This just in: Senator McCain traded in Sarah Palin for an equally qualified newer model:
Am I Really So Sexy? C’mon…
Posted on October 3, 2008 ·
Well, thank you all for finding me so sexy (blush, blush) that even my face pic is considered x-rated. From somebody else I might even consider it a compliment, but it comes from Gravatar, an “Automattic Joint”:
Which is why my gravatar does not show on WordPress blogs. I’ve never thought one day I’d be caught by porn-filters. 
Steve Jobs Panic – the Anatomy of Fake News on Twitter
Posted on October 3, 2008 ·
I often praised Twitter for being first reporting breaking news – typical examples were several recent earthquakes in Japan, China, New Zealand…etc.
This morning’s news brought panic, as hundreds of Tweets reported:
Steve Jobs was rushed to ER after severe heart attack.
AAPL took a nosedive, then recovered.
Fortunately the news turned out to be bogus. Citizen journalism failed today.
Read the full chronology over @ CloudAve.
(Oh, and while at it, you may want to grab the CloudAve feed. Thank you.)
The Skype Downgrade Experience
Posted on October 1, 2008 ·
First, kudos to Skype for listening to customers, many of whom considered the first Skype 4.0 beta’s full-screen a deal-breaker. Yes, they listened and gave us a compact view, somewhat similar to good old 3.x, which is why I installed it in the first place, but after an hour or so I am ready to uninstall.
In a nutshell: the new Skype is great for single-channel communication, long video calls with one person, but if you’re a multi-tasker (aren’t we all?) who usually has several chat windows open at a time, you’ll be disappointed.
SVASE VC Breakfast with Hambrecht Geneva Ventures in San Francisco
Posted on September 30, 2008 ·
Fincancial crisis or not, VC investments did not entirely disappear, it’s just getting increasingly difficult to get funded. But VCs are still on the lookout, and as proof I’ll be moderating another SVASE VC Breakfast Club meeting this Thursday, October 2nd in San Francisco.
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, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc. This time we’ll welcome Peter Morrissey, Managing Director, Hambrecht Geneva Ventures.
These breakfast meetings are a valuable 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, live demos, Business Plans…etc, just casual conversation; but it does not mean you should come unprepared!
- Follow a structure, don’t just roam 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 2-3 minutes. You will have about 8-10 minutes, the first half of which is your pitch, 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.
- Bring an Executive Summary; some VC’s like it, others don’t.
- Last, but not least, please be on time! I am not kidding… some of you know why I even have to bring this up. Arriving an hour late to a one-and-a-half-hour meeting is NOT acceptable, but we’ve had too many such incidents, so here’s a new rule: if you’re late by more than 20 minutes, you will not be allowed to join the session.
Here’s the event info page, and please remember to register the next three Entrepreneurs get in free, contact me here.
See you in San Francisco!
SocialText Becomes Really Social
Posted on September 30, 2008 ·
Socialtext, the enterprise wiki company is no more… a wiki company, that is. Not since Socialtext 3.0, the new release announced today. Founder and Chairman Ross Mayfield calls his new baby a Connected Collaboration Platform, that’s modular, built on a widget framework, and consists of:
- Socialtext Dashboard – your Communication Central
- Socialtext People – Facebook for the Enterprise
- Socialtext Workspace – originally known as the wiki
A fourth piece, Socialtext Signals is in the works, in private beta testing – I guess we could call it Twitter (Yammer? ESME?) for the Enterprise. Actually more, since it involves active microblogging – quick messages – as well as pulling in what users do elsewhere (FriendFeed?)
The platform is flexible, easy to customize via widgets, clearly the vision is that in an enterprise environment actionable information is pulled in from the transactional systems, too – i.e. ERP, CRM.
Knowing Ross as the uber-social guy something tells me this is what he always wanted to to: create Social Software. But I tend to agree with Jevon MacDonald, who differentiates social software from the wiki, which is primarily a collaboration tool. So Ross was really in the collaboration business and given his name became synonymous with wiki evangelism, he will no doubt have a hard time changing that image. 
This is not to say the wiki part, should be neglected… It is the primary collaboration facility for anything not well handled by process-driven, transactional systems, and all this social layer is just the glue that holds it all together. (Hint: you will hear a lot more about Glue soon).
I had in the past been quite critical of Socialtext’s wiki component, and am looking forward to revisit it, as part of our wiki-series in the coming weeks @ CloudAve. In the meantime, enjoy this video:
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Zoho Launches Application Marketplace
Posted on September 30, 2008 ·
Having seen the power of Zoho Creator & DB I predicted Zoho would create a Marketplace eventually. Ten days ago Information week leaked the news, we wouldn’t have to wait long – and now it’s here: the Zoho Application Marketplace.
Ever since the famous Google Chrome Comic book, the gold standard for product announcement is just that: comics. Ladies and Gentlemen, enjoy the following comic video announcement:
There’s a catalogue of business applications, but if you don’t find an app you need, spec it out, and receive offers from developers. Either way the apps are owned by the developers who set their own pricing and keep 100% of the revenue.
If they don’t take a commission, then what’s in it for Zoho? Clearly, having more situated software apps will drive up subscription demand. Zoho Creator (the platform Marketplace is built on) is free up to 10 applications, and there are several price levels above that.
On day one the ‘shelves’ no doubt will not be fully stocked but Zoho hopes developers will quickly jump on the opportunity. After all there are over 100K apps used by the Creator community. Clearly not all marketable, but even less than 1% can create a lively market.
Marketplace comes on the heels of a new release, Zoho Creator 3 (see video)
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Cloud Computing and Open Source are Not Enemies
Posted on September 29, 2008 ·
Image via Wikipedia
Are Open Source and Cloud Computing anachronistic enemies? You’d think so, if you read GNU creator Richard Stallman’s interview in The Guardian:
Cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.
"It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign,"
Sure, there’s a lot of marketing hype as it is typical with any major technological advancement, especially as it reaches the peak of its hype cycle. But I think Stallman loses sight of who the “enemy” is.
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Cloudy Fusion
Posted on September 28, 2008 ·
Image by wicho via Flickr
The Enterprise Irregulars took over CloudAve… well, sort of, forcing us to release an article early. Eran Kampf had a post lined up for Monday morning about Larry Ellison’s Cloud Envy, when all of a sudden fellow Irregular Anshu Sharma had a humor attack and came out with a hilarious post. All he did was replace Cloud Computing with Fusion in Larry’s famous rant, and voila!:
"The interesting thing about Fusion is that we’ve redefined Fusion to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t Fusion with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"
"We’ll make Fusion announcements. I’m not going to fight this thing. But I don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of Fusion other than change the wording of some of our ads. That’s my view."
Wow. This variant of Ellison’s speech makes a lot of sense, referring to his own elusive Fusion applications. Even Vinnie Agrees.
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