A New "Fair Use" Proposal: If you re-publish my content then publish my AdLink
News aggregators and bloggers that carry third party content should carry at least one advertising link associated with that content. It would be the fair thing to do and a large aggregator such as Google News could help establish this practice.  Google News publishes the headline  and the first paragraph of a news story on its site. Since news stories are written in an inverted pyramid format, the headline and first paragraph contain most of the value of a news story. Therefore, it's only fair that if you take most of the value of a news story, then also publish one advertising link from the original site. And if you are a blogger and blog the content or quote it, then the same would apply: publish one advertising link from the original site alongside the content. - For example, if you'd like to republish part of this article, you might agree to publish one of my three advertising links alongside the content:             -Silicon Valley Watcher-reporting on the culture of disruption.           -Silicon Valley Minute-Startups pitch in less than a minute.           -Intel Core2Duo is here!   It's your choice which one of the three to carry, and your choice to do it or not. But over time, it's a practice that would be seen as a mark of respect to the original content creator. And it would help the original content creators recoup some of the cost of producing it--and it would encourage good content. Google News doesn't monetise the news content...[Read Full Article]

Friday Watch: Podcasts, Better Writing, China's Tech, Khosla at Cleantech 2007, Wired Mag Cover: You
Here is the podcast (92 minutes) from the recent Social Media Club in San Francisco on the subject of social media tools and saving the planet: Social Media Club - » Social Media Club San Francisco Podcast ... TauMed.com--a free online health community is preparing for an official public beta launch. You can preview personalization tools and community tools for a "My Health Space" capability in building support networks. Medical sites are very hot these days because of the pharma advertising money. ... The iSuppli market research firm brings attention to China's development of key technology standards for its domestic market which are designed to protect its indigenous companies. There are several major technology standards that have been released or are now under development that will have a major influence on high-technology markets in China, including: · The digital terrestrial television broadcast standard, which will go into effect on Aug. 1. · The AVS standard, which passed the Ministry of Information Industry (MII)’s examination in December 2005 and became a recommended standard on Mar. 1, 2006. · Automotive specifications covering areas including sensors, testing, diagnostics, electromagnetic compatibility and networking and interface protocols. · The TD-SCDMA 3G mobile-phone standard, which is being used on a trial basis by 20,000 consumers in China. · The mobile TV standard, which is yet to be determined by China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). · WiMAX wireless broadband, a technology that remains in a trial period in China.   Find out more from iSuppli's free...[Read Full Article]

Newspapers and magazines aren't making money online
Here is an interesting post from BizReport. It shows that publishers aren't making money from their online operations. Publishers aren't profiting from online operations - Internet - BizReport Out of 350 international newspaper and magazine executives gathered in Hannover, Germany, for a media conference, only one was able to claim making a profit from their online operations. by Helen Leggatt Furthermore, despite investments totalling millions in marketing dollars, only a handful of the industry players present could claim more than 3 percent of their sales came from online. The economics of publishing online can't support the people and processes that are needed to produce it. This is a serious issue because as the "paper" based economic models get trashed, it is clear that online publishing isn't going to save old media publishers anytime soon. Even if their online revenues were to double tomorrow, it still wouldn't be enougth. It is another example of "you can't get there from here" when it comes to old media transitioning to the new media world. It's because publishers have to compete against online publishers such as Google whose costs of publishing a page of content and ads is miniscule. The reason GOOG or YHOO or Craig's List can sell advertising cheaper is because they don't have to pay for their content. Mostly, their content is machine-generated, or harvested by their spiderbots roaming the Internet, or it is user-contributed as in Craig's List. Online advertising rates reflect this economic reality and thus are held down at low...[Read Full Article]

Silicon Valley Minute II: Who are you and what do you do?
I meet a lot of startups and it can take them 30 minutes and more (if I let them), to tell me what they do. Often, they will tell me more about their competitors than about themselves. I know it is not easy to get a pitch right. When I left the Financial Times in June 2004 to launch Silicon Valley Watcher I took most of the summer off in preparation. I spoke with a lot of friends, colleagues and contacts about my venture. It took me all summer to boil it down from 30 minutes to this: "Silicon Valley Watcher is a news magazine that reports on the business of Silicon Valley." "Who are you and what do you do?" has to be the single most important answer for any company.  Silicon Valley Minute - One-minute pitch  Video by Elizabeth Safran,  RSA Conference 2007, San Francisco February 2007(This is from KSR and this is KSR's mission statement--from their web site:)>KSR is the first Managed Risk Services Provider (MSRP) to expertly align organizations unique risk profiles with a new breed of managed and professional services designed to mitigate corporate and personal liability. KSR’s holistic approach to enterprise risk management blends security, information technology, and operations management with an innovative set of services that ensures ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability, and efficiency. KSR serves mid-size and large enterprise customers worldwide, and the KSR team is made up world-class experts from organizations such as Verisign, the US National Security Agency (NSA), Netscape, Exodus,...[Read Full Article]

The Achilles' Heel of GOOG's Pay Per Action
My colleague Richard Koman  blogged about Google's latest foray into monetizing online content: GOOG's unveils Pay Per Action advertising. The gist: Advertisers will decide on what they will pay for a specific user action such as filling out mortgage application forms, or a questionnaire, or anything. This goes beyond pay-per-click, Google's main advertising service,  because it potentially involves bringing someone closer to a sale, and so it is more valuable to the advertiser,  and to Google, and to the publisher of a web site. Also, as part of this Pay Per Action model, Google offers a way of embedding links within a web page of content, which brings up an issue of content designed for advertisers. This is typical of Google's observations of what works on the Internet. It always recommends to web site publishers that the format of its advertising links blend into a web page.  With Pay Per Action, website publishers can potentially further blend the content with the advertising. Online content publishers are not doing all that well and so they might be tempted to blend advertising and editorial content but that is dangerous because it could undermine their editorial integrity. Google's advertising models might further erode the editorial integrity of online sites. And it is open to spammers and fraudsters. Filling out a form and getting paid $40 or more,  is easier to hide, and easier to do than having people commit click-fraud on pay-per-click ads.  You could buy a CDROM of thousands of names and addresses,...[Read Full Article]

How Can Collaborative Tools Help Save The Planet?
It was an interesting turnout at the Social Media Club Tuesday evening. Social Media Club is run by my friends Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells. Tuesday's theme was introduced by Raines Cohen and the subject was:"Saving the Earth through Social Media: Public Education about the Global Climate Crisis through Blogging and Web Publishing." Not surprisingly, we barely scratched the surface, which is good because there are many ways to scratch this theme, especially since our tools are so new. I didn't catch everybody's name but here are some of the web sites associated with the people at Tuesday's event, or recommended by them: Kari Daniels and her documentary "Voices of Dissent." Raines Cohen Greener.com - a green search site. Freecycle Changing the World One Gift at a Time Podaddies - Dynamic Video Ads Yahoo! Answers - How can the human race survive the next hundred years Justin.tv Tracked in America The Digital Tipping Point the culture of freedom in cyberspace SOMAcast - South of Market in San Francisco mp3death.com my-currency knowledge is currency Jyte Spread the Cred GUBA - Enjoy, upload, and share free videos. Webstrategy, Inc My apologies if I missed anyone. There was lots of great conversation, Chris will post the podcast. What struck me about the evening was something that I noticed when I first arrived here in 1984--how little debate there is between groups of people. We spend way too much time with people we agree with most of the time. The culture here rewards agreement but not debate. Americans...[Read Full Article]

Notes From VON Conference: Figuring out Video on the Net Business Models
I spent much of Monday and Tuesday in San Jose at the VON (Video on the Net) trade show and conference. This conference was founded by Jeff Pulver, the pioneer of voice on the net, and it is big. It was strange to see a "big" trade show,  many have become "former" or have become tiny. For much of Monday I was at the  Hollywood and Internet Video conference track organized by Cynthia Brumfield (IP Media Monitor). I moderated the last panel of the day: Ordinary People: How is Technology Changing Entertainment? My panel:Nizar Allibhoy, Principal, MediaEnable, LLC Mike Pascarella, President and CEO, Gotuit Media Corp Herve Utheza, Vice-President and Executive Producer of TV Properties, Orb Networks It wasn't a simple topic because we have so many ways to upload, share, tag, and watch entertainment. But the panel did well, pointing out that while much of the day had been spent talking abut how media companies were using technologies to bring interactive entertainment to people, not much had been said about how people are using technologies in new ways. Mr Pascarella's company has several interesting technologies, the main one being the ability to tag parts of an online video and just share clips of just a few seconds long. He believes that advertisers will pay much more for the chance to advertise around popular clips from longer videos. Gotuit only hosts licensed content from large media companies Mr Allibhoy has worked with some very large media companies including Sony Pictures Digital. He has a...[Read Full Article]

BitTorrent.Com founder Says It Is Ahead of Online Video Competitors
(From the keynote of the New Video Summit in San Jose: Andreas Kluth from the Economist interviews Bram Cohen, founder of BitTorrent.) Bram Cohen, founder of BitTorrent, says his company is ahead of other online video sites and has made headway in licensing content with Hollywood. "BitTorrent.com has ten times more Hollywood content than iTunes. We have been talking with Hollywood for a long time and we have the jump on things," said Mr Cohen. Mr Cohen invented the BitTorrent technology which allows peer to peer systems distribute files. This works well with large files such as for audio and video. He founded BitTorrent.com as a site for distributing high quality online video and audio content. He said that other online video sites are hampered by outdated licensing agreements. For example Netflix has a streaming licensing agreement which has different conditions. "We've pioneered a new online licensing model and that is where a lot of innovation has taken place," he said. I asked about YouTube and the online licensing rights. Mr Cohen said: "Yes, YouTube could make use of some of the online download rights but they need to get Hollywood's trust and that will be hard because You Tube is coming from an already bad situation." Mr Kluth pointed out that Mr Cohen was not in Hollywood's good books a few years ago, because the BitTorrent technology was often used to share Hollywood copyrighted content. BitTorrent.com uses Microsoft's DRM technology but Mr Cohen said he is not happy  with the...[Read Full Article]

Warsaw University Team Are World Programming Champions, Again
Warsaw University's team  won the 31st annual World Finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, sponsored by IBM and held at IBM Tokyo Research Lab. There were 6,099 teams on 6 continents in regional contests and 88 teams qualified for the finals. 25 teams were from North America, 2 from Africa/Middle East, 10 from Latin America, 20 from Europe and Russia, 31 from Asia/South Pacific. Warsaw University solved 8 problem sets, in second place was Tsinghua University with 7 solved, the rest solved 6 or less. Highest scoring US team was MIT in fourth place behind St. Petersburg University. Warsaw won the 2003 championship. Polish programmers have won many international programming contests, reflecting the country's strong history in math and cryptography. Poland is becoming a favored site for many US company development centers. Contest Standings - The 2007 ACM-ICPC World Finals The Problem SetsPast Contests - The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Link to ACM Contest Technorati tags: warsaw university, ACM-ICPC...[Read Full Article]

Old Media: You can't get there from here...
Blogged content could carry advertising links... In the SF Chronicle this week there was a lot of discussion about old and new media. Dan Fost had a great front page feature and daily notes on the geek part of the South by Southwest festival which featured top bloggers such as Robert Scoble from Podtech.net. And leading columnists Jon Carroll and David Lazarus discussed the economics of new media and how old media could fit into that landscape.  Mr Lazarus was encouraged by the Viacom suit against YouTube as this showed that "content is king" and that the economics of online media will shift from aggregators such as Google, to creators such as Viacom, and newspapers. Content will be king From my view as an online publisher, and coming from a mainstream media background, I would say that "content will be king" but it will take a while. Right now, even if all the creators took away their content from Google, Yahoo, etc it wouldn't do much good. Because revenues from online advertising cannot support mainstream media's legacy infrastructure costs--buildings, layers of management, pension plans, trucks, printing presses, etc. The billions that Google and the other new media companies make, are a fraction of the billions lost in conventional advertising markets. That's why it costs less to advertise online because the operating costs for a Google or Yahoo are far less than for old media companies. A blogger with a laptop Online advertising models can barely  support popular bloggers, and that is the cost of...[Read Full Article]

GOOG Will Hold Private Search Data for up to 2 Years
Under revisions announced late Wednesday, Google promised to wrap a cloak of anonymity around the vast amounts of information that the Mountain View-based company regularly collects about its millions of users around the world. Google believes it can provide more assurances of privacy by removing key pieces of identifying information from its system every 18 to 24 months. The timetable is designed to comply with a hodgepodge of laws around the world that dictate how long search engines are supposed to retain user information. Google to Adopt New Privacy Measures By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer Interesting. Especially since GOOG and the other search engines have often said they are interested in behavioral data rather than individual data. If GOOG didn't collect identifiable data in the first place it wouldn't need a privacy policy. And it wouldn't be vulnerable to this:   Authorities still could demand to review personal information before Google purges it or take legal action seeking to force the company to keep the data beyond the new time limits. Nevertheless, Google's additional safeguards mark the first time it has spelled out precisely how long it will hold onto data that can reveal intimate details about a person's Web surfing habits. I hope it is not the same type of unidentifiable data that AOL released last year, which didn't take much work to identify some users. The unguarded thoughts of the digital haves... The most compelling content on the Internet, by far, is AOL's release of search...[Read Full Article]

Tech CEOs' Green Report Calls for Government Green$$
Tech CEOs go to Washington D.C: TechNet announced its green tech policy agenda during "TechNet Day,” the organization's sixth annual trip to the nation's capital for CEO meetings with leaders in Congress and the Administration.  (The full report is available here: http://www.technet.org/resources/GreenTechReport.pdf)   Some of the proposals:       o Double federal funding for basic energy research       o Enhance the federal government's role as purchaser of new energy technologies       • Fundamental reform of federal tax policy to spur the development and adoption of new energy technologies       o Increase the level of incentives to spur new energy technologies       o Restructure incentives to enable market signals that drive new technologies       o Encourage technology neutrality enabling the marketplace to pick winners       o Establish an effective tradable Renewable Energy Certificate marketplace       o Enable utilities to recover investments in renewable generation and transmission        It is all good stuff. But waiting for the government to do these things is like waiting for the government to admit that global warming was a problem in the first place. It takes way too long and the action is needed now. Silicon Valley should be able to figure out the business models for innovation in clean energy and related "green" markets without government help. Subsidies and government programs remove the effect of market conditions that test business models.  And it can leave worthy green ventures at the mercy of future political decisions. That's a risk that investors don't need. TechNet and other tech related lobby groups have been spectacularly unsuccessful in...[Read Full Article]

Hong Kong Lawmaker Continues Attack on Yahoo over Journalist Jailing in China
Hong Kong's privacy commissioner said there wasn't enough evidence to show that Yahoo's Hong Kong office revealed private information to Chinese authorities that jailed Chinese reporter Shi Tao for ten years.  Hong Kong lawmaker Albert Ho criticized the report and said Chinese court documents specifically cited Yahoo's Hong King office. From AP story: On Wednesday, Ho criticized the privacy commissioner's report, saying Yahoo! Hong Kong is still responsible because it controls the company's China office. ``I have reason to believe the decision (to give information on Shi) was made in Hong Kong,'' Ho said. He said Yahoo! shouldn't have surrendered the information to Chinese authorities unquestioningly. ``As an international company, Yahoo should know there are international standards it should follow, including those involving human rights and privacy. There's no reason for it not to investigate whether (the information Shi released) was a state secret,'' Ho said. Human Rights Watch said earlier Yahoo also supplied information to Chinese authorities that led to the arrests of another journalist and two other Chinese dissidents besides Shi. Link to MercuryNews.com | 03/14/2007 | Official: Yahoo didn't violate Hong Kong privacy laws in case of jailed Chinese journalist   Yahoo and any other US based Internet companies should not collect identifiable data on users in countries which jail dissidents for actions protected in the US. It is the ethical and right thing to do.   Please see SVW: Chinese Dissident's Wife to Sue Yahoo The wife of Chinese dissident has come to the US to sue Yahoo...[Read Full Article]

Mind the Gap: Venture Capital's Exit Problems
 Don Dodge points to some interesting VC figures on his blog that can be summarized as: Exits have averaged $18B over the past 6 years while investments have averaged about $40B over the same time period. Link to Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing For every $1 invested only 45 cents is returned through the sale of a startup or through an IPO. (Maybe all those Web 2.0 investments will pull the funds out of the ditch?)So I guess VCs should be happy to get what they can from selling their portfolio companies to the big players such as Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle, etc.   Don says: Microsoft acquired as many companies as Google and Yahoo combined. Microsoft acquired 19 companies last year. Google acquired 10 and Yahoo acquired 9. IBM also acquired 9 companies. Of course Google spent more on acquisitions, spending $1.65 Billion on YouTube alone. Link to Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing If you don't know Don: Don is currently Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. The goal is to help VC's and start-ups be successful with Microsoft, and together, provide great products for our customers.       Don Dodge...[Read Full Article]

US Anti-Terrorism Technology is Monitoring YouTube Videos
Andy Plesser over at Beet.TV has an interesting interview with Alex Laats from Defense contractor BBN about using advanced technologies to analyze and transcribe YouTube videos with 80 per cent accuracy.Beet.TV Exclusive Defense Contractor has Analyzed, Transcribed and Organized 1.5 Million YouTube A major defense department contractor, BBN of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has applied a national security technology application, developed to fight terrorism, to "crawl" the audio tracks of public Internet videos through its Podzinger subsidiary.  Podzinger has analyzed, transcribed and organized some 1.5 million YouTube clips since December and is crawling many thousand every day, according to Alex Laats, who heads the unit. It is interesting that government agencies have this technology and it means that Big Brother is here and now, so let's get used to it....[Read Full Article]

The Right to Respond Should be a Fundamental Right of the Internet
At the Newcomm Forum in Las Vegas this week, I kept hearing a lament that is all too common: how to deal with with negative or incorrect content about a company and its  products on search engine results? Especially if those negative  links are on the first page of results because most users rarely look at more than one page. The same issue applies to individuals too. Publishing  a response to a critic is not enougth because it is unlikely to be ranked on the first page of search results. Similarly, if a critic were to change their mind about a company, an individual,  or product--the search engines could still be serving up the original complaint on that crucial first page of results. This is a serious problem in terms of reputation management for companies, and it will increasingly affect individuals too as they seek new jobs, new partners, etc.  Companies have large resources and there are ways they can influence the search results. Individuals have far less ability to manage their online reputations. The Right to Respond I'm proposing that companies and individuals all should have a level playing field and that a fundamental right of the Internet should be the right to respond to anything that is written, said, or viewed about them. Readers reading a Right to Respond posting will know that it is likely biased but at least they can make up their own minds. There should be a tiny Right to Respond widget or link next to any content. The...[Read Full Article]

UPDATED: Widget Mania Trips a Cascade of Data...and Spyware
I love all the widgets that are coming out. There are some excellent services that offer search, headlines, and many other services. Web site owners can customize these widgets and drop the Javascript code onto their servers. When a visitor comes to their site, part of the page occupied by the widget loads data, text, or images. You can see a widget in action in my side column showing recent visitors and their photos. Widgets can be tiny, for example, at the end of my posts you can see how many blog responses Technorati has found to each article. And it is easy to make them yourself, I'll probably put together an SVW headlines widget that other sites can use. But I wonder about the extra load on servers and bandwidth around the Internet as thousands of new types of widgets offer various services, and are deployed on tens of millions of web pages. Each time a widget containing page is viewed in a web browser, it collects data to display in that page. So, in the above example, Technorati initiates a search for related blog posts whether it was requested or not. This creates a load on Technorati servers which slows down the user experience for anyone initiating a manual search. And it also taxes data bandwidth to move data that wasn't directly requested. This could add up to a "load" tax on the overall Internet as widget mania proliferates. Update: Widget Performance and Spyware issues... I was discussing...[Read Full Article]

Greetings from the Green City of Las Vegas
I've been in Las Vegas since Wednesday for the New Communications Forum speaking on two panels and a workshop. This is one of my favorite conferences, founded by Jennifer McClure and Elizabeth Albrycht. I'm also a founding fellow of the Palo Alto thinktank the Society of New Communications Research, which is closely connected with the conference and provides most of the speakers for the event. I'm backed up terribly on my emails but I'm meeting lots of excellent people and having lots of excellent conversations about the future of media and public relations, as we try to figure out some of the the new rules. I'll have more to write when I get back to San Francisco. --- Thinktank formed to study the new communications channels and their impact on society Think tank studies new communications channels and their impact . . . It has been about two years since my last visit to Las Vegas, and it has changed and grown a lot. I was thinking that Las Vegas might qualify as one of the greenest cities in the US because of the Hoover Dam nearby, which provides all of its power and water. However, the green part of the equation must be balanced against the huge number of visitors arriving by burning massive amounts of carbon from airplanes and cars. Plus if Las Vegas were more conservative in its use of electric power and water, there would be more for other communities, and less carbon powered electricity would be needed overall....[Read Full Article]

People-Powered Search: Wikipedia founder's challenge to GOOG, YHOO; and Eurekster
TOKYO (Reuters) - The online collaboration responsible for Wikipedia plans to build a search engine to rival those of Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), the founder of the popular Internet encyclopaedia said on Thursday. Wikia Inc., the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, is aiming to take as much as 5 percent of the lucrative Internet search market, Jimmy Wales said at a news conference in Tokyo. "The idea that Google has some edge because they've got super-duper rocket scientists may be a little antiquated now," he said. Describing the two Internet firms as "black boxes" that won't disclose how they rank search results, Wales said collaborative search technology could transform the power structure of the Internet. Link to Wikipedia founder says to challenge Google, Yahoo - Yahoo! News Interesting. I've been writing about people-powered search compared with machines and algorithms: Is Search Broken? Search seems to be broken...part 2 Eurekster seems to be well positioned in this area already. I like what they are doing with Swicki, which uses people-powered search. It has a very easy to interface and a ton of management tools. I set up this "Search Silicon Valley" Swicki in just a few minutes: check out the Search Silicon Valley swicki at eurekster.com...[Read Full Article]

MSFT copyright blast at GOOG explained: Teaming with AP and thousands of newspaper sites
Andy Plesser over at Beet. TV interviewed Jim Kathman, head of AP's global broadcast strategy: The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, and Microsoft have developed an online video platform for thousands of U.S. newspapers, television and radio stations to upload, publish and monetize locally-created video. The new system is in beta tests with some 30 newspaper publishers and broadcasters including The Miami Herald, the Houston Chronicle and the Rocky Mountain News.  The program will go live in about 30 days. Link to Beet.TV: Exclusive: Microsoft and the Associated Press Teaming with Thousands of Newspapers and Broadcasters in New Online Video Network MSFT's attack on Google's use and interpretation of copyright makes lots of sense considering the upcoming launch of this service. But can MSFT get more revenues to the publishers than Google? Google's AdSense advertising network for publishers does not pay much, but can MSFT make sure publisher's get more revenue? MSFT could offer 100 percent to publishers in order to lure them away from AdSense. We might even get into an advertising war in which MSFT or GOOG, or YHOO offer 125 percent or more... MSFT has a ton of cash--this would be a quick way to buy large market share....[Read Full Article]

IDC: We face a looming crisis - we won't have anywhere to store hundreds of exabytes of data
 As if we didn't have global warming and many other things to worry about... IDC estimates that the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. But the amount of stuff generated is expected to jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes (closing in on 1 zettabyte) in 2010. Source: Tech researchers calculate digital info Interesting, IDC, the world renowned market research firm, is saying that we will generate nearly 1,000 exabytes of data by 2010 yet only have the capacity to store about 600 exabytes. But how is it that we would be able to generate almost 1 zettabyte of data in the first place--without having a place to store it...? Surely, if we can generate it, we are able to store it, because data comes to us from data storage systems... Is IDC talking about data that we might like to store but we won't be able to store?  Then that figure is meaningless, because there is no end of data we might want to capture and store in the future. And there is no end of these type of useless market research forecasts, imho....[Read Full Article]

Search seems to be broken...part 2
(Thank you all for your comments on this topic of search...)   The holy grail within search is to be able to serve up the right search result from one user click. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button next to the "Google Search" button constantly tests this ability. One day it might very well be the only button found there because the underlying search technologies will be hugely improved. And researchers within the search engine communities will be widely recognized for their groundbreaking work--I'm certain that there will be future Nobel prize winners among them. But improvements in search, through the development of better algorithms and IT architectures, will very likely be of lesser value over the next few years compared with what can be achieved developing "people-powered" search technologies. It can be seen in sites such as Digg, which is a  better news aggregator using people-powered technologies, than machine-powered Google News, which states near the bottom of its page: "The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program." It is not just at Digg, there are "people-powered" search efforts all across the globe, involving tens of millions of people,  laboring every day to help improve the search experience. This is done by adding tags, site maps, headlines, etc, -- they are creating ever larger amounts of valuable search metadata about content. And we are just at the beginning of this trend. It is a markedly new phase in the development of search, one best described as "people-powered and technology-enabled."  As opposed...[Read Full Article]

Is Search Broken?
Search engines say they use complex algorithms to help users find exactly what they want Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button (btw, does anybody use it?), right below the search box implies that very thing. The legions of top Ph.Ds working for the search engines publish oodles of scientific papers on complex mathematical concepts related to search.  Recent Papers Written by Googlers A complete, co-inductive syntactic theory of sequential control and state Achieving Anonymity via Clustering in a Metric Space An Assertional Correctness Proof of a Self-Stabilizing l-Exclusion Algorithm On-the-fly sharing for streamed aggregation Programmable clustering Using Many Machines to Handle an Enormous Error-Correcting Code It all looks very impressive but it seems to have more to do with contributing to the mythology surrounding search--that is very complex and scientific--than to the actual reality of how search is done. From my vantage point as an online publisher, it is clear that search is increasingly "people-powered" rather than machine-powered. There are millions of people helping the searchbots find information. Here are some examples and gripes: - There are many publishers that try to make sure their headlines catch the attention of the search engines rather than catch the attention of readers. The same is true for content, editors increasingly optimize it for the search engines rather than the readers. - Why should I have to tag my content, and tag it according to the specific formats that Technorati, and other search engines recommend?  Aren't they supposed to do that? - Google relies on a...[Read Full Article]

BackLinks & BackStories: A week in review. . .
How the media sausage gets made is a vital part of media literacy. In the spirit of adding transparency and showing how my media is made, here are some background notes on my past week. .... It was a busy week and I'm days behind on my emails (sorry everyone!). My inbox is the bane of my life because I can never catch up. I'm out and about most of the day and then I need time to write, which means my inbox is often the last thing I get to. And if I get a day or two behind on my emails I hate going there, which means it piles up even more... [SMS + cell phone ( 415 336 7547) are usually best way to get me if all else fails.]   Saturday- I spent most of the day writing articles instead of working on a new project, Silicon Valley Minute short vid pitches by startups - who are you and what do you do.) I wrote a bunch of posts, some exclusively for our new sister site New Rules Communications - the new rules in media and pr -One of the articles was about how Silicon Valley is becoming transformed into a Media Valley. It received lots of links over the next few days. It reminded me that timing is everything for some ideas... Silicon Valley has become Media Valley    see: 52 blog reactions ... Sunday- I went to Kezar Pavilion to celebrate the life of Pablo Heising, a friend who...[Read Full Article]

Anheuser Busch teams with MingleNow: Can online social networks sell beer?
It is a sunny, crisp mid-afternoon, and Gurbaksh Chahal, the CEO of BlueLithium advertising network,  is wearing a stunning blue striped suit by a French designer as we walk along a dowdy part of Divisadero Street, in San Francisco. I am meeting with him and top brand management executives from Anheuser Busch, who are dressed more conservatively,  to discuss plans to use online social networks to sell beer. The research group of BlueLithium, the second largest US online advertising network, last year came up with an idea for MingleNow. It is an online social network organized around the offline world.   Since friends gather around the same bars, restuarants and clubs, there is a potential opportunity to create social networks built around these common points of community. (SVW: MingleNow - social networking that mingles online and offline.) Following a private beta last year, BlueLithium is making a big push with MingleNow this year. Its goal is to have 2m active users by the end of 2007. And Mr Chahal has landed Anheuser Busch as a key launch partner for the venture. Tom Shipley, director of Global Industry Development at Anheuser Busch explains the reasons for the alliance. He shows me charts of beer consumption over the last 35 years. He points to the problem: beer's high point was in 1995 when it reached a  61 per cent share,  compared with hard liquor and wine. By the end of 2005 it had declined to 57 per cent. "For the last 18 months we have been running a campaign called...[Read Full Article]

Podtech.net: the dark horse of the new media pack
I recently popped in on John Furrier and team over at Podtech.net, in their new HQ on Page Mill Road, right next to the Wall Street Journal's Palo Alto printing plant. It's a perfect contrast of new and old media distribution models. Podtech is very much a media company of these times: its printing press is the Internet and its focus is on publishing video and audio content. It wants to become the YouTube of compelling video content for Silicon Valley and beyond... and to take over the world, of course.   These are healthy ambitions for a Silicon Valley startup. And Mr Furrier's New Jersey roots bring an extra kick to the company's ambitions. What has impressed me for a long time about Mr Furrier is that his instincts as a media entrepreneur have been spot on. His analysis of media and the disruption of the economic models in that sector is very similar to mine but we get to our analysis by different routes. Mr Furrier is a software developer by training so he uses a lot of software engineering metaphors. For example, he says there will be new jobs such as a "media developer." My term for this is "media engineer" but we both mean the same thing--media professionals, such as journalists, that know some coding too (XML, Javascript, CSS, RSS.) I worked as a software engineer a long long time ago, so my analysis comes from having worked in mainstream media and now working in the new (conversational) media. We see things...[Read Full Article]

To be or not to be a media company? There is a lot at stake...
And by Richard Koman for Silicon Valley Watcher. Yesterday my colleague Richard Koman wrote that a federal judge ruled that Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and Microsoft could refuse advertising.  Search engines are constitutionally similar to newspapers, the decision says and they have the same limited First Amendment rights as newspapers to accept or reject advertising. Link to:   Judge Google is a media company, legally speaking Interesting. Google says it is not a media company yet it invokes legal protections granted to newspapers. Here is Rachel Rosmarin from Forbes: Is Google a media company? Its officials often skirt around the concept, for fear of offending potential partners or competitors. Yet under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) Google and other search engine companies are not considered media companies and are protected from legal liabilities arising from what they publish--newspapers have no such shielding. Could this recent legal ruling lead to the loss of CDA protection for Google and similar companies? Richard commented: That's interesting. This dismissal decision actually has it both ways. Google is given the free speech protections of a newspaper and the court cites Miami Herald (newspapers can't be required to print candidate responses to editorials), Daily Nebraskan (decision not to print gay ads protected as free speech), Associates & Aldrich Co (newspaper can't be  compelled to print ad as is; right to edit). At the same time, Google is an online service provider under CDA. So they are protected from the liability that newspapers have for the editorial decisions they make. That's...[Read Full Article]

Silicon Valley Minute: Who are you and what do you do?
I'd like to introduce a new project, Silicon Valley Minute. It is a sub-minute video pitch by a company that answers: "Who are you and what do you do?" I meet a lot of startups and it can take them 30 minutes and more (if I let them), to tell me what they do. Often, they will tell me more about their competitors than about themselves. I know it is not easy to get a pitch right. When I left the Financial Times in June 2004 to launch Silicon Valley Watcher I took most of the summer off in preparation. I spoke with a lot of friends, colleagues and contacts about my venture. It took me all summer to boil it down from 30 minutes to this: "Silicon Valley Watcher is a news magazine that reports on the business of Silicon Valley." "Who are you and what do you do?" has to be the single most important answer for any company. To help startups get their pitch right, I teamed up with Elizabeth Safran, formerly with Trainer Communications, to launch the first  Silicon Valley Minute pitches. Elizabeth has worked with many startups and knows the challenges they face in getting their message right. We have ten sub-one minute videos of company pitches that can be rated, commented, emailed...and maybe improved. They were taken at the recent RSA Security conference. Each one looks well delivered. However, each one took an average of one hour and seven takes - so it is not as easy as it...[Read Full Article]

Low turnout for Silicon Valley Tech Policy Summit - do tech companies care about policy?
There was a low turnout at the Silicon Valley Tech Policy Summit in San Jose that was attributed to six inches of snow  in Washington D.C. which grounded travelers. But that doesn't explain why there weren't lots of Silicon Valley execs at the two day conference. Or rather, it shows that Silicon Valley's traditional lack of interest in politics continues, despite numerous reasons why such ignorance can be damaging. Star power such as Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal and other top editors from the Financial Times, Time, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Newsweek and even blog publisher Om Malik -- couldn't draw much of a local crowd. I popped in on Tuesday and caught a few panels. The Future of the Internet panel moderated by Declan McCullagh, News.com was lackluster with Jim Dempsey, policy director, Center for Democracy and Technology, Lauren Gelman, Assoc. Director of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, and Andrew McLaughlin, head of global public policy and senior counsel at Google. There was a lot of talk but little was said. I complained about it to Sean Garrett, one of the founders of  463 Communications, helping tech companies to "navigate the intersection of technology, public policy and government." He said that much of the talk was in a type of "code" that is understandable by those that deal with Washington politics. "For example, one person at my table was surprised at what the Google guy had to say. And often, it is not what they say, but what the don't...[Read Full Article]

Tech Policy Summit: Kara and the poster boys of social media
Kara Swisher moderated Policy 2.0: Social Media and Government Regulation. This panel had many of the leading poster boys of "Web 2.0 and social media." Jonathan Abrams, the former Friendster CEO, was there. He is now CEO of Socializr, which is in private beta and which he described as a cross between Friendster and Evite. Also on stage: Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg; Reid Hoffman, president of LinkedIn; and David Sifry, CEO of Technorati. Ms Swisher kept the conversation rolling and interesting but there was absolutely zero discussion of government regulation and social media! It became an apt illustration of how little interest there is in government policy among tech companies coming from a top Silicon Valley journalist and the stars of the Web 2.0 movement. With the topic dismissed, the panel discussed other subjects. Ms Swisher gave Mr Adelson a withering look when she pointed out that Digg profited from posting copyrighted material and was "feeding off of other people's content."  Mr Adelson noted that not a single copyright holder had ever complained about being featured on Digg. Identity on the Internet was discussed, and Mr Hoffman said  LinkedIn offered a way for others to discover sanctioned information about their identities. The panel talked a lot about new media and old media. David Sifry of Technorati was very impressive, he came out with some excellent insights, sharing a lot of the points I've made many times about media and blogging. He talked abut how the blogs need big media and vice...[Read Full Article]

Tech Policy Summit: Tech companies have deep pockets and short arms
Elizabeth Corcoran, an editor at Forbes, moderated Developing Top Talent: Education, Immigration, and Innovation Leadership. She did a fine, spirited job trying to enliven the panel members: Phil Bond, head of the Information Technology Association of America. Dr. AnnaLee Saxenian, Dean, UC Berkeley's school of Information, and Rosen Sharma, CEO of Solidcore Systems. She eventually succeeded in her mission and there were some interesting points made. Mr Sharma said that the work visa process to bring in a foreign worker is too long, at least 3 months to arrange for an interview when it used to be done the same day. He said that even if the visa process were opened up, it is not clear that the US could attract the world's top talent. He said China, for example, was hiring "hordes" of top medical practitioners to staff its medical universities. Mr Bond complained that tech companies no longer had the same glamerous appeal they once had among politicians. And that the tech sector voice was too fragmented, it was split among too many associations. He added that the tech industry wasn't able to bring attention to the positive aspects outsourcing, that it actually does create jobs here. Ms. Saxenian said that tech companies lost a lot of their glamour after the dotcom bust. And that tech companies have never spent enough money contributing to political campaigns. "The politicians like to say that the tech companies have deep pockets and short arms," she said. . . . Please also see:  Low turnout...[Read Full Article]

Silicon Valley has become Media Valley - someone should tell NYC
 Silicon Valley is rapidly turning into Media Valley--and New York, NY should look out--the capital of the media world is shifting about 3,000 miles westwards. Some of Silicon Valley's largest companies are media companies: Google, Yahoo, EBay, for example are media companies--they publish pages of content and advertising around it. Some of the most interesting and most valuable new Silicon Valley companies, such as Youtube, Facebook are based here in Northern California. So is Craigslist, the seventh largest online media company in the English language world (in terms of traffic). Take a look at Business 2.0's 25 startups to watch and look at how many of these mostly "social" media and advertising companies and are based in the Bay Area:18. Only two are based in New York. Masters of the Universe But if you work in Manhattan you feel at the center of the media universe. Midtown and the Avenue of the Americas is where the capital of the media industry has sat for many decades. Whenever I am in New York, it feels as if I am in the coolest, the most media saviest place in the world. Just as in the famous New Yorker magazine cover, in which New York is depicted large and the Rest of the World is shown as distant, small, and uninteresting, that's the way it feels to me when I'm there. As a media professional, New York has always been a mecca, where I love to be. It was one of the perks...[Read Full Article]

An anthropologist explains Web 2.0 in pictures
Excellent video describing Web 2.0. It's probably the best definition I've seen. (Hattip Chris Dichtel.) By Michael Wesch Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. It is not surprising that an anthropologist put this together. It must be boom times for that profession, I would think!!! After all, they study social networks full time....[Read Full Article]

Friday Watch: Ze Frank came to town; Email your dreams into your future; A community for parents; UberPulse blog; Creative Commons chatter; Picasso is in town
A couple of weeks back I got to meet Ze Frank thanks to Nick Douglas. Ze is a very thoughtful chap, we had an interesting discussion about the dark side of community. Ze Frank lives in New York and is one of the pioneers of vidblogs, last year he won a Vloggie for his “The Show.” He makes his money by speaking at conferences. (zefrank - live shows.) Ze has one of the most interesting web sites with hours of fun. Check out this item! See also: Link to Laughing Squid » Ze Frank ... A reader writes: Link to Dreaminder. Remind yourself of your dreams There's innovation on handling your dreams:A website called Dreaminder enables you to write down your dream and send it to yourself in the future. On the date you specify, you will receive your dream in the email you entered. At that point, you have the opportunity to compare the life you live with your dreams and see how far you've come. . . . A reader writes: Schoolparentnet.com is a great secured site community for parents of pre-k through 12 grades. Schoolparentnet focus on providing tools and connections for parents through their schools for fundraising events, activities, projects and trips.  . . . Jean-Baptise Su is now publishing  UberPulse - a weblog about tech and Silicon Valley, with lots of video. . . . The Creative Commons Salon on Wednesday evening at ShineSF was dull despite a decent sized crowd which chattered away noisily through the presentations. Creative...[Read Full Article]

Innovation and Disruption - the semantic battle solved
I've been thinking a lot about innovation and what it means the past couple of weeks. It's a topic I've delved into before too, with Geoffrey Moore (see posts at end). My complaint is that "innovation" is used too broadly these days, its meaning is being diluted, it is being used to describe incremental improvements in business process rather than disruptive, which is its more traditional use. Here is how I can prove it: -The term "innovation" is being used by a lot of people and companies these days. They would only use the term if it held a special significance in our culture--and it clearly does. But it is appended to things that offer "incremental" improvements and thus they are made to sound better than they would be. -Our history books are full of innovations--none of them are "incremental" they are all game changing, disruptive technologies. Show me one that is incremental.   I can't fight the broad trend to dilute the meaning of innovation. IBM, Geoffrey Moore, et al, have a lot more resources to call upon and can make changes in meaning over time. Therefore, I will give up using innovation in my tag line..."reporting on the business and culture of innovation." Instead, I'll use this: "Silicon Valley Watcher: Reporting on the business and culture of disruption." I think it is a more powerful way of saying "innovation." - - - Additional Info: Innovation inflation - innovation is everywhere, even on business cards   Geoffrey Moore: Disrupting myths of disruptive...[Read Full Article]

The New Video Summit - Silicon Valley meets Hollywood
I'll be speaking at The New Video Summit coming up on March 19 to 22 in San Jose. Looks to be an interesting event. If you decide to go please use priority code IPM1. Bram Cohen, CEO of BiTorrent will keynote. Plus: Mike Lang, EVP, Business Development and Strategy, Fox Networks Daniel Scheinman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Media Solutions Group Brent Weinstein, Head of Digital Media, United Talent Agency  Tara Maitra, Vice President, General Manager, Content Services, TiVo Inc. Dina Kaplan, Founder & CEO, Blip.tv Dmitry Shapiro, CEO, Veoh Robert Petty, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Board, ROO Group Michael Gordon, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder, Limelight Networks Herve Utheza, Vice-President and Executive Producer of TV Properties, Orb Networks Chris O'Brien, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Motionbox Nizar Allibhoy, Principal, MediaEnable, LLC Matt Sanchez, President, CEO, Co-Founder, VideoEgg Om Malik, Gigaom Rafat Ali, Paidcontent.org Andreas Kluth, The Economist Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher    ...[Read Full Article]

A proposal for a unit of innovation/disruption
I was discussing innovation Wednesday evening with my old buddy Tom Abate from The SF Chronicle. These chats always provide lots of fodder for posts. And in talking about innovation I began to wonder if it was synonymous with disruption. I think it is, because if innovation is not disruptive it won't get funding, at least not here in Silicon Valley. Is there a unit of disruption? I'll propose one: a $1Billion unit of disruption reached over 5 years (BUD). 1 BUD = A business process that has the potential to generate $1bn in annual sales within five years. That's about the minimum upside that a Silicon Valley startup needs to show in order to get funding. More is better, a five BUD would be stellar. And 1 BUD = 1 Innovation Unit. Because Innovation has to be disruptive, imho. ... Tom Abate: MiniMediaGuy...[Read Full Article]

Innovation inflation - innovation is everywhere, even on business cards
About 15 miles south of San Jose, down a country lane, and hidden behind one of the scenic rolling hills of "Steinbeck country" is IBM's Silicon Valley research and development labs. It used to be called Santa Teresa Labs, opened in 1977 with about 3,000 square feet, housing about 1300 researchers, mostly working on software projects. It is miles from Silicon Valley and out in the middle of nowhere, but this is one of IBM's top research labs. Clearly, IBM renamed the labs because it wanted it to be associated closely with Silicon Valley, and with innovation - the life blood of Silicon Valley. I was there recently for an event that showcased some of IBM's customers (EBay, Yahoo)  and IBM's technologies. I heard a lot about innovation. Innovation was by far the most commonly used term by the presenters. I also heard a lot about IBM's "Innovation Jam." This is an event that takes place once a year and was started in 2001, bringing together tens of thousands of IBM people, and customers, in a three-day brainstorming festival. I had two questions: The first was "what is innovation?" I was told that it means bringing people together to create new ways of thinking and of doing things. I was told that Innovation Jam created a whole pipeline of projects and that some of those became significant businesses, etc. But what I really heard between the lines, was that IBM was using collaborative technologies to create business ideas and...[Read Full Article]

A beastly Technorati rank...
I was just checking my Technorati ranking and noticed this...(!)...[Read Full Article]

Yakety Yak: There are several ways to monetize Web 2.0
I love to remind people that blogging is by far and away the most honest form of self promotion bar none. Because if you can't walk the walk and talk the talk it becomes very obvious--you can't fake it. About 99.999 per cent of bloggers out there make their money from their day jobs, they establish thought leadership in their professions, whether it is a lawyer, or a consultant, or an industry executive--their blog is a way to draw attention and monetize their day job, or promote their books, consulting, or any other related products. The trouble with being a journalist blogger, however, is that I have nothing but this news journalism to sell. Which is why I would like to write a book, and I think I have a good title and some good content: IMHO: 25 Essays From The Future (let me know what you think of the title). It will be based on some of my writings here and elsewhere, and it will be about trends and life in Silicon Valley. The main reason I'd like to write a book is not that a book is a direct pathway to  paying my rent, books generally don't make much money for their authors. But, there is an opportunity for speaking engagements and public speaking that pays very well. Take a look at these speaker fees, which some of our top Web 2.0 evangelists collect many times per year (these are starting amounts, sometimes less in return for promotional...[Read Full Article]

Sponsorwatch: Cohn & Wolfe leader sponsor of New Rules Communications
We are pleased to announce Cohn & Wolfe as a sponsor of our new sister site: New Rules Communications - reporting on the new rules in media and pr. It also marks the launch of Cohn & Wolfe's blog: Boomerang - What goes around, comes around. I think it is important for PR firms to show how they are using new media in their business in order for them to be able to show clients that they understand the new media and how it works. This type of understanding can only be had by doing and not by saying or reading about it. Tony Obregon at Cohn & Wolfe has been spearheading new media practices,  along with Chris Knight and Annie Longsworth. I'm impressed with the team at the San Francisco office and the mix of clients they have been working with. And it is a much different culture than the valley PR firms. I'm always keen to be associated with companies and organizations that are trying out new things and there are many new things to try out these days. And I've turned down sponsorship opportunities with companies that I felt were not trying out anything new but just wanted to be seen as if they were. Media and PR are changing rapidly because of all the new media technologies pouring out of Silicon Valley and beyond, and the new rules that are emerging will set the format for the next decade. I want to help discover and establish the...[Read Full Article]

SwitchPlanet launch: Trade stuff you have for stuff you want
Chris Samarin just launched SwitchPlanet.com as a private beta and would love to get some feedback on the site. He is also able to sign up some private beta testers (csamarin(at)gmail.com.) Chris explains: Basic concept...recycle the things you have and no longer need to get the stuff you want all for free(no sign up fees, no transaction fees, no monthly fees, etc.). Because it's free we give members the option to make a donation that goes into our SwitchFund that gets distributed among charities and non-profits.  Members can also create profiles and socialize and all that great stuff. I'm a one man shop, with a dev team, but no funding or marketing "guru" to help get the word out.  A quick look into the future…I'm looking to add SMS member verification (similar to how Gmail works when you sign up) before we come out of private beta and then start rolling out new features like friends and groups as well as branch out into the UK and into other switch-able items like books, tools or whatever else the members ask for during the open beta period.  ...[Read Full Article]

GOOGlink WiFi signal could crowd out other WiFis
Here is an interesting wrinkle in the battle over the Public Internet (PI) in San Francisco. The proposed Google/Earthlink "free" WiFi could take up all the available bandwidth on the WiFi radio frequency. Here is Tim Redmond from Politics Another problem with Googlink Wifi: Sarah Phelan gets into it here. Sasha puts it this way: The network will be exclusive. Although the network is not an explicit monopoly, it will essentially take up all the bandwidth at the frequency wi-fi uses, so it would be difficult or impossible to have a competing network without using a completely different (and likely more expensive) technology. Think about this for a second. San Francisco is full of all sorts of little (and not-so-little) wi-fi networks. SFLAN, for example, is building a free wifi service with a rooftop-to-rooftop backbone. Lots of people have smaller wi-fi setups that let them, for example, sit out in their backyards with a laptop and check their email. And if Googlink puts up its private wi-fi cloud, all of those other networks will run into interference. I'm not an expert on the technical details here, but Tim Pozar, who runs United Layer, is, and here's how he explaned it to me: "The type of spectrum we're using is interference-prone. There's just not that much space on the spectrum. The number of access points that are required [to set up citywide wi-fi] could mean one every block. That's a lot of radio frequency energy. It will significantly impact others who...[Read Full Article]

Zolved: Harvesting the community wisdom of geeks about gizmos
This is a great idea: Zolved.com is growing a community of people and answers to common consumer tech problems. As we get more and more digital gadgets and objects, making them work right, and work collaboratively with all our other gadgets gets to be very challenging. Quite often people abandon digital gadgets because they are too difficult to learn to operate. This could do a lot to help sell digital products. Also, Zolved offers a killer feature, it lets you remotely take control of your parent's PC, for example, to help solve problems. Here is Ratan Tipirneni, Founder and CEO to explain more about his company: Zolved.com harnesses the knowledge of thousands of consumers who have successfully solved technical problems and directs proven solutions from the knowing to those consumers who need to know.    The power of many individuals is put in service to the needs of one, along with targeted content obtained through vertical searching of industry manufacturers and experts.   Zolved.com technical experts then filter the content.  The result is the best match between a problem and speedy solution.If community-based assistance can’t resolve an issue, Zolved.com visitors can receive an answer by stating their problem and receiving an answer from Zolved.com's extended team of worldwide technical experts, or “gurus,” both within the company and the community at large.   Answers can be immediately available and, if not, a guru will often research the problem and respond with an answer once found.Local Technical Resources Zolved.com recognizes that not...[Read Full Article]

Google loses an "L" has anyone seen it?
Caroline Andreolle points out that today's Valentine's day Google page is missing an "l."...[Read Full Article]

Yahoo Music Chief exit surprisingly fast...
Sarah Spitz from radio station 89.9 KCRW-FM in Santa Monica says Dave Goldberg's departure from Yahoo Music was a big surprise since he had just been on a panel discussion that was posted yesterday: Jason Calacanis hosted, Steve Marks of RIAA, Dave Goldberg, Eric Garland of Big Champagne.com and Celia Hirschman, of indie label One Little Indian discussed the subject. http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/pc/pc070213the_music_industry_a --- 2.13.07: Yahoo Music execs resign UPDATE: Here's the official statement from Yahoo: Statement: David Goldberg and Robert Roback, Vice Presidents and General Managers of Yahoo! Music, have resigned. As the founders of LAUNCH Media and the leaders of Yahoo! Music, Dave and Bob have made... Posted by Richard Koman on February 13, 2007 10:16 AM Yahoo exec says removing DRM from music boosts sales Steve Jobs' recent call to take DRM off music allies him with Dave Goldberg, head of Yahoo Music, one of the top competitors to Apple's iTunes. I met with Dave Goldberg recently, when he was in town along with other Yahoo... Posted by Tom Foremski on February 11, 2007 5:25 PM  ...[Read Full Article]

After a hard day's night a little help from my invisible friends
I tend to work late in the day and into the night because the evening events are often poorly attended by other journalists, and so there is a greater chance of bringing back a scoop. Tuesday evening I went to HP's launch of enterprise OS and server products. I quickly recovered from that event and happily looked forward to one of my favorite bands Los Amigos Invisible, playing a five minute walk away at The Independent. It was a show that I couldn't imagine. Lucky me. My Invisible Friends are playing at The Independent today, too, Feb 14.   (Let me know if you like them.)...[Read Full Article]

Is HP an IT services company?
I popped into HP's launch of its latest HP-UX operating system and new servers Tuesday evening. It was held at 111 Minna Art Gallery in San Francisco rather than Palo Alto, where HP usually does such things. I would rather HP had held the launch in Palo Alto because then I wouldn't have gone to it. It was a deadly dull affair but I did get a chance to catch up with some of my colleagues, Don Clark, Dan Farber, Tom Saunders, Jean Baptiste, and friends at HP. Up on the small stage there were three HP enterprise execs. One talked about the new version of HP-UX and how it makes everything 30 per cent faster. Another person talked about blade servers and more performance per watt than competitors. I also heard several times that Sun is not a very good enterprise company, (I will follow up on that lead later.) Ann Livermore, HP Services chief was supposed to be there but did not show up. Was it bait-and-switch? I don't know but  it made me wonder: Why were the HP execs talking about operating systems and servers and not about IT solutions? Whenever I used to hear Ann Livermore, or Carly Fiorina the message over the past seven years has been that HP is an IT solutions company. I didn't hear a thing about IT solutions, just a bunch of stuff about application performance from HP operating systems and servers. I didn't hear about any specific applications, just "average"...[Read Full Article]

SVW Interview: CTO John Roese on Nortel's Burn the Boats Strategy for 4G
The clap and rumble of thunder is followed within seconds by the sound of a torrential, tropical downpour. I'm sitting in the Tonga Room, in the bowels of the swank Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, with John Roese, CTO of Nortel, the $11bn Canadian telecoms equipment giant. The thunder and lighting and tropical rain storms are fake, and only briefly interupt our conversation, which must sound like mumbo jumbo to many of the happy hour crowd that is sitting on adjoining tables. As soon as I met Mr Roese that Thursday evening, we launched straight into a conversation about the IPSEC standard, and then into an alphabet soup of acronyms associated with a multitude of communications standards and Internet technologies. But that's what this sector is about: billions of dollars being staked by telecommunications, cable companies, government agencies and enterprises on numerous existing and next generation communications and networking technologies. The problem is that not all sectors of the market are as fast moving as others. There is a lot of older telecommunications and Internet infrastructure in place. Yet there is a fourth generation (4G) of mobile wireless and communications technologies ready to roll. They offer dramatic improvements in capacity and equally dramatic reductions in costs. Burn the boats However, there is still a lot of 3G and older equipment being purchased with few gung ho proponents for 4G. It is a status quo that Nortel was once happy to support unti just a few months ago,  when it came up...[Read Full Article]

Web 2.0 heads offline: Fabrik acquires much larger SimpleTech group in $43m cash deal
To succeed in the consumer space, scale is very important which means an M&A wave is inevitable. Fabrik, a startup based in San Mateo, late Sunday announced it had acquired the consumer products business of SimpleTech. Fabrik offers online consumer media storage along with software to manage all types of media such as movies, music, and photos. This deal gives the web services company a physical presence through SimpleTech's retail channels Fabrik says that SimpleTech is the third largest US "provider of hard disk drive-based external, portable and network storage solutions for consumers and small business users. The purchase also includes the company’s flash memory cards, USB flash drives and memory upgrades." It is a cash deal valued at about $43m. It also brings together executives who used to work with each other, which will help, since the two businesses are very dissimilar. Foremski's Take: Fabrik's move is smart because it can acquire new customers for its web services business at a low cost. Customers of SimpleTech's products are very likely to be consumers looking for solutions to storing large numbers of media files, which is Fabrik's business. Memory/storage  devices can easily be linked to online media management services such as the free version of myfabrik. Then come the opportunities to upsell premium services and other memory products into the consumer media market. Otherwise, to rise above the noise level in consumer media would cost Fabrik tens of millions of dollars in annual marketing costs. This strategy is a more effective...[Read Full Article]

Yahoo exec says removing DRM from music boosts sales
Steve Jobs' recent call to take DRM off music allies him with Dave Goldberg, head of Yahoo Music, one of the top competitors to Apple's iTunes. I met with Dave Goldberg recently, when he was in town along with other Yahoo media execs, and asked him about DRM. "I've long advocated removing DRM on music because there is already a lot of music available without  DRM, and it just makes things complicated for the user." He said that Yahoo Music has done experiments where it has offered music with or without DRM, and that removing DRM boosts music sales. He said that the Microsoft DRM that Yahoo Music uses "doesn't work half the time." Mr Goldberg said that Yahoo Music will explore ways it can get "off the PC." He said that there would be an announcement later this year with a large partner. Removing DRM would make it easier for music to be played on different systems. "The car is the one thing that is keeping CD sales alive. Getting music into the car is a challenge, I don't know what the best solution is," Mr Goldberg said. ....... Additional Info: Jobs welcomes the death of DRMYahoo Media Group reorganizes to monetize major brands - with or without permission 1.24.07: Apple DRM illegal in Norway In media, the medium defines the DRM DVD Jon says he has cracked Apple DRM Digital Rights Management Primer .......Yahoo Music exec suggests we'd all be better off without DRM...[Read Full Article]

Iceland's geo hotspots could power GOOG server farms
I was recently chatting with a financial analyst from Norway about Iceland and the M&A wave that has been happening. Icelandic companies are on a tear acquiring large companies elsewhere. This is a nation of about 300k people. He happened to mention that energy is virtually free in Iceland because of all the geothermal hotspots there. Very cheap electric power attracts aluminum smelters. But where there are aluminum smelters GOOG is not far behind these days. GOOG also wants cheap electric power for its data centers, and that is why it is building a massive data center in Oregon, tapping into cheap(er) hydroelectric power. How long before GOOG data centers spring up in Iceland? And what is the next step in this approach? How about IP/data processing embedded in the electric power supply. You pay for the electricity but you get the communications/data processing for next to free......[Read Full Article]

San Francisco: GOOG/Earthlink WiFi project runs into ACLU concerns
The San Francisco WiFi deal with Google and Earthlink has run into more problems: (Hat tip Kimo Crossman)   http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/aclu-puts-heat-on-earthlink-and-google-in-san-fran/2007-02-08 ACLU puts heat on Earthlink and Google in San Fran February 8, 2007 · In: Wi-Fi | Wireless Regulation As if Earthlink and Google aren't getting enough heat over their muni-WiFi project in San Francisco. The ACLU of Northern California told the city's Board of Supervisors that its contract with Earthlink and Google doesn't have enough privacy and speech protections when it comes to the information Earthlink and Google will collect and share about end users. The contract doesn't have any limits on what kind of information Earthlink will collect, while the terms for Google call for requiring "minimal" information on login without defining what minimal means. The ACLU also said customers should be able to opt in or out of any service that collects data on what they look at on the Internet, and no provisions exist. For more about the ACLU's concerns in San Francisco:- read this article from InfoWorld ---- More here from WebProNews, and here from Light Reading.   http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_strategy/more_trouble_ahead_for_googles_sf_wifi_plan.html...[Read Full Article]

The Vikings are in GOOG's rear mirror and coming up FAST
FAST Search and Transfer has suddenly popped into my sphere of attention and I mean really popped. I got to spend some time at FAST's user conference at the end of last week, and it was an educational experience that got me interested in search again. This Norwegian based enterprise software search company has made the subject of search compelling again. For too long GOOG has made it appear as if it had already won the search wars--anything better would be an incremental improvement. Yet enterprise search--which is where FAST has staked its expertise--is a much more interesting subject than I imagined, and much more interesting than consumer search. Enterprise search is much more difficult problem, and one of the most challenging problems in IT. Consumer search can be vague and still be successful. It can bring up a list of nearly relevant sites or documents, and usually that is all that is needed. But in the enterprise, search is usually needed to find something very specific, a contract, a purchase order, a memo.  And there are all sorts of conditions associated with access to data, some security based, others are regulatory. Search quickly becomes quite a complex process and one that can lead to other things. Enterprises use a lot of structured data, but there is also a massive amount of unstructured data too. Search in the enterprise could potentially bring the two data world's together. You might even be able to create enterprise applications by using modified...[Read Full Article]

IDC study will reveal the dark matter of search queries
Susan Feldman, a senior analyst at IDC, will release on Friday the results of a groundbreaking study that shoots down one of the largest myths in search engine marketing: that the majority of traffic to web sites comes from the top ten search engines. By comparing publicly available traffic data from companies such as Nielsen Research, with research of its own, IDC found a big discrepancy in terms of the number of search queries tracked. Ms Feldman said, "Our model showed that there were seven to ten times more search queries being made and that the large search engines had only about 30 per cent of the search query traffic." Ms Feldman said that the missing search queries, the dark matter of the search engine world, were coming from direct queries. People would go to a web site such as Amazon.com and type in a search query. "This means that there is a massive business opportunity still to be had. The top search engines do not own the web, at least yet," said Ms Feldman. The IDC results will be released at a Friday session at a conference organized by Fast Search & Transfer, a client of IDC and a vendor of search enterprise software. Earlier this week Fast introduced its AdMomentum product which allows online publishers to set up their own advertising networks instead of sharing revenues with Google, Yahoo or other ad networks. . . . Foremski's Take: The IDC findings are not a revelation for any...[Read Full Article]

The GOOG threat to traditional PR
I ran into Andy Lark, earlier this week. Andy used to be corporate comms chief at Sun Microsystems. He now spends most of his time as Chief Marketing Officer at LogLogic, a fast growing enterprise software company. LogLogic, like many other startups, uses a PR agency to help get its message out to potential customers. Andy told me that he recently noticed that he was starting to spend more money on buying Google adwords than on PR. And when push comes to shove, I know where most cmpanies will put their money. You can pin a ROI on GOOG adwords that you can't with PR This is a very significant crossover point. It represents one of the many threats to traditional PR. And there are many PR agencies that only understand the old approach, no matter what they say about new/social media. There is a disconnect in the PR world that is going to hit that industry hard. .... Additional info: Andy Lark's Blog. SVW: Andy Lark agrees...blogging is disrupting PR...[Read Full Article]

Poor turnout at Josh Wolf Benefit
I popped into the Josh Wolf benefit and it was very poorly attended. And it is because he doesn't have the same kind of backing that journalists-with-a-job have. Such as those at the San Francisco Chronicle facing similar US government assaults on the freedoms of expression, and journalism. With that kind of poor support I think Josh should just give the grand jury the video tapes, there is no sense in resistance if it is not appreciated. Why spend all that time in jail if it isn't noticed? Let's choose these battles with less suffering for those involved. All those that feel that Josh should stand up for Shield Laws and the rights of journalists were not there on Tuesday evening at the House of Shields. Josh Wolf is a hardcore journalist and with bigger cojones than most of his peers. He should not be rotting in jail for a group of people that don't recognize his stand, or that of his stalwart family and friends, imho. Free Josh Wolf. .... Jailed journalist's mom asks for support for son and Bill of Rights...[Read Full Article]

As San Francisco ponders its Public Internet, FON gives away 10,000 routers
San Francisco holds the first of a series of public hearings at City Hall on the municipal Wi-Fi Google/Earthlink Project: Wednesday Feb 7 at 3pm City Hall, Board Chamber, room 250, Budget and Finance Committee. First District Supervisor Jake McGoldrick has sponsored a resolution on the project. San Francisco Budget Analyst report:"Fiscal Feasibility Analysis of a Municipally-Owned Citywide Wireless Broadband Network."   San Francisco Examiner has an editorial by on the SF Wi-Fi deal by Supervisor McGoldrick saying it should not be rushed through. S.F. should not rush free Wi-Fi deal When The City selects one company to take over our public assets to provide service, the only guarantee is that the provider will dictate the quality and cost of service. The consumers lose. Government loses its governance. And taxpayers are subsidizing EarthLink/Google’s businesses by paying for its infrastructure while being charged for their services. EarthLink/Google should not reap the benefits of the public’s use without giving much in return. . . . Another way to offer public Internet access is through FON, a company that sells routers that have a public and private WiFi channels. Users share their WiFi connection with anybody within range while keeping a secure private connection. To celebrate its one year birthday FON is giving away 10,000 WiFi routers for free in the US. FON is backed by Google, Skype, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures and has more than 250,000 users in 140 countries. Please see SVW:The battle for the last-mile heats up as...[Read Full Article]

Jailed journalist's mom asks for support for son and Bill of Rights
From Liz Wolf-Spada: Tomorrow, February 6, Josh will become the journalist longest imprisoned for refusing to testify before a grand jury. As his mom, I am angry and outraged that my son, a man of principle, who is a patriot, who is standing up for our US Constitution is jailed by a government that has shown no respect, or even understanding of the Bill of Rights. Please write Congress asking that they do for Josh what they are attempting to do for the Chronicle reporters. Rescind the subpoena, purge the civil contempt charge from his record and release him immediately. Just last Tuesday, his lawyers were denied the opportunity for a hearing to present evidence as to why Josh would never testify. The judge ruled on this without even allowing the lawyers to present their case or respond to the US Attorney's statement. There is no evidence that the US Attorney is even actively investigating ANY crime from that protest, and there IS evidence from the SFPD report that the only damage that police car suffered was a broken tail light. Please visit http://www.joshwolf.net freejosh (at) pbwiki.com.His proud and very concerned mom,Liz Wolf-Spada   ........... The Free Josh Wolf Coalition will be holding a press conference on the front steps of San Francisco City Hall at noon on Feb 6. Please help spread the word about this important event. Press conference press release WHAT: Free Josh Wolf Coalition Press Conference WHEN: Tuesday, February 6th, Noon WHERE: 1 Carlton B. Goodlett...[Read Full Article]

FAST AdMomentum: Publishers Can Throw Out the Third-Party Ad Networks
FAST Search and Transfer, the European based search giant, today announced software that allows online publishers to serve contextual ads to their readers. The FAST AdMomentum software could increase ad revenues by more than 200 per cent for some publishers, compared with large advertising networks such as Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network. This is a software package installed in a publisher's data center. FAST says that it could also be used by a third party to offer a ready made online contextual advertising network that could be used to service many smaller online publishers such as blog networks. This means it could be used to compete with up and coming advertising networks such as FM Advertising, and AdBrite. Publishers collect between 30 per cent to 70 per cent of the revenues that their advertising network partners receive--an amount that varies according to each deal. Google doesn't disclose the revenue split. With AdMomentum, large publishers can establish their own advertising networks that support contextual ads, and also offer a wide variety of other types of advertising revenue such as impressions, pay per click, and also auctions. Advertisers have a self-service interface and the software API is compatible with current advertisement tracking tools. More than a dozen large publishers around the world have been beta testing the software. Perry Solomon, VP of strategic market development at FAST, told SVW: "AdMomentum can be used to target ads to specific groups of people. One of our customers in Norway is using it to target ads to people...[Read Full Article]

Yahoo Media Group reorganizes to monetize major brands - with or without permission
Yahoo's top media execs came up from Santa Monica Tuesday to Yahoo HQ to present a new strategy for monetizing audiences of major entertainment brands such as TV's "Lost" and Nintendo's Wii. Vince Broady, head of Games and Entertainment, Scott Moore, head of News and Information, and David Goldberg, head of Yahoo Music, presented their strategies at a lunch event for top media. One of their largest initiatives is "Brand Universe" which pulls together Yahoo users in message boards, Flickr photos, Yahoo Groups, and other Yahoo sections into one location. This makes it easier to sell advertising because of the larger aggregated numbers. Vince Broady, is in charge of Brand Universe. "We will pick 100 of the top entertainment brand names and highlight and promote those brands on Yahoo. We will work with the brand owners but we can do this even if some companies don't want to work with us." Mr Broady said that Yahoo already knows what TV shows, music, films, games, game consoles will likely succeed, and which brands have momentum just from studying its users. "We saw very early on that Nintendo Wii would do well and so Wii became the first brand that we rolled out as part of Brand Universe." David Goldberg from Yahoo Music said, "We can tell with 100 per cent accuracy which songs will fail within seven days of their release." Yahoo said it would share its "Yahoo Pulse" data on which brands are doing well with brand owners because it would help them craft...[Read Full Article]

Chip industry rushing into over capacity?
Timothy Arcuri, a top chip analyst at Citigroup Investment Research raises a warning in a research note "Maybe Different This Time (But We Doubt It)." *       The chip industry has added more mfg capacity in each of past 3 yrs than any yr in history except C2000. Assuming WFE spend +5-10% in C2007 (on track, barring pushouts), this means 4 of top 5 capacity-add yrs occurred since '03.*       Memory fundamentals have been weakening, yet equipment stocks/tool orders have barely reacted. DRAM prices down ~20% past 4 wks (+ Elpida guiding CQ1 price -20% Q/Q) and Toshiba (which has raised capex past 3 yrs) is considering delay of a new NAND fab (Fab 5, according to Nikkei News).For complete note please use the following link: https://www.citigroupgeo.com/pdf/SBD96680.pdf Investors are bullish that the launch of Microsoft Vista operating system will drive new PC sales and memory chips because it won't run on most PCs/notebooks. But will businesses and consumers upgrade? Here is Computerworld: * Users Not Rushing on Vista, Office 2007http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/1226967/429922/49017/2/ Intel and IBM recently revealed their 45nm process, which means they can pack lots more chips onto each silicon wafer. Within a year Intel will have three 300mm fabs cranking out 45nm chips. Just one 300nm fab can produce a flood of chips. More chips equals lower prices means lower priced PCs means higher sales of computer products. But it means tough times for chipmakers that can't compete at 45nm with 300mm fabs at $3bn a piece....[Read Full Article]

US Tech Firms Lame Excuse on China Business
U.S. Tech Companies Urge Washington to Confront China on Internet Censorship WASHINGTON (AP) -- American technology giants urged the U.S. government Tuesday to do more to confront China and other countries about Internet censorship. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. also defended themselves against accusations that they have helped governments such as China's crush dissent in return for access to booming Internet markets. Andrew McLaughlin, senior counsel for Google, told a State Department-sponsored conference on Internet freedom that his company is trying to use its presence in countries that are restrictive to provide communication options, such as e-mail and blogs, for people who may not have other ways to talk to each other freely.    Give me a break. What a flimsy excuse for GOOG's China business. What's so noble about providing email and blogs in China? There are plenty of providers of such services. And communicating freely in China is not to be encouraged because these US companies will turn you over to the Chinese authorities in a Silicon Valley nanosecond, if asked. They want the US government to take on China on Internet censorship. Usually tech companies want to keep the government out of anything to do with anything. It's easier to pass the buck than act in an ethical manner. Do No Evil? How about Do Some Good. I know that some of the the employees of YHOO, GOOG and MSFT feel that way, and maybe the rest too. How about the management?    ...[Read Full Article]

Fake Steve Jobs blog taken down
I'm sad to hear that the fake Steve Jobs blog is being taken down for legal reasons, enjoy it while you can: Well my friggin lawyers are advising me that I will have to shut down this scandalous old blog. Details not worth going into here. Someday I'll be able to explain. Maybe I'll write a book or something. Maybe a really beautiful e-Book that you can carry in your pocket and which will be sleek and elegant and shiny, with rounded corners and an extremely hi-res touch screen and only one button. Anyhoo, I've really enjoyed having this naked conversation with you, and I hope I've managed to restore a sense of childlike wonder to your life. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/   At least we have the fake Robert Scoble blog! (Hat tip to Fake Steve!) There’s a new sort of social networking event that a few people have tipped me off about. It’ s kind of like LinkedIn, except that you meet offline in small groups of about 6 people. You eat food and drink alcohol while talking IRL about the latest great Gunjian technology. I think this “dinner party” network could be the next Orkut. Scoobietron - Pro Dork Blogger...[Read Full Article]

Harvard Business Review's 20 counter-culture breakthrough ideas
The Harvard Business Review has a list of top 20 "Breakthrough Ideas for 2007." Some interesting, ideas here that are counter-culture in that they challenge accepted thinking in many different areas. Siobhan Ford from HBR says that the list is free to read for all of February and that the most popular ones so far are:   The Accidental Influentials—Forget the Tipping Point. New research shows that ordinary people, not influentials, are the best word-of-mouth marketers. Living with Continuous Partial Attention—The increased “coping mechanism” we’ve adapted to keep up with information flying across our radar 24/7, thanks to the endless bandwidth of technology. Can a backlash be far off? An Emerging Hotbed of User-Centered Innovation—Customers aren’t just voicing their needs to companies that are willing to listen; they’re inventing and often building what they want. The Folly of Accountabilism—Accountability has gone horribly wrong, tricking people to believe they can control their lives by adhering to specific rules of right and wrong. The HBR List Breakthrough Ideas for 2007 I also found #2, #9, #10, #11 and #14 fascinating.   Here is the list with links to the individual articles....[Read Full Article]

Reposting due to server problems...
The server over at TotalChoice Hosting has been going down all week and has erased all of this week's entries and comments. I'm reposting some of the entries but I don't have copies of all the comments, my apologies....[Read Full Article]

IBM says Intel not alone in solving 45nm chip roadblock
(Intel is an SVW sponsor.) IBM says it has matched Intel's chip breakthrough with the discovery of materials that can make chips smaller and faster. "Until now, the chip industry was facing a major roadblock in terms of how far we could push current technology," said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president of Science and Technology, IBM Research. "After more than ten years of effort, we now have a way forward. IBM's East Fishkill fab in New York will start producing 45nm chips in 2008. . . . Foremski's Take: IBM is one of the only chipmakers that can take on Intel in bragging rights around leading edge chip technologies. IBM has pioneered a lot of important chip technologies. For example, It figured out a way of using copper in chips so that the metal wouldn't contaminate the entire wafer. It also pioneered silicon-on-insulator (SOI)--a technology that boosts the speed of chips. (Intel won't touch SOI, it says there are better ways to achieve a similar performance boost.) The difference between the two chipmakers is that IBM is in the foundry business, it makes chips for whoever pays the invoice. Intel is not, it works only for itself. Using IBM to make your chips gives you access to leading edge  technologies but it doesn't come cheap. And that is the challenge that the AMD/IBM alliance faces: to be able to match Intel's 45nm process at a comparable cost of production.   Here is IBM's announcement:...[Read Full Article]

Intel says it has secret materials that make chips faster and smaller
[Intel is an SVW sponsor.] [UPDATE: Please also see: IBM says Intel not alone in solving 45nm chip roadblock] People mistake Intel for being a microprocessor manufacturer. That's just an application of what it does best: it knows how to make the world's most advanced chips in massive quantities. Late last week Intel briefed reporters and analysts on what is likely the most significant breakthrough in chip making since the late 1960s. Intel said it had discovered materials that would enable it to make the world's tiniest chips in high volumes--and place it years ahead of competitors seeking to do the same. With the its new materials, Intel is able to make chips with geometries of 45 nanometers, half the size of most leading edge chips at 90nm. Intel shares a lot of its chip research but it said it will keep these materials secret. If the information leaked out, it would enable competitors to shave years off their R&D efforts and enter lucrative chip markets years earlier. Quite rightly, Intel is racing to take advantage of this lead. It is building three giant chip fabs which will use its secret process on silicon wafers the size of large dinner plates, 300mm (12 inch) across. By the end of this year two fabs will be completed and ramping into high volume production, closely followed by a third in Israel, in early 2008--all using this advanced chip making process. This means servers, desktops, and notebooks  will run faster and cooler and will be...[Read Full Article]

The power of PI: The rise of community owned Internets
From the news story: "San Francisco activist groups rally against Google/Earthlink "monopoly" deal for free WiFi " Several San Francisco activist groups and non-profit internet companies have joined together to protest a proposed deal between the city and a Google/Earthlink partnership to provide free WiFi. Called the Public Net San Francisco coalition, the group issued a statement Friday insisting that the city government kill a multi-million dollar pending deal with Google and Earthlink. Instead, the coalition says the city's existing high speed fiber optic network has plenty of spare capacity to support a high-speed Internet network open to every resident regardless of income.   The Google/Earthlink deal with San Francisco could potentially establish a model for municipalities across the US and in other countries. It would be the start of a massive new market for giant Internet companies such as Google and Earthlink. The San Francisco deal could put them in the forefront of a race with competitors to dominate the next big business opportunity: the gold rush to monetise local markets.  It has long been my opinion that communities will increasingly seek to own their "Internet airspace." Why should the local hardware store pay Google or Yahoo to reach its customers just a mile or two away? Why let Internet giants thousands of miles away become the gatekeepers for local commercial transactions? It sucks money out of a community. But there is no need for a middleman, there is no need for a GOOG or YHOO tax on people engaged...[Read Full Article]

The battle for a Publc Internet (PI): San Francisco activist groups rally against Google/Earthlink "monopoly" deal for free WiFi
Several San Francisco activist groups and non-profit internet companies have joined together to protest a proposed deal between the city and a Google/Earthlink partnership to provide free WiFi. Called the Public Net San Francisco coalition, the group issued a statement Friday insisting that the city government kill a multi-million dollar pending deal with Google and Earthlink. Instead, the coalition says the city's existing high speed fiber optic network has plenty of spare capacity to support a high-speed Internet network open to every resident regardless of income. Bruce Wolfe of the San Francisco People's Organization, said that the proposed Google/Earthlink free WiFi network would be too slow to support many common Internet uses, such as telephony and online video. It would leave San Francisco residents "in the digital dust." Eric Brooks, with the activist group Our City, criticized San Francisco's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) for rushing through a contract process with little public input. "After nearly a century of San Franciscans suffering rip-offs and incredibly bad service under the monopoly control of our public utilities by corporations like PG&E, Comcast, and AT&T, it amazes me that DTIS can stand there with a straight face and try to convince us that we should let a multinational corporate partnership own and control our new public communications system," said Mr Brooks. The city already has much of the infrastructure in place to build a WiFi network as much as 100 times faster than the snail-paced Google/Earthlink WiFi technology. It's a...[Read Full Article]

SVW interview: John McHugh head of HP's ProCurve Networking - second largest network company
On Tuesday Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve Networking, the second largest enterprise network equipment vendor, will announce its vision for the next five years: Adaptive Networks. I recently met with John McHugh VP and general manager of ProCurve Networking. This HP business has been growing at about 25 per cent per year over the past five years, a fast pace of growth under the leadership of  Mr McHugh, a 25 year HP veteran who joined straight out of college. It is an impressive achievement, especially since few people associate HP with network equipment. Yet it is precisely this fact that has helped ProCurve build its business. Looking at Mr McHugh's business card, the HP logo occupies a tiny piece of the real-estate, and that is done on purpose. Mr McHugh's insight was to keep the HP name low-key, knowing that that would help ProCurve establish a distinct identity and communicate an image of a singularly focused business. "I didn't want to make the same mistakes that others have done, such as Dell, where its network business is seen as ancillary to its main business. ProCurve is full of people that are veterans in the network business, we speak the same language as our customers. And we re-invest about 12 per cent of our revenues in R&D. These things are very important to network equipment buyers," said Mr McHugh. ProCurve's focus comes at a time when market leader Cisco Systems is moving into consumer and other markets. Cisco also talks about the network...[Read Full Article]

Press releases are not blogs - social media discussion
By Tom Foremski There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about the "social media press release" following a panel I was on at the Third Thursday event last Thursday. Stowe Boyd later raised some good points about the PR industry and its use of the word "social" and "audiences" in the context of blogging. The problem lies in the terminology that the PR industry is using. It wants to use the blogging platform to distribute press releases but these are not blog posts. And the way the PR industry uses "social" is far different from what has been the accepted understanding. Many people have gotten hung up on the terms being used and that is understandable. And that is why I prefer more neutral terms that won't snag people's cultural sensitivity, that's the point of communicating clearly. However, we aren't going to get rid of the term "social" in the PR context and the discussions are good because they promote and educate others on what is being talked about. When it comes to companies communicating with their customers, partners, communities, their staff, a blogging platform is a perfect vehicle for press releases because Movable Type or Wordpress has all the tools and features built in for discoverability by search engines, and by others. It has links, tags, keywords, it has trackback and talkback, it can accumulate information over time, it is a type of free-floating document on the internet. These days, we don't publish to a web site...[Read Full Article]

New Comm Forum conference and discount for SVW readers
I've been speaking at New Comm Forum since the first one in January 2005 and it is my favorite conference because of the people it attracts and the topics. New Comm Forum is about trying to figure out the new rules of communications in media and PR brought about by the use of two-way media technologies that we have at our disposal, such as blogs, wikis, social media releases, etc. This year it is in Las Vegas from March 7 to 9 and SVW readers can get a $200 discount by using the promo code 612SHN. More information is here: http://www.newcommforum.com/...[Read Full Article]

VC investments highest in 5 years - Life Sciences leads, no sign of mania
Latest data from PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report, shows decent sized increase in VC deals and money invested. This means steady investment rises and no sign of over funding mania:   Venture capitalists invested $25.5 billion in 3,416 deals in 2006, realizing a 10 percent increase in deal volume and a 12 percent increase in dollar value, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Financial.  The year, which marked the highest level of investment since 2001, saw quarterly investment levels remain steady in the $5- to 6-billion dollar range, as the venture industry invested in the traditional technology and life sciences sectors and began a deliberate foray into the energy sector.   The year was characterized by significant growth in the life sciences sector, with biotech and medical device investing both reaching record high levels.  Other areas of growth included Media/Entertainment, Energy and Internet-Specific companies.  Seed and Early-Stage companies received more financing and dollars in 2006 but the largest gains were in the Expansion Stage deals during the year.  First-time financings reached the highest level since 2001.   Investments in the fourth quarter of 2006 totaled $5.7 billion in 802 deals, down from $6.6 billion in the third quarter of 2006, but were well within the range of $4.3 to $6.9 billion investments seen over past five years.   Here is the breakout (I added the bold in this section):   The Life Sciences sector (Biotechnology and Medical...[Read Full Article]

The not-so-shocking Intel/Sun alliance
(Intel is a sponsor of SVW) Monday's news that Sun will make Intel Xeon servers and Intel will promote Solaris shocked some observers. Sun's former CEO Scott McNealy used to say nasty things about Intel's Itanium 64-bit microprocessor, a competitor to Sun's SPARC chip. But that was then, when Sun still thought it had to own the stack. These days, it is less about the microprocessor and more about the system. Sun realizes that it is in the business of selling data center systems to data centers. And customers are asking for Xeon servers along with AMD, and SPARC servers, that Sun sells. And selling is a good thing. And the fact that Intel will promote Solaris along with Linux and other operating systems is good for Intel because it encourages sales of servers. What this alliance shows is that Intel has made a lot of progress in catching up to AMD's lead in low-power consuming servers. Otherwise Sun would not be getting requests from customers for Intel hardware. What this alliance needs is the addition of Hewlett-Packard, that would worry IBM. Then we'd see a West Coast/East Coast rivalry that could become very interesting to watch....[Read Full Article]

Will private equity funds gobble up tech and then the rest of corporate America?
A short series of posts on the fastest growing trend in Silicon Valley (and the rest of the world): examining the potential consequences of mergers and acquisitions by massive private equity funds. - IBM and large Silicon Valley companies are obvious acquisition targets as private equity firms readily raise multi-billion dollar funds. Click here to read . . . . . . - Will companies emerge leaner and meaner from private equity acquisitions? Or will they be weakened from higher debt loads? Their temporary owners know much about financial engineering but what about strategic positioning? . . . - Small investors are cut out of the lucrative deals pursued by private equity funds because only the very rich are allowed to invest. Yet many small investors will end up on the wrong end of those deals. They face a likely scenario that their employer will be acquired by private equity funds and that their new owners will ask for salary and other restructuring concessions. It builds on stress between the super rich and those that aren't. . . . - Will we witness the failure of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulations and the populist movement for greater corporate transparency? The expense, and the management distraction of SOX compliance is a prime reason for taking public companies private. Plus, private companies suffer less from public scrutiny, a distinct competitive advantage.  . . . - What is the future for NYSE, NASDAQ and other stock markets? With the prospect of fewer public companies as private equity firms snap them up and take them...[Read Full Article]

IBM and top Silicon Valley companies could become targets for private equity firms
IBM, the world's largest computer and IT services company, could become an acquisition target for private equity firms said Steve Bengston, managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr Bengston was speaking at a recent lunch panel on trends and predictions for 2007 organized by FountainBlue. Also on the panel was Fred Greguras, a top lawyer at Fenwick and West, and Rick Ellinger, a venture capitalist with WCA Technology, and myself. Private equity firms are raising ever larger funds and making ever larger acquisitions, some as large as $35bn, said Mr Bengston. At that rate, it is only a matter of time before even some of the largest tech companies become targets. IBM has a current market capitalization of about $145.5bn. To take the company private would require a premium to be paid. But several private equity firms could potentially finance such a deal. "IBM is a perfect candidate for private equity firms, there is a lot of restructuring that could be done," said Mr Bengston.  If such a deal were to happen, the new owners would be free to breakup the company into several large business groups. This is a strategy that IBM considered before Lou Gerstner took over as CEO in 1993. He spent nearly ten years restructuring IBM but keeping its major business groups intact. Mr Gerstner retired from IBM in December 2002 and is now a member of the Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity groups. It would be ironic if Mr Gerstner were to be brought...[Read Full Article]

Wednesday: Talking about SVW on two panels
Wednesday morning I spoke on a panel alongside some of the top journalists covering Silicon Valley:  David Kirkpatrick from Fortune, Jay Bonasia from Investor's Business Daily, and Rachel Konrad from Associated Press.  (More details here) Then in the evening, I did it again, I was on a panel with Om Malik from GigaOm, and Matt Marshall from VentureBeat. What was interesting was that in the morning I addressed an audience of public relations professionals, and in the evening I spoke to an audience of media professionals--both audiences are trying to understand what blogging is about and how it impacts their work. I knew many of the people at the evening event, which is a newly formed "tech writers" group organized by Dean Takahashi and Elise Ackerman, reporters at the San Jose Mercury. The group consists of about 50 of the top reporters covering Silicon Valley. Dean and Elise have done an excellent job in bringing reporters together--it is extremely rare that we can chat with each other without PR people or others in the mix. We met in an Italian restaurant in San Francisco. Matt spoke first, then Om, and then it was my turn to talk about the trials and tribulations of becoming a blogger journalist. The content of the evening is all off the record. However, I can write about some of the things that I talked about. I spoke about how much I liked my job, and some of the many unexpected discoveries and insights that have occurred since I...[Read Full Article]

The mumbo jumbo of social media
By Tom Foremski Tuesday evening I was in CNET's HQ in downtown San Francisco for my first Social Media Club experience. Social Media Club is a creation of my friends Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells, and it consists of bringing together small groups of people to discuss subjects and to share in idea creation. The format is "world cafe" which means people discuss and debate in groups of four or five. After 20 minutes or so, everyone changes groups, and continues the discussion. Then everyone changes groups one final time. Towards the end, the entire room is invited to share their experiences and ideas. It was time spent in the way I love to spend time: talking about media with some very interesting people. The topic that evening was social media and what could be the most powerful thing social media could achieve this year, and our role in it. Within my groups that evening, a common theme was trying to understand what is meant by "social media." It is a term that is used a lot these days, especially within the world of public relations agencies, who create "social media news releases" (BTW, I have never received a social media news release), and some agencies have "social media practices." The term social media seems to have become a catchall for the world of blogs, online forums, search-discovered content, trackbacks and talkbacks. I'm not a big fan of the term but it is becoming more common. I think a better term...[Read Full Article]

Talking about the business of technology
By Tom Foremski On the morning of January 17 I'll be on a panel with David Kirkpatrick of Fortune, Jay Bonasia from Investor's Business Daily, and Rachel Konrad from Associated Press. We'll be discussing how we cover the "business of technology" and the types of stories and trends we'll be looking for in the coming year. The panel is organized by Bulldog Reporter. More details here....[Read Full Article]

Twyla Tharp shows how to get Andy creative
By Tom Foremski Twyla Tharp, the celebrated New York based dancer has a hot book that is making the rounds out here in Silicon Valley. The Creative Habit is her blueprint for how she primes the creative and inspirational pumps. The popularity of her book represents something much larger. It is our search to be more productive, more creative, to become more inspired. Ms Tharp's techniques offer no shortcuts: "set up a routine" is the most valuable advice. At least for me. Here is a recent video of my friend Andy Plesser in New York, dancing with Ms Tharp: This is an impromptu dance created and directed by Twyla Tharp. Joining her is a complete amateur Andy Plesser, a 55-year old with no formal formal dance background but considerable enthusiam. This was part of a taping session of several interviews about dance, video, creativity and the Internet done for Beet.TV, a videoblog about the online video revolution and it's implications for business and society....[Read Full Article]

GOOG continues to gain in search engine ranks as MSFT, Ask and Time Warner slip
By Tom Foremski ComScore Networks' latest analysis of search engine activity was for December 2006, it showed Google gaining share, and at a faster pace than second placed Yahoo! Google increased its lead by 0.4 share points to 47.4 percent of the total US market, compared with November 2006. Yahoo added 0.3 share points with 28.5 percent of the total. Microsoft sites were third with 10.5 percent, followed by Ask Network with 5.4 percent, and Time Warner with 4.9 percent. Google and Yahoo gains were at the expense of Microsoft, which lost 0.5 share points, Ask, which fell by 0.1 share points, and Time Warner which lost 0.2 share points. ComScore assembles its data from monitoring the Internet activities of more than 2m consumers. Foremski's Take: Google's lead shows no signs of flagging. Yahoo is doing a decent job in gaining share but not enough to catch Google. Google continues to grow much faster. Third, fourth and fifth places in search rankings are all declining. Is there a place for these and specialized search engines on the Internet? Or is it that only the top two Internet businesses in each category have the best chances to succeed?   From ComScore Networks: * Americans conducted 6.7 billion searches online in December, up 1 percent versus November.  Annual growth rates in search query volume remained strong with a 30-percent increase since the same month a year ago. * Google Sites led the pack with 3.2 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites...[Read Full Article]

Silicon Valley secrets . . . from a Silicon Valley mom
Kate Sanford writes on the excellent group blog Silicon Valley Moms Blog. This post is a great description of the type of secrets that Silicon Valley citizens try to keep. It's all very much a part of the Silicon Valley culture. Here are some extracts from: Silicon Valley Moms Blog Silicon Valley Secrets A few months ago I was interviewed by a 19 year old intern who asked me why people blog in the silicon valley. "Because of the secrets," I said. "It's such a secretive place that we're bursting at the seams." . . .Picture an enormous elephant with blonde hair and boobs, lounging in the middle of the living room. Dressed in the finest Fendi wear. Buffing its toenails, with huge clanking bracelets sliding up and down its forelegs. THAT's technology in the valley. The coolest new product - awesome!  Oooh, check it out.  And <insert name here> just started a new company with <insert name here> making <oops, can't tell you> and funded by <insert name here.>  What fun! . . . Here are some typical (and real) valley secrets and situations. Do any sound familiar to you? In your startup, your working-from-home, equity-paid engineers have stolen the source code and are holding it hostage until you renegotiate their contract, giving them the ability to license it. Your best programmer is manic depressive and "codes better" without his meds. The president of your company has disappeared and it later comes to light that he's been murdered by...[Read Full Article]

I'll be speaking at New Communications Forum 2007 March 7-9, 2007 at the Venetian in Las Vegas
  Now in its third year, NewComm Forum is the premier conference that brings together leaders from around the globe to explore and discuss the revolutionary impact of participatory communications and social media on advertising, marketing, public relations, corporate communications, business and media. Conference highlights will include: Opening keynote presentation by David Weinberger, co-author Cluetrain Manifesto 28 conference sessions in four tracks: internal communications, public relations, advertising and marketing, journalism and new media 4 hands-on pre-conference Boot camps: Blogging 101, Wikis 101, Podcasting 101 and Videocasting 101 taught by the leading experts 1 in-depth post conference workshop: How to Map Your Social Media Strategy Expo hall featuring the latest solutions from the top vendors The comprehensive conference program will feature real-world case studies from leading companies and in-depth expert education from dozens of leading experts and the research fellows of the Society for New Communications Research, including: Tom Abate John Bell Elisa Camahort John Cass Jamie Chabra Jeff De Cagna Todd Defren Andrea Eckerle Kimberly Fabrizio Tom Foremski Paul Gillin Eileen Gittins Josh Hallett Chris Heuer Neville Hobson Shel Israel Dan Karleen Rob Key Steve King Kathy Klotz-Guest David Kligman JD Lasica Benjamin Levy Dr. Bernard Luskin Mike Manuel Albert Maruggi Jen McClure Jim Nail Brian Oberkirch Katie Delahaye Paine David Parmet Shoba Purushothaman Giovanni Rodriguez Joel Richman Gordon Rudow Zane Safrit Eric Schwartzman Ted Shelton Brian Solis Lisa Stone David Strom Laura Sturaitis Carol Thomas Jeffrey Treem Stephen Turcotte Kami Watson Huyse David Weinberger Jeremy Wright Linda Zimmer “This...[Read Full Article]

How IBM Venture Capital Group succeeds without any venture capital
By Tom Foremski Late last year I met with Drew Clark, co-founder of IBM Venture Capital Group which operates out of the heart of Silicon Valley, in Menlo Park. There are just half-a-dozen specialists and their support staff, yet the group has been very successful, and doing it with OPM (other people's money). Drew Clark, explains: "In the late 1990s we saw the many billions of dollars invested by the venture capital community and we thought about the best way we could participate and leverage those investments. That's when we set up the VC group. Since then we've helped IBM acquire key startups and also partner with hundreds of others in business ventures." IBM's Venture Capital Group does not manage a fund as do other VC organizations. The company doesn't even have a strategic VC fund such as Intel, which makes billions of dollars in investments. Instead, it tells the VC community, and the startups, what types of technologies it is interested in, and the direction of its business strategies. Then it waits for the magic innovation engine of Silicon Valley to spit out companies with technologies that it can leverage across its global business platform. For example, Steve Mills, head of IBM's Software Group, can acquire a small Silicon Valley software company and immediately monetise its products across IBM's global distribution channels. It would take years for a software company to acquire that kind of capability. It is a sweet deal for IBM since it doesn't have to identify,...[Read Full Article]

16 years fighting for our rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation fundraiser tonight!
I'm definitely going to this: Upcoming.org Electronic Frontier Foundation's Sweet 16 Party at 111 Minna Gallery (Thursday, Jan 11 2007) Join EFF for a birthday bash to celebrate 16 years fighting for your rights. The party will be on January 11, 7-10 PM at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. DJ Ripley and Kid Kameleon will be keeping the dance floor hopping all night long.A $20 donation gets you in the door. No one will be turned away for lack of funds, and all proceeds go toward our work defending your digital freedom.This fundraiser is open to the general public. 21+ only, cash bar.Electronic Frontier Foundation...[Read Full Article]

Lost in space...(CSS)
Over the past few weeks I've had time to continue my exploration of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): the glue that holds together the Web 2.0 generation of web sites. It is easy to get lost in that CSS space and lose hours, and days, because it promises supreme control over any web enabled computer user interface--which is where the crown jewels are to be found. The beauty of CSS is that there are many techniques to get to the same place, which means there are endless arguments on many issues, within the CSS webmaster communities. Yet two or more years ago, CSS was still very much in the background because web browser support was patchy and differed. These days Internet Explorer 7.0 is a much better citizen of the CSS world, and so are the other major browsers. But there is still  no universal CSS understanding among browsers. This makes it more difficult, more time consuming, and more expensive to build web sites using a pure CSS approach that look the same within all browsers. One way to avoid the madness in chasing workarounds,  is to realize that a web site should look good in all browsers, but doesn't have to look the same in all browsers. Yet within the web master web design communities there is a strong Puritan streak emerging in regards to CSS. Now the trend is to try to develop pure CSS based web sites--without taint from any other, or older web design technologies.. There is almost...[Read Full Article]

Cisco updates SVW on iPhone trademark battle with Apple
UPDATE: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a copy of the complaint (PDF). This is from John Earnhardt, Senior Manager of Policy Communications for Cisco Systems. He writes the Cisco High Tech Policy Blog: Update on Cisco's iPhone Trademark - Intellectual property is the lifeblood of Silicon Valley and we all have to protect our property. The iPhone trademark is owned by Cisco. We (Cisco) had hoped to reach an agreement to share our trademark with Apple, yet they decided to use the name without our agreement, so we, unfortunately, are having to go to court to stop them from using the name. We still hope we can reach an agreement, but when your neighbor steals your property, you have no recourse other than to call the cops and file a complaint. Full Cisco statement at: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.html Thanks John. And thanks to Ron Piovesan from Cisco for the following: Commentary from Mark Chandler, Cisco's SVP and General Counsel, on Apple's infringement of Cisco's iPhone trademark. Today’s announcement from Cisco regarding our suit with Apple over our iPhone trademark has spurred a lot of interesting questions. Most importantly, this is not a suit against Apple’s innovation, their modern design, or their cool phone. It is not a suit about money or royalties. This is a suit about trademark infringement. Cisco owns the iPhone trademark. We have since 2000, when we bought a company called Infogear Technology, which had developed a product that combined web access and telephone. Infogear’s registrations for the mark date...[Read Full Article]

Citizen Journalism in trouble as Backfence reorganizes
Dan Gillmor, the dean of citizen journalism, sold (or gave) his BayoSphere citizen journalism project to Backfence, a once-promising citizen journalism startup. Backfence, however, has run into problems as Amy Gahran, over at Poynter.org describes: Backfence (which runs a high-profile family of hyperlocal citizen-media sites) announced a substantial retrenchment. CEO and co-founder Susan DeFife resigned, citing differences with the company's board of directors. Also, 12 of 18 employees were laid off. Poynter.org: Backfence Backpedals: Money Lessons Ms Gahran runs through many possible reasons why the venture has failed to succeed. Please see: Backfence Backpedals: Money Lessons Tom's take: Citizen journalism is hard to do without a considerable involvement of professional editors. It is similar to trying to run a high school newspaper and requires a lot of work. Dan Gillmor discovered this with Bayosphere, which had a very small community involvement. It is not enough just to put up a site and have a grateful army of citizen journalists populate it with great content. Journalism is not that simple. Dan Gillmor's favorite refrain is that his readers know far more about the subject he writes about than he does. That might be true, but that doesn't mean they know how best to tell a story. Often, they are not able to tell a story because they are too close to it--they might get into trouble. And journalists get to talk to a lot of people, they can add connections and relevancy, and improve upon news stories. That's why we...[Read Full Article]

Esther Dyson leaving CNET . . . O'Reilly buys Release 1.0 turns it into 2.0
This just in from Esther Dyson and pals: Dear Tom, We are writing to let you know what has happened with PC Forum and Release 1.0. You may have heard some of this, but somehow we never managed to make a formal announcement. Nonetheless, it's time to let you know, as Esther leaves CNET Networks this week and Daphne will follow in March. Most importantly, last March's PC Forum was the last ever. It was a great event; we don't think it could have been better....and that made it the perfect time to stop. We'll miss it, and we hope you will too, but it was time to move on. Separately, CNET Networks has transferred the Release 1.0 newsletter business to O'Reilly Media, which will continue to publish the report and to manage its subscription base. There's a certain wonderful irony in the fact that O'Reilly will be taking over the business but changing the name, and we can think of no team better suited to turning Release 1.0 into Release 2.0. Such a transition would not have been so easy with PC Forum, which was essentially an entirely new project each year. Nonetheless, we will miss PC Forum. Running it was a wonderful and fulfilling challenge for 20-odd years. We got to meet the best of our industry and got all of you to engage with one another. We look back with satisfaction, and forward with anticipation, to all the start-ups, deals, friendships and relationships of all kinds that...[Read Full Article]

Jim Clark, Shutterfly chairman quits, attacks Sarbanes-Oxley
I can't tell you how many of Silicon Valley's top executives of top companies have told me over the past three years: "Tom, all these regulations are killing us." Here is an excerpt from Eric Auchard's Reuters story via Yahoo News: Sarbox (Sarbanes-Oxley) dictates that I not chair any committee due to the size of my holdings, not be on the compensation committee because of the loan I once made to the company, not be on the governance committee," Clark wrote. "It even dictates that some other board member must carry out the perfunctory duties of the chairman," he wrote in a letter dated January 1. "What's left is liability and constraints on stock transactions, neither of which excite me." . . . Clark, a veteran founder of Silicon Valley start-ups for 25 years, is the father-in-law of Chad Hurley, the co-founder and chief executive of video-sharing sensation YouTube, which late last year was acquired by Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news). "As a technologist, I feel there is little that I can offer to guide what has become a manufacturing company," he wrote. "It seems pretty clear to me that lawmakers have gone too far in considering a large shareholder to be inappropriate in the roles, but it is equally clear that I have no ability to change this in the near term," Clark's letter stated. Source: Shutterfly chairman quits, attacks Sarbanes-Oxley - Yahoo! News...[Read Full Article]

Back from London...
I'm back from London, it was a good trip. I managed to do very little while I was there, which is exactly what I needed, some time to recover from a hectic year or three. You'll be seeing some changes on SVW as it moves more towards a type of "BusinessWeek" of Silicon Valley with additional writers. It will be more "Silicon Valley Watch" rather than "Watcher." I'll also have a personal blog to distinguish "Watch" from "Watcher." We'll also be expanding with some natural additions to SVW, with a jobs section (Silicon Valley Job Search), and other related sections, such a Clean Tech section. Each section will also have its own web site. Another new site will be a spin-off of my work about media and public relations. The new site: "New Rules Communications - the new rules in media and pr" is launching later this month and will also feature other writers. We already have a sponsor for it and will soon be announcing additional sponsors. Please contact me if you are interested in one of the six sponsor positions. It is shaping up into another busy year... I want to wish my readers a very Happy New Year and much love and happiness in 2007.   Coming this week in SVW: Buzzlogic and its attempts to measure the influence of the blogosphere. A ThoughtLeader interview with Drew Clark, co-founder of IBM Venture Capital Group...[Read Full Article]

British Queen plans Xmas Podcast
I'm enjoying being in London and it is interesting that blogging and the whole "citizen media" movement is largely absent from daily discussions. But that's not surprising since culture moves slowly. Podcasting, however, is much more popular, and has been enthusiastically adopted by large institutions such as the BBC, and now, the Royal Family. The Queen, 80 years old, is planning to release a podcast of her Xmas speech. The Queen's speech is very much a core traditional element of the British Xmas experience, delivered mid-afternoon on Christmas day. The podcast was the Queen's idea, as is the content of her speech. This year the theme will be nurturing the young, and respect for the elderly....[Read Full Article]

Can dotMobi break the stranglehold of the wireless Telcos?
Accessing the Internet from cell phones is possible but the experience is poor. Mobile web browser performance is clunky, few web sites are designed for cell phone access, and the customer bill can be astronomical. I recently spoke with Alexa Raad, who heads up marketing and business development at dotMobi, a startup whose mission is to make the mobile Internet an everyday reality instead of an expensive curiosity. A key part of its strategy is establishing the domain name extension .mobi to designate web sites that support mobile browsers. But why should businesses buy a .mobi extension when their web servers already detect the type of browser and can be set up to automatically serve up a mobile version of a web page? "The extension tells users that the web site supports mobile browsers and conforms to standards that guarantee a fast download and probably has low access costs," says Ms Raad. "Some web pages can cost users as much as $10 to download because they aren't designed for mobile devices or the developers aren't aware of the costs." The operators of .mobi web sites agree to abide by three mandatory rules: no use of frames on the web sites because these are difficult to render by mobile web browsers; no use of the www prefix in the name of the web site; use of XML in creating web sites. If these rules aren't met, dotMobi has the right to revoke the use of the .mobi extension. These are very easy...[Read Full Article]

Link in to SVW on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, the business networking site, has been coming up on my radar screen quite a bit recently, and I like what I'm seeing. It has taken a while for this site to become useful and interesting because it needed to have a large enough user base. It's a chicken and egg type situation that many other social networking sites face. I like the way LinkedIn has added features that update members on things such as changes in jobs among contacts, etc. I'd like to offer my readers, an opportunity to link to me on LinkedIn. Send me an invitation (tom at SiliconValleyWatcher.com) and I promise to accept--especially if you are subscriber to SVW's Rooster newsletter (free!) and/or are an SVW news toolbar user. BTW, we're adding more features to the toolbar which will include a special alert feature notifying users of new posts and breaking news. The alert feature will be made two-way so that SVW readers will be able to let us know about breaking news in their sectors. Please note if you are in the PR community and pitch SVW: I get tons of pitches from PR companies and it is very difficult for me to keep up with them all, so I'm going to prioritize my attention. If you are an SVW newsletter subscriber I promise to look at your pitches first.   SVW Rooster newsletter signups - find out which way the wind blows in Silicon Valley!    And/or: SVW's Silicon Valley News toolbar is preloaded with...[Read Full Article]

London notes: ... diversity & integration . . . London's Poles . . . media gathering at the Cheshire Cheese . . . SVW goes offline
. . . It's good to be back in London after nearly three years away. When I arrive with my son Matthew, the weather is pretty much as I remembered it, mild and gray, and night falls early--by 4.30pm it's nearly dark. The streets are full of people and their diversity is striking. Women in full burkhas are a common site, along with people of many colors. Lots of mixed couples abound, and many different languages can be heard on the Underground, the main way for getting around town. London is much more multi-cultural and integrated than I'm used to seeing in US cities. . . . There are also lots of twenty-something Poles, seemingly everywhere. The UK and Ireland have welcomed their new European Union member neighbor by allowing Polish citizens to come over and work. By some estimates there are about 1m Poles working in the UK and Ireland--a smart move that harnesses the energies of the most motivated Polish workers--much to the benefit of the local economy. Other European countries have strict barriers on their entry. In many London neighborhoods there are Polish delicatessens, and most grocery and supermarkets have Polish food sections catering to the homesick home grown tastes of the new residents. Newspapers and magazines are printed in Polish and Polish language classes are readily found (for English people, for managers and new English spouses of Poles.) The Poles are not work shy, which has prompted the UK government to institute new policies that seek...[Read Full Article]

thisNthat before I head to London...
I'm heading out to London later today for my parent's 50th anniversary, with my son Matt. I have to figure out my internet access once I get there so I might be offline for a day or two. In the meantime, here are a few items: . . . Jon Swartz, reporter at USA Today just published: "Young Wealth: Trade Secrets From Teens Who Are Changing American Business" (Rooftop Publishing: $14.95). Dan Fost over at the SF Chronicle reviews it. My advice to teen entrepeneurs is not to publicize their business models, no good can come from it except copycat competitors. It is best to fly under the radar as any new rules enterprise knows... ;-)   . . . Silicon Valley startups get Sarbanes Oxley relief: Technet applauds SEC action to ease burden of compliance. www.technet.org. But startups want to get acquired so they want to be SOX compliant like the big boys so that they can be integrated faster.   . . . AMD says it's still ahead in electric power consumption Marty Seyer, Senior VP, Commercial Segment gave a presentation at today's AMD analyst day. http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/InvestorRelations/0,,51_306_14668,00.html - click Marty's picture for the server-specific presentation. AMD says is it is "3% faster in 2P than Intel and ahead by 7% in 4P." (Intel is an SVW sponsor.) I wonder what level of percentage improvement in server power is significant enough to sway buying decisions? It seems that the biggest savings come from the first decision to replace older power hungry servers...[Read Full Article]

Doubleclick survey finds online ads are very effective
Doubleclick, the online ad network, just announced survey results that prove online ads influence people to buy stuff. The company clearly hopes that its report will influence online ad buying. But influence is best expressed when it comes from third-parties that do not have a self-interest, which is not the case here.  The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey results revealed that influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites, as a source of further learning about purchase decisions. Nineteen percent of influencers cited web advertising as a source of information when they were researching a purchase, compared to 8 percent among the remainder of the sample. Both segments cited websites as their top source of research when they are shopping, but influencers clearly rely more on the web than non-influencers, with 40 percent of influencers citing websites for this purpose versus 31 percent of non-influencers. This part is curious: "influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites." Aren't most online ads found on websites? Isn't context important in advertising? Will we get free floating online ads with no website needed?!The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey: http://www.doubleclick.com/knowledge...[Read Full Article]

Feedback for ILikeTotallyLoveIt.com
Hi Tom,we are students that just started a new web service callediliketotallyloveit.com. On that site we offer a unique service that allows users to submit cool, hot, beautiful stuff, preferable with a link where it may be bought. If enough people agree that it is hot it will get promoted to the front page and thus exposed to a broad audience, comparable to digg.com. Rather than providing extensive product descriptions our site functions as a community-based popularity contest: which product is loved or not.Since you guys also feature news and novelties in a different way, but with a similar audience we would be thrilled if you would check our site out and maybe review us on your site.Thanks for taking the time.Best,Maltewww.iliketotallyloveit.com Malte, thanks for your email. I love the concept, the interface needs a bit of work, but then again so does mine :-) Also, you might want to approach Wists.com and see if you could do something together. Wists makes it very easy to grab an image of a product and add a comment. With these types of services, I'd love to see things segmented in terms of types of users. My likes won't be same as that of my kids, and even within any age group, further segmentation would be useful. Getting people to own their opinions in a public place is sometimes difficult because it can invite ridicule. But anonymous recommendations would mask spammers. It's an issue that many online sites/services face, how to encourage frequent...[Read Full Article]

Google's one square-inch business model...
Google's ambition is to have a searchbox in front of someone all the time. From that small rectangle of user interface, maybe it measures 1 square inch,  Google has built a massive business. Microsoft owns far more user interface real estate than Google--you'd think it would be ahead of the game. Microsoft's business model is very profitable and it is based on selling software rather than monetizing a square inch of space in front of someone. It's interesting that MSFT hasn't been able to capitalize on its far larger user interface real estate in the same way Google has, at least so far. Is this a cultural block? Whatever the reason, it's interesting. Microsoft's position reminds me of my favorite American saying: "You can't get there from here."...[Read Full Article]

Gartner predicts hasta la Vista for future Microsoft OSs
Gartner predicts the bleeding obvious: Vista will be the last Windows. LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Research firm Gartner Inc. turned soothsayer on Wednesday by predicting that Windows Vista will be the last big release of Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows operating system. Source: Gartner predicts Vista to be last major Windows - Yahoo! News Vista runs a web browser, which overlays Vista--paper covers rock... Bill Gates saw it coming when he crushed Netscape and established Internet Explorer(IE) as market leader. He realized that the browser is the interface-not the OS. It was the open source community that managed to revive Netscape's role as an alternative to Microsoft. But Microsoft did not give any respect to open source projects, it continually derided Linux for years. It did not see the challenge to IE as credible. Microsoft could have kept far ahead of the Firefox/Safari/Opera etc, pack by innovating on Internet Explorer when it had the lead. Except MSFT decided to sit on it for about three years until the recent launch of IE7. The new Internet Explorer 7.0 is good, it supports industry standards such as CSS far better than IE 6, and it has a many good features. If Microsoft had pushed that kind of innovation when it had pole position in the market, it would have taken the open source community a lot longer to catch up and challenge Internet Explorer. This is the penalty from not innovating from a leadership position. The competitive distance is shortened, and short distances hearten people...[Read Full Article]

Silicon Valley legend and hard-drive pioneer Al Shugart dies at 76
  By Michael KanellosStaff Writer, CNET News.com Al Shugart--the man who founded Seagate Technology, convinced his pet dog to run for public office, and favored Hawaiian shirts over business suits--has died at age 76. The California native passed away at a hospital from heart failure Tuesday, a Seagate representative said. Al Shugart Shugart played an integral role in the development of the hard-drive industry. He was part of the original team of engineers at IBM that developed the first hard-drive storage system, which came out 50 years ago this year. He then held several different positions in the industry before founding Seagate in 1979. The company went on to become a dominant force in the hard-drive industry. It is, in fact, the largest hard-drive manufacturer, and it is consistently profitable. Shugart left the company in 1998. Source: Al Shugart, hard-drive pioneer, dies at 76 | CNET News.com I met with Al Shugart a few years back during a family vacation in Santa Cruz. I rarely do this, but I asked him to autograph his business (retirement) card. Silicon Valley used to be full off hard drive makers spawned from the PC revolution. Over the years, some 90 plus hard drive makers have consolidated into just a handful. Seagate recently acquired Maxtor and is the largest following a reorganization engineered by Silver Lake Partners which led to its relocation in the Cayman Islands. - - - Seagate TechnologyPO Box 309 GT Ugland House SouthChurch StreetGeorge Town,  Cayman Islands   Alan Shugart -...[Read Full Article]

Find out which way the wind blows in Silicon Valley - SVW's Rooster newsletter
Sign up for SVW's Rooster Club email newsletter. You'll get all of SVW's latest posts plus much more... We'll be sneaking in news and insider info only available to SVW Roosters. We'll also be organizing various events as part of the Rooster Club - salons of peers not podiums. You'll be the first to know, the first to be invited. Make sure you know which way the wind blows in Silicon Valley and sign up for SVW's newsletter! - SVW Rooster Newsletter Signup Preview PS: Don't forget to get SVW's Silicon Valley News toolbar. It is preloaded with RSS feeds from major newspapers and magazines covering Silicon Valley. It's fast and easy to turn on or off. And it'll get better and better seamlessly as we add more Silicon Valley links and news sources. Our toolbar will save you a lot of clicks, it's always available wherever you are.SVW's Silicon Valley News toolbar...[Read Full Article]

In media, the medium defines the DRM
I was over at CNET on Tuesday being interviewed on video, about mobile video. I spoke about the trends, digital rights management (DRM), the role of wireless carriers, media producers, and content owners. DRM is pivotal in the digital media world, it protects content.  Whoever owns the dominant DRM will rule the world because DRM is the gatekeeper, it protects and collects. It protects the content and it is how the content is monetised, transformed into individually targeted media services. Because of the strategic importance of the DRM, lots of companies want to own it. Yet no content owner wants one company to establish a dominant DRM because they could lose substantial controls. That's why we face a future DRM hell as these things battle themselves to a conclusion, imho. After the interview, I started thinking about our old analog media technologies, and their marvelously effective DRM features, all built into the physics of the medium. Analog protected against piracy and enabled profitable media business models--a perfect DRM. In media, the medium defines the DRM. Consider conventional TV broadcast signals. Analog TV technology could be described as a very effective streaming video technology. It transmits massive amounts of video information through hundreds of channels simultaneously and wirelessly. Each analog TV channel represents a wireless broadband system that can support any number of users, from ten to ten million--with no loss of performance from increased user load. Analog TV has a broadcast range of more than a hundred miles. Try doing that with digital distribution technologies such as cellular networks, or...[Read Full Article]

New: Ajax13 rounds out online suite with new Powerpoint app
Hisham El-Emam tells me that his team at Ajax13 has just added ajaxPresents, a Powerpoint-like online application. The company's suite also includes ajaxWrite, ajaxSketch, ajaxXLS, and ajaxTunes. You need Firefox but Internet Explorer support will be added in the new year. Hish is from Germany where much of the work on the technology behind Ajax13 was done as part of a state funded educational project a few years back. http://us.ajax13.com/en/about.jsp Founded in early 2006, Ajax 13 Inc. is a software development company that introduces web-based applications written using the AJAX based methodology. Ajax 13 Inc. was founded by Hisham El-Emam, it's CTO, and Georg Wüstefeld to pursue the software-as-a-service vision that is gaining more and more momentum in both the enterprise and the small business / home office marketplaces. Ajax 13 Inc. is headquartered in San Diego, CA....[Read Full Article]

diggrz_events : kultur shock sensation
By Maria Mouk Snow falls on the Northern peaks, and cool weather glides across the Bay- strapping me into the comfort of boots and bindings.  If you have  an open schedule- mountains in Tahoe are open and powdered, so hit the slopes early in the week, as I wish I was. Discount lift ticketsare available from Snowbomb for various resorts.   If you're remaining on all 2- and last week's sound stimuli- was missed or unimpressive, glance at the Audium schedule and make it a point to take a  trip. Exploring the language of space in music,and the interaction between compositional needs and technological innovation, led to the creation of AUDIUM, variously described as a theatre of sound-sculptured space or a sound-space continuum. Located in San Francisco, AUDIUM is a total environment, designed from floor to ceiling as an integrated concept. The theatre, open since 1975, consists of a foyer, a sound labyrinth and a main performance space. It is a building within a building, conceived directly for this art form. Listeners sit in concentric circles, enveloped by 169 speakers in sloping walls, floating floor, and a suspended ceiling. Sounds travel above, around, below, and on multidimensional planes in space. Exact control of sound movement, direction, speed and intensity is realized through a custom-designed electronic console, responsive to a "tape performer." Live, spatial performance of tape compositions allows each performance to be unique. Listeners are immersed in a kinetic sound realm wherein speakers and environment become the new electronic orchestra....[Read Full Article]

TSMC's $10bn monster triple chip fabs and the 15 year old girl
I just got out of a meeting with Charles Byers, one of my favorite chip industry execs. Mr Byers is Director of Worldwide Brand Management at TSMC, the world's largest chipmaker but one that doesn't build a single chip for itself. TSMC is a chip foundry, it makes chips for others. Foundries enable hundreds of chip company startups to be formed because they don't need to have their own chip production facilities. Small teams of designers at what are called "fabless" chip companies, get access to cutting edge chip manufacturing production lines. With chip fabs costing about $3.5bn a piece, foundries provide a way to share manufacturing costs. There would be very little innovation going on, very few consumer gadgets made without foundries. And each new gizmo would cost thousands of dollars. Meeting with Mr Byers always provides a good  insight into the global chip business because of TSMC's incredible size. Its relationships with thousands of customers show what types of chips are being designed and for which markets. Here are some trends: Chips for consumer applications have become about 50 per cent of TSMC's business. About three years ago, the chip industry was equally divided between consumer, computer industry, and the communications industry. It's always good to have a broad range of customers to iron out boom and busts in different sectors. Although there are cross-over products that fit into several categories, the trend shows that the chip industry has increasingly more of its eggs in one basket: a basket owned by...[Read Full Article]

Do journalists want a social media news release?
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher [This is from my comments section - from Kevin Murphy US Editor at Computerwire on the subject of the Social Media Press Release which I described in a late night post called Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! Kevin Murphy asks: Two innocent questions: 1) Tom -- when was the last time you wrote anything what was based on a press release? 2003? You've moved far far beyond PR now, surely. How will these new types of press release make your job easier? 2) PR people -- are you consulting with working journalists/bloggers while developing these new social media releases? Which journalists/bloggers? What are they saying? What is it they need that regular press releases don't provide? Kevin, as usual you pinpoint the crux of the matter. You are asking the right question here, what do I know about press releases? I get pre-briefed all the time, there is usually no need for press releases! However, the truth is that we all refer to them in the course of our research and background checking. One late night when I wanted to go to bed but I still had a bunch of stuff I needed to check, verify, and quote, I had to look up company news releases and they were useless in addressing my needs. I realized that there was a  huge expense of human energy producing a product that was useless to me. Why not suggest a format that that could save...[Read Full Article]

First Annual Solstice Synchronized Global Orgasm for Peace
Who could not support actions for peace? Just about the time of my birthday too :-) The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high- energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers. The goal is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world. Global Orgasm is an experiment open to everyone in the world. Here is the science behind it: http://www.globalorgasm.org/demo.html Link to Global Orgasm - December 22nd, 2006 - Peace through Global Ecstasy...[Read Full Article]

First Look at New Mini Wall Street Journal
 From Editor and Publisher magazine: L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of the Journal, yanked aside a giant white curtain to reveal a new front page that retains many of the same elements as are in the paper today. There's just less of it. "Our goal is ambitious," Crovitz told the 50 or so reporters and photographers covering the event, "we are the first to rethink what a newspaper is." A smaller format newspaper will be a problem--advertisers won't want to pay the same for less.  When I was at the Financial Times, the Technology supplement that was published monthly was redesigned into a tabloid size to save printing costs. Advertisers balked at paying the same price for a full page ad in the new format as in the old. Less is not more when it comes to newspaper ads. My advice to Dow Jones is get rid of the subscription firewall for the online WSJ for yesterday's news. Take advantage of the free distribution by bloggers and others. That will establish your content as a top news source. Charge for news today not for yesterday's fish wrap. Link to First Look at New WSJ' At Today's Unveiling...[Read Full Article]

Wish your competitors well...
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher I get to speak with a lot of companies, IBM, HP, Cisco, Intel, Sun, etc.   And many much smaller companies. The presentations are good when delivered in such formats, when they are off the record they often change quite a bit, large and small. During those times I get to hear about what a company's competitors are up to and I often learn more about their competitors than about them. Sometimes I remind people that they are talking about their competitors more than they are about themselves. This rarely stops them, which is interesting. My advice is simple: wish your competitors well and concentrate on what is on your plate right now. Focus on what is important in your business right now. The market will take care of you and your competitors, no need to worry about that......[Read Full Article]

Edelman creates tool to create social media news releases
I caused quite a stir earlier this year with my Die! Press Release Die! Die! Die! post. It came about from my frustration with the usefulness of the conventional press release. I offered some characteristics of what a new media press release might have, such as more links, labels/tags to quickly find information, and have links to related news stories, etc. Many in the PR community have been working to create a more useful press release, which is wonderful. I applaud all efforts to make my job easier. Edelman [an SVW sponsor] just released a tool/template it calls StoryCrafter that helps produce what has come to be known as a "social media news release." Shift PR has produced one too, and so has PRX Builder. I'm not a big fan of the term "social media" I think "new media" would have been sufficient--and a more neutral term. But as long as everyone agrees on one meaning that is fine. PR companies are extremely competitive and so the vying over whose social media release tool/template is better than the rest is only just beginning. Will there be one standard for social media releases? Maybe, but not yet. Let's try out these and other formats. I'm sure that a set of best practices will develop and everyone will benefit. What interests me is if the PRnewswire and Businesswire services will carry social media releases. My understanding is that they charge extra for every link carried in a news release. Since links reduce the...[Read Full Article]

Are all websites made in Silicon Valley?
 One of my Dutch readers, Yvo Schaap has compiled an analysis of the characteristics of 10,000 of the top web sites. He uses the data to answer 8 questions such as: Are all websites made in Silicon Valley? This is actually more or less true. From all US states California (37% reach) has a significant advantage over any other state, it actually owns 7% off all the identified websites in the top 10,000. Second comes New York in number of websites but Washington has a higher reach (22%). And: Is China taking over the web? Luckily the answer is short: No. The USA owns 44% of all websites, but China is coming second with 9%. That is less than the number of European websites with 16%. But in reach Europe loses from China with respectively 7% against 9%. Conclusion is that Chinese language courses aren’t necessary yet. Link to YvoSchaap.com - 8 questions about the web you always wanted answers to...[Read Full Article]

DTrace: Sun's potential killer application
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher Wednesday evening I'm at Le Colonial in San Francisco's Tenderloin District having a spirited discussion with one of Sun's young Turks, a bright software engineer called Bryan Cantrill. We're talking about a technology he and his team have developed called DTrace. Quite simply it is a way to spot performance bottlenecks in today's complex IT systems. If you don't have that kind of capability these days, and he says IBM doesn't, then you need it because finding performance bottlenecks is near impossible without such tools. DTrace is an open source technology but that is just a checkbox feature  (open source arguments are so 2003...) DTrace is also a sales tool. With DTrace, IT departments can pinpoint and optimize their IT processes, which means they are optimizing their business processes, which means immediate bottom line benefits. The ROI argument on such things is a no brainer. What is interesting about Sun's approach is that here is a way to sell Sun systems. It is a new way to be proprietary and still be a good open source citizen. But this is not new, Sun has always used software to sell hardware; it wraps metal around software. These days Sun has a decent story in terms of where it fits into the IT landscape. But that has required a jarring shift in culture, and a big adjustment from years of unbridled growth, to coping with years of lean and progressively leaner times. Sun isn't anywhere near capturing...[Read Full Article]

My secret life: talking about media, on panels and elsewhere
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher I do a lot of talking about media, blogging and what it all means. I talk to groups of marketing, PR/comms, journalists, entrepreneurs and executives and I like doing it. I like talking about media even if I haven't been invited to talk about media such as at parties, bus stops and similar ad hoc opportunities. It's difficult to stop me on this subject, I've bent many an ear. I was recently invited to speak with a large group of Hewlett-Packard people alongside Eve Batey , San Francisco Chronicle's new blogging supremo. It went well, it was the second time we've spoken on a panel together, this time sans Sam Whitmore of the excellent Media Survey. The event was HP's Horizontal Influencer Summit and Eve and I spoke and answered a lot of interesting questions. I think we made for a good double act. I left old media for the new media when I left the Financial Times to be the first mainstream reporter to become a full-time journalist blogger--without the safety net of a day job. Eve went from new media to old media. She used to work in PR at Porter Novelli and at the award winning SFist.com blog site. She was recruited by the legendary San Francisco Chronicle publisher Phil Bronstein to help the newspaper in its blog publishing. So between us, we have experience in several sides of the mediasphere. And what's interesting is that we provide a consistent...[Read Full Article]

Lala music swap site expands into streaming live performances
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher It's Tuesday night and I'm at Bimbo's nightclub in North Beach talking with serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen about his latest venture Lala.com--a music sharing site with a twist, or rather several twists. Mr Nguyen is animated, relaxed, and looks like he is having way too much fun. He clearly revels in what he is doing: launching another startup, being a doting father of a two year old, taking time to surf, and being able to indulge his love of music. "Music is so important, it is how we see ourselves and how we define ourselves to the world," he says. I ask him what music was seminal in his life. He pauses, then laughs and says heavy metal. But these days his musical tastes are omnivorous and his appetite ravenous. He mentions a band he recently discovered. "You have to listen to them, "Architecture in Helsinki" they are amazing. I've got plenty of other recommendations too." Finding out about little known Australian bands is one of the perks of his job. Lala is a clever way to monetise the incredibly huge store of music CDs sitting in millions of living rooms. I, like many people, am bored with my collection of CDs, I'd like to hear music I don't have. Lala lets me swap and sample other people's collections--an astounding 1.8 million titles registered by Lala users. Through Lala I send my disks to others who find my collection potentially fascinating, and I...[Read Full Article]

Light Reading finds 61 video hosting sites and wonders why
Phil Harvey, news editor at the always excellent Lightreading has compiled a list of 61 video hosting/sharing sites. Phil asked me: Can you lead me to some thoughts as to why there are so many Web video sharing companies being funded now? I'm keeping a list of them and, frankly, I don't get it. My readers ask me and I haven't got a clue. But my readers are used to that. Anyway, here's the latest list: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=112147   My reply: Phil, at valuations such as that gained by YouTube, the VCs are willing to roll the dice and maybe win a similar deal. Remember, GOOG has competitors that have to compete along similar markets, and time to market is more important now than ever before. Buy it so that you don't have to build it. Yes, most of those funded will fail so that the VCs can get a small number of winners. Too bad for all the people toiling away in the future failures so that a few can win, but that's the VC way. Great list! Thanks for putting it together. -Tom PS Also, VCs move in herds, not in packs like wolves. Like herd animals they find safety in numbers :-)...[Read Full Article]

Intel Breakthrough: Demonstrates Its First Mobile WiMAX Baseband Chip
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher Intel (an SVW sponsor) is a strong supporter of WiMAX, the wireless broadband technology that works over a distance of several miles compared with the hundred foot or so range of WiFi. WiMAX offers the possibility of bridging the digital divide by bringing down the cost of providing Internet access. More importantly, WiMAX could be a way of opening up the "last mile" into consumers' homes, currently guarded by the cable and telco companies. These companies have been bundling Internet access with other services, which raises the costs for many customers interested in just Internet access.   The Intel WiMAX Connection 2300 chipset design was demonstrated during Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Sean Maloney's keynote at the 3G World Congress and Mobility Marketplace in Hong Kong. Maloney showed an Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology-based laptop with mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005), Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n), and high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) 3G capabilities successfully accessing the Internet at broadband speeds over a mobile WiMAX network. Link to Intel Demonstrates Its First Mobile WiMAX Baseband Chip This WiMAX chipset could also help boost Intel's revenues. The company's Centrino WiFi chipset for notebook computers was hugely successful and helped support record profit margins for many quarters. Integrating radio capabilities into chips is not an easy task because analog and digital circuits respond in different ways to the CMOS production process. This is interesting: For the first time, Intel incorporated multiple input/multiple output (MIMO)...[Read Full Article]

Dan Farber's Experimental Blogger Army...
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher 05-Dec-2006ZDNet Unveils the Next-Generation of Business Tech Publishing, Weaving Voice of Bloggers Around News, Product Reviews, Vendor and User Content In 2003, led by ZDNet veterans Dan Farber and David Berlind, the site launched blogs and later in 2005 original podcasts, adding context and perspective to the day's news in a way that only experts and well-connected insiders could offer. Farber and Berlind quickly amassed a network of more than 30 bloggers that today includes some of the most authoritative and well-respected voices in the IT community. I'm proud to be part of Dan Farber's blogger corp over on CNET's ZDNet IT news site where I publish IMHO (in my humble opinion). The ZDNet blogs have grown from strength to strength, largely because of Dan's leadership. It is great to work on Dan's team because he exhibits a tireless pursuit of news. I don't think I've ever seen him without cameras and laptops attached.  I wouldn't be surprised to one day see him with a SNL Al Franken satellite upload dish on his head because that is how tenacious he is as a journalist to file a news story first. Dan is everywhere, at many of the events that I go to. And I tend to avoid the obvious daytime news events because there are dozens of other journalists covering them. I go to the evening roundtables, the salons, because the journalists with day jobs are home with their families. That's when I get a chance...[Read Full Article]

YHOO news analysis: GOOG is setting the pace as Yahoo faces identity and leadership crisis
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher Yahoo's hastily engineered reorganization does away with key leaders within the company: Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and Lloyd Braun, the head of Yahoo's media and entertainment group, are leaving the company, Yahoo spokeswoman Joanna Stevens said. John Marcom, senior vice president of International Operations, is also leaving the company "soon," she said. Two top Yahoo execs to leave in reorg Tech News on ZDNet Dan Rosensweig has earned a tremendous amount of respect in this industry. He is one of the few top executives that is able to garner so much positive sentiment from other senior execs. My ZDNet colleague Dan Farber at ZDNet worked with him and is one of his staunchest supporters: Yahoo's Dan Rosensweig heading off for new adventures My colleague Larry Dignan as well as many others (see TechMeme) have already covered the news about the management shake up and reorganization at Yahoo. I checked in with Dan Rosensweig, the Yahoo COO who resigned as part the reorg. Dan and I go back more than a decade. ... Posted by Dan Farber in Between the Lines on: Dec 6, 2006 12:52 AM   I worked with John Marcom at the Financial Times and he was easily the most impressive executive in that organization. He had a keen understanding of what was achievable and realistic. When he left the Financial Times and joined Yahoo, that shook my confidence in the remaining management team. I met with Mr Marcom late last...[Read Full Article]

UPDATED Back story: Did YHOO try to scoop WSJ? The reorganization is not finished...
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher The timing of Yahoo's reorganization announcement signaled something else is going on. The time on the Businesswire release  was 5.34pm Tuesday West Coast time. Usually such things are announced early the next day before the markets open, or early afternoon Pacific time, when markets have just closed. Here's what happened. Yahoo prereleased it because the Wall Street Journal said it would go live with the story. The Wall Street Journal had been prepped by sources and agreed to publish the reorganization story in Wednesday's newspaper. But it wanted an interview with Terry Semel, Yahoo CEO, which he kept missing Tuesday afternoon. WSJ editors grew increasingly concerned with no show from Terry Semel. They worried that Yahoo might be pre-briefing the rest of the universe and it might lose pole position on the story, so the Wall Street Journal told Yahoo it would go with what it had and publish the story online. Which prompted Yahoo to try to scoop the Wall Street Journal and get its version out first. All I can say is that things have gotten very strange at Yahoo this year. This reorg is needed but the one that's needed is at the very top, IMHO. Terry Semel was the right person for the job in May 2001 when he joined as CEO, he isn't now. It is clear to anyone that knows Yahoo, that this reorganization is not the final one. Has Mr Semel been spending too much time...[Read Full Article]

Breaking news: Late in the day, Yahoo issues reorg, heads roll...
Dan Rosensweig, chief operating officer is out...   This was released early Tuesday evening. It shows the the pressure Terry Semel, the CEO is under to match Google's much more efficient business model. Here are excerpts from the release:   http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061205/20061205006257.html?.v=1   Yahoo! Re-Aligns Organization to More Effectively Focus on Key Customer Segments and Capture Future Growth Opportunities New Structure to Focus on Serving More Sophisticated Demands of Audiences, Advertisers and Publishers Worldwide SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - News), a leading global Internet company, today announced a reorganization of its structure and management to align its operations with its key customer segments -- audiences, advertisers and publishers -- and more effectively leverage Yahoo!'s significant strengths to capture future opportunities for growth. "We're moving aggressively to deliver the most possible value to our key customers -- audiences, advertisers and publishers -- and seize the major new opportunities we see ahead for the Internet," said Terry Semel, Yahoo! chairman and chief executive officer. "The Internet is continuing to grow and evolve at a rapid pace, and we're reshaping Yahoo! to be a leader in this transformation, just as we did successfully five years ago. Our strategy capitalizes on big emerging trends and leverages our core strengths in search, media, communities and communications. We believe having a more customer-focused organization, supported by robust technology, will speed the development of leading-edge experiences for our most valuable audience segments. In turn, we plan to drive growth and profitability by leveraging our deep audience insights...[Read Full Article]

CMP buys Sand Hill Group's Software conference for up to $9m
  CMP, the trade media publisher has acquired  Sand Hill Group's Software 2007 conference, one of the top enterprise software conferences. The deal was lead by Eric Faurot, senior vp at CMP, and its chief strategist. Mr Faurot told Silicon Valley Watcher that CMP is building up its events business and there is an opportunity to create another Comdex-like show. "The IT industry is a one trillion dollar industry yet it does not have a big show." The Comdex show closed in 2004, a victim of its huge size and the resulting management challenges. It used to attract more than 200,000 people. The Consumer Electronics Show is now the largest tech show but it doesn't serve the needs of IT professionals. CMP is a US subsidiary of United Business Media, a publicly traded company in the United Kingdom. The deal could be worth as much as $9m provided certain performance levels are achieved. Sand Hill Group received an initial payment of $5.5m and the rest will be paid over a three year period. CMP owns the Interop conference which has a strong following, and its parent company has been acquiring other shows. It recently acquired The Game Initiative, a game developer conference. And in January 2006 it paid $65m for MediaLive. - - - Please see: United Business Media buys the Software 2007 conference   Sand Hill Group celebrates a good year...[Read Full Article]

Mass media masses at the Googleplex
It's that time of the year again when Google opens its doors to the media and offers wine and food and relaxed, off the record conversations with its top people. I love this event because it is so family-like...it is a place full of familiar faces and I can't imagine the holiday season without it.  And I can report that I had some excellent conversations about some topics that are very dear to me: China and the behavior of Yahoo in regards to the jailing of a Chinese journalist; plus the monetisation of Google News. Unfortunately, I cannot report on what Google executives told me. . . . I was impressed with Elliot Schrage, chief of GOOG's PR/communications teams. The appointment of  Mr Schrage, about a year ago, was fascinating to me because his background is so different from what would be a typical hire by a large Silicon Valley company.  Here is someone that had been representing companies such as Nike, dealing with serious ethical and moral issues around child labor, and also dealing with foreign governments. Clearly, his appointment showed that Google was looking into a future where it would need to navigate a landscape of similar ethical and moral challenges, and it would need experience in foreign government diplomacy. I was glad to hear that the China issue is well recognized within Google and that the company is trying to understand how best  it can behave in an ethical way. I would say that Google has a fabulous  opportunity to create a significant competitive...[Read Full Article]

Jajah is innovating the phone call
Jajah is one of those rare startups that managed to put a tingle down my spine. It's best described as a telecommunications company creating new types of phone call services using Internet technologies. Jajah is not a VOIP company, don't confuse it with Vonage, or Skype. Jajah uses VOIP but this is not about technology it's about spotting a very large business opportunity. And it's also about innovation in its proper sense. Jajah has developed what it calls "web activated telephony" which is a mouthful compared with the simplicity of its service. You go to its web site, input your phone number, and the number you want to call, and click to connect--that's it. You use your own phone, there is no download, no headsets to use, it's dead simple. And for many users it is free. I recently met with Roman Scharf, co-founder of Jajah. "We wanted to create a very simple to use telephony service and one that uses the current telephone system and telephones. Skype is popular but only 3 per cent of Internet users use it. You need to install the software, and you have to be at your PC, and use a headset." Jajah takes advantage of free local calling by establishing local PBX sites in more than 100 countries and using its network to carry the voice traffic between them. The beauty of this approach is that it leverages the existing global telephone network, and more importantly, it has a massive potential market of existing...[Read Full Article]

Sand Hill Group celebrates a good year
I popped into the Four Seasons Sunday evening for Sand Hill Group's holiday celebration. I've been a big fan of M.R. Rangaswami, co-founder of the Sand Hill Group because of his success in making enterprise software interesting again. M.R's software conference has become one of those rare conferences that gets better every year. The next Software 2007 conference is on May 8 and 9 in Santa Clara. And his web site, Sandhill.com is the best source of news and insights into the enterprise software market. A bonus was bumping into Terry Garnett, of Garnett & Helfrich Capital--the venture buyout firm. Also, it was a pleasure talking with Eric Faurot, senior vp at CMP, the veteran trade media company. Mr Faurot is piloting an interesting media expansion strategy that will be worth watching. And Joshua Sun, an attorney at Fenwick & West, provided a fascinating conversation about the M&A activities in Silicon Valley. All in all, a decent way to spend a Sunday evening if you have to work...  - - - Please see: Lunch with the Swami of the enterprise software sector...Exclusive interview: Terry Garnett explains his firm's VC buyout strategy......[Read Full Article]

US and Polish Web 2.0 companies swap notes at Stanford
Wednesday evening I was cursing to myself as I tried again, and again, to find the James H Clark Center on the always confusing, sprawling  Stanford University campus. One last try and then I would leave, I told myself, and that's exactly when I found it, a striking, all-glass building. And I found the circular auditorium buried in the center of the complex. The panel was already well underway and there were quite a few people on the stage.  I sat down and looked around at a reasonably full room, to see who else was interested in this event: "Web 2.0 Wave in the US and Poland. " Top Polish entrepreneurs from Meetro, 3S Generator, Onet, plus senior people from Google, Intel, Linked In, and PBwiki were on stage[Please see panelist names at end of article.] I was glad that I persevered in finding my way because it was an excellent panel discussion (I've sat through many hundreds of panels and I've slept through quite a few too... :-) Also, this was a very young looking set of panelists and refreshingly so, because we didn't get the same hackneyed Web 2.0 stuff trotted out by the regular John Battelle et al Web 2.0 crowd of regulars. Different faces did produce a fresher Web 2.0-or-whatever-it-is, conversation. There were some excellent gems in the conversation, here are some, and my notes and observations on the evening: There was a question about what type of business models the companies had. -"We have what we call 'oh...[Read Full Article]

No money down: How IBM leverages Silicon Valley's VC billions
IBM, the world's largest computer company, has a successful venture capital group operating  in the heart of Silicon Valley, yet it makes no investments in startup companies. Instead, it tells VC firms what types of startups it might want to acquire and waits for the Silicon Valley innovation machine to do the rest. It's a very good system for IBM. There is no need to make risky investments, to spend years on boards helping to nurture and grow startup companies, and certainly no need to hit the road to raise new venture capital funds. It is a beautiful system that leverages tens of billions of dollars of other people's money, and it can all be done with just a few people. IBM's Venture Capital Group in Menlo Park consists of just half-a-dozen specialists plus some support staff. Because there is virtually no tech IPO market to provide exits for investors in thousands of startups, VCs are more than happy to offer IBM the cream of the startup crop. Since the IBM Venture Capital Group was formed in 2000, it has had a hand in 15 acquisitions, and that rate is increasing. But acquisitions are just one way IBM benefits from Silicon Valley's bountiful crop of startups.  It also partners with about 1200 startups in various endeavors in which it uses their technologies in IT services deals through business partnerships. Business partnerships as a whole account for one third of its annual revenues, or about $27bn. There is also a very nice...[Read Full Article]

The acceleration in the disruption of media
I'm often invited to talk to groups of people about what's going on in the media sector, and I often start with a simple observation: At no other point in our lives will we be witness to such a massively disruptive/destructive time in the media industry. That's exciting to me because the transition in the underlying business models in media are happening much faster than in software, hardware or anything that Moore's Law has been able to unleash. The disruption means there are many opportunities to create new types of very viable media businesses while the old guard figures things out in committees. The dark side of all of this, however, is not very appealing and it is something I've been writing about for nearly two years. To put it simply, what happens if the old media dies before the new media learns to walk? By which I mean what happens to us if we lose the "Fourth Estate" - that fourth vital "component" of our society? I look at media--in all of its forms--as the way society thinks things through ......[Read Full Article]

Cisco's M&A Chief talks with Wharton about acquisitions
Ron Piovesan from Cisco writes: Hi Tom, I thought you'd be interesting in podcast we have posted, which is an interview with Dan Scheinman and  Wharton management professor Saikat Chaudhuri. It's a great 16 min conversation about the art and science of M&A, the importance of integrating an acquired company, and the importance of timing when making a deal. I know you've spoken with Dan before, but as background, Dan has overseen over 30 Cisco acquisitions including Airespace ($450M), Linksys ($500M) and Scientific Atlanta ($7B).  Cisco SVP Dan Scheinman and Wharton's Saikat Chaudhuri Discuss Acquisitions and Innovation, Part I: An Innovation 'Ecosystem' http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/tln/services/media/scheinman_acquisitions_and_innovation.mp3 Cisco Podcasts http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/tln/services/etl_podcast.html...[Read Full Article]

Keep up with breaking tech news with our SVWatcher RSS news feeds toolbar
Silicon Valley Watcher now has its own toolbar with preconfigured RSS news feeds from major news sources, and more are being added. The RSS feeds allow you to quickly scan the headlines and stories on breaking news in Silicon Valley and the tech world without having to visit each news site separately. We've done all the setup for you so there is no need to deal with XML files. The SVWatcher toolbar can easily be switched on or off in your browser window. Plus it has lots of other great features such as a news ticker and internet radio. Check it out, it installs in seconds, it's really fast. http://siliconvalleywatcher.ourtoolbar.com/...[Read Full Article]

Podcamp West full of great advice
I usually try to keep my weekends geek-free and spend it with my kids. But I did pop in to show my face at Podcamp West, organized by Vic Podcaster and friends, at the Swedish American Hall. [BTW, this venue in San Francisco is quickly developing as a center for the SF tech/new media scene, it has just the right type of funky style and goes well with Cafe du Nord for the pre and after event parties.] I caught the following panel which was full of great advice: Veteran Podcasters' Share the Tips and Tricks/Do's and Don'ts (Panel) - Joe Klein, Michael Geoghegan, Michael Butler, JaDonnelly, Vic Podcaster, Marcus Couch - Long-time veteran podcasters pass along their experience and wisdom. Topics include starting a podcast, promoting the podcast, building and maintaining a loyal listener base, keeping the content fresh and compelling and resisting premature "Podfade." I'll summarize: Just do it. Don't worry too much about the quality, just get it out there. A podcast can be any length, whatever is comfortable to you. Don't let the technology get in the way, just get it done. Don't worry about how many listeners you have. Find something you are passionate about. Don't feud with other Podcasters. Keep doing it. I'm certainly going to start a podcast, watch this space! Link to Podcamp West...[Read Full Article]

SVW Vidcast: Chris Pirillo at Peet's - also Robert Scoble and Chris Heuer
Chris Heuer introduced me to Chris Pirillo, who was in town for his pre-wedding party thrown by Robert Scoble. We went to Peet's on Market Street and spoke about his new project to create a publishing platform. Robert Scoble and Chris Heuer join in.    You might be thinking why another publishing platform? Well, I agree with Chris, we don't yet have a publishing platform that has been designed by publishers and Chris has been publishing online for many years. "None of the publishing platforms, and that includes Wordpress and Drupal have all the features that I want as a publisher, there is a lot missing. Also, I need a better way to monetise my content and so what we are developing is in essence the type of tool that I need. It will all be open source so anyone can use it. We'll make money on the services side for businesses," said Chris Pirillo.   Link to Chris Pirillo...[Read Full Article]

Fortune looks at Larry Sonsini and links to "sleazy behavior"
Roger Parloff in Fortune profiles Silicon Valley's most powerful man: Larry Sonsini and asks is he too close to his clients and does he have too many conflicts of interest? This is the story of how a modest securities lawyer became the most powerful man in the most crucial sector of the American economy. And what it means when a player noted for his probity and unfailingly good judgment suddenly finds his name being linked to some pretty sleazy behavior. . .   . . . These entrepreneurs were so eager to use him that they did not seem to mind that he often also represented their competitors. For a period in the 1980s, Sonsini was representing Seagate Technologies, Conner Peripherals and Quantum, which were then the country's three largest disk-drive companies - and bitter enemies. "It's a tradeoff," says Steve Luczo, Seagate's chairman and former CEO. "Because he's counsel to the three biggest, he's also most aware of the issues that face the industry. That's what you want." In addition, Luczo says, he trusted Sonsini to keep his confidences. "We're not idiots," he says. "Would you do that all the time? No. With Larry? Yeah." . . .   . . . Though Sonsini sat on nine public boards in February 2002, today he's down to just one, and he says he expects to phase out that one soon too. He's come around to the view that "the presumption" should be against sitting on public boards. "It' s a...[Read Full Article]

Laughing Squid: Be there...
The place to be Saturday was afternoon at the Podcast camp at the Swedish American Hall, and then at Scott Beale's  Laughing Squid party in the evening. Lots of familiar faces... Nick Douglas, Nick Denton, (Nick Denton  has been doing a stellar job in filling in for N.G ) (N.G still won't tell me what he is up to...) Chris Pirillo and Robert Scoble cruise by in a stretch limo ... Also: This is the first time I've seen Scott Beale without a camera around his neck... Mrs Beale was dealing with the guest list and doing a very good job of it. Inside, lots of music, but not too loud to chatter. I usually try to avoid weekend events but these ones  were worth while. And they show a growing San Francisco geek community, which is interesting....[Read Full Article]

Thursday Mainstream Media Headlines
San Jose Mercury Bill Gates has whirlwind day in Silicon ValleyBill Gates came to Silicon Valley Wednesday in the role of the world's most famous do-gooder, not software mogul. Tech leaders gather for innovation summit Bay Area home sales slower, median prices flat A's unveil field of tech dreams Ex-HP board chair pleads not guilty in leak case Dean & NoochOur week with the Playstation III» Inside Silicon Valley: Riya founder Munjal Shah» Dean & Nooch: An early look at Christmas presents Animal care and behavior:Humane Society Silicon Valley   San Francisco Chronicle Why Valleywag got fired; Slide gets funding   Wall Street Journal• "Wiki" Book: Pearson is joining with two top business schools to create a business book authored and edited by a "wiki." Time Warner Names NBC's Falco to Lead AOL Dell to Delay Results as SEC Begins Probe Taiwan's Acer May Take Bronze Pearson to Create a 'Wiki' Book Sprint Launches Mobile Local Search Microsoft Learns to Love Online Advertising   New York Times The Internet: How to Make Your Web Site Sing for You Annan Faults ‘Frightening Lack of Leadership’ for Global Warming The Shape-Shifter Blogs Take Lead in Reporting Polling Problems, With Supporting Evidence on YouTube   TechWeb Microsoft Launches Office Live Out Of Beta Online Ad Startup Aims to Automate Marketing LucidEra Launches On-Demand BI Google Sets Aside $200M+ War Chest For YouTube Indemnification Live HDTV From Space Makes History, Project Leader Says IBM Teams With DOE To Build Supercomputer 30X Faster Than BlueGene Cingular To Offer Mobile...[Read Full Article]

TechNet: Silicon Valley billionaires all agree - life is getting better!
I didn't go to today's TechNet Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley but I did receive a candid report from a member of the press, who would prefer to be nameless: "The event was so much hot air. I got fed up of hearing all these tech billionaires talking about how life is getting better. It is certainly getting better for them! And the Charlie Rose interviews were so full of  *!@#. I couldn't believe how he let people like John Doerr use his show as a platform for their agenda. Who do they think they are telling the President what he should be doing! As if they are so important because of their money. The entire event was a waste of time." Pretty strong words and I'm glad that I didn't go. Silicon Valley's attempts at doing good in the world are quite pathetic, they can't even improve things in their own region. Cisco says it will build a high-tech ball park yet it can't build a high-tech school system - that's an infrastructure investment if I ever saw one. Am I being harsh on our local leaders and businesses? No, nobody has called them on this stuff and they are big boys and girls and hopefully they can stop patting each other on the back so vigorously and exhaling gobs of carbon dioxide and do some good. Do No Evil is passive. Do Some Good is active, IMHO. The event, moderated by eminent television journalist Charlie Rose, coincides...[Read Full Article]

A View from Within on US Companies and China
[This is from the comments section on my entry "Dissidents within YHOO and GOOG will make ethical companies." I'm publishing it as an entry to give it wider distribution. -Tom Foremski]  By David Scott Lewis This is a tricky issue, Tom -- as are many issues pertaining to China. As a Silicon Valley expat living in China and working in their R&D/IT sectors, I often wonder what response firms like Google and Yahoo (and Microsoft, for that matter) should have.   Among expats, we just kind of accept things the way they are. Kind of like rules we don't like, but those are the rules, so we have to play by them.   Semel's remark about Nazi Germany, however, is scary. If he really said, it should be grounds for his termination. But we can't put today's China on the same footing as Nazi Germany.   Yes, Beijing often feels like "Berlin, 1936", but the rest of China generally isn't this way, certainly not in SH. And most Chinese don't really care about this stuff: They're happy that their living conditions are improving each year (I'm speaking of urban Chinese). See my http://doiop.com/wang article which was one of the most widely read AO columns last year.   Personally, I'd like to see Google, Yahoo and Microsoft take the moral and ethical high ground (of course, I'd like to see the White House and new Congress do this, too). But then what about IBM? And Motorola? Where does it stop?   Do...[Read Full Article]

How Can Silicon Valley Help the World's Poor? The UN/RiOS Challenge
On Thursday, Santa Clara University will host the Silicon Valley Challenge Summit, which will address UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's challenge to the region to "broaden its horizon and bring more of its remarkable dynamism and innovation to the developing world." There is an impressive list of speakers (see list at end) including a keynote by Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel. I spoke with Paul Braund, head of the RiOS Institute, an organization that is "dedicated to harnessing design innovation and anthropological research as tools to improve social and technological development projects." "The goal of the summit is to get everybody under one tent and figure out what Silicon Valley is doing to help fulfill the UN's goals," said Paul Braund. He said that the RiOS institute can direct tech and other resources in ways that will better target helping the developing world. Sometimes well meaning resources are not utilized in the best ways. One example is the one laptop per child initiative. Mr Braund is a strong supporter of that initiative yet sometimes more basic things such as getting electricity to villages has to come first. Mr Braund is very much encouraged by Craig Barrett's involvement in this initiative and also the strong support demonstrated by many other Silicon Valley business and technology leaders. And he hopes that the dialogue on this topic will continue to grow following the summit. But I'm not sure about that. The reason is that Silicon Valley cannot help the poor in its...[Read Full Article]

Wednesday Main Stream Media Headlines
SJ Mercury VC firms seek open borders for growth Microsoft's big, bold step falls short Quinn: Today's valley loser could be tomorrow's big winner Cisco's gadget-heavy baseball experience Sony moving over; apartments moving in SF Chronicle Arraignment today for ex-chair of HP Tech leaders, immigrants want change EU Faults Microsoft Order Compliance   WSJ Microsoft Enters Municipal Wi-Fi Realm Comverse Sinks on More Accounting Woes Cingular to Offer Cellphone Banking New York Brings Net-Gambling Charges Google to Add Staff in Ireland Microsoft Motives Suspect in Linux Buy Freeing Google From the Desktop   Reuters Microsoft to do online test of "Halo 3" in 2007 "Niice!" - Kazakh state Web site a hit after Borat Zune music player's slow first day no surprise Now online: retailers' Black Friday secrets TV scribe simpatico to "Housewives" video game Nintendo to ship 400,000 Wii units for Japan debut Japan sets up panel to study Net neutrality Cingular plans mobile banking service for 2007 PayPal founder's photo slideshow site gets funding Control Room to air Universal acts' shows on Web   News.com EU: Microsoft compliance deadline a week away Borland creates new company for tools group Former CA sales chief gets seven-year sentence NBC official is expected to join AOL Threats Exterminating the nuisance of spam  (Newsmaker) Access Cingular to dabble in mobile banking Text message spam could spell trouble for text-based ads Digital Life 'Second Life' faces threat to its virtual economy Media 2.0 Orb aims to beat YouTube at wireless Web video New...[Read Full Article]

Scoop: Browster acquisition in works - News Corp likely buyer
My sources tell me that Browster, based in San Francisco, will soon announce that it has been acquired. The buyer is understood to be News Corp, which owns MySpace. The financial terms are not known at this time. Browster's technology works with the Microsoft and Firefox browsers and downloads the page behind links. When a user moves the mouse cursor over the links, the web page instantly pops up. The company recently created a new version that has been customized for MySpace (PDF). It was this move that caught the attention of News Corp. With the MySpace Browster, News Corp. can help keep users on the MySpace site. Plus, downloading MySpace pages in the background will enable News Corp. to show a higher traffic count, which will strengthen ad revenue. . . . Please see SVW: Browster—a nifty search utility or a new way to "frame" third party web sites? Browster helps you sift through search results by adding instant page previews. But there could be some ugly side effects, such as a backlash from content owners and a massive increase in bandwidth use....[Read Full Article]

Tuesday Headlines in Mainstream Media
SJ Mercury Venture dollars pave way of new media  Chart: Firms receiving funding in Q3 2006 Previous venture capital surveys Deal adds mobile social networking plan Microsoft exec goes after the iPod Study finds Web isn't teeming with sex Intel set to unveil quad-core processors   SF Chronicle Valleywag update: Nick Denton speaks; YouTube parties with Beach Blanket Babylon Find friends by cell phone Loopt application's GPS program can beam map location-Ryan Kim INNOVATIONS Google, Apple among best firms at turning cost-efficient research into products-Tom Abate   New York TimesMicrosoft Aims to Improve Its ‘Works Well With Others’ Score Coming Soon via Your TiVo: Internet Video on Television A DNA Chip Maker Acquires Gene-Sequencing Company Apple Hires I.B.M.’s General Counsel With a Dish, Broadband Goes Rural   Wall Street Journal PowerPoint Pet Peeves How Videogames Turn Physics Into FunMotorola to Acquire Netopia New TiVo Feature Allows Sharing of Videos Sony Says PS3 Can't Play Some Old Games Movie Gallery Climbs on Revenue Gains Intel Rolls Out Xeon Chip Line Apple, Airlines Strike iPod Deal   News.com Extra: Apple's iPhone is calling Crave: USB Warmer Gloves Blogma: Linus Torvalds officially a hero Images: 35 years of Intel chip design Blog: Win a 'Second Life' island Video: Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii Reporters' Roundtable Podcast: Will they swoon for the Zune? Holiday Gift Guide 2006 Intel's quad-core processors go live Yahoo's Semel: Internet ad potential underestimated IBM's chief steps into 'Second Life' for incubator launch Images: IBM chief's 'Second Life' avatar Reuters...[Read Full Article]

Dissidents within YHOO and GOOG will make ethical companies
BusinessWeek recently published a news story on Reporters without Borders and its protest against Internet censorship in many countries: BusinessWeek: Nations that Censor the Net Some 17,000 attendees of the protest voted for the nation they believed is most in need of greater Internet freedom, and China came in second, with 4,100 votes. Myanmar, under the militaristic regime of the Junta party, was believed by 4,500 participants to present its citizens with the greatest threat to freedom of press on the Internet. The remaining nations, in descending order of votes received, were Belarus, Iran, Tunisia, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, and Uzbekistan. . . . . . China is described by Reporters Without Borders as a pioneer of Internet censorship, dedicating more resources than any other country to restrict online freedoms. There should have been a companion piece on US and other companies that enable censorship and oppression of dissidents. Such as Yahoo for example. What will happen is that Yahoo' s and Google's own dissidents will help to lead those  companies onto an ethical and moral pathway.  Recently, Terry Semel, Yahoo's CEO was booed at an internal gathering. Semel reacted by telling the Boo-ers to go work somewhere else! Semel is the one that will be working somewhere else. Wall Street should look for a change of leadership if leadership is not exercised by the executive suite of Yahoo. And the times will demand a leadership that is in tune with our times, and...[Read Full Article]

Monday Morning News round up: Today's headlines in the mainstream media
In Today's Online Media   New York Times E-Commerce Report: Shopping Site Offers a Way to Raid a Celebrity’s Closet Microsoft Counting on a Twist to Make Zune Shine in Shadow of iPod The Online Auteurs Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense Identity Thief Is Often Found in Family Photo For Start-Ups, Web Success on the Cheap   Wall Street Journal (Subscription) Software Upstarts Are New Force Avatars at the Office   SJ Mercury Sun opens up source code for Java   News.com Cray to introduce new Opteron supercomputer Sun picks GPL license for Java code Deutsche Telekom CEO to resign   SF Chronicle Digital marketers increasingly have the goods on consumersOptions have lost their luster, but many still lust for them / Stock-based compensation a powerful lure for companies that call Silicon Valley home   Reuters Samsung says DRAM demand for Q1 2007 "very strong" Holiday sales seen modestly higher: survey Newspaper giant Gannett pursuing Tribune: reports IBM to join Citigroup bid for Chinese bank stake  Techweb Tech Job Recovery Seen 49 Million U.S. Adults Notified Of Data Breaches Make Money Fast? Site Pays Bloggers For Product Reviews Allchin: Vista So Safe I Don't Need Anti-Virus Software   Ziff Davis Alarm Raised for Critical Broadcom Wi-Fi Driver Flaw Sun to Open-Source Java Under GPL Why Young Vets May Be the New Face of IT Researcher Finds 'Trusted Computing' Chip in Apple Models Phishers Cast Bait for Bigger Catch Microsoft Posts 'BSOD' Prank Software to Developer Site...[Read Full Article]

Hot search redefined; Helping entrepreneurs blog; PopGloss is new from Wists; Hubbub on social media; Web 2.0 Poles coming to Stanford; Becoming a hamster.
I'm still digging out from my recent India trip, here are a few bits and pieces... . . . Here is a hot search engine that gives old meaning to that term: http://www.MsDewey.com (Hat Tip Dida Kutz) . . . I recently spoke at an event organized by SVASE, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs  and I can heartily recommend its programs. Co-founder Mark Addison set up the lunchtime session and I found it interesting talking with entrepreneurs who hope to leverage blogging in their businesses. ACTEVA:CXO Leadership Forum - Blogger Confidential: A Conversation ... . . .   My buddy David Galbraith, co-founder of Moreover and co-author of RSS 1.0, just launched his second Wists shopping blog. Wists is a universal wish-list, with a click or two users can save images of things they like or might want to buy. Dave's first Wists product is Cribcandy. His second, PopGloss, "covers women's clothing and accessories, an eclectic mix of quirky and fun or innovative design - fashion without the attitude. It has a similar feel to Cribcandy, lots of pictures, few words, updated dozens of times a day and with the ability to save pictures and links to anything you like with one click." . . . Giovanni Rodriguez officially launched his PR agency HubbubPR, which is a great name. Social media PR is his focus and he says things are going very well. Here is a recent piece he wrote about social media in the enterprise. "The essay...[Read Full Article]

Just Say No to our Digital Leashes
I recently met Timothy Ferriss, a kindred intellect. Timothy has packed more lives into his 29 years than Steve Jobs has in his 51. He's finishing up a book called The Four-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich , due out in April, and it is packed with some great tips for our harried times. Tim is already a successful entrepreneur, and one that discovered the aimlessness of entrepreneurism at an early age. "I was constantly on the go, running around, making lots of money but hating to think that I would be doing this for the next 40 years. I'd already seen enough people do that and end up with quadruple bypass surgeries in their 50s, but I didn't know how to get off the tread mill," he said. So a couple of years ago, Tim took off to the closest airport, and picked a destination at random. "I didn't know where to fly. I saw London on the board and bought a one-way ticket. Until then, the whole of my life had been scripted, I wanted to do something spontaneous." Hallelujah, I can relate to the thrill of unscripted adventures. Tim ended up traveling the world, he lived in London, in Ireland learning Gaelic, in Japan learning Japanese and spent six months in Argentina learning Spanish. [BTW, Tim is also a linguistics scholar, a neuroscientist and a competitive wrestler...] "Argentina is an incredible place, it has every type of climate and you...[Read Full Article]

Two hours plus to get to Seagate Boss's Beach House
It was two hours and 25 minutes for Seagate's car service to bring me to the Aptos beach house of Seagate's CEO Bill Watkins, a long way to go for dinner. It was nice having a driver and I read the newspaper, wrote a couple of posts and took a nap, yet when I looked out the window, we were still about an hour away... Finally we get through the traffic and head on to a road that winds through a state park. We drive slowly along a narrow street that seems to turn into a trailer park, then there is a row of wooden beach huts and outside each one there is a very large sign that says "Do not park here." At the end of the street looms a very large house and that's where I get out. After my long time getting there, I was ready for the bathroom, and then the bar. I looked for familiar faces and fortunately there were many, Michael Kanellos, Cnet's editor  at large was there; Don Clark of WSJ of course; Therese Poletti from the Merc; Jean Baptiste Su US chief of the French News Agency; John Dvorak my favorite grumpy columnist; the always impressive Erika Brown from Forbes; and pretty soon nearly all the press is crowded together at one end of the living room -- normally not a good sign.   We sit down for dinner, a five course dinner cooked in a large, open kitchen by a top chef from...[Read Full Article]

Web 2.Uh Oh Week in SF - Where are the Users?!
The Web 2.0 conference is happening this week in San Francisco. And these days, lots of startups characterize themselves as Web 2.0 companies because their products offer collaborative tools, sharing of virtually anything, and their products use AJAX. Most of the Web 2.0 companies offer products that are very, very similar to each other. They all enable communities to share or not share their content or applications, and to do it in many different ways, from  using 3D Avatars,  to sending out their content to mobile phones - it all melds into a blur. It is difficult mustering any interest in Web 2.0 companies unless they have a community of users. And I don't mean "registered users." I've registered for at least 100 sites and never went back. If a Web 2.0 company can show it has a large enough and growing community of users, then I'll take notice. Just because a Web 2.0 company offers a Swiss-army knife array of collaborative functions, and/or it uses AJAX, means nothing. Show me your users and that's when I'll take notice.  Is YouTube a Web 2.0 company? Yes. Is that why it achieved a value of $1.6bn? No. It is the huge community that YouTube managed to coral into one place - that's the $1.6bn of value created....[Read Full Article]

Silicon Valley's Most Innovative Thinker Warns of Big Problems
It was a very dull 60th anniversary celebration for SRI International, one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Spun out of Stanford University, it lives in the heart of Silicon Valley and started a long time before there was a Silicon Valley. It has contributed a massive amount of ideas and technologies, so it was disappointing that the event was such a dull dud. I turned up with my 18 year old son Matt, we were primarily interested in Doug Engelbart, the legendary inventor and the most innovative thinker in the computer industry. He was on a panel with other SRI luminaries (scientists but mostly administrators.) As we walked into the auditorium at the Computer History Museum, Curt Carlson, SRI director (see SVW interview here) was finishing his welcome keynote. The place was full, but it wasn't that full, which surprised me. Soon, Paul Saffo, professional futurist, was up on the stage and introducing the four panelists which he would be moderating. They included Paul Cook, Phil Green, and Donald Nielson. Mr Saffo tried to raise the level of energy in the large room but it wasn't working and what followed was a fairly slowly paced session. Things did start to get going about 35 minutes into the panel, but Mr Saffo, saying he would "honor" the schedule cut things off right on time at 45 minutes. This puzzled me because how often do you get a panel together such as this one? Let it run longer would have been my choice and...[Read Full Article]

Yahoo and Google and China - it's time to Do Some Good
One of the most powerful images of the 20th Century is "Tank Man" the man that walked out in front of a column of tanks -- a day after the bloody suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He walked into the middle of a pedestrian crossing, with two shopping bags in his hands, and stood down a tank column--stopped them dead in their tracks. The tanks tried to move around him but he blocked them again and again. He clambered on top of the lead tank and spoke with the crew. PBS Frontline produced an excellent feature on Tank man earlier this year, I urge you to watch it. Nobody knows what happened to him, some say he was whisked away into the crowd. But maybe Yahoo can help the Chinese government find him, he might be using Yahoo mail - you never know: TankMan1301@yahoo.china.com Yahoo's executive management doesn't need to step out in front of a column of tanks to protest injustice in China, or anywhere else in the world, their rights are protected here. So why help the Chinese government track down and jail Chinese blogger Shi Tao for trying to exercise very mild political dissent? A ten year jail sentence. Yahoo can do the right thing, right now. It can launder the personal data it collects - especially if it is being collected in countries where there is a high likelihood that the personal data could cause serious harm to a Yahoo user if...[Read Full Article]

More Vloggies Vids . . .
Everybody and I mean everybody was packing a video camera at the Vloggies on Saturday night. Irina Slutsky, co-host and the prime organizer of the event, started off by telling people that "No videoing was allowed." It brought the house down. Irina did a great job on stage and kept things lively and fun. Mind you, the crowd were ready to have a good time, they'd been drinking their way through a chunk of PodTech's VC money for a good couple of hours . . . :-) I managed to grab a quick interview with Andy Plesser, the man behind the fast rising vidblogging sensation Beet.TV. Andy flew in from New York. Here's a rare on-camera interview with Beet.TV's Andy Plesser: Jerry Zucker, Hollywood movie director of classics such as Airplane, gave a great, short speech in which he sums up why video blogging is such a big deal. You should definitely check this out, introduced by his friend, John Furrier, CEO of PodTech. And I'd like to give a big thanks to Steve Wyshywaniuk and the crew from AliveinBaghdad.org for finding my camera bag. Check them out! Alive in Baghdad was formed to counter the sound-bite driven, “Live From” news model. Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad shows the occupation through the voices of Iraqis. Also, check out PodTech.net for John Furrier interviewing myself and a whole bunch of others, at the after-party at Cafe du Nord....[Read Full Article]

Foremski's First Law of New Media
My good buddy Tom Abate at the San Francisco Chronicle keeps reminding me that I should share my "Foremski's Law." It is something I've been talking about with small numbers of select individuals over the past 18 months or so.... Here is is.  Foremski's Law: Content is infinitely scalable. I"ll explain, some time soon, or if you ask me in person. This points to the keys to the kingdom, if you dig, and I know that you do... :-)...[Read Full Article]

The Vloggies was the Rite-Spot Saturday
The place to be Saturday evening was the Vloggies Awards  in San Francisco- the best of the best video bloggers. Organized by PodTech, co-founded by John Furrier, the event brought together an eclectic, and very much a San Francisco crowd. PodTech's Valerie Cunningham did an excellent job in getting people to come out...and dress for the occasion. Silicon Valley generally likes to dress as if they just crawled out of their parent's spare bedroom - T-shirts and jeans - even though they have been dressing themselves for many years. That's why it was fun to see lots of people dressed to the nines for the event. This was not your typical Silicon Valley event, that typically starts at 6 and ends at 8. Yes, it's true, this event did officially start at 6 but everybody was fashionably late and it was almost 8 before things got going. Andy Plesser from Beet TV was there (how come Beet didn't win anything?!) plus Nick Douglas from ValleyWag was looking very dapper; of course Scott Beale, Laughing Squid with his camera; Renee Blodgett turned up ready to have fun; my pals Chris and Kristie Heuer were freshly deplaned from Boston which did not slowdown Chris; the indefatigable Dan Farber was there; Steve Gillmore my fellow ZDNet blogger, Nick Aster representing Tree Hugger was there (congrats on winning a Vloggie!)and lots and lots of familiar faces - it was a very good evening. Here is a smattering of gossip: Gabe Rivera, the TechMeme...[Read Full Article]

Chinese Internet Rep Flees From UK Reporter
 A lot of people have personally expressed to me their disgust at Yahoo's involvement in acting as what Reporters Without Borders has called a "police informant" in the case of blogger Shi Tao. David Smith, a reporter for The Guardian in the UK, writes about China: The communist state stands accused of censoring search engines and persecuting bloggers such as Shi Tao, who was jailed for 10 years after using his Yahoo! account to email a US-based website about the government's attempt to control media coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. I tried to give China the right to reply by approaching Hu Qiheng, chairwoman of the Internet Society of China, for a full and frank interview in this Sunday's Observer. Can we discuss openness? 'I don't want to talk about that,' she said. 'It's outside our remit.' And with that she turned heel and fled into the crowd. Later, I'm told, she said in a workshop discussion that all governments need ethical starting points from which to regulate the net. Asked why the UN's declaration of human rights, including the right to freedom of speech, would not do, she simply smiled and nodded and said she'd prefer to hear everybody else's views. Link to Great Wall of Silence from Guardian Unlimited: Technology I'm not going to let this issue drop. SVW is going to be watching Silicon Valley and other US companies, and their involvement in China very closely. Watch this space....[Read Full Article]

Web creator warns of blogging perils
From the UK newspaper The Guardian: (Hat tip to Phil Manchester)  Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Briton who founded the Web in the early 1990s, says that if the internet is left to develop unchecked, "bad phenomena" will erode its usefulness. His creation has transformed the way millions of people work, do business, and entertain themselves. But he warns that "there is a great danger that it becomes a place where untruths start to spread more than truths or it becomes a place which becomes increasingly unfair in some way." He singles out the rise of blogging as one of the most difficult areas for the continuing development of the web, because of the risks associated with inaccurate, defamatory and uncheckable information. Sir Tim believes devotees of blogging sites take too much information on trust: "The blogging world works by people reading blogs and linking to them. You're taking suggestions of what you read from people you trust. That, if you like, is a very simple system, but in fact the technology must help us express much more complicated feelings about who we'll trust with what." The next generation of the Internet needs to be able to reassure users that they can establish the original source of the information they digest. Creator of web warns of fraudsters and cheats The Guardian Guardian Unlimited   Sir Tim is right, but it is a problem that is not confined to blogging; it is a problem that affects the entire Web. This is...[Read Full Article]

That Giant Sucking Sound - JotSpot Fears of Being Sucked in Come True
By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher I just got back from India and I noticed that JotSpot has been acquired by Google. In July of last year, I had lunch with JotSpot founder Joe Kraus, also the co-founder of Excite, the "Google" of its era. Mr Kraus complained about the "giant sucking sound" coming out of Silicon Valley's Google and Yahoo. Will these companies end up buying all the cool companies around? What will this do for innovation? Mr Kraus's fears were well placed. However, for JotSpot, I think they got out in time. Clearly, Mr Kraus did not believe that he could go on much further. Google Docs and Spreadsheets already had a lot of JotSpot functionality. JotSpot brings a heck of a lot more, of course, but it would only have been a matter of time before it filled in the gaps. In addition, Google is not interested in monetizing these services, at least not for now. If you are going up against Microsoft, Redmond wants revenues and so there is somewhat more of a level playing field--even though Microsoft can out market competitors and it has enormous scale. But if you go up against Google, you also go up against a competitor that doesn't care about revenues for most of its services. That's a "bad competitor." This does not bode well for SocialText or Coghead, although I'm sure that these companies are saying that it "validates" their businesses. There is still some hope for them in that they...[Read Full Article]

I'm back from India. . . join me for First Friday at the de Young
I'm back from a very interesting trip to India, I'll have at least one more post on my trip. I just wanted to let people know that I will be at the de Young from 6.30pm to 8.30pm for "First Friday with Foremski." Come on by and enjoy the museum. There is a no-host bar and music with Conjunto Romero celebrating Día de los Muertos. This is not a networking event, it's about connecting :-) Fridays at the de Young....[Read Full Article]

Part III A Passage to India - the teeming mashup of Mumbai
[This is an account of my first trip to India,  traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Part 1 is here.  Part 2 is here.] We leave for Delhi airport to travel by small chartered jet to Mumbai, formerly known by its Portuguese name Bombay, India's largest city with 19m residents. The security at the Delhi airport is multi-stage and every few yards police or military personnel are rechecking our papers and screening our baggage. India has suffered far more terrorist attacks than the US and it seems they can't be too careful. Even though we have moved through multiple checkpoints--all in view of each other--our documents and baggage get checked again and again. Vivek Ranadive, Tibco's CEO, notes that in the US, private jet travelers go through no security or screening at all. I'm amazed. We drive out to the other side of the airport and board the aircraft. We're soon up in the air for the 90-minute flight to Mumbai. I've become a big fan of the newspapers and business magazines in India and pass the time by reading. It's interesting to see things from within India  (more on this in a later post.) As we glide into the approach for the landing I can already see that this is a much different place than stately Delhi, with its broad boulevards and grand government buildings. Right next to the airport is a large brown-grey area of boxes and rectangles all jumbled up. I can't make out...[Read Full Article]

Despicable behavior by Yahoo management - Shi Tao gets ten years
From the London-based The Independent: CHINA Published state secrets Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison after "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities." His crime was to have emailed details of the Chinese government's plans to handle news coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004. Yahoo! provided crucial information in the case, linking the message and email account with Shi 's computer. Reporters Without Borders accused Yahoo! of acting as a "police informant." This kind of behavior will not fly. Yahoo management made a serious error in judgement and so has that of Google, which also hands over such information to Chinese and other government authorities. Both companies could "launder" their data before they receive it, and thus have nothing to turn over. Both companies always assure us that any data collected is not identifiable and that they are only interested in aggregated behavioral data. It's time to prove it. The revolt will come from within Yahoo's and Google's own ranks. How does it feel to work for a "police informant" for the Chinese government? The revolt from the rank and file is already happening. Watch this space for more details. And how long before users of Yahoo or Google services switch to more ethical service providers? On the Internet, other services are just a click away... Social causes are becoming extremely important in recruiting and retaining people. As competition for key staff rises, the determining factor will not be money...[Read Full Article]

Part 2: A passage to India . . . the stately New Delhi
in New Delhi. [This is an account of my first trip to India,  traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, is launching his business IT strategy book, "The Power to Predict," in India and he invited me to come along as he meets with politicians and some of India's top business and technology leaders. Part 1 is here.] New Delhi is a government city, at least for now. Broad boulevards and grand government buildings seem to be everywhere. And civil servants sit outside in circles having lunch on the expansive lawns. It is a city of 14mn people but I have no idea where they live, clearly not in the British colonial palaces in the part of the city where I am staying. I take a guided tour of the city's sights during the day. The weather is warm and humid but not oppressively hot. I'm told by my guide that this is a good time of the year to visit India. Delhi and Rome share the distinction of being the only two cities that have been inhabited for more than 2,000 years. Delhi is moving away from its dominance by government agencies and is building a large IT business park in its suburbs. Already, there are many US IT companies represented in India's capital city and more are expected. Bangalore, the well known Indian high-tech center is about a two-hour flight south of Delhi, closer to Mumbai (Bombay). In the evening we head...[Read Full Article]

Part 1: A Passage to India . . . My Travels with Tibco
in New Delhi. [This is an account of my first trip to India,  traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Vivek Ranadive, the CEO of Tibco is launching his business IT strategy book "The Power to Predict" in India, and he invited me to come along as he meets with politicians and some of India's top business and technology leaders.]   We're about to land in New Delhi when suddenly the engines of the huge American Airlines 777 rise to a roar and I'm pushed back into my seat as we gain speed and altitude. The captain's voice is calm, "We decided to abort the landing to get out of a bad situation. We'll be taking the approach again and we'll be landing in about ten minutes." This time the landing proceeds smoothly and I walk out of the high-tech transport and into a dowdy, provincial looking airport with threadbare carpets and walls covered with a patina of neglect. It reminds me of Warsaw airport circa 1977, before the economic changes that transformed Poland into a modern country. Even the roads leading from the airport are similar to pre-capitalist Warsaw, with small, ancient looking cars, traveling over narrow roads with broken paving. The analogy with Poland is an apt one but clearly on a much different scale. Poland's programmers routinely win top international competitions and India's programmers are helping to win big outsourcing contracts for the domestic IT companies--all part of a transformation of a country from a...[Read Full Article]

I'm off to India . . !
Tuesday morning I'll be flying to India, my first visit, and I'm excited. I'll be travelling with Tibco (an SVW sponsor) as Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, launches his book over there - "The Predicitve Enterprise." I'll be a fly on the wall as Mr. Ranadive meets with the local captains of industry and many others. I'll be back November 3rd and will post as I can. I hear India has a pretty good Internet connection :-)...[Read Full Article]

Cisco teleprescence is key to driving network upgrades
Cisco is betting heavily on corporate video as the killer application that will drive network equipment sales. That's why video is the prime focus of its research and development efforts. Today Cisco unveiled its next-generation videoconferencing system. For $300K Cisco's technicians will install three 65-inch Cisco high-definition flat panel displays and a camera system, plus tables and lighting to create "Teleprescence" - a life-like meeting experience. It all plugs into existing networks and there are no monthly service fees. What you get for $300,000 is one end of a teleprescence portal that makes it seem as if everyone is seated at the same table. I popped into briefings last week at Cisco and met with journalists sitting in New York. The effect felt very real, in that it felt that I had met and spoken with someone. Cisco is eating its own dog food and is installing 100 teleprescence rooms across its entire global operations. It expects to save $100 million in travel costs, about 9 percent of its travel budget. That should enable an ROI in just 9 months. The technology works well, and it communicates a real meeting experience--but it wasn't easy getting there. "We did a lot of human factors studies, from the shape of the table to how far away from the screen you should sit, plus camera angles and lighting," said Randy Harrell, director of product marketing for the Teleprescence line. He said the system was two years in development and it involved a...[Read Full Article]

Bursting the myth of contextual ads! BlueLithium shares proprietary data...
The conventional wisdom, as proposed by Google et al, is that placing advertising on a web page in its context gets the best results. Mortgage ads on mortgage pages, etc. In fact, Google recommends to its AdSense partners that Google ads should blend into the page, same colors etc. BlueLithium, the online ad network, says that this isn't true when it comes to serving ads based on users' behavior. Its BL Labs research division found that out-of-context ads perform better: (BlueLithiumClick here for BlueLithium press release) BL Labs analyzed over 400 million impressions across numerous sites, evaluating click-through rates (CTR) and conversion, or action-through rates (ATR), across several pre-determined behavioral and contextual categories. It also analyzed nine behavioral categories containing over 10 million impressions for patterns across various contextual categories. Analysts discovered that ads shown in the same context as behavior had a higher CTR in seven of the nine categories while ads shown in a different context had a higher ATR in five of the categories. The "shoppers" category showed the highest CTR from ads on career sites and the highest ATR on female-oriented sites. "Travelers" had the highest CTR on food sites and highest ATR on career sites. These types of findings will help to support online publishers because online advertising will be more effective and better able to support a greater diversity of content. Otherwise the subject matter of content will be designed for the ads, which you can see this happening already....[Read Full Article]

The GOOG back/slash builds . . . is the end (/>) to free content in sight?
I've been saying Google is a media company for a couple of years now. I put it this way: Google is a media business because it publishes pages of content with advertising around it.  Now, more of the media is figuring it out. Over at the excellent Poynter.org journalism site, there are an increasing number of articles and discussions about Google. And that's because more of the media is noticing that that Google is indeed a media company, or as I like to put it, "a technology-enabled media company." For example, Vincent J. Maher over at Poynter, wrote this short article: We're Facing a Monster: Will Someone Please Step Up and Say It? Maher notes that Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp is considering banning YouTube videos from MySpace. And he says that every media company should place Google on its hitlist. As a veritable superpower in information gathering and publishing, we should remember that Google has used its power to censor the Internet in China, and to help itself win court cases through exclusive access to its Gmail spam filter data. And in Belgium, Google scoffed at legitimate copyright claims. The cultural impact of such power is to stifle competition and innovation -- the very things Google says it stands for. Can someone please step up and say we're facing a monster? Link to Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits I'll step up and say it, I'll even shout it: WE ARE FACING A MOSTER. GOOG is a monster media company that seeks to collect and...[Read Full Article]

Intel's desktop chief talks with PodTech about Quad Core technology
Quad Core is key to Intel's bid to revive profits and growth. PodTech's Jason Lopez interviewed Stephen Smith, head of Intel's desktop and platform operations: http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1139/idf-preview-quad-core-microprocessors...[Read Full Article]

Getting the CSS Internet 2.0 religion . . . . . . . . . (don't mention the sin of tables)
The past few days I've been working on my CSS skills--the media technology that lies at the heart of this next phase of  the Internet. I don't mind learning some Geek, in fact I speak a little Geek, I used to be a software engineer for a very short time a long time ago. I'm of the opinion that these days, I should be a "technology enabled" journalist and I encourage my media colleagues to do the same. I should know how these technologies such as CSS, RSS, XML, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, (not PERL) Ruby on Rails, do what they do. I don't need to be proficient in these computer languages, but I should know enougth to be able to do basic things with these tools, because there is an opportunity for journalists to become "media engineers." By knowing something about these technologies--which are all essentially publishing technologies--journalists can craft new types of media, and CSS is a key enabling technology. When I worked as a mainstream journalist, we didn't have to learn an alphabet soup of new skills all the time. Software engineers and web site developers have to constantly update their personal bag of skills. Our main requirement as journalists was to meet deadlines, we didn't need exotic skills such as typing or spelling. Most of us type fairly fast using just two fingers. Being good at spelling is nice but not a deal breaker, the spell checker catches most spelling mistakes, and the subs (sub-editors) catch the rest. (The little...[Read Full Article]

No need for a "pod" UpSnap offers free access to podcasts via cell phones
There is no need to own an iPod or an MP3 player to listen to podcasts if you use UpSnap's free mobile phone based service. I recently met with UpSnap, the free 411 SMS messaging service which has added a large entertainment service. Through a simple interface users can create a playlist of subscribed podcasts and listen to them through their cell phones. It's a very large potential user base, there are about 210m SMS capable cell phones in the US. In addition, there is no software download or installation required. "Podcasts have proved to be very popular, but they have one problem, you need an iPod," said Tony Philipp, CEO of UpSnap. "We've extended the reach of this popular media so that anyone can access podcasts anywhere at anytime using any mobile phone." The service is free except for a small number of premium podcasts. It is based on a streaming voice technology called SWInG (Streaming Wireless Internet Gateway)from XSVoice - a company it acquired in January 2006. The revenues come from merchants that pay UpSnap on an SMS text-to-call model. A short advert after each podcast enables listeners to connect to merchants. Once a user has selected their podcasts and they are ready to listen, they text a short one word message to the service which then queues up their podcasts and starts streaming the content. "The service is for media junkies who want branded content from ESPN, NASCAR, as well as access to niche music, they...[Read Full Article]

Thoughts on Google and YouTube...
Google's acquisition of YouTube for $1.65bn stunned many in Silicon Valley. Some thought it was way too much to pay for a startup with hardly anything in revenues and it indicates a bubble mentality. While others took it as good news because it would boost the valuation of other startups in the same or related markets. Those opinions would be true if this was 1999, but it's not.  In 1999 we didn't have these massive computing platforms, such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, EBay, Amazon,  etc. One way to look at this deal is to say that YouTube acquired the most efficient and powerful computing platform on the planet. GOOG can offer YouTube instant economies of scale that would have taken it years to build. In addition, Google has a business model that can monetize YouTube much better, and more quickly than anybody else. If YouTube had an IPO today, it would take it a long time to become a large thriving business, fighting off many similar competitors along the way. GOOG can monetize YouTube far better and far more quickly than anybody else. Therefore YouTube's valuation is likely on the low side considering the revenues Google can make from this acquisition. This also means that the valuations of similar businesses are not boosted by this deal, because suddenly, there is an 8,000 lb guerilla in the room. And it is taking all the oxygen out of the room. In 1999, the Internet was still a level playing field, all the big...[Read Full Article]

Here comes Office 2.0 . . .
This is an interesting conference put on by Ismael Ghalimi at the swank St Regis. I popped into the Tuesday evening reception  at SF MOMA. Conference goers got their badges, and their digital schedules on a flash drive - an Apple iPod Nano - very classy. I got to catch up with Steve Gilmor, my fellow ZDNet blogger, David Tebbutt, and also, Robert Scoble's boss, John Furrier, founder of PodTech was there. Plus a bunch of pals made it, Chris Heuer, Jeremy Pepper, Brian Solis, Uwe Maurer, and I met many others. This type of event is good because you can get to chat and get to know people. Office 2.0 is a space that holds much more promise than "Web 2.0" because Office 2.0 is displacing a business model. Much of the Web 2.0 applications out there are not displacing anything, they are seeking new(ish) business models. Office 2.0 is about offering business productivity as a service rather than as a download. Will corporations allow such activities outside of their firewalls? They probably don't have any choice about it. I heard one story Tuesday evening about a company that had finished a long SAP installation but their internal departments and other users, refused to switch from Salesforce. So they dumped SAP. Today's model for growing software sales is: make the software development cheap enough so that departments can pay for it out of their budgets, without having to beg their colleagues in IT.  Individuals can expense it and it is that kind...[Read Full Article]

Smalltown and GrayBoxx: Two approaches to local search and two approaches to tapping the Yellow Pages gold mine
Local search and local online commerce are the next battlegrounds for the giants such as Google and Yahoo, but also for many startup companies. The lure is the billions of dollars spent on Yellow Pages advertising by local businesses. We have Yahoo Local and Google Local, plus Max Levchin's Yelp, CitySearch, Ingenio, plus local newspapers and other companies--all trying to grab a piece of the local search and local commerce ad spend. But tapping into the local businesses market through online services is hard. The same factors that make scaling a global online service easy on the Internet become reversed when applied to local businesses. For example, a local pizza parlor gets nearly all its business from within two miles of where it operates. Reaching China or even a neighborhood five miles away is something the Internet does well for many companies. But it doesn't make much sense for a local pizza parlour, and the same is true for most local businesses--they all nned to reach customers in their neighborhoods. I recently spoke with two startups, Smalltown and Grayboxx, with two different approaches. Smalltown targets neighborhoods and small communities I was very impressed with Smalltown's approach to local search because of the elegant design and simplicity of the site. Simplicity is not easy to do but it is extremely vital in the online space. Last week I spoke with Smalltown CEO Hal Rucker. "To succeed in local markets we belive that you have to be local," said Mr Rucker....[Read Full Article]

60 Minutes talked with Dunn and Fiorina while Perkins went sailing on his very large boat
Sunday evening "60 Minutes" devoted almost  30 minutes of the program to separate interviews with Patricia Dunn, the former chairman of Hewlett-Packard, and Carly Fiorina the former CEO. It was all mildly fascinating in terms of new information. What was interesting was that "60 Minutes" took the approach that here were two very powerful women, and both had run into trouble from a very male HP board. Ms Dunn started by saying she did not know about the illegal nature of the investigation into boardroom leaks until fairly recently, September 6, 2006. And she said that the reason that she was indicted last week on four felony charges was the work of Tom Perkins, a former fellow board member, and one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. She said Mr Perkins wanted her out because she refused to keep private the source of the boardroom leaks. She said he told her he felt betrayed by her actions.  He then took his complaint to the SEC, FTC, Justice Department, and the California Attorney General. This was verified by a representative of Mr Perkins' said "60 Minutes." Mr Perkins was not available for an interview because he was sailing his boat, the "Maltese Falcon," which at at 289 feet is one of the world's largest. So whenever his name was mentioned "60 Minutes" would cut to one of many video clips of a lone Mr Perkins on his massive boat. I bet he wished he was in the studio able...[Read Full Article]

SVW events: First Friday with Foremski moves to 2nd Friday (because of Rigoletto!); My pals at Social Media Club; Be square or be there at New Comms in Boston
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher . . . First Friday with Foremski this month has been moved to second Friday of the month because I'm going to Rigoletto(!) But please come down to the wonderful de Young Museum on a Friday evening anyway (6.30 to 8.30pm for music and cocktails). Also, Elvis Costello is playing in the park just around the corner that evening. It's all part of three days of Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco.  Isn't this a great place to be?! . . . My pals Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer are organizing a half day conference about social media and corporate comms. It's going to be time well spent and my good friend Giovanni Rodriguez, ex-Eastwick and now head of Hubbub will be one of the presenters; and Lisa Stone of BlogHer will be there too. . . . Coming up the Society of New Communications Research conference. This is another don't miss event... Inaugural Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala, November 1 - 2 at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Mass. Be the first to hear the results of our 2006 research initiatives and winning case studies from around the globe. Receive a copy of the first Journal of New Communications Research. Help us determine our 2007 research agenda and hear about developing standards for social media initiatives. View the program and session descriptions....[Read Full Article]

SVW CEO chat: Sharpcast has Web 2.0 ambitions way beyond photo sharing
Wednesday, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gibu Thomas, the CEO of Sharpcast, an online photo sharing site (or is it . . ?). He's a sharp guy with a good grasp of where the Web 2.0 trend is heading. At first, and even second glance, Sharpcast might seem like an online photo sharing site but it is potentially more than that. It could become a web services integration platform/framework that could transform consumer PC applications into sturdy and lucrative consumer online services. "The photo sharing application is a demonstration of what our technology can do," said Mr Thomas. "Our goal is to work with application developers, ISPs, mobile carriers, and offer them a way to turn applications into web services and generate revenues." Sharpcast has developed a "Sharpcast server" similar to a Microsoft Exchange server but more web savvy and scalable. A key element of the technology is its syncing capabilities because Sharpcast's philosophy is that consumer applications should be available to a user even in the absence of an Internet connection. "It shouldn't matter if you are connected or not, you still have access to your data, " said Mr Thomas. I whole heartedly agree (please see: Walkabout Wiki)  For example, users of Sharpcast's photo application can editor photos and tag them even if they are offline. And they can access their photos from any Internet connected PC, and through a mobile device such as a Palm Treo. Intelligent syncing is a very important element of Sharpcast's technology, especially...[Read Full Article]

SVW chat: IBM's CTO of Emerging Technologies talks about Web 2.0 and trust
David Boloker CTO of Emerging Technologies at IBM came into town to speak at Ajax World. I caught up with him Wednesday morning and we talked about Ajax and Web 2.0, and a new early alpha initiative IBM calls QEDwiki that can provide the framework for integrating information and applications within enterprises: David Boloker is very interested in Ajax and very interested in making sure that there aren't dozens of nuances of Ajax. He and Scott Dietzen, CTO at Zimbra, one of the earliest Ajax apps companies, founded the Open Ajax Alliance. "Every Ajax toolset was following its own nuance of Ajax and the problem was that each toolset wanted to 'own' the whole page. This created many conflicts and made it difficult to pull together different components," said Mr Boloker. "We did not want to create a standards body but to create agreement on some basic things such as naming JavaScript objects." Is an Ajax application the same as a Web 2.0 application? "No, a Web 2.0 application has to include the social dimension, how it implements tagging, for example, and sharing, and all the other community oriented aspects that are important," said Mr Boloker. For IBM, Ajax and Web 2.0 represent new generations of  applications that use the web as a platform. And they have characteristics that enable users to create their own "my web" experience by mashing/pulling  together Ajax components from many different sources. A key to that approach is to be able to provide the framework...[Read Full Article]

How much should you be making? PayScale reveals SV salary data
I recently met with PayScale, the Seattle-based aggregator of salary information. The company says that it can provide users with an accurate, assessment of salaries for specific jobs in regions around the world. That sounds like a chance for snooping on colleagues and bosses, and thus wonderfully enticing. But Joe Giordano, the founder and VP of product development, and Mike Metzger, the CEO said that they protect people's privacy so it is difficult to check a specific person's salary although you can probably get a good approximation. Here is some fresh jobs data on Silicon Valley salaries (not including bonuses). You can view the rest of the spreadsheet here. The power of the site is in the real-time salary survey data that users put into the system. And that is done by following a set of questions that tie salary to education, location, experience and type of job. But how does PayScale ensure the quality of its data? "By following the line of questions we can eliminate false salary data, because we already know how much someone would be making. And there is not much incentive for people to lie because they want accurate information themselves," explained Mr Giordano. Mr Metzger said that there are 20 tests that are designed to check for validity. Any data that falls out of the statistical norm is rejected. As much as 50 percent of profiles are rejected by the system. Individuals can use the service for free in exchange for filling out...[Read Full Article]

Tilting at the windmills of Web 2.0: A Spanish delegation visits Silicon Valley
I had a fascinating conversation a couple of Sundays ago with a visiting delegation of Spanish business and technology leaders from the region of Asturias, in Northern Spain. I was very flattered and honored that in their very busy three-day tour of Silicon Valley's top companies, universities, and research institutes, they wanted to meet with me. This is one of the wonderful pleasures of my job, finding out that I have readers in places that I didn't know I had readers...! Asturias is a former coal and iron mining region with about one million inhabitants and it is the fourth fourth fastest growing IT region in the European Union. It has a rich, wonderful history, especially its role in the defense of the republic during the Spanish civil war (please see additional info at the end of this post). The delegation included Jose Manuel Alonso, Spain's head of the W3 Council, which is the only Hispanic country that hosts the web standards body, and thus handles *all* Latin American duties. There were also representatives from the CTIC Foundation, the local university, and a representative of Arcelor, the world's largest steel company, with more than 350,000 workers. All of the six delegates, and their translator, Andreu Veà, a postgraduate at Stanford university, were born and raised in Asturias and spoke of region's beauty. Their goal is to develop Asturias into a healthy, diverse economic region that includes a significant high-tech prowess. A key part of that goal is to be...[Read Full Article]

Superstar VCs and YouTube; IWantMedia; Free domains? PhishTank is coming; $70 PCs; SCNR in Boston
. . . What do superstar VCs watch on YouTube From my friends over at Beet.tv: I thought you might enjoy this one. Andy and I saw Roger McNamee yesterday at MIT. We taped his thoughts on the proliferation of video. He also says he enjoys Keith Olbermann clips, and ones of baby pandas in China: http://www.beet.tv/2006/09/superstar_vc_ro.html . . . From the excellent I Want Media Daily e-newsletter, Patrick Phillips and team at NYU . . . :-) Google, Yahoo 'Don't Have to Pay for Journalism' A change in media business models has been created by the simple fact that it is more effective to sell products and services next to a search box than next to journalism, writes Tom Foremski, a Financial Times reporter-turned-blogger. "How will we pay for professional journalism?" http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/09/two_years_ago_i_1.php http://iwantmedia.com/ . . . Also from I Want Media: U.S. Media 'in Decline Worldwide' American media are experiencing a decline in world audience market share, according to British media expert Jeremy Tunstall, author of the forthcoming book "The Media Were American." India, China and Japan now have media exports that equal, or exceed, their media imports. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5967_1808511,001600060016.htm I wonder how soon US online media companies such as Google, Yahoo, etc will face a similar decline in market audience? http://iwantmedia.com/ . . . Is OpenDomain.org altruistic or business savvy? OpenDomain offers free use of domain names to open source software communities. Ric Johnson, president of OpenDomain.Org. "We don't sell domains nor do we transfer them. Instead, we buy...[Read Full Article]

Germany loves LG15; Podshow funding shows a bubble; Women-led startups
. . . LonelyGirl15 wrap up Uncovering the identity of LonelyGirl15 vidstar "Bree" was a great scoop for SVW, (closely followed by an SVW scoop on EMC acquiring Network Intelligence.) Google found  27,400 pages mentioning the LG15 scoop.Scoops always attract traffic and some of it continues to return, which is why scoops are very important for any news publication. Looking at my server logs was interesting. Even though SVW made it to the front page of the New York Times, three times more traffic came from another news publication, Germany's prestigious  Spiegel. - http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzkultur/0,1518,436783,00.html . . . Jason Calacanis on Podshow raising another $15m. Lest there be no question, we are now in a full-blown bubble. What on earth Podshow is going to do with almost $25M in funding is anyone's guess, but it's not going to end well I can tell you that. To raise this money they must have had a $35-60M pre-money valuation. That means the VCs are going to look for a $300-500M exit at the very least, and that means they need to get to $30-50M in revenue. Not sure I see that happening. Link to OK folks... now it's a bubble  - The Jason Calacanis Weblog   . . . Women tech entrepreneurs conference Oct 5 The Women's Technology Cluster's Entrepreneur Venture Conference (EVC) is a showcase for women-led startups. Women's Technology Cluster - San Francisco  Also SVW interview: Telle Whitney, head of the Anita Borg Institute...[Read Full Article]

Gary Bloom speaks; Seagate's $1m charity challenge; Silicon Valley goes to Oxford; Citizen Journalism defined; Tips on dealing with journalists; Telcos getting into news
. . . Lunch with Gary Bloom, former CEO of Veritas, former exec vp at Oracle, and hear him talk about Silicon Valley and its recent headlines, among other things. - Oct. 12 at Ristorante Don Giovanni organized by the IABC. CEO Perspective: Communicating during challenging times. . . . Seagate CEO Bill Watkins issues personal challenge to raise $1m for the Bay Area Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and will buy lunch for the team that out-raises Seagate, in addition to matching $25,000 donated by his employees.  Corporate Cup Challenge - Light The Night  . . . Silicon Valley pioneers are heading to the Oxford Saïd Business school in November for "Mass Collaboration." Oxford Saïd Business School Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford  . . . Mark Glaser over at PBS' MediaShift has a long post on citizen journalism, its history, and tons of links to online resources. Your guide to citizen journalism . . . Want to know how to communicate with journalists? Here is some good advice on what not to do! The Care and Feeding of the Press . . . Telcos are getting into the news business, Amy Gahran says this is scary considering the net neutrality context. Poynter Online - Telcos in the News Biz? Great and Scary  ...[Read Full Article]

Two years ago I became a journalist blogger . . . and discovered a terrible thing
It was about two years ago that I started "blogging." I had left the Financial Times in early June and took the summer off, I spent most of it chatting to people about my plans. It was a good exercise, to try to explain to others what I was doing. I wasn't sure myself. It took me most of the summer to boil down a 30 minute explanation to one sentence: I am publishing an online news site reporting on the business of Silicon Valley. Two years ago I knew in my gut that we were at a crucial point in a rapidly changing media sector; and that taking this risk (two kids and an ex-wife to support) would be worthwhile. I knew that business would not be getting better for my employer because: technology advertising wasn't coming back due to the dotbomb fallout; M&A taking away large advertisers; and financial services advertising wasn't coming back either because the IPO market was a bust. In addition, advertising was rapidly moving online... I didn't realize at the time that I would become the first mainstream journalist to leave to become a professional "journalist blogger." Other journalist that also blogged, Dan Gillmor, Om Malik had day jobs. It would be another seven months before Dan Gillmor left the San Jose Mercury, and two years before Om Malik left Business 2.0 to become fulltime journalist bloggers. I also didn't realize the effect this would have on my surroundings. One of my contacts at...[Read Full Article]

Intel announces 80-core microprocessors and offers $1m in PC design competition
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher Intel (a SVW sponsor) Tuesday announced an advanced chip design that has 80 cores and can perform at a trillion floating point operations per second. This would make possible inexpensive supercomputers that could model complex events such as global warming, designing safer cars, and be used in drug discovery. Prototypes of the chip were shown by Paul Otellini during his keynote speech that opened the Intel Developer Forum conference in San Francisco. The chips are about five years away from commercial introduction. Intel also said that a quad-core server microprocessor would be introduced in November and followed by a desktop PC version early next year. The announcements reflect Intel's bid to regain some lost ground to rival Advanced Micro Devices. Intel has focused strongly on its chip design and manufacturing prowess to produce chips that use much less electric power. Large computer data centers are running out of electric power. In order to expand computing facilities, computer systems that use less electric power are in high demand. To boost sales of PCs in the home Intel announced it would pay  up to $1m in prizes to designers and manufacturers of "sexy" PCs. The Intel Core Processor Challenge aims to encourage PC makers to go beyond the "beige box." Intel is trying to establish its Viiv PC platform in the living room as the heart of a digital entertainment system for the entire home. And a stylish format would help sales. Eric Kim, vice...[Read Full Article]

Cisco develops video blogging systems for businesses
Cisco Systems introduced several appliances in its Digital Media Systems, an emerging markets technology business group, that will make it easier for companies to produce and distribute video presentations. The technology was developed internally rather than by acquisition--Cisco's traditional form of business development. The digital media system has been in use by the news@Cisco group, which publishes press releases and features. It is the first in a series of planned product announcements. Cisco believes that the enterprise video market could become a $1bn business opportunity. From Cisco: "While the digital media explosion has taken off in the consumer world, businesses are just beginning to realize the potential of video. The Cisco Digital Media System, combined with the power of the IP network as the platform, allows organizations to move to a business environment where compelling interactions and experiences are created and shared," said Marthin De Beer, vice president of Cisco's Emerging Markets Technology Group. A basic setup which includes  a portable digital video encoder, the digital media manager, and video portal costs about $133,000. The components: Cisco Digital Media Encoders: The Cisco Digital Media Encoder 2000 is a studio-level appliance with multiple channel support. The Cisco Digital Media Encoder 1000 is a portable encoder that can be used wirelessly for single-channel encoding. Both encoders support live and on-demand encoding in many formats. Cisco Digital Media Manager: The Cisco Digital Media Manager manages and publishes digital media and provides tools for users to add and archive media; assign metadata and...[Read Full Article]

SVW Journal: Out and about at WebEx and SaaScon . . .
It is a busy week in San Francisco with the Intel Developer Forum (Intel is a sponsor of SVW), the Clean Tech California Awards, the software as a service conference, and in San Diego DEMO is happening. I stayed close to home this week. Monday, I managed to miss a lunch time media roundtable about software on demand because I was trying to catch up with tons of stories, and trying to tweek my CSS style sheet on SVW. . . . Cisco rolls its own instead of buying I did speak with Cisco about their Digital Media Systems business, which they say could become a $1bn business group. It is being launched by an internal venture group. This is a sharp departure from Cisco's normal way of growing business, which is to seek out companies for acquisition once the market horizon reaches that magic $1bn level. Internal development versus acquisitions? Does this mean acquisitions of private companies are getting a bit too richly valued for Cisco?   . . . enterprise software is turning into one big mashup In the evening I ran over to the WebEx event at the W Hotel and spoke with David Knight, VP pf product Management at WebEx. This was the launch of the WebEx collaborative application platform. I said to Mr Knight that every enterprise application seems to be turning into the same thing: collaborative apps linked into CRM, ERP and legacy systems. In a year or two, how will I tell the...[Read Full Article]

Buzzlogic aims to untangle "Social Media"
Buzzlogic introduces on-demand software service to help companies identify key online influencers. From Buzzlogic: . . . BuzzLogic calculates and surfaces the influencers who are shaping and driving specific conversations in social media with algorithms that analyze relationships, such as who connects to whom, about what is happening and who is listening. . . . A key feature of the service is the ability to draw social maps of influencers in a conversation, essentially a critical path of the relationships between key influencers. BuzzLogic also enables marketers to engage with key influencers through the service, and to monitor and track the results of their actions. SVW take: It is an interesting service to find influential bloggers and others. However, shouldn't every company already know who is influential in their space? I'd be interested to find out if mainstream media journalists are as influential as PR companies think they are. Quite often a lot of work goes into influencing a publication such as BusinessWeek to write about a company or product, yet that effort can produce small returns in terms of influence and sales. Yet some journalist bloggers can weave a much more influential network. Once the key influencers are identified what is the course of action? To smother them with love and presents? In another context, a repressive government could use this technology to smother dissidents . . .   - - - Please see SVW: The metrics of influence - The mania for measuring and identifying top bloggers...[Read Full Article]

5 Clean Tech winners in SF will receive $500,000
Tuesday morning at a special event hosted by Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, the five winners of the California Clean Tech Open will be announced. The winner in each category—energy efficiency, smart power, renewable energy, transportation and water management—will receive a $50,000 cash infusion plus office space and legal, accounting and public relations services worth another $50,000. In short, winners get the means to get their enterprise off the ground. Finalists include: "SoCool" has developed a solar-powered air-conditioning unit for automobiles. "Hive Power" aims to become a utility that uses only renewable energy sources. "Crystal Clear" reduces the cost of purifying water to 1.5 cents per gallon. "Reclaim Electric" regenerates wasted heat from computers, HVAC and other sources as usable electricity. "Meridian Design" has designed a $20 retail water purification system that  uses ultraviolet light to eliminate all water-borne pathogens. Clean Tech has become a fast growing sector in Silicon Valley. Link to CNN:  Silicon Valley goes solar...[Read Full Article]

Techmeme tries out new sponsorship model
Gabe Rivera's Techmeme is experimenting with an interesting approach to sponsorship by selling space on its front page to three other companies. How it works:  A sponsor's blog occupies a permanent place in the "Techmeme Sponsor Post" area of the site for the duration of the sponsorship. The technology is simple: a sponsor's blog feed is polled every few minutes, the latest post of which appears in its assigned slot (first, second, or third) along with a logo image that links to the sponsor's site. See also this post for more on this sponsorship model. Link to Sponsor Techmeme I see a few wrinkles in this approach: -There is no editorial control over what the posts say. -The sponsors' blogs will be skewed towards the Techmeme audience and thus they will not be representative of their daily output. This could put off regular readers of those blogs. -Readers of Techmeme come to see what the in-crowd (the select group of blogs that Techmeme polls) is talking about.  They have little interest in single blog posts from sponsors who are talking to their communities. -The sponsors are trying to sell products and services. Blog posts generally are not selling products and services. -Blog posts in the "sponsor" area are taken out of their context, and placed on a page that puts them out of context with surrounding content. I would tweak this model a bit. I would offer up the three positions as  window onto the Techmeme community and let the sponsors put...[Read Full Article]

New York Times on HP spy scandal
Following Mark Hurd's Friday press conference and the testimony of his personal lawyer Michael Holston....The New York Times adds to the story ... From NYT: Chairwoman Leaves Hewlett in Spying Furor By DAMON DARLIN and MATT RICHTEL . . . His voice shaking, Mr. Hurd said a review of the means used to trace leaks from the company’s board had produced “very disturbing” findings. He also conceded that “I could have, and I should have,” read a report prepared for him while the operation was under way. . . .Two executives who supervised the effort were also reported to be leaving. . . .  Mr. Hurd took no questions, with the company saying he did not want to pre-empt his testimony next week to a House subcommittee looking into the Hewlett-Packard affair. . . .  Ms. Dunn said she had resigned at the request of the board. But she said that while she had the responsibility to identify the source of leaks, “I did not propose the specific methods,” and those who performed the investigation “let me and the company down.” According to people briefed on Mr. Hurd’s plans, Kevin T. Hunsaker, its senior counsel and director of ethics, and Anthony R. Gentilucci, its Boston-based manager of global investigations, will leave the company. Mr. Hurd did not speak to this issue, and the company declined to comment. . . . The moves by Hewlett-Packard on Friday were an attempt to get ahead of the torrent of daily disclosures about...[Read Full Article]

Anita Borg on why there should be more women technologists
The late Anita Borg did a tremendous amount of work in highlighting the need for more women in technology. With the upcoming Grace Hopper Celebration of Women In Computing conference in San Diego Oct. 4 to 7, an event she co-founded in 1994 with Telle Whitney, I'd like to publish part of Anita Borg's Heinz Award acceptance speech. It raises awareness about why there should be more women in technology fields. 3/12/2002: I would like to thank the Heinz Foundation for recognizing with this award that the development of the technology for the future must have positive social and human impacts. In the near future, technology will affect everything: our economic, political, social and personal lives. Will technology be used to help solve problems of energy, food, water and clean air? Control disease? Nurture our children? Care for our elderly and disability? Will technology be used to increase literacy, particularly among women? Will it enable a fair global economy? Will we live in peace? Will it be used to solve the problems or create the futures that women want?...[Read Full Article]

HP: Mark Hurd apologises to journalists targeted in spy probe; immediate resignation of Dunn
Transcript of remarks made by Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard at a press conference on September 22 2006. · Thanks Bob, and thanks for joining us today. · I felt it was important to meet with you … there’s been an extensive amount written about us in the media and we’ve not really been in a position to respond with a higher certainty of the facts until now · And I know you have been clamoring for details. · My goal from the beginning has been to be as transparent as possible but also as accurate as possible. · I wanted the opportunity to share the facts, outline our actions and next steps within the constraints of the ongoing investigation. · Before I begin, I want to reiterate that this has nothing to do with the strategy or operations of Hewlett-Packard or frankly the vast majority of the people of HP. · The company has made tremendous progress in our business operations and this is a testament to the hard work and contributions of everyone at Hewlett-Packard. Let me tell you why I haven’t communicated earlier and why I am speaking with you now....[Read Full Article]

HP: Mark Hurd's legal counsel Michael Holston details spying on journalists
Press conference transcript of remarks made at a September 22 press conference by Michael Holston, partner with law firm Morgan Lewis, legal counsel to Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard: · Thanks Mark. Good afternoon. · I’ve been asked by Mark to discuss the work that Morgan Lewis has done to date. · Specifically I’ve been asked to explain the process that Morgan Lewis has used to uncover the facts behind the leak investigation and to present those facts to you, with a particular focus on the facts related to the issues that have been addressed in the media in the past few weeks. · Before getting into the specifics, let me say that our investigation is not complete. There is still more work to be done. · I was first retained by HP with regard to these issues on Sept. 8th. · As I mentioned, the Firm has been asked to do an in-depth review of all the facts surrounding the investigation of the board leaks. · The objective of the investigation is to get a comprehensive picture of what happened, when it happened and how it happened. · In addition to this investigation, Morgan Lewis is also now handling all federal and state inquiries and investigations related to this matter. III. Process: · First, let me talk about the process. During the past two weeks: o Morgan Lewis has collected more than a million pages of documents. o We have reviewed many of those pages. o We are committed...[Read Full Article]

Thoughtleaders: Where are the women in technology? Anita Borg Institute aims to shake things up
In about two weeks, more than 1200 women plus a handful of men will meet in San Diego for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. It is organized by the Anita Borg Institute, the leading advocate for women in technology leadership roles, and the Association of Computing Machinery. Anita Borg, founder of the institute. I recently I met with Telle Whitney, the energetic and passionate head of the Anita Borg Institute,  housed within HP Labs in the heart of Silicon Valley. Also at the meeting was Alan Eustace VP of engineering at Google. Both Mr Eustace and Ms Whitney had once worked with Anita Borg, one of the world's top women computer scientists. The topic of why are there so few women in computer engineering and technology research is one that has been around for many years. Have we made any progress? "Some days it feels like we haven't moved much; but other days it really does feel that we have made a lot of progress. We just have to remember that culture changes slowly," said Ms. Whitney. The forthcoming Grace Hopper celebration and conference, is a highpoint at the Anita Borg Institute, and this year it becomes an annual even--from being held once every two years. "It is very exciting to see women connecting with each other," said Ms Whitney. "Suddenly, they are not in the minority anymore: they are with hundreds of other women. That makes a big difference." Ms Whitney said that when she worked in tech...[Read Full Article]

Google.org seeks profits from charity work
The New York Times has an article describing Google's charity: Google.org funded with $1bn. What makes this interesting is that its legal status is the same as that of a corporation--it is a for-profit entity rather than a non-profit. This means that Google.org is not subject to the 501(c)(3) IRS code that restricts what a non-profit can do. A drawback is that it would pay taxes on revenues that would be exempt if it were a non-profit. Another drawback is the general perception of for-profit versus non-profit organizations. Non-profit status carries a "saintly" aura in our society, while a "for-profit charity" sounds distasteful, it smacks of trying to make money from social causes. Larry Brilliant, the head of Google.org said this for-profit issue was a problem for him when he was first offered the job. . . . At first, Dr. Brilliant said, he was thrilled. But then he turned skeptical, largely because of the for-profit structure of the organization. “I got weak knees,” he said. “It was weird. It was precedent setting.” After several lengthy conversations with executives at Google, Dr. Brilliant changed his mind. Source: Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual - New York Times What Google is trying to do is important because it tackles an important issue I've spoken about: why should a company or organization, whose charter is to develop useful social projects, be tied down by the restrictions of a non-profit? A for-profit designation does not mean it has to make a profit....[Read Full Article]

Day 20: MSFT's PR agency doesn't get blogging, at least in Europe
It is Day 20 and still no word from Paul Abrahams, the head of European operations for PR powerhouse Waggener Edstrom, following his public announcement that he doesn't "get blogs." Mr Abrahams slammed the BlogoSphere in an article for PR Week in the UK, and then took off for a long vacation. I wrote about whether it was a smart move for one of the PR industry's top executives to admit to such a blind spot. After all, PR agencies are busy creating "new media practices" to show off to clients that they really, really, do understand blogs and blogging. Apparently not all of them do and I respect Mr Abrahams' honesty. From PR Week (Subscription required.) Blogs: Smokey and the Bandit Part 4? Paul Abrahams - 31 Aug 2006 Is blogging the 21st-century equivalent of citizen band radio, the personal radio technology that became so popular in the late 1970s that it was included in a Coronation Street plotline and spawned a generation of bad Burt Reynolds 'Good Ol' Boy' movies? Source: Microsoft's PR agency admits it doesn't "get" blogs! Just a couple of hours after I wrote my post, his colleague, Frank Shaw, one of the earliest PR bloggers, did the right thing and jumped right into the discussion by posting comments and posts to try to quell any negative publicity. Mr Shaw did this while in the middle of moving his family and home to Seattle. I'm sure he'd rather be doing something else. Mr Shaw...[Read Full Article]

HP Update: Intel's Grove on two-title Hurd
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher I was wondering how long it would be before Andy Grove, employee #3 at Intel (an SVW sponsor) would speak on the topic of Mark Hurd's consolidation of power at Hewlett-Packard. Intel, through the efforts of Mr Grove, has worked very hard to become an example of good corporate governance.   NEW YORK (AP) -- Andy Grove, management guru and former head of Intel Corp., said Tuesday that he is dismayed by the recent combination of the chairman and CEO positions at Hewlett-Packard Co. "Every time I see that a company that has departed from the ... combined chairman-chief executive role go back" to combining the roles, Grove said, "I'm sorry to see that." . . . HP had split the roles of chairwoman and chief executive in February 2005, when Carly Fiorina was ousted by the board. . . . Grove was in New York to speak at the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York. The school was named after Grove, following his $26 million donation to the school last year, the largest ever to the school. . . . Grove, 70, retired as chairman of Intel last year, but retains the title of senior adviser. Link to Intel's Grove 'Sorry to See' HP Shuffle: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance Here is John Gapper from FT.com on this subject: Combining the jobs of chairman and chief executive is still the American way: only 7 per cent of...[Read Full Article]

NYT editor to laud HP's Dunn; Yahoo auto weakness; Sun PR in Second Life; Safe shopping in Tel Aviv
Bill Keller editor of the New York Times  keynotes celebration of Patricia Dunn, the (former) chairman of Hewlett-Packard, and her induction into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame. Wednesday evening in San Francisco. That is going to be one very  awkward evening.... (Hat-tip to Sid Hudgens) Link to Annual Dinner 2006 Bay Area Council   Yahoo warned of weakness in auto and financial services advertising, its two largest ad buyers. But is this a Yahoo or industry-wide problem? Mitch Lowe, CEO of Automotive Media, the largest automotive advertising network said: “The market for auto ad inventory is robust, with some seasonality.  Auto ad spending is always lumpy as it heavies up during new model launch periods.  The first two months of Q3 were lighter on launches but Q4 and 2007 are heavy for launches.  Online 2007 ad inventory is already being committed to at volume and rate both higher than anticipated.” (Source: George Simpson)   Sun Microsystems to host virtual press conference Sun Microsystems is planning a press event featuring John Gage, its chief researcher, but to attend you will have to create a digital avatar. That's because Sun is hosting the event on Second Life, the virtual world with a virtually real economy. Over at Tech Chronicles at San Francisco Chronicle.   Here's a good example of a virtual street: Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv. Don't let missiles or bombers keep you away from shopping. Designed by Michael Simkin, CEO of C-DO Networks, a 31 yr old Brit from...[Read Full Article]

diggrz: Beat museum Gala opening; Beethoven in bondage and Liszt in leather
[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -   There is a similarity between the Beat and Blogging cultures . . . each celebrates a raw, passionate literary expression. The Beat Generation and Beatniks are strongly associated with the San Francisco/Bay area-- and so is the Blogging movement. A great place to find out more about the Beats is in San Francisco's North Beach district. The newly created Beat Museum is having its Gala Grand Opening party on Wednesday September 27th 7pm.  A host of VIPs include: - Michael McClure - Beat Poet of Six at Six Gallery fame.- Al Hinkle - childhood friend of Neal Cassady from Denver and Kerouac character "Big Ed Dunkle" in On The Road.- John Allen Cassady - Raconteur- Magda Cregg - Life Companion to Lew Welch- Wavy Gravy - Beat Poet & Merry Prankster (aka Hugh Romney)- Stanley Mouse - famed sixties Poster Artist- Jack Hirschman - Current San Francisco Poet Laureate The Beat Museum 540 Broadway (at Columbus) http://www.thebeatmuseum.org/pressrelease.html Related: 1960's UNREST PHOTO EXHIBIT - THE WHOLE WORLD'S WATCHINGHarold Adler, whose terrific series of photos of Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure and Lawrence Ferlinghetti are currently on exhibit at The Beat Museum, is curating a show at the Berkeley Art Center called "The Whole World's Watching" from September 24th - November 10th.  This show features hundreds of photos of 1960's unrest by dozens of photographers including both Harold Adler and Larry Keenan.http://www.berkeleyartcenter.org/pages/exhibitions.html#current SVW on the Beat culture:...[Read Full Article]

diggrz: DJs spin not speak; Musical dating; Bake a cake for Amanda she's coming this way . . .
[diggrz: a tag for arts and culture trends and events - in and around Silicon Valley  - a new feature from Silicon Valley Watcher] By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher Lately, I've been deleting music podcasts because I'm tired of hearing a DJ's voice, even for the track listing. If I wanted to know the track info, I'd look it up on the chapter list in iTunes or read the playlist. Save the chatter for the new Skype wi-fi cellie and let the music of the podcast speak for itself, dig? If a picture is worth a thousand words than a song is worth at least 999. So, with that in mind . . . here are two of my new favorite podcasts: BetterPropoganda and Memekast. BetterPropoganda is an established digital music portal and  Memekast features guest DJs doing live mixes. Both are electronic/breakbeat/dance focused, and even if you're only dancing in your chair, they're still hot.These two podcasts have taken over my iPod by giving me 30-40 minute sessions that are mixed live and uninterrupted... perfect for repeat play. Music to meet people by . . .  Similar to Last.fm, Mog lets you discover "people through music and music through people." Not enough video sharing sites . . .    Dabble lets you search, collect and organize your favorite web videos. What's different about Dabble and other video sharing sites? Hmmm ... the UI? Dave.tv, another video sharing beta. The difference with Dave.tv is that you can create an entire broadcasting channel to...[Read Full Article]

We badly need a way to verify sources of online content - we need a "trust trackback"
The LonelyGirl15 story was fascinating because it is a glimpse into our future: a world where we aren't sure of the source of the information, or it's truth. LonelyGirl15 was found out to be a fake video blogger--scripted by a Hollywood production team--because many millions had watched it, and many thousands tried to find out who was behind it. What happens in a future world where phishing is applied to news sources rather than spoofing banking sites? And where there aren't enough watchdogs to spot the fakes? A little while ago, Google News was carrying a hacked headline that was anti-US and anti-Israel. That was easy to spot; but what if Google News, or some other large news aggregator, were carrying a Reuters story that might have been more subtlety altered? Google News, does not use humans to spot problems, it compiles the news stories using algorithms. But can those algorithms spot fakes? Clearly not in this case. In the future, or even now, how can we know if a Microsoft press release really came from Microsoft? And the same goes for nearly every other piece of information we find on the internet. Tampered news stories might not be noticed for days or weeks. Validating trusted sources of information is going to be very important. And part of that trust will be provided by going to web sites of long established media brands such as the New York Times, and through anti-phishing technologies such as OpenDNS, to make sure...[Read Full Article]

Write your own job post; PCForum is gone; Tell about Tellfriends.com; DSL distress; Hubub launches
  . . . Trevor Jonas from Bite brought attention to this write your own job post. Maybe it's a trend?: As you recently launched a job site, I thought you might get a kick out of this one. Wikia is hiring and has posted an edit-able job description on its site (see: http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Careers). The page has the following message at the top "Job seekers: If you don't like the job description below, feel free to change it." Think anyone will add a salary section? :)     . . . Tom Abate at the San Francisco Chronicle Technology Chronicles blog says PC Forum is dead... Call it a sign of the times, but what is arguably the longest running elite high-tech conference became a thing of the past. Technology guru Esther Dyson has quietly put out the word that the 2006 PC Forum, held in March in Carlsbad, California, would be the last. Wrote Dyson in a note that found its way to Tech Chronicles: "It had a great run, from 1977 to 2006, and we decided to end it before anyone asked us to."  Link to The Technology Chronicles : PC Forum's demise marks the end of an era   . . . TellFriends.com will be coming into beta very soon. Tellfriends. Help friends. They'll help you. It's infokarma!   . . . Lynne Jolitz tries to get DSL on a DSL line .  The ISP is told by Verizon that they cannot install DSL at this...[Read Full Article]

EMC shops for security
. . . EMC is out shopping again, this time in the security software space. I'm hearing about $170m for Network Intelligence, the deal to be wrapped up with a pretty bow by the end of next week ....[Read Full Article]

Don't mention LonelyGirl15 . . .
My son Matt is exhausted from telling the story of LonelyGirl15 to the media so many times. He did well, I'm not sure I could have handled that kind of attention at 18 years old. Right now, he doesn't want to to talk to anybody about anything LG15 related. He just wants to go away somewhere and be anonymous. Matt bore the brunt of these interviews, nearly three days of talking about the LG15 media story. I always find it strange to be interviewed by the media while being in the media. But I love talking about the media, to the media, while being a part of the media--and writing about the media. It is an Alice-in-Wonderland-inside-out feeling at times, but one that is part of this changing media landscape. This front page New York Times article on Tuesday sparked enormous worldwide interest: Here is some related coverage in other publications:  Lonelygirl: a Rose by any other nameSydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,AustraliaHer true identity was flushed out by Matt Foremski, the son of Tom, a former Financial Times journalist who now writes a blog called Silicon Valley Watcher. ...   Now, the Sequel to Lonelygirl15TIME - USA... than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us.'" - The SiliconValleyWatcher, Sept. 12. ... LonelyGirl RevealedRed Herring - CA,USA... The father-and-son team behind SiliconValleyWatcher, Matt and Tom Foremski, revealed Tuesday that they’d tracked down Ms. Rose’s identity. ......[Read Full Article]

The LG15 back story . . .
Wednesday was a whirlwind. I hadn't realized how much interest there would be in our part in the LonelyGirl15 (LG15) story. My 18 year old son Matt Foremski became a prime focus for this part of the story: the unmasking of "Bree" a teenage actress from New Zealand called Jessica Rose--by another teenager. It was a hectic day dealing with interviews from TV, radio, news organizations. Matt was mortified by the attention, the last thing he wanted was to become part of the story, he wanted to be "faceless." When Silicon Valley Watcher broke the story of the identity of LG15, it made its way up the media chain, showing how such things propagate. And it showed which news sources are the most influential. The first parts of the story were published in online sites, then came the major newspapers: New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times with their coverage. Their stories then helped spark the interest of TV and radio news crews. The LG15 story is not an important story in itself, but it is an important news story. This is not a contradiction, it is a description of its place in our culture. The LG15 story shows how the media functions, how they influence each other. It shows how the media networks: blogger, citizen, mainstream, and anything in-between -- push/pull news stories up into the broader mediasphere. To get into the broader mediasphere, it seems news stories often have to make it into flagship publications of journalist rigor, such as the New York Times,...[Read Full Article]

Media hunger for LonelyGirl15
Today's New York Times article on LonelyGirl15 mentioned my son Matt Foremski and SVW. It's a very good article by Virginia Heffernan and Tom Zeller that takes the story much further. It identifies LG15 as Jessica Rose,  a graduate of the New York Film Academy. Please take a look, lots of fresh information. Link to The Lonelygirl That Really Wasn’t - New York Times The article has ignited interest from all the major TV stations and from international press. Matt is very embarrassed by all the attention, he would rather be faceless but I told him it will all be over by tomorrow, the attention span of the national media is mercifully short :-)...[Read Full Article]

Lessons from the saga of LonelyGirl15: Mainstream media + blogosphere = mediasphere on steroids
At SVW we're lucky to break the story of the identity of LonelyGirl15 before others. We were fortunate, thanks to the work of my son, Matt Foremski, to connect the dots ahead of others--maybe by just a few hours. There are many that worked on this story from the beginning when it was discovered that LG15 was a fake. Some were "citizen journalists"; some were mainstream media professionals. SVW straddled the two; and there is still more to be discovered about this story. There are many who deserve credit for figuring out that LG15 was a manufactured product, especially those who tracked the IP address of emails to a Hollywood talent agency. But this is not a story about an actress acting out a script. This is a story with a  larger message: it shows how  a partnership between mainstream media and blogger media can produce real results, real fast. Both groups took the story further, building off each other's work. This was in no way the blogosphere versus the mainstream media. It was a great example of how the two groups can work together, to uncover information that others tried to hide. Yes, the subject matter of this story was not about anything that matters that much. But imagine this same type of cooperation on really important stories--that's what excites me. There is always intense competition to be first with a story--but that is good. And it is complimentary competition rather than adversarial. There is no such thing as bloggers...[Read Full Article]

Jeff Nolan leaving SAP
Jeff Nolan is announcing Wednesday that he is leaving SAP. The former high-profile VC was hired by SAP last year to run its business strategy unit Apollo, informally known as "kill Oracle" within the company. Mr Nolan will be heading a startup company, he has promised me the details, stay tuned to SVW. Jeff Nolan's blog Venture Chronicles. Please see SVW: Exclusive: Jeff Nolan--SAP's top strategist speaks to SVW Part 2: SAP Jeff Nolan's strategy to disrupt Oracle. . ....[Read Full Article]

Ray Lane buys dinner - Who buys ArcSight?
I'm a big fan of Ray Lane, the former president of Oracle and one of Kleiner Perkins' top VCs. So whenever there's an opportunity to be around the same table I always take it. Mr Lane is one of the industry's veterans and one of the savviest in the enterprise software industry. And his presence is large, he doesn't need to check himself for commentary, which is great if you are a journalist. Tuesday evening Mr Lane and executives from security firm ArcSight, plus a couple of c ustomers, plus a bunch of A-list journalists, from WSJ, News.com, etc met for a roundtable discussion on matters of security. The timing was perfect to chat about security with all the talk of 9-11, and the term 9-11 came up many times during dinner. ArcSight specializes in spotting aberrant behaviors among staff and flagging potential insider criminal activities. Some of those activities could be accidental, such as "forgetting" a laptop filled with sensitive company data in an airport lounge. Other incidents are part of sophisticated criminal gang activities that could include extortion of corporate executives. Interestingly, the people that are most watched are those that ArcSight describes as senior level people that hold "the keys to the kingdom." It is these types of insider threats that ArcSight's technology is designed to prevent. They said repeatedly, that the insider threat is a huge, massive problem--but one that is unmeasurable. So how do we know it is a huge problem if we cannot quantify it?...[Read Full Article]

How the secret identity of LonelyGirl15 was found
When we broke the news of the identity of LonelyGirl15 late Monday evening, we knew it would be a big story. I purposely did not send alert emails to my colleagues in the mainstream media or the blogosphere, because I wanted to see its natural progression through the entire mediasphere. When I woke Tuesday morning, I checked Technorati and Google, and it seemed that very few people had spotted and linked to our story: SVW Exclusive- The identity of LonelyGirl15. But by mid-day several large newspapers had picked up our story and were adding to it, a great demonstration of how such things work. I spoke with Steve Johnson from the Chicago Tribune, Virginia Heffernan from the New York Times. Mark Glaser from PBS' MediaShift also contacted me, and I spoke with Tom Abate at the San Francisco Chronicle. My 18-year old son Matthew Foremski had done the online sleuthing. I'm very proud of his diligence and his nose for a great story. He had been working on the investigation all weekend, following up on various leads and sifting through online discussions, looking for clues. He was fascinated by the fact that millions of people had watched LonelyGirl15 videos yet none of her friends, family, school friends had come forward to reveal her identity. There were lots of other people also trying to uncover her identity. Matt's break came when he was following up on a posting about a discontinued MySpace page that might be linked to LonelyGirl15. By...[Read Full Article]

The Hunt for LonelyGirl15: Life in a blogger household . . .
"Hey Dad, it looks like LonelyGirl15 is a fake," said Matthew, as I'm still bleary eyed from just having woken up. It is 9.30am on a Friday and I'm at the computer moderating comments and checking links for Silicon Valley Watcher, so I'm only half hearing what he has to say. Matthew is 18; and he just spent the entire summer hanging out with me, the poor guy. My summer held no romps in the woods or lazy days on the beach; it was all about reporting and publishing. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree; and Matt spent the summer involved in his own media enterprises: buying and selling domain names, setting up forums to build online communities, and spotting arbitrage opportunities in online advertising networks. "Who is LonelyGirl15?" I asked. Matt told me she is a 16 year-old vidblogger on YouTube called Bree who talks about her home-schooled life, her parents, her friends, her boy interests, etc. He told me to log onto YouTube and take a look. I took a look; and Bree is picture-perfect in her looks, in a picture-perfect bedroom, from where her vid posts are cast. I was so into my little corner of the world this summer that I hadn't realized what a huge following she had built up. She became the top vidstar of the summer, attracting a diverse following, and growing media attention, with articles in The New York Times, LA Times, and The Times (London). I took a...[Read Full Article]

SVW Exclusive: The identity of LonelyGirl15
By Matt Foremski and Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher One of the most interesting questions in the online world is who is LonelyGirl15? We think we know who she is. Late last week it was revealed that LonelyGirl15, aka "Bree" was not a real 16 year old videoblogger, and her appearances on YouTube were scripted and produced by a professional team. The creators of LonelyGirl15 published a letter "To Our Incredible Fans." In it they say: We are amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response to our videos; it has exceeded our wildest expectations. With your help we believe we are witnessing the birth of a new art form. It goes on to say: Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is “who is she?” We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us. While we know she is a fake, who the actress is has stayed a secret. However, after some online searching and thanks to Google's cache of online sites, Silicon Valley Watcher believes it has found the identity of the actress that played "Bree."...[Read Full Article]

Pre-mashed online suites knock the "P" out of PC

YouTube: A smart or dumb buy for Google?

Foremski: Google is building a proprietary alternative to the Internet and YouTube is key to the strategy
Koman: Only desparate industries scream "copyright violation!" As GooTube shows labels how to monetize unauthorized use, it's not a problem.
Google buys YouTube. Read a report on the conference call with Schmidt, Brin, Hurley.

Wednesday Newswatch

Stock options take down CEO, McAfee execs. Was Anderson sacrificed to save Jobs?
Here comes Office 2.0

Tuesday Newswatch

High cost of SOX is driving companies to IPO on London's AIM exchange
SVW Interviews: Smalltown and GrayBoxx - two novel approaches to local search
WSJ: GooTube deal could be announced today
YouTube cuts three content deals
WSJ: Google to buy YouTube for $1.6bn?
In backdating probe, Apple clears Jobs, but Anderson resigns from board
SVW recommended events: First Friday with Foremski moves to 2nd Friday (because of Rigoletto!); My pals at Social Media Club; Be square or be there at New Comms in Boston...

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ThoughtLeaders: Foremski in conversation with ...

David Boloker: IBM CTO knows what a Web 2.0 company is, and it is more than just Ajax.
Gibu Thomas: Sharpcast's infrastructure ambitions go far beyond photo sharing.
Spanish business leaders: Delegares from Asturias region want to know: What's with Web 2.0?
Telle Whitney: , Where are the women in technology?
Henri Richard: AMD is here to stay in key markets, says sales chief.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger:What's catching IBM top strategist's eye?
Terry Garnett: One of the top VC buyout specialists in Silicon Valley.

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As the Boardroom Turns ...

60 Minutes investigates the HP saga and interviews Dunn and Fiorina. Tom Perkins goes sailing on his massive yacht.
PM Update: Dunn surrenders to authorities
Carly's new book: 'I ordered first probes of HP board'
Charged! Dunn, Hunsaker, private eyes indicted. Plus: reporters reassigned, Dunn faces chemo.
HP scandal's reach broadens: RAND expert advised pretexting
Will HP scandal tarnish Larry Sonsini's reputation?

When lawyers play spies: HP focused on the word 'pooped' to finger Keyworth

Transcript: Morning questioning of Dunn and Sonsini
Opening statements of Dunn, Sonsini, Adler
Baskins, Hunsaker and contractors all take the Fifth
Markey holds forth on HP scandal
Barton focuses on Sonsini's role, reps worry that behavior is widespread
Dunn: I thought it was legal
GC Baskins quits, won't testify today. She may be facing criminal charges.
Will Hurd dodge the bullet or fall through thin ice?
Hurd is hurt but still standing, Dunn, investigators forced out
Transcript: Mark Hurd apologizes but says little
Transcript: Hurd lawyer reports on a sleazy, comical spy effort

HP CEO Mark Hurd approved spying plans
Some in HP aware of legal problems in spying ops, Dunn and Baskins were intimately involved.
Sonsini pretexted!
Chutzpah 101: Dunn to be inducted into Bay Area hall of shame ... er, fame
Andy Grove dismayed at Hurd's dual titles
NYT: HP spying dirtier, earlier, broader than previously admitted
HP hired small investigations firm, raising the question: How many other firms involved?
Dunn steps down Keyworth also resigns. Hurd to to become CEO and chairman.
Federal prosecuters contact HP. Is Dunn done for? The HP board meets to decide
Hurd letter to employees: We will get to the bottom of this.
Was Dunn running her own rogue operation?
The secret world of the HP Board of Directors.

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And Don't Miss ...

Are your wages competitive? PayScale has built the largest real-time database of salary information. Check this list of Silicon Valley jobs data.
Monitor 110 brings blog intel to Wall Street
Google.org: Philanthropy with an IPO option
The late Anita Borg on the need for women in technology
Free access to distribution systems means exposure to lies, frauds and creative license. We need a 'trust trackback.'
Shorting Mark Cuban's ">dumb, dumb, dumbest media venture
We know who suffered from the PC, but where is the disruption from the Internet?
Offshore financial centers can protect private banking information, why not private Internet data too?
IBM researchers predicted PC disruption but management was slow to act.
User interface fatigue: It's the single largest factor holding back new markets.

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Media Watch: The bloggerfly effect

Foremski: Two years ago I became a professional journalist blogger and discovered something very troubling...
In exposing a lying Hill staffer, paper went in for the kill, but bloggers provide the notebooks of history
Citizen journalism defined; Tips on dealing with journalists; Telcos getting into news
Josh Wolf probably headed for jail
The danger and insurgency of Internet 2.0: The resurging Internet economy is disrupting journalism - one of the key pillars of our society. Can you solve this Gordian Knot of Internet 2.0?
Virtuous trackbacks: Could this be one way to pay for journalism?
The metrics of influence: The mania for measuring and identifying top bloggers.

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PR Watch

Day 20: WagEd still doesn't get blogging - at least in Europe
PR Week's top journalists you should know...
PR firms that "get it" . . . are PR firms that blog
MSFT's UK PR agency says it doesn't "get" blogs. Is this the backlash from the old school PR sector?
Update: Pushbacks and trackbacks on PR and blogging in the UK
The new media press release is coming! There is lots of interest in reforming the basic component of corporate communications, the press release, for the modern multi-media online worlds.

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Newswatch: All things Google

Good deeds by press release: Google's Literacy Project is just a home page
Powerset seeks high valuation, search startup says it can beat up on Google
Google News distributes anti-Israel/US message from hacked newspaper. What else is hacked?
GOOG et al are sending out legions of spiders to scrape the Internet. And they are eating up enormous amounts of bandwidth.
Is it OK to take away a competitor's lunch and not even bother to eat it?

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Newswatch: Chip wars

Intel announces quad-core processors for this year, 80-core chips with a trillion flops by 2011.
Judge throws out much of AMD suit against Intel
Foremski out and about: Cisco rolls its own, enterprise mashups, why VC money is bad for you
Newsom announces winners of Clean Tech Open
TechMeme tries sponsorship via RSS

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Web 2-point-Uh-Oh!

Buzzlogic aims to untangle social media

Warner Bros. cozies up to YouTube. A victory for mashup culture.
Microsoft is knockin' on YouTube's door. Right.
Yahoo to pay $1 billion for Facebook?
Many are coming out of private alpha and into public beta for the fall.This is an investment dead-end, the real action will be elsewhere...

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LonelyGirl15 Mania

The sanctuary of anonymity: Don't mention LG15 for a while...
Professional journalists + citizen journalists = a powerful media sector
LG15 revealed
The hunt for LonelyGirl15
How we found the secret identity of LonelyGir15
YouTube's top vidstarlet LonelyGirl15 faked - lonely fans are angry

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Around the Valley ...

Exclusive: EMC going shopping for security firm
Exclusive: Jeff Nolan departs SAP
Yahoo hires executive with classifieds prowess to fight Craigslist

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London calling

With its hipster markets and a multi-cultural workforce, London wants Silicon Valley firms.
Why isn't there a British Google? A top British politician asks and I offer an explanation.

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[Read Full Article]

SVW Top Chat: Henri Richard sales chief at Advanced Micro Devices
I've been a little harsh on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) lately, mainly because I've been writing about a revitalized Intel (an SVW sponsor) and its bid to win back market share with its Core 2 Duo chips and an ambitious roadmap. My view has been that AMD has had the party all to itself with its low-power consuming high-performance Opteron server chips--and now the Empire Strikes Back, as was said by Nathan Brookwood, analyst at Insight64 and a top Intel watcher. Intel is now dressed to the nines and ready to crash the party (and drink all the beer :-). AMD has done very well over the past four years in driving a truck through gaps in Intel's product roadmap, making systems with AMD's Opteron server microprocessor a favorite in many data centers. And it has won some large customers for its PC microprocessors, notably Dell, which had been an stalwart Intel loyalist. Here is a Google Finance chart of AMD and Intel's relative stock movement over the past year:   The Opteron chips have been AMD's spearhead and it has managed to capture as much as 26 per cent of the sever market. Computer data centers often cannot get more electric power. By using low-power consuming hardware, data centers can boost their computing power. Now with Intel's multicore Core 2 Duo microprocessors coming onto the market, AMD faces the full competitive brunt of a massive competitor that is almost 10 times its size in market cap ($12.5bn versus $112bn). Intel's chips are fast and...[Read Full Article]

Mark Hurd letter to HP staff
This just in:     Mark Hurd Message to EmployeesSeptember 8, 2006Hi, before I begin, I want to be clear that I am speaking to you today as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, not on behalf of the HP board.I know that many of you have read the media coverage and speculation regarding the recent actions of the HP Board. My belief is that this has nothing to do with the strategy or operations of Hewlett-Packard.Unfortunately there has been a long history of leaking company information within the HP board that clearly needs to be resolved, and it will be resolved.The HP Standards of Business Conduct are our foundation of ethical leadership, and encompass the basic principles that govern our ethical and legal obligations to HP.The leaking of company confidential information violates our Standards of Business conduct which applies to all employees and Board members.Clearly things have happened here that are unacceptable. But we will not react to speculation. Instead, we will continue to gather and review all the relevant facts. I can assure you we will get to the bottom of this and take appropriate action.HP’s values are at the core of this company. These have not changed and will not change. HP’s shared values are a set of deeply held beliefs that govern and guide our behavior.• We are passionate about customers• We have trust and respect for individuals• We perform at a high level of achievement and contribution• We act with speed and agility• We deliver meaningful innovation•...[Read Full Article]

LonelyGirl15 faked . . .
Lots of upset fans of Bree a 16 year old girl known on YouTube as LonelyGirl15. It turns out the teenage drama queen video is a fake, written by a production team. I took a look and it is obviously professionally produced. And check out her quote to The Times newspaper in the UK Aug 19: “I was usually stuck studying the Treaty of Versailles or Occam’s razor — making videos was much more fun,” Bree said when she was contacted by The Times this week. That should have tipped off the hacks... Mystery Fuels Huge Popularity of Web's Lonelygirl15Los Angeles Times, CA ... Lonelygirl15 appears to be an innocent, home-schooled 16-year-old, pouring her heart out for her video camera in the privacy of her bedroom. ... Tag: LonelyGirl15...[Read Full Article]

SVW in India ; A blog that Lark likes; SundayReader Web 0.5; SVW Pubby award nomination
SVW in India . . . I'm excited to be heading out to India in late October with Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, the first SVW sponsor. Mr Ranadive is launching his book, "The Predictive Enterprise" in India and has a book tour that includes meetings with some of the country's top business leaders. It will be my first visit to India which makes it doubly interesting. (One of my favorite quotes comes from Vivek Ranadive: "India is the killer application for broadband.")   Is SundayReader too 0.5? A reader writes... Hi Tom -Love your site ......A question: Is there any room on the net for a Retro Web 0.5 site like www.sundayreader.com ....   Let's ask SVW readers :-) It's a bit barebones but that's a positive. I like the way it mashes up mainstream media and blog sites: it is all mediasphere. I would certainly click on a few things and explore. Link to SundayReader   Andy Lark likes Tesla Motors blog . . .   Andy Lark, the former comms chief at Sun Microsystems always has good insights into corporate blogging. I noticed that he really likes the Tesla blog (Tesla is the hot electric sports car).     Link to Andy Lark's blog   SVW nomination for a Pubby award . . . I'm proud to say that SVW has been nominated for a 2006 Pubby award celebrating excellence in media. Also nominated in this section: the fun SFist, DaveyD.com, splendora.com, and travelblog.org. I love the Pubby awards...[Read Full Article]

PR Week names top journalists you should know
I'm always happy to keep this kind of company :-)  I hadn't noticed it until Eric DeRitis at AMD pointed it out to me.  It's a short list of eight reporters and includes stellar names such as Walt Mossberg of the WSJ, Ken Auletta of The New Yorker, the extremely talented Geeta Anand from the WSJ. Plus Harvey Levin of the top celeb gossip site TMZ.com (Mel Gibson scoop), Washington D.C watcher Charlie Cook of the Cook Report, and the dynamic team of New York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. Link to - Today's media relations rules article PR Week   Hamilton Nolan PR Week USA Sep 5 2006 12:55   By the way, I appreciate the fact that PR Week calls me a journalist rather than a blogger because that is what I do. I work as a professional journalist and I publish a news magazine about the business and culture of Silicon Valley. There is no need for a "B" word :-) . . . Some other PR Week stories (subscription site) and Silicon Valley Watcher:   Interview: Tom Foremski by Dec-12-05   Working with the top echelon of bloggers by Christie Casalino Oct-31-05...[Read Full Article]

Nomadig or Bedouin? Life in the cloud . . .
My good buddy Om Malik has launched a new blog called WebWorkerDaily to chronicle the virtual nature of work and its always-on effect: Connectivity is only part of the equation, for the virtual nature of work brings up lifestyle issues. It brings up questions about how to work, and when not to work. Link to Introducing WebWorkerDaily. Om cites a post called "Going Bedouin" by Greg Olsen in February 2006. By focusing almost exclusively on service-based infrastructure options, a business could operate as a sort of neo-Bedouin clan - with workers as a roaming nomadic tribe carrying laptops & cell phones and able to set up shop wherever there is an Internet connection, chairs, tables, and sources of caffeine. "Going Bedouin" is an interesting concept . . . This is an interesting concept and something I explored in an essay in October of 2005. I chose the word "nomadig" to describe the lifestyle made possible by our mobile technologies: We seem to be going back to our roots and becoming nomadic peoples again--or rather "nomadig" people: living in digitally-enabled groups but not necessarily *technology* focused ... And this time around, we are no longer tied to a particular geography, and nor is our thinking. Much of the culture of innovation is no longer tied to Silicon Valley, there are centers of innovation all over the planet. We are mobile and seemingly in constant motion, travelling thousands of miles in a day, in a week, in a month, yet we...[Read Full Article]

Using off-shore companies to launder Internet data?
By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher In thinking about Google handing over identifiable information about users of its Orkut service to Brazilian authorities, and disclosures by Yahoo in China, couldn't such things be avoided fairly easily? For example, Enron set up huge numbers of off-shore companies to hide its debt and obscure its financial reports. Why couldn't such a method be used by Google, for example, to hide and obscure its data collections?  Those offshore companies could be made responsible for administration of parts of its services. They could pass back data to GOOG but that data would be only data that was needed for specific tasks. If there were hundreds of such off-shore companies, maybe independent, handling various aspects of GOOG's services around the world, it would be very difficult for anyone to access, or force access, to personal data on many millions of users. Contractual agreements between GOOG and the off-shore companies could further prohibit disclosure of personal information to GOOG and others. Authorities in any country would be hard pressed to chase down or subpoena private data from large numbers of off-shore companies if the data were to be fragmented in this way. It is easy targeting just one big player. Maybe there is an opportunity for the off-shore financial centers around the world to move into this kind of business?  After all, places such as Bermuda, Switzerland, etc, have strong laws protecting the identity of bank customers. It would be a small shift in the law to protect...[Read Full Article]

RightNow extends CRM into "Customer Retention Management" through focus on customer experience
On Tuesday, I spoke with Greg Gianforte, founder and chief executive of RightNow Technologies and the fruits of a $25m two-year technology development project, the RightNow 8 enterprise suite.  This is what will carry it into the big leagues. The big leagues means breaking into that $1bn annual revenue level, about ten times current revenues. That's also where Salesforce.com wants to be, the leading software-as-a-service company. Mr Gianforte likes to point out that there is a big difference between RightNow and Salesforce. "We are enterprise class, we compete with SAP, Oracle in the enterprise. Salesforce is aimed at smaller companies. And now with RightNow 8 this will take us to the next level in the enterpsice spoftware market." An investment of $25m is huge for this young company, which went public in 2003. It's a bet-the-company investment and so the strategy had better be right. Mr Gianforte believes the opportunity is in helping to automate the improvement of the customer experience. "Businesses are constantly being challenged by lower cost business models and that means they have to focus on their customers," he says. "In mature markets customer retention becomes the new form of customer acquisition. This means that improving the customer experience is very important." RightNow recently commissioned a study that found that nearly one-third of a sample of 1006 people had experienced anger strong enough to make them shake, or to break something--because of a bad customer experience. That's a large number of chances to lose a customer. RightNow 8...[Read Full Article]

Celebrating the first supercomputer - the Cray-1
In 1976 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, the first supercomputer was installed: The Cray-1, as it was known, was the fastest computer in the world and was a blend of Cray’s unique engineering style and an urgency for high performance computing borne of cold war competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. So: What does the Cray-1 tell us about the engineering, social and economic factors that coalesce into creating a stable technological artifact? Come to the Computer History Museum - Thursday September 21, 2006 - Free - 30th Anniversary Event Celebrating the First Supercomputer - Lecture 7pm Information: 650 810 1005   Link to Computer History Museum - Events...[Read Full Article]

UPDATE: Google distributes hacked newspaper site with anti-Israel/US message...
UPDATE: A reader points out that it looks like the Irish Medical Times newspaper was hacked and then picked up by Google. I had posted this hack from Google News with an anti-Israeli message and I asked how GOOG could stop other such incidents and guarantee the integrity of the content. Google News is one of the world's most popular web sites and a trusted brand. This means it has a responsibility to its community if it is to retain the trusted brand relationship--which Google has managed to maintain despite its super-star status. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:rX8_ZjbMpf4J:www.imt.ie/displayinterview.asp%3FWID%3D250%26CAT%3D19 Since Google does not employ any human editors, (it is all harvested by machines) the hack hasn't been filtered from Google News. This calls for a Digg-type credibility system. GOOG can still use machines to harvest content, (more scalable than humans) and the readers can flag potential news hacks. The entire community benefits. But that's if the community can detect false or doctored stories. A slight doctoring of a company earnings announcement could translate into market advantages for some, and could be difficult to spot in a timely manner by even the most vigilante citizen press corp. Citizen journalists will be very important unless we figure out viable business models for the profession of journalism; they will be the public's prime media sources, but with the potential for misinformation too. Private groups will increasingly finance professional journalists and collect and share the information in select groups to gain competitive advantages. Ted Shelton points out that...[Read Full Article]

Are some of the articles on Google News false? Here is an anti-Israel/US hack
My red arrow points to it... Hat tip to Sheri Starko-Jones... If Google news can be hacked then spoof press reports could be inserted which could affect stock markets and other decisons... How can GOOG guarantee the integrity of Google News? If it is in beta, does that mean it doesn't have to secure it from outsiders? UPDATE: Irish paper hacked and distributed by Google...[Read Full Article]

PR Firms That Blog
I keep saying it, don't trust that your PR firm knows how to deal with bloggers and the blogosphere unless they have some knowledge and practical experience. You cannot "get it" unless you do it. Here is a list of early pioneers from the Bivings Report. BTW, even if you start blogging now, you will still become an early pioneer, we haven't yet begun ...  :-) Waggener Edstrom April 1, 2003 Burson-MarstellarJuly 26, 2004 EdelmanSeptember 24, 2004 Hill & KnowltonDecember 2, 2004 Schwartz Communications January 1, 2005 MWW Group January 9, 2005 Manning Selvage & Lee April 27, 2005 Horn Group May 12, 2005 KetchumSeptember 27, 2005 Ogilvy PR     Link to PR Firms That Blog: Who Got There First » The Bivings Report   Update: Trevor Jonas from Bite Communications says Bite has been blogging since February 2005. http://blog.bitepr.com/...[Read Full Article]

No First Friday tonight...
Because of the holidays etc, there won't be a First Friday (of the month) with Foremski at the de Young museum this evening. However, don't let me stop you from going there anyway. It's a lovely way to start the weekend and it is open until 8.45pm....[Read Full Article]

Pushbacks and trackbacks on blogging and PR
My post yesterday about my former boss at the Financial Times, Paul Abrahams, and his confessed difficulty in "getting" blogs caused a bit of stir. Mr Abrahams is a very senior figure in the PR world, he runs Waggener Edstrom's European headquarters and is one of Microsoft's strategic consultants. Frank Shaw, a senior colleague of Paul Abrahams, and a noted blogger with his Glass House blog jumped into the fray very quickly, leaving comments on SVW, and other places, including his own blog. [This is exactly what you do in reaction to any potentially unfavorable publicity, (even if you are in the middle of moving house and family). It is a good case study.] Ellee Seymour, a UK based journalist and blogger, also wrote about my post. In "More PR blogging shockwaves" she mentioned: This follows hot on the heels of Colin Farrington’s shock declaration that he was not “that keen” on blogs. He is director general of the CIPR, the UK’s major PR support organisation and clearly does not have his finger on the pulse. His comments sent shockwaves among leading PR bloggers. Here is an extract: “I’m not that keen on ‘blogs’. “But then I wasn’t keen on DVDs, mobile phones, Ipods and Blackberries until they suddenly became an essential part of business and social life. I guess there’s a special marketing category for middle aged male professional ‘catchers-up’. All very interesting stuff. I see this all as part of how things move forward, this is how...[Read Full Article]

Microsoft's PR agency admits it doesn't "get" blogs!
My former boss at the Financial Times Paul Abrahams, heads up the sizeable UK office for Waggener Edstrom--Microsoft's long standing PR firm. Microsoft is WaggEd's largest client, and also it's largest cash cow, a very close relationship now well into its third decade. Paul Abrahams works very closely with Microsoft and is in Seattle on a regular basis, advising the software giant on many strategic aspects of its operations. I haven't heard from Paul in a while, so it was a delightful surprise when he called me just an hour ago. What he wanted to tell me was that he had written a column for the UK PR Week trade publication on blogging. "I've mentioned you in it," he said. "But I've basically said,  regarding all this stuff about blogs, I just don't get it..." Fair enough, some do, some don't. However, I asked if it was a good move on his part to advertise such a a lack of understanding of blogs!? After all, MSFT lost its top blogger Robert Scoble not too long ago, and there was much discussion about whether the software giant understood the value of Mr Scoble's incredible work in presenting the company in a favorable light. Mr Scoble created many millions of dollars in positive publicity for Microsoft, on a salary of less than $100K. I don't think WaggEd could have done a fraction of that, for 100 times the payment Mr Scoble received. Maybe WaggEd does understand the value of blogging and...[Read Full Article]

Geek And Poke: The Last Judgment of Web 2.0 ...
It's good to inspire cartoonists on Germany! From Geek and Poke: The Web 2.0 trend might lead into a dead-end (like Tom Foremski posted).But after you've ended dead it may give you some reasonable arguments before the Latest Judgment.     Link to Geek And Poke: The Latest Judgment...[Read Full Article]

So long SiliconBeat, long live VentureBeat - another journalist goes blogger independent
 Matt Marshall is joining the trend of leading journalists leaving to become independent journalists (I did that 2 years ago...). The San Jose Mercury reporter, writer of SiliconBeat, is leaving his employer at the end of this week. He will be doing pretty much the same job--reporting on the Silicon Valley venture capital sector. But now he's the boss... :-) Matt writes: This will be a place only about private companies, the technology they are pushing — and the shenanigans they face as they launch from a seed idea, get funding (if they need it) and either flame out or join the ranks of sustainable companies. While readership counts, and is valuable for advertising (which pays my bills), quality is paramount: I’d rather have a core of very interested, loyal readers, than a wider, promiscuous one. No sense in turning away  "promiscuous" readers... :-) But I know what you are saying Matt, and you are dead-on. That's why I don't optimize for search engines--let them do that, that's their job. I optimize for the reader.   Link to VentureBeat » VentureBeat Launches...[Read Full Article]

Congrats to Good Morning Silicon Valley...GUBA turns to cash in vid hosting wars...Danny Sullivan shocks SEO community...Office 2.0 is coming mid-October
Congrats to John  Paczkowski from the San Jose Mercury's excellent Good Morning Silicon Valley for a finalist nomination in the 7th Online Journalism Awards from the Online News Association (ONA) and the USC Annenberg School for Communication. Online Commentary (Small) CJR Daily“Get on the Bus,” Scott Elliot“Good Morning Silicon Valley,” John PaczkowskiSeeingBlack.com I was wondering why it was in the "small" category since it is part of San Jose Mercury, a very large news organization. It is interesting that no journalist bloggers, independent of mainstream media organizations, were chosen by the ONA judges. Is this the opinion of ONA that other online news sites aren't online news sites because they are published by small/self publishers? During a time when independent journalists bloggers such as Josh Wolf are standing up and going to jail to defend the rights of our commonly accepted journalistic practices, this sends the wrong message IMHO. Why not nominate Josh Wolf as a special show of recognition and support? Link to ONA News: 2006 Online Journalism Awards - Finalists   GUBA offers cash to vid recruiters . . . The battle of the video upload sites begins to get a little bit more expensive as Guba tries to rise above the white noise and offers money to users that recruit other users.  Videos embedded in web pages and blogs allow people to click through to GUBA for a free account and the publisher gets paid 25 cents. There is no limit to the number of user-referrals a person can get paid for....[Read Full Article]

New York Times censors its own news story in Britain
 William Jolitz over on The Start-up File has a good take on NYT using ad server technology to block a news article from its British audience because of British laws. He argues that courts could force other publishers to do the same. Back when the Internet started, it was like the "wild west" - nobody really knew what you could or couldn't do. Which laws governed a transaction - where it was viewed, or where it was served, or both. I myself did a legal paper on the subject - "Jurisdiction and the Information Superhighway", which examined a porn case that overreached across the US. At the time, the argument against self-censorship like the NY Times has chosen to do was that there would be a great cost in negotiating the rules for each readers jurisdiction, so by default the serving jurisdiction should be the only one that mattered.   Things have changed... Now publishing (as well as other businesses) potentially can be compelled by a judge to use the same technology to require that local jurisdictions all be treated the same, in place of the serving jurisdiction. All it takes is a follow-on case where this technique is used to rewrite recent case law, and then suddenly everyone has to track and deal with local jurisdictions! NYT moves us forward (backward)... Truly, the NY Times has pioneered a masterpiece of regulation, and discovered new ways of limiting the use of the Internet. Read it all:  Impact of Zoning the Internet...[Read Full Article]

A plethora of Web 2.0 = Way too many Swiss-army-knife-collaborative-platform-technologies
Every Web 2.0 company is offering a variant on the Swiss-army-knife-of-collaborative/social-media-technologies. Each one offers pretty much all the same things: sharing, blogging, sharing anything, any and many types of communications, collaborative apps--and mashing together whatever services you need online. And the ones that don't,  have plans to add such features. Yesterday, my colleague Richard Koman took a look at the Web 2.0 companies picked out by the San Francisco Chronicle. Other mainstream publications are doing similar things. IMHO, this is a "Web 2.Uh Oh" trend because it leads nowhere; this is not the Northwest passage to the next boom. (This is so one-point-five ... :-) I've been saying this for more than a year, but now with so many of these things coming out of alpha for the fall season, it is a good time to draw attention to how dead-end most of these ventures are. For instance, what would it take for a GOOG or a YHOO or a MSFT to reverse engineer any one of the Web 2.0 companies? About a week to launch the alpha and a month to launch the beta-- plus they have the scale already built-in to monetize the heck out of them from day 14... How many video hosting and editing sites are there? North of 200... How many similar sites are there that fall into any Web 2.0 category? Somebody will do the math...  I don't need to know the exact number to know that there are far too many of them....[Read Full Article]

Lycos chooses blinkx.tv for video search
  Blinkx has modest ambitions, it wants to be the Google-for-video-search engine. It is on the right road, it just signed a big deal with Lycos, the 15th largest web site operator. I spoke earlier today with a very excited Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CTO of blinkx. "This is our largest deal so far. We'll get to share in the advertising, and since we rely on viral marketing, we'll be able to get our name out to a much larger audience." Blinkx uses voice recognition technology, plus tags, and user generated meta data to index videos. And with all the YouTube generated frenzy around online video, there are a lot of large and small companies that'll be needing video search capabilities. I love the "video wall" on Blinkx's home page, you just scroll across and up pop videos and TV news reports from around the world. Link to blinkx.tv Lycos has been announcing quite a lot of video related activities: August 2006 LYCOS ENHANCES BROADBAND HIGH QUALITY VIDEO CONTENT WITH LAUNCH OF UPDATE HOLLYWOOD, WITH MARTIN GROVE - 8.07.06 June 2006 LYCOS AND PERMISSIONTV TEAM UP TO BRING HIGH QUALITY VIDEO PLATFORM TO THE WEB, WITH LOOK AND FEEL OF TV - 6.20.06 Lycos kicks off "World Cup" mania with behind the scenes video coverage of all the craziness & none of the scores - 6.14.06...[Read Full Article]

Intel announces Tulsa server chip Tuesday
  Intel (an SVW sponsor) announces its  latest Xeon microprocessor, codenamed Tulsa Tuesday. It is an impressive chip and CNET's News.com has a good overview: Link to Intel readies 'Tulsa' Xeon debut | CNET News.com Next week I'll be interviewing Henri Richard, AMD's Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. AMD's response to Tulsa (fair point on the last point): - AMD firmly believes that customers are entitled to both high performance and low power consumption;  the competition's   4P offerings on the market really only offer one .- AMD has a product strategy while the competition has products (ie- platform stability, single common architecture, and customer centric innovation, vs. 13 different platforms, little investment protection, and increasing complexity).- Three things buyers look for in their servers: Performance, Performance-per-watt and performance per watt per dollar. The recent claims from the competition specific to their new 4P offering do not address all three.- With all the talk about new microarchitectures being introduced in the market, it's interesting to note that the latest 4P processors introduced by the competition are based on an antiquated NetBurst architecture that will soon be "end of lifed."...[Read Full Article]

First Job on SVW Jobs board! VP of Marketing and Business Development . . .
 Adaptiveblue needs you! Link to Silicon Valley Watcher Jobs The first 20 job postings are free!...[Read Full Article]

Sony says battery problem fixed... but is it safe to fly with them?
Sony sent SVW the following statement saying all is now well. However, the issue of airplane safety with these batteries is still up in the air. I'm told there will be an official ruling on this very soon. UPDATE:  Statement Regarding Status of Battery Recall Including Information for Consumers Who May be Impacted...[Read Full Article]

Forbes.com claim to be tops in business news questioned by NYT
In today's New York Times.  Forbes.com is number one... Its own ads proclaim that “more people get their business news from Forbes.com than any other source in the world,” saying that its sites drew about 15 million unique visitors in a single month earlier this year. It was a well-heeled crowd, according to Forbes.com, which says that the average household income of its users is $149,601. However... There is also the question, given Forbes.com’s user figures, of where those visitors were going. According to comScore, 45 percent of its February traffic went to ForbesAutos.com, a companion Web site heavy on car reviews and photos. About three-quarters of the ForbesAutos.com traffic came from outside the United States. Since February, comScore said, Forbes.com’s traffic has tumbled. In July, Forbes Web sites drew 7.3 million unique visitors worldwide, almost a million of whom went to ForbesAutos. That put Forbes.com slightly below Dow Jones (whose online properties include The Wall Street Journal’s Web site and MarketWatch), CNNMoney.com (which includes the sites of Fortune and Business 2.0 magazines) and sites affiliated with Reuters, each of which comScore says had some 7.6 million visitors that month. Does it matter? James Spanfeller, chief executive of Forbes.com, is not backing away from the contention that Forbes.com is No. 1 in its field. “Are we leading the pack?” Mr. Spanfeller said in an interview on Friday. “Yes.” In fact... Mr. Spanfeller said comScore’s latest figures clashed with the company’s internally generated data, which still showed about 15 million visitors...[Read Full Article]

GOOG to add subscription plan for business apps
Google's announcement of a suite of comms applications designed for organizations has been touted by Reuters and others, as being a bid for MSFT's core business. Reuters: The online search leader said it has created a software platform to run basic business activities -- based on programs it already offers separately. The move marks a stepped up challenge to rival Microsoft Corp.  as the software giant prepares to upgrade its Windows and Office franchises. The free set of Web-based programs for small businesses, universities and nonprofit businesses goes by the mouthful "Google Apps for Your Domain" (http://www.google.com/a). Later this year, Google said it will offer a "paid, premium" version with the option of being ad-free and more administrative control and compliance features to meet the demands of bigger corporations and government agencies. Pricing for this more advanced version is not yet available, it said. Link to Google expands into business software market - Reuters via Yahoo! News GOOG's apps offering is no comparison to Vista or Office. It's a mashup of lightweight online products it already has on offer. It won't take any of MSFT's business away. Most businesses are still server-huggers--they want to run their own email ,and calendar, and other basic services. This is not rocket science there is no need to outsource such a vital part of your business to Google. Especially when GOOG doesn't care much when its "beta" services go down. After all, it's a beta. MSFT certainly does face challenges in rolling out...[Read Full Article]

Cooling Man: A cheap shot at a carbon-spewing Burning Man?
The San Francisco Chronicle has an article on coolingman.org, created to calculate the carbon/pollution emissions of those going to the annual Burning Man arts and culture festival 2hours out of Reno, Nevada. Add up your car mileage to get there and back, plus electric generators and anything else, and you get a total in carbon/pollution emissions. Then, like corporate America, artists will be directed to mitigate their pollution by purchasing greenhouse gas "credits," or "offsets," by investing in alternative energy that doesn't use fossil fuels: solar or wind power, methane capture from landfills and livestock. Tree planting also qualifies. Burners are asked to pay $5 to $10 per ton of personal pollution to the nonprofit Trust for Conservation Innovation in San Francisco, which parcels the donations among various renewable-energy projects nationwide. The money collected from 65 Burning Man participants so far -- $1,000 -- will help pay for a wind turbine that powers a casino on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. It's the first American Indian-owned wind power plant in the nation. Whoopee! Pay for electricity for a casino...! IMHO, coolingman.org could be used as a cheap shot at the Burning Man community. It's not as if Burning Man goers have a choice of vehicles to get there, there are no electric cars or other more fuel efficient ways of getting there. Same goes for most other activities that would be done anyway, anywhere else, and that don't have easily available green alternatives. And buying "offsets" makes it...[Read Full Article]

SVW in the media: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 Regarding the AOL search data release, Ian Katz in his column writes: Some sites view the information as an academic treasure trove, a way to learn more about how people use online search. In his blog for tech site ZDnet.com, Tom Foremski called the data "a glimpse into the human condition that goes way beyond anything we have seen, beyond Dostoevsky, Dickens, Balzac, Melville, or anybody else." That's a Dickens of a sweeping statement. . .   Link to What searches show - or don't: South Florida Sun-Sentinel...[Read Full Article]

AllPeers comes out of private alpha
 Share everything with everyone. AllPeers comes out of private Alpha and into a public Beta...  Link to Peer Pressure » 1… Zero!...[Read Full Article]

Big Blue: The Mainframe meets "The Office"
Earlier in the week someone at Microsoft leaked training videos that were made by the UK creators of "The Office." They were quickly taken down by YouTube but copies are still around in various places. Moving darn quickly for a computer giant, Big Blue uploaded 3 funny videos done in a similar vein: Link to Mainframe: Mainframe meets "The Office" BTW, they were all written and performed by IBM staff......[Read Full Article]

We have no shortage of great ideas, but a shortage of great teams -- the Silicon Valley Watcher Jobs Board
Silicon Valley draws in the smartest people from around the world and that's what makes living and working here so compelling. It is the quality of the conversations here, the engagement with so many different people, which helps create innovation. While there is no shortage of great ideas, what we do have is a shortage of great teams. SVW has partnered with JobThread to offer a jobs board and help our readers build great teams. We'll also be writing about the jobs market, what skills are in demand, and trends in the marketplace. If you need a database administrator (very hot right now) or a marcoms/pr specialist with at least 8 years experience (also v. hot) we hope that the Silicon Valley Watcher Jobs board will become a great resource to build your dream teams. To get things started the first 25 postings are free!   Link to Silicon Valley Watcher Jobs...[Read Full Article]

myFabrik final beta - hard drive makers drive for the digital living room
Earlier this year I met with the Maxtor/Seagate data storage folks plus their partner Fabrik, Inc. And got a very early look at a new online service that blurs the line between storing your digital assets out in the cloud, or on local storage. MyFabrik is a cool application that manages consumer media online or offline. In fact, the data storage costs online are very close to your data storage costs off-line--if you were to buy a Seagate drive. That's an interesting revenue model. And by offering a nifty media management application, it allows a hard drive maker to add value and pull some revenues from above the (brutal) commodity marketplace of that sector. This strategy also plays to all types of storage customers: from the hard drive huggers who need the assurance of a physical entity, to the ones that are comfortable with having their stuff in the cloud, and the ones that don't care or even want to know. Those interested in trying out the new myfabrik online storage and sharing service can register for access to the final public beta release beginning on Monday, August 28. Following the public launch of the final service in September, access to the new myfabrik service is priced beginning at 99 cents/month, which includes 1GB of online storage space. Additional storage space may be purchased incrementally for 49 cents per GB.   Link to Fabrik...[Read Full Article]

Thumbs up for Windows Live Writer beta blogging tool
  I've been trying it out and despite a bug or two, I like it. And I like it more each time I use it. It saves a click or three, and that makes a big difference when posting online. I've got mine hooked into SVW's Movable Type platform and it provides a really good editing interface, plus you can drag/copy links and text in one click. MSFT could show us a thing or two in the blogging tools arena, and that would be great. But MSFT has some bigger challenges ahead.   Link to Windows Live Writer Beta...[Read Full Article]

ThisnThat: Pinger Beta is open; High Tech Trash; 9 Rules for High Tech strategy; Legal and blogs; Stanford's resources for startups; British troops on LSD
Pinger just came out of private alpha and now anyone can join the beta of this innovative voice messaging service. Send a voicemail to anyone, even to someone's email address... Link to Pinger   High Tech Trash: A book written by Lizzie Grossman. First investigation of the worldwide health and environmental impacts of technology -- investigating not only the problem of electronics recycling (or lack there of), but also the damage being caused by the mining and toxic chemical production necessitated by tech manufacturing. The book doesn't just identify problems, but also details solutions. And it even offers "how-to" advice for consumers who want to properly dispose of electronics.   Link to High Tech Trash - Home   My friend Tony Seba has just published his book: Winners Take All: The 9 Fundamental Rules of High Tech Strategy. Rule 1 – Feel the Pain. Then Develop Your Product.Rule 2 – Focus, Win, Grow, Repeat.Rule 3 – Add Value Not Features.Rule 4 – Have a Story. Communicate Clearly.Rule 5 – It’s A Risky World. Sell Confidence!Rule 6 – Convert Champions Not Deals.Rule 7– Choose the Right Partners. Manage Them With Clarity.Rule 8 – Design Products and Services That Are Easy to Adopt.Rule 9 – You’re Doing Well. Congratulations. Now Change or Die. Link to About Winners Take All - The 9 Fundamental Rules of High Tech Strategy - Tony Seba   Steve Yahn and Jake Whitney over at Editor & Publisher have written an interesting article on newspaper legal issues and...[Read Full Article]

John Battelle is looking for some Web 2.0 companies if you know any...
 John Battelle is looking for some Web 2.0 companies for his Web 2.0 conference. If you know any, ping him...    There is a fee if you are chosen, but we've kept it commensurate with the costs of producing the Launch Pad session. There is no fee to enter!   Link to John Battelle's Searchblog: Help Us Find The Companies That Will Launch at Web 2.0 2006...[Read Full Article]

Qwest wants laws to track its own customers
 Can you believe this? Here is Qwest, actively lobbying for laws that would make it easier to collect private data on its own customers. Jennifer Mardosz, Qwest's corporate counsel and chief privacy officer, applauded efforts by politicians to force broadband providers to engage in so-called "data retention," which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said will aid in investigations into terrorism and child exploitation. This appears to be the first time a broadband provider has called for data retention laws. The article continues... This is an unusual stand for Qwest, which defended its customers' privacy rights when requiring the National Security Agency to obtain a court order to conduct electronic surveillance, according to a USA Today article in May. The Denver-based company has a market capitalization of $16.5 billion and says it has 784,000 wireless customers and 1.7 million DSL (digital subscriber line) customers.   Check this out... "Imposing broad data retention would be a significant change to U.S. law, especially when it has not been shown that a narrower data preservation approach will not work just as well," said Kate Dean, director of the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association. "The proposal to store enormous amounts of data on subscribers and keep it live for a lengthy period of time raises serious technical, legal and security concerns." (The association's members include AOL, AT&T, BellSouth, EarthLink and Verizon Communications.) Qwest's enthusiastic endorsement of mandatory data retention could make it politically easier for members of Congress to enact new laws even if other companies...[Read Full Article]

Mark Cuban's dumb new media business model
 Mark Glasser over at PBS's MediaShift blog has been writing about Mark Cuban's media project: Sharesleuth.com , to provide “independent Web-based reporting aimed at exposing securities fraud and corporate chicanery.” Cuban hired St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigative business reporter Christopher Carey to be editor of Sharesleuth. The revenue model is that Mr Cuban will short the stock of a company that is covered by Sharesleuth and use the proceeds to fund the site. A report by Sharesleuth on Xenthanol, a company founded to produce alcohol from wood waste hit paydirt: On the day that the Xethanol report was published on Sharesleuth, its stock went down 14% to $5.95 — and that’s way down from the price of $12.65 when Cuban shorted 10,000 shares of Xethanol stock back in May. Yesterday, the stock was at $5.09. Yes, we do need to find a business model to pay for journalism but this is not it. Journalism cannot be seen to be profiting from specific types of stories. This is completely unethical. Journalism should profit only from the quality and the timeliness of a broad range of news stories, and other reports. This type of issue is not confined to Mr Cuban's adventures in media. To a lesser extent, it will become an issue at news organizations that pay journalists on the basis of how many pageviews their stories receive. This type of compensation encourages sensationalism and it discourages journalists from working on important stories that benefit society. I only know of one major news...[Read Full Article]

Argentineans are most social, US ties at 29th
 Plaxo, the "smart address book" company has been peeking into its 10m members' address books around the world, to come up with a list of which country's residents have fatter address books.  The Plaxo "Connected Index" showed: The survey, based on anonymous, aggregated data from over 10 million members, found that Argentina led the Index, with an average of 479 contacts per address book. The Argentinean average is nearly 100 contacts greater than second place Austria whose Plaxo members had an average of 384 colleagues, friends, family, or other contacts in their address book. The United States tied with the Dominican Republic for 29th place, with an average address book size of 293 contacts.   Given the recent scandal over AOL's release of search data, and the departure of AOL's CTO over this issue, I'm not sure Plaxo's release of such data is a good idea. Although there is nothing identifiable in the Plaxo information, it shows that Plaxo user address books are wide open for analysis by Plaxo staff. Link to Plaxo Press Release 8/22/2006...[Read Full Article]

Gates Foundation lends money to buy San Jose Merc
When does a Foundation start acting like a bank?  Is media a charity case? This loan helped MediaNews buy The San Jose Mercury...   The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was among a few dozen banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and other entities that loaned $350 million to MediaNews Group Inc. for its purchase of four newspapers from publisher McClatchy Co. The Seattle-based Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropy with an endowment of about $30 billion, contributed an unspecified amount of money toward the transaction, according to an Aug. 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by MediaNews Group. Others listed as contributors include General Electric Capital Corp. and Blue Shield of California. Link to Gates Foundation is a MediaNews lender - Yahoo! News...[Read Full Article]

TheDeal.com - VCs see opportunity in blogosphere
Better late than never, The Deal on VC investment in GigaOm and Huffington Post:   Increasingly viewed as an alternative to traditional mainstream media, the blogosphere is variously regarded as more opinionated, faster-moving and less factually reliable than other outlets, including an older generation of online journalism. As Softbank's Eric Hippeau pointed out, the popularity of blogs may hold clues to how news will travel in the future. ' We view this as an investment in a news site,' said Hippeau, whose firm invested alongside Apax Worldwide Partners LP co-founder Alan Patricof. ' we think the news of the future will look like the Huffington Post. It includes breaking news, instant commentary, blogs and community, with a comments section that can be almost like a mini-blog.' Link to TheDeal.com - VCs see opportunity in blogosphere But why sell to investors? SVW will likely raise the same amount of money as GigaOm this year but from sponsors. No need for cuckoos in the nest (on the board :-)...[Read Full Article]

Bob Angus replaces Pam Pollace at Edelman
A few days ago, Pam Pollace, the former head of Intel's corporate communications was replaced as head of Edelman's (Edelman is a sponsor of SVW) global technology practice by Bob Angus. Mr Angus was head of A&R Partners, which was acquired by Edelman in late May. Ms Pollace has left to work with the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation as communications director. Gordon Moore is one of the co-founders of Intel and the foundation is one of the largest philanthropic foundations in Silicon Valley. The move is designed to build up the number of Edelman technology clients, especially in Silicon Valley where A&R is based. As Silicon Valley companies become large global entities Edelman hopes to win business because of its global presence. Joining Mr Angus: Managing Director of Technology in London Jonathan Hargreaves, and Managing Director of Edelman Southeast Asia Bob Grove. Bob Angus, who joined Edelman when the firm acquired A&R Partners in May, will chair the new leadership team. However, there are fewer large technology companies these days in Silicon Valley because of mergers and acquisitions. Edelman will have to show that it can also be effective representing smaller companies in its bid to build up its Silicon Valley presence....[Read Full Article]

London Business School tackles the global security challenge...
Janeen Chupa from the London Business School writes... I read with great interest a few of articles published at your site about the difficult time innovators have in places like London and how that must change. We, at the London Business School, agree and have initiated an annual competition (and to our knowledge the only competition) to try to change that; to foster innovation in at least one sector. We started the Global Security Challenge to find and select the most promising security technology startups in the world. The goal is to uncover and promote security innovations in the private sector in order to protect critical infrastructure and make citizens safer. My team used to work in the security-technology space before getting our MBAs from the London Business School (the British Army, US Army, IBM Global Services, NSC) and this is where we saw how difficult it is for security startups to succeed because of bureaucratic hurdles posed by governments and few large integrators dominating that space. We are hosting a final event this October in London where we will hold both policy and technology-related panels and award the inaugural winner of the most promising security technology business plan. We are fortunate enough to have several key leaders from venture capital and industry supporting the GSC, such as Siemens, NATO, Pentagon, and Carlyle Group. Please see: www.GlobalSecurityChallenge.com...[Read Full Article]

Private equity firms buying up software companies or customers?
Here is AMR Research on private equity firms buying up smaller software companies to create large firms capable of competing with an SAP or IBM. But is it good for customers? It looks like the private equity firms are aggregating customer bases rather than creating a broad base of IT products. From: Who Really Owns Your Software Vendor? By Jim Shepherd, Ian Finley, Laura McCaughey at AMR Research. At a user conference in 2003, Mike Greenough, then CEO of SSA Global, said that his company had paid an average of $23,500 per customer to acquire 16,000 customers. Three years later, Golden Gate paid approximately $130,000 per customer in order to merge SSA Global with Infor. This might seem expensive, but AMR Research estimates that SSA Global was generating between $40,000 and $50,000 in annual revenue per customer....[Read Full Article]

Hackers take down national black newspaper of the year
The website of the SF Bay View newspaper was recently attacked by hackers, it is now back up. The newspaper is one of the best in the US and isn't afraid to tackle tough stories on tough issues. It has been named "National Black Newspaper of the year." Here is a letter from the editor to readers: No, the Bay View is not dead. Wounded - but still very much alive and kicking. Yes, our website, www.sfbayview.com, is still down. It had grown popular beyond our wildest dreams - to around 2 million hits a month - but apparently not all the folks who hit us up liked what they read. There's now good evidence that we've been hacked by a very sophisticated hacker. A few days ago, our server was taken down - and it stayed down for 26 hours. The server rep says they've never been hit so hard, that recovery time in the past has never been more than about three hours. But help is here. Bay View webmaster Terone Ward put out a call to web savvy people around the world, and a team from South America is now working with him to repair our site and make it as invulnerable as possible. Anyone with helpful suggestions is welcome to email teroneward@sfbayview.com. At a time when so much is wrong in the world and heroic resistance is on the rise, we're flooded with crucial news and views that nobody else will publish. How frustrating to be...[Read Full Article]

Patent system serves pharma not tech says leading open source law professor
(This story came out of a panel I was moderating at LinuxWorld. It was spirited session with good input from the audience.) Eben Moglen, founding director of the Software Freedom Law Center, Wednesday called for reform of the US patent system as applied to software, because current laws are designed to protect the interests of pharmaceutical companies rather than technology companies. Mr Moglen was speaking on a panel at the LinuxWorld trade show in San Francisco. He is one of the top lawyers in the open source movement. "Software patents don't make much sense in the tech industry because markets move too fast. Yet the software patents put developers on guard that they could be vulnerable to future claims," said Mr Moglen. He said that tech companies were having to register software patents as a defensive move, and that none could "unilaterally disarm" and stop filing for patents. And with potentially many rights holders in software, negotiating licenses becomes very difficult and harms innovation. He said that many companies were having to bear the burden of IP laws that have been influenced by pharma, and that it was time for the tech industry to be freed of constraints created to serve the interests of just "the few." The Software Freedom Law Center provides legal services to corporations and developers using open source software to ensure that their projects will not encounter a possible legal challenge. Christine Martino, vice president of Hewlett-Packard's open source and Linux business, said HP would...[Read Full Article]

The future transparency of our lives and poisoning the database
Anybody who runs a blog or a web site usually peeks at the search terms that visitors input. It's fascinating stuff because sometimes you can find clues to breaking stories or emerging issues/trends. And looking at the AOL search term database that was recently released, you can see how people use the search box to make statements, as much as ask questions. The AOL search information is fascinating reading because it represents unguarded thoughts and feelings that could not be collected in any other way. However, I find it hard to belive that AOL believed it was innocently providing the world with behavioral data and protecting users from being identified. Yes, AOL assigned a numeric code to each user accounts search history, rather than user names. But there is plenty of information in the search terms to identify some of the users. Now, people will be far more guarded in their use of online services. Surely AOL knew that the data could identify some users. Anybody, even the newest of newbies could look at the search data and see how it could be used to identify people. Yet AOL went ahead and released the information. Maybe some at AOL wanted to warn others that even if a company says it is not collecting identifiable data on its users, it is not true. People ego surf, they Google their dates, they check up on colleagues and ex-lovers online, they search on phone numbers, etc. The AOL incident has placed Internet...[Read Full Article]

LinuxWorld: IBM using open source to speed up commoditization trends
IBM announced that it is extending its support for open source business models in eight key initiatives. I spoke with Dan Frye, who heads up IBM's Linux Technology Center in Portland, Oregon. "Our experience with Linux and open source has shown how disruptive the business model is, and we want to extend that business model into other open source projects. The disruptive force of open source affects us all, and we want to make sure that we can move rapidly and innovate," said Dan Frye. The eight areas are: (From IBM LinuxWorld press kit.) o Web Application Servers - Based on Apache open source projects like Geronimo. o Development Tools - Built on the open source Eclipse Integrated Development Environment. o Client-side middleware - Supporting the Eclipse Rich Client Platform project for hosting cross-platform applications. o Data Servers - Building on the open source Apache Derby, with IBM Cloudscape, and free no-license fee IBM DB2 Express-C. o Systems Management - Including open source Aperi projects. o Open hardware architectures - Community-driven collaborative innovation with Power.org and Blade.org. o Grid Computing: Expanded support for Open Grid Services Architecture and the Globus Alliance. o Business Consulting and Technology Services - Enabling customers to innovate with open source-based solutions and development models. SVW take: IBM has a vested interest in speeding up the commoditization of large parts of the IT sector because of its huge IT services group. But it also has a lot of proprietary technologies that are in the path...[Read Full Article]

The unguarded thoughts of the digital haves...
The most compelling content on the Internet, by far, is AOL's release of search terms linked to individual users. This is a glimpse into the human condition that goes way beyond anything else we have seen, beyond Dostoevsky, Dickens, Balzac, Melville or anybody else. AOL apologized for releasing the data into the public domain--a huge database of 21m search terms with each search term linked to a unique numeric code representing a specific user account, along with the date of each search. The result is a narrative that tells stories that are unguarded, and are sometimes truly disturbing. Over the past few days, several web sites, such as AOLPsycho.com and AOLStalker.com, have sprung up and hundreds of volunteers have begun to catalog the data and flag some of the more extreme search terms, along with the users who query them. There are sometimes violent and sexually extreme terms and phrases. But also, there are the many mundane search terms, that reflect an ordinary life, occasionally punctuated with extreme drama... It all makes for incredibly compelling reading. These are the thoughts of people when they feel safe there is nobody looking over their shoulders. In one instance, it looks as if a wife and a husband are using the same computer, each hiding their extramarital affairs from the other, then later looking for help online to deal with the pain of failed relationships. These are real soap operas, tracked over a period of months... from the excitement of first meetings:...[Read Full Article]

Wag the drooping tail - Jakob Nielsen chimes in on long tail
The long tail concept has been back in discussion lately because of the release of the book by Wired Mag Editor Chris Anderson. Web design guru Jakob Nielsen has come up with a drooping tail version that uses a logarithmic analysis of long tail type data. It's a surprisingly effective approach, at least for analyzing web site page views. Wag the Drooping Tail is his conclusion. Take a look at it here on UseIt.com....[Read Full Article]

This&That: A lackluster Steve Jobs; Giovanni Rodriguez leaves Eastwick; I'm moderating at LinuxWorld; fun PC facts; UN and Time mention SVW; Zune is not nice; Jobsboard coming on SVW
I ran into a former journalist now a software developer based in Italy who was attending Apple's worldwide developers conference and he said he was shocked by Steve Jobs keynote speech. He said Mr Jobs was having trouble concentrating, was relying on cue cards, and he looked gaunt. He wondered if Mr Jobs might be sick or affected by medical treatments following his battle with pancreatic cancer. I hope that Mr jobs health is good but I wonder about who could lead Apple if he needed to take a break. I'm not aware of any heirs to the throne. Apple has not done well under other leaders. When Mr jobs was previously forced out of the company, Apple's fortunes slid further and further under a series of CEOs until he returned and revitalized the company. Or maybe Mr Jobs has been worn thin by the options investigations, which are also affecting many other Silicon Valley public companies. Here is more from News.com... * * * My friend Giovanni Rodriguez recently left Eastwick Communications to start his own venture. He mentioned how scary it is to leave a good job and the risks he is taking. This gave me a perfect opportunity to trot out my favorite pieces of advice: In Silicon Valley, the biggest risk is in not taking a risk. Risk is rewarded here. Even if your venture goes down in flames, you are still ahead because others will value that you took a risk. That attitude is...[Read Full Article]

UK laptop ban will cripple business class productivity
The UK ban on laptops in planes leaving the UK or transferring through, is going to be a big blow to productivity for business travellers. Flights to the West Coast of California can take 12 hours or more, (equal to one and a half UK business days or one US business day.) The UK is a major destination for many Silicon Valley executives. And London has been making a big push in Silicon Valley and in southern California to position itself as an ideal place to site European headquarters. Could the laptop ban hurt London's ambitions to attract more companies? The ban comes in the wake of the discovery by British police of a plot to blow up an airplane. The laptop ban, however, might enable airlines to offer travellers in-flight rentals of laptops. Users could bring their data and applications on USB flash drives....[Read Full Article]

Om My God! Mighty fun evening with GigaOm and Sharpcast
The place to be Wednesday evening was the GigaOm and Sharpcast launch party. Renee Blodgett did a great job in getting the in-crowd to turn up at club Mighty. I got there late and found the place hopping. The band was too loud for me (the marketing manager's band, not a good idea, if I'd wanted to see a band I'd pay ten bucks) but I had fun hanging outside. Lots of great conversations... Update: Apologies directly from the Sharpcast guys, from Allen, “We did get the message to turn down, though not until the end of the first set (from on stage you really have no idea how loud it is in the house) - but we did come down in volume considerably at their request and we didn't get any more complaints after that. We certainly weren't going for ear-shattering volumes! Apologies….” Now I feel like an old codger... :-) Sharpcast is a cool application, I just signed up for the beta. It gives you access to your photos from any computer or mobile phone and keeps everything synced up automatically. Sounds useful. I wonder how long it will take Yahoo's Flickr to offer such a feature? Here are some photos courtesy of the indefatigable Dan Farber, senior VP at Cnet/ZDnet and one of the best journalists/editors covering Silicon Valley and beyond. T+OM! More of his Om-ness......[Read Full Article]

ZeroOne: Art on the Edge in San Jose all week!
The place to be Tuesday evening was at the excellent San Jose Museum of Art for the opening reception for the ZeroOne arts festival, featuring a lot of interactive tech-based exhibits and performances. It's an incredibly ambitious program of events and exhibits and it is happening all over downtown San Jose. It's a great setting, warm summer evenings (unlike cold San Francisco evenings) and broad sidewalks, it creates a wonderful atmosphere for the events. San Jose is not associated with too many cultural events, mostly it hosts business shows and conferences. And the downtown area is largely shunned by most locals, which is a shame because it it could be a great place to hang out and walk and talk--maybe ZeroOne will help revitalize the downtown area. Lucaso, our arts and culture editor and team will be down there posting some video and other things on SVW, and also on Diggrz.net, our new artz and culture site that is in development. The ZeroOne festival builds momentum towards the weekend so pop in and take a look and let me know what you've seen. I'll post it up if you do :-) Here is a collage of my Tuesday evening:...[Read Full Article]

Analysis: Time to circle the wagons as online fraud and malware cause large damages
Consumer Reports found more than $8bn in online fraud, another $7.8bn spent by consumers to repair or replace computers damaged by spyware and viruses. It is amazing that people still use the Internet and find it useful. The Consumer Reports figures don't factor in the costs of ad click fraud, which could be as high as one click in eight being fraudulent. Consumers pay because of higher marketing costs by retailers. And also what about the lost time people spend dealing with viruses, spyware, spam etc. There must be several billions dollars in lost productivity that should be added to the damages caused by fraudsters and spammers. That is a very large bill to pay and it is one that people still seem to be willing to pay because of the other benefits. But, not everybody is going to be willing to continue to take risks on the Internet and that is a problem that the industry needs to tackle. How do you make it safe for users? AOL, for example, could have created a walled garden, a safe(r) place for users. Instead it decided to open up to the Internet, an example of it again, choosing the wrong business strategy. Another approach is to create closed platforms as in the cell phone market. The cell phone service provider chooses the phones, the applications, and handles billing. A cell phone service is a more secure place than the wilds of the Internet. Why not a Google or Yahoo PC?...[Read Full Article]

Consumer Reports: $8bn in online fraud plus $7.8bn in costs due to malware
[Please note this article replaces the earlier one which was a draft and was mistakenly published too soon.] There has been $8bn of online fraud over the past two years says Consumer Reports in a new investigation that claims one in three Internet users will become a "cybervictim." In addition, consumers spent $7.8bn on new computers and repairs because of problems caused by viruses and spyware. Those that fall prey to phishing, in which fraudsters mimic a bank's web site for example, lose an average of $850, a five-fold increase compared with $165 in 2005. Consumer Reports National Research Center compiled the report from a nationally representative sample of 2,000 households with Internet access. Here are some findings from Consumer Reports: Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents said a virus, spyware, or phishing scam caused serious computer problems and/or financial losses in the last two years. And based on survey projections, virus infections prompted an estimated 2.6 million households to replace their computers in the past two years. Additionally, 35% of survey respondents didn’t use software to block or remove spyware. And CR projects that 2.4 million US households with broadband remain unprotected by a firewall. Spam The incidence of heavy spam remains as elevated as last year. Survey results indicate that about 795,000 households continued to buy products advertised through spam. Additionally, in 8% of the households surveyed that had children under 18, a child had inadvertently seen pornographic material as a result of spam. Viruses The frequency of...[Read Full Article]

Jellyfish pioneers a new type of online business model
I just got out of a meeting with Jellyfish, a shopping engine with a unique business model that bypasses the pay-per-click based economy of most commercial sites. If the Jellyfish approach works, it could go a long way to cutting down on the deluge of advertising and spamming. It also addresses some aspects of the "attention economy" that Steve Gillmor, Doc Searls, and others have been discussing. "The Internet experience is becoming diminished by all the efforts to gain pay-per-click revenue. We have a value per action model that is based on final sale, and I think over the next five years the Internet will move to that kind of sales-based model," says Mark McGuire, co-founder and president of Jellyfish. "We share 50 percent of our revenues with shoppers," says Mr McGuire "Shoppers see a list of prices from retailers, their final cost and how much rebate they will get from us." (On a $180 digital camera shoppers can get a rebate of about $5.) Retailers only pay Jellyfish when a sale is made, which makes it risk-free for the more than 1,000 retailers on the site. An advantage of this type of reward system is that it cannot be gamed as in the pay-per-click model where an auction and search engine placement determine retailer costs. Jellyfish relies on uploads of data from the retailers rather than crawling sites, such as Become.com, Froogle, and other sites. This type of data is cleaner and easy to organise. And the behavioral...[Read Full Article]

GOOG won't disclose AP content deal
Google is paying the non-profit AP news service for rights to publish its content. The size of the deal and other details have not been disclosed. This could help many other content producers to strike similar deals. However, because the terms are unknown, Google has a key advantage in negotiating similar content deals. Google has been coming under pressure to pay content producers and it is being sued by AFP (Agence France-Presse). Its defense is that it is protected by "fair use" laws and that it sends traffic to the content owner's web sites. However, financially challenged and hard-pressed newspapers, and other publishers, aren't very good at selling online advertising. This means Google's claim of sending traffic to a news organisations offers them little in compensation because they cannot monetize the increase in traffic well. Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Watch managed to extract a few nuggets of information from various clues and sources. He says the deal is not a pay per click model but is related to a new service Google is planning. Search Engine Watch: Google-AP Deal Not Pay-Per-Click & Some Further Details...[Read Full Article]

Logitech set to launch new types of computer mice and webcams
I met with Logitech on Tuesday to see their Fall lineup of mice, keyboards, speakers, headphones, and webcams. I cannot write about the specs and the prices of the products just yet - they are under embargo. But I can say that I was impressed by company's consistent ability to each year come up with many new products, and innovations, in categories that you might think were already well served. There are a couple of flagship products coming from Logitech that are going to be well worth taking a look at. In particular, a high-end mouse with new types of controls, and also a high-end webcam that is bound to be a hit. Logitech manages to hit the sweet spot in pricing, too. And every year I ask the same question: why don't you make a compact keyboard? I have used notebook computers as my main and only system for more than ten years because I like the form factor. My notebook sits tethered to the same power socket for much of the time, occasionally I take it with me. But it is the form factor that I love, (plus being able to use two screens) and it puzzles me why Logitech and others don't make compact keyboards without the numeric keypad. Logitech says that people want the numeric keypad and that's why they make keyboards that would take up half my desk space. But surely they are missing the fact that many more people are now using their...[Read Full Article]

Two Wall Street veterans turn to blogging
Introducing a couple of new bloggers, this time from Wall Street roots, (I guess the East Coast has started noticing the influence of blogging!). I've always said that blogging is by far and away the most honest form of self-promotion out there, because if you can't walk your talk online, it becomes readily apparent. Check out Tom Berquist with one of the first CFO blogs, and also insider Wall Street perspectives from Roger Ehrenberg:...[Read Full Article]

Craigslist founder offers funds for hybrid media model
Jay Rosen, over at Press Think - Ghost of democracy in the media machine is proposing a hybrid form of professional and citizen media. And Craig Newmark of Craigslist is offering $10k from his foundation to test the idea. In simplest terms, a way to fund high-quality, original reporting, in any medium, through donations to a non-profit called NewAssignment.Net. The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; it employs professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards so the work holds up. There are accountability and reputation systems built in that should make the system reliable. The betting is that (some) people will donate to works they can see are going to be great because the open source methods allow for that glimpse ahead. In this sense it’s not like donating to your local NPR station, because your local NPR station says, “thank you very much, our professionals will take it from here.” And they do that very well. New Assignment says: here’s the story so far. We’ve collected a lot of good information. Add your knowledge and make it better. Add money and make it happen. Work with us if you know things we don’t. There is more about this on the site, tons and tons more. I think this approach would work only for select stories that would benefit from a large number of people helping in researching the story. This is not a solution for...[Read Full Article]

Massive $2bn chip stockpile - most of it is Intel's says iSuppli
Intel's recent launch of its Core 2 Duo microprocessors seems to have contributed to a big inventory buildup of older Intel microprocessors and chipsets as customers wait for the new chips. According to Rosemary Farrell, analyst at iSuppli, the market research company, there is a massive chip inventory glut of $2bn, and most of it belongs to Intel. Intel’s excess inventories of these parts carried over from the first quarter. However, the problem worsened in the second quarter when Intel instituted price cuts to clear out lingering inventory in advance of its new product launches. This triggered a price war with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). “With more reductions expected from Intel and AMD, customers have been placing smaller, more-frequent orders than normal in order to delay volume buys until they can get the best pricing,” Farrell said. “Because of this, inventory will remain in Intel and AMD’s hands for a longer period than usual.” For Intel, this means additional weight is being added to its already-bloated stockpiles. Inventory is expected to begin to decline in the third quarter as sales of its new microprocessors and chipsets take off. However, the company’s surplus will linger into 2007, iSuppli predicts. Many PC customers are likely waiting for computers with the Core microprocessors, offering higher performance and less power consumption. The back-to-school season should be interesting to watch. Everytime chip prices fall, it always boosts markets because computing devices become more affordable. This is how the digital divide will be...[Read Full Article]

Where is the disruptive effect of the Internet?
My recent conversation with IBM's top strategist, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, about the disruptive effects of PC technologies reminded me of a key insight I had about the Internet, that almost made me faint(!) Two years ago, on a sunny afternoon walking along Geary Street in San Francisco, I was thinking: where was the disruption from the Internet? The Internet is an incredibly powerful technology, surely more powerful than the PC, yet where was its disruptive effect? PC technologies caused a lot of disruption, and forced so many tech companies out of business. But where was the same carnage caused by Internet technologies? Surely, this was a more powerful technology than microprocessors and PCs? Yet the same tech companies were still there, HP, Intel, Cisco, etc. Yes, some had disappeared but that was more to do with mergers and acquisitions that are common in maturing sectors. And the dotcom dotbomb startup failures were a creation of those times, so they don't count in accounting for disruption. Where were the established industry sectors, whose business models were being taken apart? As I walked and pondered this, I had a realization that almost made faint, it literally made me feel weak at the knees. I realized that I was looking for the disruption in the tech sector, but I was looking in the wrong place. I realized that the disruption was happening in the media sector. Year after year media companies were continuing to layoff thousands of people, advertising revenues were falling 30...[Read Full Article]

IBM research labs foresaw the disruption from the PC
It is the 25 year anniversary of the PC and I have long wondered if the industry standard technologies that resulted from the PC revolution were accidental because the computer industry strongly favored proprietary technologies. It was good to discuss this subject when I recently met with IBM's top strategist, Irving Wladawsky-Berger. We talked about the disruptive effect of the PC technology. It disrupted huge sectors in the computing industry, nearly all the minicomputer and mainframe companies were put out of business or disappeared through acquisitions. Even IBM barely survived--it had to reinvent itself as an IT services company. There are many definitions of a disruptive technology, but to me, a disruptive technology is something which disrupts the business models of large numbers of companies. You can see the train wreck happening in front of you, but you cannot get out the way. Just like the minicomputer companies could see what was happening, but they couldn't change course, or downsize fast enough. Mr Wladawsky-Berger said that it was IBM's research labs, the largest in the world, that helped save the company. "In labs, we were able to see a few years ahead and we could predict the disruptive effect of the PC but our management wasn't able to react fast enough." He said that making the necessary changes at IBM, the cuts in staff and projects was very difficult to do. "People talk about having to 'eat your children' but those people clearly have no children of their own,"...[Read Full Article]

The Empire Strikes Back - Sean Maloney leads Intel's push to win back markets
Thursday was a very important day for Intel (a sponsor of SVW) as it introduced its Core 2 Duo family of microprocessors, representing the most important product launch since its Pentium launch 13 years ago. "The empire strikes back," was how Nathan Brookwood, microprocessor analyst at Insight64 termed it. And that's an excellent comment on what this launch means to Intel, the world's largest chipmaker. The Core 2 Duo launch is more than just a new microprocessor family; it represents Intel's determination to return to its core capabilities after embarrassing missed product deadlines, less than successful forays into other businesses, and an obsessive need to regain market share lost to rival Advanced Micro Devices. It is also a return to a culture formed from a rigorous engineering discipline that doesn't tolerate missed deadlines, or *any* loss of market share--no matter how small. To further underline the importance of this event, just days before the launch Intel appointed its most effective and aggressive senior executive, Sean Maloney to lead its global sales and marketing. . . . As Intel chairman Craig Barrett looked on from the front row, CEO Paul Otellini strode the stage and reported that over the past couple of years Intel's engineering teams have consistently met all their deadlines on time, and sometimes ahead of schedule. This includes the new Core family, which will form the foundation of Intel's business for the rest of the decade and beyond. But getting to this point was not easy, it...[Read Full Article]

Thoughtleader: lunch with IBM's top strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Wednesday I had lunch with IBM's top strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president, technical strategy and innovation. He was in town to appear on a panel at the AlwaysOn conference in Palo Alto. It's always a pleasure to catch up with Mr Wladawsky-Berger. I've been meeting with him on a regular basis from many years. Our conversations are always wide ranging and we compare notes on many different aspects of the IT industry and beyond. We started off chatting about Withnail and I, a cult British movie that his daughter had recommended. (I am very fond of the type of characters in that movie from my upbringing in the UK.) Then we moved on to my favorite subject, blogging and media. What is a blog or what isn't? I said that the definition is very broad, and I like to remove the "b" word because it is universally confusing. It is about the ease of online publishing using a very robust platform, with the ability to publish outwards and publish back--it's a two-way media technology. Mr Wladawsky-Berger said that blogging encompassed an incredible variety of types of content but that authenticity was a prime requirement. "You cannot have somebody ghost write a blog," he noted. Mr Wladawsky-Berger said he likes to write long posts that explore a theme or idea; he references books, and other sources, rather than other blogs. He said he would rather be writing about the world at large than writing about what someone else has blogged....[Read Full Article]

What is the profitability of the long tail?
Nicholas Carr over at his blog Rough Type points to a discussion about Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory: In his column in the Wall Street Journal today, Lee Gomes tries to debunk Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory, and on his Long Tail blog today, Anderson tries to debunk Gomes's debunking. One point of contention is Mr Anderson's assertion that sales in the long tail could be as much as 25 percent of sales in the head of the tail, thus sales of "misses" can be substantial when compared to sales of "hits." (A music sales example is used in this case.) IMHO, the focus on sales of a product misses the point of the viability of the long tail. When talking about the *business* of the long tail you have to use profits as the metric and not sales. The long tail could do double duty in describing the rapidly declining profit margins in selling to niche markets. In fact, margins in the tail most likely fall at a steeper rate than the long tail describes because of proportionately higher marketing costs. - - - I went to Mr Anderson's book launch last Thursday and had a quick chat and picked up a copy of the book but haven't read it yet. I told Mr Anderson I was encouraged by the brevity of the book at some 200 pages. I said that many of us probably have about 150 pages we could write on a topic and stretching it...[Read Full Article]

A chat with IBM's top strategist . . .
Tune in later this week, after I chat on Wednesday with IBM's top strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president, technical strategy and innovation. Mr Wladawsky-Berger is responsible for driving big changes at the world's largest computer company, and beyond. His influence within IBM and the industry is remarkable and achieved without much fanfare. He has managed to drive some important changes within IBM towards open standards, and very early support of Linux, and many other IT initiatives. And these have had great effect across the IT industry. I've been meeting with Mr Wladawsky-Berger on a regular basis for many years. Here is my most recent meeting, and tune in for the next one on SVW later this week on ThoughtLeader Thursday. --- Irving Wladawsky-Berger blog: A collection of observations, news and resources on the changing nature of innovation and the future of information technology. SVW: The remaking of IBM: A chat with IBM chief strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger...[Read Full Article]

HP/Mercury merger: A $4.5bn deal to grab lead in IT management software
Hewlett-Packard's $4.5bn bid to acquire Mercury Interactive, announced today after close of markets, is a smart move as the top IT vendors jostle for prime position in the area of data center management and automating business processes. The ultimate goal is to create a type of operating system for the IT data center of the future in which applications can be provisioned in near real-time, and performance loads can spread across many different resources depending on the business process. This is part of a meta-level approach to combining business processes with IT in what is called Business Optimization Software (BTO). And to do that, IT managers need to know the performance of their applications and the rest of their systems--Mercury Interactive provides part of that solution. HP's OpenView software is already one of the leading applications for managing IT resources and the Mercury products will strengthen that product line. From HP: The transaction brings together the strength of HP OpenView systems, network and IT service management software with Mercury’s strength in application management, application delivery, IT governance and service-oriented architecture governance. From HP: The Mercury acquisition is expected to increase the size of the HP Software business to more than $2 billion in annual revenue. Immediately following the close of the transaction, Mercury will become part of the HP Software business and both companies’sales forces will begin reference-selling each others’ products. However, HP's past performance of its software group has been rocky. Over the past few years, the company...[Read Full Article]

AMD/ATI merger: Two companies facing the same problem
Advanced Micro Devices bid to acquire Canadian based ATI Technologies is a risky strategy because both companies are facing the same issue: big, pricey, client-side chips in PCs and other devices are becoming less important than server-side chips. Wyse Technology, for example, maker of thin computing systems, has demonstrated an inexpensive six-core ARM processor with graphics, video, sound capabilities capable of handling 32-video streams simultaneously. A chip like that can be embedded inside a monitor, a keyboard, anywhere. And with thin computing systems, you don't need local hard drives, DRAM or Flash memory. It becomes a highly sophisticated computing platform with very inexpensive clients. This is the trend in today's world, where there is less and less need for a big general purpose X86 microprocessor plus a highly sophisticated graphics co-processor, sitting inside a PC. Wyse's solution is much, much, cheaper and can provide the same user experience as a fully loaded Windows XP PC. The applications are run on a server and the client device renders the graphics, video, and sound. And as we move inexorably closer to an always-connected world, the thin computing model that Wyse and others advocate, becomes more practical and more cost effective. In addition, a thin computing architecture provides much more protection against viruses, spyware, and other nastyware, because the user experience is completely controlled from a central location. Intel (an SVW sponsor) has already begun moving away from the client side of devices with its recent sale of part of its communications...[Read Full Article]

The new "media release" - a podcast and teleseminar
I recently participated in a podcast with Todd Defren from Shift Communications, where we discuss the new media release format, also in the discussion was Chris Heuer, who is coordinating the project, and master podcaster Shel Holtz. The project is moving along nicely. We've also been chatting about what to call the new format. I'm not a big fan of the use of the word "social" in this context, I prefer a more neutral term. And "new media" is in danger of being overused somewhat, while "press" refers to a printing press. A plainer and more accurate term might be simply, "media release." Then others can qualify the term if they want, depending on its use. What's important is that the tags/labels that are used, are standard. But the format, the way companies present their media release, is where distinctions can be made. And of course, in the content. You can hear the podcast here. And you can subscribe to the new media release podcast RSS feed here. I'll be discussing the format during my Ragan teleseminar tomorrow: What's in store for the future of PR?...[Read Full Article]

London woos Silicon Valley firms with its multi-cultural tech community and markets
The city of London wants Silicon Valley tech companies. It wants their European headquarters as part of a push to create at least 2500 new jobs this year in emerging technology sectors; and further boost the city's multi-cultural tech community. I spoke with David Riches, Director of North America for Think London, a semi-private organisation representing the Mayor of London and local businesses. It has the resources to enable companies to set up business operations in London in as little as six weeks. "California companies are by far the largest US investors in London. It's because we already have a large tech community of developers, with strong ties to our universities. It is a much larger tech and research community than Oxford or Cambridge. Plus we have a great market that is young, urban, and tech savvy," says Mr Riches. In other words, lots of hipsters and first adopters. Mr Riches says that his team will help companies quickly find offices, places to live, set up the basic infrastructure of bank accounts, etc. Introduce lawyers, accountants, help in recruitment, and introductions into the local business community. He laughed when I asked if an old school tie comes with the package. Paris is London's largest competitor for European HQs, however, French employment laws raise business costs, says Mr Riches. It should be noted that London based companies have to comply with far stricter employment laws than in the US. London is expensive, he admits, but then again, so is Silicon...[Read Full Article]

Earn some good karma on Wednesday evening
BrainJams, a project of my friends/colleagues Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells is trying out a good karma evening today (Wednesday July 19), called "Rent an Expert" at the offices of Cnet Networks downtown in San Francisco. The idea is neat, it is to turn up in a room and offer 15 minutes or 30 minutes of your expertise, for free. And if you offer something of value, and also find something of value, then that is immediate karma. But even if you give your time, and don't get what you want . . . you'll always get what you need. Hope to see you there. Here is Kristie's pitch:...[Read Full Article]

Intel pushes ahead with new 64-bit Itanium microprocessors
Intel, (an SVW sponsor) today introduced its latest Itanium microprocessors as it continues to fight for market share against IBM's Power and Sun Microsystems Sparc 64-bit microprocessors. Intel said: Previously codenamed "Montecito," the new processors are designed for the most sophisticated high-end computing platforms in the world. They double the performance and lower energy requirements, improving performance per watt by 2.5 times compared to existing, single-core versions. The Itanium family is used in high-end computing platforms that do a lot of number crunching, such as modelling weather systems, product design, and drug discovery. The chips have impressive performance for such applications and Intel says the new versions continue to lead in industry benchmark tests. The Itanium chip designs are very different from server or PC microprocessors because they have to deal with moving and processing large amounts of numeric data. This high-end computing market requires very large and complex chips. The latest Itanium chips are Intel's most complex with more than 1.7bn transistors. Pat Gelsinger, senior VP, introduced the chips at a press event in San Francisco. He announced new customers and said that 70 of the world's 100 largest companies now use Itanium systems. Intel has had to invest a lot of resources in creating the infrastructure of applications, developers, and tools needed to support the chip. These are different from the rest of Intel's microprocessors which are based on X86 technologies. It is the increase in applications specially designed for Itanium systems that is key to boosting...[Read Full Article]

Yahoo Finance revolt . . . and user interface fatigue
Yahoo Finance has been changed for the better says Yahoo, but many users disagree. Mark Coker tells me the message boards are teeming with complaints. Here is a sample of what I saw: There is big risk in a redesign of a popular web site because people are creatures of habit and nobody wants to have to learn a new user interface. There are already too many user interfaces to learn, too many new "web 2.0" apps to learn, too many new digital gadgets to learn how to use. Every time I change my cell phone I have a different user interface to learn, there seems to be very little continuity. All remote controls for consumer electronics products seem designed to each have unique user interfaces, even within the same company and the same product families. Even when it comes to positioning the power-on switch--there are many forms of expressing what must be the single most common user interface element. I've noticed my kids always pick up user interfaces a lot more quickly than older generations. They can figure things out more intuitively. Clearly this is a skill that can be learned: quickly learning new user interfaces. But why should we need that skill? What puzzles me is why isn't there a best practices user interface for nearly every type of electronic gadget? Surely there must be agreement on placement of keys and controls? Our typewriters have a standard interface, and our cars, why so little else? It used...[Read Full Article]

Hewlett-Packard to intro new type of RFID chip
Overlaying the digital world on top of the physical is something that is possible these days, in several ways. Today Howard Taub, the associate director for HP Labs will demonstrate a way to do this by sticking a wireless data chip onto a physical thing. HP Labs will demonstrate a revolutionary new wireless data chip that could be stuck on the surface of any object, bridging the physical and the digital worlds and enabling a host of new applications. The data chip could store medical records on a hospital patient’s wristband, provide audio-visual supplements to postcards and photos, help fight counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical industry, add security to identity cards and passports and supply additional information for printed documents It'll be interesting to see if and how HP has reinvented the RFID chip. About 6 years ago HP Labs talked about a "beacon" concept where future cell phones or pocket computers could be pointed at a billboard, or a storefront, and information from Internet sites would download. This could be accomplished by RFID chips but also by something more sophisticated, we'll have to wait and see. Also, take a look at Dave Berman's blog HPLablog from the heart of HP Labs....[Read Full Article]

Customer Experience Management--Interwoven identifies a mission critical process
Interwoven, based in Sunnyvale, CA, is trying to establish a new term: Customer Experience Management. It refers to the challenge that global organisations face in presenting a consistent look and feel to their customers. For example, a clothing retailer wants to present the same brand image and customer experience in all of its stores around the world. This means that packaging, signs, store layout, advertising, other promotional literature and media, have to be all consistent across geographies. Interwoven offers a suite of enterprise software products that help large multinational companies manage their content across all their operations. I recently met with Bill Seawick, chief marketing officer at Interwoven. "Managing the customer experience is a number one concern for CIOs. When you touch a company you want to have the same experience. Consistency is very important yet the way customer experience is managed today is a mess. If you look at the process in most companies, it looks like an octopus. There is a lot of duplication of work, many processes, and it takes a long time to make any changes or introduce new products or services." In some cases it can take 16 months for a company to roll out new products and services because of all the content creation that has to take place. Also, Mr Seawick points out that a company's brand represents on average about 33 per cent of its market value. For some companies such as Nike or IBM, brand value can represent more than...[Read Full Article]

Potential giant-killer Ingres snags NYSE CTO as President
Ingres, the open source database software company with the ambitions of an Oracle, announced Roger Burkhardt, the former chief technology officer of the New York Stock Exchange, as its president and chief operating officer. The appointment is another coup for Terry Garnett, the acting CEO of Ingres, and the leading investor in Ingres. Mr Garnett has built a team of top software industry executives such as: Jim Finn, who led Oracle's corporate comms for many years and is credited with managing the tricky acquisition strategy, and was recently head of comms at IBM Americas; Tom Berquist, a former star Wall Street analyst is CFO; Dave Dargo, senior VP and CTO came from Oracle and is a respected authority on Linux; Dev Mukherjee, CMO, came from Microsoft and IBM and is credited with key thought leadership in establishing utility computing and software as a service. Bill Maimone is Chief Architect, he used to lead database development at Oracle. Mr Garnett told SVW that because of the high caliber team already in place, recruiting for the position of president and chief operating officer was made more challenging because it required someone of equal stature. Mr Burkhardt will bring to Ingres an understanding of the needs of financial services customers--a key market for Ingres. --- Please see: The ambitions of Ingres: A small company with the executive team of a giant Exclusive interview: Terry Garnett explains his firm's VC buyout strategy...[Read Full Article]

The lifespan of ideas ...
I've been thinking about how ideas are created and how they are used. There seems to be a life span to good business ideas in that most ideas eventually become obvious because at some point they will make sense to most people. Within the startup community there is great fear of ideas being stolen. Many people hang onto their best ideas as if they were unique to them and won't share them easily. Maybe those ideas were unique at some point, they were the first to spot things/trends, the first to connect the dots, but they won't stay that way forever. Others will find their way to the same ideas sooner or later because they are also working with a similar base of concepts and information. We are all exposed to the same things, although at different times, and that leads to the development of similar ideas. It is wise to be protective of business ideas for a while so that you can try to monetise them first. But many people hang onto their ideas for far too long, and this can interrupt the process of new idea creation. At some point ideas need to be let loose so that at least you can get a date stamp on the idea, and more importantly, create more good ideas. I've noticed that more good ideas I talk about, or give away, the more ideas will take their place. Because there is now space within the colloidal supercomputer, our brain, for...[Read Full Article]

How much Internet bandwidth is used by spiderbots from GOOG, YHOO, MSFT et al...?
Google, Yahoo, MSN and the many other search sites and aggregators wandering the Internet with their spiderbots could be in trouble, if their version of net neutrality doesn't survive. That's because the spiderbots eat up a huge amount of bandwidth, and if bandwidth gets more expensive, the spiderbots are going to suffer. I get 5 per cent of my traffic from more than 18 spiderbots, as they scour the Internet copying everything in their path. They use up about one-third of my bandwidth. That's a key reason why Google, Yahoo and others, are arguing for everyone to have equal access to bandwidth--at least the last mile pipe to the home--the most important pipe. If companies are going to have to pay extra to the telcos or cable companies for bandwidth to reach their users, they might not be so pleased to be paying for the bandwidth of the swarms of spiderbots. I'm fortunate that more than 92 per cent of my readers come directly through bookmarks or RSS, so they know where I live. Many sites depend on 30 per cent to 60 plus per cent of their traffic from the search engines. And they spend a lot of money to optimize their sites to attract more search engine traffic. But often, this is not quality traffic, it is fly-by-night web surfers. Web sites should optimize for their readers, not the spiderbots. Let the search engines optimize themselves, that's their job. If the telcos/cable companies get away with raising...[Read Full Article]

This&That: Green envy: the Tesla sports car is coming; 3VR and robot assassins from the future; good review for Long Tail book.
There will be lot more hybrid cars hitting the used car markets locally because there will soon be a much greener (and faster) car available from startup Tesla Motors. On July 20 Tesla will pull off the covers on its all-electric sports car, a secret design powered by a new type of electric motor. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are Toyota Prius hybrid drivers and also investors in Tesla, which has collected funding of about $60m. I recently met Martin Eberhard, CEO and co-founder of Tesla Motors. He is confident of the car's success--even though hardly anyone, including investors, have seen the design. This, and other details will be revealed later this month. This is what is known so far: the car will be priced at the lower-end of the premium sports car range; it has a Tesla Motors designed variable torque electric engine; it does zero to sixty mph in 4 seconds; it has a range of about 250 miles per electric charge; it has a carbon fiber body. You'll need a lot of green to get a Tesla sports car but you'll be greener than anyone else on the highway. And at just 1 cent per mile in electric power costs, it'll pay for itself after just 500,000 miles! (My rough estimate ;-) . . .I recently visited 3VR Security, a San Francisco startup with very impressive video surveillance technology. 3VR has some minority funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence...[Read Full Article]

Marketing or Representing? Which term is less loaded?
me The term "marketing" is broadly used but it carries a lot of baggage such as "spin" and "selling." Yes, marketing means so much more than the commonly understood term--it is how product development is monetized. But in many uses of the term "marketing" there is an uncomfortable implication that there is some kind of persuasion or manipulation going on, to sell something for which there might very well be no actual need. "Selling refrigerators to Eskimos," or "taking coals to Newcastle," are examples of sayings that describe this issue. Marketing often seems to be about the use of persuasive marketing/selling techniques rather than the meeting of real needs--not that the two never coincide. That's why some people are uneasy about doing "marketing" or "selling" because of cultural associations that seem to be more about smoke and mirrors rather than creating value. For example, many times I have had people tell me that the iPod is rubbish because it is "just marketing." As if "just marketing" can be applied by anybody, as if it can be bought off-the-shelf. Clearly, that is not the case, but that sentiment serves as an example of a less than positive attitude towards the term marketing. Also, the term marketing doesn't seem to fit easily within the culture of the emerging generation of Silicon Valley Web 2.0/Internet 2.0 startups, (and older companies too). Those companies constantly talk about communities: customers, developers, consumers, etc. But, do you apply "marketing" to those communities...? Within such a context,...[Read Full Article]

Rocketboom founders split: Lucaso's recent Amanda interview
Amanda Congdon, who started as a presenter on Rocketboom, has become the very visible and successful face of the video blogging boom. She just announced she is leaving to work from her own site. Our culture editor, Lucaso recently spoke with Amanda Congdon. . . By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher So, Amanda is leaving Rocketboom.I interviewed her recently at vloggercon and asked her about her superstar plans. She seemed committed to Rocketboom at the time, so I wonder what changed in the past few weeks?The interview is below: I recently interviewed Amanda Congdon, host of Rocketboom, a popular video blog. I was hoping to get a taste for the "real” AC, not just the one we see every morning in front of the camera, spewing interesting web stories and quirky political satires. But as Amanda Congdon was ‘headlining' the conference (and every geek and their crackberry was ogling over her) it was a bit difficult to get the real deal out of this once out of work, off-off Broadway actress turned vlogging superstar....[Read Full Article]

Chris Heuer is the project lead: Signups for the new media press release (really!)
I've been working with the PR industry to figure out a better way to create press/news releases that are more useful to reporters and others, in this multi-media channel world we live in. Why limit press releases to the standard text only format and with only one link, or none? We need a vehicle that can easily integrate podcasts, vidcasts, text, and company information that is labelled and tagged so that the right information can quickly be pulled together. We have the technologies to do that, to partly preassemble the information needed in preparing a news story. The key, however, is to have all the PR agencies and media/comms departments in corporations to agree to a baseline standard new media press release format. We need to make sure that everyone uses the same labels/tags for things like "company founded date" or "CEO today said" etc. And agrees on other aspects of the format. To help things along I've agreed to offer a neutral third party platform. The PR companies are very competitive and won't take the lead from each other and so we will end up with a tower of babel of different labels/tags and different formats, and we won't be much better off than before. I've found someone with the ideal abilities to coordinate this new media press release project, Chris Heuer. Chris knows the business world, he knows the marcoms world and he knows the geek world. He's a new media renaissance man and he has agreed...[Read Full Article]

US is losing its lead warns chip industry -- but business is good
Tuesday late afternoon I walked into the Businesswire offices on top of a highrise in downtown San Francisco for a briefing with George Scalise, head of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and a team of top communications execs from the largest chipmakers Chuck Malloy from Intel, Dan Larson from Texas Instruments, Vineeta Durani from IBM and others from Advanced Micro Devices, Analog Devices and the research institutes SRC and Sematech. I meet with the SIA every year and it was good to see a lot of familiar faces. And the briefing was interesting, a good news/bad news type of situation. The good news Mr Scalise said is that the chip industry is doing well, forecasts have been raised for this year and the SIA is expecting revenues of about $250bn. And in all chip markets demand is good and growing at a steady rate. "There is nothing that we can see that is a problem, even the high fuel prices haven't hurt consumer demand." Consumer markets now account for more than 50 percent of global chip revenues, so consumer spending and sentiment is closely watched by the SIA. And since consumer spending accounts for more than 60 per cent of the overall economy, there is room for chip revenues to continue to climb just on the dynamics of that sector alone. Inventories of chips are low, and utilization levels of the chip fabs are very good, about 92 per cent, which means there is room to expand without causing...[Read Full Article]

Green Border: The need to rebuild confidence in consumer online shopping
I recently met with GreenBorder Technologies, a security software company that offers an easy solution to virus, spyware, and trojan threats by isolating each Internet session from the rest of the PC and earlier Internet sessions. The beauty of the Green Border Pro software is it doesn't need to be updated to guard against new virus signatures or new types of malware. It creates a secluded, virtual Internet session and when you are done, it flushes everything away, in your cache and in temporary files, etc. Once installed it does its work transparently--except for a green border around the page to indicate it is a safe Internet session. For the past year it has been an enterprise product but it is now being rolled out to consumers, which is a good idea because it is one of those install-and-forget applications. Most of us are fed up of running tech support for our families, guarding home networks against infection and dealing with all the other support problems related to viruses and spyware. If Green Border does its job, that would free up a lot of family time. I spoke with Bernard Harguindeguy, CEO, he said that he hopes that banks, ISPs and other online companies will help evangelize the product because it helps stop identity theft, stop trojans attacking web sites, and makes security easier. "With most consumer security software the user is often asked to make security decisions during installation or during use. And that means they can make...[Read Full Article]

The PC-ization of the comms industry - Intel changes tack with chip group sale
Intel's (Intel is an SVW sponsor] sale of its cell phone and handheld computer chip business to Marvell Technology Group for $600M, announced earlier today, represents a change in its strategy to apply the economics of the PC industry to cell phones, smart phones, and communications equipment markets. In the mid to late 1990s, Craig Barrett, the former CEO of Intel, led efforts to expand the company's business into the fast growing cell phone and communications equipment markets. Through a series of large acquisitions totaling more than $11bn Intel built one of the world's largest communications chip businesses to become the leading provider of Internet infrastructure components. Mr Barrett and his team saw that PC markets were maturing, and that server markets would become part of a global interconnected communications infrastructure. Intel's strategy was to extend its pole position--to providing silicon for the entire global digital communications infrastructure; and everything connected to it. Intel wanted to provide silicon for every type of edge device, such as pocket computers, cell phones, PDAs, cameras, notebooks, PCs. And also provide the essential chips for servers and communications equipment that create the connecting foundation of the Internet. Intel knows that investing during downturns is a wise strategy--that's what it does during the boom and bust cycles of the chip industry. And despite the dotcom crash, growth of the dotcom economy would return, and along with it the massive infrastructure investments by the telcos and others. Intel knows we are still at the beginning...[Read Full Article]

Rivlin tries again to return to Manhattan; Volgelstein's fortune is at Wired; Rafat Ali's fortune is coming; Warren outsources his philanthropy; Om My God! plus: a summer evening escape to SF MOMA
...Take the man from Manhattan but he usually returns Gary Rivlin reporter for the New York Times is giving up the Silicon Valley beat for a dream job as a feature writer for the business section of the New York Times. Saturday night I joined him and his elite group of buddies (Markoff etc ;-) at his penthouse apartment in the heart of San Francisco's trendy Mission Street. I, and some other volunteers, helped Gary in a valiant attempt to empty his drinks cabinet, so's he would have less to pack. It's fortunate people here are so caring, not like in New York . . . I couldn't tell if Gary was lamenting or boasting that he might never be back in these parts again. He told me he has spent 14 years in the San Francisco area and this will be his third attempt at a return to New York city, and it feels like it will be his last. He said the job is a dream job and the offer came just days after his return from about ten months on the New Orleans beat--one of the most challenging stories around. Good luck to Gary, I know he'll be back, but with a return ticket in his pocket, as he researches many features about the new golden age emerging in Silicon Valley :-) ...Fred Volgelstein gets Wired I hadn't noticed that Fred Volgelstein, former Fortune senior writer is now at Wired magazine. He did flirt with the...[Read Full Article]

Intel says it will win back server market share from AMD
Intel (an SVW sponsor) got a good turn out from the media Monday morning when it presented a roadmap on how it would stay ahead of rival Advanced Micro Devices in low power consuming high-performance server chips. The chips are strategic to Intel (INTC) keeping its dominance in server chips as data centers turn to computing systems that use less electric power--the single most limiting factor to expanding computing facilities. AMD's Opteron has managed to win support because it use less electric power and offers good performance. Monday also marked the first day that Intel is shipping its first Opteron-killer product, the 5100 Series Xeon microprocessor. Tom Kilroy, Intel vice president presented a broad message that Intel is going to maintain a power and performance lead over Opteron because it can make the chips smaller; it has fast buses and other system technologies such as virtualization; and it has long established relationships with thousands of vendors, developers, customers, etc. There was lots of discussion about Intel's lead in 25 key benchmarks, lots of technical discussion about buses, memory controllers and shared caches etc. There were also a lot of questions on the subject of benchmarks, making apples to apples comparisons, etc. One important point was that the socket for the new 5100 Xeon chips would remain the same through to the end of 2009. This means faster chips can be inserted without having to swap out all the other components or buy completely new systems. The new Xeons use...[Read Full Article]

Intel intros its Opteron killers
Intel (an SVW sponsor) today will introduce its Opteron-killer Dual Core Xeon server chips which use less electric power and provide more performance in key benchmarks. Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron servers have become popular because they use less electric power than equivalent competing microprocessors. This allows computer companies to pack more computing power into the same amount of space. The low-power data center is a top goal of enterprise vendors and that's why Advanced Micro Device's Opteron has done well. Data centers are being limited by the amount of electric power their local utility can offer, and many are operating at their top limits. Some cannot install more computing power because they don't have the electric power to run the extra equipment. To expand computing capacity, data centers are turning to low power consuming servers, the fastest growing segment of the server market. More computing power can be installed per kilowatt of energy, or customers can choose cooler systems that need less cooling and create substantial savings on electric power. Large data centers can spend tens of millions of dollars on annual electric power costs. Intel (INTC) will discuss details about its Core Xeon server chips at a press event in San Francisco Monday morning. They represent the first of a family of new chip designs that are optimized for low-power consumption. They are also built in smaller geometries which further cuts power consumption. Intel estimates its new chips use 35 per cent less electric power and provide as...[Read Full Article]

Sabrina Horn: Celebrating 15 years of the Horn Group
I recently interviewed Sabrina Horn, the head of the Horn Group, one of Silicon Valley's largest independent PR companies. The Horn Group this month is celebrating fifteen years in business and Ms Horn has seen many of Silicon Valley's business cycles. Over the past three years she has been working from the company's Manhattan office. She has returned to the East coast where she was raised. She has two young girls, five years and eight years old. Ms Horn spent 20 years on the West Coast but she says that after the dotcom bubble burst she wanted to "get back to my roots, I needed a new challenge, even though managing a company through the downturn has been very challenging." I asked her about some of the cultural differences between the East and West coasts. "East coast has more of an attitude of being no nonsense, direct, get the job done. But the Web 2.0 companies out here are very much like their counterparts in Silicon Valley, they have very similar cultures and you wouldn't be able to distinguish the from each other." One of her goals was to diversify the company away from enterprise software and towards other industries and services. For example, in New York she created a business group that helps companies with web site design, and related services. Now that group brings in about 25 per cent of total revenues and she expects it to bring in 50 per cent within five years. This is...[Read Full Article]

We need competition not net neutrality otherwise Web 2.0 dies on the vine
Wednesday I managed to catch up with Sean Garrett, one of the co-founders of 463 Communications, an agency that represents tech firms in Washington D.C on tech policy issues. Obviously, net neutrality was a topic we discussed, and Mr Garrett mentioned that the telcos were out spending everyone by enormous amounts on the net neutrality issue. But this issue is a red herring because there is no way that legislation can force a pipe owner to carry all packets, including its own, on an equal basis. As Mr Garrett pointed out, the real issue is competition, "If we had real competition then the whole net neutrality debate would go away." That is very true, it's because our access as consumers to the Internet is controlled by the telephone or cable TV companies and we don't have any choice. Efforts by municipalities to provide WiFi for local residents have often been blocked by the telcos yet this is clearly blocking competition. If we had a broad range of competitors we could choose, and choice is good for consumers, it's also good for the vendors of the infrastructure, Intel, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems etc. Choice would be great news for the many hundreds/thousands of startups, the so called Web 2.0 companies that are based on the premise of equal access and equal performance on the Internet. Without this capability they will die on the vine--it will wipe out the promise of this next wave of innovation. The net neutrality debate...[Read Full Article]

Horn Group's salon on top of the Clift
We live in an AlwaysOn world, Tony Perkins was right. I just wish he had named it AlwaysOn- except- Friday- afternoons- and- most- of- the- weekend- until- Sunday- evening. This week has been very interesting and very always-on, especially Wednesday. Here's a 24-hour slice, published in parts between running around SF/Silicon Valley and trying to be a dad too. Missed Voce Tuesday evening I was hoping to get down to the Voce Communications summer event in Palo Alto but I just couldn't get away from the demands of my blogs. I like the Voce people: Mike Manuel is one of the few top PR bloggers not [yet] working for Edelman; co-founder Rich Cline and Matthew Podboy plus colleagues Dave Black, Janet Martin and many others I've worked with on stories. I like the Voce people because they cottoned onto this new/social media stuff early on. Mike Manuel and Matthew Podboy and myself, are also part of the think tank: Society for New Communications Research, co-founded by Jen McClure, the Executive Director. The think tank group consists of some of really interesting and diverse people that have been involved in the early roots of this new media evolution. Over at the Clift I couldn't get to Voce but I did manage to get to the Horn Group's salon Tuesday evening at the top of the Clift hotel because it was only about about a mile or so from where I live. The Horn Group is celebrating 15 years in business...[Read Full Article]

Intel + HP 's data center push - saving power and saving labor
I met with Hewlett-Packard and Intel (Intel is a sponsor of SVW) recently to talk about the new blade servers coming from HP including Itanium based servers. Scott Stallard, senior vp and GM for the enterprise group says the company has a lot of pent up demand for its Itanium systems which is good news for the Intel/HP designed 64-bit microprocessor. Itanium has had a long and rocky road from development to production systems and now the more advanced generations of Itanium based systems. That's to be expected in creating the large ecosystem that's needed for a new microprocessor architecture. You need the compilers, the development tools, and the system design is more challenging than for PC clients. And the road has been longer than some industry analysts expected, and a lot harder to travel than Intel and HP expected. The new Itanium systems will be up against the best POWER and SPARC based systems so it will be interesting to see how they perform in the market for heavy-duty scientific number crunching. Itanium is designed to process big computational problems such as predicting global warming effects, protein folding, drug discovery and many other grand challenges. We are going to need all the help we can get to deal with some very challenging environmental and healthcare problems. Lisa Graff, general manager of server platforms at Intel says that Itanium's prior problems with speed and power usage have been solved and the latest systems provide benchmarks that exceed IBM's POWER...[Read Full Article]

UPDATE: Gmail outage... GOOG's sagging infrastructure breaks down
Is anybody else having problems today with Gmail today? I can't seem to get in at all, and there have been other errors popping up the last couple of days, at least in my account. Is Google's infrastructure groaning at the load of all of its services, including unlimited video storage? UPDATE: I still cannot get into Gmail. It has been four hours since I posted on this problem and others are reporting it too (please see comments section.) I use Gmail exclusively and my business depends on it. I don't mind a five or ten minute outage, occasionally, but this is ridiculous. Google risks losing me and plenty of others as users. Gmail is still in beta does that mean Google thinks it can get away with a less-than-reliable email service? Why hasn't it taken the steps and the investments, to make sure this doesn't happen? Does GOOG think that because Gmail is a beta product we will cut the company some slack? Hours of slack for a mission critical component of most people's lives?! What's strange is that my son can access his Gmail but when I tried to log in through his machine I got the same server error. Then when he tried to log back into his account he got the same server error. He had to delete his cookies to get back in... And why is there nothing posted by Google about this problem? At least, I couldn't find it......[Read Full Article]

Sun layoffs announcement coming this Thursday
Sun Microsystems (SUNW) will on Thursday announce a large round of layoffs in a bid to cut about one-half billion dollars in annual costs as it transforms itself into a broad based computer software and services company. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun will make the announcement to staff and investors on Thursday, said a Sun source. The cuts are expected but the timing was not known. From my post on ZDNet: IMHO...[Read Full Article]

Craigslist founder responds on Cox/Craigslist block
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist responds on the problems caused by security company Authentium in blocking Craigslist on Cox networks: "First, I want to thank members of the Cox abuse team, I've worked with some myself to go after bad guys. I honestly have no idea as to the role of Cox management in this. "I guess I'm real disappointed in Authentium, it's taking an extraordinary amount of time to fix this. As you see, it'll take at least six months to just start to deploy the fix." Here is the full post: An update on the Authentium/Cox craigslist blocking situation Also, here is Craig Newmark's email exchange on this problem....[Read Full Article]

Leaving Microsoft: First Robert Scoble then Bill Gates...what's going on!?
Bill Gates' gradual departure from Microsoft over the next two years comes at a time when the company is facing its largest challenges. It is way behind Google and other companies in transitioning to the online era, and it faces large problems with staff morale. Just a few days ago, Robert Scoble, a hugely important and popular Microsoft evangelist left the company. And it has lost other key people. This makes it doubly hard for it to recruit its next generation of leaders. Mr Gates' departure might be a way to bow out before the company's problems come home to roost. A company of MSFT's size has plenty of business to carry it through the next few years. And it can remain very profitable if it cuts its losing business groups. But its long term future is anything but bright, as Mr Gates claimed at the press conference today: "The road ahead for Microsoft is as bright as ever." Microsoft must make some very hard decisions and reinvent itself as a company. The power of the founder to make such changes within an organization can be very significant. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, returned to the company when it was facing huge challenges and he managed to remake the company he co-founded. Bill Gates could also bring that type of capability to Microsoft during a time of huge challenges. Clearly, Mr Gates is no Steve Jobs. - - - From Cnet: Gates stepping down from full-time Microsoft role...[Read Full Article]

Why is there no British Google? A top British politician asks...
A reader (www.elleeseymour.blogsite.com) writes: Belated congratulations from over the pond. Bloggers in the UK do not have sponsors but advertisers, what advice would you give to them about this? I would like to write a post about it tomorrow, so a response would be appreciated. Also, what are your views about this story in The Times about why the UK cannot develop the Yahoos and Googles cyberspace company. I think you will find this of interest. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2222386,00.html Thank you Ellee. Let me address the article in the Times, written by George Osborne, a British [politician and shadow chancellor, which means he is in the Conservative party and part of the "shadow cabinet" of senior Tory politicians. Here is the intro: We may have invented the internet but it's the Americans who have colonised it. It's time to stake our claim WHY IS THERE no British Yahoo! or Google? Why are we not home to fast-growing community websites such as MySpace, the fifth most visited site on the world wide web? The internet may have been invented by a Briton, but it is a sad truth that not one of the leading internet companies is British. I am in Silicon Valley to find out why, meeting not just the people who run these internet giants, but also the venture capitalists who turn their bright ideas into great businesses. I want to know what we can do to make sure Britain has a slice of the future. There was nothing pre-ordained...[Read Full Article]

SVW crypto-scoops and the New York Times...
Take a look at my crypto-scoop published December 1 2005 and today's story in the New York Times by John Markoff. (I had to publish it cryptically because I wasn't allowed to publish it directly :-) From Silicon Valley Watcher: -Cryptoscoop: The GOOG is prophetic, rather than superstitious, about its interest in the power in the places associated with the 13th fundamental building block of the Original Design. It refers to Google's interest in building large data centers in places where there is abundant cheap electricity and those places are where aluminum is made. Alumininum is the 13th element of the periodic table (which lists the elements which make up our physical world). It takes enormous quantities of electricity to make aluminum. From New York Times article: Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power THE DALLES, Ore., June 8 — On the banks of the windswept Columbia River, Google is working on a secret weapon in its quest to dominate the next generation of Internet computing. But it is hard to keep a secret when it is a computing center as big as two football fields, with twin cooling plants protruding four stories into the sky. ... Local residents are at once enthusiastic and puzzled about their affluent but secretive new neighbor, a successor to the aluminum manufacturers that once came seeking the cheap power that flows from the dams holding back the powerful Columbia. The project has created hundreds of construction jobs, caused local real estate prices...[Read Full Article]

Hot new vidstars mix with hipsters and geeks at vidblogging fest
By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher All right, so Vloggercon in San Francisco this past weekend was hot... and not just 'cause RocketBoom's Amanda Congdon was there, dig? Either the geeks are getting hip or the hipsters are going geek... either way, a new era of media is taking Hollywood and traditional video media by storm. And why not? You've got a camera... you've got a story to tell... you're a superstar! And, now, the tools to distribute your video are here, such as YouTube and a hundred more free vidhosts. New media superstars, like Congdon, are well on their way to becoming international celebrities (Rocketboom's audience is as large as some small cable channels after only a year and a half) while Hollywood scrapes to understand what's going on. We've seen the blogging phenomenon put a dent in traditional print media. Now, imagine that same dent in traditional television media. That's what's happenin', dig? Lucaso in the balcony at Vloggercon. Photo by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. Ok, so back to Vloggercon... Hot 'cause we're now seeing some cultural integration, as evident by the crook in every geek's neck when 88slide's host Rachel walked into the conference hall (look out Amanda!). A new age of diversity is coming to geekland and we'll be seeing more young, new-media superstars popping up on the radar over the next year as well as some old school geeks stepping into celebrity roles. I overheard Stowe Boyd chatting with a friend as he left...[Read Full Article]

Baynote - community driven enterprise search
Baynote came out of stealth mode today with a software as a service product it calls "content guidance." It helps users find what they want on web sites with thousands of documents by studying the behavior of prior visitors. Type in a search term and up pops a selection of relevant documents that are "useranked" according to how others found what they wanted. "Our technology works as a silent observer and we can tell by a user's behavior if they found what they were looking for. When you consider the fact that studies show only 17 per cent of web site visitors find what they were looking for, that means you are wasting 83 per cent of your money spent on online marketing campaigns to drive users to your site," says Jack Jia, CEO of Baynote. Typically, it can take six clicks to find relevant content and today's visitors are increasingly less patient and more likely to give up. Mr Jia claims Baynote's technology provides a 20 times increase in users finding the content they want, usually in just one click. Mr Jia is a former CTO of Interwoven, so he has a good understanding of web site design and content plus his team makes use of the latest discoveries in artificial intelligence. The Baynote technology tracks 12 key behavioral characteristics displayed by web site visitors in order to determine whether they found what they wanted or left frustrated. The service also offers a variety of usage reports and...[Read Full Article]

Dinner with GigaOm - a transition
I had dinner with Om Malik tonight, Om has been a close friend and advisor in my blogospheric adventures and I'm glad to see that he is finally free of his former life at Business 2.0. (Yes, Nick Douglas did get the scoop. Well done Nick, hey, come work with me, I can beat anything that skinflint Nick Denton pays you. Seriously, you've demonstrated a hunger for a scoop and that is key to this job. Call me 336 7547.) Here, you can read Om's tearful farewell to the magazine (Business 2.O) that he continues to love and will continue to contribute a column. But, it is great that now he can unleash the GigaOm to its full potential. As we talked tonight, I remarked that as media professionals we are in a truly unique point in the timesphere. At no other time in our lives will we be witness to such disruption in our media industry and such opportunities to carve out a media niche. I sometimes tease my colleagues in the media that we will become the Venetian princes of the new age (I have the dotcom!). But they don't believe me yet and I might very well be a little ahead of myself :-) Whether that is true or not, it doesn't matter because we are all at a major transition that will affect our society, our way of life for many years to come. Media is how our society thinks things through and that is...[Read Full Article]

MingleNow - social networking that mingles online and offline
I just got an early briefing on an interesting idea for social networking coming out of BlueLithium, the online advertising agency headquartered in San Jose, CA. It's an idea developed in Blue Lithium Labs, the R&D component of the business, to solve some social networking problems of their own. "We've earned a reputation for hosting some great parties and we wanted to put some of that experience to work in this venture," says Dakota Sullivan, chief marketing officer at BlueLithium. This is the overview: people register with MingleNow and say where they hang out, which bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. The site will have a very large national database of nearly every social place. Users will also be able to create their own places such as a corner of a college campus, or a camp at Burningman. "There will be a page for every place that exists in the real world and you'll be able to see pictures of the people that go to that place," says Mr Sullivan....[Read Full Article]

At Vloggercon to welcome Robert Scoble to Silicon Valley...
Photo by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. . . .I usually try to keep my weekends geek-free but Sunday afternoon I popped into VLoggerCon, the conference for video bloggers. As soon as I walked in Robert Scoble almost walked right into me, which was handy because I was instrumental in breaking the news that the top blogger in the tech community was leaving Microsoft after Andy Plesser from Beet.tv called me with the news and published it on Beet.tv.. He looked very happy. We walked outside and talked for a few minutes. I welcomed him back to Silicon Valley and congratulated him on his move to PodTech.net, the leading podcasting network....[Read Full Article]

Microsoft's top blogger Robert Scoble is leaving....
Filed: 2006-06-10 17:27:26 Andy Plesser from Plesser Holland and the videoblog Beet.tv just called and told me Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft and will join PodTech.net, the podcasting network. He will be moving from Seattle to Silicon Valley....[Read Full Article]

Readers and Cox speak out on Craigslist block by Cox Interactive
A response from Cox, and lots of great commentary from SVW readers on the issue of net neutrality and the blocking of Craigslist.org by Cox Interactive. A security suite offered by Cox, and developed for Cox by Authentium, a security software company is the culprit. Craigslist says it has spent months trying to resolve the issue. It's the type of issue that might become more common if there are no network neutrality laws. Here are a selection of comments in chronological order : Sixster writes: I live in Santa Barbara, CA. My ISP is Cox. I just tried to access craigslist.org, it did not go through. I tried again with santabarbara.craigslist.org and it went right through. I tried again with plain craigslist.org and it went through fine. Meh... originalgeek writes: Lyle, it doesn't matter which end of the pipe the ISP employs measures to quash traffic. My money says Authentium does this because they're getting a little payola backscratch from Cox. Follow the money....[Read Full Article]

Wyse tolls the bell for the corporate PC...the move to thin computing
I recently spoke with John Kish, CEO of Wyse, a leader in thin client/thin computing systems. Wyse is also one of the companies relaunched by Garnett & Helfrich Capital, a private equity firm specializing in venture buyouts. Wyse is in the sweet spot of the move away from fat, loaded PCs, towards very thin, high performance clients running Win