Archives for 2006

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Proud of Being a Spammer?

Posted on June 18, 2006 ·

Naive me … I thought spammers would prefer to call themselves marketers, and would generally stay away from using the term “spam”. Oh, boy, how wrong I am. Some are actually proud of being spammers.

After analyzing a site that in the first 18 days of existence, got 5 billion (yes, that’s a “b”, is that even possible?) pages indexed by Google, Alex, a “SEO bloguru” lays out the easy steps how everyone else can do it. The last two steps in his recipe: (I’m using nofollow, no link love to spammers)

  • “Launch your blog comment spam attack. Link to some of your subdomains which are also interlinked.

  • Wait a few weeks… then sit back and enjoy your billions of indexed pages. Be sure to put 3 Adsense or YPN blocks on each page.”

Censorship is bad … yet I am really unhappy to see this on Techmeme. Makes me wish there was a “nuke it” button to keep spam away.

Others on the subject:

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Filed Under: Blogging ·
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No Defrag-Hell in Office 2.0

Posted on June 15, 2006 ·

David Berlind makes a compelling case for Office 2.0 (or call it WebOffice, if you like) over at ZDNet.

He is a bit overwhelmed to explicitly say the words, and in the middle of his nightmare he is saying things like defrag-safe mode hell, thinkpad, blue screen of death, msconfig, Windows, Service Pack 2, pwrmonit, BMMLREF, BatInfEx & BatLogEx ( I think it’s still English?) – but deep down we know all he wants to say: Give Me Office 2.0.

I agree. It’s safer there.
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Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS ·
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Picasa: It’s Really Not About the Web Album Only

Posted on June 15, 2006 ·

picasa.gifThe importance of Google’s Picasa Web Album is really not in itself, as  “yet-another-Flickr-contender”. It’s all about the integration (albeit limited) to Google’s Picasa  photo management application on the desktop.

  If you’re the type the likes to tweak your photos around, fine-tune them a little, doing it on the desktop is  still far easier and faster then on the Web. And if you’re like me (i.e. not a pro) you probably find Photoshop  an overkill. Picasa is just right for photo manipulation, doing more than the basics, but not overly complex, and the  price of zero (standard for web-apps, not so for the desktop) is quite unbeatable.

  While Flickr was an independent startup, I placed my bets on Google acquiring them; there was so much similarity in  their approach to photo management, the  (then) revolutionary breakaway from rigid folder/catalog structures to labels/tags made would have made it a perfect marriage. I still can’t believe  Google let this slip away to Yahoo.  With  that deal all hope of easily uploading from Picasa to Flickr evaporated: the only theoretically easy way, emailing to  Flick has never properly worked.

  That’s the void that Picasa Web Albums fill, even if not-so-perfectly for now: have an easy way of working with  your photos offline and online.  Sure, it has shortcomings, no private albums, no synchronization …etc – I  acknowledge all of these,  but remember, Picasa 1.0 was not much to talk about and Picasa 2 came out as  everyone’s favorite.   At least we now have the same platform on and offline.  

  In fact I am sure that what started with photos will continue in many other areas, including the typical personal  productivity / office type applications: we need  seamless, continuous computing, whether on the web or locally.   This is a subject I’ve been wanting to write about ever since my Zoho – the “Safer Office” article, and  will come back to it with more detail in a few days.

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Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Software ·
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Is Evil More Readable than Good?

Posted on June 15, 2006 ·

Dennis Howlett recently ran a readability test on some blogs he follows. The Gunning Fog index is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content. The lower the number, the more understandable the content is.

This reminded me of another test I wrote about, the Gematriculator, which calculates the Evil / Good ratio of a website.

Now for the shocking result: I took a sample of blogs I read, and ran them through both test. Blogs with a higher Evil ratio appear to be more readable! Wow! But of course the sample was too small, to really see if there is strong correlation we’d need a larger sample. So, in the name of science (?) please fill in the form below, using the results from the Readability test and the Gematriculator:

If the form does not work in your feed, please click through to my blog to complete it. When I have a large enough sample, I will publish the statistics.

Thanks for your participation!

Update (6/15): The form I created is fairly basic, but there is a lot more you can do with Zoho Creator, as this animated tour demonstrates.

Filed Under: Blogging, Humor, Misc, Personal Productivity ·
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What do MommyBuzz and Ziki Have in Common

Posted on June 15, 2006 ·

(Updated)
MommyBuzzMommyBuzz launched today announces Steve Rubel.

Business model? The same that Ziki started with: commission-based deals with sunglass-manufacturers. If you visit the site, you’ll see it yourself – but not for long, your eyes will burn (sans shades).

Ziki toned down there colors in a few days – let’s see how soon Mommy gets the buzz ….

Btw, in my usual Johnny-come-lately fashion I thought I would register Toddlerbuzz … too late.

Update (1029):  Mommybuzz does not seem to care.. apparently they think the eye-burning colors work. See VentureBeat on this and other Mom-sites.

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Filed Under: Humor, Marketing / PR, Social Networking, Startups ·
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Betting on Ben’s Gap Year Travel Blog

Posted on June 14, 2006 ·

Too bad Alexadex is not for real money… otherwise I’d be buying shares in Ben Casnocha‘s so far dormant, but soon higly read Gap Year Travel Blog. A safe bet …

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Filed Under: Bay Area, Blogging, Misc ·
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Youtube Brings Back Memories – Queen in Budapest

Posted on June 13, 2006 ·

I recently said in my Tiananmen post that Youtube allowed me to see parts of history that I missed in original, back in 1989. Well, here’s another one that has nostalgic value to me from 1986 in Budapest, Hungary:


(Watch the video on Youtube should the embedded player not work)The “weird” language is Hungarian, and Freddie Mercury is singing a Hungarian Folklore song. In 1986 the Queen performed in front of 80,000 people in a crowded stadium in Budapest. They also shot a full feature movie, “Queen Live in Budapest” featured the band members taking day trips into the country, including race-car driving, hot-air balloons, visits to the Royal Castle, Freddie buying up half the inventory in all the city’s antique shops…

I was a student then, moonlighting as translator for several bands visiting “behind the iron curtain”. Too bad my assignment was John Deacon who spent most of his time in his room… My friend, Gabor had a lot more fun taking Freddie to all those places, and teaching him “Tavaszi Szel”, the folklore song in the clip above. He had the English pronunciation of the lyrics scribed on his palm.Here’s another 6-minute video providing some background on the Queens tour in Budapest. (Hm, it says 72k people … all I know is the stadium’s capacity was 80k, tickets sold out long in advance, and lots of people got in with guest passes .. or without).

Update (9/27/07): For whatever reason this lil’ post got picked up by Queenzone.com and is now getting hundreds of readers. Funny… readers are asking “where’s John?”. Here’s a little piece of the video showing him in Budapest, outside Hotel Intercontinental ( I think it’s a Marriott today).

The guy sitting at the table, facing John, with his back to the camera is yours truly … my 3 seconds of fame smile_wink

Filed Under: Misc · Tagged: , , , ,
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Techdirt Greenhouse: It’s all about the Participation

Posted on June 13, 2006 ·

Techdirt GreenhouseThe success of traditional conferences largely depends on the quality of the presentations: that’s not the case with the Techdirt Greenhouse. Techdirt’s secret sauce is to minimize “presentation” time, and get everyone involved in lively discussions/debates. Add to this an innovative scheme of randomly rotating participants through different groups, and you get maximum networking effect. A perfect mix for a great unconference.

But instead of me describing the “secret”, get it right from the source: Mike Masnick, Techdirt’s Founder & CEO was interviewed on CNET/News.com.

The crowd was a mix of startup-types, service providers to them (consultant, lawyer..etc), venture capitalists, media types…a good mix. For example at one of the breakout-groups tackling the issue of “What is the place for traditional media in an environment where the public is making their own entertainment” we mostly had entrepreneurs, but there were 2 participants representing “old media’, which provided a good balance.

The quality of the presentations or simply their relevance to the predefined, more generic question is always the unknown factor, and this event was no exception.

Jeff Nolan does a good job of explaining what went wrong with the first presentation. Before we knew what was going on, we were deep into looking at features, the presenter typing away live, when all she had was 5 minutes. I would have spent that 5 minutes describing the business, the problem I am solving – basically focus on the what and why, rather than the how.

I few other presenters insisted on using their Powerpoint slides, despite Techdirt’s explicit request not to. Mike, if you don’t mind me giving unsolicited advice, these are issues you can handle in advance: guide your speakers whether you expect a product demo or overall intro, and most importantly, stick to your own rule: No Powerpoint means exactly that, No Powerpoint. If someone cannot speak for 5 minutes without the slide, they are likely not the right presenters, so move on.

Initially I was baffled at some of the selected presenters/subjects, for example Alignent, a company developing a process management/control product around innovation at large corporations. Now, in my world, innovation and structure, process, control do not belong in one sentence. (see Jackie’s comments here). But it turned out to be a good choice, after all, the key tenet of the Greenhouse is that it’s not about the presentations: we spend most of our time on the breakout groups, and this presentation provoked quite a lively discussion.

I will write separately about some of the discussion topic I lead or participated in .

While on the subject of discussion I’d like to believe it’s not over .. in fact we just started something that will live on. The intensity level of the debates, the energy level in the rooms was fantastic, and we often felt we were just warming up by the time we had to wrap up… so why lose that energy? In fact why not widen the group of people and involve many others who could not make it California last Saturday? Everybody, please feel invited to participate: the Techdirt Greenhouse Wiki is open, waiting for you. There are two ways to contribute: adding comments to the relevant pages, which is like using a typical discussion forum, or clicking on “Edit” which allows you to modify the original entry. Yes, there are no controls – it’s an open social experiment. (Thanks to WetPaint, whose easy-to-use platform will launch in the very near future)

Summing it up: I enjoyed the the second Techdirt Greenhouse just as much as the first one: Mike, when is the third one?

Update (6/14): Special thanks to Sean Murphy, who keeps on updating the wiki with valuable information, and is doing a lot of mundane background work, to include all attendee’s URL’s, links to presenting companies sites, as well as related ones.

Related posts:

Filed Under: Business, Collaboration, Technology ·
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SVASE VC Breakfast Club with Ken Elefant, Opus Capital

Posted on June 13, 2006 ·

The next SVASE VC Breakfast Club meeting is on Thursday, June 15th in Menlo Park – the VC Mecca, Sand Hill Road. As usual, it’s an informal round-table where up to 10 entrepreneurs get to deliver a pitch, then answer questions and get critiqued by a VC Partner. We’ve had VC’s from Draper Fisher, Hummer Winblad, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc.

Thursday’s featured VC is Ken Elefant, General Partner, Opus Capital. The Zvents post has all the info and a map, and if you plan to attend, please register here.

These sessions are an incredible opportunity for Entrepreneurs, most of whom would probably have a hard time getting through the door to VC Partners. Since I’ve been through quite a few of these sessions, both as Entrepreneur and Moderator, let me share a few thoughts:

  • It’s a pressure-free environment, with no Powerpoint presentations, Business Plans…etc, just casual conversation, but it does not mean you should come unprepared!
  • Bring an Executive Summary, some VC’s like it, others don’t.
  • Follow a structure, don’t just talk freely about what you would like to do, or even worse, spend all your time describing the problem, without addressing what your solution is.
  • Don’t forget “small things” like the Team, Product, Market..etc.
  • It would not hurt to mention how much you are looking for, and how you would use the funds…
  • Write down and practice your pitch, and prepare to deliver a compelling story in 3 minutes. You will have about 5, but believe me, whatever your practice time was, when you are on the spot, you will likely take twice as long to deliver your story. The second half of your time-slot is Q&A with the VC.
  • Last, but not least, please be on time! I am not kidding… some of you know why I even have to bring this up.

Here’s a participating Entrepreneur’s feedback about a previous event.

See you on Thursday! Zbutton

Filed Under: Bay Area, Business, Social Networking, Startups ·
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Effective Small Business Owner or Corporate BS-er?

Posted on June 13, 2006 ·

Even after the second reading of 10 Reminders for Effective Management I can’t believe my eyes. I wonder if it’s a serious article or a satirical piece. As if the article wasn’t shocking enough, I really have a hard time believing that it’s posted on Small Business Trends – a site I came to like and even quote from time to time.

Although technically it’s advice to small business owners, it reminds me of the 80’s corporate mid-manager’s survival guides, as in “how to BS your way through your career, looking busy while doing nothing“. I know I have entrepreneurial readers – what do you think?

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Filed Under: Business, Personal Productivity, SMB / SME, Startups ·
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