February 2010
9 posts
Cloud Computing = Democratization of Applications
The Web brought us the democratization of content. Cloud Computing will do the same for applications. That will be one of my key themes for the Cloud Computing panel this afternoon at the Wharton Business Technology conference (that’s assuming that my Acela which is already 30 minutes late will make it to Philly in time). Prior to the Web, to get a piece of content out to the world required...
1 tag
Burn Rate as the Canonical Mistake (for Web...
One of the all time great opening lines is from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina:
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
I am beginning to think that the opposite is true for (web) startups. There seem to be surprisingly many roads to success. But the canonical road to trouble appears to be taking your burn rate up *before* you have something that is...
4 tags
Defending (Internet) Freedom
I love Italy - for vacations, that is. But the decision by a judge in Milan to convict several Google employees for the posting of a bullying video on Youtube is a serious threat to the potential of the Internet to be a force for freedom. I have been critical of Google many times on this blog, but agree wholeheartedly with their assessment of how troubling this is:
European Union law was...
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Apple and "1-Click Sex"
Over the last few days, Apple has removed a number of apps from the app store that have, as the New York Times’s Jenna Wortham put it “sexually suggestive” material. There is plenty of speculation on the motives, such as VentureBeat’s idea that this is about winning over educators to the iPad. I think the actual explanation is likely to be simpler.
Browsing and discovery...
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Unemployment and Structural Change (2)
I have written previously about unemployment and structural change in the economy, arguing that we are facing a particularly bad outlook for employment. The New York Times on Saturday had a good article on this subject that combined some chilling statistics with a couple of stories of individuals suffering the consequences. Probably the most important chart from the article is this:
The...
Staying Young (Turning 43)
So I am turning 43 today - an age that at one point I considered ancient! Yet in many ways I feel younger today than a decade ago (OK - that does not include my speed for clearing the snow off our driveway). I attribute that to spending so much time with entrepreneurs. It is not just that many of the teams in our portfolio are young, it is that all entrepreneurs seem young in a fundamental way:...
2 tags
Some Thoughts on Google Buzz
I got Google Buzz last night in my gmail account and have started to play around with it a bit. Here are some initial thoughts.
First off, I agree with Andrew that the integration of Buzz with Gmail will turn out to be a net positive for adoption at least initially (and if it takes off there is always a way to make it available standalone).
Second, this roll out at scale is a very clear example...
3 tags
Email Killer Feature: Reply Processing
If you needed yet another reason to switch from operating your own MTA for transactional email to using a service provider, SendGrid recently introduced a killer feature: reply processing. No more need to send emails from “no-reply@thatsoundsrude.com.” Instead, let people take actions simply by replying to emails. This is a feature that I have absolutely loved about disqus from day...
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The EBook Wars
I was away last week and so am late to the party when it comes to commenting on the fight between Amazon and book publishers. Here are a couple of observations.
First, I was surprised it took so long for this fight to start. It is a great example of what I call “fighting over the digital pie.” What was most fascinating about it is that none of the publishers even made a mention of...
