I started blogging back in September 2005. There have been a few weeks where I went silent throughout 2006, but nonetheless, 227 posts later, I’m closing out the big ’06. The goal of this blog is to stimulate conversation amongst my friends and peers but providing thought provoking information in readily accessible methods.

Each day, I’m wrapped up in the video game and advertising space. However, my interests and knowledge extends far beyond the in-game advertising space and dealing with IGA Worldwide, and I use DarrenHerman.com to talk about other areas that fascinate me.

In 2006 alone, (mostly in Q3/Q4 when I got serious about my blog), I had over 10,500 unique visitors and delivered around 21,000 pageviews (according to SiteMeter). In no means is this a high traffic destination site, but it’s certainly increasing over time and my month over month traffic has steadily increased. With the 10,500 unique users and 227 posts, I’ve had over 200 comments on the blog, most of which have come in Q3/Q4. Not bad for getting readers engaged…. (more on engagement coming in a new post in the next few days)

I am excited as to what the future holds for DarrenHerman.com I’ve redesigned the site and included many different social elements to the site including RSS feeds, MyBlogLog, joining MindPetals.com, and adding del.icio.us, Digg, Sphere, and StumbleUpon tags for posts. Who knows if this will generate any additional traffic to this site, but it allows for you to take and promote content any place you’d like.

Looking forward to an amazing 2007 and provoking many more conversations here. darrenCamp has emerged as well, and I look forward to holding more in 2007. I’m excited! Happy holidays, DJH

I went back through all the posts on this blog and wanted to share the posts that are in my opinion, the most important “thought-chunks.” Let me know your thoughts… feel free to share them as well.

• First Post - Welcome
• Why I like: I’m nostalgic… it’s my first post ever, so give me a beak. One of the best Muppet Movie quotes.
• Media Consumption 18-34 Year Olds
• Why I like: A fantastic posting that looks at my demographic and talks about how media is fragmenting….
• The Decline of Prime Time
• Why I like: A look at how time shifting is killing the television industry. Media fragmentation also is causing television to take new formats…
• It’s All About Me
• Why I like: It’s a look at ME-dia. There is a ME in media and I predicted it before Time nominated us at the Person of the Year.
• Deeper Peak into Avatars
• Why I like: Avatars are a hot topic within the web today. I believe that they will help bring the web a face…. And this is certainly a post that begins that conversation.
• The Power of the Music Experience
• Why I like it: I absolutely love the music industry and put a lot of thought into this posting. It got quite a bit of traction around the record labels and is a must read of any posts on the blog.
• Fertile Soil for VCs
• Why I like: NYC is an amazing scene for entrepreneurs and this post talks about why…. And no, we’re not Silicon Valley…
• Startups: Focusing
• Why I like it: Many of us are involved in startups but with all these opportunities out there, it’s hard to focus, especially thru all the clutter. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS. Read.

Enjoy!

Wow! The turnout today was incredible… 38 people showed up at the “darrencamp” or “digital media holiday gathering” (depending on who you talk to) and it was fantastic! We overwhelmed the staff and patrons of Le Pain Quotidien but nevertheless, conversation flowed even moreso than the green tea and coffee.

The goal of today was to bring together a group of digital media mavens, finance finaglers, advertising gurus, technological wizards, and enduring entrepreneurs and talk about 2007 predictions in the digital world. After a brief introduction, we broke out into 2 main groups (seperated by Shreyas Pandit and David Honig) and spoke for an hour or so in our “trend groups.” Each larger group broke out into smaller sustainable conversations and topics ranged from mobile/wireless flat-fee pricing structures, consumer generated media consumption, RMTs/micropayments, web applications that are on the desktop, and other fascinating areas.

Prior to holding this holiday get together, I put together a spreadsheet which was debuted today. The goal of this sheet was to show what the blogosphere was predicting in 2004, 2005, 2006 and then for 2007. The spreadsheet is not the end-all and be-all of predictions and trends, but it’s certainly a starting point for any conversation. If you could not make the meeting today or would like a digital copy, drop me a note thru the comments section and I’ll gladly send you the .xls document. (If you did receive one today, I’d really appreciate feedback)

All in all, I thought it was pretty successful. Lots of extremely smart people in the room sharing their opinions always leads to interesting collaboration. I encourage anyone who was at the meeting to blog about the event and share your pictures… I certainly noticed a few cameras and cameraphones snapping photos.

I do not know the official title of this event, but if you’re looking for something quirky and short, lets officially name it:Â “darrencamp”

Also, I have received many requests to make the contact information of the attendees available but due to privacy and confidentiality, I’d rather you contact me for the direct contact information and I’ll gladly make the introduction you are seeking.

I’ve been tagged by Greg Verdino, David Berkowitz, and Matt Haverkamp for the “game� that’s going around the blogosphere which encourages blog writers to share personal information with their readership community. With that said, here are five things you may or may not know about me:

1. ½ of my family is from South Africa: My father is the youngest of his 5 siblings and was the first of the family to come to the USA over 25 years ago. A lot of my inspiration of being an entrepreneur comes from him as he left an extremely comfortable lifestyle to face new challenges and blaze an entirely new trail. 90% of his family is now here in North America (US & Canada) and yes, they all have the cool South African accents. I was the first American born “Herman.�
2. I love sports: I’m a huge fan of playing sports and watching professional sports. My favorite teams are the New York Yankees, New Jersey Devils (yes, I live in Manhattan), and the New York Knicks. I’m also a professional soccer fan and went to the FC Barcelona game this summer and saw the great Ronaldhino play. I grew up playing tennis, hockey, ice skating, baseball, and basketball and am always up for a pick-up game.
3. I’m a loyal Mac fan: While most male teens growing up had posters on the bedroom wall of Jenna Jameson or Pamela Anderson, I had 3 Apple posters of the release of the original iMac and iBook. I attended every MacWorld New York and San Fran for quite some time and took home the official posters of the event (for press). My history with Apple extends as far back as the Macintosh LC and progresses thru the Quadra 630, Powermac 6100, Powermac 8600, Blue & White G3, Powerbook G3 Pismo, iBook G4, MacBook Pro, and the Newton (back in the day).
4. I like fashion (and I’m not afraid to admit it): When I have visitors over to my apartment of the female kind, they are always amazed at how much clothing I have…. I’ve actually cut back over the past year or so, but I can be found at a range of places checking out the latest trends. My favorite outfit is jeans and a t-shirt or fleece, but I am just as comfortable in a suit or khakis. I love pink shirts and tend to have an “edgy-prepâ€? look (so I’m told), but am very flexible on my outfits. My father has been involved with fashion in his career so that is whom I get my fashion sense from.
5. Traveled the USA: Back in 1996, I spent 4 weeks out west traveling all throughout the Grand Canyon, Colorado, Bryce, Zion, Sequoia National Forest, and many other amazing places. It was an amazing trip which combined hiking, rafting, climbing, and baring the elements but it was absolutely worth it. Growing up, I was a Boy Scout so I tend to love being outdoors…

That’s my top 5 in no particular order. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to email me and we’ll chat.

In less than 24 hours, a mixture of technologists, media mavens, entrepreneurs, advertising gurus, digirati, venture capital and financial wizards will be gathering on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The location has stayed the same but the time is now 3:30pm EST - a 30 minute delay as to what was originally posted.

The goal of this ‘event’ is not to just put everyone in a room and drink as much tea and coffee as possible, but to put a bit of structure around the gathering to discuss the future trends in the technosphere and figure out WHY we have predicted such trends for 2007. We’re all going to put our analyst hats on for one hour and have a fantastic conversation about the future….

Then it’s schmooze fest.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there! I’ve been working on a document that everyone will get when they come to help spark conversation. It will be made available online as a PDF to those who could not make it later on Wednesday evening.

Please contact me if you have any questions…

I’d like to round up a great group of entrepreneurs and media folks and get together one last time for 2006. Ideally, the group will be a round table to discuss what are the trends going into 2007 and WHY. We all can forecast trends (pull things out of thin air), but I’d like to talk about WHY we expect these trends to occur.

I’d personally like to host this at Le Pain Quotidien on 77th between 2 & 3rd Ave (Subway: 6) on Wednesday, December 27 at 3:30pm EST. The get-together will have 1 hour of formal discussion and then a schmooze fest. Feel free to spread the word but please RSVP by leaving a comment on this blog. Since I’ll be hosting (coffees, teas, pastries), I’d like to know how many folks will be coming… also, no egos please as ideally there will be serial, parallel, and brand spankin new entrepreneurs and I’d like there to be a level playing field for all to participate. Online folks and offline folks welcome!

Again, please leave a comment on this blog if you plan on attending…

I’m usually skeptical of “networks” and aggregators, but aftering meeting David of MindPetals.com this past week for lunch, I’m a fan of what he is building. MindPetals.com came onto the scene (according to this Alexa graph) in June 2006 and has been a community site for entrepreneurs. Bloggers who cover entrepreneurial topics are found by Mind Petal scouts and have the opportunity of having their blogs listed on MindPetals.com. Their respective posts are fed thru RSS to MindPetals.com and summaries appear on the site. MindPetals.com acts as an aggregator of entrepreneurial posts but then sends the viewer to the respective blog the posts exist on… which is what sealed the deal for me.

I want to own my content (I’m not selfish, but if I put time into writing it, my site should benefit), not have it indexed elsewhere for other people to monetize. I’m happy about the stance MindPetals.com has taken in this regard and am proud to not just have my blog indexed for users to view, but have been extended an invitation to the MindPetals.com Advisory Board. When I met with David at lunch, we talked about how MindPetals.com was founded, where he wants to take it, and how he plans on getting there. We mutually agreed on many different aspects of this and am excited to help guide MindPetals.com strategy.

Feel free to check out MindPetals.com and leave your comments. I’d love to know how I can help make it a better place for the entrepreneurial scene.

I have been talking with two gentlemen over the past 6 months who have impressed me with their vast network of individuals that they know: John Hui and David Chen. Through a group I’m involved in, nextNY, I met them at one of the events and we’ve been friends since. Today, the put together a nice little group of NYC entrepreneurs at the W Hotel in Union Square and we had some fantastic conversations ranging from marketing to fundraising. Great job guys! Look forward to more in the future!

In the most recent report from 463 Communications and Zogby International, Americans say the next Bill Gates is currently studying math in Beijing.  The report is located here however I’ve summarized a few different areas of it:

1. Kids are more Internet savvy than Congressmen:Â Who knew that 83% of kids are? Â Republicans (85%) and Democrats (86%) agreed with each other.
2. One third of all Americans believe that the Internet is a greater invention than the printing press (sorry Johannes Gutenberg!).
3. While we all think that the Internet is a highly impact invention, 78% of respondents said that if a car wouldn’t start or you lost your keys, would rank higher than not being able to check email.
4. 66% of Americans believe that the Internet will be everywhere and there will be no place in the world within reason that would be without Internet.
5. 67% of Americans agreed that new camera and Internet technologies are turning us into a nation of voyeurs and paparazzi.
6. 67% of Americans said they’d rather watch the evening news coverage compared to citizen video reports.

The nationwide telephone survey of 1,203 adults was conducted 12/5/06 through 12/8/2006 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.

Greg Verdino made his debut today over at MarketingProfs.com and he wrote a very thorough article about brand integration into Second Life. I do not want to spoil the article but will write up a few quotes below, but here is the link to the article.

The best—maybe the only—way to understand the metaverse, is to join as a resident before you join as a marketer.Â

Second Life residents are in control. Instead of spending your marketing dollars to bring them products to buy, think about how you can spend those same dollars to bring them value and earn their attention.Â

Hope these teasers got you interested - Greg and I are on the same page with much of this… feel free to comment!