Archive for July 19th, 2008
Getting More out of Podcamp Boston 3
I had a great time at both the original Podcamp and at PodCamp Boston 2. Being part of the PodCamp community has had a positive impact on my life and is one of the reasons I have gotten to know many of the people I know in the greater Boston area. If you are lucky enough to be amongst the 480 people who made up the community of people attending PodCamp Boston 3, there is no doubt in my mind you are in the middle of a fun weekend. And I really would have liked to be in Boston this weekend for Pod...
F|R Crib Sheet: 15 Sites to Cut Your Startup Operating Costs
Clever founders always eke the most out of every buck. But economic conditions being what they are, even the best bootstrappers could use a little extra help. By now you’ve probably heard of web sites like GasPriceWatch.com, GasBuddy and MSNAutos, which help consumers find the cheapest fuel prices at gas pumps in their geographic area. Such “cost-optimization” sites are now proliferating across all sorts of verticals directly relevant to your most basic startup operating exp...
Billy Joel / Tony Bennett: New York State of Mind @ Shea Stadium
Tony Bennett joins Billy Joel for “New York State of Mind” during Billy’s “Last Stand” @ Shea Stadium on July 16, 2008. A magical night for music at Shea Stadium. Tags: Billy Joel, New York State of Mind, Tony Bennett, Jeff Pulver ...
From New London to Orient Point
Yesterday I took a ferry from New London, CT to Orient Point, NY on what was a hazy, hot and humid summer afternoon. These days there is cell phone coverage across the Long Island Sound so I spent the trip talking on my cell phone and taking memories. ...
The Week That Was (aka The Josh Hamilton Story)
If there was a dominant theme on MET this past week it was Josh Hamilton. Hamilton is a baseball player with the Texas Rangers whose comeback from drug and alcohol addiction was capped in fairy tale style when he hit a staggering 28 home runs during the All-Star home run derby. Inspired by his comeback and performance, I wrote a quick post. In no time at all, the traffic started to soar on MET - strange given this is a tech blog. I discovered that doing a Google search for “Josh Hamilton&#...
Batman, the surveillance society, and moral design
The Dark Night (2008), the latest Batman picture is full of moral challenges. One of them is the mobile-phone-powered surveillance state. Wayne Enterprises backdoors mobile phone hardware throughout Gotham City, enabling continuous audio surveillance and location reporting. A WE computer system filters all the streams, matching against samples of Joker’s voice. This is all for Batman, not for the corrupted Gotham Police Department. Lucius Fox, CEO of WE, tells Bruce Wayne this is t...
Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch
There’s already a ton of activity taking place in the cloud computing space, so much so that it can be hard to know who to watch. In many cases, it’s too early to pick winners. But there are distinct sectors of the IT industry that are particularly well suited to the on-demand, pay-as-you-go economics of cloud computing. Here are eight segments — and one company that’s a segment all its own — that we’re tracking closely. Hosting companies that make the jump: ...
Will Mark Kingdon’s Reign Boost Second Life?
Back in April, ex-Organic CEO Mark Kingdon took the helm of Linden Lab, replacing its charismatic founder, Philip Rosedale, at a time when the company was already struggling in an increasingly competitive market. While Linden claims to be profitable, its market share has plateaued, with scalability and usability woes keeping the number of monthly active users around 550,000 since last summer. Is Second Life still relevant in this far more dynamic playing field, which now includes Lively, an off...
Nails on a Chalkboard: The Google Chat Notification Sound
There’s a scene in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” in which Jim Carrey asks, “Do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?” And then he screeches at the top of his lungs. If that movie was made today you could easily substitute Carrey’s screaming for the notification sound Google Chat makes. You are feverishly working on deadline, concentrating to craft the perfect sent- Dunk!… -ence, when that noise cuts through your mind as your- Dunk!…...
With Exits Barred, VCs Keep Investments Flat
If you believe the venture capitalists on Friday’s conference call about the latest MoneyTree Survey results, which covers venture investing in the second quarter, now is the best time to contact them with your ideas. Just because the exit environment is brutal doesn’t mean VCs won’t continue to put their time and dollars into seed and early-stage deals, two of them said. And so far the data bears that out. But if the exit environment stays grim, early-stage fundings will drop...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.