Friday, October 16, 2009

A Netflix For Books Needed

Image representing Netflix as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase
Netflix For Books

Google might have started with public domain books, and Amazon might have taken a step with its Kindle and the $9.99 per downloaded book, but what would really change the game is if you could pay a monthly flat fee and read as many books as you might want online. That would include books old and new. Charging 10 bucks a month for that would make sense. The Netflix business model needs to be replicated for books, or maybe Netflix itself should want to get into the books business. They have already done it for movies, maybe they are well positioned to replicate it for books.

Kindle Or The Browser

Google wants to do over your browser what Amazon wants to do through its Kindle. My prejudice is for the browser. You should not need a different appliance to read books. Your computer should do it.
Image representing Amazon EC2 as depicted in C...Image via CrunchBase
Hey, you already paid for it.

All Books Need To Go Digital

In The News
  1. Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending New York Times 
  2. When the Icing on the Cake Spells Disaster
  3. Small-Business Guide: Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords


  4. $100 Laptop prototypeImage via Wikipedia
    Nicholas D. Kristof: Democrats and Schools

  5. Rethinking the Older Woman-Younger Man Relationship
  6. Well: Phys Ed: Does Exercise Boost Immunity?
  7. Room for Debate: Does the Brain Like E-Books?
  8. So You Think You Know Pasta
  9. By Degrees: Curbing Emissions by Sealing Gas Leaks
  10. Happy Days: The Art of Defying Death
Off the Charts: By Some Reliable Measures, Recession Is Over the manufacturing sectors of China, Taiwan, South Korea and India had begun to grow by April, but that the United States did not follow suit until August.
The Tech Sector Trumpets Signs of a Real Rebound for many technology companies, orders are starting to bloom like flowers after a spring rain........ Computer hardware and software are building blocks of the modern economy, as basic as iron ore and coal were to the industrial era. Together, technology products represent about half of all business spending on equipment. ...... “I th
Image representing Amazon Kindle as depicted i...Image via CrunchBase
ink we are entering a period very similar to 1997 to 2004, where you’ll see a decade run of productivity increases”

Paul Krugman: A Hatchet Job So Bad It’s Good
Democrats Address Their Own Rifts on Health Care
Public Option Is Next Big Hurdle in Health Debate
How to Sell a War: First, Start to Win

Nuevo Kindle de AmazonImage by LA100RRA 3logs via Flickr
Parents Burning to Write It All Down
  1. 5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook
  2. Q & A: Tip of the Week: Free Antivirus Software
  3. State of the Art: Cameras That Dazzle, and Dismay
  4. From the Desk of David Pogue: Computerized Health Records
  5. Brisk Ad Sales Spur Google in Third Quarter
  6. Q & A: A New Life for Old Drives
  7. Gadgetwise: App of the Week: Photoshop for the iPhone
  8. Bits: Acer Eclipses Dell and Apple
  1. In Shift From ’08, Holiday Airfare Is Soaring Daily
  2. Patient Money: Nearly 65? Time for the Medicare Maze
  3. Even as Fares Creep Up, Airlines Tack on Fees, Too
  4. Bonuses Put Goldman in Public Relations Bind
  5. Choosing a Policy to Cover What Medicare Doesn’t
  6. Burdened by Defaults, Bank of America Misses Forecast
  7. Bank of America Chief Forgoes Pay for 2009
  8. Entrepreneurial Edge: Managing Your Career as a Business

“The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds.”
- Frederick W. Robertson quotes (English Preacher b.1840)







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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Next Big Thing In Social Networking


The social has been all the buzz on the web for a few years now. And it is still going strong, for good reason. You might not remember Friendster, but that came along before MySpace. And MySpace was all
Image representing Friendster as depicted in C...Image via CrunchBase
the rage. Then Facebook took over. Like Sam Walton claimed, you can reinvent retailing "again and again and again."

The social has been the web maturing. It is not about technology, it is about people. That is the message.

The joke at my high school back in the days was trousers narrow at the bottom and then go wide again a few years later. How else could the fashion pendulum swing? The social is the trousers going wide
Image representing MySpace as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase
at the botttom. But the pendulum will swing.

The next generation of social networking is going to be about the individual. That well defined individual's social interactions online will reflect the ones offline. You are closer to some people than others. You share more with some than others. Everybody on Facebook being your general friend is going to start looking bland.
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...Image via CrunchBase

But first Facebook has to run its course. Twitter already stole a lot of its buzz. Google Wave will likely steal a lot of buzz from both Twitter and Facebook. But Wave is still the pendulum swinging in the same direction. And Wave might remain a great way to collaborate on projects.

At what point will have the pendulum swung all the way? Perhaps when Facebook hits 600 million people? More?

Five Blind Men And Google Wave
Space, Time And Twitter: Are There Plant Twitters?
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Facebook's Ad Space Is Different

In The News
  1. Wi-Fi Is About to Get a Whole Lot Easier BusinessWeek
  2. Wal-Mart's Painful Lessons
  3. Intel Results May Bode Well for Recovery
  4. Stock Picks: Goldman Sachs, Cisco Systems, Synaptics
  5. Health Care: What Comes Next
  1. Health Care Turns to Harry Reid After Key Vote Time
  2. Why It's Time to Retire the 401(k)
  3. Take A Trip into the Future on the Electronic Superhighway
  4. Is the Market Rally About to Run Out of Gas?
  5. Moving Troops to Afghanistan Harder Than Getting Them
  6. Why Women Have Sex
  7. After the Crash: The Unlikely Tale of How Britney Spears Got Back on Track
  1. Craigslist ad seeks suicidal astronaut CNet
  2. Marathon winner disqualified for wearing iPod
  3. Next Firefox can detect computer orientation
  4. Apple acknowledges Snow Leopard data loss issue
  5. Get ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall 2010 free (today only) 
Using Windows 7 to 'Elevate Miami'
Acer overtakes Dell in PC shipments
New Wi-Fi spec challenges Bluetooth
Photos: First glance at Barnes & Noble's e-reader
Chrome Mac beta nearer; Win 7 features recede
Finland: 1Mbps broadband access is a legal right
Bringing tech jobs to Third World refugees
Iron Mountain introduces a cloud storage API
Call it a comeback? Google earnings due
Report: Apple developing radio app for iPhone
The supercollider and a theory about fate
SolarEdge garners $23 million in funding
Gartner eyeing electronics recovery next year
Intel earnings beat Wall Street predictions
Intel CEO remarks on Netbooks, Windows 7
Survey: Do small businesses use social networking?
Acer's 3D-capable Aspire laptop leaks
Pretty Web journal tool Penzu goes pro
Concert Vault: Free live recordings on your iPhone
Intel, AMD file motions in 2005 antitrust case
Want good health in your golden years? Keep working


~ The way of the world is meeting people through other people. ~
Robert Kerrigan


~ It's not what you know but who you know that makes the difference. ~
Annonymous


~ It isn't just what you know, and it isn't just who you know. It's actually who you know, who knows you, and what you do for a living. ~
Bob Burg


~ More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject. ~
Peter Drucker


~ Informal conversation is probably the oldest mechanism by which opinions on products and brands are developed, expressed, and spread. ~
Johan Arndt


~ It's all about people. It's about networking and being nice to people and not burning any bridges. ~
Mike Davidson


~ Position yourself as a center of influence - the one who knows the movers and shakers. People will respond to that, and you'll soon become what you project. ~
Bob Burg


~ In the earliest days, this was a project I worked on with great passion because I wanted to solve the Defense Department's problem: it did not want proprietary networking and it didn't want to be confined to a single network technology. ~
Vinton Cerf


~ Social networking sites like Myspace, Friendster, and Facebook have literally exploded in popularity in just a few short years. ~
Mike Fitzpatrick


Katherine Berry at Pajamas Media discusses social networking: "Having just spent another morning of my life reading the most boring details of other people's mornings, I've realized how very little things like Twitter, FaceBook, or FriendFeed actually contribute to one's life: it's more like sitting in a room full of over-caffeinated narcissistic Tourette's patients with ADHD who are all trying to be the most entertaining. And, really, what's so social about a monologue?"







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NYC Twitter Elite: Number 12

Twitter Top 100 NYC: I Am In

Twitter Top 100 NYC

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Sitting Next To David Rose At The NY Tech MeetUp

David Rose is a legend on the New York technology scene. I had known his name for a while. Heck, I got to know him name before I educated myself on Fred Wilson's name (@fredwilson). I had even talked to him over Facebook email once.

David Rose
Last month I showed up half an hour early and quite liked it. I asked my first question at a NY Tech MeetUp. It was something to do with having spoken to two of the key speakers before they went on stage. So this month I showed up early as well. You go take a seat in the second row in the front, to the right of the stage, and you are in good shape. I did not plan it that way, but when I looked up and around I saw an empty seat between me and David Rose. He was putting some effort into his name tag. He had written his name David in double lines and was furiously coloring between the lines.

October 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

Then he moved one seat closer after Dawn Barber motioned for him to move over. Finally after a few presentations had been made on stage, and Nate (@innonate) said say hello to the people sitting next to
Demi Moore in profile at the 1997 Emmy Awards,...
you, I said hello to David. (@davidsrose)

"I am honored to be sitting next to you," I said.

I was impressed as it was. He asked me what I thought of the presentations so far.

"Half the companies presenting today are my portfolio companies," he said. Then he mentioned Singularity. I was to hear that word from four different people over the course of the evening.

After the presentations were over, and it was time to mingle with the presenters beneath the stage, I spotted James far away and waved wildly at him. (@sciencehouse) He walked over. Guess who I was sitting next to, I said. Ends up James and David had been on the same panel at the Singularity event only a few days back.

James and Gabi run this wonderful meetup that is the only other MeetUp I am a regular at now besides the NY Tech MeetUp. (@gabidewit)

Demi Moore
When I shared with James and Gabi over email a few days back that I was now part of the Twitter Top 100 NYC, James suggested I give a talk on social media at one of his MeetUps. I said I would love to.

"Demi Moore and I signed up on Twitter the same day. She has over a million and a half followers. I once tweeted her as to how that happened. I did not hear from her." (@mrskutcher)

My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher 

I had really been looking forward to Nate's presentation. AnyClip speaks to me. I was not too cool with the question I ended up asking.

"How were you able to cut a deal with the big movie houses?"

The reply. We haven't, not yet.

I think AnyClip will have to become big enough in stealth mode for the movie houses to even consider cutting deals. But I totally see it happening.
Demi Moore




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My First Time Seeing Jimmy Fallon In Action

Pete Cashmore

Celebrating YouTube



Sunday, October 11, 2009

Tweets And Facebook Updates: The Mumbojumbo

Facebook, Inc.Image via Wikipedia
TechCrunch: Searchtastic Throws Its Hat Into The Twitter Search Engine Ring What makes the search engine interesting is the ability to pull up Tweets from weeks or months ago, which Twitter’s own search engine doesn’t allow you to do. Twitter’s search currently lets you see Tweets from a week and a half back
The tweet is the atom at Twitter, the building block. The update is that building block at Facebook. But the Facebook wall is opaque. Once an update - and that includes links - goes down the wall, it is pretty much lost. Only the fresh content counts. And it should not be that way. And I have yet to come across a decent Twitter search engine. How hard can it be? Twitter hosts all the tweets on its servers. It is not like you need to send out spiders out there to forage the world wide web

You should be able to search through all your tweets and all your Facebook updates. But Facebook has never even attempted to facilitate that search. Only the fresh content counts. That is sad.

The archives are the repository, the archives matter. How about being able to search through your updates and the updates of your friends as well, or at least of those who don't mind?

Twitter Should Hand Over Search To Google

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Friday, October 02, 2009

Larry And The Cloud

Larry Ellison Still Hates “Cloud Computing Nonsense” (Video) TechCrunch








Hilarious.

Larry has been doing cloud computing all along. He is not hostile to the concept, he has been one of its pioneers. What he is hostile to is the terminology, as if it has been something invented last year while Larry was asleep at the wheel.



In The News

China at 60: The Road to Prosperity Time Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power without significant external support — theirs was largely a homegrown revolution. ...... to regain China's fu qiang (wealth and power), dignity, international respect and territorial integrity. ...... Mao's social engineeringpolitical campaigns. ....... China is the world's most populous and industrious nation, is the world's third largest economy and trading nation, has become a global innovator in science and technology, and is building a world-class university system. ...... It is at peace with continually convulsed China in unrelenting
Territories currently administered by two stat...
its neighbors and all major powers. Its hybrid model of quasi-state capitalism and semidemocratic authoritarianism — sometimes dubbed the "Beijing Consensus" — has attracted attention across the developing world. ...... China is the first major economy to recover from the global recession and, indeed, is leading the world out of it. ........ begun to experiment with very limited political reforms .... recently surpassed Germany as the largest exporting nation. Its GNP is on course to overtake Japan's by 2010 and perhaps that of the U.S. by 2020. ........ China is beginning to move up the technological ladder and is becoming more innovative in certain sectors such as electronics and biotechnology. .......... producing two-thirds of all photocopiers, microwaves and shoes; 60% of cell phones; 55% of DVDs; over half of all digital cameras; 30% of personal computers; and 75% of children's toys  ...........  a staggering $2 trillion in foreign exchange — the largest reserves in the world — and is beginning to invest significant amounts abroad  ....... 450 out of the FORTUNE 500 American companies have production lines and a business presence in China  .... the world's largest recipient of foreign direct investment .......... Chinese state and society have also reconnected with the past, emphasizing Confucian and Buddhist values. ........ Basic literacy is almost universal in China today, while it was roughly 20% in 1949. ........  The blogosphere and Internet are alive with unbridled discussion — unless and until it crosses the state censor's invisible hand........ Income disparities (as measured by the Gini coefficient) are now approaching the highest in the world. ......... one must really be a party member to get ahead professionally ....... 76 million party members ...... Instead of being a totalitarian party dominated by a single leader, the CCP today is an
People's Liberation Army in dress uniform. Thi...Image via Wikipedia
authoritarian party with a collective leadership. ....... is becoming a hybrid party with elements of East Asian neo-authoritarianism, Latin American corporatism and European social democracy all grafted to Confucianist-Leninist roots. .......... It now has both interests and a presence in parts of the world completely new to China — such as Latin America and the Middle East — and enjoys rising international prestige. ........ China now has over 2,100 peacekeeping personnel deployed in about a dozen nations worldwide — more than any other member of the U.N. Security Council. This is one tangible expression of China's strong commitment to the U.N. Today, indeed, the PRC may be the greatest advocate of the U.N. among the major powers. ........... China's military is the best in Asia and in some sectors is approaching NATO standards. ...... Public opinion polls in Europe and the U.S. regularly reflect a negative image of China
Ahmadinejad: Iran's Man of Mystery

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