(Cross posted from Searchblog, but for FM, interesting to see the world starting to notice these new approaches to online media...).

Evan's Odeo in Businessweek

With his new company Odeo, Williams and partner Noah Glass aim to build a one-stop Web site where the masses can find and subscribe to podcasts, and create new podcasts with ease. Odeo will then help match advertisers to the newly created podcasts or let podcasters charge a subscription fee to listeners.

And Philip's AdBrite in the LA Times:

He persuaded Sequoia Capital, the blue-chip Silicon Valley venture capital firm that backed such companies as Google Inc. and Apple Computer Inc., to invest $4 million in his method of placing ads on websites. He moved from New York City to San Francisco with dreams of turning AdBrite into the next billion-dollar company.

In some ways, Kaplan's story is the story of the Internet: Both worked through their youthful indiscretions and are coming back in a more sure-footed, sober way. After 10 years of booms and busts, the Internet has proved itself a medium capable of generating billions of dollars from the kinds of ads Kaplan is selling.

(Cross posted from SearchBlog) A happy surprise this week: my book is available for sale up on Amazon, and has been for some time. It's sales rank - at about 409,000, clearly indicates that it's not exactly tearing up the charts, but given that it's not even printed yet and I just found out about this, I suppose that's to be expected. But it's just so....real...to see it there on Amazon, with the cover and everything. Today the final, final manuscript came and I'm spending the next week poring over it, hoping to make it as good as it can possibly be. If you'd like to pre order the book now, why I'd be honored. Here's a link to the order page. Just know that the information about the book is not yet accurate - it will be longer than 288 pages (don't know where they got that, it will be more like 350), for example.

I'm terrified. But thrilled.

This is the classic Valley start up role. In short, this job builds the dream. I've got a pretty clear idea of what I think the technology platform should do, but absolutely no idea how to do it. I have spoken to a fair number of really smart geeks, though, and am pretty sure what I want to build is possible. This job will make it happen. It's full time, and we'll be spending a lot of time together in front of white boards to start, I am sure.

But there's more to it than that. This platform will be complicated in its business rules, and necessarily flexible - we'll be learning on the fly, and making lots of changes as the plane is in the air. We want to launch early and iterate constantly, and build a strong foundation that can scale as the business grows. I have a strong penchant for the LAMP architecture, and think what asynchronous javascript can do is pretty cool, but honestly, those decisions will be made by this position, not me.

It helps, without a doubt, if the candidate knows and understands the advertising business, but more important is a knowledge of what makes a blogger tick. The ideal candidate will almost certainly be a blogger who understands the frustrations of a limited back end, as well as a tinkerer, a maker of widgets, and a solver of clever problems. Clearly, you'll need strong database and at least passable UI skills as well. It helps if you've already built something that's been pounded on for a few years.

I'm looking for someone who thinks like a partner, not an employee. Because FMP will be driven by both technology as well as relationships, the VP Tech will be good with people, and able to work with designers as well as business folks. I know and respect the mythos of coder as societal flat foot, but so far I've found that trait remarkably absent in the tech-related entrepreneurs I've come to know in the Web 2.0 ecology.

So does this sound like you, or someone you know? Yup, here it comes...email me! UPDATE: I've filled this position....

My sense of this position has stayed pretty true since I first considered it: This person will be the critical bridge between the FM network of sites and the marketers who wish to join the conversation those sites engender. A more traditional title would be "VP Sales," but that implies that all this position does is sell, and that...undersells the value of this position. Perhaps the role is "VP Business Development," but really, in the end, it's all about being in charge of a critical element of FM's value proposition, the marketers. So for now I'll call it VP, Market, and we can figure out the exact title as we go along.

As I wrote in my original post on this job:

This is someone who lives and breathes the value of the network FMP will create, and who works in a consultative, client driven way. The ideal person has worked in the Web 2.0 world of sales and is familiar with how major agencies, ad serving networks, paid search networks, and new, innovative marketing solutions work.

But as I have spoken to many more potential partners at agencies, as well as possible candidates for the role, a more sophisticated spec has emerged. FM Publishing will employ a pretty simple three-pronged technology platform consisting of a console/dashboard for bloggers, another for marketers, and a database of inventory and rules which ties the two together (we'll also have an ad serving platform, of course). The VP, Market position will own the marketer's console, making sure it serves his or her clients to the fullest. But the secret sauce is in the relationships - in the human portion that FM will layer over that console. I've studied ad networks and how they scale (or don't), and I'm convinced that for high-quality advertising online, all roads lead to relationships. So this person will have to be extremely good at creating and maintaining high quality relationships built on trust and execution. And he or she will also have an unshakeable respect for authorship - the fundamental building block of all value at FMP, and the ability to spread that respect to others, in particular other marketers.

I've been on the phone with a number of senior executives at major online agencies in the past few weeks, and all have agreed with this premise: great commercial publications are robust conversations between three parties: the publisher/author, the audience, and the marketer. Great publications attract marketing that not only respects that conversation, but also adds to it (within the accepted boundaries of what constitutes advertising, of course). That means that in an ideal world, marketers seek out good publications, just as publishers seek out advertisers who understand and honor the conversation a publication creates. This is why Boing Boing, for example, only accepts advertising it thinks is "wonderful." We don't say no to that many advertisers, but we do say no, sometimes to perfectly good advertisers who simply are not a fit - they'd be out of tune with the conversation. What that really means is that advertisers on Boing Boing have an implicit endorsement when they appear on the site: we believe that these are good companies worthy of our audience's attention.

This may not seem like a radical shift in advertising to you, but let me tell you, coming from the brutal world of print, it most certainly is. And when a good sample of major advertising executives conclude that endemic advertising is not only acceptable, but even preferred, well, that's pretty cool. Several even told me that they would consider changing their creative to better converse in the blogging environment, as long as that creative was honest to the brand they were marketing (of course, it'd have to be, or the bloggers would call them out on it...).

So, does this sound like something you'd like to lead? Or perhaps you want to work for the person who we hire? Email me!

This will be the first of three postings on jobs that are open at FM. I've had a lot of great folks contact me for the head of sales and the head of engineering, but I've not really spoken much about the head of, well, starting up.

Back when I was starting the Standard I hired Stacey as my assistant. She was employee number two or three, as I recall, and clearly ready to do more than file and handle my schedule. That's why she left her job at a larger company to join a startup - she knew just about everything would be thrown at her, and over the course of the next four years, that proved true. From the very beginning, Stace not only handled administration, she also handled the front office, getting an office, coordinating new hires, managing our interface to lawyers and investors, overseeing our early rooftop parties, sorting out the phone and IT systems - basically, if it were not for Stace, the company would never have gotten off the ground. She was (and remains) whip smart, incredibly cheerful, always ready to go the extra mile. She was also willing to call a spade a spade, and when I or others were too demanding or simply too full of ourselves, she'd call us on it.

As the Standard grew to 500 folks and beyond, she became one of my most trusted lieutenants, first as my Chief of Staff (managing the Board and key relationships inside and outside the company) and later as a senior manager in the conference division. Now she's running her own business and thriving at it.

I bring this up as way to describe the ideal office manager for FMP: someone who, like Stacey, knows he or she can do far more than their current job offers, and wants to prove it. Whoever becomes office manager will know FMP inside and out, helping me and other founders with every aspect of the business. And yes, at first there will be a measure of hod-carrying - admin, phone answering, assistant stuff. But the right person can handle that stuff in spare cycles and come back for more. And like Stacey, once this person proves him or herself, there will be plenty of new opportunities to take new positions - that's the benefit of seeing the company from its starting point. If you know anyone like this, or this sounds like your cup of tea, email me.

But it's nice to see them popping up on the content side in any case.

Man, I understand now why Bnoopy updates so infrequently, and why every time any other entrepreneur posts, it's usually with the caveat "sorry it's been so quiet around here lately...."

But underneath this mild exterior there's a lot going on. I have been talking to both engineering and sales/marketing folks who have expressed interest in joining FMP, and I'm really pleased by their caliber and fundamental understanding of what FM is trying to do. Before making any hiring decisions, though, I want to make sure I've really put the word out, so I've decided to go ahead and post the jobs on a couple of sites. If any of you have any suggestions, please let me know, but I thought I'd give Linked In's job board a go. Anyone had any luck with that? I have found over the past ten years or so that the best candidates come through my personal network. But I can't really find a way to broadcast my job to my Linked In crew. I'd love to send an email to the group letting them know about the roles, but it seems to be impossible. I guess that's Linked In's way of eliminating Orkut like broadcast spam. Net effect: the job board will get my $95.

That means I need to write a more formal job description for the three spots I have open (a third just opened, it's for Office Manager/Person Friday).

Those will be the next few posts.

Meanwhile, my ongoing financing discussions continue. I have moved away from strategic investors as the lead for the seed round, and am focusing on angels now. It makes more sense to do that, I was pretty much trying to shoot the moon by having strategic investors come in at angel terms. While there was interest, at the end of the day, it's best to get a good network of individuals behind you first, then talk to the bigger players (they then come in when the money is cheaper, risk is lower, and the control less concentrated). In any case, I learned a lot from the process, and the folks I spoke to remain committed to the FM idea.

As are the marketers and bloggers I have spoken to. I'm going to be putting together a technical advisory board, as well as a blogger advisory board and a marketing advisory board. Stay tuned for more on all that....and happy Friday.