Crunchies 2007 After Party, originally uploaded by Zivity.

Yesterday I attended The Crunchies, an award ceremony to honor innovation in the tech community. The event was organized by TechCrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, and VentureBeat.

My personal highlights from the award ceremony were:

• Live performance by The Richter Scales, singing “Here Comes Another Bubble“.
  
  In case you haven’t seen the video before, it is must viewing. It combines melody from Billy Joel with acapella (my favorite kind of music) with technology startup themes and humor. The video opens with a line from my friend and Powerset investor and board member Peter Thiel stating there is absolutely not a bubble in technology. The song later features lyrics such as “Babies blogging in the womb” and “I sold my twenties for a worthless pile of tech stock”. My friends in the group, Tom Shields and James Currier, invited me to come sing with them sometime, which could be a lot of fun.

• Fake Steve Jobs accepting the Crunchies award on behalf of Apple for the IPod.
  
  His speech is totally hilarious. The whole speech is like one big inside joke. I had previously read his book “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody“, an autobiography of Steve Jobs as told by Fake Steve Jobs, and this video conveys the parody well.

• A video of my friend Nova Spivak (Founder of Radar Networks) answering the question about the most important technology innovation. Given the position he has taken in recent panels we have been on together, one might have thought he would talk about the Semantic Web, but instead Nova argued passionately about the virtues of Cool Whip!

  He illustrated many uses of the technology and had had the crowd rolling with laughter. This also inspired us to attempt to have a cool-whip afterparty, which fizzled out.

• Running video commentary by Sarah Meyers. Even without the platinum wig and corset she wore during her Party Crashers career (including crashing Powerset’s Series A Funding Party), she’s still adorable and very personable.
• Luke Nosek from The Founders Fund presenting the awards for “Best Business Model” and “Most Likely To Succeed”. While many of the candidates were Founders Fund portfolio companies, I appreciated that he was wearing a Powerset t-shirt (with the grunting pigeon) under his jacket.

The After Party took place in the famous Green Room. My group had to wait a little while to get into the party, which exceeded the capacity of the room. The wait itself was fun because we were joined in line by MC Hammer. The party was enlivened by a photo activity sponsored by Zivity. In his award introduction Luke Nosek had described Zivity as “Myspace for Grownups.” People took photos with props, costumes, and attitudes, accompanied by several Zivity models. I included a photo of me (in cowboy hat) with Pearl and Cyan in this post. The rest of the collection is fun.
Overall, while the event had its ups and downs, there was really a nice sense of community and cameraderie in both the presentations and in the audience. The award recipients made really brief and generally humble speeches (with the exception of Fake Steve Jobs, of course), most of them thanking their engineers and their moms. The videos shown during the ceremony were mostly sent in by nominated companies. Altogether it felt more like a summer camp show than the Oscars and it is good to see our community not taking itself too seriously. On that note, it was great to see Om Malik on stage at the event shortly after recovering from a heart attack that had left him hospitalized and the subject of much concern among his friends. When people saw him at the event there much applause and support.
I took some photos of the event myself and plan to post them here soon.

found in zero gravity

Originally uploaded by Esthr.

We met with Esther Dyson today and she told us about her trip to Zero-G on Saturday. Other friends on the trip include James Hong and Kim Malone. I might have come too if my old Mayfield email were still working… but Esther says I’ll have another chance!

[on] Nov. 4, when “Chicken Little” opens across the country – and in at least 85 movie theaters equipped with costly state-of-the-art 3-D projection equipment, silver screens and the latest in goofy-looking 3-D eyewear.

This quote from a Disney exec indicates that after many slow starts, 3D might finally be going mainstream:

“I honestly don’t think it’s a novelty,” said Charles Viane, president of distribution for Disney, which may release all its future animated movies in 3-D should “Chicken Little” meet expectations at the box office. “I think you’ll miss the dimensionalization in movies that don’t have it.”

I’m a believer in the coming age of 3-D. I think it will have broad implications for our interaction with media, and also will fuel strong growth for successful new companies over the next 5 years. For more on 3-D, see my flickr photo album from my trip to SIGGRAPH in LA. Watch this column for more on this trend.

The MagicBoard project aims at augmenting a perfectly ordinary whiteboard-like surface with electronic capabilities, via a video projector and a pan / tilt / zoom camera.
The user works on the board as in the usual way, drawing or writing with ordinary marker pens. Whenever she chooses, the user can “grab” an electronic copy of the things that have been drawn or written with the marker pen. This copy is projected back onto the board, precisely overlaying the original markings with the appropriate colour. The physical ink may then be erased and the electronic version manipulated on the board’s surface: it can be duplicated, moved, enlarged or reduced, printed, or hidden for a moment before being recalled. Meanwhile, the user may add to her designs with the marker pen as before. At any time, these new markings can be turned into digital form to merge with the electronic version of her work.

This work was originally developed as part of the Facilitator Room project at MIT. My friend Mark Torrance worked on this project during his grad school days at MIT, when it was called the “Intelligent Room”.
My friend Heather Read just wrote to me that her daughter is using the MagicBoard in school, so this technology seems to have made it into operational use. I find this very exciting!
The project also has a connection to the MERBoard, a collaborative whiteboard developed by one of my former groups at NASA and used during the Mars Exploration Rover mission. In addition to letting users manage electronic content using whiteboard metaphors, the MERBoard was used for synchronous and asynchronous distributed collaboration.
As prices come down and technology improves, I think the form factor of networked interactive whiteboards will become increasingly common in work and educational environments. Imagine the possibilities of magic wallpaper covering our homes and offices!

July 20, 2005

I thought it was an interesting
discussion. Here are the points I found most noteworthy:

• blog search: I agree with Marc’s comments about the growing importance of
  Blog Search, and his view that the aggregators will capture the market
  value from the long tail of blog search. I personally like
  www.blogpulse.com the best. Cuban’s new IceRocket seems to be direct
  knockoff. Blogpulse gets my vote for best blog search engine not just
  because my friends from Whizbang days were the founders of this service,
  but because it has the best analytics and, unlike Technorati, it hasn’t
  yet hit a scaling barrier.

• Releasing movies simultaneously in all channels: I think that’s a great
  idea, and it is exciting to see Marc Cuban in a position to lead the way
  here.

• Interactive TV and accountable TV advertising models: I agree with him that models for TV advertising are going to change, and that this will be enabled by interactive TV (and time shifting services like Tivo). The 30 second
  spot is dying (George Gilder made a comment about this in a preceding
  session at Always On), and new measurable forms of advertising are being
  developed to take its place. I don’t expect it will be as simple as
  pay-for-placement, but I do think internet and tv advertising models will
  come together in some interesting blend over the next few years.

• Dennis Rodman and Paris Hilton’s intuitive sense for media
  manipulation: indeed! (I hope that previous reference doesn’t cause my blog
  to become misclassified…).

Below are my (mostly raw) notes from this session.

Notes by Barney Pell

Marc Cuban: Government can’t do innovation. Hollywood is even worse
NBA general manager’s #1 job is not to win championships, but to keep his
job. Similarly, Hollywood managers #1 job is to keep their job, and meet
all the starlets you can. That friction helps.

No matter what DRM you do on content, it will still get cracked, and
they’ll say it’s not strong enough. For getting content out, the most
important issues are really about control.

For control on content: our NBA team tried to push out own branded
merchandise with own online store, whereas other teams were supposed to sell
through NBA store only. We sold on our own and did better than them. They
tried to wheel us back in.

q: There was a survey for average consumers, on “what is holding you back?” They said
the solutions being offered in the market are way too complex for the aavg
consumer to want to buy or figure it out and get value from it.

Cuban: I don’t agree. How many use vchip, PIP, etc? Tech is alwasy too slow,
too expnsive, and too ahrd to use. but then prices gets to the point where
as long as it does one thing it doesn’t matter. We used to look at someone
with cellphone as gauche.

Also, surveying people: it’s not the job of the consumer to think what best
solutions are to the potential needs in the future. People don’t think about
ultimate tech solutions. Consumers follow the path of least resistance. To
talk to yhour friends and family, the path is the cellphone and becoming
cheap enough to use it. Overall use complexity doesn’t matter as long as
you can do the one thing you want to do. So focus groups are always
misleading…

That brings us to blogs.icerocket.com. At this point in time in the
blogosphere, there’s all this discussion about ability to searchblogs, tag
blogs. technorati has been self-proclaimed for tag searches. we’re changing
icerocket name to blogscour. and there’s blogpulse and others. they allow
you to search for references in blogs. So I can search for myself,
mavericks, to see what consuemrs are saying as representative of consumer
consensus.

This is different from search, as the’re a real-time nature to blogs, and a
passion to blogs. I did a search on “Marc Cuban Pittsburgh pirates”. Or
track our movie about Enron, tracking consumer sentiment. When I search for
these on Google or Yahoo I see the same results every time. Icerock enables
me to know everyday what’s being added to the blog consciousness. That’s a
unique differentiating point going on in search right now. Depending on
where blogs go, how much traction and usage they get from readers, will be
interesing to see the balance between people searching for relevant info vs
timely info. Google has been able to handle one but not the other, so that’s
why we got into blog search.

q: blogging is growing virally, exponentially. do you see that becoming the
defacto way people communicate about breaking issues. how will my mother
become a blogger?

Cuban: people will still go to outlets they trust and relate to. Fox, CNN are
brands, trusted outlets. But there’s also a fragmentation or long tail
issue. More people watch cable than broadcast tv, as there are more
channels. For bloggers it’s more difficult to stand out as there are so
many choices. For bloggers to standout and become branded, you have to go
outside the medium, outside blogging, and promote yourself just like
everyone else. It’s easier right now, as it’s new and different. But soon
it will just be another medium where people have to compete and work to
stand out. This also really leads to aggregators. The individuals won’t
have a marketing budget, but on an aggregated basis they’ll have the
marketing muscle. The aggregated blogs will be marketed as a group. That’s
where I see a lot of value.

q: What’s your position on podcasting?

Cuban: I have 2 articles about podcasting on my blog. The economics are
analogous to streaming for individual podcasters. It’s different because
with streaming you’re tied to a device, vs podcasting you’re
mobile. Regardless, it’s a long tail phenomena. Podcasting for individuals
will be a labor of love and fun, but your revenue per hour won’t be minimum
wage. With that said, it’s a viable distribution medium for existing media,
like Howard Stern, etc who already have name and demand. We’ll take HDNet
world report and make a podcast, it’s a great brand extender. But for an
individual to make a business out of it, podcasting is hot, easy, cheap to
distribute, but you’ll be long tail so it’s difficult to make money out of it.

Marc Canter: This man is fighting the fight for us to change hollywood. talk
about releasing a movie on movies, theatres, and dvd at the same time!

Cuban: My partner Todd Wagner and I own several movie theatres, like Landmark,
geared toward more adult audiences (not disney films). And HdNet, multiple million
subscribers. And HDNet films, where our first move was “Enron: the smartest guys in
the room”, which was a real success.

Traditionally the gates are defined by hollywood. Most money made in the
first week. Studios then make a separate push when go to dvd window. Our
feeling was, why not just release in all forms at the same time and let
consumers decide how they want to receive it. HdNet movies, HdNet
subscribers, theatres, embarcadero, or on dvd on the same date. We’ll make
you pay a premium for the dvd as prefer theatre initially for costs, but
we’ll give you the choice. I don’t care if you buy a movie on a keychain,
flashdrive, etc: I want to provide it to you in whatever format you want.
Hollywood thinks they have the right formats for you, but we think consumers
want to choose. Some theatres say they won’t carry out movies as they
believe in day and date. I say: look at the Mavericks, every game is sold
out yet they’re on TV at the same time. People want to get out of the
house. Good things will happen.

q: IPTV, how fast to have it in my house?

Cuban: If you have direct tv or dish, you have it now. Not a question of will
you have it, but question of when. Over next 12 months will start to take
off, as Fox will really push it in direct tv. And you can experience it in
video on demand (VOD). Pay per click, cost per action, will translate to
TV. To fulfill that you need some form of interactive tv.

IPTV is just a diferent way of fulfilling demand. However you design your
network, as streaming, broadcast, or internet… Distribution over internet
won’t be as big as it could have been, as it fell apart with the failure of
the multicast initiative, which was far more bandwidth efficient. They all just
thought it wouldn’t be a big deal for a while. Now that while is here, and
having to deliver everything on unicast or p2p bittorrent type basis will
slow that down.

q: how many of your potforlio companies are showing up in asia?

Cuban: Zero. Complexity rises as travel rises. It’s easier to do deals closer to home
even though there are some cost savings working it remotely.

q: When will you make hdnet and hdmovies available on cable?

Cuban: They are available now. but not on comcast… so call comcast and ask them
to carry these! HDNet will also have the NHL in high def.

q: How was Dennis Rodman as a houseguest?

Cuban: He just lied around and watched cartoon network. The two people I
learned the most about marketing from were Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Dennis
Rodman, and Paris Hilton. Dennis didn’t always know why what he did with
the media was the right thing, but when you listen to him you see he was
right. And Paris too. They played the media like a fiddle and know just what
do to.

[Tag: AlwaysOn2005]

The Internet is shaking up the once-staid and lucrative business of classified advertising. Newspaper publishers that once enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the classified market now face increasing competition from Web sites like eBay.

This comes just days after Ebay agreed to buy Shopping.com. I think the eBay/Shopping.com deal seems to be more strategic, because eBay was already in the business of helping users comparison shop for products. But I do agree that the decline of the newspaper classified advertising business is driving major activity by all the papers. Following on these lines, I expect there will be a string of acquisitions of vertical search engines, particularly those related to classifieds, within the next year. The next one I would predict: Oodle, a classified search engine that aggregates across many sources of classified ads and provides a nice faceted search interface.

I myself have always believed that video games, like games in general, are good for kids and adults alike. I will be interested to read his arguments about TV being good for you, as I must admit that TV feels for the most part like passive entertainment. With that said, I watched an incredible amount of TV as a child, to the point that I could identify commercials within the first 5 seconds. Since I turned out ok (for the most part, at least), it is possible that this was harmless or potentially even good for me. Or maybe if it hadn’t been for all that TV, I could have been a contender…

When users access content through a branded source (either a print
publication or an online destination), the path by which they reached the
content plays a strong role in setting expectations for the credibility of
the content. Users increasingly access news content through search
engines. This has the effect of giving random access to content. In some
cases, users who click on search results can equally well find themselves
reading an article in a high school newspaper or the Washington Post.

However, while there is some potential for deceptive publications to mislead
readers, the content itself gives many clues about credibility. Many people
want higher quality content that has been put through a reviewed process and
are willing to pay for this with their attention or their dollars. This
point was expressed well at D3 by the newspaper publishers and by Barry
Diller. The new access to additional voices seems to me to be purely
additive and will not detract from the role or business of mainstream media.

As concerns quality reviewed content itself, a larger threat to newspapers
(and to all mainstream publishers) is that high-quality media professionals
(like Dan Gilmoor) can exploit the new publication and distribution
landscape to go out on their own. To the extent that readers identify with
the brands of content (experts, shows) more than the brands of publishers
(newspapers, labels, TV networks), this disintermediation can result in a
massive transfer of value and control. Mel Karmazin, the Chief Executive of
Sirius Satellite Radio, said he believes the users will identify with the
content, which motivated his investment in exclusive licensing of Howard
Stern to Sirius radio. Moreover, small players can focus on narrower topics
that add higher value to niche audiences than does mainstream media. Steve
Jobs gave a demo of podcasting, which will both add new voices and offer
disintermediation for established content.

With this shift in economics, it is not obvious what is the best way for
mainstream media to respond. Intermediaries clearly have to serve as good
infomediaries and focus on usable packaging and editorial selection make it
easy for users to find quality content they want. However, mainstream
publishers are traditionally not set up to provide editorial selection with
respect to the long tail of content. I think the struggle to be relevant to
more narrow segments is what motivated major newspaper publishers to puchase
internet aggregators like Topix.net and About.com. It also is driving the
shift in music (and now video) from branded networks and publishers like ABC
and CBS to narrowcast technology providers like Sirius Satellite Radio and
Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Mel Karmazin, suggested that prospects for the
old networks are limited in the new media world. If so (still a big if),
the strategy for newspaper publishers may depend on the extent to which
people want to read news they can discuss with other readers vs. the desire
to have news that is most uniquely of interest to themselves.

• The early history of Yahoo!
• The alternating and intertwined importance of algorithmic search and editorial directories in the past and the future of
  Yahoo!

• Yahoo!’s history and current developments in media and entertainment,
  including the Yahoo’s subscription music service

• Communications and Mobile services
• The feature wars with Google and other competitors, including the
  increasing focus on personalization and community

For me, the most interesting part of the whole discussion concerned the
acknowledgement that search is king today, but that tags and personalization
are ushering in a new importance for editorial browsing:

David: People start with words, but in the results the directory is
there. People have become very comfortable with typing in words.

Jerry: Philosophically, as people want to navigate they may choose to search,
choose to browse. As we see more heightened awareness around tags, it brings
us closer to a filtered or browse scenario. I think we’re just starting to
see the back and forth scenarios. Yahoo has that capability. We can do it
in a very integrated way. Eventually those two finding metaphors will
coexist.

The rest of this blog entry contains my notes.

Note: While I’m pretty good at capturing sessions in real-time, so this almost looks like a transcript, I don’t claim that I was accurate in the notes — I did not capture everything, and abbreviated or interpreted as I absorbed the content.

• All Things Digital Conference
• David Filo and Jerry Yang, Co-Founders of Yahoo!
• Interviewed by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal)
• May 24, 2005