plaxoed!

I wonder if this is just the beginning or if the worst part of the slide is over…

I thought this was particularly funny. GM ran advertisements which encouraged people to Google “Pontiac”, assumingly so they could get some positive brand rub-off from Google. So what do people see when they actually run the search? A big fat Mazda ad as the second search result in the second “sponsored link”. To throw salt in the wound, the Mazda site does a side by side comparison between the MX-5 Miata and the new Pontiac Solstice (guess who’s the winner in the comparison? )

This is pure genius on Google’s part. Obviously GM paid top dollar for the advertising placement; and now they are doubling their take with Mazda paying top dollar for the 2nd spot as well. Nice!

I have to assume that while this ad deal was being struck, the people from Google knew well that this would happen; I wonder if the GM people had a clue…

One of the projects I’ve been working on at Plaxo has been a little Web 2.0 widget called Plaxo Address Book Access and we released it late last week!

Basically, if you ever need a user to type in e-mail addresses for any reason, we’ve got the answer for you. Now with in a few minutes, you can allow users on your site to import e-mail addresses from MSN/Hotmail, Yahoo!, GMail, Outlook, or Outlook Express. Then, it’s displayed in a list where users can choose which e-mail addresses they want to populate in your form and viola - contact import from webmail for almost 0 work!

Here’s what it looks like: first, users get to choose where they keep their contacts

Then, they login like they usually do

Finally, they get to choose which contacts they want to grab (usually the e-mail addresses are filled into the right side, but I’ve removed them in Photoshop)

Super cool huh? You’ll never have to write a screen scraper for Hotmail or Yahoo again! If you have questions, let me know

This past weekend I went snowboarding with some friends (and friends of friends of friends) in Tahoe; it snowed all day Saturday, which made for great snowboarding on Sunday, and we had people of all skill levels so we were able to get into quazi-groups and explore the mountain pretty effectively. I also got to fully use the all wheel drive technology in my car, which was fun too - in a geeky sort of way.

We stayed at my co-worker Peter’s cabin, which was simply amazing. Thanks Peter!

Here’s a picture tour of our trip… here’s some great scenery from the top of Lookout Mountain at Northstar

And here’s the view at sunrise from the cabin

Check out that snowbank

Here’s me catching like 3 feet of air

And finally; the aftermath of driving around Tahoe during snow removal

GMail has finally added a delete button. Such a simple feature, yet it took so long

Apparently, I made #18 on Business 2.0’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2005. Interesting stuff:

18. Perhaps they should change the motto to “Don’t be stupid.”
New Google employee Mark Jen adds a post to his blog in which he says he spent his first day in an HR presentation about “nothing in particular.” Apparently, Jen snoozed through the company’s strict disclosure rules. In a subsequent post, he reveals that the company expects unprecedented revenues and profit growth in 2005, projections that Google has yet to share with Wall Street. Jen soon receives another presentation from HR: a pink slip.

I would say that’s definitely a way to slant the story; what would’ve been closer to the truth is that I was fired because I violated the first two unspoken rules at Google: “You don’t talk about Google”. But hey, that’s just semantics; the article is pretty funny

Plaxo is running a usability study on January 27th, 30th, and 31st at our office in Mountain View. If you take an hour and a half out of your day, you get a $60 gift certificate to Amazon.com. Ping me if you’re interested.

A few days ago some Plaxo people were over at the AOL/Netscape offices in Mountain View and ran into Justin, the author of Tales of a Running Man. I’ve been a subscriber of his blog for a while and since he was in town, I invited him to breakfast this morning at Hobee’s in Cupertino. The food was good as usual and so was the company.

Justin and Greg are both pretty senior guys on the AIM team and their depth of knowledge on the industry in general made for really great conversation. I assume we’ll probably be running into each other more often in the coming months

I started this blog. It was also my first day of work at Google. Check out my original blog post. If I had known where this blog would take me, it would’ve blown my mind.

As a joke, I mentioned that maybe I’d compile my blog and other thoughts into a book one day. A year later, I wonder if maybe I should actually put one together… there’s so much to my Google story that remains unshared, but that’s only the beginning. I’ve learned so much about blogging, “Web 2.0″, start-ups, discovering my ideal job, and more.

In other dates, a year ago last Thursday (1/12) was the day I left Microsoft. Since it’s been over a year, I think I’m officially allowed to directly poach people now. Although many people tell me the non-poaching and non-compete clauses are mostly unenforcable, I figured I should follow the spirit of the contracts I signed. Thus for the past year I haven’t solicited any of my old friends to join Plaxo, instead I’ve always waited until they asked me about employment opportunities.

So to all Microsofties who read this blog: if you’re interested in checking out Plaxo, drop me a line. We’re hiring across the board: devs, PMs, and test

Over the past year, I’ve gotten a chance to connect with lots of people in the community through this blog. Oftentimes, we exchange some e-mails or we start chatting on IM. Sometimes the other person is in the area and is able to stop by for lunch so we get to meet face to face. Everytime someone comes to visit we have a fun and enlightening discussion - it’s great to have someone from outside come in and share their opinions (I hate groupthink).

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we get lunch catered here at Plaxo. Usually we have a bunch of leftovers so….

If you’re in the Bay Area and would like to swing by for lunch sometime drop me a line