Baron VC

I’ve always been fascinated with the internet since it first emerged in the mid-90s. When I was growing up I was more into Nintendos than computers. This is something I really regret but back then the average house wasn’t into computers. I got a hold of a Toshiba Dynabook in the latter half of college mainly because my father bought one.

Programming was a realm completely out of my reach. The frameworks and tools we take for granted today were massive undertakings and costly in its time. We really don’t realize how much progress has been made in this decade.

I’ve been dabbling more and more with the internet in the past couple of years. It all started with running a blog on my own domain and tweaking templates. Naturally this leads to an interest in programming and that’s when I found rails. Ruby seemed the most “natural” of all the languages I dabbled with from html (yes, it’s a language), perl (from tweaking MovableType), PHP, python, and others. It’s just a matter of personal taste. Having said that, learning how to program is a whole different beast. It’s not like blogging where you can spew out whatever crosses your mind and turn it into something “publishable”. A program works or doesn’t and after that there’s the whole issue of getting it to work “right”.

So I’ve been learning how to program and wrapping my head around all the concepts that come with it. It’s finally come to the point that I can feel confident applying for a entry-level position (at least for rails). My goal isn’t to restart my corporate life as a junior programmer but to build a service that people can use and enjoy. Even if it never amounts to more than a hobby.

My Stealth Project

The stealth project I’ve been working on is a social network with invitation features (think of it as a cross between Facebook and evite or as an attempt at socializr). I fully realize this is probably the most saturated area on the internet with social networks cropping up everywhere and I have no grandiose illusions regarding my own service. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for years and simply need to get out of my system to prove that I can do it.

Still my idea of a social network is grounded in reality. I run a niche social group that meets every month more or less. I started it three years ago because I wanted to participate in a similar group myself but could find none. I started off by recruiting people on and off the web and in three months I was able to organize my first party. This was built on Yahoo Groups to keep in touch with members.

The first party was a mere 10 people gathering for drinks. Everyone was a bit unsure of each other (after all, we were complete strangers). I had to weed out quite a few weirdoes (one bisexual Indian engineer looking for hookups tried to crash our party). I used a couple tricks to ensure it didn’t turn out that way like requiring that participants exchange their full names and phone numbers with me before coming to to party. This is a big turnoff for trolls, party crashers, and extremely shy types. It also ensures that the party rocks when the people with enough courage do participate.

From the second party on the numbers kept growing starting with 30 people and currently I can gather at least 50-70 people on short notice if I promote it properly. Registered members (including many ghost members) is well above 1200 even though I haven’t promoted it any in the last year or so (we’ve been running for 3 years).

Thanks to the internet and the help of members I’ve been able to administer this more or less all by myself. Still, it’s a hectic mix of keeping the Yahoo Groups thriving, administering the group I maintain on a Japanese social network, and sending out evites to the English-speaking members.

The (My) Problem and Solution

After using a hodge podge of social tools to keep my group running I naturally started wanting a solution to fit my needs. One of the things I noticed with social networks is that the current relationship model of social networks simply doesn’t scale for individuals.

Almost every social network out there have more or less a binary model of social interaction. You are either a “friend” or “non-friend”. You either reveal all or nothing. Some social networks will allow you a third or fourth group such as “friend of friends” or “family” (which is a whole different category).

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this breaks down quickly with when you have a sizable number of friends. In real life people would struggle to maintain “real” friendships with 5-10 people and being acquainted on a personal level (and not work) would be a chore if you’re actively networking with 100+. There’s simply not enough time in 24 hours to maintain the relationship.

The power of social networks is to enable ordinary people to maintain personal networks that wouldn’t be possible any other way. Still, using social networks and accumulating contacts for a reasonable amount of time will lead you to “social network fatigue” from the constant socializing required, information overload from all the “diaries” and communities within the network, as well as spam or spamish solicitations.

My goal is to build a really simple social network that allows people to maintain more organic friendships in an easy and intuitive manner. I hope to tackle this by allowing the user more control over how they define relationships and also bridging the online and offline realm with an invitation feature.

Will this be a success or a major flop? Nobody knows except the odds are stacked against me. Still, at the end of the day, I’ll enjoy the experience of starting something up and taking a shot at creating a web service. If this doesn’t work out I’ll tackle the next one.

So What’s the Plan?

Right now I’ve got a demo (that’s actually live on a domain I bought) but no beta testers yet. I’m looking to add a couple essential features like personal messaging within the service, a simple blogging/diary feature, and a simple community administration feature (allowing membership moderation, etc.). The goal is to release a bare bones feature set and build it up as I get feedback.

I’ll probably announce the domain sometime later but if anyone’s interested in the private beta, I’ll be happy to email you the link (just don’t expect it to be much).

So, that’s why there’s been a lack of updates on this blog. I haven’t lost any steam. I’m just busy with other things.

I’ve always been fascinated with the internet since it first emerged in the mid-90s. When I was growing up I was more into Nintendos than computers. This is something I really regret but back then the average house wasn’t into computers. I got a hold of a Toshiba Dynabook in the latter half of college mainly because my father bought one.

Programming was a realm completely out of my reach. The frameworks and tools we take for granted today were massive undertakings and costly in its time. We really don’t realize how much progress has been made in this decade.

I’ve been dabbling more and more with the internet in the past couple of years. It all started with running a blog on my own domain and tweaking templates. Naturally this leads to an interest in programming and that’s when I found rails. Ruby seemed the most “natural” of all the languages I dabbled with from html (yes, it’s a language), perl (from tweaking MovableType), PHP, python, and others. It’s just a matter of personal taste. Having said that, learning how to program is a whole different beast. It’s not like blogging where you can spew out whatever crosses your mind and turn it into something “publishable”. A program works or doesn’t and after that there’s the whole issue of getting it to work “right”.

So I’ve been learning how to program and wrapping my head around all the concepts that come with it. It’s finally come to the point that I can feel confident applying for a entry-level position (at least for rails). My goal isn’t to restart my corporate life as a junior programmer but to build a service that people can use and enjoy. Even if it never amounts to more than a hobby.

My Stealth Project

The stealth project I’ve been working on is a social network with invitation features (think of it as a cross between Facebook and evite or as an attempt at socializr). I fully realize this is probably the most saturated area on the internet with social networks cropping up everywhere and I have no grandiose illusions regarding my own service. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for years and simply need to get out of my system to prove that I can do it.

Still my idea of a social network is grounded in reality. I run a niche social group that meets every month more or less. I started it three years ago because I wanted to participate in a similar group myself but could find none. I started off by recruiting people on and off the web and in three months I was able to organize my first party. This was built on Yahoo Groups to keep in touch with members.

The first party was a mere 10 people gathering for drinks. Everyone was a bit unsure of each other (after all, we were complete strangers). I had to weed out quite a few weirdoes (one bisexual Indian engineer looking for hookups tried to crash our party). I used a couple tricks to ensure it didn’t turn out that way like requiring that participants exchange their full names and phone numbers with me before coming to to party. This is a big turnoff for trolls, party crashers, and extremely shy types. It also ensures that the party rocks when the people with enough courage do participate.

From the second party on the numbers kept growing starting with 30 people and currently I can gather at least 50-70 people on short notice if I promote it properly. Registered members (including many ghost members) is well above 1200 even though I haven’t promoted it any in the last year or so (we’ve been running for 3 years).

Thanks to the internet and the help of members I’ve been able to administer this more or less all by myself. Still, it’s a hectic mix of keeping the Yahoo Groups thriving, administering the group I maintain on a Japanese social network, and sending out evites to the English-speaking members.

The (My) Problem and Solution

After using a hodge podge of social tools to keep my group running I naturally started wanting a solution to fit my needs. One of the things I noticed with social networks is that the current relationship model of social networks simply doesn’t scale for individuals.

Almost every social network out there have more or less a binary model of social interaction. You are either a “friend” or “non-friend”. You either reveal all or nothing. Some social networks will allow you a third or fourth group such as “friend of friends” or “family” (which is a whole different category).

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this breaks down quickly with when you have a sizable number of friends. In real life people would struggle to maintain “real” friendships with 5-10 people and being acquainted on a personal level (and not work) would be a chore if you’re actively networking with 100+. There’s simply not enough time in 24 hours to maintain the relationship.

The power of social networks is to enable ordinary people to maintain personal networks that wouldn’t be possible any other way. Still, using social networks and accumulating contacts for a reasonable amount of time will lead you to “social network fatigue” from the constant socializing required, information overload from all the “diaries” and communities within the network, as well as spam or spamish solicitations.

My goal is to build a really simple social network that allows people to maintain more organic friendships in an easy and intuitive manner. I hope to tackle this by allowing the user more control over how they define relationships and also bridging the online and offline realm with an invitation feature.

Will this be a success or a major flop? Nobody knows except the odds are stacked against me. Still, at the end of the day, I’ll enjoy the experience of starting something up and taking a shot at creating a web service. If this doesn’t work out I’ll tackle the next one.

So What’s the Plan?

Right now I’ve got a demo (that’s actually live on a domain I bought) but no beta testers yet. I’m looking to add a couple essential features like personal messaging within the service, a simple blogging/diary feature, and a simple community administration feature (allowing membership moderation, etc.). The goal is to release a bare bones feature set and build it up as I get feedback.

I’ll probably announce the domain sometime later but if anyone’s interested in the private beta, I’ll be happy to email you the link (just don’t expect it to be much).

So, that’s why there’s been a lack of updates on this blog. I haven’t lost any steam. I’m just busy with other things.

An offhand remark by a friend the other day got me thinking about the quality of my writing. Has too much blogging and internet made me a bad writer? This assumes that I was a good writer before but setting that aside I thought I’d take a look at some reasons why digital communication makes me a worse writer.

Speed Worship

With IMs, twitters, and emails it’s no wonder people are obsessed with speed. Putting your thoughts into digital bites quickly and accurately are more important than being meticulous with grammar or finding the exact words to express your thoughts. Eloquence can even put a barrier between you and your readers if you choose esoteric words or write complex sentences in the quest to be more concise.

When email emerged into the mainstream it was a revolution. Still, people continued to write emails like they wrote letters. It was long form communication and people articulated their thoughts more. There was still a lag between the time you sent something out and the time you got a response. Instant messaging took it one step further where you can grab someone’s attention and get an immediate response.

Trying to type at the speed of conversation naturally introduces constraints that affect the quality of the writing. We’re basically in the trade of conveying information and not necessarily thoughts.

Quantity not Quality

They say when writing a non-fiction book that it should be informative enough to replace 5 existing books. The quality of information should be able to make 5 books obsolete. Clearly, these rules don’t apply to the web and especially to blogs (we’re all guilty). In fact, on the web it’s all about “having your say”.

The availability of computers and the proliferation of digital publishing options changed the rules of writing.

The majority of bloggers not professional writers by trade though some may have a background in journalism. Being a professional writer doesn’t make you a successful blogger either. Writing on the internet is in many ways a networking activity like the banter you find at tech conferences. It’s a conversation with the world at large.

The Lazy Flow

I think the major reason why my writing is sub par on most days is due to the fact that I’m in a state of “lazy flow” as distinguished from proper flow. I’m rarely if ever totally immersed in the activity of writing. Distractions come from a million directions plus I view blogging as more of an outlet for release than a professional activity. I realize I need to concentrate more and carefully pick my words if I’m going to use blogging to improve my writing.

I’ve never really lost sleep over the quality of my posts though I’ve been embarrassed by the gross grammatical errors of a post I just published. Maybe it’s time to re-examine my writing.

Improving my Writing

So how do I go about improving the quality of my writing? Here are some thoughts off the top of my head on how I might go about improving quality.

1. Introduce constraints

Constraints can be liberating because they force you to think. How do you “think outside the box” unless you have a box to begin with? There are all kinds of ways you can introduce constraints while making the activity more fun in a challenging way. Constraints can take a variety of forms:



• Write a coherent piece within a limited time span and adhere to it.


• Set moderately sized word limit and craft a piece that fits that exact number of words.


• Turn off all distractions and even disconnect the net, making it a rule not to do anything else until you’re ready to publish


2. Read more Quality Writing

Reading quality writing will naturally give you an eye for quality in your own. Reading intensely, taking apart a piece and critiquing it constructively are also good activities. The key is to constantly question yourself. Is this good writing? What would I improve? What can I learn?

You’re not going to get all the quality writing you want from the web. Maybe it’s time to read more books.

3. Competition

There’s nothing like the competitive urge to put polish on your skills. Where would sports be without competition? Who’s writing do you envy? Finding a rival, virtual or real, will surely give your writing an edge.

I’m not exactly sure as to how I’ll actually improve my writing but concentrating more on the activity will provide a good start. The main point is to find meaningful limits/constraints and pushing against them with all your might.