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Weblogs

OnlyOnce – The Car

OnlyOnce – The Car Not really contemplating a brand extension to my blog — the book is enough, but my friend Bill Wise just saw this car today in Larchmont, NY!

Must-Read New Blog

Must-Read New Blog I’ve talked about Why I Love My Board a few times in the past.  I was reminded at my quarterly Board meeting and dinner this week that it’s a great and unusually strong group, and we’re lucky to have them.  Fred and Brad have both been prolific bloggers for years,and I know many of you follow their blogs closely.  Think of that as getting a taste of the input and wisdom you’d get by having them on your Board. In a very exciting development, one of my independent directors, Scott Weiss, has now started blogging on the Andreessen-Horowitz platform.  Scott is probably our most outspoken and colorful director (and that’s saying something).  Scott just joined Andreessen-Horowitz as…

Blogiversary, Part VII

Blogiversary, Part VII Today marks the seventh anniversary of OnlyOnce.  I haven’t marked the date with a post in three years, but here was my last such post (with links to prior posts in it).  In sum up until now, my reasons for blogging have been written up as: “Thinking” (writing short posts helps me crystallize my thinking) “Employees” (one of our senior people once called reading OnlyOnce “getting a peek inside Matt’s head) My book reviews help me crystallize my takeaways from books and serve as a bit of a personal reference library I like writing and don’t get to do it often After seven years, though, I’m going to add another important point of value for me for…

New URL for OnlyOnce

New URL for OnlyOnce A final reminder before I shut down the old Typepad site…this blog’s new URL is https://onlyonceblog.wpengine.com.

OnlyOnce, Part II

OnlyOnce, Part II After more than six years, my blog starting looking like, well, a six-year old blog on an off-the-shelf template.  Thanks to my friends at Slice of Lime, OnlyOnce has a new design as of today as well as some new navigation and other features like a tag cloud and Twitter feed (and a new platform, WordPress rather than Typepad).  I know many people only read my posts via feed or email (those won’t change), but if you have a minute, feel free to take a look.  The site also has its own URL now – https://onlyonceblog.wpengine.com. With my shiny new template, I may add some other features or areas of content over time, as well.  There are…

Curbing My Enthusiasm

Curbing My Enthusiasm For the first time since I started blogging over four years ago, I have recently run into several examples in a short period of time where I’d love to blog about something happening in the business, and I think it would make for a great blog posting, but I can’t do it.  Why can’t I?  Lots of different reasons: – Don’t want to telegraph strategy to the competition – Don’t want to compromise an employee (current or former) – Worried about downstream legal ramifications There are other reasons as well, but these are the main three.  I love transparency as much as the next person (and more than most), but these scenarios have to trump transparency in…

Why Do People Behave Like Jackasses Online?

Why Do People Behave Like Jackasses Online? I won’t disclose the name of the person who did this, but here’s the chain of events: Person registers for our Postmaster Direct service to receive targeted offers via email.  This is a closed-loop, double opt-in registration process (so the person had to register and then click on a confirmation email) Person receives a handful of relevant, targeted offers from us Person finds my name on our corporate web site and messages my wife on Facebook to tell her that her husband is a dirty spammer who needs to learn a lesson, and would she please make him and his company behave? Person finds my blog and comments on it saying “don’t give…

Blogiversary, Part IV

Blogiversary, Part IV Four years on, as the British would say, OnlyOnce is going strong.  Cumulative stats show a steady 457 posts, about one every three days on average (same as it’s been all along), and a scant 409 non-spam comments. Maybe some day I’ll start being more edgy and provocative.  Or prolific.  Or Twitterific.  Or something. Looking back over my initial “how’s it going” post and the last three anniversary posts, I’d say my reasons for blogging, out of my four original ones, have consolidated now around “Thinking” (writing short posts helps me crystallize my thinking) and “Employees” (one of our senior people once called reading OnlyOnce “getting a peek inside Matt’s head).  But I’d also add two new…

Blogiversary, Part III

Blogiversary, Part III OnlyOnce turns three today.  While year 1 was exciting and year 2 was still a build, this year has been more about maintenance.  I don’t mean that in a bad way — I still enjoy writing it, but I am finding it a little tougher to make time for it (probably more a function of other things going on in life).  Also, I periodically catch myself starting some post or other and realizing that I wrote it, or something much like it, sometime in the past! I think in honor of the third blogiversary, I’ll reinvigorate today by posting three times!

To My Email Subscribers

To My Email Subscribers Just a quick note to let you know that for now, I’ve switched email engines, so the updates from my blog will come to you from Feedburner instead of Feedblitz.  I like Feedblitz and think that its CEO, Phil Hollows, has done a very good job with the service.  My switch to Feedburner is about testing out the consolidation between RSS delivery, ad insertion, and email delivery. So, you shouldn’t notice too much of a difference — the posts will still be emailed to you daily — but the format and "from" address will be slightly different.  All feedback is welcome.

Blogiversary, Part II

Blogiversary, Part II So it’s now been two years since I launched OnlyOnce.  Last year at this time, I gave a bunch of stats of how my blog was going. The interesting thing about this year, is that a lot of these stats seem to have leveled off.  I have almost the same number of subscribers (email and RSS) and unique visits as last year.  The number’s not bad — it’s in the thousands — and I’m still happy to be writing the blog for all the reasons I expressed here back in June 2004, but it’s interesting that new subs seem to be harder to come by these days.  I assume that’s a general trend that lots of bloggers…