Peter Shankman and HelpAReporterOut (HARO) Just Sent Me a Cease-and-Desist Letter

02.26.10 Posted in Entrepreneurship, News, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

Backstory: A couple weeks ago, I launched a site called PRManna.com, to help startups and small businesses connect with reporters and other journalists who are looking for experts and sources for stories. The launch was well received, got picked up on ReadWriteWeb, and people have been using the site for the last couple weeks. I [...]


Geek Gets Fit: A Data-Driven Approach to Fitness

02.01.10 Posted in Goals, Personal, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

Seven or eight years ago, I could run a six minute mile (or run six miles), do 100 pushups in two minutes, and swim a mile without being out of breath. That was then. In the intervening period, I’ve conceded ground to age, gravity, and entropy. I’ve always worked out to some degree, but for [...]


Book Review: “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuk

01.18.10 Posted in Blogging, Development, Entrepreneurship, Finances, Goals, Inspiration, Misc, Personal, Posts, Reviews, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

I recently read Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk and I enjoyed it enough that I thought I’d post a short review.
For those of you who don’t know, Gary is a very successful entrepreneur who has really pushed the limits of social media [...]


Where do I go from here?

06.19.09 Posted in Blogging, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

I’m having a crisis with my blog. I clearly need a redesign and some overall polish, but I’m unsure of what I really want to do with it beyond that. I’d like to rearrange some things so that it’d be a minor source of income, but I guess I’m not sure what I really want [...]


For bigger things

06.11.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom
This ain’t my American dream
I want to live and die for bigger things
I’m tired of fighting for just me
This ain’t my American dream
“American Dream” by Switchfoot


MightyBrand in 60 seconds

05.10.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Personal, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

It’s recently come to my attention that in the excitement of the last five months, I’ve neglected to really talk about MightyBrand, my startup, and what’s going on with it. So here’s a brief overview for those of you that are curious.
In mid-2006, Ben Lew, Ben Rasmusen, and myself all started working on a social [...]


GovFresh – All the government’s social media feeds in one place

05.10.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Personal, Politics, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

A little over a week ago, my good friend Luke Fretwell stopped by my office to chat about this idea that he had to aggregate all the feeds from the social media accounts of the US Government in one place. Various arms of the federal government have been signing up for things like Twitter, Facebook, [...]


Perceived quality vs. actual quality

04.28.09 Posted in Misc, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

I have a love/hate relationship with snobbery. Love to indulge in it, hate it when others do, particularly against things that I like. I was thinking about it today in terms of brands and how people love to hate things that are popular. Henceforth I devised a couple of hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1: As the popularity of [...]


Your 2008 in review and your goals for 2009

12.29.08 Posted in Goals, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions, both because they’re cliche, and because they’re usually ineffective. People load up on goals and programs and life changes in the first two weeks of January and by February 1st, they’re back to their same old bad habits. In general, I think people try and take [...]


We should abolish the US Postal Service

12.23.08 Posted in Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

I had the unenviable task today of going to the post office to pick up two packages. There was a line about forty people long and several clerks behind the counters helping people with all the enthusiasm and speed of a drunken gorilla. One of the clerks was apparently only equipped to help people if [...]