Zynga cobbled together a dashboard so they could see what is going on and it's available for anyone at zynganomics.com. Here's a screen shot of the top ten apps so far.

There's a bunch of interesting data points from this.

First, it seems like myspace apps are not taking off in quite the same velocity that facebook apps did. That is probably because there are no viral channels for myspace apps at this time. You can't invite via myspace, you can't notify via myspace. So these apps are spreading by less effective means than the Facebook apps did. This may well be an attempt by MySpace to avoid the "app spam" that became a problem with the Facebook platform and has been largely eliminated with the new rules that Facebook has implemented.

The second point worth noting is that the composition of the top twenty apps on MySpace is pretty different than the top twenty apps on Facebook shown below:

It's not clear to me exactly why that is. It could be that many of the top Facebook apps aren't making MySpace a priority yet. Or it could be that the kind of app that will work in MySpace is different than what will work in Facebook. Or it could be that it's just too soon to make any conclusions.

I think MySpace remains an important social network and that it's effort to develop an open application network should not be ignored. I think, over time, some sizable audiences will be built for apps on MySpace and those who build them will be rewarded.

Our hotel offers wifi, but no ethernet option, in the rooms. It's $11/day for seven days, or a total of $77 for hotel wifi for the week we are here. Not terrible, but what about the fact that all five of us have laptops and want to use them this week? $385 for the week for internet for the family is not an option.

So I came up with this cool hack that I though I'd share with all of you who might find yourself in the same situation. We signed up the Gotham Gal's macbook to the hotel wifi. Then we shared that connection via ethernet using the sharing feature in system preferences. Here's a sreen shot of my laptop's sharing options:

You can share a lot of resources on a mac, but in this case, you only need to share Internet and you need to share it via Ethernet.

Then I pulled out our trusty Airport Express which you can buy for $99. I never travel without it. It has come in handy so many times.

I connected the Gotham Gal's macbook ethernet port to the AIrport Express' ethernet port and we now have open wifi for everyone on our two hotel rooms.

It works great. The only thing is we can't disconnect Gotham Gal's laptop or turn it off or put it to sleep. Everyone is happy. Which is a good thing on a family vacation.

Here are the specific skills they are looking for:

* 5+ years of experience: from system-wide interactive interfaces to the smallest of production graphics
* Ability to translate strategic, user-experience, and technical project requirements into information architecture and schematics, and then translate those into design
* An appreciation of usability, functionality, innovation, and elegant solutions, with a great sense of typography
* An interest in semantic technologies and the evolution of social networks
* Ability to translate strategic, user-experience and technical project requirements into both information architecture and design
* Basic knowledge of CSS/XHTML/HTML, as well as how to work with and improve upon the technical issues associated with cutting edge interactive development

Here's their craigslist ad in case you fit the bill and want to learn more.

I can tell you this, the Adaptive Blue team is a lot of fun to work with and they are doing some pretty amazing things trying to make the semantic web a reality.

I am full circle back to where I started on the Presidency.

We need someone who isn't hostage to either political party. We need someone who deeply understands markets and global economics. We need someone who has actually governed a large group of people.

McCain is allright but he doesn't show any inkling that he understands economics. Hillary might be the best of the three but her own party has deep reservations about her. And Obama, as inspiring as he is, is looking more and more like the politician that he is.

I realize its not going to happen. Bloomberg has stated definitively that he's not running.

But if you think about our country's problems, our weakening balance sheet, our red ink stained P&L, our gridlock in washington, our quagmire in the middle east, and our decline in geopolitical standing, who would you choose out of the four of them to lead us out of the mess?

It's no contest in my mind.

I read the twin articles on the mess on the front page of the NY Times today, but honestly, I am finding way better stuff in the blogs.

Here's Roger Ehrenberg on why Bear is toast and who's likely to end up picking up the pieces. That's good stuff. I am going to surf around the financial blogs this weekend and I'll post again with other interesting views that turn up. Please feel free to leave links on the comments.

It's too bad they don't make iPod classics in all the cool colors that they make iPod nanos. We have so many iPods around the house that I have to figure out some way to tell them all apart.

My question is who else is too big to fail but would fail without a similar bailout? How many more of these are coming our way?

Ugh

So the TImes just took a bunch of stuff from her myspace page and turned it into an article. They could have saved themselves the trouble since they linked to her page from their piece.

I suspect myspace's page views will be up big today.

What is Alchemy? It's a request for proposal system. Let's say your mom gave you a beautiful bracelet that you loved but it was damaged, or lost, or stolen. Let's say you have a photo of it. Post the photo on Alchemy and let Etsy's jewelry makers send you proposals to remake it. If you like the jewler and the price, you can say yes and have it remade for you.

That's one use case, but there are plenty of them. Anything you can conceive of being handmade, you can submit via Alchemy and get bids back. It's rent a coder for handmade stuff.

When Etsy rolled out V2 back in the fall of 2006, they had to scrap Alchemy. And it's been gone from Etsy for about 18 months. Everyone wanted it back, most of all the Etsy team.

It's back as of today. Yay.

Go check it out.

Rafe Needleman reblogged the news with the headline - YouTube, once just a desitnation, is becoming a service too.

Here's my headline. You cannot be a destination exclusively on the Internet anymore. If you are not a open web service, you won't get nearly as far these days.

Our experience with Twitter is informative. Some twitter users visit its web service regularly. Others never use it. With Twitterfific on my macbook and Twhirl on my Windows machine in the office and SMS on my phone, there are many days where I never visit twitter.com.

Twitter launched with this architecture. And it has worked wonderfully for them. Twitter is everywhere.

So if you are building a new web service today, forget about being a destination. Maybe it will happen and maybe it won't. Don't fuss about that. Focus on making your service available everywhere. If you do that, you'll build a much larger user base.

A recurring theme on Gotham Gal's blog (my wife for those of you new to this blog) is the occasional frustrations of a woman who has given up the intellectual fruits of a full time job for the responsibility of raising a family.

In a post the other day, she ended with this. I loved it so much that I had to reblog it here.

When people ask me what I do, I do still take pause.  Sometimes I answer - nothing that I get paid for.  But I came up with my favorite answer the other day when I had to fill out my job title/description for a political party that I had given to.  The Government finds it necessary to know what you do when you give money to a candidate.  I just wrote in Superhero.

I think you all know that she's my superhero.

But mostly I feel pained by this whole story. I've met Eliot a few times and although I wouldn't call him warm, he did strike me as earnest and committed to public service. I know his wife Silda much better and I feel so much for her and their lovely daughters.

This story is a tragedy of shakespearian proportions. How does a man with so much going for him do something so stupid and self destructive? Why do people self destruct and what can we learn from it?

I am no psychologist, not even the armchair kind. I don't know what deep dark issues lead to self destructive behavior. But I've seen enough of it in the 20+ years of investing and sitting on boards that I know a few things.

Most of the people that I've seen self destruct over the years have a drive that is almost overwhelming. They have a desire to succeed that takes them far. But they also have huge blind spots. They usually have someone or a group of people that protect them from the blind spots. But as they start to achieve their goals and rise beyond the people that helped them get where they are, they distance themselves. And then they are at the top, but all by themselves and they get caught up in their greatness and then the downfall comes.

I suppose we could see it coming with Spitzer. The arrogance and the fits of explitive producing rage seemed to be on display more and more. Could those close to him have helped him? Could the downfall be avoided or was it inevitable?

What can we all learn from this? Well first and foremost, there are no messiahs. Nobody is perfect and when we put people on pedestals, they mostly fall and let us down. That's one reason that Barack Obama concerns me. I want him to be better than the rest. But is he? Is that even a reasonable expectation?

In the more mundane world of startups and startup investing, we have to be careful with the people we hire and back. I've backed a few founders with messianic tendencies. Its a problem. On one hand, they bring incredible drive and charisma to the startup equation. They can hire and raise money like no others. But they don't build great teams around them and many times they self destruct and their companies suffer

I think, but I am not sure, that self destructive tendencies can be managed. I have become a big fan of coaching and counseling over the years. We all have our demons and blind spots. The first step in dodging them is to identify them, stare them down and become self aware. I know a few really good people who coach founders and CEOs and if you are looking for someone to help you or someone you've backed or love, send me an email and I'll hook you up

Watching a man like Eliot self destruct is too painful and I hope something good can come of it

Twitter bots are a lot like IM bots. You send them a message and they send you one back. Except, of course, you can do that through twitter on any "device" (Facebook, SMS, web, third party client, etc) you want.

My favorite twitter bot so far is the mytrade stock quote bot that launched late last week.

Here's how do do it (you need to be a registered twitter user to do this):

First, go to mytrade's twitter page and follow them.

Then, wait a minute or two for mytrade to follow you back (no need to do anything for that to happen)

Then, send a message via your phone or any other twitter client device that says:

d mytrade AAPL

and get an Apple stock quote back.  Of course you can replace AAPL with anything else you'd like.  And you can separate ticker symbols with a space to get a bunch of quotes, like this

d mytrade AAPL GOOG AMZN

to pick three tech companies I am long right now

I hope you like it as much as I do.

But like all good things, funds come to an end. We are in the process of making three investments that, when closed, will mark the end of adding new names to Union Square Ventures 2004. The remaining capital in that fund will be earmarked to supporting the companies we've backed to date for as long as they need to be supported and should be supported.

So we are announcing today that we've raised a second fund, called Union Square Ventures 2008. It's not called the Facebook fund or the iPhone fund, but those are certainly two places we'll be looking to invest in. We put years at the end of our fund names because we like to keep it simple. Every four years we intend to raise another fund, to keep doing what we are doing.

And what is it that we are doing? Well, my partner Brad pretty much says it all in his post announcing our new fund on the Union Square Ventures weblog. Go check it out and let us know what you think.

Jason Calacanis says you have to save money

I agree and emphasize several key areas for saving

Mike Arrington also agrees and says hiring the right people is the most important thing

Scoble agrees as well

Dave Winer disagrees with all of us and says that building a hot product is all that matters

Tony Wright takes the prize because he acknowledges that there is no one way to succeed with a startup

I've watched literally hundreds of tech startups over the years and Tony is right. Each and every one of them did it slightly differently.

So does that mean that all this advice is useless? No way. It's helpful for sure, but you have to soak it all in and then make your way with what feels right for you.

I particularly like Tony's closing advice. He echoes Dave with "build something people want" but then channels Jason with "persist, keep going". He says "The idea of an overnight success is largely ridiculous". And to persist, you are going to need to husband your cash.

So all the posts and particularly all the discussions that they generated are great for everyone. Build something great, be frugal where you can, and persist and don't give up. But most of all, do it your way.

There are several of Jason's suggestions I'd like to second and talk about a bit.

Don't buy a phone system. No one will use it. - I remember a startup that we helped to incubate back in 1999 at Flatiron that made the decision to give everyone cell phones instead of buying a phone system. Today, you don't even need to do that. Everyone has a cell phone. Just make sure you get good cell reception in your office (if you have one). I wonder if there is a repeater that you could put into an office that works with all the major cell networks to ensure good coverage. The new cell phones that allow wifi phone calls like my t-mobile curve are also making that less of an issue. Jason suggests that you can save $500/year/person by avoiding a phone system. That can add up to a lot of money over time.

Rent out your extra space. - Our portfolio company Targetspot looked long and hard for 3-4,000 square feet last year and could not find anything that worked in the price range they could afford. Instead they took 7,000 square feet and are subletting a bunch of offices and cubes to other startups. Their net rental cost is much lower as a result and they also get the benefit of collaboration between other entrepreneurs and developers. Etsy has done the same thing with Make Magazine and a small group from Burda Media. There are some downsides to this approach. You have to collect rent, if the startup world got really bad (like 2000/2001) you could end up with more space than you need and nobody to rent to, and you could end up with subtenants that you don't get along with. But even with all these downsides, I think this is something startups should consider in markets where office space is tight and rents are high.

Outsource accounting and HR - As Jason says, this is a no brainer. Here in NYC, we generally recommend a company called Ambrose. They are a PEO. Your employees technically work for them and you pay them to run all HR (including salaries and benefits) for you. I think there are plenty of high quality PEOs to choose from and all startups should use one.

Don't waste money on recruiters. - I can't think of the last time one of our companies hired a recruiter. I am sure it's happened and maybe recently, but it's not something many of them do anymore. LinkedIn, in particular, has become an amazing way to recruit on the business side. There are times when it does make sense to hire a recruiter, particularly for a specific skill set that the company doesn't have in its extended network. Those times seem to be fewer and farther between these days.

Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. - There are some really good PR firms out there and if you can get one of them to work with your company, then it may be worth considering it. But a mediocre PR firm is not worth it for sure. I encourage our portfolio companies to hire a person inside the company to be an "evangelist". That job includes blogging actively, reading and commenting and linking to other blogs, reaching out to the media and industry analysts and gurus, going to conferences and events, and generally getting the word out. That person can be young and not particularly expensive, certainly nowhere near $15,000 a month. And they have two things that a PR firm cannot offer. They work for you and they represent your company exclusively.

And I'll add one more cost saving idea because Jason asked people to do that.

Hire "utility infielders" in the early days - Hire people who can do many things in the early days of a company. Charles Smith at TACODA and Etsy and AT at Zynga both come to mind. They are people with a number of skills who have spent a long time in startups and can do everything and anything that's required. You can't afford to have specialists in a startup. Hire utility infielders.

Why put all these great hooks in for enterprise IT when the iPhone still only operates on one network here in the US? Do you think Morgan Stanley is going to get locked in to AT&T just to outfit all of their investment bankers with iPhones? I don't think so.

And where are the social hooks? Can you establish social networks and build a social graph via the iPhone SDK? If not, why? If so, where is that outlined? I read over a dozen posts on the iPhone SDK and I didn't see the world social in any of them. The phone is the most personal (and therefore social) device in the world. There's got to be social hooks in something like this.

And what's with "all apps must be sold and distributed via the app store"? I understand that it's most convenient for users to have a single place (like iTunes) where they can search for, find, buy, and install apps. But to lock developers into that as the single and only way to get apps on the iPhone is not the right thinking in my book.

On the plus side, the gaming opportunities are mind blowing. As Daring Fireball says in his post (the best of the ones I read):

The unique control options — no traditional buttons but a 3D accelerometer and multi-touch screen — make the iPhone analogous to the Wii, in that it opens up new concepts in game UI design.

Apple is revolutionizing the mobile device market in the same way they flipped the music business on it's head. But like they did in the music market, they aren't going all the way. And I just wish they would.

Disclosure: I am long APPL and getting longer.

I was reminded of that this morning when I saw the news that Digg is likely to be sold to either Google or Microsoft for between $200mm and $225mm. That's a fantastic outcome, no doubt, and I have always been rooting for Kevin and his backers from Greylock. But Arrington goes on to say that the sale price is less than the $300mm that Digg's bankers at Allen & Co were floating last year.

So I went to comScore to see what Digg's traffic trends look like. Here are the worldwide UVs.

And here are the US-only UVs:

But regardless of who buys Digg, it's clearly a good time to be selling it. Maybe last year would have been an even better time. It's never clear when the perfect time to sell is until it's passed.

I read that Jason Calacanis thinks Google will have 90% market share in search within the next year. I don't know if it's going to be 90%, but I do think that Google's share of the search market (at least the english speaking search market) will not stop climbing.

I said this on Feb 4th, in the wake of the Microsoft bid for Yahoo!:

Let me start this post by saying that I don't think Microsoft will achieve its goal of obtaining some sort of balance and scale in the search market with an acquisition of Yahoo!  If you look at the share of search that Google has had over the past five years, it's an ever increasing line. I think that line will keep increasing, year after year, until Google has all of the search market (at least here in the US and the english speaking world). I don't think there's much that Yahoo! and/or Microsoft can do about it.

Jason and I disagree about a lot of things, but on this one, I think he's spot on.

Doug Perlson, CEO of our portfolio company Targetspot, has penned an opinion piece in Forbes about monetizing online audio that does a great job of explaining what Targetspot is and why it matters.

I particularly like this paragraph:

Yet, ironically, this is exactly the type of high-quality online inventory that advertisers are asking for--it is associated with major media companies with respected brands in their own right. Furthermore, with all the ad clutter on a given Web site (display, video and text--sometimes all on the same page), Internet radio advertising offers a unique ability to cut through the noise and deliver a message that is both literally and figuratively heard. It's a high-impact medium that has only recently opened up to the advertising masses through advanced technology solutions.