by Willy Franzen on August 27, 2009

Yesterday I was amused by a friend’s Facebook status that said: “just had a revelation: Obama sounds like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.” I instantly imagined Barack Obama shirtless, yelling into a microphone, “Do you smellllllllllll what Barack is cooking?” Apparently SNL had a similar idea. That got me thinking about WWE (formerly the WWF), where The Rock first became famous. I was never a huge fan of professional wrestling, but I must admit to having watched on occasion. My little sister, on the other hand, was a huge fan. At about six years old she decided to be Hulk Hogan for Halloween. It was priceless. Back then they were the WWF, but a spate with World Wide Fund for Nature in 2000 resulted in a lawsuit and eventually a name change. WWE is located in Stamford, CT, just 20 minutes or so from my home town, and is a billion dollar business. Unfortunately, they haven’t been immune to layoffs, but they seem to have some great job opportunities right now.
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by Willy Franzen on August 24, 2009

This morning I was reading a New York Times article about how some of the “super rich” are being hit hardest (at least in terms of total dollars lost) by this recession. A lot of this has to do with heavy investments in real estate. As we all know, real estate has not been the place to be lately. The good news about the bad real estate market is that it’s leading to all kinds of innovation. There are a ton of cool real estate startups, and I just came across another one called eRealInvestor. They’re based in San Francisco, and they offer a suite of tools that allow those who still have it in them to invest in real estate to be much smarter about it. Since I’m not a real estate investor, I don’t fully understand what all of the tools do. However, it’s hard to argue with a data based approach to buying and selling real estate.
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web development
by Willy Franzen on July 21, 2009

Have you ever tried mochi? It’s delicious, right? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, mochi is “a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape.” Ok, so that doesn’t make it sound good, but when it comes filled with ice cream it’s extraordinary. Now, I’m not sure why Mochi Media chose to name their company after a delicious Japanese treat, but it seems to be working for them. They’re a San Francisco based company that happens to run the largest ad network for online Flash games—they reach over 100 million gamers.
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advertising,
California,
design,
entry-level jobs,
flash,
video games,
web development
by Willy Franzen on July 9, 2009

You know about YouTube. You’ve known about YouTube for years. It’s the place to go for online video. There are some competitors that offer some pretty great services, but YouTube is still the default. Now, what if you want to watch live video? Or what if you want to broadcast live video? The Bay Area’s Justin.tv beats out YouTube when it comes to live stuff. You can watch white labrador retriever puppies, live soccer, or some kid in your dorm’s lifestream. The options are pretty much endless. You may ask why anyone would want to sit on a computer and watch puppies, but you’d miss the obvious answer – they’re cute. Actually, there’s an audience for just about anything these days. Justin.tv taps into that. Live video on the Internet isn’t new. There were people doing it in 1996, but the technology now makes doing it much more worthwhile. The question of whether the actual content being broadcast is worthwhile is up to you.
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entry-level jobs,
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by Willy Franzen on May 28, 2009

I’ve already written posts on Activision (Guitar Hero), Harmonix (Rock Band), and Tapulous (Tap Tap Revenge), but can you ever really get enough of the music playing video game genre? Of course not! That’s why we’re looking at JamLegend today. How are they different from the other game makers that I just mentioned? First, JamLegend is free. Second, it offers more songs. Third, you can use your computer keyboard as a guitar. Fourth and most importantly, it’s social! You can play your friends, you can play the world, and you can even enter tournaments to win prizes. JamLegend isn’t just the name of the game, it’s also the name of the company, a small startup based out of San Francisco.
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music,
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video games,
web development
by Willy Franzen on May 11, 2009

Part of my daily routine is reading Greg Mankiw’s Economics Blog. When I saw his post announcing that the text book that he wrote will now be accompanied by an interactive learning tool, I was intrigued. I quickly read the Washington Post article that Dr. Mankiw linked to in the announcement to learn more about Aplia, the company that developed this educational tool. It turns out that Aplia, which is based in Belmont, CA, was developed by a Stanford economist named Paul Romer who was very successful in developing a theory to explain why different economies grow at different rates, but not so successful at engaging students. Since Dr. Romer is clearly a problem solver at heart, he developed a product (and company) called Applia that “offers high-quality, auto-graded assignments” and is “dedicated to improving learning by increasing student effort and engagement.”
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Ohio,
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by Willy Franzen on May 1, 2009

My first experience with video chatting was with CU-SeeMe in an internet cafe in the mid 90s. It was insanely cool, but it was also terrible quality. Things have come a long way, and once again people are using video chat to meet random people online. I was a little creeped out when I first saw WooMe, but I think that I get it now (even if I’m still creeped out). It’s a website that allows you to meet new people through “60 second one-on-one online video sessions.” Basically, it’s speed dating on the web. I was almost too sketched out to cover them here, but I figured if TechCrunch didn’t rip on them too hard and they’re able to get $17 million in investment, there has to be the potential for a real business.
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United Kingdom,
web development
by Willy Franzen on April 21, 2009

Who would have thought that you could build a whole startup off of a Wiki? I mean, I know that Wikipedia is wildly successful, but they’re run by a non-profit called the Wikimedia Foundation. Building a real business off of that same idea almost sounds too easy, but that didn’t stop the founders of San Francisco based Wikinvest from trying it. It all started when two Harvard students were day trading in their dorm rooms during the height of the Internet bubble. They were making money, so they thought they were smart investors. When the bubble burst, they realized that they weren’t nearly as smart as they thought they were. As they tried to educate themselves, they noticed that most financial websites leave a lot to be desired (kind of how I noticed that most job search sites leave a lot to be desired). Instead of building a team of salaried experts, the guys who started Wikinvest decided to crowdsource their content through a Wiki. So far it seems to be working well for them – they raised $2.5 million in a first round (although that was 18 months ago).
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by Willy Franzen on April 2, 2009

If you Google “gravity tank,” one result tells you that “A simple, inexpensive gravity tank in a swine manure liquid-solid separation process will help producers control hog odors.” Another says that in a rooftop water gravity tank the gravity pressure is .434 times the height of the bottom of the tank from the fixture in feet. The Gravity Tank that we’re looking for is very different. It’s a Chicago based innovation consulting firm that combines research, strategy, and design to push their clients in new directions. Their staff consists of “anthropologists, former architects, filmmakers, engineers, graphic designers, industrail designers, MBAs, quant researchers, professors, brand strategists, and more.” They’re small, with only 35 employees, but they’ve already some very cool work with some very big names.
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by Willy Franzen on March 23, 2009

How do you feel about the intersection of friendship and marketing? I know that a lot people weren’t happy when Facebook Beacon started telling their friends what they were buying from other sites, and I also know that nobody wants their friends to go salesman on them (like with Cutco knives); however, word of mouth marketing remains one of the most effective vehicles to reach people with a message. That’s because we still seem to trust our friends the most when it comes to making purchasing decisions. But can brands become our friends? According to 22squared, a marketing agency based out of Atlanta, GA and Tampa, FL, “consumers want brands that act more like helpful friends than persuasive marketers.” I think that’s right, but it still sounds a little weird to me. Maybe we should look at Facebook again for the answer. Plenty of people are “Fans” of brands (like ours), which is very much like being Facebook Friends with them.
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media,
production
by Willy Franzen on January 12, 2009

Here at One Day, One Job, we’re big on storytelling. The reason that we feature a new company every day is that a lot of companies aren’t very good at telling their own stories, and even if they are, there’s a good chance that you’ve never heard their stories. Brooklyn, NY based MediaStorm is one of those companies that excels at telling its own story – probably because their “principal aim is to usher in the next generation of multimedia storytelling by publishing social documentary projects incorporating photojournalism, interactivity, animation, audio and video for distribution across multiple media.” They’ve worked on some amazing projects that include Intended Consequences, a chronicle of the lives of Rwandan women who “were subjected to massive sexual violence, perpetrated by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe,” and The Marlboro Marine, the story of a marine whose photograph became famous and how “tried to return to his previous life but found his nights haunted by images of war and his life fractured by depression.” MediaStorm seems to deal with a lot of heavy topics, but they certainly have mastered multimedia storytelling.
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writing
by Willy Franzen on October 31, 2008

Sharing documents online may never be as sexy as sharing videos, but Scribd still thinks that their document sharing site is pretty sweet. This isn’t like Google Docs sharing where you can work collaboratively on a project, it’s YouTube like sharing where you can find all types of fascinating information related to whatever topic interests you. For instance, if I look up “fly fishing,” I can find documents that range from basics like “101 Fly Fishing Tips for Beginners” to something as specific as “Fly Fishing Properties for Sale in New Mexico.” Ok, neither of those documents has the quality of information that I’m looking for, but Scribd has a long way to go before it is the go to place to find in-depth information. That’s why they need you.
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by Willy Franzen on October 22, 2008

Despite what you might think from looking at the logo to the right, Chumby is not the first cousin of Gumby. Chumby is a startup that makes a real-life product that bears the same name. Their product is an “internet radio, digital picture frame, alarm clock, and more.” The “and more” includes news, social networking, weather, and games. It’s a dead simple Internet device that seems perfect for your bedside or the breakfast table. I’ve never actually tried a Chumby, but the reviews are glowing. At the very least it’s a cool niche product, and there’s certainly the potential for a Chumby to replace the alarm clock.
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by Willy Franzen on September 17, 2008

Periodically the news is riddled with stories about how the airlines are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Lately the focus of doom and gloom commentary has shifted to finance and insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean that the airlines are doing any better. There’s one company that is seemingly never in the conversation about struggling airlines – Southwest Airlines. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know why. They do things differently, and it makes flyers happy. Even though it seems like almost no one can succeed flying commercial routes, Southwest continues to impress. A One Day, One Internship reader tipped us off to some amazing internship opportunities at Southwest Airlines, so we thought that we’d look at their entry level jobs today too. Air travel isn’t going anywhere – it’s too important to us, so don’t write off an entire industry because the other losers can’t get their acts together.
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Maryland,
Pennsylvania,
Texas,
transportation
by Willy Franzen on September 3, 2008

We haven’t been able to find any hard statistics to back it up, but we’re pretty sure that a lot of people use their dog’s name for their passwords. Just look at Paris Hilton, whose cell phone supposedly got hacked because someone was able to find her dog’s name on her MySpace page. That story has since been discredited, but it can be a fable for the 21st century. Instead of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” we will tell our kids “The Girl Who Used Her Dog’s Name As Her Password.” So, if you’re trying to guess someone’s password (which you shouldn’t be), their dog’s name is a great first guess. If you don’t know their dog’s name, guess “Max.” Apparently 1% (which is a lot) of dogs in the U.S. share that name. Marc Pincus really blew it when he decided to name is social gaming network startup after his dog. Nobody would have ever guessed Zynga – he wasted a great password.
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by Willy Franzen on June 6, 2008

I spent last summer building One Day, One Job – the site, the idea, and the business. A lot has changed since then, but I remember that the test post that remained on the home page through much of the site’s development was titled “Hello.” Today’s post will be a fitting replacement as it is also titled “Hello,” and it is about web development. Hello is a Culver City, CA based interactive design agency. They have an extremely impressive portfolio, and they also look to be hiring at the entry-level.
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by Willy Franzen on June 3, 2008

People don’t typically associate technology and innovation with Detroit and the auto industry. Whether it’s deserved or not, American car manufacturers have a pretty weak reputation these days. It’s unfortunate because the decline of the Big Three has seriously hurt the entire Michigan economy. That’s why you see these commercials with Jeff Daniels that try to sell businesses on a Michigan location. Armstrong White is exactly the type of company that is going to bring jobs back to Michigan. They have built a business in Bloomfield Hills, MI that directly serves the auto industry, but is also high tech and extremely innovative. No, they haven’t developed some sort of alternative energy technology. They specialize “in rendering reality out of automotive 2D and 3D assets and digital landscapes for print, broadcast and interactive mediums.”
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entry-level jobs,
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by Willy Franzen on March 6, 2008

Sales is a field that is an odd mix of art and science. A lot of things that should work don’t, and a lot of things that shouldn’t work do. In fact, you’d probably be amazed at what tactics most effectively convert people from readers to buyers. Getting your online visitors to read is one way to get them to convert, but Portland, Oregon based AngelVision Technologies has found a much better way to help businesses make sales. They create “impact movies” that go beyond the normal text-based marketing that drives most online business. These animations are exceptional sales tools, and AngelVision has made a big business out of developing them – their revenue has increased 1,441.2% over the past three years.
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animation,
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