Venson Kuchipudi - Likes

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To new friendfeeders (there are thousands due to Twitter invites and follows), here's what you need to know:

January 21, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Laura Norvig, MiaD, FunTimesGuide and 119 other people liked this

http://www.kyte.tv/ch... 20 things about friendfeed video - Robert Scoble

1. Likes are important. They share items with your followers. Plus, they make a cool database. Mine are at http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

2. If you are seeing too many things, turn off "friend of a friend." Click "hide" on one of the "friend of" items. Then click it again to see the options to hide all items like it. - Robert Scoble

3. Hide is your friend. #2 already shows you how you can use hide in one way, but I use it to hide all Twitter messages that don't have a comment or a like. This makes friendfeed much more useful. Also, all hidden items are at the bottom of each page. - Robert Scoble

Anyone else? Please add to the list. Lost is on, so I'll see how many I can bang out during commercial breaks. - Robert Scoble

There are many, many good intro to FF articles. Zee has written several - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

So is this going to be another 25 things you didn't know about...post ? ;-) - Jeff P. Henderson

Joining rooms can often cause lots of noise also if you have them showing up in your main feed. - Jeff P. Henderson

I just discovered "Rooms" today. If there's a particular topic you're interested in for example: TWIT, iPhone, Twitter, Identica, etc. - hop on over to that room - and start up or contribute to existing conversation. It's addictive! - Cole Orton

Tina: link them in here. - Robert Scoble

Creating lists and grouping your friends is a good way to cut down on noise or see a focused set of posts. - Jeff P. Henderson

4. You can "group" your users together into things called "lists." For instance, if you think I'm a noisy asshole, you can remove me from your home feed and put me into a list called "noisy assholes." That way you can see all your family and friends and not me. Of course, please do come over and check out your noisy asshole list, because sometimes we do say something interesting. I hope. :-) - Robert Scoble

5. You will, most certainly, find your productivity decrease. Though your ability to be entertained and waste on the Internet will surge! :) - Jeremy Toeman

5. This is a forum but with a couple of differences from forums you've used before. First, moderation is totally decentralized -- you can delete comments under your items, I can delete comments under mine. If you see spam or other stuff that's not good you can delete those by using the "More" menu. Second, everyone's view is different based on who they follow. So, if it's boring here it's your own fault! You aren't following exciting enough people! - Robert Scoble

6. Items with graphics and photos generally get more likes than items without. - Robert Scoble

take note of the photos advice - I was posting items without and completely being ignored. - Nation Hahn

7. Rooms are very cool and it will take you a while to discover why. Hint: you can build your own ego room, and bring in RSS feeds from search engines and news services. I've built a room for Davos/World Economic Forum, for instance, where you can see this in action: http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Robert Scoble

8. If you say "bacon" in your posts you will get some likes. People here go crazy for bacon. Oh, and if Tad starts a meme you have two choices: block everyone who participates or join in for the next day or two! - Robert Scoble

6a. To make photos from your WordPress blog come through to FriendFeed, just install the Media RSS plugin "mrss": http://wordpress.org/extend... - Daniel J. Pritchett

9: Most of your friends will not get friendfeed. That won't stop me from talking about it, though. - Robert Scoble

RE: #9 Or the third option, hide memes on an as needed basis. Some are more enjoyable than others. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

10. Make sure you add all your services to friendfeed. Including Twitter. Let your followers hide items or services they don't care about. - Robert Scoble

11. To see cool stuff, click on "Best of" on the top right, but note that behaves differently depending on where you are (each list will have a different "best of" and each room, too. - Robert Scoble

10a. Everybody expects everybody to hide services. It's not rude to use the "Hide" feature on your friends' stuff. - Bruce Lewis

12. You can see everything you've liked or commented on, and so can all your followers (just visit the "Me" page and look in top right for the links -- or visit someone else's friendfeed account and see the same links on THEIR account!) - Robert Scoble

"Like" means you like that a person shared something, not that you necessarily like the news itself. But for the benefit of other new friendfeed users you might comment to explain your "Like" for a plane crash item. - Bruce Lewis

13. Looking for more people to follow? Try http://friendfeed.com/setting... but note that the recommended items will change depending on who you've followed. So, if you follow noisy assholes, it will probably suggest other noisy assholes for you to follow. :-) - Robert Scoble

14. It is OK to ignore trolls who are trying to disrupt the conversation like Chris White is here. But if they get really out of hand block them. You do that by unfollowing them (visit their page and you'll see that link at the top of the page). After unfollowing them you'll see an option to block them. Blocking them keeps them from seeing your items and will remove everything they do from your view. - Robert Scoble

17. If enough people comment simultaneously, the system acts a little wonky. - Jeremy Toeman

(Note: Chris is OK, he's just playing along here, but I do block other people who get out of hand). - Robert Scoble

18. If you hover over someone's name with your mouse you'll see whether or not they are following you (and whether or not you are following them). I can see here that Chris White isn't following me. Which means he is bad boy and should be sent to bed without dinner. - Robert Scoble

26. Friendfeed commentors are often so eager to add to lists sequentially they barely even notice obvious gaps in list numbering (which, you'll also notice is manual, because nobody taught the google guys about the OL tag) - Jeremy Toeman

19. Everything on friendfeed builds a feed you can subscribe to in Google Reader or other RSS readers. - Robert Scoble

Jeremy loves messing with me. I'll get him back. :-) - Robert Scoble

20. In "Tools" you'll find lots of stuff for your blog, how to email in items and photos, and more: http://friendfeed.com/about... - Robert Scoble

21. Morton Fox has liked 44,943 things. I have no idea how he does it cause I like a lot of things and I've only done 15,000 or so. http://friendfeed.com/mortonf... is his like feed. - Robert Scoble

15. (yup, that's where we actually left off) It's okay to "like" something distasteful. "Like" really just means "others should read this too". It's also quite overused, much as the word "like" is overused in conversation by anyone who born after the 70s. - Jeremy Toeman

22. You can see anyone's real-time feed, which shows you what is actually coming into their account at that time. Here's mine: http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... warning, it'll make you dizzy. - Robert Scoble

A good first lesson is; there is no chronological Friendfeed. Don't think you can keep up. Ride it out and enjoy. - Andrew Smith

23. The "Everyone" tab is useful, but only if you figure out that friendfeed has an interesting search engine underneath. For instance, you can go to the Everyone tab and search only YouTube videos. (Click Everyone, then search for say "Daft Punk" and use the "Advanced" feature in search to constrain it to only YouTube). - Robert Scoble

Andrew is right. Don't worry about missing stuff. I call it "media snacking." If I have time, I'll dip in here to engage. I'll check the "Best of" pages first, though, to catch up on the popular stuff (usually bacon or a photo meme). - Robert Scoble

16. Comments cannot be nested, nor can you link to a comment, or even like a comment. You can add another comment and write "+1" to indicate you like another comment, or a higher number, such as "+10" if you very much like a comment. "+100" is to be reserved for the ultimate in commenting. Do not be silly with the "+" system, as this is worth a -4 in case you need to make Friendfeed saving throws later on. Instead, be wise and prudent with your +1s, and they will become your ally for years to come. - Jeremy Toeman

We never talk much about the search feature. Anything outstanding about it worth mentioning? - xavier vespa

xavier: search is a great way to find friendfeed items that you have put into the system. Click on "Me" and then search. Here's everything in my account that includes the words "how to save journalism:" http://friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

re:16.+10++4=+1@Jeremy - Andrew Smith

Elevnty. Subscribe to Tad - Chrimmus Tad

xavier: here's another thing search does very well. Go to "Everyone" and search on something. Now click "advanced" search. I want to know about all the BarCamps that everyone has added to their Upcoming.org site. Here's the search for that: http://friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Search should include rooms but it doesn't. - Andrew Smith

Unfortunately everyone is now trying out search and it goes down. It's the only thing on friendfeed that is not reliable yet. They are working on it, though. When it comes up, another thing I like about search is you can see items just from one data type. Here are all the items from just Upcoming.org: http://friendfeed.com/... - Robert Scoble

31. If you get swept away into friendfeedland, don't try to bring others with you. They will mock and ridicule, and no matter what you say they just "won't get it." This is perfectly okay, they may change - or not - but it shouldn't impact your friendfeeding. Don't ever ask real world friends if they saw something you "liked". They didn't. Ever. - Jeremy Toeman

Very helpful - James Jackson

Jeremy: I solved that. I just got new friends. :-) - Robert Scoble

You school em Scoble ~ lousy twits - sofarsoShawn

Chris: you gave bad advice when you said to unsubscribe from someone if they are noisy. That's really stupid. Put them into a list instead and remove them from your main list. That way you'll be able to check on them from time to time and see if anything they did is useful. Also if things are noisy due to me it's probably due to the friend-of-a-friend feature and you can turn that off without unsubscribing (I have turned it off on my account, those hidden items are at the bottom of the page). - Robert Scoble

Also, that way they won't think you're a jerk for unfollowing them. - Robert Scoble

Chris is right. You can also edit your comments, or your posts. Which is often useful. But you can only delete other people's posts, you can't edit THEIR comments. And you can only delete comments under items you've started (I could delete Chris's comments, for instance, here, but not on other people's items). - Robert Scoble

@Robert that's like leaving the Christian Rock station as one of your presets just on the off chance they'll accidentally play Sympathy for the Devil. sure, it *could* happen, but the odds suck. - Jeremy Toeman

A product made by former Google employees with unreliable search? That's a little ironic. :) - David Potts

28. Never anger the Mona. - Jeremy Toeman

David: search on real time items is a pretty tough problem. Even Google hasn't attempted that one yet. Here's a little test for you. Add a weird word to a comment. Say your son's name. Mine is Milan Scoble. Now wait a minute. Search on that name and you'll find that post in the search results. Google can't do anything close to that. - Robert Scoble

I'm not blaming them, just pointing out the irony. You're right though, I wasn't considering the real time aspect of it. - David Potts

Jeremy - what did I miss? LOL - Mona Nomura

29. If you work very, very hard and get more of your own content liked than anyone else's, while at the same time manage to get more followers than anyone else, you will be dubbed the King (or Queen) of FriendFeed. A ceremonial Cape, Gavel, and oddly enough Toothbrush will be sent your way to show off to your peers. You will also receive a 7% discount card good at all participating Chick-Fil-A establishments. All your content on FriendFeed will be permanently bolded. In a nutshell, you be the awesomest! - Jeremy Toeman

Chris White got blocked by me because he deleted all his comments here. Nasty. - Robert Scoble

I missed it... were his comments useful? - Fa La La La Lindsay

Lindsay: no. Actually he was being a troll the whole way through. - Robert Scoble

Chris White has done that several times with me, so I ended up blocking him after the fourth or fifth time. :| - Mona Nomura

@Lindsay: they were like poetry. they were uplifting. they elevated us to a new place. and now, i fear, they are no more. those bits shalt not be seen again, possibly not in our lifetime. another way to say it might be... "I felt a great disturbance in the Friendfeed, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." - Jeremy Toeman

Mona: yeah, that kind of attitude sucks. But he demonstrated a new thing: if you behave like an asshole you will get removed from our view. (and ours from his so he can't disturb us anymore). - Robert Scoble

Seriously, I don't care if you disagree with me, just be cordial and amicable. If you type out your thoughts, stand by them - why delete? If you make a mistake, apologize or edit, if need be. That's why I like you, Robert. You are opinionated but when you feel like you're wrong, you're man enough to admit it, without resorting to personal attacks. That said, I should've listened to you from day one: block jerks. - Mona Nomura

yes, block jerks... easy rule to follow. If jerk = block! Why would someone delete all their comments?...that makes the entire comment thread get all incoherent. That is sooo lame it's making me laugh... reminds me of grade school antics... gees - Susan Beebe

32. Ask yourself: would you follow you if you were someone else? If the answer is "yes" ask yourself again, just in case :-) - Cristian Vidmar

If you become overwhelmed by the amount of information in your feed try these tips for cleaning and organizing your feed. http://bit.ly/14y - Keith - @tsudo

Best list yet Scoble. You should import the recommendations into a single post so new friendfeeders don't get put off by all of us commenting. - Keith - @tsudo

awesome, tx for the search tips. custom search + rss = booyaka! - xavier vespa

Thanks from a FF Newb! - James Cruce

Great list and comments, as always. I don't see anything however, on the use of lolcats?? Can they be used at any time? :) - Laura Zickus

Other guides to friendfeed are here: http://www.google.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Morton Fox

Zimbabwe introduces $50 billion note - CNN.com - http://www.cnn.com/2009...

January 12, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Bill Romanos, Venson Kuchipudi, AJ Batac and Tyson Key liked this

"HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a $50 billion note -- enough to buy just two loaves of bread -- as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation." - Morton Fox from Bookmarklet

Robert Scoble

The Silicon Valley VC Disease - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

July 26, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Casey, Franklin Pettit, Piaw Na and 64 other people liked this

I actually read the title as "The Silicon Valley VD Disease" ..and nearly jumped out of my seat !! :)- - Peter Dawson

60 more comments

I think the bigger issue is the fact that startups want to scale quickly. What happened to starting slow and small and letting the product naturally develop, grow a natural user base, before getting VC and super expanding? I guess it's not as sexy... - Johan

Johan: startups have this attitude forced on them by the VC's. The VC's only give you enough money to go a year or two. If you don't build a business by then you either have to convince more VCs to give you another two years of cash, or you have to have a business up and running and generating more revenues than expenses by then. And the VCs don't like it if you just sit on the cash. They are hoping you come up with some dramatic business success. - Robert Scoble

I hope it's not contagious - paul mooney

Good post - my phone is not used to connect to the web but to text message. I can't get a handle on the iPhone yet, though. My daughter loves it and that's good enough for me. - LPH™ and his dog P™

The other term for this: Short-sightedness. - Eric Florenzano

ok I jumped off the seat and now back w/beer. :)_ yeah but if you have the right product and appliations , you dot need to shop for VC funds in the first place. The issue is that too many startups are in the markets and nothing really is getting innovated. VS are in to make money. Show me the money and I'll show you my term sheet. Simple investment talk. DOnt waste our time - Peter Dawson

+1 for Peter's "Silicon Valley VD Disease" .... LOL - Mitchell Tsai

Unfortunately VCs are not the best investors. Most are running scared. Even with their efforts, 85% of their investments fail (50% for the top firms). Creates a me-too mentality evident also in the Pharmaceutical industry. Real break-throughs may have less than 1% success rate. That is too scary for most VCs and pharma companies. - Mitchell Tsai

And you can only imagine how frustrating this is for biotech (and explains the lack of funding). Takes 10 years to see some results, 3-5 if you are providing services) - Deepak Singh

Thanks for writing this post, Robert. You're saying better than a lot of us what I'm sure some of us are thinking. It's unfortunate that this kind of thinking can actually prevent innovation and seems counter to the original American entrepreneurial spirit. We all lose when a good idea doesn't get funded to grow as well or as quickly as it could. - Cathryn Hrudicka

There's also the ROI and IRR disease in the VCs. Typical businesses have maybe a 50% success rate (where success is not the VC - 5X my money in 5 years, but includes I-just-want-to-pay-my-salary companies). The VC pressure to provide decent returns pushes many companies to failure. Rule of thumb: If you aren't willing to take out a loan at 40% annual interest (because your company's opportunity is so big & needs fast speed), don't ask VCs and smart angels. "Inexperienced" angels is ok. - Mitchell Tsai

P.S. I'm sitting on a lot of worthless pre-public stock. It's tough to be an investor too. - Mitchell Tsai

basically VC are getting funding via the global Hedge Funds bowl, w/multi legged swap options. so they (VC's) need ROI's to ensure that they can pay back what they took and make a profit at the same time. They win some and lose some, its a gamble.. Follow the money trail for dynamics of this landscape - Peter Dawson

VCs want companies to make money so they can recoup their investment and it's called a disease? The sickness is that many of the companies that get funded get funded when there is no hint of a business/revenue plan in place or even on the horizon. If more VCs had a strategy to invest in companies destined to actually make money of course there would be less SV whiny minor millionaires and more real business. - Brian Sullivan

VC/Angel is the "lottery for the rich": (A) ~15-20% annual returns (B) lottery chance to make $25 million on your $25,000 if you hit a Netscape, Yahoo, or Google. Most mathematicians who make a profit at Vegas gambling move on to stock markets, futures/commodity trading, financial derivatives, hedge funds, etc... - Mitchell Tsai

+1 for Brian: In the VC biz, that's called "pressure to invest". Not enough good ideas & teams to invest in. Conservative VCs won't find enough investments, thus the "pack" disease of VCs all funding hard drives at the same time. Much more fun chasing pictures on the internet. :-) - Mitchell Tsai

Brian: the companies that get funded that have no obvious business model (PodTech and Twitter, for example) are part of the VC Disease of go for a home run. They were hoping that PodTech would turn into the next YouTube and that Twitter turns into the next Google. Remember, Google didn't make money for the first four years of its existence, and, in fact, were almost shut down because they weren't paying their bills at Exodus. - Robert Scoble

Liking mostly because you say not to listen to Dave Hornik. I think I might actually be starting to like you, Robert. - Cyndy

Echoing Robert: Google burned through $26 million before finding profitability with Bill Gross's (IdeaLab) http://idealab.com/about_i... sliding-scale ad fees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... I would have been too chicken to put that much money into Google. The sliding-scale ad idea of Goto.com wasn't a "proven" revenue model either. "In November 2001 Gross defaulted on a $50 million personal loan he had taken from the Bank of America to invest in Idealab". - Mitchell Tsai

Using Google as an example of a company that didn't have a business plan but ended up a big success is getting tired as an argument for support of investment of clueless "businesses" and their founders. Investors in Google and the founders won the lottery -- that doesn't justify investing in the lottery as business strategy. Investing in Iphone apps in my mind would also be a waste of... more... - Brian Sullivan

VCs have to see a deal in this way: 3-5 years to get to 10X return. They can't wait 10 years for a payback, their fund is usually only 10 years as far as I know. So they can't fund things that are too far out. Although it seems clear that the iPhone can create opportunities that fit in this framework of 3-5 years to 10X return, so not sure why Hornick was down on it. Nice, controversial post to get us thinking... I think the disease is more like "groupthink" than it is "lack of long-term vision" - Elliott Ng

+1 Brian - Cyndy

Interesting post Robert. May be what Dave is saying is that when a company has proven their concept on the iphone is ready to scale to other platform, then the time is right to actually go after a bigger VC round. I think that both people like Jeff and Dave are key to the entrepreneurship ecosystem: they just target different stages of the company lifecycle. Another way to prove that is... more... - Edwin Khodabakchian

Brian: when I went to Israel a high percentage of developers there proudly showed me their iPhones. And there's not even an Apple store in the country. I HAVE GONE outside the country. Tons of the best iPhone apps are from outside of SV. I also totally disagree about iPhone not being the winner in mobile computing sweepstakes. At least not as the market is today. But I hear Nokia is coming out with something cool in January, so we'll see. And Microsoft told me they are bringing out something cool next year. - Robert Scoble

Brian, maybe the iPhone will wind up like the Atari, who knows. And I would add that many times investments are at least as much due to the people than to the initial technology. However, the iPhone is a game changer. I find that I'm using it more and more to read news, check the weather, etc--some which is new behavior for me, but also some of which I used to do on my notebook. The iPhone is winning out. Is it perfect yet? No. I want more, but there's a systemic change going on here. - Loren Heiny

Loren: the problem with people who don't own iPhones is they just don't see how big a game changer it is. I wish I could get Brian to carry around the four phones I currently have to see how bad these things all are compared to iPhone. The iPhone isn't perfect, either, but it's years ahead of the others. Of course, back in 1989 the Macintosh was years ahead of everything too and see what happened... - Robert Scoble

Deepak: Agreed, look at Amgen and Genentech as classic Biotech examples - Sally Church

Scobles , are yo sure that iPhones are just not hype ? - Peter Dawson

Mr. Scoble - I'll tell you... this disease causes Myopia too. There are SO many fine business opportunities being pitched right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Wichita... Sevin Rosen Funds has a guy here in Tulsa. EARLY stage oriented. Pre-money oriented. Why KPCB or Charles River (or whoever) doesn't grab some initiative and park a good couple of partners in middle-America and work some new land is beyond me. - Gerald Buckley

You'll get little disagreement from me on this one, Robert. But it's not just VCs, it's inertia. OTOH, Brian Sullivan a few comments up makes a great comparison...iPhone (and Facebook for that matter) are heading the way of BetaMax and MiniDisc, and MemoryStick. I may not use MySpace, but they're the VHS of the Social Network game right now. What we need is for someone to invent the DVD. - Andrew Feinberg

Robert: I have absolutely no need for the Iphone (or any "smart" phone) and certainly would not pay the ridiculous prices some people are paying to use them. These products and their supporters are making a couple of fundamental assumptions that I think are flawed: that most normal people are like California geeks that feel the need to be connected at all times and that people will... more... - Brian Sullivan

Peter D. define "hype"? I can't be sure that iPhone will "win" the mobile space (I seriously doubt it given current pricing). But they're bound to be closing in on their 10 million units worldwide goal, and especially given the price, that doesn't strike me as hype. - Robert Seidman

I completely respect yet disagree with this post. Most designers are not businessmen, VCs help in other ways than a chequebook. You bring the skills and the idea, they teach you how to squeeze money and create revenue. Great ideas change the world but they're not always profitable. VCs are there strictly for the money and you have to respect that. - Steven Cains

What's wrong with investing in Facebook apps, if you get the exposure it's like advertising on Taxi wheels (I've seen this one). As for the iPhone, it has changed the way people are surfing on mobiles and this advertising market is just at the beginning so i see many companies getting inside. The only question i ask myself is either the company can generate money within 3-5 years or not and should i put my money in as if it was after the bubble burst. - Nir Ben Yona

Brian, here are a couple non-California uses of an Internet connected device like the iPhone. Imagine you're in Nebraska in the spring. A storm rolls in. Tornado sirens blare. If you've got your iPhone with you in the closet or basement or wherever in anticipation of a tornado, you've potentially got access to an Internet radio, weather radar maps, 911, etc in your iPhone. Another... more... - Loren Heiny

Great post. I see no excitement surrounding any other phone. People I know who use Windows Mobile phones have to in order to have access to corporate email. Maybe that will change with Apple licensing AciveSync. - Brett Nordquist

Peter: I'm absolutely convinced that iPhones are not hype. Brian: mobile didn't get hot in California first. You really need to visit Europe or Japan or Korea. There we look pretty stupid in our usage of mobile. As for "needing" stuff, you probably 10 years ago would have told me you don't "need" a cell phone, but today I can't name a single person that I know who doesn't have one, except my baby. You need to travel more and watch what people do when a plane touches down. Everyone starts up their mobiles. - Robert Scoble

Has anyone decided if Apple's implememntation of ActiveSync is any good? - Andrew Feinberg

I guess I'm glad I can have whatever phone I choose, and no need to worry about syncing anything, as I'm not tied to a corporate and all the associated bloatware that goes with it... - Ian May

"First, our society’s most valuable audiences are getting iPhones." Really our most valuable audiences? Archeticts are these type of people? What about doctors, nurses, firemen, policemen, etc. They are way more valuable then any single architect in LA. Get over yourself.... That comment alone made me snort my coffee. I know 4 people who iPhones, neither of them would be somoen who i would define as society's most valuable audiences. - Jonathan Jesse

@Loren Heiny I have a co-worker who used his Windows Mobile device in a Tornado to upload video of the tornado, let people know about that he was safe via email all w/o an iPhone. and from the hotel's bathtub which was the safest place. - Jonathan Jesse

@Loren Heiny: when my son was born i used my windows mobile phone to take pictures and email those pictures to everyone i know from one device.... from a windows mobile phone - Jonathan Jesse

@Brian Sullivan: I completly agree.. I have a Windows Smartphone from work, it is also the only cell phone I have. try taking a vacation when you get constantly reminded that work needs you through emails. I am amazed about how rude it is for people to interupt converstations and text/sms/email/twitter whatever instead of talking with the person face to face in front of them. this is something that i am strugeling with as my phone is always "buzzing" with someething new. - Jonathan Jesse

Ok its not hype.. but with over 715Million users of Mobile technology in China alone. What does a 10M unit sold slice in terms of market penetration to these segments ? Just asking.. So you can see how thin of a slice that iPhone really has in terms of market share. A prodcut may have all the bells and whistles on it, but if major user base is not buying into it. then it could be some real issues. - Peter Dawson

I think the whole VC model is broken. We don't need millions of dollars for our startups anymore, we need $25k or $50k. When I hear about companies getting millions of dollars, I always think, what the hell are they doing with it!? - Dawn

To add scale to the 10M figure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... roughly 70% of those will be changing their phone within 5 years. ChinaMobile signs up almost 10M subscribers per month! - Steven Cains

I'll offer this, just me speculating. I'm not sure that the price point of the iPhone is the biggest factor these days. I think we're more bottled by the thought of paying ridiculous prices for sub-par mobile web. I mean seriously, what the heck is with the current rates for cell phone plans. Also, the thought of paying for SMS in 2008 is just silly. It should be included in all plans. Not for the purpose of cutting profits from our providers but rather for American's to catch on to the technology. - Ben Pettit

@ben I vaguely recall Mr. Scoble interviewing someone (was it the FCC commissioner conversation maybe) that had the US basically foregoing SMS and being off & onto the next big thing. SMS won't really stand a chance against what's coming is what I heard. Robert...? Care to put that in better context for us? - Gerald Buckley

Dawn: $25K, $50K, $100K These are the lower-price points for qualified angel investors, who work the lower levels below the first tier of $500K-$3M VCs. One VC person can maybe manage 10-20 investments, so you can divide the size of fund by the number of active partners (x10-20) and figure out what size investments are in a VC-fund's sweet spot. Complicating the issue are some micro-VC funds, angel-type funds, and $5-20K Y-combinator-type-groups. - Mitchell Tsai

Scoble: Great post. Hornik is a very smart guy, but he is hamstrung by the current VC model. VCs need a huge upside because the model dictates that they need to put in a ton of cash on the front end. Most of today's web startups don't require the kind of cash that VCs are used to putting in. That's why Hornik doesn't want to invest in iPhone apps. He wants to invest in companies with hundreds of millions in near-term valuation, not tens on millions. Imho, that is the VC disease -- in SV or out. - Christian Anderson from fftogo

Robert, I left a long comment on the post with my thoughts. I appreciate that some investors don't have the patience to bet early and let an idea run its course. That said, I don't think I am a good poster-child for that problem. August Capital has a long history of betting early and supporting our companies for as long as it takes to create an interesting business. - David Hornik

@cyndy Curious what I said or did to deserve your comment? - David Hornik

David: thanks, I just wrote a new post about this new world where people like you help us arrive at the truth by participating. Appreciate that a lot. - Robert Scoble

Gerald: SMS is seeing some pickup here, but, really, look at Twitter, which is what my son is using now increasingly, or Facebook. If you have an iPhone both of those are a lot better than SMS. Also, my phone is increasingly getting SMS spam, which will really piss people off and keep them from adopting that system. - Robert Scoble

This is not too dissimilar from the Innovator's Dilemma concept by Christensen. The "right" business decision ("right" as in profit-maximizing) would be to invest in big, rich markets: that's precisely why there is an opportunity for disruptors to enter the market. - Tito Costa

+1 for Michael Sheehan. - Mitchell Tsai

None of this seems like rocket science. Valley VCs want big returns in short amount of time. Asking them to invest in small slower-growing but sustainable markets is like going to Ford Motor headquarters and asking to buy a windshield wiper. It isn't the scale that they're working at. - Michael

While you make some valid points, Robert, I don't it is fair to call it a disease. Looking for investments with a short-term return potential is certainly a legitimate investment strategy. I can't fault them for opting for perferring lower risk, quicker payoff investments, rather than longer-term (and thus higher risk) investment that *may* payoff huge in 10 years. That said, there are other types of investment strategies out there -- I think your post highlights a void that needs to be filled. - Mark Carey from Moopz

I still think, after reading the post, the follow up and this thread, that a VC is perfectly entitiled to pick and choose investments based on the return. And I'm sure there will be a few start-ups that have a Walmart business plan - take two asprin and call me in ten years. Because thats the way it is in technology (not just SV). The issue here is that we don't hear form these companies. We may well get the next Google, Microsoft, Sun, HP, etc from there. - Roberto Bonini

I thing this disease is more of a symptom of greed and ego vs. making a difference in the tech world. But then again, isn't that what business is about? It is very hard for traditional business to grasp this concept, and is why real innovation wont be found there. - Venson Kuchipudi

The problem with VC's is not that they have a disease but that there is no quality control. I am sure the good ones are very good but most of us never get to work with the good ones. On the other hand, I believe many Entrepreneurs (in the Silicon Valley) are in fact infected with a disease which is that they think the only way to start companies and generate net worth is with VC money. VC's are like "former" mother-in-laws. They cease to be a problem when you stop sleeping with their daughters. - Denny K Miu

Kevin Rose

Digg Meetup this Wed 7/23 in Chicago - http://blog.digg.com/?p=130

July 21, 2008 from Digg - Comment - Like - Share

Venson Kuchipudi, Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕ and Keith Smith liked this

Wish I could make it... maybe you guys will find your way to StL some time. - Keith Smith

Dam it I just left Chicago - Francis P Bonnemere

Mona Nomura

7 Essential Cheat Sheets To Download | MakeUseOf.com - http://www.makeuseof.com/tag...

July 21, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Walt Ruppar, fbrunel, Atul Arora and 17 other people liked this

Where's the vim one? ;-) - directeur from NoiseRiver

6 more comments

Google Search Windows Mac OS X Gmail FF (win+mac) Google Reader - Mona Nomura

Fam5.com says: GREAT resource thank you for posting these. - Admiral70

My pleasure :) - Mona Nomura

@directeur: Vim's help system is my cheat sheet. :) - Morton Fox

@Morton vim <3 - embee

@Morton Fox (mortonfox): :he :) - directeur from NoiseRiver

@Morton and @embee: One of my posts on the subject: http://xhtml-css.com/blog... :) - directeur from NoiseRiver

edythe

brooklynvegan: Devendra Banhart's 'Carmensita' video w/ Natalie Portman - http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archive...

July 21, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Venson Kuchipudi, Eric Florenzano and Robert Seidman liked this

Grandma, I love you in a salad way! - Robert Seidman

Bollywood and Natalie Portman - Wow! - Victor Ryden

Scott Beale

Pork and Beans - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

May 23, 2008 from YouTube favorites - Comment - Like - Share

jennifercrakow, David, Todd Dailey and 10 other people liked this

what an aweome video / song! - Chris Jones from twhirl

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Best video i've seen in an awful long time. so meta! - Chrimmus Tad

Such a great great band. I was trying to describe them to some people in Mexico yesterday ... not so easy. The irony gets killed by the language barrier. - Clay Newton

Dope! - Tim Moore

Hugh MacLeod

People following the current Twitter brouhaha would be well advised to read this CLASSIC from @cshirky: http://snurl.com/2abxg

May 23, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

B.L. Ochman, Shawn L. Morrissey, Venson Kuchipudi and Peter Dawson liked this

Robert Scoble

Note to Web 2.0 Companies: Early Adopters are not the Mass Market - http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog...

May 21, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

zsafwan , Kevin Johnson, John Jarvis and 24 other people liked this

Good points. There's a lot more people out there that don't even know what RSS is than people like me. - Robert Scoble

15 more comments

I wish more people would realize that Web 2.0 innovation isn't mainstream in the grand scheme of things. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

or put another way - (from http://www.shirky.com/writing...) "Kofi Annan's 2000 speech to the Australian Press Club, where he said "Half the world's population has never made or received a phone call." " - Nancy Babyak

I think I saw Paul Buchheit say here before that you start with the early adopters, because you need traction to survive. Then you iterate through features to grow the more mainstream audiences. So getting early adopters' interest early is actually a vital part of eventually getting to the mass market. - Hutch Carpenter

I think this point is a particularly good one: "The problem an RSS reader solves is "I read so many blogs and news sites on daily basis, I need a tool to help me keep them all straight". How many people who aren't enthusiastic early adopters (i) have this problem and (ii) think they need a tool to deal with it?" One new product that might speak to this is Times for the mac. It has a way to go, but it does take a different approach. http://www.acrylicapps.com/times... - Tom Landini

I know a lot of people who have no clue what an RSS is or how to aggregate blogs. Many of my biotech/pharma clients read but do not subscribe, so they send me emails instead of commenting on the blog. Arrrgh! - Sally Church

I was reading something from Steve Rubel about how Google News rules. I had to inform him that my mom sends me news articles that she finds on AOL. - Ontario Emperor

That doesn't mean you can't build a small company on early adopters, either. You just can't take funding for it... (unless you can completely own the market segment and the early adopter crowd is big for that segment) - lilbyrdie

Robert -- precisely what I said in that comment exchange last week :) Also happen to be reading Crossing the Chasm at the moment. - Andrew Badera

Good "note" to Web 2.0 companies... wisdom indeed~! they need to realize we are only an edgy segment of the market. - Susan Beebe

Not sure I agree. Gibson said, "The future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed." Early adopters ARE the the mass market, just the slice that's in the future. What problem that "everyone" had did Jobs solve with the iPod in 2001? To paraphrase the famous quote, if Henry Ford had listened to the problems of the mass market, he would have built faster horses. - Karim

Early adopters just have a lower threshold for trying things out. They don't need to see X number of neighbors using something before making up their own minds about it. It's not that they have radically different tastes, needs, desires. Some of them (like Scoble) are edge cases because they push the new technology hard (e.g. 5,000 friends in Facebook). But early adopters aren't necessarily all edge cases. - Karim

The argument is based on the notion that early adopters have different needs and wants -- I don't think this is true. The best you can say is don't build things to suit the needs of edge cases. But that's common sense. Most of the people building things for niche markets (e.g. interior design of personal 767 aircraft) KNOW that they're building for niche markets and edge cases. - Karim

Karim, Apple's form factor (for storage size) was a big innovation at the time relative to other MP3 players, not to mention better UI, navigation and menus and a gazillion dollars of marketing. Plus almost everyone enjoys music, but most of the population would rather ask someone else a question than look up the answer themselves on Google... - Robert Seidman

It's more than whether the problem you solve is mainstream. Early adopters are willing to tinker; so, they'll be comfortable plugging multiple apps together to get what they want. The pragmatists won't do that. So, remembering my Geoffrey Moore, the key is to get a foothold with the early adopters, then ignore everything about how they use your app and find the early mainstream users and rebuild to suit their requirements. - Barry Graubart

I buy the "early adopters are willing to tinker" argument -- they have a higher threshold of putting up with crap (in exchange for the new technical ability). But this doesn't mean they have "different problems and different needs" from the mass market. Earlier adopters *will* mess with a smartphone that requires 2 firmware updates and 5 software updates. That doesn't mean they *want* to, that they have some burning desire to tinker and patch their phone and reboot it 17 times a day. - Karim

Mostly, like the late adopters, they just want their stuff to work without too much effort. (I am of course ignoring the small Early Adopter subset of True Tinkerers, the folks who take soldering irons to their new toys just for fun.) - Karim

Anthony Farrior

Has The Twit-Out today persuaded anyone to totally stop using twitter?

May 21, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Dobromir Hadzhiev, Adewale Oshineye, Bwana ☠ and 4 other people liked this

No. There is no good alternative to Twitter at this time, at least if you're using a mobile phone interface. - Ontario Emperor

18 more comments

I feel bad since I made so many new contacts there,If/when I stop altogether I'll have to build my community back up here... - Anthony Farrior

No, my friends are there so I have to return. - Morton Fox

Nop, I have just hidden all tweets here. - Gadiel Rivera

Nope, I'll be going back for sure - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I doubt I'll stop using Twitter. I'll go back tomorrow. In fact, I may go back after I check woot.com at midnight. - ha3rvey (just a friend)

Uh no lol - Corvida

hahahaahahhahaha, you've got to be kidding right? - Nathan Eckenrode

I hope people go back so I stop seeing status messages in FF, like another FF post mentioned... - elroy from twhirl

As we say in Atlanta, "Hell Nah, Shawty!" - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

not a chance it seems. - Chris Miller

Wasn't intended for that purpose in the first place - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Bloggers couldn't give up Twitter any more than a druggie could give up his crack. - David Risley

I like consuming information on FF, but for posting a quick tweet from my cell phone nothing beats the simplicity of sending an SMS message to twitter. And I like getting updates from my close friends as well as @ replies directly via SMS, too. So I will be heading back to Twitter tomorrow, no doubt. - Alexander Falk

There is a very distinct place for both. Twitter is a great tool, and while I do not participate extensively I would not do without it. - jcunwired

I'll still use both Twitter & FF. - Tim Chemacki

I think they complement each other. I wish Twitter more stable, or maybe the community moved to other similar service (like jaiku) - Alejandro

No, but it has convincied me that there is value in the comments made here! - Nancy Babyak

Nope. Like Shey said, The Twit-Out wasn't meant for that. I'm *LOVING* the conversations that are happening. Tomorrow, I'll go back to Twitter no problem...that is...if it's up - Bwana ☠

no, but convinced a lot of people that there could be valuable communication here as well - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Venson Kuchipudi › Likes