After the Facebook IPO, Sheryl Sandberg will become number two on the list of richest self-made women. She is the COO of Facebook. For those of you not familiar with her career, there’s a nice summary in the New York Times. But the bottom line is that she is really smart (Harvard), a really hard worker (startups, Google, Facebook), a great speaker (here’s a commencement speech) ,and she’s married to a guy who is also making tons of money in startups. There is nothing, really, that is bad to say about Sandberg. And she works very hard to encourage other women to go as far as she has…
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Most Topular Stories
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What Facebook's IPO means for women
Penelope Trunk Blog7 Feb 2012 | 7:15 pm -
Behind the scenes: Reinventing our Default Profile Pictures
Signal vs. Noise8 Feb 2012 | 9:34 amMister Default Here he is: our default profile picture. You may know him as “Generic Avatar”. He’s the picture you get when you create a new account and profile on Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. Mr. Default is a standard guy. He’s found everywhere on the web (in variations): message boards, comments, activity streams. He forces everyone to look like him regardless of gender, race, and physicality. He’s also very boring. Time for a change People don’t usually have a picture on hand to change the default avatar. What happens is none of the… -
Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK
How to Change the World20 Jan 2012 | 10:46 amOver the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are… -
Would Shareholders Give a Higher P/E to Keep Jobs in the USA ?
blog maverick29 Jan 2012 | 3:21 pmIt used to be that if you owned shares of a public company, you actually felt like you owned shares of that company. The concept of actual ownership by individuals is long gone. Shareholders as owners are nothing but a concept , and echo from days gone by. That shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s just as rare for individuals with less than 10 figures in their networth to even consider actually buying shares as a path to ownership. But what if this were not the case any longer ? For those of you that own shares of stocks in companies,either directly or indirectly, would you be… -
LIFE.com
Matt Mullenweg1 Feb 2012 | 5:48 amLIFE magazine has relaunched, powered by WordPress.com VIP. I’m a huge fan of the magazine’s history and the work of photographers like John Dominis.
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Penelope Trunk Blog
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What Facebook's IPO means for women
7 Feb 2012 | 7:15 pmAfter the Facebook IPO, Sheryl Sandberg will become number two on the list of richest self-made women. She is the COO of Facebook. For those of you not familiar with her career, there’s a nice summary in the New York Times. But the bottom line is that she is really smart (Harvard), a really hard worker (startups, Google, Facebook), a great speaker (here’s a commencement speech) ,and she’s married to a guy who is also making tons of money in startups. There is nothing, really, that is bad to say about Sandberg. And she works very hard to encourage other women to go as far as she has… -
How to have faith in yourself
30 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amSunday nights at our house are dinner with me, the kids, the Farmer and the Ex. They are always fun dinners, and I always feel very lucky for that. My six-year-old talked about his new baby cousin, Eva (who is pictured, in utero, above). "She has a terrible name," he said, "for Pig Latin. Its Vaeay. It doesn't work." We all do the vowel arranging in our heads and agree, Eva is not a good Pig Latin name. "Mom has a great name! It's Enelopepay." The Farmer says, "It sounds like it could be the name of her next company." The Ex says, "Yeah,… -
Key to productivity: Choose phone calls carefully
22 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pmOne of the keys to my ability to work 40 hours a week and homeschool two kids is that I have great time management. Which is to say, I say no to just about everything. But learning when to say no is still a work in progress. Here's what I know about saying no to phone calls: 1. It's more efficient to read the book than talk to the author. I get about ten emails a day asking me if I want to talk to someone about their book so I’ll recommend it on the blog. My answer is always no. I said yes once because it was Gloria Steinem. And it turned out to be a really disappointing phone… -
Things I wish I had written
20 Jan 2012 | 10:34 amIn therapy lately I am learning to identify my feelings. Maybe you’re thinking this is elementary, but did you know that envy is about wanting something you don’t have, but jealousy is the fear of losing something you already have? I am thinking about those two things. I am almost never envious, but I am often jealous. Most of my emotions, in fact, are rooted in fear. I am thinking a lot lately about where my joy comes from, and one thing I love is writing well. When I have a blog post that people love I am happy for weeks. And the excitement of doing good creative work gives me energy to… -
How to manage a career in 2012
16 Jan 2012 | 12:57 pmI have never been great at picking my own clothes. I’m great at interior design, but I have a blind spot for clothes. So I email Melissa photos of my outfits, and she uses her photographic memory of my closet to edit my outfits. When I sent her this photo, she said: “What is this?” I only wanted her opinion about the color of the shirt, so I thought it was okay that it was blurry. But the more I look at the picture, the more I think that it’s how I feel about myself right now. I am not quite sure who I am, right now. And given the current career climate, this is actually how most…
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Signal vs. Noise
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Behind the scenes: Reinventing our Default Profile Pictures
8 Feb 2012 | 9:34 amMister Default Here he is: our default profile picture. You may know him as “Generic Avatar”. He’s the picture you get when you create a new account and profile on Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. Mr. Default is a standard guy. He’s found everywhere on the web (in variations): message boards, comments, activity streams. He forces everyone to look like him regardless of gender, race, and physicality. He’s also very boring. Time for a change People don’t usually have a picture on hand to change the default avatar. What happens is none of the… -
What's your answer?
8 Feb 2012 | 9:00 am“If a customer asked you why, how would you answer?” This is a question I’ve been asking a lot lately. Why could be “why does it work this way?” or “why can’t I do that?” or some variation on that theme. I think your answer to those questions is a great way to measure your product. Are you happy with your answers? Are they fair answers? Are they clear answers? Would you be happy with the answer if you were the one asking the question? The goal isn’t to get to “Yes” on every answer. The goal is to listen to your answer and ask… -
No framework needed
8 Feb 2012 | 7:42 amIt goes without saying that we use Rails a lot here at 37signals. Often times, when we look at a problem, we turn to Rails or something similar, because when you have a high-performance precision screwdriver, everything starts to look like a finely engineered screw. Sometimes, what you really need is a big hammer, because what you’re looking at is a nail. Our public sites – sites like 37signals.com and basecamphq.com – are a perfect example of this. Let me tell you about our journey with these sites over the years, and how we’ve landed on a simple solution that boosted… -
SaaS: Change starts easy and then gets really hard
7 Feb 2012 | 12:58 pmBasecamp just turned 8 years old. Here’s the launch announcement right here on this blog back on February 5, 2004. That’s a long time ago. We’ve learned a ton since then. One of the most interesting lessons has been the increasing degree to which time influences change. When we first launched Basecamp, we could iterate rapidly. We were incredibly prolific those first few months. We launched a bunch of new stuff and made rapid improvement every few weeks. Eventually it plateaued and slowed down. Why is that? Part of it is because many of the improvements we wanted to make… -
Lessons from Moneyball: don't get left behind
6 Feb 2012 | 7:32 amI recently read and watched “Moneyball”, and enjoyed both greatly. It’s a great story in and of itself, but I also found it to be an interesting parallel to the state of the “web software” industry today. Moneyball starts in the week before the 2002 baseball draft, with a set of meetings that pit Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane against his team of scouts. The scouts’ primary mechanism of evaluating players was visual – did the guy look, walk, and talk like a major league baseball player? On the other hand, Billy, with his assistant Paul…
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How to Change the World
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Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK
20 Jan 2012 | 10:46 amOver the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are… -
Design a Sam Adams beer
20 Jan 2012 | 8:24 amNow this is a fun project. I’m helping Sam Adams “tap” the knowledge of beer drinkers and crowd source its next brew. Join the party by getting the app and designing your beer: The final brew will be released in Austin in the first week of March. #sponsored -
How to Create an Enchanting Financial Forecast #OfficeandGuyK
17 Jan 2012 | 1:52 pmThis is the third post in my Microsoft partnership, and it’s all about numbers. The topic is crafting your financial forecast to include in your pitch. Bill Reichert, my partner at Garage Technology Ventures, created an Excel model and wrote this blog post. There’s a lesson in this too: Get the best person for the job. His grasp of financial models and how to present them exceeds mine by two orders of magnitude. The Purpose of Financial Projections When it comes to financial projections, there are two types of entrepreneurs: first, the “visionary entrepreneur” who… -
How to Create an Enchanting Business Plan #OfficeandGuyK
12 Jan 2012 | 8:16 amHere is the second post in my series about planning, pitching, and launching a new business venture. In partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve created a Word document that outlines a good business plan. It’s saved to my SkyDrive folder here. Feel free to download it and use it as inspiration. And if you’re working with a partner, you can use the free Word Web App to stay in sync. I provided the PowerPoint document before the Word document because a good business plan is an elaboration of a good pitch as opposed to a good pitch being a distillation of good business plan. -
How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK
9 Jan 2012 | 8:01 amWelcome to the first in a series of blog posts I’ll be doing as part of a partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps. Over the next two weeks, I’ll cover everything a budding entrepreneur needs to turn an idea into an enchanting investment opportunity—from the perfect pitch to a killer business plan to financial forecasts. I’m going to start with a little dissertation on creating effective PowerPoint pitches for your company. I embedded the sample deck for you to click through by using the PowerPoint Web App. When you’re ready to get started, you can download the…
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blog maverick
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Would Shareholders Give a Higher P/E to Keep Jobs in the USA ?
29 Jan 2012 | 3:21 pmIt used to be that if you owned shares of a public company, you actually felt like you owned shares of that company. The concept of actual ownership by individuals is long gone. Shareholders as owners are nothing but a concept , and echo from days gone by. That shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s just as rare for individuals with less than 10 figures in their networth to even consider actually buying shares as a path to ownership. But what if this were not the case any longer ? For those of you that own shares of stocks in companies,either directly or indirectly, would you be… -
The TV Business Keeps Getting Stronger !
14 Jan 2012 | 4:53 pmBack in my broadcast.com days we had a saying that “bits are bits”. That once content becomes digital, it is naturally going to become available on any and all digital devices. Based on this, we always made the point to be platform and device agnostic. We didn’t care where or how people saw our content, as long as they saw it and we had the chance to monetize it. We also knew that our core value proposition to consumers was that on broadcast.com they were able to get content that they couldn’t get on TV. We had Yoga channels, we had cricket live and on demand, we had… -
Why Startups Shouldn’t Hire PR Firms
13 Jan 2012 | 3:31 pmA quote from my book, How to Win at the Sport of Business got picked up in multiple stories. In the book I stated effectively that “Startups should never hire a PR firm”. As you would expect, the PR Industry was not over-joyed at the comment. Articles were written about how incredibly valuable a good PR person can be to a startup. Actually, I have no doubt that a smart PR person can add value to a startup. The problem is that all things considered, it’s not enough value. The first problem with hiring a PR firm is cost. Cash is always in short supply in startups. -
You Don’t Live in the World You Were Born Into
31 Dec 2011 | 9:54 amI thought this was appropriate to start the new year. We all have the tendency to believe that we are living in a very advanced technological period. We get all excited about the new tech we got at Xmas and what we read about that will soon be available to us. In reality, everything we are excited about today is going to be incredibly old and boring much faster than we ever expect. No matter what year you were born, by the time you finish(ed) high school, its (was) a completely different world. Today’s high school seniors were born prior to the World Wide Web, wireless internet,… -
The Fan Experience at Sporting Events – We dont need no stinking smartphones !
24 Dec 2011 | 9:17 amWith the season starting tomorrow, I wanted to update a blog post I did in 2010. In just the past 18 months the number of proposals for in-game entertainment have skyrocketed. It seems like every day I get a new proposal to invest in a company that is going to revolutionize the experience of going to a sporting event. Without fail the proposal starts out with some form of “with the explosion in sales of smartphones…” Then I get the meat of the pitch which is some derivative of stats, pictures, fantasy games, social sharing via FB/Twitter or some new network to replace…
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Matt Mullenweg
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LIFE.com
1 Feb 2012 | 5:48 amLIFE magazine has relaunched, powered by WordPress.com VIP. I’m a huge fan of the magazine’s history and the work of photographers like John Dominis. -
On the Evolution of Investing
24 Jan 2012 | 11:59 amToday Y Combinator announced they are adding two new partners, Garry Tan and Aaron Iba. This announcement is unique because it does not list their academic credentials, their previous investments, the boards of companies or non-profits they have sat on, how many years of experience they have, or any of the usual badges of honor investors parade in their biographies and Crunchbase profiles. Instead we get accolades of “rare individuals who can both design and program” and “best hackers among the YC alumni.” Take note of this moment. I was part of a dinner conversation… -
MPAA Threatens Politicians
22 Jan 2012 | 12:43 pmMPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Arent Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought on Techdirt. -
Hollywood and the Justice System
21 Jan 2012 | 6:44 amTwo excellent essays on how Hollywood has completely put our legal system out of whack through years of twisting our legislative process to their ends, or as Shirky put it “imagine the possibility of a longer jail term for streaming a Michael Jackson video than Jackson’s own doctor got for killing actual Michael Jackson?” Andrew Bridges on PandoDaily: Forget SOPA, Hollywood Already Had a Field Day with the Justice System. Clay Shirky on his blog: Pick up the pitchforks: David Pogue underestimates Hollywood. -
#Reinventing: Chamber of Commerce
18 Jan 2012 | 9:23 amReally great article from my friend Hunter Walk on #Reinventing the Chamber of Commerce, which is especially relevant given how the US Chamber of Commerce has been tending to side with the MPAA and RIAA rather than actual small businesses, startups, and tech communities.
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Altimeter Group
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Latest Research: Make An App For That, Mobile Strategies For Retail
7 Feb 2012 | 10:04 am2011 was the year of the mobile shopper, so why aren’t retailers doing more to serve them? Today Altimeter Research has published its latest report, Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retail. The report, published today, reveals how major brands are capitalizing on the massive growth in shoppers’ use of mobile technology. It also [...] -
Five Trends: How Brands Integrated Social, Mobile, and Web into 2012 Super Bowl Advertisements
6 Feb 2012 | 9:02 amBy Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang, with Brian Solis, and Zak Kirchner Findings: Five Trends Indicate Cross Channel Integration a Mainstay. Super Bowl ads, while only representing the nation’s largest consumer facing ads represent a bellwether for advertising trends for the remainder of the year, so marketers know to pay attention. To best understand these trends, Altimeter [...] -
What’s Facebook Going to Do with All That Money?
6 Feb 2012 | 8:48 amMany of us grew up with Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. For the past few years the refrain has been Google, Google, Google. But this past week, it’s been all Facebook, all the time. As we wait for the biggest IPO in tech history to shake out, the question I’m being asked most by clients and particularly [...] -
Facebook S-1 Paints A Murky Picture For Mobile
2 Feb 2012 | 5:42 amAmidst the scramble for numbers in EDGAR lookups in the wake of Facebook’s S-1 filing, I think we’re learning something fundamental about Facebook’s strategy from its submitted documentation; mobile is a potential Achilles heel. Reviewing the S-1, while chock-full of interesting facts and figures, it was this statement that raised questions for me: “Growth in [...] -
Facebook Files S-1 for $5 Billion IPO
1 Feb 2012 | 4:51 pmby Brian Solis, principal analyst Just a few moments ago, Facebook officially filed an S-1 for an initial public offering seeking to raise $5 billion. Here are a few key findings… - 845 million monthly active users, year over year growth of 39% - 483 million daily active users as of December, year over year [...]
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Howard Lindzon
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Momentum Monday: February 6, 2012
7 Feb 2012 | 9:51 amIt is really juicy out there. Other than small cap blitzkrieg runs and the giddiness on the streams, things are pretty normal. Momentum is in charge and high yield checking accounts that yield .15 percent are creating this need to chase risk for the moment. I sold some AAPL this morning, not because it’s overvalued – because it’s run 100 startight points since the world was supposed to end and that is what I do. It’s obvious that Facebook will get public, but it’s been public for 18 months so all those people saying the IPO will be the top are missing the… -
StockTwits…The Month of January in Tickers
6 Feb 2012 | 7:53 amIt was the best month for the markets since 1987. Yahoo! In 2009 and 2010 I wrote a lot about the ‘Inconceivable Rally‘ and I was investing in web startups in a relentless fashion. The year 2011 was a great one for startup valuations and 2012 is now what I call the ‘The Relentless Rally’ – at least to the shortsellers. We are in one of those amazing periods where we are gripped by momentum. Slap any four letters together and buy them and you made money, just ask Kenny. I got a few things wrong in January…Google was a ‘fakeout’ breakout and… -
Facebook, Facebook, Facebook
3 Feb 2012 | 6:20 amBefore I get started on Facebook, If YOU could buy just one stock now that Facebook has filed to go public, which would it be? (please answer in the comments) Facebook FB (should be FBOOK) is the new Location Location Location. Stocks generally do well when I give them this triple title…I did so for LULU a while back. It is fun to see it all come together as both companies hit all time highs and LULU become the ‘Facebook of ladies tooshies’. I have been mostly wrong about Facebook the stock. It is hard to get a Company right when you don’t use their product on a steady… -
The Facebook IPO…#HowMuchMoneyHaveYOULeftOnTheTable.DotCom
27 Jan 2012 | 12:58 pmSo it’s really happening. Actually seeing the market react to the FBOOK IPO is really just a reminder to me of how I have underperformed. You too :) . I have bled social and mobile web and spent thousands of hours reading, writing, investing and entrepreneuring in the space. Right now though, all I can think about is …so much money left on the table. But, who has not left money on the table. It’s just part of the game…the business…life. Screw that…it hurts. In today’s version of the game of ‘I can’t believe how much money I left on the… -
StockTwits Party in Soho – Woohoo!
27 Jan 2012 | 6:38 amMonday night at 7, StockTwits will gather for cold beers and eats at Antarctica in Soho. Please join us. Where: 287 Hudson Street (below Spring) When: Jan 30 @ 7PM
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Calacanis.com
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This Week In Startups–Neal Sales-Griffin of Code Academy
8 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pmAwesome guest on This Week in Startups from codeacademy ———- Forwarded message ———- On This Week in Startups, we were joined by Neal Sales-Griffin (http://twitter.com/nealsales) of Code Academy (http://codeacademy.org), the Chicago startup that teaches people how to build web apps in just 11 weeks. Neal and Jason are both deeply interested and invested in the education space, so the discussion included the future of education, why it's never too late to start coding and how startups will save our economy. If you missed the live show, get your fix here:… -
This Week In Startups–Neal Sales-Griffin of Code Academy
8 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pmAwesome guest on This Week in Startups from codeacademy ———- Forwarded message ———- On This Week in Startups, we were joined by Neal Sales-Griffin (http://twitter.com/nealsales) of Code Academy (http://codeacademy.org), the Chicago startup that teaches people how to build web apps in just 11 weeks. Neal and Jason are both deeply interested and invested in the education space, so the discussion included the future of education, why it's never too late to start coding and how startups will save our economy. If you missed the live show, get your fix here:… -
LAUNCH Festival hits $269k in prizes!
8 Feb 2012 | 12:37 pmI'm so blessed to be part of–and have the support of–an amazing industry! http://www.launch.is/blog/boom-launch-hits-269k-in-prizes-thanks-to-charles-river-vent.html Please come to the LAUNCH Festival… and if you're broke sneak in or ask me for a free ticket!!! -
LAUNCH Festival hits $269k in prizes!
8 Feb 2012 | 12:37 pmI'm so blessed to be part of–and have the support of–an amazing industry! http://www.launch.is/blog/boom-launch-hits-269k-in-prizes-thanks-to-charles-river-vent.html Please come to the LAUNCH Festival… and if you're broke sneak in or ask me for a free ticket!!! -
Thank you @zappos for making my life so much easier… Which two people?
12 Jan 2012 | 10:33 am
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The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
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Housecleaning: Be Featured in The 4-Hour Chef, Random Links, and Contest Updates
29 Jan 2012 | 1:42 pmHanoi toddler and b-boy, from a trip Ma.tt and I took in 2009. (Photo: Matt Mullenweg) The next post will be an interview on writing process with the inimitable Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and Aleph, among many others. His work been translated into 71 languages. In the meantime, I’d like make a few offers and provide a few updates, as well as a few reading links: 1) Would you like to be in The 4-Hour Chef? I’d love for you to be. Amazingly, it hit both #1 and #2 (for Kindle version) in cookbooks on Amazon when it was announced, and I think it could be bigger than the… -
How to Become an Effective CEO: Chief Emotions Officer
19 Jan 2012 | 4:39 amChip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels Chip Conley is the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, which he began at age 26 and built to more than 30 properties in California alone. In 2010, Joie de Vivre was awarded the #1 customer service award in the U.S. by Market Metrix (Upper Upscale hotel category). Conley has also been named the “Most Innovative CEO” in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times, and I’m proud to call him a friend. We’ve shared many glasses of wine together. He doesn’t know what I’m about to tell you, but it’s true (Hi,… -
Tim Ferriss Getting His Ass Kicked + How to Survive a Physical Attack (Video Series)
8 Jan 2012 | 4:11 pmThis post might seem odd, as it starts with a random sequence from a random skill. There are three reasons for this: 1) I like to expose readers to things they’ve never explored. 2) The best long-term policy for keeping a blog fun to read (and write) is to cover things that subsets of your readers love, not things that everyone merely likes. 3) I think all of you should know how to respond to a real physical attack. Keeping these in mind, I hope you enjoy a lil’ taste of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, often nicknamed “human chess.” If it’s not your thing, I still suggest… -
No Brown M&M’s! David Lee Roth and the Power of Checklists
1 Jan 2012 | 9:17 pmArticle 126: No brown M&M’s! (Photo: Mr. T in DC) Happy New Year, all! I’ll be putting up a “Lessons learned in 2011″ post soon. In the meantime, here is a taste of things to come. I can come across as anal retentive, even severely Monk-ish. One reason for the madness: with rare exceptions, I’ve come to believe that how we do anything is how we do everything. I’m not alone. The following is a short excerpt from The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, also reprinted by Tehelka magazine in India. In it, we learn the logic of David Lee Roth’s… -
Christmas Deals from Start-ups
21 Dec 2011 | 10:24 pm(Photo: Kevin Dooley) Just for fun, I asked my start-ups (and a few friends) if they’d like to offer y’all a little something special from the holidays. Here’s an incomplete list. Many are working on top-secret stuff and couldn’t jump in, but a few were game on last-minute notice, so here you go! They are listed in alphabetical order by company/name: Stop being a Wantrepreneur; start taking action. Free vids! Get here: http://appsumo.com/wantrepreneurs-videos/ via @AppSumo Everything you need to transform. Free trainers, complete nutrition plans, & top-selling…
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O'Reilly Radar - Insight, analysis, and research about emerging technologies.
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Four short links: 9 February 2012
9 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amWeave -- web-based visualization platform designed to enable visualization of any available data by anyone for any purpose. GPL and MPL-licensed. (via Flowing Data) Flotr2 -- MIT-licensed Javascript library for drawing HTML5 charts and graphs. It is a branch of flotr which removes the Prototype dependency and includes many improvements. (via Javascript Weekly) What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About Math Education Again And Again (Dan Meyer) -- nicely said: it's hard to test true understanding, easy to automate only part of the testing and assessment support for learners. mitmproxy --… -
Tip for B&N: Don't just follow Amazon
8 Feb 2012 | 9:00 amThis post is part of the TOC podcast series. You can also subscribe to the free TOC podcast through iTunes. I follow dozens of publishing blogs and tweet streams, but there's one that always rises above the rest for me. Any time I see something from Joseph Esposito (@JosephJEsposito), president of Portable CEO consulting, I make sure I read it. He's a frequent contributor to the Scholarly Kitchen blog, and one of his recent articles there got me thinking about the need for better competition in the publishing industry. I sat down with Joe to discuss Amazon's dominance, what B&N should do… -
The NoSQL movement
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amIn a conversation last year, Justin Sheehy, CTO of Basho, described NoSQL as a movement, rather than a technology. This description immediately felt right; I've never been comfortable talking about NoSQL, which when taken literally, extends from the minimalist Berkeley DB (commercialized as Sleepycat, now owned by Oracle) to the big iron HBase, with detours into software as fundamentally different as Neo4J (a graph database) and FluidDB (which defies description). But what does it mean to say that NoSQL is a movement rather than a technology? We certainly don't see picketers outside Oracle's… -
Four short links: 8 February 2012
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amMavuno -- an open source, modular, scalable text mining toolkit built upon Hadoop. (Apache-licensed) Cow Clicker -- Wired profile of Cowclicker creator Ian Bogost. I was impressed by Cow Clickers [...] have turned what was intended to be a vapid experience into a source of camaraderie and creativity. People create communities around social activities, even when they are antisocial. (via BoingBoing) Unicode Has a Pile of Poo Character (BoingBoing) -- this is perfect. The Research Works Act and the Breakdown of Mutual Incomprehension (Cameron Neylon) -- an excellent summary of how researchers… -
Unstructured data is worth the effort when you've got the right tools
7 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amIt's dawning on companies that data analysis can yield insights and inform business decisions. As data-driven benefits grow, so do our demands about what more data can tell us and what other types we can mine. During her PhD studies, Alyona Medelyan (@zelandiya) developed Maui, an open source tool that performs as well as professional librarians in identifying main topics in documents. Medelyan now leads the research and development of API-based products at Pingar. Pingar senior software researcher Anna Divoli (@annadivoli) studied sentence extraction for semi-automatic annotation of…
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craigconnects
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Aneesh Chopra steps down as US CTO after major contributions
6 Feb 2012 | 11:04 amHey, I've worked with Aneesh for a coupla years, and bear witness that he's the real deal, and has done a lot for the country, serving citizens well and providing a good return for the taxpayer dollar.Here you see him, on the left, with Joaquin Alvarado from American Public Media, and myself, on January 25th at the White House. (Photo by Jay Rosen from NYU.) We were discussing how to use government data to help people, including improved customer service, along with some others smart regarding new tech.People who've worked with Aneesh have nothing but praise for his effort,… -
Military families could use a break
26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amWith the wars overseas winding down, the need to help vets and military families is increasing, as attention to their needs shrinks.Vets need jobs, and that's high priority. So do their spouses, and they all need a hand dealing with everyday challenges that are magnified when troops are deployed or relocated.A guy like me, I don't know what kind of real-life help they need, but here's what I read. They might need a little help in areas I wouldn't have figured:getting school credits transferreddealing with family stress resulting from deployment or relocationunderstanding… -
Some Results from the National Dialogue for Improving Fed Websites
25 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amThe new Open Government stuff gets results, normally with no media attention. It's just good, solid work, no drama, no way to sensationalize it. That's included a lot of progress in the last two years or so from the Department of Veterans Affairs.Turns out that a group of folks at the GSA, that's the General Services Administration, has been planning for years to figure out how to make Federal websites more effective, and they concluded a real successful national conversation at the end of last year:http://web-reform-dialogue.ideascale.com/A lot of people provided and refined a… -
Peter Levin, CTO for Veterans Affairs, doing a great job
24 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amOkay, I've worked with Peter for a couple years, and just saw a very positive article which understates his performance and results for vets. For those years, I've seen remarkable work including real innovation, like employee and vendor innovation, and increasing use of social media.I bear witness to this, including some worry that he's been working eighty hour weeks routinely. (I couldn't do it.)Anyway, he reports to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to get it right.Check out Feds@Work: VA's Peter Levin Pursues 'Art Of The Possible' In IT… -
We, The Internet
23 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amHey, this article: Antipiracy Bills Put on Hold in Congress (subscription link) was kind enough to quote me.Here's the original, for our mutual amusement:We, The Internet, have had a serious grassroots victory for democracy. Now is the time for us to turn that success into atipping point which restores the American vision of honest self-government. It's just a start.Personally, well, a nerd's gotta do what a nerd's gotta do.
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TechCrunch
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Montblanc Takes Google To Court To Obtain Identity Of, And Sue, Counterfeit Advertisers
9 Feb 2012 | 2:21 amGoogle has been going to great lengths to keep advertisers who sell counterfeit goods online out of its AdWords program, but as far as Montblanc, the Germany-based maker of ‘writing instruments’, watches, jewelry and whatnot, is concerned, they ought to be doing more. Montblanc-Simplo GmbH, as the holding is called, is taking Google to court in an effort to obtain the identity of a certain – or more – persistent counterfeit goods seller(s). TechCrunch has obtained the court documents, which make for an interesting read. Montblanc says it has received numerous… -
Remember Netvibes? It’s Finally Acquired By Engineering Giant Dassault Systèmes
8 Feb 2012 | 11:48 pmIt’s been a long and winding road since Tariq Krim created and eventually left Netvibes, but today Netvibes has been acquired by huge French engineering giant Dassault Systèmes for an undisclosed amount. Krim continues to pursue his original dream of organising the social web on Jolicloud. -
Analytics Dashboard Netvibes Sold To Dassault Systèmes
8 Feb 2012 | 11:06 pmNetvibes has just been acquired by European product design company Dassault Systèmes (sure this isn’t the type of thing I usually write, but I like the founder Tariq Krim so bear with me here … ). French startup Netvibes is a sentiment analytics dashboard that allows Fortune 500 companies to track their social media presence throughout the realtime web. Dassault is a “3D experience” design company — which lets designers virtualize how products will work in the real world — so the acquisition actually seems jarring at first, but Netvibes CEO Freddy Mini… -
Hipster CEO Also Apologizes For Address Book-Gate, Calls For “Application Privacy Summit” [Guest Post]
8 Feb 2012 | 8:07 pmThe following is a guest post from Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow, following yesterday and today’s revelations that select apps were uploading users’ entire address books to their databases. We blew it, we’re sorry, and we’re going to make it right. It’s Hipster’s goal to provide a fun and beautiful service for our community to share where they are, and what they are doing – creating a safe environment for our users is of the utmost importance to us. However, when we built our “Find Friends” feature for iOS, we clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our… -
Is A Hash Of Hash Of A Torrent Of A Torrent Of Copyrighted Data Copyrighted?
8 Feb 2012 | 7:23 pmLet’s try to parse this. Pirate Bay (.se) user allisfine just recently uploaded a torrent to the site that is a collection of all the magnet identifiers for the entire site (actually, only about a quarter of the site, but all the publicly visible ones). That is to say, it is a list of the unique identifiers, cryptographic hashes, of every .torrent file on the site. In a way, this torrent file, or indeed its magnet identifier (938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c), contains millions or billions of dollars worth of pirated content. Or does it? It’s more a philosophical question…
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Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog
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Take 3
8 Feb 2012 | 5:38 pmApparently we're not finished with this story. I forgot I had written this piece about Path at the end of 2012. 11/15/10: The tech industry is a virus. "After entering my name and email address, gender and password, it asked if it can use my location. I said yes. Then I went to the People section to start looking for friends to share my pictures with. I was astonished to see a list of suggestions, all of whom are people I know. I was confused. How could they know I know all these people? I jumped to an incorrect conclusion, they were all following me. I smiled -- it's really cool that all… -
I don't like my last post
8 Feb 2012 | 1:26 pmThis doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I don't like the post I wrote about Path. I'm not taking it back, and I don't want to explain it too much. I don't know what anyone else should or shouldn't do. Sometimes I get the idea that I do, but then I realize I don't. I don't like it when people say what I should do. And I'm a fan of the Golden Rule. I'm going to be more careful about software I install, and will look for developers to say clearly that they aren't doing anything with my address book. I will feel better about using Apple's products, which I do, if they would consider the… -
Glad I don't use Path
8 Feb 2012 | 7:30 amNo software company wants people to feel the way any iPhone user feels about Path right now. That's their problem. Path investor Mike Arrington gets it 100 percent wrong. Companies caught stealing private data from users have a serious problem, possibly one that can't be recovered from. He shouldn't put his own rep out there. His advice to Path is terrible. Instead he should be quietly working with his other investments to be sure they aren't doing the bone-headed thing Path was doing with users' data, and if they are, they should proactively clean up their act, publicly. I just took a look… -
Free lunches often have a price
7 Feb 2012 | 12:48 pmI care about the open web because it's the platform I develop on. I have good skills and development tools for the Web and Mac OS and Windows. So that's where I develop. If I have my way I'll be able to continue doing that indefinitely, but I worry about Apple and the future of the Mac. I have a feeling the same reasons I can't develop for IOS will turn out to make the Mac impossible for me to work on. Or maybe I'll have to stop updating my system at some point. For a while it seemed that Twitter was part of the platform. The API was open to anyone, and was largely unlimited. It was an open… -
What a wonderful game!
6 Feb 2012 | 6:29 amIt was an interesting but fairly ordinary game until the last few minutes, when it became one for the ages. And a reminder to anyone who thinks strategically, no matter what business they're in, that the linear route isn't always the right way to go. Especially when the stakes are very high. Slate has a great piece that summarizes the oddness of the last few minutes. I'll provide my own summary The Giants had the ball, down by two points, and were in field goal range at the two-minute warning. The Giants had one timeout remaining, the Patriots had two. Those are the variables. At some point…
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A VC
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The Black Hole Of Email
9 Feb 2012 | 3:40 amI have never ever been so behind on email as I am right now. I believe I am seeing about one third of all email that is sent to me. If you have sent me an email that I haven't replied to, don't be offended. You are not alone. You are in the majority. I write these posts occasionally to let people know. The result is hundreds of comments about how I can make email work better for me. Please don't leave those comments. I don't want to make email work better for me. I don't want to hire an assistant to do email for me. I don't want to try some new magical app that will make email better for me. -
Payments Day
8 Feb 2012 | 3:27 amYesterday was payments day at USV. Two pretty big things that our firm has been involved in for a while now were coincidentally announced on the same day. First, our newest portfolio company Dwolla announced the closing of a round we led on their blog. Dwolla is building a large network of engaged users via a radically lower cost payment system. How much lower? Zero for transactions below $10 and a $0.25 flat fee for transactions over $10. If you move $10,000 over the Dwolla network, you or the recipient (your choice) will be charged $0.25. That's it. Dwolla does this by avoiding credit… -
Building The Ecosystem
7 Feb 2012 | 7:35 amI've always seen the work that my colleauges and I do as more than venture capital investing. That is our main job and we need to do it very well. But we also need to work to make sure the macro environment for our investing activities remains attractive. There are two primary activities that Union Square Ventures focuses on in addition to our core venture capital activities of backing and then working closely with entrepreneurs and their teams. They are policy advocacy around protecting the freedom to innovate and efforts to build the ecosystem for startups and entrepreneurship. Longtime… -
The Management Team - Guest Post From Phil Sugar
6 Feb 2012 | 2:44 amContinuing our MBA Mondays series on The Managemet Team, we are deep into the guest post phase. This guest post comes from AVC regular Phil Sugar. I've never met Phil, but his comments here at AVC tell me that he's a very experienced entrepreneurial manager. And so I reached out to him to ask for a guest post. And he responded with this post below. There are so mant great lines in here, I'm tempted to reblog a bunch of them. Best Friends, Buddies, and Co-WorkersSince there is no way I am going to be more insightful than Matt or JLM about management process, I am going to go through three… -
Women Entrepreneurs
5 Feb 2012 | 6:05 amA few weeks ago, I spent the day at NYU ITP at the Womens Entrepreneurs Festival. This is a one day event put on by The Gotham Gal and her friend Nancy Hechinger who is on the faculty at NYU ITP. In its second year, the WE Festival features a day of panels and talks featuring women entrepreneurs. Men can attend and do, but the stage is filled with women all day long. It's a very different experience from the typical startup/tech event and I highly recommend it to anyone who is eager to see more women doing startups. My favorite panel was called Makers and featured five women who love to…
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Seth's Blog
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Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)
9 Feb 2012 | 2:46 amIf I tell you, "I'm going to the baseball game," it seems as though you're likely to understand what I mean. Of course, you won't. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it's a religious experience. Me, I don't even like baseball. Or maybe it's my nephew's ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on. We label the experience with just two words, and two words can't possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event. The same thing is true with brands. If I tell you that a new business was funded by USV, that might… -
How do they know you're not a flake?
8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will… -
Horizontal marketing isn't a new idea
7 Feb 2012 | 2:09 amBut it is the new reality for just about every organization. Vertical marketing means the marketer (the one with money) is in charge. Vertical marketing starts at the top and involves running ads, sending out direct mail and pushing hype through the media. Your money, your plans, your control. It might not work, but generally the worst outcome is that you will be ignored and need to spend more money. Horizonal marketing, on the other hand, means creating a remarkable product and story and setting it up to spread from person to person. It's out of your control, because all the interactions are… -
Who is your customer?
6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 amRule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service. Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently. The question: Who is your customer? It's not obvious. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect… -
In search of a timid trapeze artist
5 Feb 2012 | 2:01 amGood luck with that, there aren't any. If you hesitate when leaping from rope to another, you're not going to last very long. And this is at the heart of what makes innovation work in organizations, why industries die, and how painful it is to try to maintain the status quo while also participating in a revolution. Gather up as much speed as you can, find a path and let go. You can't get to the next rope if you're still holding on to this one.
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Holy Kaw!
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The content marketing explosion [infographic]
9 Feb 2012 | 4:44 amVia Blue Glass Interactive. Marketing infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
8 historical figures who ate disgusting things
8 Feb 2012 | 11:26 pmBefore you read this article, you may have thought your dog had the grossest eating habits ever. But Fido's penchant for poo is nothing compared to some of these sickos highlighted in Cracked. For example, Victorian scientist William Buckland: He didn't just stop at the meat of animals, either. While on a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, a strange mark was found on the floor. A debate broke out as to what the stain could possibly be, at which point Buckland got on his hands and knees, licked the stain and confidently announced it to be bat piss. But the craziest thing Buckland ever did, at… -
5 explanations of why teenagers act the way the do
8 Feb 2012 | 11:22 pmUnderstanding the teenage mind could be a life's work. For those of you who don't have that kind of time, however, Mental Floss gives five things that could explain the mind of the teenager. For example, parents, have you ever wondered if your teenager is somehow getting dumber? Parents of teens often wonder what happened to the bright child they used to have. How can someone go from getting A’s to getting C’s when they seem to be doing the same amount of work? Once again, changes in the brain are to blame. While the merits of IQ tests are debatable, scientists used to think IQ… -
Surviving the loss of a star employee
8 Feb 2012 | 11:16 pmSome groups have stellar members who carry the team. That's all well and good until that member leaves. Then what? This Smartblog video will help you answer that question: Full story at Smartblog on Leadership. Top news for leaders. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Disneyland circa 1957 [video]
8 Feb 2012 | 11:14 pmThis video was shot in 1957, less than two years after Disneyland had opened. The footage is newly restored and ready to take you to the happiest place on earth as it was in its early days. Full story at Mental Floss. All the top Internet videos in one place. Permalink | Leave a comment »
