The answer: It depends (on your perspective). I have had some fascinating conversations with folks in both advertising and games about the iPhone. There is an obvious chasm between incumbents who have existing businesses on other phones and folks starting up to target the iPhone. Those with existing businesses usually make an argument along the following lines – by the end of the year there will be 10 million iPhones which is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall mobile market (billion...

Had a great time at OSCON yesterday. Day started with inspiring keynotes by Tim O'Reilly on the challenges for open source and by Chrstine Peterson from the Foresight Institute on Open Source Physical Security. Tim mentioned cloud computing and mobile as the #1 and #2 challenges for open source. Just as open source has made a lot of progress these two new trends threaten to move much of computing onto proprietary and closed platforms. Christine started by pointing out how we had missed t...

The answer: It depends (on your perspective). I have had some fascinating conversations with folks in both advertising and games about the iPhone. There is an obvious chasm between incumbents who have existing businesses on other phones and folks starting up to target the iPhone. Those with existing businesses usually make an argument along the following lines – by the end of the year there will be 10 million iPhones which is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall mobile market (billion...

Had a great time at OSCON yesterday. Day started with inspiring keynotes by Tim O'Reilly on the challenges for open source and by Chrstine Peterson from the Foresight Institute on Open Source Physical Security. Tim mentioned cloud computing and mobile as the #1 and #2 challenges for open source. Just as open source has made a lot of progress these two new trends threaten to move much of computing onto proprietary and closed platforms. Christine started by pointing out how we had missed t...

A while ago I wrote a post on “who will be my New York Times?" Today the NYT announced a partnership with LinkedIn that suggests that it may well be the New York Times itself! I have long thought that the social graph and industry information on LinkedIn would provide an ideal filter for determining relevant stories. I hope this means that I can soon get a personalized news feed from LinkedIn or the Times or both. I would be happy to contribute to the creation of such a feed by doing a bit of...

A while ago I wrote a post on “who will be my New York Times?" Today the NYT announced a partnership with LinkedIn that suggests that it may well be the New York Times itself! I have long thought that the social graph and industry information on LinkedIn would provide an ideal filter for determining relevant stories. I hope this means that I can soon get a personalized news feed from LinkedIn or the Times or both. I would be happy to contribute to the creation of such a feed by doing a bit of...

Just announced our investment in 10gen. Fantastic team working on an opensource cloud platform. Look forward to developing scalable sites and apps without having to worry about managing machines ever again.

Just announced our investment in 10gen. Fantastic team working on an opensource cloud platform. Look forward to developing scalable sites and apps without having to worry about managing machines ever again.

It makes sense for press releases to conform to a standard structure including a summary first paragraph and quotes for use in articles. But there is no good reason for the awful phrasing found in most press releases, the insertion of way too many buzzwords, and the use of generalized superlatives. Together they form what I call press release mumbo jumbo. I encourage all entrepreneurs to rid their startups’ releases of this babble and replace it with substance and straight talk. If you can’t ...

It makes sense for press releases to conform to a standard structure including a summary first paragraph and quotes for use in articles. But there is no good reason for the awful phrasing found in most press releases, the insertion of way too many buzzwords, and the use of generalized superlatives. Together they form what I call press release mumbo jumbo. I encourage all entrepreneurs to rid their startups’ releases of this babble and replace it with substance and straight talk. If you can’t ...

If I meet with someone I generally google them beforehand. I assume others do the same with me. I believe this will be the norm for pretty much anyone soon if it is not already. I am therefore surprised to see how many people are not in control of their online persona. The only information that google turns up is what others have written about them. That may well include quotes take out of context, out-of-date company affiliations or even negative comments by others. Letting others define you...

If I meet with someone I generally google them beforehand. I assume others do the same with me. I believe this will be the norm for pretty much anyone soon if it is not already. I am therefore surprised to see how many people are not in control of their online persona. The only information that google turns up is what others have written about them. That may well include quotes take out of context, out-of-date company affiliations or even negative comments by others. Letting others define you...

The New York Times has a great article today on Edward O. Wilson. Since my undergraduate days I have been fascinated by his work on evolution. I loved his book Consilience which is incredibly thought provoking. But the real reason to read the article is to get a sense of how slowly the wheels of science can turn. For instance, it refers to Wilson’s 1975 book Sociobiology which had ideas in it that more than three decades later are still contested. There are many reasons for this rate of progr...

The New York Times has a great article today on Edward O. Wilson. Since my undergraduate days I have been fascinated by his work on evolution. I loved his book Consilience which is incredibly thought provoking. But the real reason to read the article is to get a sense of how slowly the wheels of science can turn. For instance, it refers to Wilson’s 1975 book Sociobiology which had ideas in it that more than three decades later are still contested. There are many reasons for this rate of progr...

We tend to be minority investors, which means that at least at the outset we (potentially together with other investors) own less than 50 percent of a business. That means we do not have control in the traditional sense. On the vast majority of issues, the board simply cannot just tell the founders what to do. But it does not mean that we lack influence. We tend to spend a lot of time communicating with founders by email, IM, phone and in person. We combine examples from other businesses, ana...

We tend to be minority investors, which means that at least at the outset we (potentially together with other investors) own less than 50 percent of a business. That means we do not have control in the traditional sense. On the vast majority of issues, the board simply cannot just tell the founders what to do. But it does not mean that we lack influence. We tend to spend a lot of time communicating with founders by email, IM, phone and in person. We combine examples from other businesses, ana...

The new iPhone is out and the App Store has opened. Apple’s servers appear to be melting down (which is sure to have folks ticked off). But those folks who have successfully upgraded (or bought a new phone) and installed apps appear to be ecstatic about the experience. Unless Apple totally melts down this will be the day that mobile changed. Update: Looks like the activation meltdown is pretty serious. I think this will still wind up being nothing but a speed bump on the iPhones path to (temp...

The new iPhone is out and the App Store has opened. Apple’s servers appear to be melting down (which is sure to have folks ticked off). But those folks who have successfully upgraded (or bought a new phone) and installed apps appear to be ecstatic about the experience. Unless Apple totally melts down this will be the day that mobile changed. Update: Looks like the activation meltdown is pretty serious. I think this will still wind up being nothing but a speed bump on the iPhones path to (temp...

My laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth and like most Windows machines it is slowing down considerably. Tom Evslin wrote about this phenomenon earlier this year and came up with the wonderful image of barnacles. Oddly though he did not mention file fragmentation as one of the biggest sources of barnacles. Windows XP does a terrible job at keeping the disk from becoming completely jumbled and the defrag utility that comes with Windows XP must not have been touched in a decade. I have now ...

My laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth and like most Windows machines it is slowing down considerably. Tom Evslin wrote about this phenomenon earlier this year and came up with the wonderful image of barnacles. Oddly though he did not mention file fragmentation as one of the biggest sources of barnacles. Windows XP does a terrible job at keeping the disk from becoming completely jumbled and the defrag utility that comes with Windows XP must not have been touched in a decade. I have now ...