It’s time to Hack! We’re heading to the Bay Area at the end of this month to join a tech-geek party for an all-out hackathon on Google’s upcoming OpenSocial platform; joining us will be other interested parties, geeks, start-up types, and companies looking to enter the promising social network space.  Why are we going?

Facebook is becoming extremely more competitive and the opportunity to create something new in this highly active space is made increasingly difficult by all the new and existing applications.  Therefore, we have decided there are more opportunities in Orkut and Hi5 where its still a greenfield.  We’ll continue to develop apps in Facebook but will be winding down towards the end of this month.

On a side but related note - we’ve been hacking for about 8-weeks now. We’re not making a ton of money but we make enough to cover all of our fixed costs (office, lan, utilities, etc.), hosting (server farm), and have some change left over for personal expenses - not much, but it’s still better than nothing! It’s been a thrilling ride!

Up, up and to BEYOND!!

KlickNation.com launched yesterday, and will be updated weekly. KlickNation is the parent company for most of our social applications (i.e. Facebook, OpenSocial) and we’ll be adding community features like, photo upload, custom slide generation, and other user profile do-dads in the coming week.

The Klick network is growing by about 15,000 members daily and accelerating by about 5 to 15% in new and unique users every day.  I’m hoping this trend continues, my fingers are crossed.

I went to a 60+ conference where WidgetBox, Google (the dark empire), and Hi5 were hosting a OpenSocial and get-to-know how to launch widgets event in San Francisco.  I was pleased with the turnout, roughly 60+ people attended representing between 10 to 15 different companies.  And did I mention that they had FREE  free pizza and beer?  Good stuff!

Anyway, the biggest takeaway for me was the contacts that I met at the event and to hear what Google was up to next.  Hi5, for those of you that don’t know, is by far the largest social network with the most up-to-date implementation of Open Social to date.  We’re excited to begin working towards building our first OpenSocial appliation on Hi5 when the time comes - and hopefully, we’ll be ready.

Okay, its been almost a week since new year day but it’s better late than never, right?

Here’s my New Year’s resolution:

1. Get out more (i.e. biking, running, swimming, etc.)
2. Use my 24-hour membership (i use to be in good-to-decent shape and tone but now even my friends are telling me I’m looking quite “square” lately - bastards!!)
3. Life-work balance!! (is there such a thing for start-ups and new business operators?)
4. Eat more veggies, drink more water, and eat less junk food
5. Connect with more entrepreneurs, business operators, and start-ups in the surrounding area
6. Get more sleep (perhaps a half an hour more each day)
7. Take at least one day off a week (one full day with no email, laptop, cellphone, yogurt…)
8. Read at least one book a month that is not marketing, business or tech related (Charles Tyler - a fellow UCD grad - recommended a book to me, “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki). Thanks Charles!!
9. Keep in contact with friends (even if it is simply “poking” them)
10. Focus on the big plan (first) and then the tactical steps, not the other way around (in the hyper Web 3.0 world it’s sometimes easy to get caught up on the daily ups and downs which can be extremely distracting - don’t do that!!)

On retrospect, 2007 was a nail-biting, grueling (long hours), uncertain (risky) and definitely a rewarding experience in the making for an unbelievable year. Here’s a summary: opened a traditional retail business (Mochii Yogurt), graduated from UC Davis (MBA), and partnered up with good friends to start tech ventures in the flat that sits above my yogurt cafe. Looking back, I’m proud of the incremental steps towards becoming a full-time entrepreneur. I thoroughly enjoyed what my friend Meliza calls the “process.”

I’ve met new friends and contacts along the journey. People I probably would not have met otherwise. Contacts from the Sacramento Bee, KVIE, Sactown Magazine, SN & R, UC Davis, The Blue District, Facebook, Mochii Yogurt, and other organizations and communities.

Looking forward into the year, I would like to continue to build upon what was built in 2007; for example, continue to expand upon Mochii Yogurt’s momentum and to expand the KlickNation.com community from 500,000 members to 10 million members (fingers crossed) . This is going to be an exciting year all around, for sure. Up, up and to infinity and to beyond…

“May fortune favor the bold and brave…”
- Mark Otero the well caffeinated marketer

I received an email from Bebo’s VP of Marketing two days ago regarding their developer’s program.  It appears that only a handful of developers are part of their beta-developer program and the doors are closed for new developers - including us.  Of course, I’m not happy - but we’re deep in developing in Facebook at the moment.