Some days I look through old posts, reminding myself of posts that I've written that I like and that I should link to. Often, this process serves to let me procrastinate writing while pretending to be engaged in writing. If I were a body builder, this would be me looking in the mirror instead of lifting weights. Yesterday I was trolling for posts, and I remembered this one, about hiring a babysitter. I never link to it because I can't read it. I get physically ill. It was a short, stinging moment during an absolutely terrible time in my life. But a part of me likes that sting.
Inc 19
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Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist
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This is what it looks like to have a hard time making a change
19 Nov 2009 | 10:28 pm -
How to know if you'll be good at sales
19 Nov 2009 | 10:39 amIt’s clear to me that emotional intelligence is the most important skill for success in adult life. And the consummate career application of emotional intelligence is the sales department. So I’m fascinated by sales. I used to think I’m not that good at sales. For example, I’m an open book—I have very little ability to bluff or play my hand close to my—actually, what is that expression? I don’t even know the expression. But then, when I told one of my mentors that I’m not good at sales, he said, “Of course you’re good at sales. You’ve gotten three companies… -
What makes a blog successful?
17 Nov 2009 | 6:10 amI have always thought that blogging is a way to reach your career goals. It’s hard to write a blog if you don’t have a goal. You need to know what blogging success looks like to you, so you know what you're aiming for. Like most goals in life, my definition of blogging success has shifted as the circumstances of my life have shifted. 1. Post regularly without messing anything up. My first goal was simply to understand how to get my writing onto the Internet. All the buzzwords overwhelmed me: feeds, trackbacks, SEO. I understood none of it, and it took weeks to get up the nerve to… -
Don't be a snob about career advice
16 Nov 2009 | 7:53 amI have found that the best way to manage myself is by asking for a lot of help. The question is, how do you know who to take advice from? The answer is not always intuitive. For example, you'd think that if Bill Gates wants to give you career advice, you should take it, right? I mean, the guy’s had a pretty decent career. The problem is that if he doesn’t care about your career, he’s going to give you generic advice. Here are five other counter-intuitive principles I have used to figure out who to listen to when it comes to my own career: Listen to people who hate you. People ask… -
How to make business travel manageable
11 Nov 2009 | 9:29 pmLast year I traveled almost every week. Some weeks I traveled to three different cities. If you are excited about business travel, thinking it’s a free ticket to see the world, you should stop reading now. But if you are having trouble maintaining your personal life in the face of tons of travel, these tips from a cynical traveler will make life easier for you. 1. Stick with your priorities. When people travel to another city, why do they throw out their to do list for sightseeing in random museums? If you have on your top three things you want in life: go to the gym, stay in touch with…
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How To Change the World
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The 19 bloggers Inc. thinks you should read
6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 pmInc. named 19 bloggers that you should read. We’ve aggregated them all in one place: Inc19.alltop. -
How to Get Found
4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pmThe reality is that people and technology is getting better and better a blocking out unwanted interruptions—aka, “marketing.” Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, and he explains in my post on the American Express Open Forum “how to get found.” It’s all about creating great stuff and letting Google et al do what they do: find great stuff. -
How I tweet
2 Nov 2009 | 8:47 amBy popular demand (and some complaints), I’ve done a FAQ with myself about how I tweet. Hope this helps you use Twitter for your business too. I explain how I use ghostwriters and why I repeat my tweets among other “unusual” practices. -
Current Twitter Demo Script
28 Oct 2009 | 2:26 amThis is the set of links that I used to demo Twitter by going down through this list to show why Twitter is such a valuable marketing tool. Introduction Home page Profile page Monitor Search Guy Kawasaki or Alltop Starbucks VIA introduction Search for “Prius” or “Civic” Sell Dell Outlet Kogi BBQ Support Comcast Cares Engage JetBlue Virgin America Fandango Prospect Camaro Camaro near Palo Alto Advanced searches Surfing or skateboarding (shows how to eliminate extraneous results such as “surfing the web” How I Tweet - Find Alltop MyAlltop helped me find this. -
How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness
26 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pmOver at the American Express Open Forum blog, I explain how to not look clueless on Twitter. The first five ways are: Don’t tell other people how to tweet. Don’t tell the world that you unfollowed someone. Don’t ask people why they unfollowed you. Don’t constantly tweet mundane updates and babble. Don’t use a small picture for an avatar. To read all ten and why they impugn your intelligence, click here.
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Signal vs. Noise
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I'm a tailor
20 Nov 2009 | 6:33 amWhen people ask me what I do all day I have a hard time summing it up. I design, I edit, I think, I review, I suggest, I teach. Some things I mess up, some things I fix up. But what I really do most of the time is trim, tuck, iron, cut, press, and fit. I’m a software tailor. And I’m starting to think that’s my perfect role. My team is incredible. I don’t need to tell them what to do. If there was a fantasy software league, I wouldn’t trade my team for anyone. But there are times during the development and design process where the things we make just don’t… -
Unicorns and projections
19 Nov 2009 | 7:53 am“Off the Chart” talks about how recent unemployment rate predictions turned out to be way off the mark. The reason: “Reality has produced numbers of its own.” And that’s the problem with projections. Reality is a terrible collaborator. No matter how much you try to work with it, it has a mind of its own. And it never listens to you. Plus, it’s easier to be a cheerleader than a doomsayer — especially when you have a vested interest in the outcome. That’s how people wind up in an overly optimistic fantasy world. No one ever submits a business plan… -
QUESTION: If you had to give it up, which subscription
18 Nov 2009 | 6:37 amIf you had to give it up, which subscription would you miss the most? -
Design Explorations: Basecamp To-dos with Due Dates
17 Nov 2009 | 11:32 amWe’ve just posted another article in our series of Design Explorations. This installment shows our process for adding a new feature to Basecamp: Add due dates to to-dos. We’re excited about this new feature and anxious to share this latest peek at our design process. Read the full Basecamp to-dos design exploration. -
[Podcast] Episode #2: Tech company valuations
17 Nov 2009 | 10:35 amDownload MP3 | Time: 24:10 Like this episode? Please share it with your friends: 37signals worth $100 billion? Start time: 0:37 The story behind the mock press release claiming 37signals is worth $100 billion. The press should be more critical in covering valuation stories. Eyeballs aren’t the only thing that matter. The valuation dance Start time: 8:45 Was the press release a shot at Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube? Why was the sale of Mint to Intuit disappointing? Where will the next great generation of companies come from if they keep selling early? Also, VC money is a time…
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Blog Maverick
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Google, Murdoch, Madoff
13 Nov 2009 | 2:58 pmHows that for a title. Just thought it would be a fun day to rehash some old posts that made me look a little prescient Today the feds arrested 2 programmers that worked for Madoff. I wrote this in January: Jan 18th 2009 10:11AM Im taking a flyer here, but if they were to put me on the case, the first people I would talk to are the software developers. Somewhere along the line there was a software program written or modified that allowed Madoff to enter the numbers he made up, who they were paying out cash to and would print the checks and statements. Its very unlikely that it was off… -
Rupert Murdoch and Google Part 2
10 Nov 2009 | 1:05 pmIm going to simplify this as much as possible. I probably should have just included this in the first post. Here are the best and worst cases of Newscorp opting out of the Google Index 1. Best Case: They opt out and see an increase in revenues and commitment to their sites because people choose to go directly to their sites. For those sites behind a paywall, they generate more revenue than when the site was free. Other sites notice their success and copy Newscorp, choosing to opt out of the Google index. The opt out choice turns out to be the better business move for any and all sites… -
Rupert Murdoch to Block Google = Smart = Twitter has changed it all.
9 Nov 2009 | 8:40 amRupert Murdoch has said that his Newscorp sites are going to block Google indexes. Of course, all the netizens freak out when this happens. Which I love. I love to tweak all the internet information must be free bigots. They get so damn religious about information on the net that they lose what little objectivity and awareness of the real world they had in the first place. First a little enlightenment for all of you that think Murdoch is making a mistake. This is not 1999, nor is it 2004, nor is it 2006, nor is it 2008. The calendar is about to turn to 2010. What worked and made sense… -
Adding Facebook and Twitter Followers – A Little One on One ?
6 Nov 2009 | 8:39 amI was thinking of ideas on how to add twitter and/or facebook fan page followers. I dont have a real need to have to do so. I was just curious about ways to do so. Think of it as one of those things my minds wanders off to while Im working out. One thing that poppedup as what I thought was a decent idea was the idea of rewarding those who refer and/or generate followers to my pages on twitter (@mcuban), or on FAcebook (/markcuban) a unique page where they were the only person approved to have access and for some period of time, they would have exclusive access for questions and answers. So… -
Keyboards, Phones and NetBooks
6 Nov 2009 | 8:23 amSome people wondered why I stayed with my Sidekick despite still not getting my contacts back and all the troubles the network had. The answer is easy. They keyboard is so above any beyond any other phone, I can type a good 50 words per minute on it. (Its amazing how fast my thumbs are on this thing) Which in turn allows me to answer emails quickly and accurately. I dont lose any productivity when Im on my Sidekick compared to sitting in front of my desktop or full sized laptop. To me, thats money in the bank. Thats not to say I never stray and try new phones and alternatives. I do. …
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Matt Mullenweg
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This Week in Startups
19 Nov 2009 | 9:45 amLast week I was on This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis and Joel Spolsky. Here’s the show: -
Published on CNN
11 Nov 2009 | 9:45 amToday a short piece “10 blogs to make you think” I wrote for CNN.com was published. I’m pretty excited about this and I also hope it drives a new audience to the blogs I mentioned, though to be fair if you’re not fascinated by how technology is changing society my picks might not be interesting. It’s a short piece in a “top ten” format, but I put a lot of thought into curating the picks. I started blogging because I love writing. While the nature of Automattic is such that I’m writing all day long to communicate with my colleagues but writing… -
First Impressions of Sony X
11 Nov 2009 | 12:16 amI’m a little addicted to gadgets, especially Sony laptops which have served as my primary on-the-go machines for the past few years because of their power and portability. When I first saw the Vaio X, Sony’s new ultra-thin and ultra-light laptop, I was taken aback. It looked beautiful, but so was the Envy 133 and the Envy was a complete waste of time and money due to a really bad trackpad and performance. Anyway, I’ve been playing with the X1 for 5-6 hours now, and here are some unordered thoughts: It is the sexiest and most elegant laptop I’ve held or seen. Feels like… -
CoPress
4 Nov 2009 | 8:35 amCoPress Pushes Innovation, Shows Value of Open-Source Platforms. -
After the Deadline now Open Source
26 Oct 2009 | 2:28 pmAfter the Deadline, the intelligent spell- and grammar-checking service Automattic acquired a few months ago, is releasing its core technology under the GPL. There’s also a new jQuery API that makes it easy to integrate with any textarea. Ostatic writes about it here.
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Altimeter Group
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Saleforce.com integrates social with Chatter launch
18 Nov 2009 | 6:21 amAt its Dreamforce conference, Salesforce.com announced the launch of Chatter Collaboration Cloud. On the surface, it may look like merely Twitter integrated deeply into Salesforce.com’s offerings, but it’s really a social platform that can integrate multiple inputs that will accelerate the opening up of enterprise applications. I was pre-briefed about the announcement, so will walk you through major highlights and also discuss a few implications. Overview Chatter Collaboration Cloud reflects a recent expansion in Salesforce.com’s offering, continuing where Sales Cloud 2,… -
Altimeter’s Crew: Sales, Research, And Support
16 Nov 2009 | 6:07 amAt Altimeter, we take great pride in the people we work with. So I’d like to take a moment and introduce members of the team outside of the four partners. Some of them are new and others have been with me from the start, but each of them is essential to our growth. And boy, are we growing! We’ve added over 25 new client relationships since August 2009, with more on the way. David Stanley will be joining us as Vice President of Business Development and Sales, where he will be responsible for expanding Altimeter Group’s market share through direct sales engagements globally, as well as… -
Wanted: Your opinion on book titles (Part 2)
27 Oct 2009 | 11:16 amPreviously, I asked for help in naming the book, and we’re done to the wire in terms of finalists. I’m hoping you can take two minutes to complete a very short survey on our title possibilities. I realize that asking an audience of people who are pre-disposed to being open is probably not the most scientific way to do this! So taking a page from Tim Ferris, I’m also running the title possibilities against specific search keywords to see which ones get the most clickthroughs. I’ll post the results from both the survey and the search engine test shortly. Book Title… -
International examples of “open” organizations and leaders needed
27 Oct 2009 | 10:51 amI’m wrapping up work on my next book “Open” and am in need of a few examples of organizations and leaders outside of North America. In particular, I’m looking for examples of organizations that have put in place more open information sharing or decisions making processes or technologies, and as a result, have seen substantial business impact. In particular, I’m interested in learning how they went through the journey of letting go of control, and in the process, transformed the relationship they have with customers and/or employees. Here are a few examples: -… -
Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands
22 Oct 2009 | 9:42 amThis post was collaboratively written (in real time) on a wiki by Charlene Li who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams. Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing. This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and…
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Howard Lindzon
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Entrepreneuring
20 Nov 2009 | 4:52 amI have been ‘entrepreneuring’ the last year with Stocktwits. I can’t fully describe the feeling, but entrepreneuring is an intense way of life. Are we pushing something up a hill? Am we rolling downhill? Should we run like hell? Should we slowly build a ‘moat’? I know how it feels…same as always…out of control! There really is no playbook for entrepreneurs and if there was, I likely would not have read it. My playbook is to talk to other successful entrepreneurs about how it felt along the way, especially at key inflection points of their businesses… -
Bloomberg Pulling ‘Suggested List’ of Stocktwits
16 Nov 2009 | 7:48 amIt’s a big day for Stocktwits as a farm system of talent in the financial world. From our blog: Professional traders who use the Bloomberg terminal to monitor markets and news can now get access each day to a selection of some of the best tweets from StockTwits. Bloomberg is well known for its News division, but the terminal also aggregates thousands of other sources pulled from RSS feeds of newspapers and Web sites. Investors can filter those by topic categories or companies. The StockTwits Suggested List is a curated list of over 100 of the best traders, analysts and journalists… -
The NEW NEW Nasdaq
15 Nov 2009 | 6:20 amI don’t trust Cisco or John Chambers, I think Ballmer is a putz, Ebay is Web 1.0, Dell makes microwave ovens, and Craigslist at it’s best is for midget porn. But in the post ‘Financial Leverage’ era, certain companies exist are thriving and accelerating without capital markets. They will continue to benefit from all the ‘Social Leverage’ they both create and immerse themselves in. I call it the NEW NEW Nasdaq. The leaders of the new era will survive beyond their current CEO’s, have surpassed their Y2K bubble peaks, will bounce the fastest after stock… -
Social MD…The Business
10 Nov 2009 | 11:52 pmI rarely get asked what business I would start if I had the time and money at my disposal. I get pitched everything under the sun. I have no problem with it, I just can’t possibly get back to everyone in a reasonable timeframe. So if you had the time and believed as I do in Web 4.4187 or Web 2.0, here’s the freebie that I share with anyone who asks: Social MD Think Geek Squad for setting up people’s Social Web profiles and lives. The Social Web is so early that even I am managing to make a living. If that’s the case, Social MD has massive scalability and franchise… -
Financial Headlines for 2010…
10 Nov 2009 | 8:35 amAIG will borrow $1 trillion from US government…to pay off the US Government. Goldman Sachs buys New Orleans…Flips to China Dow 50,000…Get IN! Dow 4,000…Get OUT! (same author) Warren Buffett Secret Video…Kicking poor, old people off the Goldman Sachs property You have a funny headline? A Stocktwits Hoodie for the best headline in my comments or on Stocktwits.
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The Jason Calacanis Weblog
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REPORT: PerfectPitch 2009 Winner didn’t get funding?
20 Nov 2009 | 10:07 amJust got this tip: ———- Forwarded message ———-Date: Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:04 AMSubject: Fwd: Note from PerfectPitch 2009 WinnerTo: Jason Calacanis Jason, I thought you might find this interesting (if you haven't already heard.) The "winner" of Richard Branson's Perfect Pitch conference DIDN'T get funded. How is that for winning? Here's a conference that charged people hundreds of dollars to attend and the "winner" didn't even get funding. What a crock. This just reinforced my reasons for NOT participating. … -
My boy @joesebok at @realannieduke poker tourn at @commercecasino
19 Nov 2009 | 7:57 pmSent from my iPhone, but I’d rather be using my blackberry frankly. -
Assassin’s Creed 2 Walkthrough on Mahalo!
19 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pmWe’re working now on some videos and walkthrough info for the new game “Assassin’s Creed 2.” Keep an eye on our progress as we play through this week’s hottest new title. -
First couple of angel investors have signed up for Open Angel Forum – Los Angeles!
19 Nov 2009 | 11:31 amMatt Coffin of LowerMyBills http://www.crunchbase.com/person/matt-coffin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Coffin Sky Dayton of Earthlink, Boingo, etc. http://www.crunchbase.com/person/sky-dayton Bill Woodward of Anthem VP http://www.anthemvp.com/?page=team&mod=detail&vid=1 If you know of anyone qualified and interested–from any city–do let me know! -
I called the Google OS in January of 2006. Didn’t have inside information… really. ;-p
19 Nov 2009 | 10:48 am
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The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
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How to Hold Your Breath Like David Blaine, World Record Holder (and Now, Me)
30 Oct 2009 | 9:35 amLast night, world-famous magician and endurance artist David Blaine taught me how to hold my breath. For four months, David held the Guinness world record for oxygen-assisted static apnea (holding your breath after breathing pure oxygen): 17 minutes and 4.4 seconds. His record was then surpassed by Tom Sietas on September 19, 2008. David’s record for doing what I’ll describe is between 7 and 8 minutes. I was born premature and, unlike David, I couldn’t then remember the last time I held my breath for more than one minute. It has always been my physiological Achilles heel. -
How to Breakdance 101: Unleash Your Inner B-Boy
25 Oct 2009 | 5:54 pmAn impromptu b-boying lesson at home after some Bulleit bourbon. Don’t drink and dance. Breakin’ 2 did it. It was 1984 and I was convinced I would be a professional breakdancer. Alas, I was seven years old, and I looked exactly like this reader who left a comment on my tango instructional post: Tim, I’m pretty impressed by your achievements in tango, but what about tips on your first love? B-boying is a sport I’ve watched and attempted for years. Sadly, the minute I go from uprock to six-step I look like a two-year-old trying to find spilled jelly-beans. I don’t… -
Sneak Peek: The New and Expanded 4-Hour Workweek is Here
16 Oct 2009 | 2:34 pmThe 4-Hour Workweek was first published April 27th, 2007. I did my best to cover all of the bases when it debuted, but there were gaps. Though I included cases studies of families using lifestyle design, for example, it was hard to find more than a few the first time around. Not anymore. Things have changed. There are more than 30,000 comments on this blog, hundreds of people have shared their successes and failures via detailed e-mail, and both case studies and experiments continue to flow in from around the world. This doesn’t mean that the current edition doesn’t do the job… -
Random Episode 6: How Kevin Rose and Glenn McElhose Got Scammed in China – Ha!
8 Oct 2009 | 1:03 amTotal length: 20 minutes. This is a weekend edition of Random. It is a happy-hour special of Chinese scams. How did Kevin and Glenn get totally screwed by Chinese “art students”? More important, how do you avoid getting scammed while traveling? This episode lays out one of the most common scams and explains how to spot similar set-ups worldwide… Show Notes from Glenn: - Open intro with weird light: Kevin shooting a laser into a “7 Cups” vessel. Animation by Tynan. - Yin Bar, Beijing – http://www.theemperor.com.cn/ - Travel Website: www.virtualtourist.com -
The Best Decline Letter of All-Time: Edmund Wilson
7 Oct 2009 | 7:07 am(Source: Crooked Timber) Edmund Wilson, recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal for Literature, was one of the most prominent social and literary critics of the 20th century. He realized, like most uber-productive people, that, while there were many behaviors needed to guarantee high output, there was one single behavior guaranteed to prevent all output: Trying to please everyone. He had a low tolerance for distraction and shunned undue public acclaim. To almost all inquiries, he would respond with the following list, putting a check mark next to what had…
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Paul Graham: Essays
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Apple's Mistake
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What Startups Are Really Like
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Persuade xor Discover
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Post-Medium Publishing
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The List of N Things
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Seth's Blog
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The amateur scientist (that's us)
20 Nov 2009 | 2:41 amMany people buy a car (probably their single biggest discretionary purchase) based on slamming a door, kicking a tire and judging the handshake of a salesperson.We choose a surgeon based on the carpeting in his office and a politician by his hair cut.During the first week of swine flu vaccines in New York, most parents (more than half!) chose to keep their kids out of the program.Interviewed parents said things like, "I'm not sure it's safe," and "I wanted to see if it affected other kids..."No mention of longitudinal studies or long-term side effects. No science at all, really, just rumors… -
Embracing lifetime value
19 Nov 2009 | 2:46 amIf you walk into a company-owned cell phone store to sign up for a contract, what are you worth?Given the huge gross margins at AT&T and Verizon and the standard two-year contract, I think it's easy to figure on more than $2000 in lifetime value.If you ran a business where a customer represented an additional $2,000 in profit, how would you staff? How long would you make someone wait? If staff costs $25 an hour, how long would that extra person take to pay off?Few businesses understand (really understand) just how much a customer is worth. Add to this the additional profit you get from a… -
Some books for November
18 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmRandom thoughts from all over for those of us hungry for new ways to think. This month's list is here. The previous list was blogged in September. -
The reason they want you to fit in...
18 Nov 2009 | 2:03 amis that once you do, then they can ignore you. -
Breakthroughs and drips
17 Nov 2009 | 2:25 amThere are only two ways to win in the market.You can create a breakthrough. A promotion so powerful that people can't help but engage. An innovation so remarkable, people can't help but talk about it. A pricing strategy or ad campaign that breaks the mold and is worthy of attention. This takes huge guts and substantial investment.Or you can win with consistent benefits, delivered over time. You win by incrementally earning share, attention and trust. This might take years.Almost all marketing attempts to do neither of these, and of course, fail. Painless and quick are rarely associated with…
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A VC
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The Story Of My Avatar
20 Nov 2009 | 2:39 amI saw this tweet when I got up this morning:hey @fredwilson - whats the story behind ur avatar? While longtime readers know it, I figure many of you don't. So here it goes. Starting about four years ago, Howard Lindzon started commenting actively on this blog. He was funny, he was smart, and I enjoyed our banter in the comments. One march vacation, our family made a short stop in Phoenix, where Howard used to live. He emailed me and offered my son and me two tickets to the Suns game. We took him up on that and that's how we met for the first time. It turned out Howard was hatching an idea… -
Anatomy Of A Big Day On AVC
19 Nov 2009 | 2:30 amI generally take a quick run through audience stats every morning. I saw this chart and thought "hmm, big day yesterday, why is that?" So I went to google analytics, which confirmed the big day.And then I went to the makeup of the traffic:Like most big days on AVC, it was referring traffic that caused the bump. Search and direct traffic are very consistent at about 2,500 visits per day. But referring traffic can be as little as 1,000 visits on a slow day or as much as 5,000 visits or more on a big day. Yesterday was such a day.Here's where it came from yesterday: The twitter traffic is… -
Ten Meetings Per Day
18 Nov 2009 | 3:45 amI was explaining how I go about finding deals yesterday to a friend of mine and I thought I ought to explain it to everyone.I write this blog. It's like a broadcast channel of "what is interesting to me." I market it every way I know how and I get somewhere between 70k to 100k unique readers of it every month between web, rss, and mobile.As a result, I figure entrepreneurs and others have a pretty good idea of what I want to see and what I don't. And I believe they can self select. And for the most part, they do a great job of that.Given that dynamic, I take meetings, as many as I can. I went… -
APIs In The Late Afternoon
17 Nov 2009 | 3:06 amAfter our weekly team meeting yesterday afternoon, I hopped into a cab to the far west side of manhattan to attend the Business of APIs conference. In the cab, I opened socialscope on my blackberry to check into twitter and saw this tweet from my partner Albert:Love APIs -- so excited about @foursquare's announcement http://bit.ly/1Zswju As I sat down with Quentin Hardy to talk about APIs, I wasn't sure where the conversation would go. Fortunately Quentin is a good interviewer and we had a great chat. We talked a bit about the foursquare api, and I mentioned that I am most excited about cool… -
The Power Of Instant Approval
16 Nov 2009 | 3:51 amBack in the early days of web video, it wasn't clear who would win the competition for video upload to the web. There was YouTube, Vimeo, and the big dog was Google Video. I tried all of them. YouTube was by far and away the best experience.Google Video required you to wait for days to see the video you uploaded. It was so annoying that I wrote this post exactly four years ago today (how's that for a coincidence?). This line sort of sums it up:Posting stuff to the Internet has to be instantaneous. What if wrote this post on Tyeppad and it took me 10 minutes to see the result? What if I…
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O'Reilly Radar
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Robots.Txt and the .Gov TLD
20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmI'm on the board of CommonCrawl.Org, a nonprofit corporation that is attempting to provide a web crawl for use by all. An interesting report just got sent to us about the use of robots.txt files within the .Gov Top Level Domain, a standard known as the Robots Exclusion Standard. In examining about 32,000 subdomains in .gov, it turns at least 1,188 of these have a robots.txt file with a "global disallow," meaning robots are excluded from indexing this content. Even more curious, on 175 of these sites, while there is a global disallow, there is a specific bypass that allows the Googlebot to… -
Asia Continues to be Facebook's Strongest Growth Region
20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amWith Facebook topping 330 million active users over the past week, the company's strongest growth region continues to be Asia. Over the last 12 weeks, Facebook added close to 17M active users in Asia alone. Since my previous post, the share of active users from Asia grew by 2% (to 13.5% of all users), and roughly 1 in 7 users now come from the region. With a market penetration under 2%, Facebook is poised to add many more users in Asia (and Africa). Compared to the U.S., the proportion of Facebook users in their teens (13-17) or in the 18-25 age group are much higher in Asia: As was the case… -
Four short links: 20 November 2009
20 Nov 2009 | 3:00 amSpokeo -- abysmal indictment of society, first prize in mankind's race to the bottom. Uncover personal photos, videos, and secrets ... GUARANTEED! Spokeo deep searches within 48 major social networks to find truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers. PS, anybody who gives their gmail username and password to a site that specializes in dishing dirt can only be described as a fucking idiot. (via Jim Stogdill, who was equally disappointed in our species) Biologists rally to sequence 'neglected' microbes (Nature) -- The Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea is project to… -
Health gets personal in the cloud
19 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pmHealthcare is one of the biggest industries in the world. The United States spends over 17% of its GDP on healthcare and the issue of the industry's future is being hotly debated in Congress. Whatever happens to other elements of health reform, health information technology will play a key role in moving us towards the goal of bending the cost curve and improving quality and clinical outcomes. A Personal Health Record (PHR) is one way that patients can have some control of their own health data, while providing an interoperable platform for sharing relevant clinical data between providers. -
Four short links: 19 November 2009
19 Nov 2009 | 3:00 amChumby One (Bunnie Huang) -- new Chumby product released. In addition to being about half the price of the original chumby, the new device added some features: it has an FM radio, and it has support for a rechargeable lithium ion battery (although it’s not included with the device, you have to buy one and install it yourself). There’s also a knob so you can easily/quickly adjust the volume. But I don’t think those are really the significant new features. What really gets me excited about this one is that it’s much more hackable. Deep Tracing of Internet Explorer (John…
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TechCrunch
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Gmail Creator Thinks Email Will Last Forever. And Hasn’t Tried Google Wave.
20 Nov 2009 | 5:30 pm“Email is not going to disappear. Possibly ever. Until the robots kill us all.” – Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail, co-founder of FriendFeed, currently doing vague infrastructure things at Facebook. Today, at our RealTime CrunchUp event in San Francisco, Buchheit and Threadsy founder Rob Goldman sat down for a chat with our own Steve Gillmor and Erick Schonfeld. The topic was: Can We Kill Email Already? All Aboard The Micro-Message Bus. So can we kill email? Well if Buchheit’s quote didn’t tip you off, the consensus was “no.” Though there are some… -
RealTime CrunchUp: Where’s The Money In RealTime?
20 Nov 2009 | 5:15 pmFor our last discussion at the RealTime CrunchUp, we’ve got a panel on actually generating revenue from these services. Participating in the discussion are some of the Valley’s top VCs and veterans of the space. Brian Singerman — Founders Fund Ron Conway — Angel Investor Dan’l Lewin — Corporate VP for Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft George Zachary — Charles River Ventures Paul Buchheit — Facebook/FriendFeed Andrew Braccia — Accel Partners Michael Arrington — Editor and Founder, TechCrunch Moderated by Steve Gillmor and Erick… -
RealTime CrunchUp: The Rise Of Geo Streams
20 Nov 2009 | 4:36 pmToday at the RealTime CrunchUp, representatives from some of the top companies involved in location based services came together to talk about the current state and future of geo-based services. Participating in the panel were: Matt Galligan, co-Founder of SimpleGeo Ryan Sarver, Director of Platform at Twitter Tristan Walker, VP of Business Development at Foursquare Steve Lee, Group Product Manager Google Maps for Mobile and Google Latitude Justin Shaffer, Founder of Hot Potato Elad Gil, CEO of Mixer Labs Moderators were our own Erick Schonfeld and MG Siegler. Video by Ustream Early in the… -
Rippol’s Video Discovery Engine Launches To The Public
20 Nov 2009 | 3:22 pmRippol, the video discovery site that combines both complex algorithms with user suggestions to surface interesting content, has launched to the public at today’s RealTime CrunchUp. We recently took an in-depth look at the service, but for those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s a recap: Rippol looks at your video watching activity on the site, as well as that of your friends and people in your demographic. It then looks at meta data from video content ingested from sites like YouTube and Hulu, and uses machine learning to identify videos it thinks you’ll like. From… -
RealTime CrunchUp: Media Streams As The Ultimate Marketing Vehicle
20 Nov 2009 | 3:13 pmAt our Real-Time CrunchUp today in San Francisco, we are hosting a panel titles “Media Streams: Are These The Utlimate Marketing Vehicle?” Panelists include Sean Rad, CEO of Ad.ly; Ryan Amos, co-founder of DailyBooth; Jesse Engle, CEO of CoTweet; Robin Bechtel, a celebrity agent and Philip Nelson, SVP of strategic development for NewTek. Below find my live notes (paraphrased): ES: What are celebrities doing to leverage the social streams? RB: I oversee Britney Spears’ digital properties and we are using Twitter to build up buzz around her concerts. Using Twitter, we were…
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Scripting News
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An open letter to Google
20 Nov 2009 | 1:01 pmI had an interesting but somewhat disturbing exchange with a Google guy on Twitter today. It reveals a bunch of disconnects, that I'm going to try, in this post, to address. 1. Please take these statements at face value. 2. I am just a person, I am not in competition with Google. 3. I am a Google user. My primary email account is on GMail. I just bought a Droid, and started a Droid blog to help other people get started. I like it primarily because it connects so well with Google services. 4. I am a former Google shareholder. I made a shitload of money from my Google investment. Thank you. 5. -
Where is RSS?
20 Nov 2009 | 11:33 amI watched the morning session of TechCrunch's second realtime conference, including the half hour interview with Dick Costolo, the COO of Twitter. Of course Mike Arrington asked him the "Is RSS Dead?" question, and thankfully Costolo didn't want to go there. It would be ingracious of him, of course, because he made $100 million with RSS. He said RSS had been "pushed down" the stack, and it was now a protocol like SMTP or HTTP. In a way I agree with him, but only so far. RSS was never anything more than a protocol like SMTP or HTTP. So it hasn't gone anywhere. It's still exactly where it has… -
Coolest software of the decade?
19 Nov 2009 | 12:48 pmEveryone's asking questions about the decade that's coming to a close, I'd like to ask what's the coolest software you used this decade? For me, it might be Dropbox. I keep thinking of new uses for it. For a guy with a huge number of computers (I don't even want to count them), it's not only a lifesaver but an idea factory. I've already built utilities on it. The basis: polling a folder is incredibly low-cost. You can do a lot of it without impacting the performance of your machine. That was true in 2002 when we made Radio do upstreaming. It's even more true today. Because Dropbox wires… -
The new Retweet is cool!
19 Nov 2009 | 10:35 amI sort of understand why people don't like the new retweet, but I like it very much, and probably for many of the reasons they don't like it. If you follow me on Twitter you know that a lot of my tweets are links to stories on the web. I would probably forward other people's links more if there were a way to give them credit for the link without adding all that overhead to the text. I find that once you add a bit of text to a tweet you dilute its meaning. Do it two or three times and its a confusing mess. I don't know who said what. Worse, often the meaning of messages are reversed when… -
Journalists as ski instructors
19 Nov 2009 | 10:11 amOne of the cool things about riding on a train is that you meet a lot of people. There are Europeans who are visiting the US and have the train riding habit from home. There are people who remember the golden age of trains and can tell you how this or that is a shadow of its former self. And there are people who are afraid of plane travel and prefer trains to buses. There are also people like me who had a cross-country train trip on their bucket list, and found that the fantasy was better than the reality. (Partially because this trip follows the route of I-80 and I-70, which for me is…
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Anonymous Banker
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Anonymous Banker: TALF’s Legacy CMBS program is an abuse of our taxdollars
7 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pmYou know that feeling you get when you eat ice cream and it gives you that pain in the side of your head? Try making sense out of the government program: TALF – Legacy CMBS and you’ll get the same pain: brain-freeze. I understand the need to jump-start the securitization markets. That process is vital to [...] -
Anonymous Banker: FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair’s speech portends the end of the era of “too big to fail”
30 Oct 2009 | 7:01 pmToday, FDIC Chairman, Sheila Bair presented on Systemic Regulation, Prudential Measures, Resolution Authority and Securitization before the Financial Services Committee and U.S. House of Representatives. It’s a must read for those of us who favor the philosophy that no institution should be ‘too big to fail’ or allowed to act in ways that can threaten [...] -
Anonymous Banker: Small Business takes it on the chin from our Congressional Leaders and Regulators
27 Oct 2009 | 7:46 pmI recently posted a blog saying that our Congressional leaders and regulators needed to redefine the term small business. Over the next weeks, I’ll be following up with more blogs on that theme. Here’s my first: Our President, Treasury Secretary Geithner and our Congressional leaders have all, during the course of this economic crisis, blathered on [...] -
Anonymous Banker Asks: Will Chase Bank be the first to opt-out of FDIC’s Transaction Guarantee Program?
25 Oct 2009 | 9:27 pmOn October 1, 2009 the FDIC extended the Transaction Account Guarantee Program (TAG) through June 30, 2009 with a modified fee structure. The banks will have until November 2 to opt-in to this revised TAG program. When January 1, 2009 rolls around, there will be a few changes. Most notable is the increase in the [...] -
Anonymous Banker: It’s time for our leaders to redefine the term “Small Business”
22 Oct 2009 | 8:28 pmI consider myself a small business banker. In that role, I’ve dealt with start-up companies with, initially, zero revenue to companies with revenue of $160 Million. I’ve worked for relatively few banks over the last thirty+ years, and the “small business market” has been defined by the industry in various ways. Most banks define small business [...]
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cnewmark
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Big news from Washington that everyone misses
20 Nov 2009 | 9:01 amHey, Beth Noveck is working at the White House getting really serious about giving all Americans a serious voice in running our Federal government.She talks about how this is happening at city and state levels in Open Government Laboratories of Democracy:Inspired by the President’s call for more open government, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts launched its data catalogue, following in the footsteps of Washington, DC, San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere around the country (as well as cities in Canada and the UK), to provide public access to information by and about government. What… -
Kids and computers in Nablus, West Bank
20 Nov 2009 | 7:15 amHey, the folks at Tomorrow's Youth Organization are doing a great job.I made a minor contribution for systems, looks like they're getting the job done.Photos: Annie Escobar -
Two observations from fourteen years of customer service
19 Nov 2009 | 7:04 amCustomer service done in good faith is public service. Customer service anchors you to reality. -
Turning around the Federal battleship
18 Nov 2009 | 7:34 amYou've heard how government rank and file workers are working together, throughout the US and with citizens, to provide increasingly better public service. Their dedication has been consistently impressive, particularly during some bad years.I've been chatting recently mostly with Federal workers, though the following is true of all large organizations, including private industry as well.The Federal government is like a big battleship, hard to turn around and head in the right direction.In previous years, well, I can see that the battleship was adrift, heading toward… -
Indiana University menaced by Very Large Squirrels
17 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pmI had been warned, but really wasn't prepared for squirrel-related terror.This one's one of the smaller beasts, and the photo doesn't show, but it's about two foot long, maybe thirty or more pounds.If we do drive ourselves to extinction, the Squirrels are Ready.
