my MacBook Air in the TSA security bin. I didn’t realize this until about two hours later when I went to get my computer to work on the train.

Completely panicked, I called and left numerous messages with TSA, had my wife go to the airport, and pretty much bummed around all day in a state of shock. I re-played every event and decision, wondering how I could be so forgetful. I also thought about everything I hadn’t backed-up. Family photos, work, financial records, and more. Not only that, I had looked at anti-theft services like Prey multiple times, but hadn’t installed it, thinking, “It’ll never happen to me.”

Well, it happened. Fortunately, a honest TSA person picked up my laptop from the bin (wish I knew who it was… I am so thankful), immediately logged it, sent it to LAX TSA lost-and-found, and I was reuinited with my MacBook Air today.

So, to those who were like me, here’s my advice.

Back-up everything (frequently)… preferably to a cloud service, but at least to an external drive
Make sure everything is password protected
Put some kind of identifying mark on your computer (a case, sticker, etc), as TSA kept asking me if there was a unique identifier on my computer
Install anti-theft software

Oh, and don’t complain about TSA at the airport again.

Tonx Coffee

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 07:34:00 -0700

Just had my first cup of Tonx and it is really great! Makes my usual Starbucks pale in comparison. Check them out at: https://tonx.org/

How to Ditch Your Debt

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:00:00 -0700

Check it out… no one likes being in debt. Luckily, Payoff.com is here to help.

Yahoo! Search Direct - Good Start, but I'll stick with Google

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:59:00 -0700

Having worked at Yahoo! in Product for almost four years, I not only have a soft spot for the company, but am always interested in any of their new launches. So, of course, my interest was piqued yesterday by the launch of Yahoo! Search Direct.

In Yahoo!’s words, “Yahoo! Search Direct is the next step in offering answers to user’s search queries. Search Direct provides users current, relevant content, improved suggestions, a rich display format, and displays answers instantly to the user as they type the search query in the search box.”

Ok, sounds cool. I like that as opposed to Google Instant, which offers the same results that you would normally get, but quicker, Yahoo! is trying to give me answers.

Having worked on Yahoo! Movies for awhile, my first instinct was to do a movie-related query — Harry Potter. Expecting something related to the movies or books, what did I get? Legos! Nothing on the movies or books in the primary space, but instead results from Yahoo! Shopping that took me to Amazon.

Hmm… ok. Well, not the greatest first impression, but worth another try. So, my next query — Avatar. This time I got the result I expected, which was a movie-related result, provided by Yahoo! Movies, with a nice image of the poster, movie info, and links to the trailer, ratings and reviews, and cast.

Working on Movies for so long, I knew my first query of “Harry Potter” was a difficult one in which to define intent. There are books, movies, merchandise, and more. Not only that, there are seven books and movies, so which one is the user looking for if they stop at just “Harry Potter” and do not enter any other information?

I would assume Yahoo! would serve up the most relevant “answer,” which might be based on the search popularity, page views on Yahoo! Movies, social shares, and other factors. So, I decided to try out another query with multiple options — Iron Man.

Hmm… another curious result. I stopped my query at “Iron Man” and results for “Iron Man 2” are displayed. Could “Iron Man 2” be a more popular query than “Iron Man” — and enough so that it should be displayed even if my query stopped at “Iron Man?” I checked Google and there are 9,140,000 global monthly searches on “Iron Man” and 5,000,000 on “Iron Man 2.” This is only one piece of data and isn’t conclusive to say the first is more popular than the sequel, but if my query matched the first movie, I would expect the sequel to be in theaters, just released on DVD, or significantly more relevant to be displayed.

What is more surprising is the third different presentation format from Search Direct for a movie-related query… this one more in the form of Google Instant Search, with the “top sites” related to my query. This isn’t an answer or current (which would be Iron Man 3 news), but just links. And why if “Iron Man 2” has been determined to be my intent, did I not get the same nice movie presentation that I did with Avatar?

So, I tried another similar query — Toy Story. Once more, I got the nice movie answer and presentation of content, and even though I typed in just “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 3” was displayed, this is expected, as it’s definitely the most popular of the Toy Story movies at the moment and is coming off a Best Picture nomination.

Figuring I needed to give up on the movies queries and try a different type of search, I went for something I had just looked for in Google — lightbox plugin. This time, it displayed my query in the left-side navigation of the result, but had no suggestions. Why if it can’t determine an “answer” did it not just present the “Top Sites” as it did with my Iron Man query? Presenting nothing doesn’t seem like a good option. Does this mean Yahoo! doesn’t have anything relevant content or any good answers for my query? Of course not, but it’s the impression that a blank box and “no suggestions available” gives and I still have to then go to the traditional search results page to get anything.

I’ll always be rooting for Yahoo! and do love to see some of the innovation coming out of there, but as far as my first impression of Search Direct, the answers and results are hit-and-miss and presented too inconsistently to get me to want to give up Google and switch.

Everyone is in love with avatars, so I jumped in on the action...

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 09:00:00 -0800

Everyone is in love with avatars, so I jumped in on the action and made a couple with EightBit and Androidify.

LinkedIn map visualization of my professional network.

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:36:00 -0800

LinkedIn map visualization of my professional network.

Photo

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:45:00 -0700

My Thoughts on AngelGate

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:02:00 -0700

There’s been a ton of conversation around AngelGate (why does every controversy need the word “gate” in it?) and the secret dinner at Bin 38 (who is the real winner) during the past week, and since everyone has an opinion, I thought I would share my two cents.

While some “Super Angels” and VCs bicker with each other, bloggers speculate about collusion, and people freak out that the Valley is no longer the best place to start a company, those Angels and VCs that are successful now and will be successful in the future are those that are about the entrepreneur. The market is too big for a small group of Angels to drive down valuations and take advantage of entrepreneurs, and there will always be a role for both Angels and VCs.

In addition, I may be completely naive and totally simplifying things, but of those mentioned, I refuse to believe they are looking to take advantage of the entrepreneur community. Ron Conway’s track record and history obviously speaks for itself. I don’t know Dave McClure personally but I have heard him speak at two conferences (Twiistup and BlueGlass LA) and have followed his blog/Twitter for a long time, and I can honestly say that you can’t deny, nor could he fake, the passion and drive he has to help entrepreneurs and see them succeed, and he seems tireless in doing so. And a program like Y Combinator is an amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs and has provided countless prospects for investors.

Of course there are going to be differences in style, philosophies, aggressiveness, and opinions on valuations, convertible notes, and more. Yet, the commonality is that they have a deep passion for entrepreneurs and helping the community, and their success is a by product of doing so. And, at the end of the day, this is what it’s about and this is what is going to continue to make entrepreneurs, and the people who fund them, successful.