Author Archive

Chase Garbarino

Why I Am An Entrepreneur

| October 8th, 2010

Note: This article was originally published here by The Huffington Post. BostInnovation.com and The Huffington Post have a content partnership. Chase Garbarino, BostInnovation and Pinyadda founder & CEO, contributes to a weekly column on entrepreneurship for the Huffington Post.

On Christmas Day in 2005, during my junior year of college, my mother gave me a copy of the Small Business Opportunities magazine in my stocking. To this day, I can still remember the headline jumping out at me: “College Student Makes $300,000 In A Month.” After briefly skimming the article about the student setting up an affiliate shopping site, my mind was was made up – I was going to start an internet business.

The stack of resumes and cover letters prepped for internship opportunities at Lehman Brothers, Goldman and other financial companies never ended being mailed. Instead, a friend of mine and I created an internship position on several job recruiting sites calling for the nation’s top collegiate journalists and media makers to join “The New York Times of college publications.” That night, as I went to bed, it hit me like a ton of bricks: Did I seriously just bail out on applying for legitimate internships to start a national collegiate news site with absolutely no technical or media experience?

After several beers, a night of tossing and turning, and 24 hours of avoiding internet access, I finally checked my e-mail. We had received over 100 applications within a day and ended up receiving a total of over 300 by the time the listing expired after three days. The magazine headline that planted the seed for my interest in entrepreneurship quickly faded to the back of my mind. I was hell bent on giving students at the peak of their intellectual curiosity and development, a platform to share their new ideas and beliefs with the world, and CampusWord was born.

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Posted in Startups & Boston, Yadda Squad | 573 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

3 Things That Could Help Save The New York Times

| August 10th, 2010

A few weeks ago The Business Insider, one of my favorite news sites, published an interesting piece about digital media and the future of the newspaper business in honor of the site’s third birthday. Henry Blodget, the site’s founder and CEO, has some great data about The New York Time‘s revenue and overall business that I recommend you check out – it is a very interesting read.  Blodget’s post got me thinking about the NYT’s business, and I decided to throw together a quick list of things that I believe could help save the Time’s business in the long run:

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Posted in Publishers | 381 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

3 Things the News Media Industry Should Learn From #Leanstartup & @SeanEllis

| July 27th, 2010

For those of you who don’t live in the echo chamber of internet startups, over the past year or two there has been a movement called the “Lean Startup” which has been all the rage amongst entrepreneurs and developers trying to create the next Facebook, Twitter or Google.  Eric Ries, the leader of the lean startup philosophy, has outlined a set of processes to efficiently develop web products and effectively measure the minimum viable product (MVP) for adoption in market at a low, “lean” cost.  Sean Ellis, a serial web startup marketer, writes arguably the best blog on this topic and has developed a number of strategies for measuring the key metrics to determine whether you’ve got your MVP.

As I’ve mentioned before, we are all about helping publishers succeed online, so I wanted to share the 3 things I think online news sites and bloggers could take from the lean startup philosophy that could help their businesses:

1. Don’t write a single sentence of a post/article without talking to potential readers – Both Ellis and Ries stress the importance of testing the market for a web app before wasting the time of writing any code.  There is no reason journalists and bloggers should be any different.  Before starting a blog or new media property, create a simple landing page through Google docs with a description of the content you will be creating with an email form for interested users to fill out so you can notify them when you launch.  You can simply email the link to the page to people you think may be interested, post the link on social networks or even buy some Google AdWords for targeted keywords relevant to your content type.  From the number of people who fill out the form, you will be able to get a small sample size of early reader’s you can speak to about the direction of the blog that will give you some good data on your target audience.

2. Test several content types and then kill some – Ellis and Ries are big advocates of killing features early in a products lifecycle in order to develop the “Minimum viable product” for adoption in market.  Assuming you see some demand for the general topic you plan to cover, next you should develop several different content types you intend on creating on your site.  For example, some content types might include opinion/analysis pieces, list posts (i.e. top 10′s), summaries or reviews, etc.  Once you have created one or two items for each content type, ship them off to the users who expressed interest in your content type and see which type users like the best.  You should be able to tell from certain metrics (clicks, comments, link backs, retweets/pins, etc.) and from speaking to users what the minimum viable content types for a site would be to continue to retain them as readers.

3. Published doesn’t mean complete, optimize and iterate quickly - If a developer finished writing the code and designing his app, opened it for users and then didn’t continue to improve upon the product after it were live, they probably wouldn’t be very successful.  Now that we are no longer restricted to printing stories permanently on paper, there is no reason we shouldn’t iterate on our content after it is published online and we have been able to collect some data about how readers are taking to that piece of content.  Some of the simplest metrics we can gather to test how a piece of content is performing are click-through rates, time on page and bounce rates.  If an article isn’t getting clicks or retweets, trying changing its title on the fly.  Here is a great example of how the HuffingtonPost A/B tests their headlines in real-time.

These are just a few of the principles we can apply to help us create successful online content.  Are you a practitioner of the lean startup methodology?  Have suggestions for how this can be applied to online news and journalism?  Share them with us in the comments below!

Posted in Publishers, Startups & Boston | 715 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

Publisher Performance Series: Boston.com Should Sell More Movie Tickets

| July 22nd, 2010

One thing we take very seriously at Pinyadda is the success of online publishers, especially our favorite ones. In order to help publishers capture as much value from their digital properties as possible, we have decided to start a series of posts in which we find one simple improvement that could be made to a publisher’s website  to help them capture more value either by building community, expanding their audience or making more cold, hard, sweet sweet cash.

With our headquarters located right in the heart of Downtown Boston, most of the Yadda Squad members are pretty big fans of Boston.com, the online destination of The Boston Globe.  It is the go to destination for all things Boston – Sox, Celts, local news and events – you name it, they’re usually on it. So for our first post in the series, we’ve decided to go with Boston.com.

Many of you have heard all the buzz around Chris Nolan’s recent movie Inception.  It is a wildly exciting, action packed thriller about Leonardo DiCaprio manipulating people’s dreams and blurring the lines between reality and the world of the mind’s subconscious.  On July 15th the day before Inception‘s opening, Wesley Morris, one of the Globe’s movie critics, wrote a solid review of Nolan’s flick.  The timing of the piece was a perfect way to facilitate Boston.com reader’s to go see the movie on opening weekend, so my first thought was, why doesn’t the Globe integrate with Fandango or some service to directly sell movie tickets on their site?

So after a little investigation, I found some software in the section “Things To Do” called Zvents, which lists different types of events by location, such as movies by theater, concerts, etc.  Clearly outsourcing some of the work that goes into this type of information gathering and architecture is useful, however here are a few things I think could be improved to help Boston.com see more revenue from their great movie content: (more…)

Posted in Publishers | 532 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

ACDC Explains How the News Industry is Thunderstruck

| July 21st, 2010

(Recommendation: Watch the YouTube video below while reading the rest of this post, it makes my writing seem exponentially more epic and cool)

When we first introduced the concept of the News Graph about a month ago, we received a lot of excitement around the power of the concept and what it could mean moving forward as it is brought to life.  The Yadda Squad has been speaking with people involved in all aspects of the convergence of technology and media, from journalists to designers, and engineers to investors.  One topic of discussion that everyone seems to find interesting is comparing the areas of value creation in the old news and media industry model of the physical print world to the areas of value creation in today’s new media landscape.

SO – in order to effectively and successfully move forward in developing better business models for new and old media, I decided to boil down all of the conversations, and in one moment of clarity it became obvious that what it all comes down to is ACDC.  Yes, ACDC – but not the band. While I am sure Malcom and Angus Young most certainly have some solid insights regarding the future of news, I am talking about an acronym of the points of the news process that have been thunderstruck by the digital disruption: Access - Creation - Distribution - Consumption. (more…)

Posted in Publishers | 552 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

Publisher Spotlight: Zephyr Marketing

| June 21st, 2010

As the news and media industry continues to be disrupted by digital technologies and the overall content landscape evolves, new types of niche content creators have started to find big success online.  One area in particular that we find to be incredibly interesting here at Pinyadda is inbound marketing.  Companies in any industry now have the ability to directly engage consumers and clients through media production, and the art and science of inbound marketing is becoming more important for anyone trying to reach people online.

This week’s Publisher Spotlight focuses on a top Pinyadda community member, Greg Elwell, who is an inbound marketing expert who owns and operates ZephyrMarketing.net.  Greg is a Hubspot certified Inbound marketing partner and professional, who wrote one of the best posts breaking down the power of Pinyadda to date.  For anyone interested in social media, inbound marketing or marketing in general, we strongly suggest you follow Greg and the Zephyr Marketing blog on Pinyadda and on Twitter.  Below is our interview with Greg:

Cgarb: Tell me about ZephyrMarketing.net’s angle as an online publisher.

Greg: ZephyrMarketing.Net is primarily a blog to help local, small- to medium-sized businesses be more visible, credible and remarkable with their online marketing efforts.

Cgarb: At Pinyadda, we are fascinated with companies that create content and media to drive sales of their product or services, can you tell us a little bit about the history of how you began Zephyr?

Greg: I started Zephyr Marketing LLC about 5 years ago. Just prior to starting Zephyr I was the director of business marketing, west region for Nextel Communications.

When I first started Zephyr I was focused on building custom web sites for small businesses at affordable prices. It wasn’t long before we all realized there was much more to having a marketable web site than just having a nice looking design.
So, I then began focusing more on helping customers market their web sites through a wide range of Internet marketing techniques such as SEO, PPC, Email Marketing and eventually blogging and social media marketing.
In August of ’09 I became certified by HubSpot through passing the exam to become a Certified Inbound Marketing Professional. And, it was around this time I started actively blogging and kicking my social media accounts via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in high gear.
I’ve always believed in eating your own dog food. If I was going to help local, small businesses adopt these modern marketing technologies I had to be engaged with them myself.
While Zephyr focuses primarily on small and medium size, B2C type businesses I had the desire, with my business marketing background, to also address inbound marketing for B2B companies. Recently, I have completed certification as an Official HubSpot Partner and have launched a new site focused on helping B2B companies leverage HubSpot’s marketing software with inbound marketing in the San Francisco Bay Area. The new web site is www.B2BInbound.com

Cgarb: Who would love your site, and what types of people need to know about Zephyr Marketing?

Greg: I get a lot of people from GenY to Baby Boomers finding practical advice and how-to information on the site. Being a boomer myself, and knowing this generation didn’t grow up in the computer and digital age, new technologies and modern marketing are many times difficult for them to grasp. So, I provide not only the why or strategic side of these, but also the how do they work, and how you can make them work for you side.

Cgarb: How is Zephyr’s content different from other sites covering similar topics?

Greg: As I mentioned above, the zephyr site appeals to people who are looking for in-depth information on inbound and social media marketing strategies and technologies. There are many whitepapers and how-to guides on how to develop a strategy and then begin using the tools effectively to grow your business.

Some of the more popular resources available in the blog or as downloads include:

  • Twitter Guide for Local Business Marketing
  • Planning to Set Up a Facebook Fan Page
  • How to Set Up a Facebook Fan Page
  • Intro to Google’s Local Business Listings
  • Create a Killer Google Local Business Listing
  • 16 Tips for Gaining More Fans on Facebook
  • How to Start a Successful Blog
  • The 6 Stages of Content Marketing
  • An Inbound Marketing Traffic Calculator
  • Pinyadda: A Socially Enabled Listening Tool

I’m learning constantly myself and turning what I learn into action in my life and business; then sharing it with others. I love getting new ideas and then trying them out.

But I also am careful to respect the relationship side of social media. Using social media is most effective when you build relationships and share useful, relevant content. It troubles me when I see the abuse of social media tools by those who use them as a direct response vehicle.

We are so fortunate we have the tools and access to be able to build and share our personal brand, what we’re passionate about, and work at doing good – making a difference.  I like what Tim O’Reilly said at a conference last year: “Create more value than you capture.” I hope Zephyr and B2B Inbound will always be found to reflect that sentiment.

Cgarb: Do you run Zephyr and B2B Inbound all by yourself?  That is pretty impressive.

Greg: The ZephyrMarketing.net site is run solely by myself. I’ve developed a process to supply what I call, “Local Business Social Media Marketing” that involves 4 phases: Planning, Building, Engaging and Managing. It’s part DIY and part managed services. I also handle the technical aspects of setting up accounts, configuring and optimizing them.

A typical solution integrates a WordPress, self-hosted blog on the Headway Theme along with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

Have you checked out Zephyr Marketing?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Posted in Publishers | 700 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

Pimped by Pinyadda: Aleheads.com

| June 10th, 2010

Here at Pinyadda, we love online content publishers. I mean we REALLY love pubs – more than fat kids love cake, more than bros love ice-ing, and even more than Frank loves his Dad.  Which is why we have created a new series strictly devoted to featuring some of our user’s favorite publishers they follow on Pinyadda.

So to kick things off, we will be profiling two of our favorite publishers on Pinyadda this week, starting with Aleheads.com.  We recently spoke to the fine gentlemen over at Aleheads and we are proud to provide our very first Featured Publisher Spotlight.

CG: What is Aleheads?

AH: Aleheads is a beacon of absurdity in the otherwise mediocre sea of beer blogs.

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Posted in Top Yadda | 543 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

All New Series: Yadda Squad’s Favorite Follows

| May 26th, 2010

So we have decided to give you guys an inside look at which of you have us talking! We’re calling this our favorite follows and we hope you enjoy.  And don’t be shy, if you want to tell us who your favorite people are to follow, go for it!

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Posted in Top Yadda, Yadda Squad | 631 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

Introducing the News Graph

| May 25th, 2010

For the last couple of years, much of the focus regarding the evolution of the web has centered on the concept of the social graph.  The social graph, or the digital collective set of personal connections established by users on social networking sites, has laid the foundation for deeper engagement with others online.  We update our personal networks on everything from the mundane eating of a sandwich to marriage proposals, separations and births.  Simply, our social lives are now hosted online for our worlds to see.

As the web has evolved, and we have evolved with it, we have started to see that “one size fits all” doesn’t apply to graphing our personal connections online, and more particularly it does not apply when hosting different types of user behaviors.  This is why we manage and engage with our business connections on Linkedin and not typically on Facebook, to give one example.   Considering that social media is still a very young medium, it is safe to expect that more platforms will emerge hosting different connection types and user behaviors.

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Posted in Product, Publishers, Social | 587 Comments »

Chase Garbarino

Announcing Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Pro Badge on Pinyadda!

| May 19th, 2010

We are very proud to announce that we have teamed up with the inbound marketing gurus at Hubspot to provide a new set of badges for you inbound marketing and social media folks!

By pinning articles from the inbound marketing and social media topics (and in turn flexing your sweet online marketing prowess) you will earn badges to boast for varying levels of inbound marketing expertise as determined by the champions of inbound marketing themselves — Hubspot.

Check out a little preview below of the badges and then jump in and start pinning and getting your content curation on and get yours!  Who knows, maybe you even have what it takes to be a “Maven” of inbound marketing on Pinyadda…

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Posted in Product | 350 Comments »