Wingedpig.com - Mark Fletcher's Blog

I've been lax on the self-pimpage lately. I'll be giving two talks this fall in Europe:

• I'll be back at the Emerce e.day conference in Rotterdam on September 13th. My talk is described thusly: Mark will talk about the process of starting an Internet company in the 21st century. Small, cheap, and fast is the name of the game. Hear practical advice about what to do and what not to do. Technology, marketing and finance will be covered. This is not your father's Internet startup.
• At the end of October, I'll be at the University of Edinburgh talking to students, courtesy of the Edinburgh-Stanford Link.

Recently, in conjunction with the launch of Startupping, I did several interviews:

• Technology for Business Sake, May 26, 2007 - A radio interview with me about Startupping and being an Internet Entrepreneur.
• Times Online, May 18, 2007 - There are millions to be made from launching the right kind of web venture. If you think you have a brilliant idea, turn to startupping.com....
• Elancer, April 2007 - With the help of Elance providers, Mark, a "serial entrepreneur" -- we'll get to that in a moment -- recently launched Startupping....
• Marketingarena.it, April 16, 2007 - An interview with me about Startupping.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 12:47 PM | Permalink

This email greeted me yesterday morning:

Unit  UnitType  Status         %Cmpl  Stripe  Size(GB)  Cache  AVerify  IgnECC

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

u0    RAID-1    DEGRADED       -      -       232.82    OFF    OFF      OFF


Port   Status           Unit   Size        Blocks        Serial

---------------------------------------------------------------

p0     DEVICE-ERROR     u0     232.83 GB   488281250     WD-WCANY2307742

p1     OK               u0     232.83 GB   488281250     WD-WCANY2320853

One of the drives in the server that runs Startupping had failed. No data was lost, because the drive was part of a RAID. The hosting company was able to quickly replace it and things are back to normal. But it serves as a reminder that hard drives are not nearly as reliable as most people think they are. You need to always plan for failure because it will happen.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 12:32 PM | Permalink

Recently I answered a posted issue on the Techdirt Insight Community service. As I blogged previously, the Insight Community system is a way for companies to ask questions and gain insight from a group of experts. I'm an investor and board member of Techdirt.

After registering for the service, I started receiving issue notifications. When one came up asking about designing a mobile RSS strategy, I jumped. Given my background with Bloglines, I had a definite point of view and very relevant experience in the area. I wrote up my thoughts and submitted my response. A couple weeks later, I was notified that my response had been accepted and that I would receive $500 for my work.

This is a great use of the Internet. The company was able to quickly get detailed, expert responses to a question it had. I was able to utilize my experience in a field and get paid doing so, from the comfort of my home.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 08:04 AM | Permalink