Dan Wolchonok

Facebook is the undisputed king of social right now, but I feel like they’re not doing a good job of connecting me with my friends in a meaningful way.  When I log in, I see all sorts of stuff that I don’t really care about.  For the longest time, Twitter was described to me as the place where you can learn what your friends are doing “right now”.  I have been able to mold twitter into a meaningful tool, but I don’t feel like I have the same abilities with Facebook.  They use their own algorithm to show me what they think is the most pertinent information, but I think there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Facebook has always done a great job of sending emails (friend requests, messages, photo tags, comments on photos) to drag you back into the site.  That’s why I was really surprised the other day when LinkedIn sent me an email much better than anything Facebook has ever sent me.  Check out the image that represents my my contacts that have changed positions in the past year:

Whoever had the idea for this promotion should get a big pat on the back.  I know that I logged into LinkedIn because of it, and I saw a lot of tweets about people comparing and discussing the number of friends who had changed positions.  This got me thinking – why did this have to be limited to my friends on LinkedIn, sent presumably once a year?

I had recently discovered a friend got married on Facebook, and I didn’t even know he was engaged.  Granted, I met this person when I was living in Japan and I don’t keep in touch with him, but I would have rather seen that he got married than 90% of the stuff that’s in my stream (no offense to my current friends on Facebook).  It got me thinking – why doesn’t Facebook produce a newsletter personably customized of my feed for the past 2 weeks?  I want to know whose relationship status changed, who got engaged, who got married, who gave birth (and who deserves congratulations).  There are a million other things I want to be notified about, but can’t really do at the moment.

Even if I did log in to Facebook every day (thankfully I don’t), I would miss these things.  Seems like Facebook is wasting a golden opportunity to bring in even more eyeballs than they currently are.  I need a service that logs into my Facebook account and gives me a two week summary of all of the stuff my friends have done and which ones were liked the most.  Why hasn’t Facebook done this yet?

I’m not saying that LinkedIn is going to beat Facebook in social networking, but they sure are making them look like they’re the old and slow competitor, aren’t they?  If I was Facebook, I would be copying this idea right away.

I have been paired with my little brother for over 4 years now.  It’s been quite a long time.  In these four years, we’ve done a lot of fun stuff.

I received a letter in the mail today from the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization thanking me for a recent donation that was given in my name.  They had just received a check for $714 from Microsoft.  This was in addition to another donation made previously in 2009.  In total, Microsoft had donated over one thousand dollars to the organization in my name.

Why you ask?  I have not donated any money to Big Brothers Big Sisters – I have only spent time with my littler brother.  Microsoft is generous enough to match its employees time spent with charities and non-profit organizations, at a $17 / hour rate.  In 2009, I spent over 60 hours with my little brother Chris, and so Microsoft donated over $1,000 to BBBS.

People are always impressed with the fact that Microsoft is so generous in matching its employees’ charitable donations, but I’m surprised that this additional contribution isn’t mentioned.  As listed on this page, Microsoft is willing to donate up to $12,000 per employee to charities.  They will donate money for time their employees spend (outside of work), or will match monetary donations.  I find this extraordinary!

It’s just another reason I enjoy working for Microsoft.

I went to Costa Rica from January 16th – January 23rd.

I spent a day in San Jose, and then 5 days in a small house by Quepos, San Jose.  The house is a half an hour drive from Quepos, tucked away in the rain forest.

The highlights of the trip:

• The trails, waterfalls, and swimming opportunities at the house we stayed at.  I could have spent another couple of days relaxing at the house.
• Relaxing on the beach of Manuel Antonio, and surfing on the beach.
• The zipline tour in Quepos.  I cannot recommend this enough.  I paid 50 bucks for a 2 hour tour that was well worth it.  The tour guides were fantastic, and I felt extremely safe.  It was great!  If you’ll be in Quepos, you should definitely go for a canopy tour.
• The national park in Manuel Antonio.
  • Having a monkey try to steal our lunch.
  • Seeing a sloth, relaxing in the sun.
  • Watching a turtle lay eggs.
  • The snorkeling wasn’t great – I barely saw any fish.  I wouldn’t recommend renting snorkeling equipment.

If I did it again, I would fly from San Jose to Quepos instead of driving 3 hours from San Jose to Quepos.  Other than that, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  It was great!

Have you ever spent a labor day in Boston?  It’s a nightmare.  Personally, I think moving is one of the most aggravating and frustrating events in a person’s life.  You need to pack up all of your earthly possessions into a million boxes, carefully organizing and thinking about what you’ll need, how easily accessible it needs to be, and what logically should be boxed with other things.  Next, I’ve always insisted on moving all of my own stuff from apartment to apartment.  Compound that with the fact that I’ve lived in 10 apartments since I moved out of my parent’s house 9 years ago, and you begin to see the picture.  How have I lived in 10 apartments, you ask?  Well, let me tell you the ways:

• Freshman year: Miller Hall at Tufts
• Sophomore year: Houston Hall at Tufts
• Junior year: 20 Fairmount St, Medford
• Senior year: 209 College Ave, Somerville
• 1st year out of college: 35 Brookline St, Cambridge
• 2nd year out of college: 268 Broadway, Cambridge
• 3rd year out of college: 268 Broadway, Nihombashi (Tokyo), Aoyama (Tokyo)
• 4th year out of college: 356 Harvard Street
• 5th year out of college: 1590 Cambridge Street

This is craziness!  You would think I’ve been running from the mob, or in the witness protection program.  But each year I have willingly chosen to move from one apartment to another.

The bottom line is that I don’t like moving.  Period.

I am now an employee of FAST, a subsidiary of Microsoft.  I just read a quick read about my company and how Microsoft is expanding its research facility in Norway.  Am I going to Norway?  No.

But it’s cool to read about my new company in the New York Times, that’s for sure.

Here’s a quick excerpt of the article that succinctly summarizes the rationale behind the acquisition:

Fast offers Microsoft high-end enterprise search technology, complementing Microsoft’s existing enterprise search tools aimed at the lower end of the market, including its Search Server products. Microsoft has said that it plans to integrate Fast’s technology with SharePoint, the enterprise collaboration software product.