Gary is just doing it and I can only stand back and admire it. Of course Gary uses TubeMogul to help build his brand. Viddler too. Why noDisqus though dude?

Eric and I met last month and we chatted about CNBC, Fox and mainly, why??????

Obviously it’s good for your brand if that’s what you want to build. Eric has managed to keep his message simple and the few times I caught him on Fast Money you could just tell he was more effective than the others with his simple market tactics and message.

His experience backs it up. You cut losses. In a bad market, you do less.

That’s pretty much it. In great markets you make your money by doing the above in all markets.

By the way Eric…as per your last email to me….yes…smoking!

Today Alan admits that they wanted to invest in Wallstrip . We did not want money at the time but it’s good to know.

Alan has a great track record and I have become friends with Ian Sigalow who works as an associate at Greycroft. Alley Insider has him at Number 4 in their Alley Insider 100.

4. Alan Patricof

Founder and Managing Director, Greycroft Partners

What do you do when you’ve already built a dominant global private equity firm? If you’re mogul Alan Patricof, you get bored, get out, and start all over again.

Having already developed the wildly successful Apax Partners into a global powerhouse, the supremely connected Patricof recently refocused on the start-up scene with New York-based VC firm Greycroft Partners. The firm has invested in at least 15 start-ups over the past year, including Doppelganger, K2 Network, Azureus, Ladies Who Launch, Takkle, paidContent.org, and the Huffington Post.

The genteel Patricof is still reportedly a slave-driver: He and his associates (Dana Settle from VSP Capital, Drew Lipsher, former head of M&A at IGA Records, and Ian Sigalow, once of Boston Millennia Partners) review 30-50 business plans a week. Greycroft also just had its first “exit” event, selling its stake music exchange Pump Audio and booking a 7x return in less than a year.

Patricof won’t be Twittering anytime soon (he still uses a Dictaphone), but his Outlook contact database holds 4,500 names. His portfolio company executives rave about this and almost everything else about him–an aura they sum up, simply, as “The Alan Factor.” At SAI, we just refer to him as “God.”

We have Fred Wilson, Number 3, as a regular Wallstrip guest, so we just need Barry Diller and Bloomberg and we will have gotten them all. Go to work Julie!

When you are knee deep in the day to day you sometimes forget the collection being built over time. Lindsay and I have written thousands of interview questions. I wish the interviews were longer, but web video is web video.

Apple is no longer a place where employees call the printer – resume writer. Indeed Bijan .

Always sell when 50 limousines are lined up outside Janus Headquarters. Good advice Alan .

If an Arab fund offers you $500 million for your fund, don’t do what Andy did. Take it and leverage it in solar stocks :) .

Don’t trust whitey, or corporate boards.

When I dreamed up Long/Short I had no idea this would be the favorite part for interviewees. I prefer Porn Star or Hedge Fund manager which few interviewees get 50 percent right. That said, Rikki is way short the French and large funds which is spot on.

Thanks to all our guests in 2007.

O.K. scratch that…he hates dancing :) .

I enjoy my extremely fast paced chats with Barry. We both talk over each other and have no idea what the other guy said. We are like two hamsters on wheels running in different directions.

I am way more small picture, but appreciate the importance of checking in on “The Big Picture” all the time. You should too. Do remember to be nice in the comments though. He’s a sensitive lug.

Fred loves them too . So do all the bloggers .

Barry is addicted .

Barry really describes what it is and what makes it so addicting:

What makes DonorsChoose so compelling is the personalized nature of the process, as compared to the traditional method of donating to organizations. In the typical model, you send a donation to an organization. In return, you receive a generic thank you note, which primarily serves as documentation for tax purposes. Periodically, perhaps once each quarter, you’ll get a general newsletter updating you on some of the 762 projects the organization is working on. Of course, you don’t get any sense of whether your $250 donation went towards a specific project or, perhaps, was used towards the purchase of a high-speed printer used for direct mail. All in all, not a very personal nor satisfying process.

With DonorsChoose, you get an email sent by the teacher, sharing the specific impact of your donation on his or her classroom. The notes I’ve received are heartfelt, personal and seem to indicate surprise that someone actually acted on their request.

The latest proposal that I selected was to purchase a rug for a Chicago-based kindergarten class which had none. While a rug doesn’t seem that exciting, anyone with young children knows that the rug is the heart of the kindergarten classroom, where the students are brought together for various activities. The fact that our schools are so poorly funded that they require four and five year-olds to sit on a cold tile floor is abominable, but that’s a topic for discussion elsewhere. At McCutcheon Elementary, the school which submitted the request, 10% of the students are homeless; 100% of them qualify for school lunch and breakfast programs.

Here’s the response I received from Mrs. Lee, the McCutcheon teacher who had submitted the request:

Dear Mr. Graubart,

Even though I’m a teacher and hardly ever speechless, that’s exactly how I feel right now. I am blown away by your generosity and cannot contain my excitement about this amazing gift you have given to our class. I can’t wait to get to school tomorrow and share this wonderful news with my class! Thank you very much!!!

So, if you want to feel good about yourself, visit DonorsChoose, review a few proposals and make a donation to the project of your choice. The nearly instant gratification is sure to make your day. But be warned – you can easily make a regular habit of it.

This is just a win for EVERYBODY and the web in general. Try it out today.

They are good.

They actually explain…’When to Sell ‘ in their whitepaper which you can link to from their site or my blogroll.

A great interview and some lessons to be learned today with our interview of Briant Lent, Medio Systems CEO.

Brian has passed up opportunities at Yahoo and Google in the early days for a successul stint at Junglee (sold to Amazon) and now Medio. Computer geniuses like Brian get far few opportunities than we do as public market investors, but opportunities present themselves all the time if you are in the right place. Brian has to have the skills, we just have to watch for signals.

Keep your eyes open and your chin up for the endless market opportunities that present themselves.

As far as business journalism goes, he has (by way of his own creation), one of the coolest jobs. The weight of the New York Times and the freedom of the Web. We had a good chat after the Crackberry race and you should go check it out .

It’s clear to me from our chat that this is not his fault .