Since childhood, I've associated computer science with geeky and socially inept little boys, and for rational reason: because all of the computer geeks I knew were in fact geeky and socially inept little boys! But as I mentioned in my previous post about computer camp, I've wanted to go into tech from an early age -- before the idea of entrepreneurship ever occurred to me. However, as I became less socially inept, I began associating myself with the non-geeks. The jocks! The cheerleaders!

People often ask me if I feel as if I'm being taken advantaged of, or if being a girl makes things more difficult. No and yes -- I don't feel as if guys are mean to girls in computer science. If anything, guys are more willing to help a cute girl debug her code for obvious reason. But is it more difficult? From a social standpoint, definitely. Most girls in tech are podcasters or videobloggers -- Veronica Belmont, Julia Allison, and Alana Taylor among them. They're all great people, amazing at what they do, but that leaves few girls who are hardcore geeks. There aren't many girls starting their own companies. It's almost expected that I go into community or marketing, but I've since decided to go against these societal expectations.

I'm now at a crossroads in my educational career because I need to decide my major. Do I major in computer science, economics, international relations, or what? As a friend of mine mentioned, what if I'm terrible at computer science or what if I'm terrible at economics? The educational path I choose will determine the people I associate with in my classes. The computer science program at Simon's Rock attracts the uber geeks, whereas the economics program attracts the more popular kids. Why does this matter so much? Because I see education as being more than what's learned in the classroom -- it's the independent projects that I would start with my classmates. It affects my social life, which matters more than you might think for girls. Regardless as to what major I choose, I'll plan on surrounding myself with both econ and comp sci people.

As time goes by, the negative image of computer science and geeks will fade away. With more "socially capable" individuals in computer science, people like myself will feel more inclined to choose a math or science related subject as a major. I met Leah Culver at a dinner in Amsterdam, and her story is inspiring. She went to school thinking that she'd go into art or graphic design, and left with a degree in computer science. She did what she felt passionate about, and others like myself will follow in a similar path. Just last week, I met a girl through my blog named Cassie Wallender, who also began college at age 16 and took up programming and business from an early age. In the coming few years, we'll hopefully see more and more girls flooding the halls of science departments!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early college, Bard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

Hey All,

I decided to try something unique -- As you probably know, I'm speaking at the next web conference in Amsterdam! I'm working on my presentation and I'll hopefully finish by the end of this weekend, but I'm looking for some advice from you guys. To clear up any misconceptions, I am not looking for people to do my presentation for me. I am only seeking your ideas and inputs as to what you'd like me to mention in regards to a presentation of what the future of the web will look like.

I created a rough outline for my presentation, but I need to flesh out exactly what I'm going to say, as well as a title and overlying theme. I have lots of ideas that I'm prepared to use, but I'd firsts like to hear from you guys. If you help make a contribution, please let me know and I'd be more than happy to give you a shout out at the end of my presentation. Without further do, here's how to access the wiki and edit my outline:

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1) Go to jessicamah.pbwiki.com to see the outline in it's current form. I've stripped it to its bare bones in order to encourage more participation.

2) Login as jessica@startupism.com with the password "imawesome"

3) Edit away! Just type your comments into the wiki by clicking on the edit tab. Click here for a direct link.

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If for whatever reason you don't feel like logging into the wiki, feel free to comment below or email me any comments/question/ideas you may have. Again, all of you will get credit for having contributed in some way.

Some may call this un-orthodox, but I call this the future. The future involves mass collaboration and wikis, so I figured I'd take advantage of it. The best leaders don't always know what they're doing, but they understand the importance of recruiting experts to help.

I'm against mass-collaboration for editing college essays for obvious reasons, but for a presentation involving the future of web, it makes sense to know what kind of ideas and content you'd like me to explore. I'm not asking that you guys write the presentation. I'm just hoping to get some ideas from you guys. For example, one persron may type into the wiki, "Why don't you talk about X?" or "Why don't you mention Y?" That's all I'm looking for.

Any help is incredibly appreciated! Super thanks to my recent contributors, Drew Olanoff, Richard Derks, Jacob Locke, and Mazy. In the next 48 hours, I'm sure that I'll be adding plenty more to the list!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

I've been an AT&T customer since the iPhone came out and I despise them. The support sucks, the service sucks, and the company sucks. My connections from AT&T are basically living versions of Dilbert.

AT&T decided to be dumber than they already are. They recently created the above advertisement - I've seen it on quite a few websites and even on billboards in San Francisco. What a huge waste of time and money. I mean, who the hell makes up a city with a terrible name to advertise their product? Why would I want to pay for bad cell phone service if their advertising staff is drooling enough to decide that this is a great idea?

There's much more at stake than wasting time and money. Bad advertising is destroying the brand. eBay screwed up with their windorphins ad campaign. Ask.com also had meaningless billboards and TV ads that didn't get anybody to use the search engine. At the Searchnomics conference, everybody was coming up to the Ask.com employees, asking them why they had such dumb forms of marketing. Point being, this is a botched attempt to make AT&T look like a "fun" company.

If you see any of these ads on the highway, please let me know!

[Credit to Drew Levin for his collaboration] Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

EDIT: As of 10/18/07, we're making $600/month from ads!

I'm sorry I haven't been around the past few days. The facebook application that Alex, Aaron, and I created has been having some pretty awesome growth! Here are the basic statistics:

Friday: First listed in app directory. 400 users as of 6AM, 1,200 when I went to sleep at 2AM.

Weekend: Barely 300 users added. The weekend drop in growth was expected.

Monday: Surpassed 2,000 users by midnight. Growth resumed, but not as fast as first day listed in app directory.

Over the past few days, we've used 350mb of bandwidth and very little server juice on our Serverbeach box.

Currently, (assuming our CPM doesn't change) we're making $250/month strictly from silly advertisements and we're expecting our income to increase with growth. It's not a lot, but it's still something.

Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated when we learn more!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

I'm proud to say that last week, I canceled my Blockbuster subscription in favor of Netflix. Just a few years ago, I remember all of my friends dumping their Blockbuster cards in favor of the "no late fee" rival Netflix.

Blockbuster came back into the competitive race for DVD rentals against Netflix when they decided to offer no late fee accounts as well. I was living in Berkeley this summer and noticed a Blockbuster across the street. I felt like it would be convenient to just get a Blockbuster subscription because the store was close by, but I wasn't 100% happy.

Ends up that Blockbuster charged me slightly more for a supposed convenience. I was led to believe that if I wanted a movie instantly, I could just walk over and pickup a movie from Blockbuster instead of having to wait at least 24 hours for it to be mailed to me. Wrong! The brick and mortar stores are kept "separate from the online accounts" for some silly reason, as the man behind the cash register told me.

So I looked into Netflix and noticed the instant video watching capabilities they had. Not only that, but Netflix seems very web 2.0. The consumer tells the website what s/he likes and the website makes some smart suggestions. There's a community section. There's instant streaming. $2/month less. So I ditched my Blockbuster account and went over to Netflix. Only that a week after my cancellation, Blockbuster decides to send me the next two movies in my queue. Yikes!

As amazing as Netflix is, I don't see them doing too well in the coming years. First it was the rise of file sharing networks. Then came competition from Blockbuster. Now we have sites like Walmart.com and Amazon.com that have instant streaming capabilities.

If I was the CEO of Netflix, I'd start looking into other blue oceans to conquer. If I was the CEO of Blockbuster, I'd be worried about losing money on every customer and also look at other blue oceans to potentially conquer.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

I remember the day Justin.tv launched like it was yesterday. I remember seeing the post on techcrunch and bored out of my mind, I decided to spend the next hour of my life studying for a Mandarin quiz while watching Justin buy clothing live on his website.

I thought the startup was stupid. People were wasting man hours watching him do random stuff. Besides advertisements, there wasn't any real business model. If I remember correctly, the Justin crew wanted to sell the cameras that people could lifecast with or something... That has since changed.

Justin is no longer live 247. The platform is opened up to anybody who wants to broadcast, but this sorta reminds me of what Ustream.tv has been doing for quite a while now. If average joes decide to broadcast their lives on these websites, who's going to care?

Justin.tv was smart to recruit Justine Ezarak to lifecast. She's a pretty blonde chick who's caused so many pathetic guys to waste their time drooling on ijustine.tv. The Justin.tv crowd made another smart move by bringing in broadcasters people will actually CARE to see.

For example, the Jonas Brothers now have their own Justin.tv page! Looks an awfully lot like a myspace band page, but I think this is an incredibly smart move. By doing this, Justin.tv is bringing in a new demographic. Before you had bored men watching hot chicks. Now it's preteen girls watching the Jonas Brothers live on camera.

Ustream.tv was smart to bring in live video feeds for conferences, political debates, etc... I remember a few months ago when I was speaking to the VP of Marketing at Yahoo - I asked her what she did to market Yahoo Answers. By getting Donald Trump to ask questions about raising a child to other Yahoo users, people discover how cool Yahoo Answers is.

As for long term potential? If Justin.tv gets more famous people to lifecast, I think the company has amazing potential to sell for big bucks. If it remains as being a site for average joes who nobody cares about, it'll likely fade away as a passing fad.

In any event, I'm confident that Justin.tv will sell for more than the team's previous startup, Kiko. :)

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

Guitar Hero has been an incredibly successful game, and I was thinking about what made it successful. For those who don't know, Guitar Hero is a game that features a plastic, Fisher-Price looking guitar that's used to play awesome rock songs as the notes scroll across your TV screen. In a few interviews I found online, the management made it seem as if it just organically grew without putting in much marketing effort. But they did a lot of good marketing that helped make them very successful.

I love Seth Godin and all of his marketing related books. All of the amazing things he teaches can be directly applied to this case study. He says that products must be inherently awesome and that advertising dollars should be reallocated towards product development. I agree, and the Guitar Hero story does too.

Let's start with product and idea. It was an amazing idea to take the concept of DDR to the guitar. DDR was already a proven success before Guitar Hero came out. I'm sure that many people had thought of the idea, but it takes some serious skill to implement. You need to write out each song, create the animated video in the background of each song, design and manufacture fake guitars, design packaging, etc... etc... etc... Basically, not easy. Stop telling me that you were first to think of the idea, because even if you were, these folks did an amazing job making it a dream come true.

Guitar Hero was nothing more than a parallel idea. Most ideas are. Examples include Myspace from Friendster and Windows from Mac. Guitar Hero from DDR is just another amazing example. In every case, the "parallel" company is targeting a similar (and/or completely different demographic) because there's so much untapped demand that more than one company can capture.

Seth Godin often talks about creating a product that makes the user feel important. I have so many friends who wish they knew how to play the guitar, but couldn't. Guitar Hero makes these people feel important because the users feel like they're super amazing guitar players just because they know how to put their fingers on a big hunk of plastic. It works amazingly.

Then you need to make sure that your product is inherently social. All social networks are, but that's a trend that too many people have tried jumping on. Most of my friends found out about DDR after seeing a huge mob of people surrounding an arcade with a machine inside. Most of my friends found out about Guitar Hero when my little brother and I showed it to them at one of our many parties. It's a super social game that gets people hooked instantly.

Now for the true marketing. Reviews are everything. Social marketing is the way to go. Guitar hero made sure that all of the blogs and websites related to gaming got a hold of a free copy of Guitar Hero. Unlike most games, it has a big fake guitar for a peripheral that made it stand out. Before even opening up the packaging, the soon-to-be guitar player is pumped. Now, assuming that the product was good, the blogs will give good press and pass on good word to others in the industry.

Next is distribution. Not everybody surfs the blogs and gaming websites for new games. My brother was looking around a game store for new stuff to buy. The guy behind the counter asked what kind of games my brother was into and he said DDR. The guy who worked at the store immediately began his rant about how Guitar Hero is the next best invention after DDR. Of course, my brother decided to buy the game. It makes sense for the makers of Guitar Hero to pass on free copies to people who work at the store and to even have a TV/PS2/Guitar just for bystanders to check it out. Even if the customer doesn't buy the game after trying it out, s/he is very likely to tell others about the awesome experience. I'm not sure how much of the above was actually implemented, but those are the ideas marketers thing about.

Next is partnerships. MTV brings music and video to mainstream media, and Guitar Hero was the perfect product to showcase.

Under this partnership, MTV Games will feature the Guitar Hero franchise in original programming, creative promotions and competitions across a range of its properties, including MTV, mtv.com, MTV Overdrive, MTV2, mtvU, mtvU and MTV44 franchise;. This highly anticipated title was released nationwide on November 8th for the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system.

"The partnership between MTV Games and RedOctane was motivated by the strong integration of music and gameplay in Guitar Hero," said Kai Huang, CEO of RedOctane. "For the first time rock music is not in the background but instead it IS the game!"

"Guitar Hero is the next best thing to actually being a rock star," said Joseph Varet, Senior Director of MTV Games. "It's a unique game that truly delivers on our audiences' passion for music, perfectly representing the kind of experience that MTV Games was established to create."

I doubt that the logistics behind the deal were as straightforward as the above quotes make it seem, but this probably gave them a really nice boost.

I already pre-ordered my copy of Guitar Hero 3 and look forward to picking it up from the college mailroom this week :)

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

TED is an amazing conference for technology, entertainment, and design. It basically brings together 1,000 fascinating thinkers and doers from around the world. (Credit to TED.com) I was first introduced to TED by Richard Yoo and Morris Miller, the founders and former management of Rackspace.com.

TED's Mission is to spread ideas. So I'm going to help them out and tell you guys about a TEDTalk I watched today about 10 ways our world may end. It's funny and so real.

Video can be viewed on bottom of my blog post. Without further delay, here's my summary on 10 ways our world may end:

10) Human Depression: The World Health Organization estimates that 1/5 people are clinically depressed. People are living longer and healthier, but how about happiness?

Solution: Give us mental health insurance!

9) Alien Invasion: There are estimated millions of planets in the milky way galaxy. Billions in our universe. There's a likelihood that we'll confront a group of living beings.

Solution: Get the State Department working on a plan to meet, greet, and negotiate with a more advancecd species. Colonize the milky way!

8 ) Ecosystem Collapse: We're living in a time with mass animal extinction. A lot of this is human caused.

Solution: Create huge biodiversity reserves. (Think Noah's Ark!)

7) Particle Accelerator Mishap: People are trying to make anti-matter and tiny black holes. Of course, hoping that they'll either destroy themselves or evaporate. What if they don't?

Solution: Stop doing accelerator experiments! Sorry, Johnny... no more making black holes!

6) Biotech Disaster: Biotechnologies can destroy our food supply.

Solution: Treat biotechnology with same security scrutiny we apply to nuclear engineering. OR just don't use biotechnology!

5) Reversal of Earth's Magnetic Fields: Happens every few thousand years. We lose the magnetic field around the earth for a good 100 years. In other words, we're gonna fry.

Solution: Replenish Ozone Layer. (It's working!)

4) Giant Solar Flare: Atmosphere has done well protecting us from sun flares. If other nearby stars have super solar flares, we're screwed.

Solution: Start terraforming Mars. Will take 300-500 years to do. No reason why we shouldn't start now :)

3) New Global Epidemic. Think Flu, Small Pox, Bubonic Plague, AIDS. '

Solution: Stop feeding our animals antibiotics.

2) Humans, meet a Rogue Black Hole: They're gobbling everything up, including light. Space is big, but if a black hole got within a billion miles of earth, we're screwed.

Solution: Hurry up and find another earth-like planet to inhabit!

1) A Really, Really Big Asteroid Heads for Earth: Petrankek says this isn't an if, but rather a when. An asteroid 5 miles wide would cause vast extinction. Estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter about 1/2 mile wide. Listed as #6 most likely cause of premature human death in America. (after homicide, car accidents, plane crash, etc...)

Solution: Put in more money for NASA's search for asteroids OR figure out way to blow up an asteroid or alter its trajectory.

Petrankek is basically thinks that the worst way we can react to all of this is by saying, "geeze, why think about an asteroid hitting us when we have human drama and profits to worry about?"

I'm personally thinking, "Why are we still alive?"

PS: This guy is NOT being paid to make this presentation. And in response to a reader's comment, this isn't as obvious as it seems if we're not taking any action.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

Most of you have probably heard of High School Musical - it's Disney's incredibly successful movie! They've created an amazing brand out of a somewhat low-budget film that first aired early 2006. This past Friday, Disney took it further by showing High School Musical 2. There were incredibly high expectations to meet, but the kids seems to be taking it well. Being the critic that I am, it didn't meet my expectations, but I understand why:

Disney may or may not have gotten "lucky" with High School Musical 1, but not even adults know exactly what drove its incredible success. So with High School Musical 2, they had to be somewhat conservative with the songs, the plot, the relationships, everything! That conservativeness bore me, but it was the right thing to do.

I'm going to take a stab at why I think Disney succeeded with these movies. I was 15 when I saw the first film, and I absolutely loved it. My friends loved it. We'd watch it at sleepovers and sing the songs with each other. We all related to the stories plot and characters. In High School Musical, there's so much drama among the kids. Their primary concerns include being popular among the kids, having solid boyfriends/girlfriends, etc... It may look so silly to adults, but it's how middle school and high school roll. When I was in the tech scene this past summer, I had none of that to worry about. Now that I'm back in the loop with college AND my high school friends who're still in high school, I'm feeling the pain of teenage drama. The writers illustrated all of this incredibly well.

Now I'm thinking about how this created overnight success for its actors and actresses. Zac Efron, the hottie main actor of the film, has been on the front page on so many publications these past few months. Back when I was in middle school, it was all Jesse McCartney. Vanessa Hudgens is the really pretty leading female, but she hasn't been getting nearly as much attention. Most viewers of the Disney Channel are super passionate teenage and preteen girls, so I'm not surprised that Zac's getting all of the popularity.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a High School Musical 3 next year. There are so few films that get the teenage drama component right. Sixteen Candles was another success in this area.

I'll be sure to do another writeup when the next film comes. Sorry for the slow postings this weekend, but I'll keep them coming!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

I'm sure all of you guys love the picture above. It's a half naked girl with her hands covering her boobies. Barely any clothing, yet this picture represents Abercrombie? What has our world become?!!!

You see it everywhere - people who wear Abercrombie usually portray a personality or lifestyle. They tend to be young, hip, rich, social, (decent looking) guys and girls age 13-28. The advertising is always of naked people and the clothing is priced starting at $30/plain t-shirt. Yet they get away with it. People buy it. How can this be?

The demographic I mentioned above is where all of the influencers are. The cool kids with lots of friends, money, and looks. So everybody wants to be them, and to be them, they have to wear Abercrombie. They do an amazing job with the shopping bags. Every time you leave the store, you're a walking billboard. The bags are durable, beautiful looking, (with the hot guys/girls on it) and everybody knows that it came from the Abercrombie store.

Most of my friends in high school wore Abercrombie, hence why I caught onto the trend. But after going to college and moving out to the Bay Area, my geeky entrepreneurial friends showed a negative attitude towards the brand. They realize that it's over priced crappy clothing, but the target market hasn't a problem with that. Yet again, these are *geeks* we're talking about.

Abercrombie cares a lot about their brand image. They only want abercrombie evangelizing models to be manning their shops. They prefer not to sell to the ugly, uninfluencial, poor people. It sounds cruel, but it's all about their brand image. The high barrier to buy their items makes their customers feel more important. If not everybody can afford Abercrombie, it's much more exclusive.

Point is, so many people hate Abercrombie for everything they do in marketing. As dumb as it sounds, they've been doing pretty well in the marketing and branding department. Click to see their stock prices. Well, worst comes to worst, if this whole entrepreneur thing doesn't work out, I'll take the Abercrombie recruiter up on his offer for me to be a face for them!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com and Jessicamah.com.