Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Why This Kolaveri Di Dance By The Japanese



Why This Kolaveri Di

Big Data: Big News

Those who think GOOG is a one trick search pony, checkout GFS, BigTable, MapReduce, Tenzing, etc. These are the building blocks of Big Data
Nov 30 via webFavoriteRetweetReply


I am no pioneer to this observation, neither is this guy above. But it is so obvious Big Data is in the wings. Big Data will gather buzz like social has been the buzz for a few years now.

Looking For Holiday Parties To Go To



December in this city has that summer quality. Summer is a happening time. There are all sorts of events all over the city. But then December is also really something. There is something about the Holiday season. It is that mood that people get into.

I love festivals like some people love birthday parties. Like I love Google like some people love Apple. I went to some good Holiday parties last year. And I have not started looking yet, but I am looking forward to going to some good Holiday parties this year too.

Bring it on.

Holiday Parties Most Days
NYTM After Party: Is It A Holiday Parteeeey!
A Christmas tree inside a home.Image via WikipediaDigital Dumbo Holiday Party
Blip.TV: How Do They Ever Get Anything Done?
Just Found Out Mike Hudack Is Also A High School Dropout

Monday, November 28, 2011

Cruise Ship Coding


I came across this article at Ars Technica. But I have been thinking along these lines on my own before that. But I have not been thinking a cruise ship. I have been thinking an island, a country in the Caribbean. If you have 250 people in India, 10 people on an island in the Caribbean, and two people in NYC, you can give your clients also face time. Some of them might want to fly four hours to meet your 10 person near local team.

I already have major teams in Bangalore, in Gujrat, and in Kathmandu. My lead techie is a former Cisco guy with a degree from Brown. I have smaller teams in Delhi, Calcutta and Kathmandu.

When you can't do the tech startup thing - thanks to the immigration gestapo - you do the tech consulting thing.
Ars Technica: Startup hopes to hack the immigration system with a floating incubator: Some of the Silicon Valley's most important companies, including Intel, Google, and Yahoo, were cofounded by immigrants. Yet America's creaky immigration system makes it difficult for talented young people born outside of the United States to come to the Bay Area. There have been various proposals to make it easier for immigrant entrepreneurs to come to the United States, but they've made no progress in Congress. ....... So a new company called Blueseed is seeking to bypass the political process and solve the problem directly. Blueseed plans to buy a ship and turn it into a floating incubator anchored in international waters off the coast of California. .......
My idea is better. An island nation is cheaper and more "real" than a cruise ship. I wouldn't want my coders to feel like I have shunted them into a submarine.

Followed By Esther Dyson


You know the NY Tech MeetUp has arrived because Esther Dyson sometimes shows up. I spotted her at this one: Dennis Crowley: Role Model For Kids?

54 Followers On Angel List

And now I am up to 104 followers. The immigration gestapo people, take note.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Randi, The Flamboyant Zuckerberg

Republic Wireless, Galaxy Nexus And Tardiness

I have a laptop I bought a few months back for 330 dollars after the rebate. I think I want a $79 Kindle to borrow books from the New York Public Library. And I think I have decided on Republic Wireless to be my first smartphone. And that is it. That will be enough gadgets. I am a Dell, Walmart kind of guy.

They said they will be out. But then you go to their website and they say sorry, get in line, we will email you when we have more. So no soup for you this year.



No Republic Wireless phone in sight. $19 a month is cheaper than even the prepaid basic phones. For me it is the wifi part that gets me. A smartphone is a small computer. It needs to be running on wifi. What I would have really liked is a Galaxy Nexus on the Republic Wireless network. But if it is between the phone and the network I am going for the network. Only the line is so long. Take that iPhone.

Why don't they just manufacture more phones? I mean, if they are making money when they sell phones. Why not just make more of them and make more money?

Galaxy Nexus Has Competition

Paperless Post Iterations

Post-ItImage via WikipediaEvite Cries Y(h)elp! Copies Paperless Post Pixel By Pixel

Only now is Paperless Post thinking in terms of the freemium model, and I believe they have been profitable for a year now. That is curious. Most others start with the freemium model. They build the user base, and monetize later.

With Paperless post you get to send out invitations to important events in your life. The paper is gone, but the beauty is preserved, perhaps even enhanced.

And it is not just about digital. It is not just that you used to send paper versions, and now you send digital versions. The digital medium allows for the collection of data as to how the invitation card travels around as people open up the cards, RSVP and so on. That feedback loop was not possible with the paper incarnations of the cards.

Other than sending more and more beautiful cards to more and more people for more and more events what are some of the directions Paperless Post could go on to?

One obvious thing that emerges is that special social graph of people you invite to the special events in your life, people who show up for those special moments. Culling that social graph could lead Paperless Post into unforeseen directions. Amazon started out selling books. The Amazon Web Services was built for internal use, and now is a major Amazon offering.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Evite Cries Y(h)elp! Copies Paperless Post Pixel By Pixel


Mike Arrington still has that thing that made him build the top tech blog in the world. Now no longer with TechCrunch, look at what this dude has dug out!
Mike Arrington: Uncrunched: Embattled Evite Clones Startup Paperless Post In Quest For Survival: For the last few years, though, a small startup called Paperless Post has emerged that lets people create beautiful event invitations online. Paperless Post isn’t free. In fact, that seems to be part of the attraction....... There’s been very little tech press about Paperless Post ...... The company has sent some 50 million invitations, has raised $6.3 million in funding and is break even with 35 employees in New York and San Francisco. Marissa Mayer uses Paperless Post for her events. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The White House executive branch, The National Gallery and even The Prince of Wales have all used the premium invitation service. ...... It’s a fascinating case study against the notion that people will always choose free over for pay online services. ..... an outright rip off of Paperless Post’s business. Evite’s Postmark hasn’t officially launched yet, but they promote it on the evite home page and people have noticed it. ...... “Evite’s Postmark looks like someone hired a programmer and told them to copy every aspect of Paperless Post,” says the person who pointed it out to me. And that’s true. The business model is identical – charge for every invitation sent, plus optional fees for specialized designs and other customizations. The pricing is nearly identical. ...... Evite has also copied the exact look and feel of a number of the Paperless Post invitations as well. ...... I particularly like the line they use at the bottom of the Postmark website – “The comfort from knowing that Evite Postmark is as reliable, effective and innovative as Evite.” .... Innovative, indeed....... And I certainly don’t weep for Paperless Post. In fact, this is great for their business. As much as Postmark has retreated from the stain of the evite brand on its website, most people will still understand where this service came from and remember the years of horror using the evite service.
What is happening to Paperless Post now has happened to FourSquare several times over, and they are stronger than ever before. Paperless Post knows this space, and Evite is just imitating. It feels like a total copy and paste. When you did that with term papers at college, you got into trouble.

In elementary school the guy sitting next to me in an exam copied everything I wrote down without my realizing he was doing so, including my name! That is how he got caught! Hello Mohan! You want to know how Evite got caught? Check out this video.



I agree with Mike Arrington's conclusion.
My guess is Postmark will just raise awareness of Paperless Post, and even more people will flock to the service when they want to send a premium event invitation.
The day Facebook Places was launched FourSquare had its best day ever. That's there, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth. Somebody explain why! Mikie?

Evite is Plaxo, no disrespect for Sean Parker intended. This stunt will not save them. I think this episode, at the end of the day, will go down in history as someone else having launched a PR campaign on behalf of Paperless Post.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Meeting David Karp




@davidkarp It was good to meet you in the 1 train on the Upper West Side a few hours ago. I am glad you liked my hat. :-)
Nov 20 via webFavoriteRetweetReply

"90% of the mail I get is positive and encouraging, and only 10% is death threats." - Jimmy Justice on... http://t.co/3wqGeNRv
Nov 17 via TumblrFavoriteRetweetReply

"I know Nick Gray!" - If I had a dollar… http://t.co/c2nXvsAQ
Nov 18 via TumblrFavoriteRetweetReply

"I don’t want to hang out with other programmers. I want to hang out with Jay Z. I want people to be..." http://t.co/kDSBRhax
Nov 19 via TumblrFavoriteRetweetReply


David Karp: Tumblr Or Hipstr
Tumblr: Ease Of Use?
The Music Tag On Tumblr
Meeting Kevin Slavin: Tumblr's Brilliance
My Tumblr Just Got An Upgrade
So Proud Of My New Tumblr Theme
Tumblr Explore
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn
Why Raissa Nebie Loves Tumblr
My Tumblr Style
Tumblr Down, Tumblr Up
How To Monetize Tumblr?
Tumblr: Casey, Nina, David, Fred



I was wearing my hat which is not the fanciest hat around.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Did Zynga Go IPO?




in reply to @davetisch
@davetisch I've never seen @fredwilson so razmatazz, in person or in picture. Did Zynga go IPO? $$$$$ http://t.co/prk9WD2q
Nov 19 via webFavoriteRetweetReply

The Wilsons Were In Cairo Recently
Breakfast With Albert (Wenger)

Friday, November 18, 2011

Relationships

A Mosuo woman near Lugu Lake.Image via WikipediaRecently I read this article. I think it could inspire conversations.

The Atlantic: All The Single Ladies

Some observations I made:

(1) Having a job and paying her own bills is still such a big deal for this woman. This is 2011. You'd think having a job by now would be something to take for granted for women.

(2) There is no one right lifestyle. True. But a lot of people end up with default lifestyles rather than the one they would actively pick for themselves. If you are to stay single, make sure it is an active, conscious choice.

My favorite part of the article was this one:
In her new book, Unhitched, Judith Stacey, a sociologist at NYU, surveys a variety of unconventional arrangements, from gay parenthood to polygamy to—in a mesmerizing case study—the Mosuo people of southwest China, who eschew marriage and visit their lovers only under cover of night. “The sooner and better our society comes to terms with the inescapable variety of intimacy and kinship in the modern world, the fewer unhappy families it will generate,” she writes.

The matrilineal Mosuo are worth pausing on, as a reminder of how complex family systems can be, and how rigid ours are—and also as an example of women’s innate libidinousness, which is routinely squelched by patriarchal systems, as Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá point out in their own analysis of the Mosuo in their 2010 book, Sex at Dawn. For centuries, the Mosuo have lived in households that revolve around the women: the mothers preside over their children and grandchildren, and brothers take paternal responsibility for their sisters’ offspring.

Sexual relations are kept separate from family. At night, a Mosuo woman invites her lover to visit her babahuago (flower room); the assignation is called sese (walking). If she’d prefer he not sleep over, he’ll retire to an outer building (never home to his sisters). She can take another lover that night, or a different one the next, or sleep every single night with the same man for the rest of her life—there are no expectations or rules. As Cai Hua, a Chinese anthropologist, explains, these relationships, which are known as açia, are founded on each individual’s autonomy, and last only as long as each person is in the other’s company. Every goodbye is taken to be the end of the açia relationship, even if it resumes the following night. “There is no concept of açia that applies to the future,” Hua says.
This is exotic, don't you think?

The Censorship Bill Is About The Nation State

The western front of the United States Capitol...Image via WikipediaIn a few swift decades, faster than most realize, the Internet is going to be literally the first country most people on the planet belong to. The Internet is beginning to challenge nothing less than the very concept of the nation state itself. And that is what the censorship bill on Capitol Hill is primarily about. Look how both parties are in agreement! And this goes way beyond old media companies buying out politicians. No. This is the politicians themselves feeling threatened. They can feel the ground shift, and it is not China knocking on the doors.

There are those who play this countdown game of where China has become the number one country. Does that happen in this decade? Two decades from now? Or in 2050? The entire paradigm of that debate is foolish. In 2050 there will be no China, not the China we know today.

The political class feels threatened. Because they are wed to the nation state. A future where the nation state framework recedes to the background makes them feel irrelevant. And they would like to fight back to keep the status quo for as long as they can. They know they are fighting a losing fight. They are fighting a tsunami with a spoon. But they will not be the first batch of people in history to take a last stand.

Old America is Britain. The pioneers of the Internet are like America's Founding Fathers. The battles can not be avoided. I am glad it will be a war of words.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Amit Gupta Favorited My Tweet

Sent this out to 600 plus Nepalis in NYC, 9,000 Nepais globally http://t.co/MFV2RrGO@nickgray@superamit@tonybgoode#4amit
Nov 17 via webFavoriteRetweetReply


The Global Outpouring For Amit Gupta: This Is Touching
Super Amit, Super Swabbed
Mike Bloomberg, Amit Gupta

The Global Outpouring For Amit Gupta: This Is Touching




Sent this out to 600 plus Nepali email addresses: http://t.co/MFV2RrGO@nickgray@superamit@tonybgoode#4amit
Nov 17 via webFavoriteRetweetReply

412 Broadway, Floor 2
New York, 10013-3594
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 6:00 PM (ET)

Super Amit, Super Swabbed
Mike Bloomberg, Amit Gupta


Sent this out to 600 plus Nepalis in NYC, 9,000 Nepais globally http://t.co/MFV2RrGO@nickgray@superamit@tonybgoode#4amit
Nov 17 via webFavoriteRetweetReply

@tonybgoode@nickgray Saw stacks of @superamit flyers at a grocery store in Jackson Heights. 11/5 event, Flushing, Ganesh Temple #grassroots
Nov 04 via webFavoriteRetweetReply
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