beRecruited Colleges Revamped

This has been an important last few weeks for beRecruited - we hit our 2,000,000th recruiting connection, launched a couple new features and have some exciting things coming in the near future. One exciting site update is our Colleges section - a cornerstone of our platform considering the depth and uniqueness of content we collect about each school, team, and student-body.

As an example, the Duke University profile features university data, information written by our coaches, related schools, visual mapping, relevant links to the team websites, school newspaper, etc.

Traffic is also growing nicely - and we are excited to be exceeding levels from our 'Q4 / Holiday' season (Back-to-School season):

Google Universal Search vs. Ask, Yahoo, and Live

Very thorough, thoughtful article on Google's Universal Search over at SearchEngineLand - but it leaves me asking how anything can be considered universal when the formats change with nearly every query. To give Google credit, the types of pages they include in their search results (core, video, product, news, etc) depends on the type of query. Search for "Yahoo" and you'll get a mix of news clippings, stock ticker, core results, etc. The formatting of the results pages and the blending types change depending on query and Google's familiarity with it's context... the result is anything but a universal experience.

I personally find the always-changing formats somewhat confusing - for instance, for current-event queries, blogs and news are often so jumbled that they are hard to decipher in an efficient manner.

Google Ron Paul and you get a mix of relevant webpages, news, YouTube videos, blogs, etc. Some have icons, others don't. Frankly it's quite confusing and far from the straight-forward experience that Google is known for. For other query types (local, visual, and so on) - this sort of predictive sorting is quite useful.

Use Ron Paul, because current events are difficult to render appropriately, and compare results across the four major engines:

1. Ask: they have a true universal approach: core results in the middle and blending on the right column. Easy to predict where content types are. 2. Google: discussed above. 3. Live: mix of core links, news, icons and related searches. Very clean. 4. Yahoo: two youtube vidoes (with icons), core links and 2 news clippings (which appear more like ads).

Of course, the most important factor is search relevance and the engine's ability to deliver important, timely links for the query. And for that - Google hasn't been beaten.

Ron Paul Dominating the Web According to Compete.com

Last week I posted about using Quantcast to predict the 2008 election - and suggested that Obama and Romney were favorites based on a combination of aggregate numbers and acceleration of traffic. That post resulted in a roasting by Ron Paul fans (on Digg, on Ron Paul fansites, etc), leading me to check Compete.com for comparable charts. According to Compete, Ron Paul has multiples more traffic AND accelerating at a significantly greater rate.

Blue = Ron Paul Red= Mitt Romney Green = John McCain

Using Wikis & Google Docs to Increase Team Productivity

sfEntrepreneurs kicked off Sunday evening and one of the first questions we faced was how the 20+ of us would be able to efficiently communicate in a form other than email. This was a question we continually face with beRecruited (people in San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston) and faced at eBay.

We decided to use WikiDot.com for a couple reasons, and I've been generally happy about the results thus far:

1) Google Docs work well for specific documents - but they don't scale over time well... more importantly the documents are treated distinctly and ultimately get as cluttered as your computer desktop

2) Wikis are ideal for concepts that intend to grow (new pages are easy to create and are woven together intuitively)

3) Wiki technology is less intuitive than Google Docs - but the core functionality takes only a couple minutes to learn

4) Wikis are easier for group contributions (from small edits to major additions) and for group watching

5) Wikidot (like Google) enables private domains and customizable layers of control, invitations, etc - critical for internal discussions

Hiring Bloggers - Where to Look (Oh yeah, We're Hiring a SportsWrap Editor!)

Over the course of beRecruited's growth, we've relied heavily on organic growth and grass-roots marketing. Similarly, we've used Elance, Craigslist, and Kijiji to outsource smaller projects... and, while each is time consuming, it's been effective for us on a project-by-project basis. Now we are hiring a full time beRecruited SportsWrap editor and a few bloggers and, while promoting the open role, I was quite disappointed to find that Valleywag's job board has closed! We had advertised on Valleywag previously and found it *far* more successful than any other medium. Not only were the leads plentiful... they were qualified! There are few locations to reach potential bloggers who are truly web savvy, get SEO, love sports, etc - but Valleywag worked.

Seriously.

LinkedIn works decently. Kijiji and Craigslist generate leads - but are time intensive (and Craigslist is expensive). Elance is better for projects and developments (rather than ongoing employment). TechCrunch, GigaOM, etc seem better for senior-level jobs than for recruiting writers.

Of course if you have any contacts or ideas - please pass my way!

AT&T Raising SMS Rates to $0.20... When Will We Move to Email?

Starting March 30th, AT&T is raising SMS and MMS rates by $0.05 to $0.20 and $0.30 respectively... which is absurdly expensive considering that the actual cost of an SMS message to the carrier is close to nothing. Slashdot and DSLreports.com each did analysis stating that the effective marginal cost of a text message is zero.

So while our phone bills are growing, I ask:

Why is sms still the instant-communication of choice?

I find email, Gtalk and Twitter to be equally effective. Anyone who uses a Blackberry or iPhone (or email capable phone) has access to information instantly and email provides more flexibility. The only benefit of text messages is that you can set dedicated alerts to them (vibration, sounds, etc). Is that worth it?

Gtalk is fully integrated into my Blackberry (or your iPhone) and allows real-time communication, full alert customization... and oh yeah - it's treated as data (rather than $0.20 a message).

Where's Nabaztag in New York Times' "Coming Wave of Gadgets That Listen and Obey"

Michael Fitzgerald of the New York Times has gotten some tremendous web buzz on today's article "The The Coming Wave of Gadgets That Listen and Obey" (now the #3 story on Techmeme). Fitzgerald focuses on high end gadgets on 'luxury' electronics like GPS systems integrated into high-end cars. While I found it to be an interesting read, I was disappointed that Nabaztag wasn't included. Sure - Nabazatag by Violet appears to be nothing more than a cute white rabbit toy.... but it is a sophisticated consumer gadget that does exactly what Fitzgerald discusses: It listens and obeys... and then some!

Nabaztag looks funny but it is an amazing little creature: he alerts you when a stock changes price, he reads emails, delivers podcasts, and is programmable based on any RSS-enabled content. Nabaztag can be updated from any website (or email address) and that enables him to be interactive from afar and through multiple users.

Perhaps the Nabaztag was made to look too cute, too much like a toy and more sophisticated technology critics therefore don't talk much about it. But at $150, it is an amazingly intelligent critter and the customization opportunities are limitless.

Duke Chronicle Writes About beRecruited's Growth

Yesterday, the Duke Chronicle (Duke's daily newspaper) released an article about beRecruited's growth and the 2,000,000th recruiting connection we recently passed. While the article has some inaccuracies, it was quite gratifying for both Russell Cook and myself to have been written about (unsolicited by the way!) by our alma mater's paper... after all, it was while at Duke that beRecruited was conceived and it was operated in our shared dorm room in the Wayne Manor house for two years.

Alumni-run Recruiting Site Hits 2M Recruiting Connections

It started as a service for swimmers looking to contact college coaches. Now it's the largest online college recruiting service and athletic scholarship network in the nation.

Founded by Ryan Spoon, Trinity '03, beRecruited.com recently exceeded two million athlete-coach connections and reached 135,000 registered users.

In January 2000, the goal of then-freshman Spoon, a breaststroker on the swimming team, was to make recruitment more efficient for high school athletes.

Teaming up with friend Russell Cook, Pratt '04, the result was beRecruited.com.

Prior to the creation of the Web site, the recruitment process was tedious for student athletes who had to look up the contact information of individual coaches, Spoon said.

"I had gone through the process myself and realized that it was massively inefficient," he said. "This was before Facebook and MySpace. There was no place to create online profiles." ... Read more

Reminder: San Francisco Entrepreneurs Kick Off Event Tomorrow Night

 I am starting a new project called sfEntrepreneurs.com - a young entrepreneurs organization where members collectively incubate, invest and operate the web business we choose to pursue. Every member of the organization will be an effective partner - invested in the business, a strong contributor and a significant shareholder. Our first kick off is tomorrow, January 27th and I’d love to have you be a part of it. We will discuss business and organization ideas and take the first steps at moving forward. Please let me know if you are interested and able to attend. Website: www.sfentrepreneurs.com Kick-off event: Sunday January 27th @ 5pm Please RSVP to me!

Qualifications: - live in the Bay Area - web 2.0 experience and savvy - ability to commit weekly effort and time - willingness to help fund the business (typically $500-$5,000 depending on desired equity & total partners)