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November 05, 2004
Friday Watch: Life goes on
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
It's been a tough week for Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Most of us voted for Kerry (over 80 percent in the city of San Francisco) and it's difficult watching Bush smirk and sneer as he enjoys his moment in the sun. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on Wednesday. High tech executives remain unsure what opportunities may unfold, or slam shut, in the second Bush term, while California as a whole braces for payback after having voted for Bush's opponent, and for embracing lifestyles that infuriate Bush's right-wing, fundamentalist Christian supporters. But even as reality sinks in, Silicon Valley finds some reasons for hope.
Michael Moore - after sending out an email called "My First Thoughts About the Election" which simply listed the names of the American dead in the Iraq war - now offers "17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists." Numbers 14 and 15 are especially good:
14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out -- and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.
15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office.
The many groups that fought so hard against Bush during the election campaign seem to be gearing up to oppose his most egregious legislative and executive efforts - and watch for anti-war protests to start up again, too.
Links:
17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists by Michael Moore; scroll down for "My first thoughts after the election..."
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org edited by Doug Millison "on a need-to-know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 06:54 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2004
Media Watch: Election streams auger well for online video
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
The Tube can't claim all of the live video action in the Presidential election and its aftermath. At-work viewers tuned into online video streams in large numbers, demonstrating an online advertising market of vast potential.
Tobi Elkin reports that MSNBC.com provided 82,000 individual streams at the beginning of John Kerry's concession speech yesterday morning and 81,000 streams for Bush's victory speech later in the day, observing that " this isn't the total number of streams, nor does it include people who will watch it later online."
MSNBC.com says it served a total of 250,000 streams on Election Day. Online video viewers also participated in the site's several blogs, MSNBC.com says.
The at-work-during-the-day online audience promises to be a profitable one for news sites and their sponsors.
Dean Wright, MSNBC.com editor-in-chief and vice president told Elkins that he views "the at-work audience as our primetime audience. For a lot of people, that's the only way they're going to be able to see [events] live in real-time."
Whether or not the at-work audience evaporates as bosses continue to use Big Brother techniques to monitor employee Internet usage and enforce work discipline is an unanswered question.
Links:
Election Streams by Tobi Elkin, MediaPost, 4 November 2004
Affiliate Link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison "on a need-to-know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
Bio-tech Watch: California makes stem-cell end-run
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Bush voters may have embraced his anti-stem-cell politics elsewhere in the US, but Californians soundly rejected them, paving the way for Silicon Valley to take a bio-tech lead.
Andrew Pollack, writing in today's New York Times, explores the ramifications of the "vote by Californians to spend $3 billion on human embryonic stem cell research could speed progress on the promising but controversial field and make the state the epicenter of such research."
The measure will establish a "California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which will become the largest single backer of research in stem cells - a field that scientists hope might eventually be used to create new brain cells for patients with Parkinson's disease, or insulin-producing cells for diabetics, or treatments for numerous other diseases."
The San Francisco Bay Area already boasts a heavy concentration of genetic engineering and other bio-tech firms. Pollack's article notes that some companies have already announced plans for new stem-cell research facilities in the state.
Links:
Measure Passed, California Weighs Its Future as a Stem Cell Epicenter by Andrew Pollack, New York Times, 4 November 2004
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2004
PR Watch: PR companies and their tech clients are starting to notice bloggers
I had an interesting chat with Christina Armstrong the other day. Christina has been working in the valley for many years and is one of the best PR professionals around. She said that the blogging phenomenon has left many PR companies and their clients baffled about what to do.
PR companies know how to work with traditional media, but they are not sure how to work with bloggers. That indecision has led to no action at all. But now, Christina says that things are changing. “Some PR companies, and also their clients, are beginning to ask, 'which are the most influential blogs?'”
This can be a tough one to judge. It is difficult to audit the readership of blogs. RSS feeds and the re-posting of stories and entries across the web is difficult to track. Yes, there is “trackback,” which is integrated into blogging software and can track links to a specific blog entry. But spammers have forced many blogs to turn-off this feature.
And the influence of a particular blog is not necessarily connected to the traffic to a particular blog. The readers of this blog, for example, are mostly Silicon Valley companies and their business partners. Our readers are small in number compared with say, News.com, but they are in the top echelon of the world’s top decision makers. They decide on the design, components, and technologies used in millions of digital products that are manufactured in factories around the world. They also finance huge amounts of innovation, which sets the direction of many sectors, not just tech, but also life sciences, etc.
And Silicon Valley executives do read blogs. In fact they do almost all their news reading online, except when they are sitting in a plane: that’s the only time print publications have a chance of reaching this elite group of decision makers. (Hey, there's an idea: a business publication that is ONLY available on airplanes?!)
In terms of blogging, Silicon Valley tech and PR companies are at least beginning to recognize the importance of this fragmented media channel. It will be interesting to see how PR companies will approach this challenge, and how they will seek to influence the “influential” blogs.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 02:05 PM | Comments (2)
Tech Watch: Bush win won't ease tough overseas tech markets
The re-election of President Bush was not a welcome outcome for some Silicon Valley companies. I know several tech company executives who have been complaining that US foreign policy has not been good for business in Europe. With about 50 per cent of revenues for many tech companies coming from overseas markets, US foreign policy can have a large effect on business--especially for many small companies.
Tech markets are tough enough for Silicon Valley companies without having to also deal with the negative connotations of being a US company in today’s world. There was hope among some local companies that a John Kerry win would set a course of improving US foreign relations and that this would help business.
However, Kerry’s support in Silicon Valley was tempered with uncertainty over his stance on offshoring. Although most local startup companies offshore very small amounts of their engineering work, there had been concern that the government might limit their future ability to use offshore development facilities.
Interestingly, it is the venture capital firms that have been pushing their startup companies to use offshore development facilities. One entrepreneur told me, “Most of the venture capitalists are insisting that business plans include an offshore component, otherwise they will not look at it.”
The venture capital firms will reduce the size of their investment to make up for the savings that offshore development work can save a venture—but the milestones remain the same. Very crafty: the VC’s take the savings upfront!
Interest in politics, however, is rare. I would characterize most Silicon Valley executives as “libertarian” in that they want as little government involvement in their ventures as possible (except, of course, for government research grants!).
Gary Reback, an attorney at Palo Alto's Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, is concerned however that Washington, D.C. does not understand the tech industry and that this ignorance could harm the US tech sector. When I met with him recently, he was considering writing a book to highlight some of the potential problems he sees in the future in regard to possible US government actions and their effect on the technology industry. For those who have short memories, Mr. Reback helped lead the fight against Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 01:11 PM | Comments (1)
Media Watch: Marketing lessons from the election
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
While half of US voters digest their disappointment in the results, a silver lining may be found from studying the election as a real-time seminar in online marketing techniques.
Writing before the results of yesterday's election, for publication today, Cory Treffiletti writes:
This election is a prime example of how a reaction was generated via multiple messages in multiple forms of media to effectively surround the audience and elicit a response. MoveOn.org and MeetUp.com probably drove more Americans to vote than any of the primary news networks.Jon Stewart probably reached more 18- to 34-year-old males than either of the candidates would have directly. Bruce Springsteen probably raised more awareness of some of the specific issues than any rock star has ever done in the past. If you examine these efforts uniquely, you miss the point that this was a well orchestrated marketing effort on behalf of the teams for both candidates.
Links:
The Election As An Example Of Marketing by Cory Treffiletti, MediaPost, 3 November 2004
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
Media Watch: A new kind of entrepreneur?
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Is a new kind of entrepreneur taking over in Silicon Valley?
In an essay called "The New Entrepreneur, " William Reichert of Garage Technology Ventures argues yes:
The entrepreneurs starting companies today are not like the ones we saw, and now ridicule, in the late 90s. But they are also not like the ones we saw in the 80s and early 90s. We are not going back to an earlier breed of entrepreneur. If you are an investor looking for the kind of entrepreneur who built companies in the "good old days," you are making a mistake. The innovators who are creating companies today represent a new breed of entrepreneur, a species that can trace its lineage back through each of the species that went before, but which is very different nonetheless.....The New Entrepreneurs are more battle scarred, less innocent, more realistic, less delusional, more bootstrap oriented, less dependent on traditional venture capital, more operational, and less IPO focused. They are less naive and have more business discipline and savvy. This business savvy comes not from getting an M.B.A., but rather from living through the last 10 years and trying to launch new businesses during the dramatic rollercoaster we experienced. The entrepreneurs we see today are, frankly, more capable than they were in the 80s and 90s—and they have to be.
Reichert says the new entrepreneurial teams have broader, and deeper experience in all core competency areas, include more women and multinational talent, reflect a better understanding of global markets, and "embody deeper science."
The new entrepreneur doesn't necessarily live in Silicon Valley, either. "Today, the infrastructure for starting a company and making an investment in Southern California is as robust as it is in Silicon Valley," writes Reichert. "The same story applies in Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix, and increasingly in Cambridge, Singapore, Shanghai, and elsewhere in the world."
Links:
The New Entrepreneur by William Reichert, 3 November 2004
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 07:55 AM | Comments (0)
Media Watch: Blog turnout high, results mixed
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Blogs starred in the election night drama, but reviews of their performance are mixed.
Internet traffic and a variety of web hosting woes - sure to spark any number of conspiracy theories - resulted in sluggish access to popular political blogs, including The Daily Kos (which received some five million visitors yesterday), Talking Points Memo, Eschaton, and others.
Given the high profile blogs have gained in disseminating campaign news, and rumors, their adherence - or not - to journalistic standards drew fire.
As John Horn writes in the Los Angeles Times:
As they have in the past, television networks and newspaper websites refrained from reporting early exit poll results, but the Internet adheres to little such restraint. Hours after the first polls opened on the East Coast, the Internet bustled with preliminary voter surveys, sparking an angry online debate among the wi-fi wonks over their posting and their significance.The attribution for (and authenticity of) these numbers was murky. National Review postings credited data to "Bushies," "Republican pollster types" and "a friend working for the campaign in Ohio." Numbers put up on Wonkette (www.wonkette.com) were attributed to "a little birdie" who, it was noted, is "not exactly trustworthy in all cases." Some people argued the numbers were based on the earliest waves of exit polling failing to reflect new numbers that surfaced through the day. No matter how shaky, many blogs didn't hesitate posting the figures.
Conclusion: Bloggers have some work to do if they want to be taken seriously as an alternative to professional journalists.
Links:
Exit Polls Bog Down the Blogs by John Horn, Los Angeles Times, 3 November 2004
The Daily Kos
Talking Points Memo
Eschaton
Wonkette
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2004
Academia Watch: TechnoFeminisms
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
How deep have computers penetrated the humanities? Pretty darn deep, judging from this recent Call For Papers to be presented at a Canadian conference next year.
Call for Works: TechnoFeminisms: New Cultural MediationsAbstract Deadline: December 15, 2004
Even before Donna Haraway identified connectivity as the key to women's liberation from the tyranny of patriarchal structures, and the cyberfeminist collective, VNS Matrix, identified the clitoris as the direct line to the matrix, feminist artists and critics have been searching for ways of using technology to speak outside of the expected parameters of well-behaved bodies, restrictive language and linear ideas. We seek (post)feminist art, works or performances that use technology to explore the new cultural mediations of our information age. We are looking for pieces that expand the boundaries of art, gender, bodies, interactivity, networks, media, technology and/or criticism rather than traditional academic papers.
Links:
Call for Papers Announcement, for The Networked Citizen: New Contributions of the Digital Humanities, at the Consortium for Computers in the Humanities / Consortium pour Ordinateurs en Sciences Humaines (COCH/COSH) 2005 Meeting of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, The University of Western Ontario, May 29 - 31, 2005
Canadian Women's Studies Association
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
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OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)
Tech Watch: A Slimy Graphics Algorithm
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
A University of California, Berkeley researcher has developed a new way to animate viscous, bubbling, and oozing fluids that promises to make "movies, videogames, and even surgical simulations much closer to reality," writes David Pescovitz in the latest issue of Lab Notes, a publication of the university's engineering department.
"For quite some time, we've had mathematical models for simulating idealized solids," Pescowitz quotes James O'Brien, a professor in UCB's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. "And we have other models for simulating idealized liquids. But there are many materials that are in between. They may look like solids, but they also can flow like liquids."
Reports Pescovitz, "The algorithm O'Brien developed with graduate students Tolga Goktekin and Adam Bargteil takes existing fluid simulations and adds the ingredient that gives materials like toothpaste, motor oil, and dish soap characteristics of both liquids and solids."
Links:
A Slimy Graphics Algorithm by David Pescovitz, Lab Notes, Volume 4, Issue 8, October/November 2004
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
Book Watch: The Father of Silicon Valley
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
That's what they call Fred Terman, subject of a new biography, Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley, by historian C. Stewart Gillmor, published by Stanford University Press.
From the publisher's description:
Fred Terman was an outstanding American engineer, teacher, entrepreneur, and manager. Terman was also deeply devoted to his students, to engineering, and to Stanford University. This biography focuses on the weave of personality and place across time—it examines Terman as a Stanford faculty child growing up at an ambitious little regional university; as a young electrical engineering professor in the heady 1920s and the doldrums of the Depression; as an engineering manager and educator in the midst of large-scale wartime research projects and the postwar rise of Big Science and Big Engineering; as a university administrator on the razor’s edge of great expectations and fragile budgets; and, finally, as a senior statesman of engineering education. The first doctoral student of Vannevar Bush at M.I.T., Terman was himself a prodigious teacher and adviser to many, including William Hewlett and David Packard. Terman was widely hailed as the magnet that drew talent together into what became known as Silicon Valley.Throughout his life, Fred Terman was constant in his belief that quality could be quantified, and he was adamant that a university’s success must, in the end, be measured by the success of its students. Fred Terman’s formula for success, both in life and for his university, was fairly simple: hard work and persistence, systematic dedication to clearly articulated goals, accountability, and not settling for mediocre work in yourself or in others.
At 672 pages, the book promises lots of page-turning enjoyment, but the price - $70 for the hardcover - may prompt some readers to wait for a less expensive paperback edition.
Terman's best-known students, as Therese Poletti reveals in her article about the new book, were David Packard and William Hewlitt. "He gave them a list of 25 potential customers, including a sound engineer at the Walt Disney Studios, which became HP's first customer," writes Poletti.
Links:
Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley by C. Stewart Gillmor, Amazon.com page
The Father of Silicon Valley by Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, 1 November 2004
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
People Watch: Intel CEO begs forgiveness
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Intel CEO Craig Barrett got down on his knees and begged forgiveness for cancelling the 4-gigahertz Pentium 4 chip.
Reports the San Jose Mercury News today:
Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett is known for his dry sense of humor. He also has good-naturedly participated in some odd marketing stunts, such as the time The Blue Man Group brought him out on the stage at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show by causing his head to emerge from a mound of wobbling Jello.But at Gartner Group's recent Fall Symposium/IT Expo in Orlando, Fla., Barrett took CEO humiliation -- or humility, depending on your view -- to a new level. During an interview on stage with Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds, Barrett got down on his knees. In front of an audience of about 7,000 information-technology professionals, Barrett asked their forgiveness for the Santa Clara company's latest product slip-up, the cancellation of its 4-gigahertz Pentium 4 personal-computer chip.
"Is it a missed commitment? Absolutely. Would we have preferred not to miss that commitment? Absolutely? I get on my knees in front of the audience, forgive us," said Barrett, according to a transcript of the event.
Barrett also acknowledged for the first time that Intel's plans to develop all future chips with two processors was a move to "avoid the power challenge." As chip makers pack more and more transistors into chips, the chips generate excessive heat.
Links:
Tech Notebook: Barrett eats humble pie over product snafu, by Therese Poletti, Michael Bazeley and Dean Takahashi, San Jose Mercury News, 2 November 2004
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison: "on a need to know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2004
Media Watch: Trip's new trip
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Old Silicon Valley entrepreneurs never die, and they don't fade away, either. Trip Hawkins is back with a new game company.
Matthew Yi sketches the Hawkins saga in "Game veteran taking a new trip: Entrepreneur's latest startup offers video entertainment for cell phones" in today's San Francisco Chronicle.
Hawkins new company is called Digital Chocolate. Like his previous ventures, it's a game company, but this time the platform is the digital media-enabled mobile phone.
Hawkins boasts to Yi that he can "easily sell a million copies", at $5 each, to the nearly 200 million mobile phone users in the U.S.
That's the kind of bold talk expected of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Whether Digital Chocolate can avoid joining Hawkins' earlier venture, 3DO, in the Silicon Valley dinosaur graveyard is another story entirely.
After founding Electronic Arts, Hawkins became a player in the early 1990's interactive multimedia swirl with 3DO, an ill-fated effort to compete with Nintendo and Sega in the videogame console business by selling games on CD-ROMs. 3DO bit the bankruptcy bullet in 2003.
Inexplicably, Yi's story fails to mention the deal announced last week between Digital Chocolate and Cingular Wireless. Hawkins new company will supply games for Cingular customers beginning in January 2005 with a basketball simulation called NCAA Hoops 2005.
Also missing from Yi's story, but included in last week's announcement: "Digital Chocolate is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, as well as angel investors, including Bob Pittman, former COO of AOL/Time-Warner and founder of MTV."
Links:
Game veteran taking a new trip: Entrepreneur's latest startup offers video entertainment for cell phones by Matthew Yi, San Francisco Chronicle, 1 November 2004
Digital Chocolate and Cingular Wireless Join Forces to Bring Next Generation of Mobile Entertainment Applications to Consumers, press release distributed by Businesswire
Posted by Doug Millison at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)
