Monday afternoon, I returned home from work to discover Sarah Lacy ’s new book Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good awaiting retrieval in my mailbox…it is the first package I’ve gotten at my new apartment so I was naturally pretty excited right off the bat. But I did not yet realize the emotional catapult I had discovered in my correspondence repository.

I started reading almost immediately upon getting inside and found myself unable to break away as I cooked, ate dinner and then neglected my latest Netflix delivery. Her book is billed as a look at the emergence of the Web 2.0 culture, successes and trends that have emerged in this renaissance of online entrepreneurial madness that has people reflecting on the first internet bubble of the late 1990s. Through telling the stories of some of the high-profile startup idea makers and risk takers, Sarah presents the true underlying cause of the Web 2.0 resurgence: the tenacity and spirit of the people that believe in an idea and refuse to color inside the lines. You do not have to read too far into the book before you realize that Sarah’s strength is not in discussing the financial, economic and theoretical causes or repercussions of the first bubble, but rather in the creation of almost mythical character stories surrounding the leaders profiled in this book.

As she retells the trials and triumphs of internet and startup giants such as Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Max Levchin, you find yourself sucked into their world. It feels a little bit like re-watching an epic movie where you know the heroes all succeed and get the girl in the end, but your heart still beats in tempo with the drama of each scene. Even though you know that PayPal, facebook and Digg all win in the end, you still find yourself pulling for them at the low points in their stories and you silently cheer at their victories. But the best part is beyond the bird’s eye view of the company; it comes in the character flaws and traits that make every one of these startup wunderkids who they are. Sarah manages to pry into the elusive Zuckerberg, unravel the intricate Levchin and humanize the epic Thiel. At times, her insights seem perhaps presumptuous and at others hyperbolic but she engages you with a glimpse at the collective wizards behind the curtain and you cannot help but draw a motivation and sense of awe from the pages.

I must admit, some months ago when I first read the synopsis of Sarah’s book, I was more than a little bit skeptical. It was right after the firestorm surrounding her… well… I will say: ’somewhat controversial’ interview with Mark Zuckerberg at the keynote of the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, TX. I was pretty critical of the interview at the time and I still think that there were more than a few moments that could have been handled differently…but I’m pretty sure that everyone has moved on since then and realized that no one would ever have gotten any more information out of Mark.

No matter my opinion at the time, I must say that Sarah has far exceeded my expectations in her book with her ability to take enigmatic characters and make them seem more than a little bit human by the end.

At the end of the day, if you are at all interested in the beginnings of the new giants of Silicone Valley Silicon Valley (see below for edit. -ac) or in aspiring to success, I highly recommend Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good . I devoured it cover to cover in less than 24 hours…and it only took me that long because they make me work sometimes at my job. At the end, it was really all I could do to keep myself from selling all my belongings, packing my iMac and setting up shop in Southern California; I think the main reason I decided against it was that I don’t know anyone with an empty couch in the area…

Oh, as a disclaimer : Sarah sent me her book for free but it was only as a result of TechCrunch selecting me from a pool of commenters on one of the blog’s comments. TechCrunch selected the winners, not Sarah…I of course attribute my splendid wordsmithery!

Oh yeah, one last thing: The only thing awry in her book was at the bottom of page 109, danah boyd ’s name is capitalized…which might be the only time I have ever seen it that way but I’m guessing that was an editor somewhere along the line. Unless you actually read academic journal articles or follow danah’s blog, you would really never have any idea. Sometimes just little things nag at me. But just go get the book already!

It has also added a new dimension to my desktop. I regularly use Twitterrific as my primary twitter client and I have Growl notifications enabled so every time a new tweet comes in, a small notification bubble pops up for about 3 seconds before fading away. (In case you are a PC user…I have no idea if Growl is Windows-compatible…but it does make my Mac even more awesome!) I downloaded twhirl the other day because everyone was buzzing about it but I haven’t really taken it out for a spin yet. Anyhow, normally my twitter interface revolves around twitterrific but now TwitterLocal has made it awesome.

This is my ‘ambient desktop’, meaning the programs I have always running in the background, in fact I even managed to get a Growl notification for Scoble’s tweet. I actually have quite a few others like Last.fm, FMenu, and smcFanControl but those live in my menu bar. Anyway, now in the background I can actively monitor my SocialFeed on twitter as well as my GeoFeed. I love it.

All in all, TwitterLocal provides an awesome stream but it has a couple things that I think it could do better:

• Make a light version of its client. As of right now, you can click a tab in the app to switch to your SocialFeed, your replies and a tweet box. It is trying to become a primary client but I dont see that happening for me…so continue this version but release a light version that is just a see-through box that hangs out and shows a feed with a box for me to tweet from.
• Window resize is limited…I wish it could be wider and less tall but for some reason, it wont let me drag it any bigger
• Speed…an option for how often to update would be great.
• In-window conversation features similar to twitterriffic and twhirl to @ people.

All-in-all I like it a lot and it is making my twitter-awareness a lot more keen; I feel more tapped into St. Louis than before and I’ve already started following a few new people as a result. With a bit of development, I can see this being a wide-spread tool that more people will pick up. And I love that they went with TwitterLocal.net rather than .com. Some squatter has the dotcom locked up…and I hate squatters.

• Yuxt is a social video-sharing site that makes for a really easy way to share and host your own video clips or those that you find on other sites. A simple drag-n-drop uploading feature effectively eliminates any learning curve for getting used the site’s format. A few weeks ago I wrote about Vod:Pod, a different video sharing site that is also pretty interesting, but the thing I love about Yuxt’s site design is the clean, no-frills interface. Also, a feature which is nice is the “Lounge” tab in the site’s main navigation box which links you to hosted video collections that are grouped into great categories like “Top 10 Collections”, “YouTube Top Rated”, etc. I came upon this site because I got linked to what I believe (and apparently a lot of other people believe this s well, since it is the top rated collection on the site) is the best collection on the site. It is a collection of music videos with the lyrics in various fonts timed to the music…seeing is believing.

• One day, as I was delving into the never-ending stream of del.icio.us tags, I stumbled across an interesting graphical compilation of site logos that claims to be the ‘Complete Web 2.0 Directory.‘ It is a site that is nothing but logos of every website that has been deemed to be ‘web 2.0′ (what the editors have decided to use as a standard definition for web 2.0, I have no idea…but I guess we just have to accept their judgments on faith alone.). While I can’t really think of any direct functional purpose I would have for frequently using the site, it is pretty interesting to just look through all the logos and check our some of the sites. The ‘About‘ page states that as of today, there are 1,635 logos displayed on the site, which does make it a pretty large database. It is fun to poke around, so check it out..to navigate, use the small, thin purple ‘Down’ tab on the bottom left.

• Mango is a new site designed to teach you a new language via the internet. Most people think, “Oh yeah, I can get some software and do that.”…but Mango is free, which makes it available not just to those people with enoughdiscretionary income to subscribe, but rather opens the doors for anyone to learn the basics of a different language. As of today, they have 11 languages, each with 100 lessons included! It has an incredibly easy-to-use interface that provides audio and visual instruction without having to wait for buffering…buffering…buffering…

• A lot has been written about Sketchcast in the last week or so, but I’ve just started to fool around with it, and I think it is pretty awesome. While I would never consider myself to be any kind of artist, Sketchcast is an easy way to draw out quick sketches of ideas and then embed or link to them from anywhere. Basically, you start recording and then it records your brush strokes as you draw on the ‘canvas’ of the site and then you can watch you playback and publish it for people to see or for you to embed on your own site. I’ve embedded my first sketch as a little experiment! This another great new tool for the online communications world!

• Natuba is a social aggregation site that you can build using your updates to YouTube, Twitter, LiveJournal, Blogger, Wordpress, flickr, MySpace, TypePad, Live Spaces, and Photobucket. It provides you an admin page to add your services and customize your page which then provides a one-stop shop for your ‘lifestream’ updates. This is really a pretty cool, easy-to-use site for those who want to aggregate their information from multiple services. However, there are a couple of drawbacks including the lack of facebook integration and lack of support for self-hosted sites (Wordpress, etc). In their defense, you can add any custom RSS feed (including that of a self-hosted site), but it just isn’t quite the same… Anyhow, this is a very straightforward service that is great for a basic lifestream source, with very easy service integration. Check out my test page here.

• Clearspring.com is a site where you can create your own web-based widgets for embedding in your blog, website, profile, etc. The site gives you the option of creating a Flash, web site, or image widget and does a good job of walking you through the process of constructing your widget. I haven’t actually created a full widget, but from my experience of just poking through the process, it seems to be the easiest site I’ve found for creating your own widgets without relying on other developers.

• Twitterment is a really cool site that allows you to compare subject popularity in Twitter updates. It is very similar to Google Trends, except it only includes the frequency of keywords used in worldwide Twitter updates. It also shows a short zeitgeist that displays the up-and-coming terms as well as the declining terms. An example for comparing ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’ shows a basic graph showing hourly and daily summaries. A pretty cool site to briefly check out trends on Twitter; still in beta, so definitely some room to grow. (Follow me on Twitter here)

• Twittervision provides a worldwide map that displays Twitter updates from around the world (obviously, not every single update is shown, just a steady stream of them). This is available in a Google Maps frame, or as a 3D view based in Google Earth (requires Flash 9). I recommend the 3D view option (located in the upper left corner). Also, this site has a facebook application for embedding this advanced Twitter map into your facebook profile; a pretty cool tool if you like to follow all sorts of Twitterers. (Follow me on Twitter here)

• A new facebook application that is pretty astounding is Socialistics, a statistical analysis app that provides really cool graphs and tag clouds based on a variety of variables within your friend’s network. You can get a cloud based on 5 different factors: Popularity, Proximity, Cities, Birth Year, and Relationships and you can view graphs based on 13 variables ranging from Current Location to Number of Wall Posts. This is the most advanced social graph statistical engine I’ve seen yet, and definitely the cleanest interface, as well. There are also a few features still in development, including the creation of study groups and supgroups. All-in-all, this app is the best way I’ve found to analyze your social graph, especially if you have a lot of friends with varying data…now if only facebook would add application support to its groups, this type of tool could be used to do amazing things for tweaking group content or offerings based on detailed demographic data. Get the Socialistics application here.

• This last addition is technically not a web-based tool, but rather an Easter Egg found inside Google Earth. If you zoom into the US and hit CTRL+ALT+A for Windows or Command+Opt+A on a Mac, a window will pop up giving you an option to fly either an F16 or an SR22 prop plane and a multitude of international airports to launch from! It takes some time to get used to the controls and get the hang of it, but this is probably the coolest hidden feature I’ve ever encountered on a program, because it allows you to fly through Google Earth terrain, 3D buildings, etc. Thanks to Mashable for the heads-up!

Microsoft has released a beta version of its newest search feature: Tafiti. Essentially, this is a visual search tool built on Microsoft Live Search and Microsoft Silverlight technology: rather than just listing out our search results, Tafiti creates an interactive searching experience that allows you to search for websites, images, news, books, and RSS feeds at the same time with a stunning graphical interface that is Vista-like in its design.  It features drag-and-drop saving of search results, labeling and compiling tools and also presents an option for “Tree View”, which lacks a bit in the practicality sector, but is very aesthetically pleasing.  Basically, a tree grows and each branch has the text of a web result on it; you can narrow or widen the tree as you want in order to narrow or broaden the search criteria.  This also comes with a full-screen option and scroll buttons to rotate the tree.  I’m not sure when I would ever use this view while actually searching for something, but it sure makes it look good!  This is definitely one of the more fun search applications, I’ve ever encountered.

The best review I’ve encountered for this new tool is from Matt Dickman, which provides a walkthrough of Tafiti’s features. I recommend checking out his site and watching his review below. I will agree with many of his sentiments about it, especially that using Silverlight as the base program fro this search tool could prove to be the Achilles heel of an otherwise awesome program.

In order to make Tafiti a truly viable option in the search engine world, Microsoft will either have to allow it to be adapted to Adobe Flash or seriously step up its distribution of Silverlight. Another user option that would be amazing, but will surely never materialize would be the option to select your own search engine to return your results. Perhaps someone will develop a plugin in the future that would allow such a switch. But all-in-all, Tafiti is an awesome tool that shows that Microsoft is still capable of revolutionizing a field if it really tries! It seems that when companies position themselves at the top f thier market, they slow down thier innovation and trade risky, revolutionary ideas for tame, mediocre, and basic features. Perhaps Tafiti is the beginning of a shift back to the trendy cutting-edge of user experience…maybe Microsoft will someday decide to give Apple a run for its money with design and usability, but I think it will be an uphill battle for them.

Courtesy of Matt Dickman at Techno//Marketer

This being said, Twitter has a fairly lackluster arsenal of other tools. Privacy settings for the service are somewhat lacking, the update service for AIM has been “under maintenance” for a few months, with no progress updates, and the available customizations for your Twitter homepage consist of basic HTML tweaks of border colors and background images. Finally, though, Twitter has launched a People Search tool that allows you to search for people via their names and then “follow” them by simply clicking within the search results. An example search for “Cafourek” turns up only my Twitter account (I am alone on the interwebs!). This is a much needed function that will be welcomed with open arms by the user community. In fact the email announcing the feature just went out to users after 8:00 pm (CST) this evening and already there are hundreds of posts springing up around the internet about this new feature. To access it, simply go to the Twitter homepage and enter a query in the bar that says “Find folks!”

While this is a step in the right direction, Twitter will definitely need to step up their efforts to improve their ‘bag of tricks.’ I would suggest starting with their visually unappealing profile/blog badges, meant to display your updates on your site. The badges available to display your updates along with your friends’ updates are pretty spiffy, but the individual badges are monochromatic text boxes with shiny borders…not very visually stimulating. Also, look for improved search functionality, better management of your followers, revamped privacy settings, and more high-quality embeddable features.

I am delineating a ‘functional’ site from a ‘content’ site, because most people use them for drastically different purposes. A functional site is one that provides services to you by either filling a need that you have had, or creating a need that you did not even know you had, whereas a content site is one you use to educate yourself in some manner. For example, most people now get directions for car trips from sites like Google Maps or Mapquest, but to learn about cartography, you might go to a resource from EarthSensing that explores all aspects of the science.

This sometimes gets blurred in the world of social networking sites with groups springing up that are essentially information hubs that just happen to be housed on a networking site. For example, Facebook would be considered a functional site, but users can create user-driven content sites within Facebook by launching groups that foster discussion and provide information to promulgate to others who might be interested in the same topic. The difference between these two kinds of sites is very important because they fill two different parts of the internet and people interact with the two of them in vastly different ways, as well.

That was simply my clarification of the different types of sites I keep track of as I delve into the annals of knowledge housed on the interwebs! Anyhow, I recently discovered two very excellent content sites that are worth mentioning:

• Web Strategy by Jeremiah: This is a blog hosted by Jeremiah Owyang, a web strategist in San Fransisco. He provides an excellent look into the world of web-based marketing, but not just from a standard ‘make-a-flashy-ad-and-hope-for-good-click-rates’ angle; he analyzes the best way to create, present, and distribute content. The key word there is ‘content’, rather than ‘product’ because everything revolves around how you come in contact with the market and its members. This blog really is awesome for examining how online strategies are changing the way people interact with others and with the market, so I highly recommend adding the RSS feed to your reader!
• TED: TED is the website for the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Monterey and its very-appropriate tagline is ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’. This is a really unique conference that has spawned some off-shoots, but the original remains exceptional. Each speaker at this conference only speaks for 18 minutes, but the content is incredible and ranges from art to politics to research methods to music. This site houses an archive of over 100 talks that have been given at the event over the years, and more is being added all the time. Much of it is very though-provoking, and I highly encourage everyone to check out a least a couple videos on any subject. My favorite video at this point is this lecture given by Hans Rosling about the shifting dynamics of the world’s economies, populations, and other vital statistics…but he does it in a very engaging way that keeps a visual appeal with incredible virtual models.

• Vod:pod: This site is similar to del.icio.us int hat it allows you to tag and catalog videos you stumble across on the internet. You can add a button to your browser that picks up the video from the site you are are and puts in on your Vod page…and from there you can add videos to your ipod, share them with friends, and do other things like create your own ‘Top 10′ list. Also, there is a tool that allows you to feed your newly tagged videos to your blog or website with a personalized widget, similar to the del.icio.us tool I have in the bottom right of this page.
• Netvibes: Though still in beta, this site is a pretty amazing tool for creating a personalized homepage. It is very similar to iGoogle but Netvibes allows you a lot more control over the look and feel of your page…you can have RSS feeds and widgets just like iGoogle, but you have much more freedom as far as layout is concerned. Also, there are dozens of themes you can apply to your site, rather than the 5 o 6 that Google offers…and you don’t have the large Google header at the top of the page. It is very rare that I criticize the Great Google but as far as personalized homepages go…well, I think I may switch mine to Netvibes.
• Sonific: Sonific creates a ‘Songspot’ based on your musical preferences that you can then post on any other website or blog. Also, it is focused to indie music and smaller record labels, but the quality is high, and the high quality tagging of the songs makes searching a snap.
• Meebo: Meebo is probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. You can login to just about any IM client on their webpage and chat directly through their emulation. This can also be hosted on your own website to allow others to chat through Meebo. It is approximately 10,000 times easier and more user friendly that AIM Express, the Java-based client for online access to your AIM account.