Connecting the dots ...
Wow, a Google StreetView Chevy just turned in the cul-de-sac, I saw it from the window. (Thank God I was inside and … hm.. not doing anything nasty
) I
I wonder how long it takes for the pics to show up on Google StreetView – we’re a small town, after all…
Tags: Google Maps, Google Streetview
So it’s John Dvorak’s turn to predict Bubble 2.0. Yawn. Why now?
Of course there will be a Bubble – booms are always followed by a bust. Oh, and by the way, I should be a stock-market millionaire: I made all the right calls. Too bad my timing was always off. Timing is everything.
One day we’ll all claim we had spotted Bubble 2.0. These say-nothing article lay the grounds just for that – so one day we can all look smart. Again.
Oh, well. This reminds me, I haven checked my favorite Bubble 2.0 site for a while. Wow! The last post was in August 2006. And a real surprise: the site is run by fellow Enterprise Irregular, Moonwatcher, SyncMeister Charlie Wood. (last I quoted Bubble 2.0 I did not realize it was Charlie’s work). In fact he started Bubble 2.0 (which, I repeat, is a good site, sans the timing) in 2004. But why did he abandon it? Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he got super-busy with his growing business, Spanning Sync – a sure sign of a Bubble, isn’t it?
Update: As much as I claim to Connect the dots I’ve failed to notice the the connection between this post and my previous one, on Elton John. Thankfully, Matthew Ingram didn’t – his title hits the nail on the head: Troll alert: The two Johns — Elton and Dvorak. Hilarious.
Update (8/2): By this morning this has bubbled up to the top of TechMeme:
Silicon Alley Insider, CrunchGear, A VC, CostPerNews, MYBLOG by Ouriel, JD on EP, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Master of 500 Hats, Business Week, Ajaxian, rexduffdixon.com, Don Dodge (gotta love this:” The real bubble that is bursting here is Dvorak’s influence“), Venture Chronicles, Scobleizer, the Constant Observer, Socialtext, Defrag, Industry Girl
Tags: Bubble, bubble 2.0, Spanning Sync, Humor
Dave Winer laments about the volatility of Technorati ranks. (thanks for the heads up, John), He then comes to the conclusion:
PPS: Please, could someone with some longevity and system management expertise buy Technorati. Think of it this way. McAfee in some sense owns the Oakland Coliseum. Monster owns Candlestick. AT&T owns the stadium where the Giants play. Okay, what if IBM owned Technorati, it would then be called the IBM 100. Think about the goodwill you’d buy. You’d be famous as the arbiter of popularity in the blogosphere. You’d be thanked for bringing stability to a metric that desperately needs it. Sifry, if this approach works, you owe me 1 percent.
I suppose it’s not only about the “authority”, Dave must have seen the same “Monster” I did this morning… not for the first time, and not the last. In fact the Monster is quite a regular figure at Technorati. So regular, that I repeatedly came to the same conclusion Dave Winer did:
Technorati is Dying Again (Still?). White Knight Needed.
I’ve stated repeatedly that T’ratty is a great IP company, true innovator, it just can’t cope with the infrastructure demands of tracking the ever-growing blogosphere.
So, here’s the deal: since Dave Winer wants 1% of the deal, I under-bid him: I’ll take only 0.5%. On second thought… I realize who you are is more important than what you say… so I humbly reduce my already discounted bid to 0.1%.
Or … you know what? I’ll give it away, just get the deal done!
The Bug has arrived, It’s going to be big.
That’s the gist of what I can figure from a flurry of blog-posts on the new Open Source Hardware device to be launched soon.
I still don’t know what the Bug is, but it’s already bugging me
. How is it that after reading top blogs like Fred Wilson’s, Brad Feld’s, Mashable, I still don’t know what it is? These guys all say it’s going to be Big, but what does it do? At last Dave Winer has some ideas…
I’m with Henry Blodget on this:
if Bug’s forthcoming product, The Bug, is to become a consumer hit (which is apparently part of the plan), the company first needs to do a better job of explaining what it does.
The wait is over: what was first dubbed as the Second Annual TechCrunch Meet-up at August Capital is now officially TechCrunch 9. If you attended TechCrunch 7 at August Capital last year, and are wondering what you may have missed… relax: # 8 was the New York Party – proof that there is entrepreneurial life outside Silicon Valley. (is there? 
)
When Mike Arrington published the participant list, I dropped it in a spreadsheet to get a quick count: it was 809! Considering that last year with 500 on the list we were 700 , I figured 1000 would be a safe bet.. and started to wonder if August Capital’s huge terrace is strong enough to hold 1000 people. Security was stronger than last year, so perhaps that explains why the final turnout was around 900. Here’s a snapshot of the TechCrunch 900, courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang.
I’ve made a strategic mistake: got “stuck” with some long-not-seen friends in a corner, and before I realized it, the party was already winding down. As I browse through the photos by Mike Arrington, Scott Beale, Jeremiah, Thomas Hawk, Dan Farber, Brian Solis and others, I’m surprised to see many familiar faces of friends I haven’t bumped into at the party.
I actually wonder if the best-informed “attendees” were those who were not even present. UStream.tv as well as competitor Kyte.tv broadcasted the event to the World, along with a chat room, so the total number was definitely in the thousands. Centernetwork’s Allen Stern liveblogged the party – from 2958 miles away, based on the Ustream.tv feed and chat room.
What a difference a year makes! Sarah Myers got thrown out last year as party-crasher; this year she was officially invited (hey I like the new hair-style
) what’s more, if anyone is interested in not just the party details, but the (mostly) startups demo-ing their ware, there’s hardly a better summary than Sarah’s video:
Wow, that’s 16 companies in 2 minutes. Congrat’s to Sarah and the interviewees, almost all were concise, delivered the message. If I may give some advice, when you have 10 seconds, don’t waste it on phrases like “revolutionary product”. It may very well be, but it does not tell me what you do…
But I don’t want to be the judge – much rather have you, dear reader pick the best and worst pitch. Please do it in the poll below – you’ll need to scroll down to get the full list, and if you read this in your feed, you may have to click through.
Update (7/30): Please vote based on the video pitch above, not what you’ve seen at the party, if you were there.
Last, but not least, this was the first TechCrunch party where tickets were “sold” for a nominal fee of $10 – the proceeds were matched by TechCrunch and a total of $10,000 was donated to Kipp Bayview Academy
towards the purchase of new computer equipment.
See you at TechCrunch 10 
Update (7/30): I’ve just noticed a trend:
TechCrunch 3: approaching 300 participants
TechCrunch 5: 500
TechCrunch 7: 700
TechCrunch 9: 900
Tags: TechCrunch, TechCrunch Party, blogging, startups, entrepreneurship, Web 2.0, August Capital, techcrunch9, techcrunchaugust2007, zoho polls
A power outage in San Francisco has just wiped out the creme of the Web: craigslist, technorati, typepad, and I don’t know what other services are all down. Update: Netflix is down, too. (hat tip: TechCrunch)
brb
Blackout!
Our power is down. Technorati will be back up soon.
My own blog is sick today for other reasons (check my site24x7 stats – just on the day when I got linked to by several ZDNet blogs and Techmeme
) so I don’t know if this post will make it.
Update:
“There’s a reason we run a ton of servers with a bunch of different Internet providers and put them in a lot of different datacenters.” – says OpenDNS
No wonder they are up 
Update: Some, like Netflix and Technorati are back up. Quote from the Technorati blog:
We are working with our co-location facility managers to assess why it is back-up power generators failed to provide the necessary back-up power to prevent our site going down.
Update: Ouch, Valleywag (you know, your most-credible-source-of-information) has another explanation:
Someone came in shitfaced drunk, got angry, went berserk, and fucked up a lot of stuff. There’s an outage on 40 or so racks at minimum.
Take the above with a grain of salt…
On a more serious note, this reminds me of one line from NetSuite‘s recent IPO filing:
We host our services and serve all of our customers from a single third-party data center facility located in California… We do not currently operate or maintain a backup data center for any of our services or for any of our customers’ data, which increases our vulnerability to interruptions or delays in our service.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. We’re not talking consumer Web 2.0 here, companies run their entire business on NetSuite. 
But let’s finish this story on a lighter note. Techdirt points out that 365 Main, the hosting facility invoked Murphy’s law against themselves in a PR release just hours before the blackout, when they bragged about how a customer gave up their redundant sites after 2 years of uninterrupted service at 365. They trusted 365 Main, since:
“The company’s San Francisco facility includes two complete back-up systems for electrical power to protect against a power loss. In the unlikely event of a cut to a primary power feed, the state-of-the-art electrical system instantly switches to live back-up generators, avoiding costly downtime for tenants and keeping the data center continuously running.”
Well, if this was “continuosly running”, I don’t want to know what happens when there is an “outage”. 
Update 97/25): There was a bright side to this, as Good Morning Silicon Valley details:
“Unable to work, Web 2.0 programmers slathered themselves with sunscreen and stumbled into the unfamiliar daylight. Families were reunited as thousands of idled bloggers pushed away from the keyboard and were greeted by loved ones. Global temperature dropped as servers and PCs rested silently.”
Also read: GigaOM, TechCrunch, Data Center Knowledge, PC World: Techlog, Between the Lines, Webomatica, Geek News Central, CNET News.com, O’Reilly Radar., Rough Type, Connecting the dots (me, too!) , Don Dodge, Between the Lines,
Tags: power outage, san francisco, web, soma, technorati, typepad, craigslist, netsuite, site24x7, zoho
I’m glad to see ZDNet agrees with me. David Berlin poses the question: By 2010, will Windows ‘Seven’ (or any desktop OS) really matter? My question a few days ago was: Windows Seven in 2010. Does Anyone Still Care?
David goes on to explain how almost everything he does nowadays is done in the browser – that is online. His experience with installed software is painful – like the recent Vista upgrade. As for myself, I still have to cool off before I can tell you how badly a forced Microsoft Money update scr***d me and all online banking users. Arrogant ignorance by Microsoft, as usual.
On the other hand, are these new Windows versions getting any better? We can read stories of high-profile bloggers switching back to XP, analyst firms advising their CIO clients NOT to upgrade to Vista, but today is the first time we here a major PC manufacturer (Acer’s President) clearly labeling Windows Vista a flop. Technically as well as commercially.
“The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista”
“Users are voting with their feet …. Many business customers have specifically asked for Windows XP to be installed on their new machines”
It’s great that he can now openly say this – a few years ago Microsoft would have penalized Acer.
Analysts think the problem is that consumers prefer lower-cost machines that might not work well with Vista.
“Most of the machines I see pitched in catalogs are in the $700 range, certainly under $1,000,”
“Computers with that amount of hardware are a better fit for XP. With Vista’s requirements, people may be thinking about sticking with XP, and putting less money into the hardware.”
Exactly. But this is a chicken-end-egg issue: why would anyone want to buy stronger hardware just to run a new Operating System? It only makes sense for tangible benefits, i.e. gaming, video editing..etc. Otherwise, buying more powerful machines only so they can be bogged down by Vista (or Windows Seven for that matter) is meaningless arms race. For productivity / business use, the trend is just the opposite: with the move to Web Applications, wee need less CPU, storage, memory (well, maybe not that, with zillions of FireFox tabs open…). Since I switched to Web Apps, I barely ever hear the fan come up in my trusted old laptop
I’m confused though:
“Microsoft reports Microsoft itself says Vista has been a smashing success, saying it had already sold 20 million Vista licences by March.”
With consumers not buying, corporate CIO’s not upgrading, manufacturers being disappointed … where did those 20 million customers come from?
Update (7/23): It’s really amazing how Donna Bogatin does not get it. She writes off David Berlind’s article as simply based on the author’s personal computing habits… Web Worker Daily, can you hear this? Microsoft OS extinction case? What are you talking about, Donna? I re-read and re-read the Berlind piece and don’t see it. That’s not what he (and I) are talking about. But here’s another ZDNet-er, Ryan Stewart coming to our rescue: in case it’s not clear, what we’re saying is The desktop OS will still matter, just not which one.
P.S. Donna’s blog does not allow commenting. What a surprise…
Related posts: /Message, Dvorak Uncensored, ParisLemon, Wired,
Update (8/9): a very good analysis by eWeek: Broken Windows
Tags: desktop software, on-demand, saas, Microsoft, Windows, Vista, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Seven, OS, Operating System, Web OS, Web Applications
So the next OS from Microsoft will be Windows Seven (where’s Windows 6?) – does anyone still care?
I simply don’t get it: Vista is barely out, nobody seems to like it, CIO’s refuse to upgrade, analyst firms tell them to wait, individual users who tried it switch back to XP, others time their new PC purchase so they can still get an XP machine – generally speaking Vista was as poorly received as the ill-fated Windows ME.
Apple is gaining market share, the major computer manufacturers are offering Linux PC’s, the Web OS concept is getting popular, applications are already on the Web – can anyone clearly see the shape of personal computing in 2012? (Yes, I know MS plans for 2010, I’m just adding the customary delay.) Will it still matter what OS we use to get on the Internet? How can Microsoft be so out of touch?
Considering the resistance to Vista ( see this Computerworld article on making XP last for 7 years) why would the world want to upgrade switch to yet-another Windows OS in five years?
Of course I’m not saying nobody cares. This hypnotized crowd certainly does. 
Update (7/23): ZDNet’s David Berlind is asking the same question.
Update (7/25): Why ‘Seven’ and Not SP1?
Update (8/9): a very good analysis by eWeek: Broken Windows
Which one of these units would you buy for your home?
Clunky old 80’s style answering machine (OK, make it That 70’s for Ashton Kutcher’s sake)
Nay, this is almost the same with colors …
This is better…
Cool 🙂
Funny thing is, they are all the same, different photos of the new Ooma device being launched today. What a difference a good photo makes!
P.S. I was an Ooma White Rabbit for ten minutes.
Tags: Ooma, design, perception, photography, style
I was an Ooma White Rabbit – for a grand total of 10 minutes. There’s a lot of buzz today about the new VOIP service which offers free local and long distance calls. Free, after the purchase of the $399 box, which takes care of routing your calls and a lot more.
The company seems to have pulled off a PC Coup, listing Ashton Kutcher (yes, *that* one) as their Creative Director. They are in pre-release test mode, and intend to seed their network by giving away 1,500-2,000 units throughout the country. I signed up via Om Malik’s free offer, and within minutes was confirmed as a White Rabbit, i.e. “one of the chosen few who will help us change the game of phone service forever.”
I started to develop suspicions during the online registration: there were several questions only a true POTS user could answer, and I haven’t used a local phone company for years. I’m on Vonage, but Ooma is being heralded as the Vonage killer (not that they need one), so I should be OK, I guess (?). Nope. After completing registration, I called customer service, and was confirmed that at this stage they need a good old traditional phone-line. Now, if you read the comments on all the blogs welcoming the new service, it becomes obvious that this new service needs early adopters, the experimental types, who are likely already VOIP customers.
Ooma says around September when they roll out the service they will no longer have the local phone company requirement. I guess that puts an end to my White Rabbit status – although if Ooma still sends me the box, I will give it a try…
Update: Perception Matters.
Related posts: TechCrunch, dslreports.com, CrunchGear, VentureBeat, MobileCrunch, IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband , Podcasting News, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Engadget, IP Democracy, Alec Saunders .LOG, Mark Evans, robhyndman.com and VoIP Watch
Tags: VOIP, Ooma, Vonage, POTS, telephone service, Ashton Kutcher
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