January 20, 2008
Crunchies 2007 Award Ceremony and After Party
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.
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May 9, 2006
Esther Dyson found in zero gravity
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!
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September 28, 2005
Going Deep for Digital
Here’s an interesting article fom the NYT, Going Deep for Digital, about the coming launch of major movies in 3D and the conversion of cinemas to digital technology.
[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.
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September 21, 2005
Magic Wallpaper
I just learned about the MagicBoard.
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.
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July 20, 2005
Marc Cuban at AlwaysOn05
Fireside Chat with Marc Cuban, interviewed by Allen Delattre
At Always On 2005
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...).
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June 6, 2005
Shopzilla to be acquired for $525M
According to an article in Reuters today,
the E. W. Scripps Co., which owns newspapers, broadcast and cable TV networks, said it will pay $525 million in cash for 100 percent of Shopzilla, one of the leading pure-play shopping search engines (formerly known as Bizrate).
The article offers this rationale for the deal:
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.
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June 1, 2005
Everything Bad Is Good For You
Steven Berlin Johnson 's new book, entitled "Everything Bad Is Good For You" is getting a lot of discussion lately, based on the New York Times excerpt. One point of the book is to argue that TV and Video Games are good for you, and to challenge the view that these forms of entertainment degrade our minds vs. reading written text.
On his blog, the author shares a book passage that was not in the NYT excerpt in which he provides a satirical perspective of how a video game purist might criticize book reading if video games had come first. For example:
But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person?
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...
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May 29, 2005
More thoughts on digital media after D3 conference
My friend Matt Hurst appreciated my comments on the blog and newspaper panels but asked for more of my thoughts about the issues raised during the D3 conference. This note is a start at such a response.
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.
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Yahoo's David Filo and Jerry Yang at D3
Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg interviewed Yahoo!'s David Filo and Jerry Yang in the last session 2005 All Things Digital Conference. David and Jerry reflected on:- 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
The rest of this blog entry contains my notes.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.
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May 28, 2005
Barry Diller at D3: Search and Ecommerce, Media and Entertainment
Kara Swisher interviewed Barry Diller on the final day of the 2005 All Things Digital Conference. Barry reflected on trends in Media and Entertainment in a digital world, and provided significant insight into the strategy behind his purchase of Ask Jeeves and the InterActive Corp Ecommerce network. Key items I found interesting:- On increasing new voices in online media(following on the Blogs and Mainstream Media session earlier that day): More online contributors won't fundamentally change things. Editorial will always be important. Talent will rise to the top. Gatekeeping is good and will always have economic value. Newspapers that have good print products will certainly have valuable online products, as long as they don't reserve the best content for their offline media.
- Strategy behind the purchase of Ask Jeeves: IAC realized that "Everlasting life is probably going to begin with a search box." Ask Jeeves has a great search experience. By putting stronger marketing muscle behind it and integrating with it IAC's other properties that generate tons of traffic (e.g. match.com, citysearch, expedia, realestate.com), we can increase the value of the site and ensure a front-door experience into all their businesses. The simple ability to increase traffic to Ask Jeeves made this a straightforward economic decision.
- On satellite and photographic store-front views: Barry doesn't think this is as compelling as many other search features, such as reviews and comparisons of local restaurants.
- Barry now loves his users, vs. 6 years ago when he said he didn't think about them.
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May 25, 2005
Blogging vs. Mainstream Media Part 2: The Mainstream Media Publishers
The final day of the 2005 All Things Digital Conference began with a two-part panel session on Blogging and the Mainstream Media. The first panel comprised a set of well known bloggers. The second panel comprised a set of well known mainstream media publishers.
All Things Digital Conference
Blogging and Mainstream Media Session
May 24, 2005
Part 2: The Mainstream Media Publishers
- Don Graham, CEO, Washington Post
- Tony Ridder, CEO, Knight Ridder
- Peter Kann, CEO, Dow Jones and Company
The rest of this blog entry contains my notes from the publishers panel.
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Posted by barney at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
Blogging vs. Mainstream Media Part 1: The Bloggers
The final day of the 2005 All Things Digital Conference began with a two-part panel session on Blogging and the Mainstream Media. The first panel comprised a set of well known bloggers. The second panel comprised a set of well known mainstream media publishers.
One thought that struck me while taking notes during the panel was that the bloggers for the most part spoke very quickly, rarely finished a sentence or a thought, offered many provocative and personal statements, and contained some genuinely interesting nuggests admidst the volume of content. By contrast, the mainstream publishers spoke much more slowly, in complete sentences (and even paragraphs), were thorough in their facts, offered broad historical context for their statements, and articulated the principles of journalism that have been the basis for their industry. Hence the different style of the panels mirrored that of the media itself.
The rest of this blog entry contains my notes.
Continue reading "Blogging vs. Mainstream Media Part 1: The Bloggers"
Posted by barney at 11:09 AM | Comments (1)