Hidden Job Solicitation at Meebo

I am a big fan of Meebo. It is essentially an instant messenger aggregator, just like Trillian and some other vendors from back in the day. However, Meebo is develered entirely over the web as a service. This is useful for those of us that don't want to load four different apps (Yahoo, AOL, MSN, and ICQ IM) on every machine we use (hopefully one day they will add Skype, making it five). A very interesting startup indeed.

Anyhow, I happened to be browsing through Meebo's html source code on their homepage, and came across this:

!-- interested in joining meebo? we have full time and internship opportunities available including front-end software engineer (JavaScript/DHTML/Ajax/C/C++), back-end software engineer (C/C++/networking/databases), and visual designer. email secretjobs at meebo dot com with your resume and cover letter. thanks! --

Apparently the company is soliciting resumes from people that have the technical expertise and (lucky) circumstances to find the "secret" email address. An old school trick, but I love it. For all of you engineers out there, if you find an interesting company that you would like to work for...don't forget to check the code for 'secret' job postings!!

DreamFactory Software

Interesting company that just got VC funding. this answers (in part) a question I've been pondering for several months now....Can an AppExchange company exist as a standalone entity?

For those who don't know, AppExchange is a platform that Salesforce.com created for people to create and sell customized ondemand applications that sit on top of the salesforce product. A cool idea to be sure, and I've been wondering what the uptake would be in the developer world.

DreamFactory Software Inc., a Los Altos, Calif.-based provider of adaptive on-demand applications, has raised $5.8 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates. www.dreamfactory.com

P2P Lending

Power to the people. This hits some of the same themes I saw on a video about microfinance I saw the other day, and how loans made without notable collateral are actually a lot safer than one might think.

http://www.prosper.com/

Ray Lane's 7 Laws

As posted by Jeff Nolan:

Ray’s Seven Laws: 1) serves individual need 2) viral/organic adoption 3) contextual and personalized information 4) no training or data entry 5) delivers instantaneous value 6) utilizes community and social relationships 7) minimal IT footprint URL: Software 2006 - Ray Lane

The WayBack Machine

Careful what you post...the internet never forgets!
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

This makes me revisit the themes of total accountability in the digital age. As storage becomes free, there is no reason why everyone won't have a copy of everything.

Take taxes as a parallel (after all, 'tis the season). As a graduate student, I am never worried about raising any red flags when I file my taxes. These numbers aren't anything for a government agency to worry about. What I worry about is getting audited several years down the road when some company that I partially own goes public!

Imagine the scrutiny politicians will face in the future. Wouldn't it be something if we could go back and read President Bush's blogs from when he was in graduate school! (by the way, George W is the first president to hold an MBA...and my parents still think I'm wasting my money here at Wharton!!)

Opening Blog...

So I finally caved and started my own blog. I will respond to emails on a regular basis, but I will only put out new blogs on a sporadic basis. Enjoy! I hope to make this as interesting as possible.