Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: blogging (Page 3 of 3)

Time for “Life 3.0” in the Valley?

Back in late 2002, in the doldrum years after the Tech Crash, my friend Rich Karlgaard (the Publisher of FORBES) became compelled to start writing a book about a phenomenon he’d been observing in Silicon Valley. People were leaving in droves — entrepreneurs and other business people, tech workers of every stripe. Good people, successful people, and so many of them disallusioned. Life20cover They’d had it with the expensive living and the rat race up and down the 101, and they were determined to find a better life elsewhere. It’s a great book — called “Life 2.0” — and it’s on my recommended reading list in the right sidebar. He came to Minnesota to interview me when he first began writing it.

Well, hold on, but another book could be in the offing here, from somebody, based on what we read yesterday from two leading Valley-based technology bloggers. First, Michael Arrington launched this bomb on Tech Crunch: Silicon Valley Could Use A Downturn Right About Now…the most telling sentence of which was this: “Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks.” Here’s another excerpt, his concluding paragraph:

I left Silicon Valley at the peak of the insanity last time around, and I was pleasantly surprised when I returned in 2005 to see so much goodwill and community surrounding innovation. Now, it’s just like the old days again, and Silicon Valley is no longer any fun. In fact, it’s turned downright nasty. It may be time for some of us to leave for a while and watch the craziness from the outside again. In a few years, things will be beautiful again. The big money will be slumbering away, and the marketing departments will be a distant memory. We can focus, once again, on the technology. And the burgers and beer.

The post had 210 comments(!) at last count, so it’s obviously hitting a nerve. But, as if that wasn’t enough, Robert Scoble then chimes in essentially seconding the motion. I like Robert — he’s one of the nicest, most likeable, down-to-earth guys you will ever meet in this business. (And his wife, Maryam, is a real sweetheart, too.) So, when Robert talks, I listen. I respect what he says. Well, yesterday, he further enlightened all us unwashed masses of Valley outsiders with what it’s really like to be an insider there these days. And it does not sound particularly pleasant. His post was titled Why I’m in a malaise…, and here’s an excerpt:

I too look wistfully back at the days when we had almost the entire Social Software industry in one little coffee shop back in 2002 — none of whom were talking about making billions of dollars. Back then it was more like the Homebrew Computer Society, where geeks came to show off their stuff (and everyone was pretty much not getting paid anyway so of course we were doing it just for the love of it).

It seems to me that both Robert and Michael are tired of the grind — the relentless parade of me-too companies and legions of PR people and VCs trying to get their attention, and the hellish treadmill they’re on producing content day after day, night after night. You can only do that for so long before you get burned out — and it seems both of them have reached that point.

Then again, who knows, maybe they just need a vacation? What I do know is that I wouldn’t want either of their jobs. Sure, I’m a blogger, but these guys are hardly your typical bloggers anymore. They’re both part of serious, money-making publishing businesses (Robert also being a VP at PodTech), and both inextricably caught up in the big-money world of tech VC. Now it seems they’re both wondering, “Is this all there is?” And it begs the question: is this crazy Web 2.0 startup world getting closer and closer to a bubble burst?

Makes me glad I live in Minnesota, where things are a great deal more sane. And I know Rich Karlgaard would be the first to agree with me.

UPDATE: To add book link.

Why I’m Going to CES

Unless you just returned from a desert island somewhere, perhaps you’ve heard there’s a big trade show coming up in Las Vegas? Though I was a frequent attendee of what many consider its predecessor event, Comdex, I’ve largely ignored CES — never attended it. The most I ever even paid attention to it was in January 2000, when I was part of the team that conceived and planned the brand-new Best Buy web site, which our fearless leader of the then-subsidiary, BestBuy.com (John Walden), presented in prototype form to analysts and press. I did watch a live webcast of that from BBY headquarters in Eden Prairie, MN, which was a very big deal for us.

A few weeks ago, however, I thought maybe it would be interesting to at least experience all the hoopla — so I could say I’ve seen it at least once. But, since then, I’ve really been on the fence trying to decide if I should go. Well, I am hopping on a plane today. Here’s why:

Not because I like Las Vegas or gambling. (I really, really don’t.) Not because I pretend to cover consumer electronics very well (it’s not a major focus of my blog). Not because I like gadgets. (Well, it’s not really about liking — it’s much more about not having the time or money to invest in all that stuff.) And certainly not because I like TV — in fact, I mostly hate it. So, it’s also not because I like home theater, or large-screen HDTVs, or set top boxes, or even high-end audio, either. And, I’m certainly not going because I like gaming.

Now, CES does hype itself this year by saying it’s where “content meets technology,” or something like that. Hey, content I like! But what they mean is largely digital content that plays on TVs, gaming consoles, and all those gadgets that I don’t get to play with all day long like Walt Mossberg does. But, okay, I do like cell phones and wireless and certain online or wireless consumer services categories, I guess, which are also covered somewhat at CES.

But, after all the considerations and the wondering if I really should take the time out, why I’m going to Las Vegas for a few days is simply this: “BlogHaus.” It’s an event/happening that Robert Scoble has been telling us about for the last month. (See more about it here on the PodTech site.) Bloghaus At last count, some 150 of us bloggers will be converging there to hang out in an upper-floor suite at the Bellagio, on Seagate’s dime. It’s a 24 x7 press room-slash-hangout-slash-party for bloggers of every stripe! Hey, who needs the show floor and all the sore feet that go along with it! Someone recently called this event “probably the best, and longest, blogger meetup ever”! I’m really looking forward to it, to seeing old friends and meeting new ones, and will certainly do some live blogging from there.

If you’ll be there, too, and would like to hook up, email me at graeme (at) thickins (dot) com. And if you can’t be, but have any questions or suggestions for me, let me know that, too — by email, or in a comment. Vegas, here I come!

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My 100th Post…

Just wanted to say that. Hey, somebody ring the gong! Not bad for about nine months [he said modestly], considering I tend to write pretty long posts — articles, really, for the most part — and this is only a part-time effort for me. But I do try to mix things up by breaking up all the long articles with a short nugget from time to time.

Nothing to report specifically in this post — I just wanted to mark the milestone and thank you, my readers. Plus I didn’t think I should devote a special post like this to any one company or news item. Rather, I thought I should stage that next real blog post so it becomes Number 101. How about I just use this one for the purpose of seeking feedback? So, tell me then, folks — how am I doing?

thanks again for reading!
Graeme

‘How to Suck Up to a Blogger’ and ‘How to Almost Live on Blogging’

Two great posts I discovered on the state of blogging, and a killer article link at the end. The first I referred to earlier, but it’s worth a repeat mention: it’s Guy Kawasaki talking about who controls the buzz these days. Guess who that might be?

And the second is a Wired interview of Harold Davis, who writes the Googleplex blog. He also has a new book, “Google Advertising Tools” from O’Reilly [riveting title], which I’m reading right now and which you should buy — from my blog, of course! (It’s there in the righthand column.) That way, you can contribute to my “almost making a living” with this thing….in your own little, micropayment sorta way. 🙂

But I must say that Harold is a bit less rosy about bloggers supporting themselves than the picture painted by this excellent feature article just out in New York Magazine: Blogs to Riches: The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom. Haven’t seen anything that gets into blogs making money quite like this piece…

OK, Two More Content-Sharing Plays…That’s It!

Then I’m done — I promise. After all, Demo ended nine days ago, and here I am still writing about it. There was just sooo much good stuff there, people — what can I say?. Thanks for working with me on this. Would you believe I’m up to almost 30 posts on it now? After this, I think I have just one more left in me: a recap of the themes of the event as I see them. But, first, the two final content-sharing companies I wanted to talk about: Zingee and LocaModa. [And please note the last are not necessarily the least.]

Zingee uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to make your hard drive a hosting device, letting you share content — files and folders — really easily, with your friends, with groups, or the whole world. “You just drag the files or folders to a name,” said D.K. Kim, CEO. “And everything shared gets a unique URL, which can be searched. It’s simple and free.” Essentially, Zingeelogo Zingee creates web links to all the files on your computer that you want it to. And you securely control exactly what is shared and who you share it with. There are no file size restrictionss, and viewers do not need to register or install anything. D.K. Kim has a background with Citibank and HP, and also was cofounder and CEO of financial services portal Quicken.com Austral-Asia, which had an IPO in 1999 on Australian Stock Exchange. Zingee is based in Singapore but also has people in Australia, including Sydney-based Zingeemicksurf_1 Mick Liubinskas, who is the company’s CMO. Mick, a surfer (that’s him in the photo), has sales and marketing experience with IBM, Virgin, and several IT startups. More recently, he headed global marketing and business development for Kazaa. I asked him about that experience: “I was hired as the first marketing person and grew the team to about ten and grew downloads to 300 million — the most downloads in history. Most of it was viral but we worked hard on media and partner marketing.”

I also asked Mick about his thoughts on the state of P2P technology: “I really see it as the next platform, one that builds on the Internet. We’ll only know how big it is in 2015 — ‘P2P 2.0’. The net guys are still getting used to working with it…Developers of applications for the Internet need to learn how to harness and use it. Web 2.0 is really a precursor to P2P 2.0, which will be web apps using P2P — not all of them but more than half…Most will be impacted by P2P, we just don’t know how yet. Once the apps start coming, then everything else follows — net admin, devices, etc. Look at headsets following Skype.”

How will you convince consumers about the quality of your security? “Trust is earned. You have to let people try it at a low level and grow. Plus you need to partner with trustworthy companies. Half hard tech work, half perception.”

What stuff does Zingee do that no one else does? “The secret sauce is we turn any web-enabled device into a web server that’s really simple to run. We open the content on devices to the web.”

I also asked Mick to comment on the presence of P2P technology at Demo, and what that may mean as far as its spread or adoption: “There was less P2P there than I expected. [Three companies as I counted.] Most are still doing straight web. P2P doesn’t always create value, but it can change the value equation…I lived and breathed P2P at Kazaa. There are only about 20 people in the world who really know what life was like there… Lots of work yet to do in P2P, but I’m excited about it.”

LocaModa extends the web to the street. Interconnecting mobile phone, web, and narrowcast technologies, LocaModa has two applications. The first is called StreetSurfer™ — which lets you find real-estate listings from your cell phone. Big brokerages such as GMAC are aleady starting to use it, said Stephen Randall, CEO and cofounder. “Any cell phone becomes a remote control.” Locamodalogo A newer offering is Wiffiti™, which the company calls the first in-location blogging network — “facilitating freedom of expression on the street.” Randall said it’s about “web and phones converging, to the ‘Web Outside’.” It combines social networking with blogging for venues like bars, clubs, and restaurants. Wiffiti™ encourages people to interact with content or entertainment on large-format, Internet-connected screens via their mobile phones. The company says there are “massive untapped markets beyond the couch and the desk.” Out-of-home media is going digital in locations ranging from retailers to street corners, they say. What’s really unique about LocaModa’s proprietary interactive networks is that it “helps consumers in the moment to opt-in and connect to brands.” Consumers can use their mobile phone like a remote control to surf or communicate with large screens in storefront windows, cafes, bars, or city streets. The company “converts passive out-of-home networks into interactive marketing networks.” This was definitely one of the most different, unique applications of technology and Web 2.0 social networking at Demo 2006.

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