Enjoy a few photos from around town in Arroyo Grande.
October 9th, 2009
LearnVest Aims to Cure Women’s Financial Woes
Working with marketing and web technology, I come across a ton of new start-ups, applications, and new web tools pretty much every day. Much of what I see is a spin-off of something that has been done already; a new type of social network, another app for the iPhone, a video platform that promises to be different and better than the rest, or something along those lines. Refreshingly, LearnVest is a tool that addresses an audience that has been largely ignored by a topic that is hugely important for them to be educated on: women and finance.
A presentation given at this year’s TechCrunch 50 Conference explains just how LearnVest plans to help. By quizzing women about their financial knowledge and “learning” more about them every time they log in, the site will be able to offer the most applicable advice for that person’s unique situation – all from an expert. The website hosts a vast library of resource articles from experts on ten major financial areas, and emails are sent to members which are designed to be read in under two minutes.
So, why women? Alexa von Tobel, LearnVest’s founder and CEO says they focus on helping women because they are “an audience that has been historically ignored and under-served in this topic”. Women graduate with more consumer debt than men, are commonly unskilled in negotiating salaries, and earn 75% less than men for similar work. While the site says they can be helpful to men or women, it’s no secret why they chose to focus on the latter.
With the U.S. now the largest debtor nation in the world, LearnVest could not have come onto the scene at a better time. While they are still in Beta, I have already received one of their “2-minute” emails, and must say I am excited to dive in deeper. I encourage anyone wanting to get a hold of their finances to sign up to be able to experience what TechCrunch calls, “the online version of financial planner Suze Orman.”
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May 7th, 2009
Yes, Twitter Hashtags Are Useful
With celebrities like Asthon and Oprah using and evangelizing Twitter, it has recently received an outpouring of media attention and is growing at over 1,000 percent annually in new users. But long before it was popularized by the mainstream media, the Twitter community had found clever ways to use the tool for their advantage. One such clever use is the Twitter Hashtag. While the usefulness of #hashtags remains debatable, with some passionately against their use, I contest that this simple tool is very useful indeed. Here’s why:
- It can help you find a job. A simple search for #jobs or #hiring at search.twitter.com results in hundreds of just-released job posting. In fact, since I started writing this post, 21 new job openings have been posted under the #hiring hashtag, and 154 new openings under #jobs. When paired with more specific hashtags, such as #freelance or #sf (San Francisco), a job seeker can narrow down their search by location or category.
- It can help you learn. So, you want to learn more about Wordpress? No problem, just type #wordpress into that Twitter search engine and you’ll find a wealth of information, tutorials, and advice. What about #webdesign, going #green, or figuring out the #socialmedia maze? Yep, there’s a hashtag for that too.
- It can help keep you informed on the latest-breaking news. Whether it’s the #swineflu, the attacks in #mumbai, or the #teaparty movement, Twitter users mobilize very quickly around breaking news stories to send out the very latest, sometimes even before mainstream media breaks the news.
- It can help you find others like you. Maybe you’re a #mother or a #photographer or a conservative (#tcot) or an #obama supporter… chances are, there’s someone on Twitter just like you. They are easily found by using the handy dandy hashtag.
- It can help you spread your message. Did you just write a great blog post, take an amazing picture, or have an important company announcement? When you use the appropriate hashtag in your tweet, it reaches a far wider audience than just your followers alone. It will reach everyone monitoring that conversation, potentially in the hundreds of thousands or more.
I’m sure there are many other useful ways to use Twitter hashtags, but with the examples on this list alone, many people have already found them indispensable. Useless? I think not. What think you?
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