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If you're opening a new restaurant and want to spread the word but don't have a big marketing budget - what do you do?
When I got back home tonight, I found this envelope in my mailbox:

It is a hand written envelope reading:

Some neighbors steal your paper and some invite you to lunch

Now, it's not a printed envelope using a handwriting-like font, it's an actual hand written message. An image recognition algorithm would have a hard time but we humans can't mistake the texture of an actual pen on paper. And it has a little heart.
Of course, I was immediately intrigued.

Inside the envelope was this printed card:


It's an invite for a 50NIS lunch for two at Carpaccio Bar on Even Gvirol 8, which I am assuming is a new place.
Granted, it's printed, but it also has a hand written signature reading

Love, Moran and Eyal

I don't know if the food is any good and I am probably going to lose the card anyway, but I guarantee you I will go check this place out.

Adding just a little bit of real personal touch to a marketing campaign does a great job reaching people. Out of the tens of restaurant junk mail that lands in my mailbox every week - this one I actually worked. And it didn't cost anything extra (save for a really long afternoon signing those...)

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Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

Check out my new blog at http://www.onsocialgames.com

I will post there about everything related to social games  - development, design, marketing, monetization etc.

Help spread the word.

p.s.
Being silly will still continue right here, on pashabitz.com

Want to join me as partner in a cool new startup?
Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

Got a lot done today:
Domain - check.
Server up and running - check.
First Facebook app created and running on server - check.
FB API calls working - check.
MySQL running on the server - check.
App connects to DB - check.

Bunch of new technology. Feels good to open VS after a long break.

Want to join me as partner in a cool new startup?
Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

http://wow-amazing-3d-and-cg-and-Michelle-Rodriguez-o-w.ow/

http://cool-we-live-in-a-compter-program-i-can-do-whatever-i-wa.nt/?plus=awesome-cinematography

http://holy-shit-bruce-willis-was-dead-all-along-i-have-to-watch-it-from-the-beginning-but-shit-i-am-in-a-movie-theat.er/

http://kill-bi.ll/

(Domains available, contact for price)

Want to join me as partner in a cool new startup?
Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

Please be careful when using Word:

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Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

I present to you, my newest startup:

The URL Shortener URL Shortener

http://1 -> http://bit.ly
http://2 -> http://goo.gl
http://3 -> http://youtu.be
http://4 -> http://su.pr


So much joy for so little URL typing.

Want to join me as partner in a cool new startup?
Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

Looking at the genius xkcd comic Gravity Wells got me thinking about the extreme sports of the future.
Mars' moon Deimos' escape velocity is only about 20 km/h (12mph) and can be escaped using a bicycle and a ramp.
Mars' other moon Phobos has a slightly stronger gravitational pull with an escape velocity of about 40 km/h (25mph).
We have pretty much exhausted the possibilities of extreme sports that can be done here on earth (a.k.a. "stupid shit") so what is the only possible evolution for the X Games of 2030? That's right: outer space.
Here are my suggestions:

1. Low gravity bike/roller blade/skateboard jumps on Deimos.
2. Synchronized space floating (like synchronized swimming but with a bunch of people with oxygen masks jump out of spaceship orbiting Phobos).
   
3. Space diving. Like sky diving but from outer space. This can be done on earth.
4. Low gravity pole vaulting. Someone like Sergey Bubka can possible clear a bar that is miles-high on Deimos.
5. Motorcycle jumping over craters on Phobos.

I am really looking forward to it all.

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Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co

Soon after publishing my last post "Google's Starfish" here, I was very (unpleasantly) surprised to discover the whole post appear as a "note" on my Facebook page. I wouldn't have even noticed that, unless someone post a comment on that post, inside Facebook.
In the past, I did, on my own will, configure the RSS of pashabitz.com to appear on my Facebook.
But still, my natural reaction was to get extremely pissed, even though no explicit rule was probably broken here by Facebook. I've been trying to figure out why I got so mad. Here's what I came up with:

Change of the rules
Facebook changed the behavior in a non-trivial way without asking me first. Commonly, other sites only syndicate a small part of the external content and point back to the original. This is what Facebook did in the past too.
They still have a link to the "original post", but it is very non prominent.

Stealing content...
The whole text of my post on this blog appears as a standard Facebook entity (the "note") virtually exactly as if it was published on Facebook itself. There is absolutely zero motivation and additional value for the reader to click-through to my own site, where I actually posted the content. Also remember that Google doesn't like seeing the exact same content on two different URLs.

...and making money off that content
Guess what - Facebook display an ad on the "note" page which is a copy of my blog post. They get the money for showing that ad.


What do you think?

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Get in touch: pasha at cohai dot co