Hi. My name is Brandon Paton and I am 17 years old. I am the CEO and President of stealth mode startup College Credential, Inc. I have founded four successful internet startups (one of which was acquired), and currently serve on the board of advisors of a rapidly growing startup. And don’t forget I’m only 17. Sound impressive? Too bad, because most of what I just told you is not true.
In reality, I am not a CEO and have never been one. College Credential is not incorporated, and it is barely in stealth mode. I’ve really only founded one other website that was mildly successful (sold for $10k), and even that struggles to be called a startup. My other three “startups” never made me money (but definitely taught me a lot).
It’s funny how the truth can be manipulated. It happens pretty often when it comes to teenage entrepreneurs. They call themselves CEOs of their unincorporated companies. They announce a strategic partnership with a “company” their friend owns. They say their company was acquired, when it was really only purchased from someone on SitePoint for a few thousand dollars.
The Internet has given traditional media an ultimatum: Adopt the ways of new media companies, or die a painful death.
Publishers of newspapers, magazines, and cable television (i.e. traditional media) are already struggling to survive in the world of new media. Market share of traditional media companies is consistently lost to new media counterparts. It’s only a matter of time before traditional media is gone for good, leaving the best adapted companies standing.
Shifts in Consumer Expectations
On the Internet consumers expect quality information, news, and entertainment to be free, convenient, and instantly accessible. It is easy for the internet based new media companies to satisfy these expectations, while traditional media companies find it much harder.
The Internet as a platform for the distribution of media incurs a fraction of the expenses associated with traditional media. Printing, shipping, and many other expenses are largely eliminated, while most major expenses of new media are scalable. This allows new media companies to provide services and content for free by relying solely on revenue from advertisers to maintain profitability.
1 Comment | September 28th, 2009 by
Brandon Paton
People spend an exorbitant amount of resources improving ourselves in every way conceivable. But what does this accomplish? Within humankind lurks an unspoken rivalry that motivates us to do exorbitant things. This rivalry has existed since the early ages, and has become increasingly evident as the world becomes exponentially interdependent. This is the Age of Unspoken Rivalry.
We perfect our physical appearance, attend ivy-league universities, and boast our material wealth so that we might gain an edge on our rivals. But who might those rivals be, and what are we rivaling over? Our rivals are everyone around us; they are everyone in the United States. As the global community takes shape, they are everyone in the world. We are rivaling for college admission to increase our education, jobs to maximize our wealth, and spouses so we can reproduce.
Humans have exhibited strong emotional bonds with animals since the beginning of recorded history. The question of animal emotion, then, is whether or not these emotional bonds have ever been mutual. Can animals possibly feel emotions similar to the way humans do? This fundamental question has sparked controversy between scientists, philosophers, and animal lovers for decades. Conclusive scientific research regarding emotions in animals is sparse, largely due to the notion that ascribing human emotions to animals is anthropomorphic. In addition, reliable conclusions regarding emotion are difficult to attain due to the non-linguistic nature of animals. Conversely, many animal lovers are ardent proponents of animal emotion, stemming from extensive personal experiences.
In order to comprehend the theory of animal emotions, our vernacular understanding of emotion must be universalized. Simply hearing the word emotion ignites an unconscious transderivational search by which we assign contextual significance to words. The product of this process is based upon past experiences and feelings that we can relate to. According to Paul Ekman, the six basic emotions humans encounter are anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. These emotions, as expected, can be fractured into subsets of secondary and tertiary emotions.
GrouperEye has developed a service poised to unsettle the college recruiting industry, and is due to launch later this month. The DC based startup will offer companies an alternative to traditional college recruiting practices, and students a talent-based method of showcasing their abilities to potential employers.
Founder & CEO of GrouperEye, Ted Williams, believes that the current standards in college recruiting are broken, and that GrouperEye is the fix. After talking to Williams on the phone, I am convinced that he and his team have the passion and potential to change the industry.
The problem with traditional college recruitment practices is that an ivy-league degree has become almost a prerequisite for the most desirable jobs. The reasoning behind this is simple. Companies need to recruit talented and productive individuals in order to maximize profits. To find talented and productive candidates, it makes sense to focus recruitment efforts at schools where concentrations of such candidates are particularly high. Their first stop? Ivy-league schools.
