Full story at TechDirt.
Ok, maybe it is not exactly like thoes models. Weblogs Inc does do blogs on Apple, Google, and XBox, and thoes are certainly brands. If I just hope they hire some people with passion. Hmm, could this be a possible new position for Jason? Maybe if he did not have as many opportunities as he has in front of him now, he might be perfect for it.
Monthly Archive for January, 2007
Full story here.
This is a great idea. I agree that people like Chris Shipley are just there to skim-off the VC money that startups received by charging an insane amount of money just to present (but I give her props for pulling that off, great strategy). Web 2.0 is about working within constraints and leveraging community. The spirit of what Jason and Mike are doing fall right into this. This should be a fun conference.
This is what I keep telling my business partners as I go to meetups, Barcamps, and geek dinners by myself. Phil Leigh interviews Dr. Benson Honig, entrepreneurship professor at Wilfrid Laurier University for Podtech.net. Social entrepreneurship is an important ingredient in startup success. If you or a member of your team is not a social butterfly, consider partnering with one or learning to become one. Check out the post here.
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Imagine you are in the lobby of a VC firm waiting to give your presentation. You got the connection through a friend of a friend. Your business plan is thorough. You have all of your numbers worked out. Your PPT is only 10 slides. You have your 10/20/30 worked out. You strike up a conversation with a member of a team of other entrepreneurs also waiting, and one of them knows one of the VC partners personally, and they hang out. He tells you they do not have any financial projections because the area they are innovating in is too new and changing too fast, but there is an opportunity. Who do you think is more likely to get funding? (disclaimer: I don`t know that entrepreneurs hang out in lobbys of VC firms waiting to give presentations, just a hypothetical situation).
Guy Kawasaki riffs on other reasons business plans are not the key to a successful startup/funding (there are many other factors).
Technorati Tags: Phil Leigh, entrepreneurship, Podtech.net, Social entrepreneurship, startup, VCLast week I had just switched from Netvibes back to Google Home Page as my RSS reader. This time, I decided to use the tab feature so that I would only have about 10 to 15 feeds per tab. With only a few feeds per page, there is no problem rendering the page as there had been when I last used Google Homepage with 150 feeds on a single page.
Just today, they added a feature were a + is to the right of the headline, and when you click it, it expands to allow you to read excerpt. And, to the right of the headline is the date of the post. If it was posted today, it shows the time of the post. Cool! Thanks Google.
Update:more at Techmeme.
Technorati Tags: Google Home Page, RSS readerCheck out this banner that Ross Mayfield of SocialText made. Here is his blog post about it. It his regarding a case where Eli Lilly sued a blogger who made a wiki about Zyprexa. The case was defended by EFF. Thanks EFF! Free speech is saved once again.
Via TechMeme, the New York Times is rehashing Apple’s DRM now that the iPhone has been announced. They quote Apple’s lawyers in Melanie Tucker v. Apple Computer Inc, where Mrs. Tucker complained that she could not buy music online from any other service such as Microsoft. Part of the defense was,
“Without D.R.M., legal online music stores would not exist.”
First of all, illegal online sharing system like Napster helped to prove that there was a demand for music music files, and a business could be built from it. Secondly, Emusic, an online music store that sells unrestricted MP3s exists. The NYT article goes on to say that as the major labels lean more towards DRM free music files in MP3 format, Apple’s FairPlay DRM will only server to lock customers in to iPods+iTunes Store.
What happened to the Apple i used to know? Back in the early 90s, Apple introduced what at the time was called SuperDrive and PC Exchange which software which allowed DOS/Windows floppies discs to read/write on a Mac and convert files from PC format to Mac format. They understood lock-down at that time would be bad, becuase they had only around 5% of the market. Perhaps it did not matter becuase the files in question were created by the users, and not purchase from Apple. Microsoft has never had an interest in building a Mac file system reader into Windows. But with the iPod having 70% of the MP3 player market, they can afford to be the bully. For all of the perceived good will and praise of design Apple gets from its loyal customers, it is interesting to see that they are just like any other corporation. Apple only give customers what they want when it is in Apple’s interest. This will always be the problem with public companies. Even though it went public 20 something years ago, Apple has finally sold its soul.
Via BoingBoing and TechDirt, Diane Feinstein (D-Ca) seeks to make music listening more difficult and more expensive for everyone across America to line the pockets of villainous organizations such as the RIAA.
Take action here at EFF.org. There is a form to automatically generate a letter and fill in your address. I have customized my letter below. I have focused less on the recoding aspect and more on the listening aspect. If they are going to make it hard to record music, this also spills over into listening to music.
Technorati Tags: Diane Feinstein, PERFORM Act, RIAA, Piracy defenseDear Mrs. Feinstein,
As a resident of California and a constituent with an interest in technological innovation and the future of music playback devices and radios, I am writing to ask you to oppose S.256, the PERFORM Act, introduced in the Senate by you, Senator Feinstein.
The “first 100″ hours are very precious, and I don’ think this bill is a good use of taxpayer’s time. You seeks to cripple the music listening experience of everyday people by catering to do organizations such as the RIAA who are suing the likes of children and grandmothers. Electronic music devices are complicated enough as they are. I know, I work for a major home and car radio maker. I have personally spoken with tens of thousands of users of home and car stereos, and I am telling you that these honest, hard working Americans do not need another layer of complexity in their lives with something as simple as a home stereo. Your legislation seeks to make music listening even more complicated for future generations of your own constituents and for everyone across America.
Mrs. Feinstein, when you were young, I am sure music was there during key parts of your life. What if someone like beloved Dick Clark was telling lawmakers what record players he wanted people to use so he could make even more money from the artists he promoted? You are helping to facilitate the modern day equivalent of this. If it was harder for you to listen to records or the radio becuase the laws told you what record players or radios you could user or when you could play them, I am sure there are nuances of your life that would be different. Do you really want to facilitate a villainous cartels such as the RIAA that takes music away from people by using the their beloved Piracy defense to hoard even more money from everyday music listeners? I don’t think you are that type of person. This is no different than President Bush’s strawman argument eavesdropping on telephone calls helps preserve our freedom, an argument that you clearly at odds with. See http://feinstein.senate.gov/news-exec-power.html
Radios that work perfectly fine now may need to be discarded, putting more toxic chemicals in our landfills. With standards changing, manufactures will be encouraged to make even cheaper products that do not last very long, making customers’ dollars get them even less than it does now.
I urge you to defend my right, your right, and the rights of every American enjoy music, and the freedom of technologists and musicians to innovate new, profitable technological tools. Please oppose the PERFORM Act.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Dynice
Check out this conversation with my two favorite guys in the social media space, Brian Oberkirch and Jeremiah Owyang. They bring up all of the great points about using social media in a corporate setting. Jeremiah is going to be interviewed by Jennifer Jones on Podtech.net and you can submit your questions to him here.
Richard MacManus reports that Firefox 3 will allow semantic markups that connects your web apps together. This is a great idea, one that seems to merge the web 2.0 paradigm with the semantic web paradigm. However, I can think of ways this could be used by spammers (automatically add dates to your calendar, call all of your friends in Skype, etc) just by visiting a site, but I am sure there will be some sort of built-in system to keep this from happening.
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