The real Guy talks tools, trash, numbers

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Guy Kawasaki, one of high-tech industry earliest and most gifted hypesters, recently wrote a blog post spelling out how he launched a web site called Truemors for a little over $12,000. I think it competes with Michael Arrington’s rumor-mongering Tech Crunch.

 

But I don’t care about the rumors. It’s how Kawasaki did it. And, yes, he’s bragging but this post is packed with information about how to launch a web business on the cheap, and with attitude that reveals who Truemors so quickly gained visibility. Writes Kawasaki: “to my amazement, there were 14,052 visitors on the first day” because, after two decades of tooting his and others’ horns — and some leaks by Arrington — there were 14,052 people curious to see what Kawasaki was doing. To bloggers who say that it’s unfair he should have more visitors on his first day than a schlub like me gets in a month, Kawasaki says:

 

“I did spend 24 years of schmoozing and ‘paying it forward’ to get to the point where I could spend $0 to launch a company.”

Delicious! I’ve got to thank my pal, Berkeley software project manager Tim Bishop, for telling me this is a must-read post. Here’s another link to Kawasaki’s how-to.

 

Also on the tools front, Tom (SiliconValleyWatcher) Foremski reviews the beta of Movable Type 4.0 and says:

 

“It has social/community features built into the platform. Users can rate posts and each other; they can be given special publishing rights, they can be given permission to write posts without moderation, they can even publish their own blogs on the blog.”

Finally when it comes to getting attention, my sister Tina (Parental Wisdom) Nocera continues to teach her smarty-pants brother a thing or two. She recently pointded me to a widget on the website of the Advanced Marketing Institute that offers instant analysis of any headline up to 20 words. I had some fun with it and you may find it useful. But after 20 or 30 years of writing stories and headlines, it’s hard for me to rely on an artificial intelligence. Kind of like asking John Henry if he wouldn’t rather use a steam-drill.