Hey look, my employer is getting some HN love..

Every time I turn my back on freemium, something makes me turn my head again..

Sadly, I feel the same :). The catch-22 is that if the site is able to grab a user base, we'll be in a far larger company. I feel so torn...

I've been thinking lately of (finally) pursuing graduate studies, and data mining is an area that I find drawn to. Obviously Stanford is doing some significant research in this area, but I've been out of academia for 4 years and I somehow doubt I'd be a competitive applicant. Does anybody have personal experience with other universities/programs that are doing extensive research that they'd like to share? It'd be greatly appreciated!

I was out of school for 3 years before going back to pursue a PhD. It can be done, but you're going to have to put in a lot of work the first year getting back into the swing of academia, and even more if you're going back to specialize in something you don't already do.

have no advice for you but i'd be very curious to hear what you end up doing. I'm 30 and have 0 idea how to get into a phd program. Drop me a line sometime.