Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media

Did you know that IBM is the world's second largest software company?

It's been about 6 years since I spoke with Steve Mills, head of IBM's Software Group - the most profitable business at IBM.

Mr Mills was in town Monday evening to meet with a handful of media and chat about IBM's green initiatives around municipal infrastructure.

I had a chance to go off topic and ask him about SAP and the changes at the world's largest business software company.
[Please see: SAP Replaces CEO With 2 Co-CEOs - SVW]

Mr Mills said that he welcomed the changes and that it would not impact IBM's SAP related business.

SAP business is a big business at IBM. The company makes money on consulting services and hardware related to SAP implementations. For every dollar that SAP receives in license revenues, IBM and other systems integrators, make about $9 in services and other revenues.

SAP has tried to tap into the revenues that systems integrators make on its installations. But the economic slump has slowed new licenses and maintenance revenues. In the most recent financial quarter profits fell 12% and revenues were 9% below year ago results.

Associated Press reports: Spain's Telefonica considers charging Google - Yahoo! News

Speaking Monday at a press conference in the northern city of Bilbao, President Cesar Alierta said companies like Google use a lot of network bandwidth for free, something which was lucky for them but not for Telefonica.
...He says things had to change.

Foremski's Take: If ISPs, such as Telefonica, start charging Google they will also charge other companies providing web services. This will be bad news for thousands of startups worldwide.

Why?

Because Google can afford to pay the fees while startups cannot. This will be a huge tax on innovation.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc -- can afford to pay the fees. This will help their businesses because it will keep competition at bay.

Those companies will then be able to acquire smaller companies that don't have the means to scale their businesses, and eliminate large numbers of potential competitors. While they can do this already, the fees will speed up the process.

The Telcos are in a strong position because in every country they are government regulated entities, which provides a strong barrier to competition. How many new Telcos have arisen in the last five, or ten years? Consolidation has strengthened the current Telcos.

Here is another reason why GOOG should look at the strategic benefits of becoming a Telco or acquiring a Telco.

- - -

Please see: Analysis: GOOG Needs To Have Its Own Telco Service More Than It Needs A Phone...

Google Becomes (Almost) Full-Fledged Telecom, Vonage, Skype, Others In Sites | BNET Technology Blog | BNET

Interesting article on BBC News about early British computer pioneers.

By splitting data into packets and threading them on the same line, the carrying capacity of that link could be boosted and the whole network made more powerful.

Roger Scantlebury, who worked with Dr Davies, presented the ideas about "packet switching" to a conference in the US, where they were picked up by the creators of the nascent Arpanet, the fledgling internet.

Does that mean Britain invented the internet?

"Yes and no," said Mr Scantlebury. "Certainly the underlying technology of the internet, which is packet switching, we did invent."

British researchers also worked on hyperlinks, another crucial Internet technology, way back in the early 1970s.

David Yates was project manager of a program called Scrapbook which rolled together word processing, e-mail and hypertext - a system that incorporated many elements of the World Wide Web.

Scrapbook went live on 28 April 1971...Scrapbook helped people across the 28 acres of the NPL campus collaborate or projects without having to sit next to each other.

Clearly, the British had developed many of the technologies that went into the Internet. And Tim Berners-Lee, is a Brit and he invented the world wide web...

So maybe the British did invent the Internet but with typical British modesty, didn't want to blow their own horn. At least until now.

Please see: BBC News - Alan Turing and the Ace computer

I never believed in online shopping price comparison services. Because I never believed that retailers would allow their sites to be scraped and their prices easily compared.

Why would they do that? What advantage is there in allowing third-party services to undermine their business?

I have rarely been able to find a straightforward price comparison that was able to factor in everything, such as shipping, taxes, and extras.

The East coast camera retailers, for example, would advertise low prices online but then charge you extra for flash memory, shipping, warranties, and 'camera kits,' that quickly negated any savings.

And it makes sense that retailers would try to make it as difficult as possible to get a clean price quote because otherwise they are at the mercy of the lowest price competitor. They would also be at the mercy of their stupidest competitor -- the one that charges an unrealistic price, too low to maintain profitability or viability.

Today's New York Times has a report by Brad Stone on yet another aspect of online pricing - manufacturers seeking to control what price retailers can advertise on their products.

The Fight over Prices on the Internet - NYTimes.com

On some pages of e-commerce sites selling products like televisions, digital cameras and jewelry, a critical piece of information is conspicuously missing: the price tag.

Customers have to go to the online checkout to see the price. These missing prices are more likely to be methods of thwarting price comparison engines rather than manufacturers' price controls.

Retailers have long managed to get around pricing controls by giving other things away. For example, Apple dealers aren't allowed to under cut each other on price but they can give away printers and other products, which effectively undercuts Apple's recommended retail prices.

What is much more interesting is this tidbit, buried deeper in the NYTimes article, almost at the very end:

Instead of selling e-books wholesale to retailers like Amazon.com, the publishers want to sell them directly, setting prices and having the retailer act as an agent, taking a fixed 30 percent commission.

Wow. Turning Amazon into an affiliate! How ironic, since Amazon is one of the largest affiliate marketers, offering a percentage of revenues sold by third parties.

This is the danger that online retailers now face: what if their suppliers want to sell direct?

A search engine, such as Google or Bing, would be able to make it very easy to find the online stores of the manufacturers of many goods. This would be like a huge outlet store in the cloud.

In most cases manufacturers are already drop-shipping orders on goods collected by online retailers. Why not cut out the middle man?

In addition, the manufacturers would be collecting important customer data -- data that is currently kept by the retailer. They would be able to develop a direct customer relationship for the very first time (beyond the voluntary 'warranty' cards found with many products).

And if you know who bought what and when, it becomes easy to work out who will probably be needing a new washing machine, or computer, because the old one is on its last legs. Your marketing goes direct -- which cuts out a lot of costs.

Fortunately for the retailers, manufacturers don't know how to market well, or how to manage a direct customer relationship. At least, not yet...

Amazon has some protection from this trend in that it has layered on a lot of cool features and services, such as customer reviews, and secure online payment systems. That will help in retaining customers and making it less attractive for its suppliers to sell direct.

But it's clear that there are troubling signs ahead, that the Internet does make it possible for manufacturers to sell direct; and that search engines could create the storefront; they could aggregate customer reviews; and offer secure payment services (Google Checkout).

Online retailers are caught between a rock (search engines) and a hard place (suppliers selling direct). Both have sound business reasons to squeeze out the middle guy.

This is less true for retailers that also have physical locations such as Wal-mart or Best Buy. Will Amazon make a bricks and mortar acquisition?

The Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt have launched paywalls, and Le Figaro, a major French newspaper is expected to have its paywall ready later this month, reports Paidcontent.org.

Access to all content on morgenpost.de now costs €4.95 (£4.32/$6.79) per month. A premium subscription to abendblatt.de costs €7.95 (£6.93/$10.90) per month. Abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and premium content: it appears it charges extra for content specific to the Hamburg region, while making national news free. Subscriptions for both are renewed on a monthly basis.

The Times, Rupert Murdoch's flagship UK newspaper, is expected to have a paywall in the 2nd quarter of this year.

The good news for US newspaper companies is that they can learn important lessons from the early European newspaper paywall ventures.

Today's New York Times has a report about the debate over newspaper paywalls. Brad Stone writes about the different views of Rupert Murdoch, and Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian.

Media Cache - Free vs. Paid, Murdoch vs. Rusbridger - NYTimes.com

Having “ruthlessly cut the price of his papers to below cost in order to win audiences or drive out competition,” Mr. Rusbridger said in a recent speech, “this same Rupert Murdoch is being very vocal in asserting that the reader must pay a proper sum for content — whether in print or digitally.”

SAP, the world's largest business software company, said Léo Apotheker has been replaced as CEO.

The SAP Executive Board, in agreement with the SAP Supervisory Board, has appointed two Co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, both already members of the SAP Executive Board.

Dennis Howlett, on ZDNet, writes that Mr Apotheker's departure wasn't unexpected. But it was surprising that the company acted so soon.

The choice of new leaders should not be surprising but hardly imaginative. In effect, SAP has chosen ‘last men standing’ rather than taking what some of us thought might be a bold move by appointing an outsider.

SAP is headquartered in Germany and has a large presence in Silicon Valley. The company beat analyst estimates for Q4 but profits fell 12% and revenues were down 9% from a year ago.

UPDATE:

Vinnie Mirchandani in Deal Architect writes: Enterprise software is entirely bereft of soul

...the reality is the customer has been forgotten in enterprise software, not just at SAP. It’s about squeezing as much out of old technology as possible. As I wrote earlier in the week. “I wish the other bigger vendors had the cajones to acknowledge they similarly mostly live off profits from software 15- 20 years old, from consultants which implement that old software and provide services from data centers which were designed during the Cold War.”
Leo was expected to do more of the same in his new role as CEO. So, he did – unbelievably pushing maintenance price hikes in the middle of the deep recession. For all his talk about taking on the partners who have piled 5 to 10X costs on top of SAP’s own expensive solutions, he really could not – they were part of the “field” he created.

I just received a call from Amy in San Diego. She noticed my recent post about using Silicon Valley's corporate jets for Haiti.

Her husband is a doctor and he is with a group of about 15 other doctors and nurses. They are stuck in Miami with no transport to Haiti. Can anyone help?

If you can help please call or text me at this number 415 336 7547 and I will put you in contact with Amy.

Let's Use Silicon Valley's Jet Fleet To Rush Aid To Haiti - SVW

In the movie "Amadeus" Mozart says:

"In a play, if more than one person speaks at once ...it's just noise. No one can understand a word. But with opera, with music.... With music you can have individuals all talking at the same time. And it's not noise. lt's a perfect harmony!"

That's what struck me as a fundamental limitation of using online real-time feedback for live events.

In this brave new world of 'conversational' media - real-time creates a real limitation. And no amount of technology can solve this basic issue: you can't have a conversation if everyone is speaking at once.

You can have online conversations if they are within a time-line, such as comments on a blog post. But it doesn't work in real-time. Think of the noise of a crowd -- it's an aggregation of hundreds of conversations.

This might all seem a bit obvious but it's worth pointing out because there is a lot of chatter about the 'real-time' web these days and what it means, and what it can enable.

Thursday evening I was on an interesting panel about "Realtime Feedback Loops."

My fellow panelists were:

• Ravit Lichtenberg, CEO Ustrategy
• Sylvia L. Marino, Executive Director - Community Operations & Social Media,Edmunds.com
• Liza Sperling, Real-Time Sentiment & Trends Analyst, Scout Labs
• Van Riper, Founder & Leader, Silicon Valley Google Technology User Group
• Bill Johnston, Director, Online Community Research Network, ForumOne
• David Libby, SVP, MS&L Worldwide
• Evan Solomon, VP of Marketing, JustinTV
• Marc Smolowitz, Executive Producer - Media & Technology Consultant
  

Social Media Week Closing Party Friday Feb 5

"Join us as we support Social Media for Social Good and raise a glass (and money) for NetSquared to expand its support of non-profits using Web 2.0 and social media tools and methodologies.

With over 1,000 people participating in various events across San Francisco during Social Media Week, this party is the perfect way to end an action packed five days.

Individual tickets are on sale for $20 in advance ($30 at the door), and includes two (2) drink tickets. A cash bar will also be available. $10 from each ticket will be donated to NetSquared so they can continue to do their great work educating other non-profits in how to leverage social media technology. "

Mashable and Social Media Club Present the Social Media... - Eventbrite


Michael Brito tells me about Silicon Valley Tweetup: Giving to families in need

We have decided to raise awareness and accept monetary donations to the San Jose Family Shelter. Here are the details of the event (you can RSVP here):

When: Tuesday, February 23

Where: Rosie McCanns at Santana Row

Time: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM

$10 donation at the door (you will get drink tickets and food too)

RSVP here

This is what happens when you have unpaid or low paid writers. Daniel Brusilovsky, a reporter for Techcrunch, was sacked after someone accused him of asking for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a company.

Mike Arrington, founder of Techcrunch said that all of his posts have been erased from the archives. And that Mr Brusilovsky did manage to get at least one computer from an unnamed source in exchange for coverage. [An Apology To Our Readers]

He was described as an 'intern.' Which means he was unpaid, or paid the minimum California wage.

[Update: John Furrier from Silicon Angle says he spoke Daniel and was told he did not receive any payment from Techcrunch and had no contract.]

Some observers said that he didn't know what he was doing because of his age, 16. But he spent nine months at Techcrunch and saw how things are done. He knew what he was doing.

However, we don't know what exactly happened. He hasn't given his side of the story and responded to Mr Arrington's specific allegations.

At least not much damage was done. It's not as if Mr Brusilovsky was bribed to squash a "Deep Throat' sourced story.

Techcrunch's stories are all very innocent, mostly about some new product feature. or a startup profile. I doubt readers would be able to distinguish the bribed stories from the rest.

Are other reporters and bloggers for online news sites vulnerable to bribery? Yes, they are, especially if they aren't paid or low paid -- which is the case with most. Low wages are endemic among the online press corps because advertising supported news sites don't make much money per post.

I'm surprised more stories haven't surfaced about this type of behavior. It's no wonder that the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer found a large fall in trust for all media.

Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens

- - -

Please see:

An Apology To Our Readers

Weblog of Daniel Brusilovsky » Blog Archive » The Line Was Crossed

Tech Journalism Wunderkind in Bribery Scandal - Techcrunch - Gawker

A global study by Econsultancy, commissioned by ExactTarget, an email and personal marketing firm, has found that 41 per cent of marketers will decrease their spending on print and other offline media this year.

The study questioned 1,000 company and agency marketers around the world.

- 28% are shifting their overall budgets to digital in 2010.

- 66% of companies plan to increase online marketing budgets.

- 30% of companies are keeping online marketing budgets at the same level.

- Forecast: 17% increase in digital marketing budgets for: social media, mobile marketing, email marketing, and search.

70 per cent of in-house marketers plan to increase their budgets for off-site social media marketing efforts, using agencies to engage with audiences on Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites.

But according to agency respondents the biggest impediment to digital marketing investment is a general lack of understanding of digital marketing channels. Just under half (48%) of agency respondents cite this as the key reason, which prevents their clients from investing more money in this area.

Linus Gregoriadis, research director at Econsultancy. "Social media marketing is the area where companies are most likely to be spending more money during 2010, but areas such as search engine marketing and email marketing will remain buoyant."

Foremski's Take: It's hardly surprising to see online marketing budgets growing. What is surprising is that the shift to digital marketing isn't faster.

The problem is that digital marketing is a very fragmented area and is becoming even more fragmented as new media channels, such as Twitter, open up. Marketing executives are faced with the daunting challenge of having to manage and measure the effectiveness of many online marketing channels.

The addition of tools and technologies that help target marketing at individuals will increase the complexity of the job. While much is spoken about the benefits of targeted marketing at individuals, little is said about the headaches of managing such programs.

Buying a Super Bowl ad is easy. Launching, managing, and monitoring the performance of highly targeted marketing campaigns across many digital channels is very difficult.

There is a huge amount of data generated by digital marketing. That data is valuable because it holds the keys to greater efficiencies. But that data can also overwhelm marketers with too much information and choices -- freezing decision making.

But that's the reality for today's marketing executives...the CMO of a large company probably has the most challenging job in the C-suite.

AdSafe Media, which monitors online advertising, reported that in Q4 2009, that about 27 per cent of online display advertising on sites with user generated content was inappropriate for brand advertisers due to problem subject matter.

Problem content included hate speech and invisible traffic. AdSafe said that about 25 per cent of all display ads were on sites with UGC content.

David Hahn, VP of Product for AdSafe, said he was concerned about "the large percentage of invisible, UGC and hate speech associated inventory we observed in Q4. Without full visibility of display inventory, brands and agencies are unable to understand the quality or brand appropriateness of inventory."

Foremski's Take: As many media sites add user generated content to their publishing mix, to generate additional pageviews, they could face problems from existing brand advertisers.

They will need to moderate their UGC content, which will add to their costs. But this could also be an important point of distinction, since moderated UGC will be of higher value to advertisers and should result in improved advertising rates.

It's nearly ten years since the dotcom bubble became a dotbomb, leading to tens of thousands of lost jobs, lost wealth, and lost dreams.

It's been a long, slow recovery. Which is probably good compared to the volatility of the late 1990s. But wages still haven't recovered.

The San Jose Mercury reports on the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. Silicon Valley tech workers had rough decade

Wages in 11 high-tech industries averaged $120,000 in 2000, when investors' money was raining on the valley and competition for workers was fierce. By 2002, in the depths of the crash, average wages sank to $87,300, but by mid-2009, they had recovered to $105,500.

The Merc always puts together some great graphics:

We share a common belief that trust is an important currency in today's world especially in the digital realm.

Trust, we are taught, is hard won. It takes a long time to establish trust yet it can be destroyed in minutes.

But is that really true?

I've been looking at the Edelman Trust Barometer reports and it shows that trust in businesses, in media both social and traditional, in NGOs, in governments, jumps up and down by large margins from year to year.

I've been particularly interested in trust in social and traditional media. In the latest report, trust in peers, which represents social media, plunged by 20 points from 47 percent of those surveyed in the prior year, to 27 percent. Trust in other forms of media also fell by large margins.

[Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens]

Yet in 2008 I reported that the Edelman survey showed: Mainstream Media Trust Soars

"American's trust in mainstream media jumps an astonishing 36 per cent to 45 per cent from 33 percent in the prior year. "

It looks like 'trust' is a very volatile commodity. It's not a slow build. It can be quickly reestablished.

- How will this affect businesses and their competitive strategies?

- Is it worth taking risks with 'trust' because any wrong turns can be relatively quickly repaired?

This could lead to anti-social business practices, as companies pursue questionable strategies for short-term profits because new 'trust' can be quickly built back up.

It would be good to see future Edelman Trust Barometers cast some light on the reasons why trust is such a surprisingly volatile quality.

In my recent post about the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, social media fared badly. But ALL media fared nearly as badly.

Why is that?

- Is it because we now have more media now than ever before, both social and traditional sources of media?

- Is it because more of any thing, devalues that thing? We have more media in more forms, at more times, than at anytime in our history. Is trust in media being lost because trust has become more diluted?

- Traditional media still leads as a source for social media. But traditional media is under pressure, with fewer resources. That means more mistakes, less time to check sources, resulting in a lower quality product. That can't be good for building trust in media.

- Is social media losing trust because of all the social media marketeers that seem to be the loudest voices in many streams?

That would make it seem as if social media can be manipulated, or used to an advantage by businesses. Which is exactly what the social media mavens are saying. A key finding of the Edelman Trust Barometer is that trust in businesses is fragile.

Therefore, is it business involvement in social media that is affecting people's trust in social and traditional media?

- Trust seems to be a volatile commodity. Our common belief is that trust takes time to build yet can be destroyed in minutes. So does that mean rebuilding trust across all media will now be a long hard slog?

The Edelman survey has raised some interesting questions.

Here's a recap of findings from the Edelman Trust Barometer:

- Trust in information from friends and peers, "people like me," dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent.

- Trust in information from digital media--blogs, social networks, and free content sources like Wikipedia or Google news, remains low: only between 11 percent and 22 percent of respondents express trust in information about companies from these sources.

- Trust in credibility of TV news declined by 20 points, from 44 to 24 percent.

- Trust in news coverage on the radio dropped by 17 points, from 48 to 31 percent.

- Trust in newspapers fell by 14 points, from 46 to 32 percent.

- Only 38 percent trust media (as an institution) to do what is right, down from 46 percent in 2008.

- - -

Please see:

2010 Prediction: The Media Tsunami Is Coming...

The annual Edelman Trust Barometer always yields some interesting results. The tenth survey consisted of 4,875 interviews (25 years to 64 years):

The finding that jumped out at me was this one (buried in the report):

- Trust in information from friends and peers, "people like me," dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent.

- Trust in information from digital media--blogs, social networks, and free content sources like Wikipedia or Google news, remains low: only between 11 percent and 22 percent of respondents express trust in information about companies from these sources.

Wow.

This is bad news for PR agencies. Social media has been the 'point of the spear' for so many firms. This is what has been bringing in new business.

This is bad news for all the 'social media experts' out there trying to convince companies to buy their services because of the potential brand damage from not responding to 'conversations' in social media.

What's the point in jumping to engage if people don't trust their peers anyway?

This is bad news for 'citizen' journalism. People don't trust news written by their peers. So much for traditional media outlets trying to pad out their coverage with local bloggers. This potentially lowers trust in the media brand.

This is bad news for many startups that offer real-time monitoring of the 'social' web. There is less need for their services.

It's not just social media...

Other types of media have also fallen in the Edelman Trust Barometer, but not all to the same extent as trust in peers.

- Trust in credibility of TV news declined by 20 points, from 44 to 24 percent.

- Trust in news coverage on the radio dropped by 17 points, from 48 to 31 percent.

- Trust in newspapers fell by 14 points, from 46 to 32 percent.

- Only 38 percent trust media (as an institution) to do what is right, down from 46 percent in 2008.

- Media companies (as an industry) have declined in credibility by 16 points (from 48 to 32 percent).

- In the U.S., media companies are tied with the insurance industry for last place. Banks are second from the bottom.

- Top trusted industry is technology and it has widened its lead over other industries.

- Tied for the second most trusted industry is Biotech and Automotive at 63 percent, followed by Energy, Retail and Food at 61 percent.

Here is Richard Edelman, head of the largest independent PR agency presenting some of the findings at an employee event:

Please see:

Does More Media Lead To Less Total Media Trust?

2010 Prediction: The Media Tsunami Is Coming...

I had an interesting conversation about iPhone and iPad apps development with Marine Leroux, the CEO of San Francisco based Bamboudesign.

Ms Leroux is a French entrepreneur. She worked on desktop application user interface design in France before founding her company here in 2008 to focus just on mobile applications, or specifically, the user interface design of mobile apps, mostly iPhone apps.

Bamboudesign works with large companies on projects where there are resources to finely craft the user interface design of apps in brand building projects.

Here are some notes from our conversation:

- When I was working in France people would tell me I should also work on mobile apps but the tiny screens of Nokia and other handsets didn't interest me much. When the iPhone was introduced I remember seeing the demos, that was when I realized that this was a great mobile platform. There was a large screen and I realized that this was what I wanted to do: design user interfaces for iPhone apps.

- We're very excited abut the iPad because of the larger screen and that means we can build much richer user experiences.

- There are some issues about running iPhone apps on the iPad. Running an existing app on a larger screen could cause problems because the resolution of the graphics may look pixelated. Lots of iPhone apps will have to be redone to look good on the iPad.

- Another issue is the approval process. We don't know if Apple will require a new approval process for iPad versions of existing apps. If that's the case, that will create a very large bottleneck. There are more than 140,000 iPhone apps currently. That's a good reason to have your iPad app ready sooner, to try and get ahead of the queue in the approval process.

- Clearly, not all iPhone apps can be ported to iPad, such as camera or phone based. But it should appeal to publishers of newspapers and books, etc, because it will be a much richer user experience.

- Unlike many other developers, we pay a lot of attention to the user interface design and we have a rigorous methodology to make sure the user has a great experience.

- We are big fans of the Corona software development kit. This is much better than Apple's iPhone SDK. You can write one-tenth of the code, and it has Flash-like features -- useful because Apple does not support Flash and we're not sure if there will be HTML5 support.

- We started a networking community group last July 2009 called "The iPhone Network Lounge" (www.iphonenetworklounge.com) and host monthly events in San Francisco. The community targets iPhone professionals and invites guest speakers in the iPhone industry to talk about iPhone technology, innovation, marketing, design, monetization models, and more.

These events are designed to share industry knowledge and help the developer and design community to better cater to market needs.

The iPhone Network Lounge has over 210 members and is now the leading iPhone networking group in San Francisco. I will be the guest speaker at the next event, this Thursday, February 4, and will present "Design iPhone Apps with Photoshop". 185 people are registered to attend the talk which will take place at the Adobe office in San Francisco.

There are lot of events this week around various topics in social media. Yesterday I caught part of the Social Media Camp in the Presidio. It was organized by Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells with help from Rebecca Reeve and many others.

I caught an interesting panel moderated by Jolie O'Dell, Read/Write Web, that included Brian Zisk, from Collecta. Brian is one of my favorite entrepreneurs, he has great insights into real-time data and why it matters. Also on the panel was Jeremy Toeman, Stage Two Consulting. Jeremy does PR for interesting companies such as Boxee.

Here are a few notes:

Brian Zisk:

- Real-time data is like a fish finder, you can see the data that's there. Then you can decide what to do with that data, whether you should respond in real-time, or wait. It gives you new opportunities.

- If your stuff stinks then no amount of quick responses to people's complaints will help you.

- Twitter will continue to be important in the future but people won't be talking about it all the time. We just got the MySpace feed and there are five times as many postings on MySpace as on Twitter. You don't have people running around talking about MySpace all the time.

Jeremy Toeman:

- You don't need to react in real-time to people's complaints but you should be aware of them in real-time. Sometimes it is best to wait a while.

- If Twitter hadn't happened we would not be talking about the real-time web this soon. If Twitter hadn't managed to engage a small number of key people at South By SouthWest more than 2 years ago, it might not have been successful -- the real-time web might have been delayed by a couple of years.

Jolie O'Dell:

- Don't erase unfavorable comments, it is best to leave them up. Often others will come to your defense without you needing to engage.

- Do not use the comment thread as a channel for your customer service. Tell them to call you or direct them elsewhere.

There's plenty more social media wisdom all week. I'm on a panel Thursday evening: Innovation Through Real-Time Feedback Loops.

San Francisco -- Social Media Week

The New York Times recently reported that Britain's spy agency, MI5, warned British executives that were doing business with China, about Chinese attempts to hack into their company systems. This was more than a year ago.

[Britain Warned Businesses of Threat of Chinese Spying - NYTimes.com]

The story also said that the Chinese spying efforts combined hacking with attempts at blackmail over "sexual relationships and other improprieties."

Here's the quote in context:

By John Ward

British business executives dealing with China were given a formal warning more than a year ago by Britain's security service, MI5, that Chinese intelligence agencies were engaged in a wide-ranging effort to hack into British companies' computers and to blackmail British businesspeople over sexual relationships and other improprieties, according to people familiar with the MI5 document.

A 14 page document, warning of the range of Chinese spying techniques, was sent to hundreds of British banks and businesses.

This is very similar to what happened to Google and about 30 other US companies and resulted in Google saying it might have to leave China.

We still do not know the full story of the Chinese spying attempts but know that hackers got into an internal surveillance system at Google.

But was it an inside job? Was there some other method used to gain access to Google or other US company data systems?

Were there any attempts to blackmail people at Google, or any other US execs,"over sexual relationships and other improprieties?"

After all, those seem to be the methods used in conjunction with the Chinese hacking/spying attempts. Why would such attacks be any different against US targets? The British are, no more, or no less prone to sexual blackmail than Americans.

Will the China v US spying story reveal that such attempts took place? Will we find out if they were successful?

It is a salacious topic but that's not why I've raised it. These are important questions because the answers could warn others.

If people aren't aware that tactics such as sexual blackmail are used, then the spies have an important advantage in future missions.

- - -
Please see:

GOOG v China Highlights Security Risk Of Wiretapping Systems

I'm a huge fan of Doug Engelbart. When I first met him in 2005 I was astounded that this original thinker was still around -- but shocked that he was unable to secure funding for his work.

Here is a series of articles I wrote about Mr Engelbart.

What if Buckminster Fuller were still alive and looking for funding? I'm still in shock at Silicon Valley's blindness regarding Doug Engelbart

Exclusive interview with seminal 1960s computer visionary Doug Engelbart -- he's still here and looking for funding

A tribute to one of Silicon Valley's most influential and forgotten researchers at Xerox Parc event

The San Jose Mercury wrote about a tribute to Mr Engelbart at the Computer History Museum on Saturday:

Honoring a creative force in high tech: Douglas Engelbart turns 85 - San Jose Mercury News

"If all the leaders of the world -- the presidents of all the countries, the CEOs of all the companies -- were here in this room, you'd be my hero," [Steve] Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer and helped create some of the first commercially successful personal computers in the 1970s, told Engelbart. "You'd be the one I would gravitate to."

People still talk about the 1968 lecture that Mr Engelbart gave.

"The ideas were so fresh and resonated so powerfully with people who would go on to shape Silicon Valley that it "was the pivotal moment in computer history," said Bernt Wahl, an industry fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at the University of California-Berkeley.

Logitech has done the decent thing and provides Mr Engelbart with an office but he is still looking for funding for his ideas. And it's shameful that 20 'me-too' startups for each idea get funding but he doesn't have an Apple, or a Google, or a Kleiner Perkins funding his work.

Paul Mooney pointed me to this article by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing: Amazon and Macmillan go to war: readers and writers are the civilian casualties

Book publisher Macmillan pulled its e-books from Amazon's Kindle because it wants to be able to charge $15 per book instead of all Kindle books being $10.

Macmillan wants to be able to set its own prices -- a reasonable request. But Amazon wants a one-price-fits-all market.

This is similar to Apple's iTunes store which groups music, TV shows, and movies, into one or two price points. Publishers on the iTunes store are also unable to set their own pricing.

Cory Doctorow points out that there is a danger of fragmentation among book publishers over the issue of DRM and pricing.

If the big book publishers adopt different DRM licenses and pricing, people will have to cart around "a half-dozen tablets and readers, one for each permutation of which corporate elephant is trying to crush another."

Disputes are bad for business...

Either way, disputes such as the one between Macmillan and Amazon aren't good for e-readers and e-book markets.

It will stunt this young, emerging market because it points out that fragmentation in e-reader markets will require multiple devices.

With Apple's iPad we already have two e-readers with separate libraries. And there will be many more e-readers coming onto the market.

There will undoubtably be promotional deals where exclusive content will only be available on a specific e-reader to encourage sales of that device. That will highlight the fragmentation issue even further, reminding people that their digital libraries are stuck to a specific device. That will slow overall market growth.

A better e-reader...

In such a scenario, a lightweight notebook computer with a great screen might be the winner. The Macbook Air, and other thin, lightweight notebooks, could become the preferred e-reader, with many advantages over dedicated e-readers:

- PC or Mac notebooks are open platforms based on standard browser interfaces.

- Content is not tied to the device.

- Content is available from many sources instead of being tied to Amazon or Apple's DRMStores.

- People can switch notebook makers and keep their investment in their digital libraries intact.

- A notebook based e-reader can be used for many other tasks.

The higher price for lightweight notebooks becomes quickly outweighed by all these advantages.

Price becomes even less of an issue when people consider the total value of a growing e-media library.

It won't take long for people to build up a library of media content that is worth tens of thousands of dollars. The cost of the e-reader, whether dedicated or notebook based, becomes negligible when compared with the total cost of the library. Choosing a notebook as an e-reader becomes a much simpler choice.

A return to old media...

The DRMStore wars might lead to a new appreciation for physical media, paper books, DVDs, and CDs, and their 'DRM-lite' properties.

I can resell my books, DVDs, and CDs. Or I can lend them to a friend. I can also create digital versions for my own use. I can't do that with the restrictive DRMs that accompany most e-media.

- - -

Please see:

The Mysterious Apple A4 Chip - Where's MSFT's and GOOG's Chip?

Analysis: iPad Is an iDRM Storefront For Apple Ambitions To Dominate All Digital Media Sales

The most unique and mysterious feature of the Apple iPad, is the A4, an Apple chip developed by the 150 plus strong engineering team it acquired when it bought PA Semi for $278m nearly two years ago.

The engineering team is top notch. CNET wrote:

While at Digital Equipment Corp., [CEO Dan] Dobberpuhl oversaw the development of the Alpha chip for servers and the StrongARM processor for handhelds...

Jim Keller, P.A. Semi's vice president of engineering, and Pete Bannon, vice president of architecture, worked on the Alpha as well. Keller then went to AMD and helped define the architecture for what became the Opteron...

EETimes says that Mr Dobberpuhl also led MIPS teams. [MIPS is another low-power high performance processor.] And it also has AMD Opteron chip designers too.

When Apple acquired PA Semi, it had developed a multi-core POWER architecture chip. POWER is an IBM processor architecture derived from a partnership with Motorola. It's what Apple used before jumping to Intel (and from Motorola 68000 microprocessor before that).

With PA Semi, Apple managed to acquire a hugely talented engineering team with bags of experience with every major microprocessor design.

Two years later, Apple has most probably invested about a $100 million a year in the PA Semi team. It has spent more than $500 million to develop the A4 chip.

That's a huge investment in a chip.

Apple is essentially saying that there is nothing like it on the market. That it could not have made the A4 chip using current designs. That's a big statement.

What's inside the A4?

We don't know for sure. We know it is an ARM based processor, running at 1 GHz. ARM gives it compatibility with iPhone apps, which are ARM based. But what else is in the chip?

It has graphics and video decoders, so it can display high quality graphics and HD video, quickly and easily, and at low power. But you can get similar capabilities from the large library of designs available off-the-shelf for ARM processors.

Why would Apple need 150 top chip engineers if that was all it wanted?

An unhackable system...

We don't yet know what else is in the A4 chip. My guess is that there is a bunch of hardcore digital rights management (DRM) hardware on the chip. It's essentially a large security dongle that happens to have its own processing and video/graphics capabilities.

This is important. All publishers love strong DRM and with the A4, Apple can offer the strongest DRM on the planet. That's what you need if you want to get music, movies, books, etc onto your platform. You have to convince publishers that digital versions of their products can't be pirated, they can't be hacked.

Apple has made what it considers to be an unhackable system.

That also means you can't clone it. You won't be able to port the iPad/iPhone OS to another system, as you can with the Mac OS, and run applications and content.

What's next from the PA Semi team? It has to be a multicore A44, so that you can run several DRM enabled pieces of content simultaneously, such as listening to music while you read on the iPad -- which you cannot do with the first version of iPad.

Then an A1, a version for the iPhone/iPod.

Apple Inside...

Apple is now a chipmaker. But the chips will only be used in its products, at least initially. Apple has spent more than half-a-billion dollars to develop what it believes will give it a strong competitive advantage, and that it could not buy from current chip vendors.

However, I can see Apple allowing the A4 to be used in PCs and other devices made by others. Because the A4 is designed to work with Apple approved content that comes through its iTunes, iBooks, and AppStore - its online stores. Why not let HP systems, for example, access Apple store media? Apple gets its revenue share either way. Not much profit for HP, but at least its customers are happy they can access rich, high quality digital media.

In the near future, there might be a little bit of Apple inside lots of computers and devices from many different manufacturers. Apple might even offer it for free, subsidized by media sales. You'll find 'Apple Inside' alongside 'Intel Inside.'

Oracle recently completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, it now has the SPARC microprocessor; IBM has its POWER microprocessor; Apple has the A4.

The question now is: Does Microsoft need to have its own chip? What about Google? They both want to sell media. Youtube, for example, has started renting movies.

How will they convince publishers that their DRM systems are good enough? That they have unhackable DRM?

From e-media to i-media...

If I'm right about reading the tea leaves, Steve Jobs has a killer strategy to dominate the sale of all media. Excellent job Mr Jobs.

Foremski's Take: My first impression of Apple iPad is that its low price of $499 is due to the fact that it's basically a storefront for Apple's iTunes and iBooks online store.

It looks like there is no Adobe Flash video support, or Microsoft Silverlight video support, which means no Hulu, no BBC iPlayer, no Netflix Direct. You won't be able to stream video from anyone but Apple.

Belt-and braces DRM...

By using the iPhone OS and its own proprietary hardware, Apple has managed to build a solid belt-and-braces digital rights management (DRM) system, that is the platform itself.

Applications and media designed to run well on the iPad will be optimized to run on the Apple iPhone OS and also, on its proprietary hardware, the A4 microprocessor.

This provides an extra level of DRM support making it more difficult to pirate apps and media onto other platforms.

Buy all media through the Apple funnel...

Apple says iPad "comes with iTunes and iBook" stores. Apple is setting itself up as the funnel for all other media.

Media creators, after Apple approval, will be able to sell their content: tunes, movies, TV shows, books, podcasts, newspapers, apps, etc through its online store, delivered to Apple devices such as iPad, iPhone, optimized to run the media at its best.

Apple takes a cut of the revenue...

By building a proprietary, closed platform, with its own hardware and software, Apple is able to capture a larger part of the value stream from selling media.

The benefit to customers are:

- cheaper devices subsidized by media sales
- A very good customer experience because the media and platform are co-optimized for each other.
- Easy access and purchase of media through WiFi to iTunes or 3G (AT&T data plans.)

Issue for media publishers...

The issue for creators is that Apple is the only way to get media and apps onto the iPad and iPhone. You have to go through Apple.

Will they try to weaken Apple's position by making their media available on other platforms? Yes. But Apple knows the customers will decide and it has a very strategic customer base of early adopters.

Fanboys...

Although Apple has a tiny share of the overall computer and phone market, its customers form a large share of the early adopter market. This is a well-heeled group with lots of money to spend on media -- more than any other comparable demographic.

From the early adopters comes the development of mass markets. The iPhone went from an elitist toy to a mass market phone in less than 2 years, in many countries -- a trend that will get larger after exclusive carrier contracts expire.

From e-media to i-media...

Apple is making a bold bid to tie up a dominant share of the future media e-commerce market -- the sale of digital books, movies, newspapers, etc.

Its proprietary hardware and software strengthen its DRM; media creators want strong DRM, which will attract them to Apple. And it's iTunes store distributes the media for them and collects payment.

In this way, through its closed and tightly controlled systems, Apple can provide a high quality experience to users, and provide media and apps creators with a highly efficient commerce platform.

This is how Apple will dominate the sales of all future forms of digital media.

- - -

UPDATE: Nicholas Carr seems to agree. He has written "Hello iPad, Goodbye PC"

Towards the end of his article, he writes:

"Today, Jobs's ambitions are grander than ever. His overriding goal is to establish his company as the major conduit, and toll collector, between the media cloud and the networked computer.

Jobs doesn't just want to produce glamorous gizmos. He wants to be the impresario of all media."

Please see:

The Mysterious Apple A4 Chip - Where's MSFT's and GOOG's Chip?

When Eric Schmidt was brought into Google [GOOG] in 2001 his job as CEO was to provide 'adult supervision' to the founders: Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

This was important if the company was to have a successful IPO, which it did, in 2004.

Now, nine years later, Messrs Page and Brin are seasoned executives of the most important Internet company in the world. Do they still need 'adult supervision?' Isn't it a bit embarrassing that they still have to share power with Mr Schmidt in what Google describes as a "triumvirate?"

What other large companies have a similar management structure? I can't think of any.

Are the boys grown up? Both will turn 37 years old in a few months.

Do the founders still need 'adult supervision?'

Clearly, they don't and there seem to be signs lately that demonstrate that they asserting their views, over that of Mr Schmidt.

For example, Google's entry into China was at the strong urging of Mr Schmidt, despite the founders strongly held views that censoring their search results was the wrong thing to do.

Now that the company's entire China investment hangs by a thread and its strategy has been shown to have been a mistake -- it must be a hard blow for Mr Schmidt.

Other problems...

Veteran Forbes reporter Elizabeth Corcoran, knows Mr Schmidt well. She has written that:

"he has defined his job not so much as leading Google but as running interference for it--placating the investment community, soothing nervous regulators and policymakers and doing whatever it takes to create a magical force field protecting Googleteers..."

If that's the case, Mr Schmidt's abilities to run interference on behalf of Google appear to be on an extended leave of absence.

Take a look at some of the jams the company has gotten itself into and that clearly lie in the realm of 'running interference:'

Bruce Eric Anderson shared this link from Statesman.com: Austin church mobilizes volunteers, planes and medical supplies en route to Haiti in four days.

In just four days this community mobilized to fly aid to Haiti. Wow.

"Hill Country Bible Church Northwest was one of several organizations to organize efforts that will send 13 tons of medical supplies to Haiti."

It's an inspirational story. But they ran into a problem, they ran out of planes and fuel.

"Our biggest issue is that we could take another plane with just equipment if we had the funds to send it," Hurt said. "The fuel for each round trip costs more than $20,000."

That got me thinking... why not use the Silicon Valley corporate jet fleet to help speed relief supplies to Haiti? Even if they all did just one trip, that would be a huge help.

All the big companies have their own corporate fleets, and many individuals own large jets.

Intel has its own internal airline that employees use daily to link its Portland, Oregon campus with Silicon Valley.

Google has lots of large jets. It has a Jumbo Jet - 767-20. Think how much aid you could cram into that?

The New York Times wrote about the Google fleet:

The company had just added a Boeing 757 to a fleet that already included a refurbished Boeing 767 and two Gulfstream V's. All four planes had landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA operated airfield that is a stone's throw from the Google campus.

And a fighter jet, a Dornier Alpha Jet.

OK, they can leave the fighter jet in the hangar because it's too small, but the rest of the Goggle fleet would be able to carry a massive amount of aid.

Come on Google, 'Do no evil' is great but "Do some good" is so much better.

Who else has jets? Oracle does, or at least Larry Ellison, the founder. But he has fighter jets, which aren't much use.

Hewlett-Packard has a jet, and so does Cisco CEO John Chambers.

There are many individuals in Silicon Valley that own, or lease, or own side businesses that lease jets to their own companies. Why not use them for Haiti aid?

Silicon Valley could rustle up a massive fleet in four days.

Silicon Valley can show how rich it is, how cool it is to be Silicon Valley - the global engine of innovation. (And we've got tons of jets...the fruits of our cool labors... You should join...)

And it shows that the tech industry does make a difference.

That would be a great message. And it would be great for Haiti.

---

Join this Facebook group if you agree. You don't have to live here to join. Maybe at least one company will notice and volunteer a jet.

If you have any pictures or info on Silicon Valley jets, please share them on the Facebook group. It would be great to know how large the Silicon Valley jet fleet really is.

I will post updates here and also on Twitter(@tomforemski)

UPDATE: Sergey Brin has been to Haiti - He volunteered to join a group bringing aid. You can read his account here.

The problem with newspaper paywalls is that they can increase misinformation.

For example, if I write an article that says the Wall Street Journal reported accounting discrepancies at publicly traded ACME Corp, and provide a link to WSJ.com but you don't have a subscription -- that means you cannot verify the story.

Investors might sell shares in ACME Corp. and I could profit if I held a short position on the stock.

Granted, this is an extreme example but it is possible. And there are many other variations of this scheme that would enable misinformation to be circulated because of newspaper paywalls.

Trusted sources but unverifiable...

Information that comes from large media brands is inherently trusted "...as seen on Oprah!" But those media brands are trying to figure out their online business models and that means paywalls.

Paywalls are going up at New York Times, at News Corp titles, and at many other publications.

The New York Times has a solution to the misinformation problem. It said that if a reader comes through a link on a blog post, the story will be freely available.

That's a great solution to the verification of a story and it would make it very difficult for someone to use NYT stories for nefarious purposes.

But, there is a huge problem with that approach -- it shatters its paywall.

I could build a shadow blog site and offer free access to all NYTimes stories for free, for anyone that comes through my site. [A Massive Hole in New York Times' Paywall Plan]

The NYTimes will have to plug that hole and that means we're back to square one: newspaper paywalls could be used to spread misinformation.

- - -
Please see:

Adtribution Might Be A Solution For Murdoch, A.P, Et Al, Versus The News Aggregators And Bloggers - SVW

Newspapers: 25 things to try before turning off the lights | Tom Foremski: IMHO | ZDNet.com

Virtual cash could save newspapers | Tom Foremski: IMHO | ZDNet.com

Jay Rosen, a journalism teacher at NYU, points out an interesting aspect of the New York Times' future paywall. Access to NYTimes articles will be free and unmetered if readers follow a link to that article found on another web site.

Wow. That means I could simply produce a shadow web site of NYTimes.com and offer free access to anyone to the entire content of the site!

Here is the extract from answers to questions sent to Janet Robinson, president and chief executive of the Times company, and Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president for digital operations.

"If you are coming to NYTimes.com from another Web site and it brings you to our site to view an article, you will have access to that article and it will not count toward your allotment of free ones."

I can see what the management is trying to do, it is trying to harness the distributive power of the Internet and the social media sharing trend, but it is also opening up a huge hole in its paywall.

How serious is the New York Times about having a paywall when it seems it will be very easy to bypass it?

I have a better plan:

Use the metered approach in which people's visits are counted and when they reach a specific number you cut them off.

People that click through to a story from a blog post get one free credit. But only if they come through a blog post on a site that has agreed to "adtribution."

Adtribution combines links and quotes with text ads from the source.

In this example, where the blog post quoting the New York Times article has agreed to run between one and three simple text advertisements that are designated by the New York Times, its readers can click through for free. By agreeing to use adtribution, the New York Times essentially offers a license to the blog site to quote and link to its original story.

In this way, the newspaper can get distribution for its news, and its advertisers.

Less than half click through...

This is important because a recent study by Outsell found that only 44% of Google News readers click through to the original article.

If that's the case with New York Times too, then the newspaper needs to be able to at least place some of its advertising in front of readers at the point where others (bloggers) are making use of their stories.

By agreeing to quote and link to New York Times stories in exchange for running a text ad link or links, the New York Times can essentially license those bloggers and help generate some much needed revenues.

Bloggers that don't agree to adtribution would be risking legal action, and, they would be seen by their readers as parasites on the work of others.

The future media business model...

The future media business model will be a 'Heinz 57' model -- it will consist of many streams of revenues: subscription, advertising, lead generation, virtual currencies, etc.

It will be tough to monitor and manage all those revenue streams but we can develop the tools to do that and there will be lots of third party services to help.

The New York Times is wise to wait until 2011 to figure out its paywall, it'll give it time to plug potentially massive holes, and investigate new variations, such as adtribution.

BTW: Here's another problem - Newspaper Paywalls Could Be Used To Spread Misinformation...

- - -

Please see:

NYT: Charging Ahead (Slowly) - Paywall in 2011

Adtribution Might Be A Solution For Murdoch, A.P, Et Al, Versus The News Aggregators And Bloggers - SVW

Newspapers: 25 things to try before turning off the lights | Tom Foremski: IMHO | ZDNet.com

Virtual cash could save newspapers | Tom Foremski: IMHO | ZDNet.com

Startups should put away their business plans and find a charismatic CEO if they want to raise funding. That seems to be the finding of a study reported in the Harvard Business Review:

Executives at a party, were fitted with devices that recorded 'social signals' such as their tone of voice, gesticuation, and proximity to others.

Five days later the same executives presented business plans to a panel of judges in a contest. Without reading or hearing the pitches, Pentland correctly forecast the winners, using only data collected at the party.

This study is one of several that found that it is possible to predict who will succeed in salary negotiatins, and in other busness activities. The researchers say they are monitoring 'honest signals." Professor Sandy Pentland says that 'honest signals' is a biological term.

They're the nonverbal cues that social species use to coordinate themselves--gestures, expressions, tone. Humans use many types of signals, but honest signals are unusual in that they cause changes in the receiver of the signal. . . If I'm happy, it almost literally rubs off on you.

He added:

The more successful people are more energetic. They talk more, but they also listen more. They spend more face-to-face time with others. . . It's not just what they project that makes them charismatic; it's what they elicit. The more of these energetic, positive people you put on a team, the better the team's performance.

Read the rest of this article here on Harvard Business Review:

Defend Your Research: We Can Measure the Power of Charisma - Harvard Business Review

There is a killer right under your nose. Or rather, right under your butt -- your chair.

You might be pleased with that cool looking Aeron chair your buns are nestled in — but it's nothing but a stylish killer.

Recent studies have shown that the amount of time you spend sitting is related to a raised risk of dying. Sit more, die sooner.

An Australian study of 8,800 people over a six year period found that for each hour spent sitting increased the risk of death from heart disease by one-fifth. They were studying TV watching but it's not the TV that can kill you -- that's just a lure for sitting -- which can kill you.

It won't be long before US lawyers begin filing class-action lawsuits against well-heeled chair makers, for not warning innocent sitters that they are risking their lives.

In the near future, you might even be required to sign wavers that you understand the risks before being able to buy a chair, or sit in an office chair.

Exercise doesn't protect...

It seems that exercise doesn't help. Take a look at this Canadian study:

. . .a study published last year that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for about a dozen years, researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk, independently of whether or not they exercised.

Sitting might even lead to other diseases...

"After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down.

But is it fair to blame the chair?

Yes, because how else would you sit? Without a chair or its equivalent in a stool, or couch, or easy chair — you'd have to squat. People have been squatting since year dot and we're still here. It's the chair that's at fault.

I'm looking at getting a desk at which you can stand and still get your work done.

No one yet has made a desk at which you can squat but dibs on that idea. An office full of 'squatters' might look strange but it'll be a healthy office.

In the meantime, here is some good advice:

"We don't have enough evidence yet to say how much sitting is bad," said Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, who led the Canadian study. "But it seems the more you can get up and interrupt this sedentary behavior, the better."

Salesforce.com [CRM] today raised $500 million in a private debt placement, with an additional $75 million to cover over allotments.

Steven E.F. Brown reported in the San Francisco Business Times:

Some observers have wondered why the San Francisco company (NYSE: CRM), which said recently that it has more than $1 billion in cash and near money, would take on more debt in this fashion. Acquisitions are one possibility.

Salesforce already said it might use the money for acquisitions. But where would it make those acquisitions?

The social media sector is one where I would not be surprised to see Salesforce make several acquisitions. In mid-November, I attended a meeting between Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris and top IT bloggers.

During the meeting Mr Harris said that Salesforce was looking at ideas on how to boost its revenue into the $10 billion range, from around $1 billion.

He said that Salesforce believes that social media in the enterprise is a larger business opportunity than CRM - its current business.

It would make sense that Salesforce make acquisitions in the social media space, possibly companies with enterprise software tools already in place.

Cash would be handy to make those acquisitions since most are venture backed and investors will want a cash pay out.

Here are a few companies that might be Salesforce targets:

- SocialText, founded by Ross Mayfield, is based in SIlicon Valley and offers a broad suite of social media applications for large enterprises. It includes a private "Twitter" service, plus social networking, wikis, blogs, distributed spreadsheets, blogs, etc.

- Six Apart, founded by Mena and Ben Trott, based in San Francisco, is the developer of Movable Type, a popular blogging application. It also has a hosted (cloud) based service and most of its revenues come from enterprise customers.

- BrightIdea, founded by Matthew Greeley, based in San Francisco, offers a cloud based 'innovation management' service used by large enterprises to source ideas from employees, and also from outsiders. This is a form of social media applied to crowd sourcing ideas.

And there are other privately held companies that might attract the interest of Salesforce.

What's clear is that Salesforce could snap up half-a-dozen leading startups in this space and still have a couple of hundred million left from the $500m it just raised. It could quickly corner the market for social media in the enterprise.

- - -

Please see:

2008Watch: BrightIdea - How To Manage Innovation

Six Apart: Blogging was Born During a Recession - Interview with CEO Chris Alden