Database Performance Expertise

What does it take to get an idea off and running and successful in this Internet and economic climate?

Ultra Light Startups (ULS) is a group of entrepreneurs who explore these perpetually evolving factors and refine techniques to launch technology ventures - minimizing cost and time associated with testing ideas in the marketplace.

In contribution to ULS we have commenced an investigation and a working group The Ultra Light Startup Hackathon. The purpose is to take a group of like minded professionals and in one day, move and idea from paper to deployment. The goal is to have fun, to be Ultra Light, and to produce a working and usable web application in one day.

To make this possible, will take a known design from the ULS Spec Review Group and then implement and produce a result. We also want this approach to be open for people to come and watch, learn and do a post-analysis critique.

The first announcement as made on 6th November at Ultra Light SEO/SEM. Stay tuned for updates.

As part of our involvement with Ultra Light Startups 42SQL provided some free technical input to a new project Real Women Respond to Palin.

As a checklist, the following online resources were used to get started, and create an initial web presence. This provides a good summary of how to get started with just $20.

• Google Mail email account (initial registration communications).
• Domain Registrar for registration of the domain name (~ $10). Our recommendation is GoDaddy.
• Shared Hosting Provider for initial website hosting (~ $10).
• Google Apps the free edition, for email hosting.
• Google Analytics for website tracking.
• WordPress Blogging framework for Content delivery.

The following are more optional but were used in this instance.

• FeedBurner for a public RSS feed and statistics.
• Magnify for a public video community library.
• Ustream for live video streaming.
• PayPal for sponsor donations.

Some of these options are not ideal for the longer term, but for Day 1, a presence can be achieved for little work.

Disclaimer: 42SQL does not have any political associations, bias or opinions to the current US Presidential Election.

42SQL Principal Ronald Bradford was the moderator at the Ultra Light Startups September 2008 Entrepreneurs Forum for a panel discussion on “Monetization through Online Advertising”. With a great turnout of 44 attendees there was plenty of active discussion before, during and after the presentation.

A large number of publishers were present, keen to hear input from our 4 expert panelists. Topics covered include understanding the different models such as CPM, CPA, CPS etc, which models are best aligned for the advertiser, dealing with Ad agencies, brand identity, successful metrics, social networks, contextual based advertising, relevance ad placement and leveraging current news cycles.

Fully 1/3 of attendees indicated presently using or intending to use video on their respective sites, highlighting conversation around user generated content and the different approaches for video advertising and user retention.

There was also a short presentation about InSite NY by Vinay Jain, providing an entrepreneurial mentorship bringing Columbia and NYU Business and Law students and New York entrepreneurs together pursuiting venture capital and angel investments.

Thanks to the panel speakers Max Ramirez from Blinkx, Alex Baydin fromPerformLine, Derek Lee from SocialDough and Noah Robinson of MERCENARY International and to the organizer of Ultra Light Startups, Graham Lawlor.

You can get a detailed log of the events proceedings as well as photos at RedRussak’s Online Marketing Blog.