Number crunching in the garden

This time last year, my social networks stretched to Skype. LinkedIn and a dormant blog. Nowadays, I must perform a growing number of housekeeping tasks to keep on top of a busy online lifestyle.

Today I went to delete some Facebook groups and was intrigued by the numbers.

I love Openads has 70 members and is administered by seven of the winning team at Openads. These people and this software is a major highlight of my year.


The Skype Developer group has 56 members but represents a platform delivering millions of software extras for Skype. Three of the group administrators no longer work for Skype.

The Techcrunch group has a surprisingly modest 282 members. Mike Arrington isn't among the two administrators - is this an oversight, a mistake or deliberate?


Om Malik is miles ahead of Arrington with more than 2,000 members in the GigaOM group. Personally administered by the great guy himself - the personal touch matters it seems.

With an exciting almost 1,000 members, the off-valley tech commentary proves its value and interest and benefits from personal supervision from key staff.

At 123 members, the Blognation group wasn't rounding up members like Om or RWW. But Blognation Belgium group (111 members) and Blognation Canada group
(60 members) showed the potential reach of the troubled project.

The Tech Writers, at 134 members is a fine size for a group that receives nil activity or administration. Membership is safe and requires no effort I guess. I will try to get some input going soon.

At the bottom of the scale are 10 Social Hermits. This group is a friendly cave to hide when the social whirl gets too much; a space for peace and contemplation.





Finally, off the richter scale, is 6 Degrees of Separation with a whacking 3.3 million + users. Gaining hundreds of thousands of members per day, and run by a Steven Jackson (sole admin) from London, author of a recently published thriller. I have absolutely no idea what this is about but it seems to be working - go spam go.

Sethi fraud was all Mike Arrington's fault

After a frenzied week of speculation around the blogosphere, Sam Sethi has finally thrown in the towel, and posted his resignation as CEO of Blognation. And even in this closing statement he couldn't show any grace or decency. It's nice to know that it is Mike Arrington's fault that I didn't get paid for two months work plus a stack of expenses. I can sleep better at night knowing that Sam is going to sell Blognation and I can finally expect my cheque in the post. And I don't have to worry about any more threats from him because he is too busy threatening others to have time.

I don't think anybody doubts that Blognation was (and I hope will continue to be) a great idea. That is why I joined - not for the ego-boost or the party invites or the self-aggrandisement - in fact I hated those aspects of it. I'd love to see it survive but I fear that Sam will take it down with him. He writes that he plans to auction Blognation and use the money to pay his debts. I have no doubt that he will try to sell it but I have little faith in fair dispersal of the income. He has said or done nothing in the past six months to inspire any confidence in this promise.

It astounds me that in light of the debacle, so many of the comments to Sam's post wish him luck. Not so Mathew Ingram (sensible chappie) who says "this is one of the most mealy-mouthed and insincere posts I’ve seen from an alleged business person since Conrad Black stopped blogging." A year ago, Sam had his infamous spat with Mike Arrington and it is interesting to read Marc Canter's views on that part of the Sethi soap opera.

Loic has every right to call Sam an asshole. He is an asshole. A manipulative asshole. BUt that’s how they train them at Microsoft.

But Sam is gonna make a fortune on this controversy. He’ll land someplace sweet, same as Jason Caacanis did. And Scoble - too. The more controversy - the better the NEXT job is.

So, it seems not everybody was taken in by slimy Sam's charm and posh shoes. For everybody's sake I hope the last paragraph doesn't come true - serial entrepreneur my ass, more like serial cheat.