Facebook launched in 2004 as the thefacebook.com. Since 2004 it has undoubtedly changed its infrastructure multiple times and redesigned from the ground up. What I am asking for is the first release of thefacebook.com.

Why am I asking for this?

A lot of us entrepreneurs struggle with what needs to be in version 1.  Does the code need to be formatted properly, does it need to be coded with proper naming standards, does it have to be commented properly, does this feature need to be there, etc I think a lot of us want to see what version 1 of  a very famous website started off as from soup to nuts.  Some of us decide to spend months upon months building it, and some of us just spend a weekend on it.  I know there is no right answer, but I want to know what Zuckerberg himself did. I think there is a lot of learning from this.

Is this an attempt to get him to opensource more of facebook?

Absolutely Not. I am just asking for version 1.  I’m also not thinking of this as an open source community win, but more of a developer / entrepreneur win.  It gives us a better idea of what version 1 really needs to be.

Do I actually think he will do it?

I know it won’t be because of MY request, but hopefully other blogs / hacker news /reddit can pick this up and get the word out a little more.  The developer / entrepreneur committee would be all over this.

Do I think he actually HAS version 1?

This is 7 years ago mind you. It’s a lot easier to version control your software with Git Hub and other cloud based versioning systems, so I don’t think it’s an actual given that he has the pristine copy of version 1 of thefacebook.com.  But yes, I think he has some sort of version stored away.  It’s part of history

Robbie is a the founder of postamigos.com which is a website for bloggers to give & receive original content.

It’s not too often where you see a website / blog catch your eye.  It’s also not too often that you actually enjoy the visuals of the website AND like the content of the website.   The Nerdery has managed to do both.  They are a web design / development company that I recently ran into as I was looking for a Magento developer.  Trust me when I say that I have seen over a thousand web design company websites in the past year including my own chicago based web development company which is a small side venture for me.

Here is what I like about the nerdery web presence the most:

• It’s visually appealing
• It has a LOT of great and creative content, but doesn’t clutter up the page
• Their web presence truly shows they really are nerds.  I mean, hardcore nerds nerds.
• I actually spent over 10 mins on the website because 1) I was jealous mine didn’t look like it and 2) Refer to 1.
• They don’t just show their portfolio.  They give details about the project including how many hours they worked on it, who worked on it AND how many hours each designer / developer / PM spent on it.  I go into further detail about this after the jump.

I picked a random portfolio item that they displayed: http://nerdery.com/projects/izzys-ice-cream

Let’s take this page, and dive into it to see what they have on it.

Top Section

• Clean & Minimal logo directly centered with three links to the left & three links to the right
• Our Work has a yellow dot above it to signify where the user is on the page.
• The title of the portfolio page is right there for the user to see and tells the user exactly what the page is about.
• The other links that are not relevant to the active navigation, but are perfect getting views to other things such as “The Web Challenge”
• SEO friendly URL’s, and perfect title tags.
• Overall, the consistency and perfection of this top section gives a hint of how the rest of the page is going to go

Middle Section

• A nice big screenshot of the website they designed.  An actual screenshot, and not just a logo like many other websites have.
• A sub description to the left of the screenshot that describes exactly what the project was about. No thrills, no extra information.  Just a quick summary of what the project was about
• Technologies.  This is true nerdery right here.  Not everyone cares, but I sure want to know what technologies were involved in it.
• View the site.  You mean, they provide you with a link to the direct site?  Not just a screenshot of what they did, and leave the rest up to your imagination?  You would think this is common practice, but it is far from it.  They WANT to show you what they did.  And I think that shows a lot.
• More on our blog.  Perfect.  They enjoyed the project so much, they blogged about it.  One page wasn’t enough.  Again, this just shows they are proud of the work that they do.
• Overall, consistency is key and they maintain consistency with fonts, colors,etc.

Middle – Bottom Section

• Another more detailed description on the left.  This time they really dive into the details of not only what they did, but the effect it has on their business.  That’s key and so important.  They just don’t talk about their technology, or how pretty it works – but they talk about what it means to the business, and how it affects their business.  Another insight into the project
• Project Effort (hours) – First time I’ve ever seen this.  They tell you exactly how many hours it took them to build this project.  This is really unheard of, and it really sticks out.
• Project Timeline.  Same with hours – I’m assuming this is ACTUAL hours and not estimated because we know how different those two numbers can be.  I wish they put if the project was on time & on budget.  That’s TMI, but hey – They went this far!  If 37 signals openly released their satisfaction numbers, then maybe the Nerdery can think about doing the same thing!??
• Project team.  They didn’t have to do this.  But, they did.  See that little periodic chart with some of the boxes filled with yellow?  Those are actual links to their profiles.   Each square representing one employee in the company, and the yellow filled ones are links to the profiles who worked on this project.  This is what I really enjoy about this site.  It’s the little details.  Now granted, most people won’t see this little section.  I think it goes along with consistency of the site.  It just fits
• The bar charts.  Again, another extension to the creativity, details and Openness of the Nerdery.
• Client testimonial.  Textbook execution.  The  client liked it, so lets show it off.  I noticed that all of the profile pages have them, but when there is no customer testimonial – they put a developer comment there.  Consistency is key while being business savvy.

Bottom Section

• News Ticker.  A news ticker via a typewriter. A news ticker that also categories what kind of ticker item it is (blog, news or tweet).  Again with the details.  You can’t see from the screenshot, but it’s a moving typewriter.  Clean, minimal and to the point AND web standards compliant!
• A call to action.  Yes, it’s at the bottom.  But, at least they have one.
• Footer.  Nothing amazing about the footer but ends the page well.  I actually do have a complaint about the footer. It says © 2009 The Nerdery.  It’s 2011.  Here’s a little tip:  <?php echo date(“Y”); ?>.

That ends my review of  nerdery.com.  Believe it or not, I do not work for Nerdery and I am perfectly happy with the current position I am in.  I just like to write about good things when I see them.

*** If you are a blogger, you might be interested in my latest startup: Post Amigos ***

*** If you want to guest post on my blog or want me to guest post on your blog. Tweet me on twitter @robbieab or email me – robbie dot abed at gmail dot com. ***

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That’s all I have to say about that.

It turns out that major league sports events, such as the World Series of 1919, are not the only things that can be fixed for someone to make a big profit. Today, Groupon ran a deal for an online merchant, FTD, that sells flowers to capitalize on the Valentine’s Day buying spree. It turns out that customers that visited the FTD online website after having come from Groupon actually received a price that was markedly higher than customers that simply went to FTD’s website without having come from Groupon. Some retailers have grumbled that they don’t like the deal that they get from Groupon, especially since in many cases 50% of the revenue from a Groupon purchase goes to Groupon and not to the retailer that is providing the goods or service to the end consumer. However, until today I have not seen any proof that retailers were unhappy or that retailers felt they were getting shafted by Groupon type deals. Today, when I saw the blatant inflation of prices for Groupon users I realized that the Retail Industry is fighting back against the collective buying phenomena that is sweeping the digital world.

Here is a screen shot of the prices that a non-Groupon user would see. This is FTD’s Simply Cheerful Mixed Roses Bouquet and for non-Groupon customers the product sells for $34.99:

Here is a screen shot of the prices a Groupon user would see. Notice the price for the same Simply Cheerful Mixed Roses Bouquet is now $39.99!

View the full image here.

Here’s a screen shot posted by someone from San Jose that shows up to a 25% increase in the price of flowers for non-Groupon customers.

You can see for yourself by first clearing your browser cookies and then going to the FTD.com website, then try clicking the link to visit FTD from the Groupon deal page. Notice the difference in prices for many of the roses. (Tip: if you want to get the reduced price and you want to use your Groupon, then do the following: make sure to clear all your Internet browser cookies and close your browser, then go back to FTD to make your purchase and when checking out use your Groupon code)

The irony is that the word “Groupon” has come to mean deep discounts and great savings for consumers, so naturally, when you see the menu item that says “Groupon Featured Products” you will think that is where all the really great savings are going to be. However, FTD is smart and when users click on that link I bet FTD actually makes sure to increase their prices by a few bucks so that FTD can capitalize on the volume of users that are trying to save big bucks. Collective buying has allowed consumers to gain a lot of power in the marketplace, and now we, as consumers, expect huge discounts for pretty much everything, but retailers are getting smart and figuring out ways to turn the tables on consumers. When I see a Groupon deal, I still have the perception that I am getting a great deal, but retailers are starting to figure out ways to eat into a consumer’s savings by inflating the price without the consumer realizing it. Now, this type of price inflation strategy might be mroe difficult to do at brick and mortar locations or local mom and pop retail stores, but I’m sure they are also thinking of ways to outsmart Groupon consumers. I never thought Valentine’s Day would signal the beginning of the end of such an amazing streak of deals and savings, but as retailers get smarter and as more and more Groupon-type sites keep popping up, it can only mean the demise of an industry that has helped me save so much money at countless restaurants.

I love printers. Really, I love printers.  You know what I love more then printers. INK. Man. INK IS SOFA KING AMAZING.  It’s so cheap, lasts forever, and oh yeah.  it’s always universal so it doesnt matter what printer I have, I can just put it in and it works!  Well, if you havent caught my sarcasm up to this point and have found a way to ignore the giant picture on the left – *I hate printers*  We can land a man on the moon, build a telescope that can see other planets, and we can’t a printer that just prints.  My goal in life is to invent an inkless printer that just works for under $200.  How amazing would that be.  Someone has to invent it because ink to HP is like oil to saudi arabia.  They need it baaaad.

I do feel kind of jaded since we had a printer that had a nasty paper jam.  A paper jam so bad that we had to buy a new one.  Well, since we had extra cartridges we bought for cheap (er) at Wal*Mart – I decided to go to best buy and buy a printer that is compatible with that ink.  Guess What. DISCONTINUED.  They no longer sell printers that have that ink.  The printer is only a few years old too.  HP knows what they are doing, and they don’t care if you can’t print on your printer.  They just want your ink money.  Just wanted to rant on printers, because I hate them so much.

The Editors at unzipped ideas want to mention a new guest blogging service started by our own team.  It’s called Post Amigos and the url is http://www.postamigos.com.  Currently there is a slideshow that briefly explains what post amigos is all about and why you should join the service.   The concept is fairly simple.  It allows you to connect with other bloggers, and get more traction on your blog by making the process to get guest posts on your blog a more seamless process.  Although the service has only been out for a few days, it already has over 100+ signups and the word is travelling quickly.

There is always a big discussion on the best type of landing page, and your goal is to get more people to sign up for your service as possible while you work on the finished product. Post Amigos did something a little different by creating a simple cartoon slideshow that describes what the service is all about. We did receive a lot of good and constructive feedback on the design, and we are working on tweaking that every day. We expect another few months until the site launches, but we are definitely excited!

(Note: This is part 2 of 5 in my on-going TechCrunch.com series)

Sometimes this graphic is how I really feel about how much press Quora gets on TC. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t like Quora at first, and the more I spent time with it – the more I actually liked it. Why did I spend more time with it you ask? Well, because of all of the press TC gave it. I felt like I NEEDED to like it. I gave it a second,third & fourth chance.

Do I still think they overdo it with the Quora posts: Absolutely. I feel that with all these new technology trends, investments, etc that Quora really isn’t that innovative. It is still a T & A Q&A site.  A Q&A site targeted for nerds. Plain & Simple.  Where do they make their money?  I just don’t get it.  You think they would post more editorials on Groupon and how Groupon started & how they grew initially, etc.

- There is always the argument – If you don’t like it, Don’t read it. Nobody has a gun to your head!  -

This is the main issue.  I know I can read elsewhere (and I have), but I WANT Tech Crunch to succeed.  This is why I will put up with the re-posts by the editors.   Lately TechCrunch has done a great job at getting other successful guest editors who have insightful ideas & suggestions for other startups.  I think a lot of commenters  forget the fact that the core staff is focused on displaying the most recent transactions, failures & other startup news.  They just don’t have the time to write insightful and though provoking posts day in and day out.  As I said in my last post, TechCrunch is popular because they break the news the fastest and have the deepest sources of information.  With that, they get a lot of traffic.  With that traffic, they have the power to determine who gets press and who doesn’t.  Before it was twitter, and now its Quora.

I kind of suggested that Quora paid them off, but I’ll leave that for the conspiracy theorists.  There was a good article on TC on business ideas for Quora on how to make more money, but I think the startup crowd is getting sick of these “build an audience, make money later” type businesses.  Well, I guess we’re sick of hearing about them, but that doesn’t stop us from keep creating them!

(Note: This is part 1 of 5 in my on-going TechCrunch.com series)

What if TC actually disabled comments? Absolutely zero commenting allowed. What would happen?

A part of me says, people actually enjoy reading the comments and it would keep people coming back to the site.  The other part of me thinks that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my life.  When I read TC via reader on my iPhone, I have absolutely ZERO motivation to check the comments.  When i’m visiting the site via web, then yes – I unfortunately read the comments for no reason known to mankind.  Gruber from daringfireball.net actually doesn’t allow comments and I really believe it increases the integrity of his site.  He also knows the trolls will accuse of him of being an apple fanboy anytime they get the chance, so it’s a good decision on his part.  If he added commenting on the site, would he get more traffic?  I’m not entirely sure to be honest.

Here’s the main issue I have with Tech Crunch commentators. It’s as if they took the famous quote: “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all” and changed it to “If you have nothing nice to say, go to TechCrunch.com”  It’s as if the Tech Crunch commentators have taken it on themselves to police the quality of the posts. If they don’t like it, they will attack the quality of the post and almost always direct their comments towards the editors.

Have I commented on TC posts before, sure. Why do I comment? Honestly, I have no idea. Not a clue. And to think of it, the only reason I commented was to yell at an editor for berating another innocent commentator! I wasted 5 mins of my life.

TC editors and the commentators are CONSTANTLY fighting with each other. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one “thank you / your welcome” exchange in all of the comments I have read at TC.  Let’s do some math.  According to compete.com, TC gets an average of 1.5 million unique visitors a month.  They post about 15 times a day and an average article would get 20-40 comments.  For a site with that many uniques, that really isn’t that many comments.  I think removing the comments will actually do more good for TechCrunch and would increase the integrity of the content.

The next post talks about Tech Crunch’s obsession with Quora along with another witty cartoon.

There has been a little rumbling in the tech community lately. A rumbling that can quite possibly turn into a roar unless something major is changed. What is the rumbling about? Spam in Google’s search results. Everyone run for the borders; say it isn’t so! Not our beloved google.com. How could this possibly happen?

Well, for one, this isn’t necessarily Google’s fault, but it’s a problem that needs to be fixed. Google’s algorithm has long been secret, but the basics to getting your website higher in search engine results are widely known. There are plenty of companies and individuals that will happily help you get better results for certain keywords. It’s also worth noting that Google is still better than its closest competitor, Bing, and it’s hard to say if Bing has been affected as well.

Even some of the bigger tech blogs are asking for a new Google! In the short term this will not affect Google’s market share, but if technologists decided that bing.com is the best search engine of the two, then google will have a major problem on its hands.

Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/are-googles-search-results-still-as/#ixzz1AnPllihs

One has to be wondering what AT&T is thinking now. For four years they had exclusivity to the iPhone and that could be ending in a few days. According to many sources, the announced Verizon event in New York on January 11th could be the big news everyone has been waiting for.

Although there has been speculation that Apple is going to release the iPhone5 this is obviously not the case as Verizon is doing the announcement and not Apple. Should AT&T be worried? They will never admit to being worried, and brush it off as non news, but they definitely are. AT&T was recently rated last in cell service by a recent consumer reports survey with no signs of it getting better.

The Verizon announcement should be taken with a grain of salt however. AT&T has been plagued with network issues ever since they were awarded with iPhone exclusivity. Verizon has a big test ahead of them to prove that they won’t fall in the same trap as AT&T and have a degraded network. iPhone users are notorious for using a lot of bandwidth, and Verizon has no choice but to be prepared for it. If they fail, then be prepared for the internet onslaught of bad press. If they succeed, then all is well at Verizon Headquarters.