News

Do we really need any other reason to post this 88 seconds of awesome? I didn’t think so.

Being the self-proclaimed music junkie that I am, when I stumble across a cool music-featured site, I feel the need to share it with you. Helloday.tv is indeed one of those sites and you should check it out whether you’re saying hello or goodbye to your day.

Much like what we’ve seen with other music video discovery sites, Helloday.tv simply asks you to pick the genre of music that you want, and then it starts your own video version of something like Last.FM or Pandora.

So what caught my attention? First off, the design. Helloday.tv is beautifully done and worked like a charm with any browser in which I tested it. The videos that are available appear to be of exceptional quality, compared to the typical YouTube releases that we see. In many cases, the YouTube-reliant services will simply take the highest-rated video, even if it’s just a picture and the song. Helloday.tv hasn’t thrown me any of these results yet. Where ever the site is getting its content, it appears to be top-notch.

So take a look at the video, then go watch some videos. Helloday might not change your life, but it certainly will brighten your day.

I had 3 meetings yesterday. The problem with my meetings is that when I toss them into Google Calendar, I tend to just put a name and a time in, without context. Maybe that’s my own fault but the end result is that I have a list of names and no idea about the people behind them. When it came time for my first meeting, I had no idea who Jake Klamka was.

As luck would have it, Klamka is the co-founder of a handy application called Noteleaf. What is it? It’s a way to automatically pull in context from social networks and attach it to the names of the people you’re meeting. Instead of having no clue who Klamka was, I could have been sent a reminder that would show me his picture, his LinkedIn profile, some recent tweets and any mutual connections that we have. Yeah, that would have helped…

Until now, Noteleaf has been limited to the photograph and LinkedIn profile. With today’s upgrade, we get the Twitter and mutual connection information as well. It’s a supremely simple system, requiring nothing more than an initial sign-up.

So how does it work? Just head to the Noteleaf site, then sign up with your email address and a password. Once you’ve signed up, you’re given the choice of what Google account you wish to associate with Noteleaf (assuming that you have multiple ones connected through Google’s system). The rest? That’s it. Go about your day.

Noteleaf will take information from LinkedIn and Twitter, then fill in the “Description” field in your Google Calendar with its findings. A few minutes before your meeting, you’ll get a text message with a link. Click the link and you’ll see a simple but detailed page with the information about the other party.

Because Noteleaf uses text messages and webpages, it should work across almost any smartphone. At the very least, it’s assured to work on Android, iPhone and BlackBerry.

Context is handy stuff to have, a few minutes before a meeting. Better yet? It’s free. Just head over to the Noteleaf site to sign up and let us know your thoughts.

1: Starbucks founder Howard Schultz made presentations to 242 potential investors, 217 of whom said no.

2: This is Charlie Chaplin’s rejection letter for his manuscript for ‘The Tramp‘:

3: Howard Aiken famously said: “Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.”

Conclusion: This all sounds familiar and logical, right? So why are we so eager to pitch our ideas, and to get feedback? Why do we look for confirmation?

Sometimes we might have no choice as we need to persuade people to give us money or access to their audience or to produce our movies. But we know that the more original, innovative or creative our ideas are the less likely we will be able to convince other people.

As an internet entrepreneur you don’t need millions to launch your website. You need some coding knowledge, $30 for a domain name including 12 months of hosting and one or two free weekends. Alternatively you could steal the money, find a friend to do the coding and report sick at work and work from home for a few days.

Either way, you should remove as much friction between you and your ideas as soon as possible.

Remove the need for funding by starting small so you remove the need to persuade investors. Ask your buddy to do the development so you don’t have to spend 6 months learning PHP. What else stands between you and the end result you are aiming for?

Never give up when you get rejected.
Even better: don’t give anybody the opportunity to reject you.