Those idea thieving bastards at MTV

A little while ago I gave an update on my company TASS Online and mentioned that our first site TopOf.co.uk, a popularity contest similar to HotorNot although instead of rating people it was purely based on the number of views a particular photo received.

Then when I got home this evening I glanced at TechCrunch to find the following post.


So NextorNot may not be exactly the same, and it is far superior to TopOf, but it does demonstrate to me that our logic was sound. I find it extremely encouraging that a company the size of MTV thought that an idea similar to mine was worth pursuing. It proves to me that I'm not just thinking up silly ideas and fooling myself that they have a commercial potential.

Thanks MTV you not-so-thieving-but-rather-encouraging-bastards!

An update on TASS Online

Okay so...
Some of you may now that I started a company late last year with some mates of mine. Essentially we're a group of like minded web entrepreneurs with absolutely no technical expertise (chuckle).

Our first site is up, but not finished. TopOf.co.uk
Built on the cheap by an Indian development company, it is our teething site where we have learnt the essentials of getting a site up and running. There is still a few tweaks that need to be done to it (logos, buttons, etc), but the basic framework is there and we're testing it out.
The idea of the site is very simple. It's a popularity contest aimed at 14-22yr old UK users. As a user you upload your photo into one of the categories and the more views you get the more popular you become. It's not a rating system, you simply have to get people to look at your photo. So, say at the end of the month you have the most popular photo, I'll give you an ipod!
Revenue is generated from a mixture of CPM and CPA campaigns.

Our second site is about to go into development.
As it will be SA focused we've opted for a local developer, and we're looking at a live date around the beginning of November this year.
So what is it? Yip the highly original idea of a... Price Comparison site!
Of course we've got a trick up our sleeve but as you can image that's our little secret.
Yes, yes... there are these kind of sites already, and yes we've done our homework. That's where our little secret comes into play.

We've had a third site brewing, however the initial outlay to do it properly would mean we'd be punching above our weight slightly so it's been put in the sandbox.

So there you have it. Progress has been made and over the past year working on this very part-time I'm happy where we are. Our momentum has been steady and the passion has been, on the whole, constant. I know I've learnt a lot already, and it has caused me to want to learn more. Ironically, the tech side is the one area where I remain blissfully ignorant, and for now I'm happy with that. I can happily dream up stuff without the constraints and limitations of my own technical abilities. That- I'll leave to the experts.

Why I'm doing, what I do!

Shift happens.

Do I feel intimidated?

Late last week I was catching up on my feeds and came across the following clip on YeahFi
Now after you've watched it, try putting yourself into my shoes...
I am a non-tech web entrepeneur, and this is the sort of genius which I will have to compete with once I get my little start-ups off the ground. S0... do I get intimidated....hell no!



Fortunately I am comfortable with the fact that I simply cannot compete with the sorts of people who operate on this level. Why am I confident?

Well for one thing, as cool as the tool in this clip is, who is going to use it? Why will they use it? How can I make money off it now? The answers to these questions are- nobody, they won't, and you can't.
All this is, is a bunch of whizz kids flexing their muscles, and from my past experience in muscle flexing... it doesn't actually get you anywhere.

Don't get me wrong... I think this is fecking amazing... however I'm looking for the angle, I'm looking for my niche, I'm looking for the money honey... and failing that... how will it solve world hunger?

Give the ball to Brian

A crazy long weekend!
Started off on Friday feeling rather poorly, but that what soon not an issue after watching SA crush England on Saturday. Being the great sports better that I am, I put cash on SA to win between 46-50 points @ 22/1...yeah boy. Pity I only £1 on, but it still paid for a couple drinks on Saturday which turned out to be a crazy day of partying, ending off with a night of 'best dancer ever' syndrome.
Sunday was just as crazy, meeting up in town for a couple drinks and meeting some new peeps, and more dancing ensued... oooh this has got to stop!
Monday was super chilled and I spent the whole day working on TASS online as we're desperately trying to figure out the best way for the users to interact with the site.

For a bit of fun here's a song I was sent this morning from Chicken... not the most lyrically challenging but when you picture Brian flying down the wing it brings a smile to your face.

Gee%20die%20bal%20vir%20brian.mp3

So near....

I know I have been neglecting my blog recently, however there have been a lot of different things going on recently.

1.) Failed attempt at a relationship.
2.) Start of a new relationship. Shoo that was fast!
3.) Technical issues getting first site launched... (Super frustrating)
4.) New job, which is going well.
5.) Facebook takes up a lot of my internet time which would've been dedicated to blogging.

I'm currently seeing an particularily cute Zimbabwean girl, who makes me smile a lot and laughs at my jokes... even when they're not funny! Score... you know you've struck gold when this happens... especially if you've heard my jokes before.

TASS Online is having some technical issues at the moment as we try and get the site live. I'm not the most technical person but it's got to do with the database not being supported by our hosting company...which sucks! Otherwise, we have started planning site no.2 codenamed tazoo, and the initial spec should be completed by the end of the week. I'm very excited about this site as it is something that I have a lot of experience in, so I'm really confident it will be a winner. Initially it was going to be launched in SA only, however we have found a new way to launch it in the UK without it requiring too many man hours.

New job is a cracker, and I'm learning a whole bunch of new stuff about a part of the online world which initially I thought I knew about, but now realise I had no idea. This role is a lot more creative than many of my previous roles, and it this aspect that i am enjoying most at the moment. However I still have some way to go before I have a firm understanding.

Facebook... ahhh... how many hours have you devoured! Having just cracked the 200 friends mark (Man, I'm cool...do you wanna touch me!) I have got back in touch with a whole host of people I went to primary school with! Hectic! People have been posting pictures from Grd 2, and I have quite enjoyed trying to remember who all those little kids were... and are now!

It's a long weekend this weekend in the UK, and I'm really looking forward to a good lie in on Monday, especially seeing as there will be a fair bit of partying and working on TASS. Also looking forward to being able to talk about rugby again! (Single tear...trickles...down...cheek...sniff...so close!)

I fly in a week.

Finally! My new internet connection is up an running.

This past week has been a royal pain in the arse and I know I have missed out on plenty of things. This morning I have trying to get through my feed reader but with over 400 posts to get through it is proving to be a little tiresome and many posts aren't getting my full attention.

I've been trying to get my head around why the SA Blog awards have proven to be such a hoohaa. WTF- calm done folks.
Caught up on two episodes of Amplitude, and I continue to enjoy their content.
Haven't been able to submit to muti, and now it'll take at least a week to familiarise myself with whats topical at the moment especially since the KuduRace has been started- I want that T-shirt!

No internet connection has meant that I haven't been able to look after my start-up properly and it has been a real stumbling block as we are soooo close to alpha launch and I haven't been able to play around. >:(

On a personal note I've felt like a real arsehole recently. Not exactly sure why I think that, (serious self-loathing going on), but I think I'm over it and slowly I'm regaining my god-complex. LOL. Just in time for my trip home, yeah boy! I think I've been feeling like a prick because I've been suffering from withdrawal due to lack of internet access. - problem solved!

Now I'm counting the days to SA, I fly in a week. Not looking forward to the flight, London-Madrid-Jo'burg (15hrs) on Iberia- should be...'interesting'. Might have to invest in a new game for my PSP to keep me occupied.

In Flux

What a conundrum my life is at the moment. On the one hand I desperately feel the need for stimulation (get your minds out of the gutter!), and on the other all I feel like doing is relaxing and not having to think about anything.

As the title to this post suggests I'm caught in a period where there really isn't anything significant happening, and because of this I am bored. The boredom makes me over analyze everything which in turn raises my stress levels. The funny thing is that it's not like I'm not busy at the moment. The development of TopOf is frantic, however the stage we're at is a very frustrating one. We are just about to have it completed and let it loose on the world, but we keep hitting obstacles which is really starting to piss me off. We're struggling to maintain momentum, and it feels like the day before Christmas only to find that Christmas has been postponed for a week!

All in all I think it's safe to say that I'm not having fun at the moment, which is disappointing.

I think I need a distraction, maybe a girlfriend. However I was having this conversation with a mate the other night...
... You really don't want to have a girlfriend during summer in the UK. (Not a new girlfriend at least.) There is so much you can do during the summer and you really need some flexibility...oh... and girlfriends can cost a fortune, and there is no shortage of things to pay for. (Disclaimer: Please note how I used 'can' cost a fortune, thereby implying that it is not a rule that girlfriends 'do' carry an intrinsic increase in expenditure.)- Shoo! Narrow escape from female friends giving me a talking to!

In fact, while taking a short break while writing this post I have found the answer to my prayers.
Mark Forrester posted this video on his blog. Watch it till the end...

26 days.

Not a lot to blog about at the moment. Had a really chilled weekend. A mates Birthday drinks on Friday, spent all of Saturday watching sport, and caught up with family yesterday. It was good to have a relatively booze free weekend, it really leaves you refreshed for the week to come.

A reminder that the nominations for the SA Blog Awards 2007 end today, so if you haven't already done so go and nominate now. If you click on the button on the right of this screen it will automatically fill in the nomination form to nominate me! ;)

TopOf should be finished by end of play today, and I'm really excited to get my hands on it to have a proper play around with it. On that topic, I have giving some serious thought to launching TopOf in South Africa. We originally decided against it because we didn't feel that the SA market wouldn't be suited to it. However over the past week or so I have been messing around on FaceBook and realised that the uptake has been excellent by people in SA. It wouldn't take much tweaking to get TopOf running in SA, however we would need someone on the ground to run it. So that is definitely something we will be looking at further down the line once we have got things up and running in the UK.

Eradicating frustration.

Right...so...

Today is all about getting rid of the frustrations I have at the moment.

I have solved the issues with the web developers, (nothing a bit of cash couldn't fix), and I'm making good progress sorting out the issues with my job. The weather is of course out of my control, and by merely understanding that it is no longer an issue.

I have become hooked on FaceBook and it is proving to be an excellent distraction. Already I have managed to make contact with an old mate whom, I knew was is London, but up until now I haven't been able to track down. It has also proven useful in announcing my impending arrival in SA, (in 30 days, yes I'm counting in days), and being able to let people I wouldn't normally bump into know I'll be around. I find the FaceBook like a million times better than MySpace which IMO is utter rubbish. I wouldn't consider them to be like for like services, but for my purposes it solves a lot of problems which MySpace inherently has.


So today is problem solving day... wish me luck!

Arrgh! Feb is kak!

I have mentioned this before but I want to go into a little more detail as to why Feb is by far the most painful month.

1.) It's been six months since you've felt the heat of the sun on your face- you are so over winter.
2.) You've booked a flight to SA, and all you can think of is home but there is over a month to go.
3.) You are undoubtedly broke, or at least tight for cash after the splurge of December which you denied all through Jan, but has hit home in Feb.
4.) Everyone else is feeling the same way, so there is an air of depression floating around.
5.) Nothing cool happens in Feb, all the bands are only playing in March at the earliest.
6.) You are bored of wearing the same clothes but can't justify buying anything new because you'll only get to wear them for a couple weeks at most. And you can't afford them.
7.) Super 14 starts but Sky doesn't show all the games.
8.) The daylight now coincides with when you leave work, which although sounds great means that all the tourists are traveling at the same time as the office commuters. If you don't know where you're going get out of the way, and for heaven's sake stand on the right of the escalators! (This is the typical attitude of a central London commuter.)
9.) You miss your mates.
10.) The best way you can spend you time is making lists of why Feb is kak.

For the readers in the UK, I have tickets to see Damien Rice and Razorlight which I won't be able to use since I'll be in SA. If you keen post a comment and I'll sell them to you for face value.

In company news the developers are trying to pull a move on us. They are trying to bleed us for a couple extra hundred quid for the changes that need to be done. I'm not all that bothered about the money, it's just the principle of it, and the delay it's gonna cause.

TopOf.co.uk update, 27 Dinner- Help.

Happy Friday everyone...

I'll start out by letting you all know that I am in the final stages before being able to unleash my first site in the world wide wilderness. TopOf.co.uk is busy having the final changes made by the developers as we speak, and if they can follow our instructions properly (things get a little lost in translation in India) I'm hoping it will be all done by middle to late next week!

That being said we have also started work on our next two sites:

Tazoo.co.za will be a shopping site for the Saffa market, and we have finished the business plan and are shopping around for quotes from developers.

Yuni.co.uk, is probably our most complex and ambitious project, and is aimed at the UK student segment. Yuni, is still in the planning stages, as we know it's going to cost a fortune to get it done the way we want it. We are considering a staged development process, slowly adding on the new features which will eventually come together to form the final site.

In other news, as you're probably aware I'm looking forward to my trip home (just a tad), and today I realised that my trip will coincide with the 3rd 27 Dinner in Jo'burg. Chuffed! So I'm all 'registered' to go. I do get the feeling though it will be the same vibe as when I go the monthly MiniBar meetings- me on my own desperately looking for people to talk to, and trying my hardest not to look like a loser. I find this rather humourous as a big part of my day job entails networking and I'm pretty damn good at it. In fact anything that revolves around drinking I'm good at.

So I can see it now- I'll arrive early (as always, can't bring myself to be 'fashionably' late), and hit the bar with a vengeance. Once sufficiently lubricated, I'll probably try and hit on a girl which will break the ice and I'll end up having a great evening. So in order to save some poor girl getting the 'Squirrel' treatment I am launching the 'Adopt Grant and save a poor girl from having to get rid of me' campaign. All that is needed is for someone to acknowledge my existence prior to arriving at 27. In other words I'm looking for someone to say, "Hey Grant, I look forward to meeting you at 27."- No Mom, you don't count, and no I don't think it will be cool if you come along to hold my hand while I try make friends!

Man, it's like the first day at school all over again!

Let the healing begin.

There are a few things in life worth holding onto- no matter what.

Friendship is one of these things, and recently Liesel emailed me something which puts it quite nicely:

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

Last week I came very close to losing a friend. It made me shit myself, (Not literally of course). However the realisation that much of my anger was caused by knowing that I was losing a friend, has made me more determined to hold onto it. Pain and anger are destructive, and there are no long term gains that can be achieved by allowing yourself to give into them. Love and friendship on the other hand, are what make humans capable of great things. (Whoa! That's some deep shit Grant- has a little chuckle to himself- then chuckles again when realising that I'm speak of myself in the 3rd person)

I have learnt a lot about myself recently. I've learnt that I am capable of feeling intense emotions which literally consume me, I've learnt that, of these emotions, I am not capable of hate. I've learnt that being a good person above all else, is the only way I ever want to spend the rest of my life. I've learnt that one of the best things about friends is when they remind you that they care.

To all my friends:
Thank you, and always know I got your back!

So, the Squirrel is back- a bit battle hardened- but back nonetheless. So a quick recap of my weekend:

Sharks!!!
Proteas!!!
Man United!!!
England??? WTF! Didn't see that coming.
TopOf.co.uk!!! Coming soon!!! Six hour marathon meeting to iron out some faults!
Hangover- Oops I did it again! (Best dancer ever)
Held onto a friend.

Hectic!

Happy Monday everyone.

Pretty dull weekend spent attempting to unsuccessfully repair a fence, watching celebrity Big Brother (yes, I was that bored), and working on the boring bits of the startup- T&C's, privacy policies, and other boring legal stuff.

A rather pleasant surprise this morning was discovering that a mate Coda.coza had linked to this blog. Thanks dude!
I'm now feeling all self conscience as I know that most people who read D's blog are all super design geniuses. My personal tech know how is probably one level above "push button and it faxes", and the thought of extremely clued up folks viewing this blog makes me cringe. So in my defense I am going to claim that this blog is 'retro', and therefore contains an inherent coolness in it's simplicity. My ego still intact (kinda) I continue...

Met with my business partners (still get a kick out of saying that, makes me sound all important and stuff-lol) on Saturday to work on project 2. I've got a monster of an idea brewing however upon closer examination I'm starting to doubt whether it will work. Knowing that it's not a case of 'if you build it they will come' anymore, I know it's a cool idea but I'm unsure how I'll communicate it to the target users- effectively killing the whole idea. So it's back to the drawing board to see if I can overcome the problem, tweak the solution, or scrap the entire thing. Oh- and there is no visible exit strategy, so any investment is likely to be a complete gamble- doh!

P.S- Speaking of exit strategies: Donny Tourrette seems like a wanker but an absolute legend for his escape from the Big Brother house. No idle threats, no playing to the cameras- just hops the wall and walks out- class! Here's the page with the clip

Startup Update

Now that there has been a few developments with my startup, I feel confident to shed some light on what it is that I'm/We're up to.

Myself and three mates have started a company called TASS Group Ltd, which was the result of a brain fart over lunch about 5 months ago. Being 4 young entrepreneurs, who hate working for other people we decided that since we spend so much time working and playing on/in/with the internet we should give it a shot. All in all we have about 4 different internet startup ideas in various stages of development, ranging from 'in development' to 'not even on paper yet'.

As we all know there little-to-no-chance that we will get it right first time, we have chosen one of our more fun and less complicated ideas to start off with. The idea being that we get some experience of what it takes to get things running, what to avoid, what to avoid next time, how much does it actually cost, etc.

TopOf.co.uk is a user generated content site we have thought up, and we are hoping to get it soft launched (love how I try to use the lingo) by the end of this month depending on how the developers get on. Building on the success of sites such as MySpace, Flickr, LastFM we are delving into the world of web 2.0. It is by no means 100% original, we're just taking elements of sites we like and adding a twist.

TopOf is in essence an online popularity site where users upload photos of themselves or others and the more people that look at their photo the more popular it gets. With the advent of sites like MySpace the idea of being popular and having lots of friends (regardless of if you actually know them) has because extremely popular, especially in the 14-24yr old market. So all the rusks reading this post don't worry, you're not expected to find this idea appealing. (I also fall outside the target audience).
The twist is that we are making it localized. The trend is slowly shifting towards a more localized focus. More and more sites are now showing users who else is in their area etc, and that's where our focus is.

Recently I blogged about BuddyPing the service that geotags MMS's from your phone. I am hoping to open our API to these guys so that people can upload there photo's on the move rather than waiting to get home. Example: You're in a club and spot a hot girl, you snap a cheeky photo with your phone and send off to us. It is then uploaded to your gallery for the world to see and make popular. Simple hey!?!

TopOf is only going to be UK focussed to start with, due to bandwidth constraints of South African users and the maturity and ease of adoption of the UK youth user.

The site is split in categories (What are you TopOf?), and you can then search by location (Where are you TopOf?)

Tomorrow I sit down with my co-founders (I enjoy saying that) and we get started on site no.2 which is as yet unnamed.

Kind Regards,
Grant

Director & Founder
TASS Group Ltd
(LOL)

Woohoo- I rock!

It's official I have been named Time magazines Person of the year 2006.

Well that's not entirely true, but I enjoyed the brief ego trip! Basically anyone who have contributed to the internet, in any form, is included. So whether you write a blog, upload videos, or even have a myspace account (damn you evil myspace)- then you're a winner!

Now that I've written this I see the genius in this little ploy. Almost every blogger in the world will be writing a similar post. It's already in every newspaper, and now it will be spread across the interweb using that most trusted medium 'word of mouth'- PR genius!

P.S.- Quick start-up update: The first draft of the homepage was shown to me over the weekend, I really like the colour scheme- it's very loud and different. There were a few things that needed changing, but on the whole a good first step. This reminds me- I must remember that I am going to have to pay for this!

Facsinating Friday, My start-up, Munich

Regular visitors to my blog will notice that I have added a cool little widget to the sidebar. The map shows my current location and is linked to my mobile phone. This cool little do-hicky was discovered on Friday night when I went to a MiniBar meetup. MiniBar is a social gathering of web 2.0 'geeks' who get together to talk about new thoughts, standards, widgets, services etc. My interest in this stems from my new startup which is now officially in production and slated for a soft launch mid to late Jan 2007.

Anyway, I arrived all by myself feeling a little uncomfortable as I knew that I was about to engage with a whole bunch of strangers who would undoubtedly know a whole lot more than me. Fortunately I arrived about 5 min early so a crowd had not built up, doing what came most naturally in these situations I headed straight for the (free) bar. There I somehow started talking to two guys, the first of which being a venture capitalist and the second being the founder of a service called BuddyPing.

Having made the initial contact I sat down with them and started making idle conversation which eventually lead to me explaining the basic outlines of my startup. The VC was very positive and interested in what I had to say, and it was only when I started talking to the guy from BuddyPing did I realise why.

BuddyPing allows users to take a picture with their phone and MMS it to a gallery online. The photo is tagged with all the location information which BuddyPing picks up from your mobile. If you click on the little camera icon below the map ---------->
You will be able to see some photo's I've taken to test this out. This would integrate perfectly into my startup and as such I will be giving these guys regular input as to how we are getting on with development with a view to working together hopefully.

In travel news I hope to blog about my trip to Munich this week, and have brought along my camcorder so hopefully I'll able to upload some videos.