BijanBlog

Blackberry Shoot-Out on Wallstrip

I joined Howard, Fred and Roger at Wallstrip last week for the first Wallstrip Blackberry Shoot-out. It was really fun. Howard had a lot of excuses including a sore pinky finger.

Lindsay is right when she calls this a dork-a-thon :)

Verizon Vcast TV

Verizon Wireless is going to launch VCast TV today as promised.

I've seen demo's of digital broadcast for mobile and the video quality is truly impressive.

But aside from live events (ie sports mostly) consumers mostly want unicast.

I think the tradeoff of beautiful broadcast vs lower resolution unicast is a no brainer especially for mobile. Giving users control beats pretty video all day.

So until someone creates time shifting for mobile digital broadcast (ie tivo for mobile), I'll take unicast.

Interesting stats from Lijit

I've been using Lijit for the past few months.

Todd is a great guy and I always enjoy talking to him.

We were talking yesterday and he was telling about some new features and some interesting Lijit stats.

Then I checked out my profile on Lijit and saw some pretty cool stuff. Here's the search cloud that shows what visitors to my blog search on (using the widget).

This is great data and gives me some useful feedback about my blog and my visitors.

I was pretty surprised that it was getting any meaningful usage because in the past I had the Lijit widget on the right sidebar and as Todd reminded me it was below the fold :-)

I'm now moving it up and on the left sidebar. Give it a try. Love to hear what you think.

The Only Ones

I've been listening to a lot of older tunes lately. Music that I listened to in high school and college.

And while I enjoy covers its sometimes better to listen to the original version.

Another girl, another planet (best if you turn up your speakers)

This song has been covered by the Replacements, Blink-182, Mighy Lemon Drops and others.

But the original is the best in my opinion.

T-Mobile is closed

Historically T-Mobile has always been willing to try new things in the US market.

They embrace new services and hardware sooner than others (eg Starbucks/hotspots, Blackberry Pearl, Sidekick, etc)

But it looks like they are digging a moat around a very tall walled garden.

Is this really about security or a worry about mobile skype.

Keynote vs Powerpoint

I tried Apple's Keynote when it was first introduced. Version 1 didn't do it for me.

But since the beginning of Feb I've been using Keynote v3 exclusively. It's gorgeous and the latest version opens MSFT PowerPoint with ease.

If you are using a Mac (and judging from the stats I get from Feedburner many of you are) than give Keynote a try.

A little SF in Boston

  Garden of Eden 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

One of the things I miss most about SF is the restaurants. Especially brunch.

And one of our favorite brunch spots in SF is Ella's. It is a few blocks from our old place in Pacific Heights.

Today we had brunch at Garden of Eden in the South End in Boston. They don't have the homemade bread like Ella's or the chicken hash but the South End is as close to SF as it gets and the brunch at GOE is really great. Excellent food, friendly service and walking around the SouthEnd is always fun.

Robots (continued)

Very cool robot.

This is going to be really interesting when robots like this are $399 in retail and are connected to the internet.

Introducing Fast Lane Daily

Last week Next New Networks (N3) lauched Threadbangers.

And on Friday they launched Fast Lane Daily. A daily show about car news. If you like cars you should check it out. Great stuff guys

Here is the inaugural episode.

(disclaimer: we are investors in N3)

Infectious Energy

Yesterday I left my house at 4am and had a bunch of meetings in NYC

I met up with Howard, Lindsay, Adam and the gang at Wallstrip. The creative energy there is awesome. They are building something great and they are fun along the way. You can feel good karma everywhere.

I also met with a startup that I can't talk about yet but it looks like they are going to join the Spark family soon. The founder is a terrific guy and together with his small team they are working really hard on a big idea. It breaks all the rules of conventional wisdom and I love it. (I can't wait to blog more about it)

As I was heading back to LaGuardia airport that evening I was buzzing. The energy level from the various meetings was bouncing inside of me. It's a special kind of energy that only can come from startups. And it is infectious.

The best DSLR bag ever

For the most part DSLR camera bags are pretty lame. They are clunky, uncomfortable, dorky and scream "I have a big camera inside".

All that is different with Crumpler. I just picked up their 4 Million Dollar bag for my Canon RebelXT. Amazing bag.Comfortable, easy to use and looks great. I love this thing.

If you own a DSLR get a Crumpler bag.

Happy Birthday James

Up close and personal
Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Our little guy is 1 today.

That was fast.

How not to talk to your kids

My friend Ana sent me an email this morning and included a link to a recent article about the powers and peril of praising your kids too much.

It's an interesting article and definitely worth a read. I don't agree with how it skims over some important questions. And I would hate to see parents read this too quickly and goto the opposite extreme. That isn't the point. The article and corresponding research is really about how to praise - not if.

Some points are obvious but I find myself guilty of much of this.

Hopefully I'll figure this out. I'm learning every day.

Introducing Threadbanger

Threadbanger launched today. It's the latest online network by Next New Network (adding to Channel Frederator and VODCars). More coming soon.

Threadbanger is an online network for people that make their own fashion. Super passionate folks and I love this niche. For now they will have a new episode every Friday at noon.

Here's the first episode.

Flickr gets it

On Monday night Flickr had an outage. Photos were missing, thumbnails were mixed up. It wasn't pretty. But they did a great job communicating the issues on their blog. They reported what happened behind the scenes and they fixed the problem. Everything is back in order.

And yesterday they added email notifications. I'm glad I can now stop whining about this one.

Great lessons on how to treat customers. Respect for the user, transparency, embracing user feedback, regular product releases. They get it.

Thanks Flickr.

ps: some add'l feature requests :) mybloglog integration, better slide shows, RSS support for password protected photos

Todays Wallstrip

Today's episode is really great and so much fun. If you are a dog owner than you will especially love this one.

XM & SIRIUS: I do

XM and SIRIUS want to merge. I don't know if the deal will happen or not but as a SIRIUS customer I hope it does.

I didn't think I was going to like satellite radio. A year ago I picked up a new car and it came with SIRIUS built in and a free 30 day trial. By the end of the 30 days I was hooked. Commercial free, subscription music is great. I also love getting the track info. It's funny to pay for radio but I'm a happy subscriber. My favorite channels are The Coffee House (Channel 30) and Alt Nation (Channel 21).

But there are areas that need improvement:

Programming. They need to beef up the playlists. Sometimes they get into a rut and the playlists feel stale. Feels like it happens every few weeks.

Products. The combined company should doubledown with Zing and ship more killer products. I wish other service providers worked with startups like SIRIUS did with Zing.

Better Internet services. I'd love to see better internet functionality/API needed. Sonos support would be sweet. Build community around the online offering. Current forum is weak.

I'm really thinking about this as a consumer. I want satellite radio as a long term viable service.

There are others that are better at following this deal as a prospective public investor. My friend Howard is pretty negative on this deal and he's a smart guy.

Update: Jeff Jarvis has a great link that spells why satellite radio has arrived.

Digital photography tip

I have two digtial cameras: a DSLR (Canon Rebel XT) and a compact (SD800IS).

I make sure that even my point and shoot digital cameras have some manual features. The ability to turn the flash on (fill flash) or off is really important.

But I learned something very interesting today about noise. It turns out that compact digital cameras are as noisy at ISO 100 as DSLR's are at ISO 800. I'm going to start shooting at ISO 80 from now on with my compact camera. See Ken Rockwell's analysis here.

Piracy or Opportunity?

Social sites and content owners are starting to test out various content recognition and digital fingerprinting technologies. The NYT yesterday describes some recent examples. This technology has been around for awhile though. Much of Gracenote's technology is a result of their purchase of fingerprinting technology from Philips IP. Audible Magic has been around for awhile too. Plus there are new companies that have other methods for identifying video not mentioned in the article.

I think there are more exciting and practical applications for these types of content recognition services. Better for targeted ads could be a huge opportunity. Or serving ads attached to content so that the copyright owner could be paid in a widely open syndicated world. Or video search. Or Autotagging which would help consumers manage their ever growing personal media.

I'm sure there are other ideas too.

Focusing exclusively on shutting down content seems like looking at the problem/opportunity inside out.

Crazy Love

Lauren and I were married 12 years ago today. We met in undergrad actually but ended up dating years later.

We are Van Morrison fans. Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket fame does a great cover. Here's Crazy Love

Happy Anniversary Lauren.

Michael should ask Steve for some advice

Michael Dell has returned to run his company as CEO.

It's kinda fun to see the man who told Apple to shut down is having his own problems. At the time Apple had recently closed the quarter on a $740M loss. The stock was $12/share. These days it's at $85-ish after 2 splits and Apple's recent quarter generated over $1B in free cash. What Steve Jobs has done for Apple is simply extraordinary. Stock history is breath taking since his return in 1997.

Michael Dell is certainly making big changes to his company. I'm sure he cares more than anyone about Dell's future. Now the real work starts. But he must be feeling a little sheepish.

Snow Angels

  My snow angels 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

We finally got some snow in New England this week. Kids are digging it. They even got a snow day this week.

I took a few pictures of the girls and James today with my new killer telephoto lens.

I guess this means I should blog today

My horoscope today :)

Bogus Reviews

We need User Reviews 2.0. For the most part user reviews are authentic. Most folks are trying to contribute positively. Thats why I still trust Wikipedia.

But bogus reviews are a reality. We need to have a better system where TripAdivsor doesn't have to review every single review. And it's pretty silly that Priceline requires their users to provide proof that they actually stayed at a particular hotel. Too much friction.

More than anything I think we need context. User Reviews 2.0 is starting to happen and we'll see more in 2007. I like what Shawn is doing over at TrustPlus with the vision of portable reputations. Exciting stuff.

DVR viewers watch ads?

Nielsen says that 40% of DVR viewers watch ads.

I don't believe it. This certainly doesn't ring true in our house. We watch virtually zero ads. And everyone I know that has a DVR tells me they love it because they don't watch ads anymore. People even watch "live events" 30 minutes late so they can skip the commercials and catch up.

This feels like a self-serving report by Nielsen.

What do you think?

That's Entertainment

I was first introduced to The Jam sometime high school. I can't remember exactly but I'm sure it was probably my friend Greg or Pete that made me a mixed tape and I heard Paul Weller's voice for the first time.

Unfortunately The Jam isn't on Rhapsody but here's one of my favorite tunes by the band. That's Entertainment.

If you like this song than do yourself a favor and buy this album from Amazon.

Waste of time

I'm a father of three. Do I care what my kids do online. Yep. But this effort led by Sen Brownback is a waste of time.

Even worse is what Sen Stevens is trying to do with his Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. Fear mongering at its best. This is from the same long in the tooth Senator that threatened to quit in 2005 when a freshman Senator tried to divert the $452 million in pork barrel Alaska bridge projects and spend some of it on a hurricane-damaged bridge in New Orleans.

At least this makes it easier send my donation checks to the other team.

Future of Gaming in Boston

My friend Nabeel organized a fun and interesting event last night called the Future of Gaming. It was held at MIT.

He invited a number of well known game designers, developers, entrepreneurs and industry folks to get together and talk about the opportunities and challenges in the future of gaming. Lots of opinions about how games will be financed, created, distributed and monetized in the future. There was also some entertaining discussion comparing VCs to publishers that made some good points but generally the comparison doesn't work.

In honor of one of Boston's coolest gaming companies, Nabeel had Guitar Hero set up and we had a chance to rock out.

But best of all, the local gaming scene in Boston is very strong. Long history of gaming companies from Boston and lots of new startups too. I think Nabeel mentioned that there are 50 gaming companies in Boston these days.

Thanks to Nabeel for making it happen. I hope he blogs about it soon.

Toy Fair - NYC

Last week my partner Santo told me about the American International Toy Fair taking place in NYC. The show ends tomorrow.

I tried to rearrange my schedule to make at least one day but I'm going to miss it. I'm bummed.

Looks like there was some great stuff shown at the event. I've been seeing (& buying) a bunch of internet connected toys lately. Social networks connected to physical toys. Powerful combination.

Time Warner Cable Internet Video Trial

It looks like Time Warner Cable is ending their internet video trial. Does anyone know if this service was simply broadcast or unicast over the internet.

I have a feeling it was simulcast.

I'm trying to get more information from TWC subscribers that used the service.

Nice Veoh coverage

Mashable has a nice post about Veoh's latest update yesterday. Lots of new features that I've already blogged about plus a new recommendation engine. Mashable calls it the last.fm for videos. Nice.

My personal favorite is the new Veoh player where you can group videos into a series and embed it everywhere. (see screen shot)

Read full Mashable coverage here.

TechCrunch also has the Veoh upgrade story.

(disclaimer: you know already but we are investors in Veoh)

Slashdot vs Techmeme

I still visit Slashdot a few times a week. It's been a routine for years. But lately I find myself visiting less and less. And visiting Techmeme more and more.

I guess I'm not alone.

Is the iPod anti-consumer

I don't think so but various consumer groups in Europe think it is...

Isn't the solution kinda obvious? If you don't want to be locked into proprietary DRM than buy CDs and rip them or buy MP3's from emusic and other indie services. Then you can listen to it on your iPod, Sonos, Roku, Squeezebox, Tivo, xbox, ps3, blah, blah, blah.

Or am I missing something?

Who is John Gault

YottaMusic Rocks

Yesterday I wrote the need for a manual last.fm logger.

Luke from YM sent me an email afterwards. Apparently they already have that feature built in. It works like a charm. If you are yottamusic user than point your browser to

http://www.yottamusic.com/users/yourusernamehere/lastLogger

The UI is a simple & fast. Classic YottaMusic. Here's what it looks like. Great stuff.

Full Screen Flickr Slideshows

Many thanks to Dan who recently commented on my post about Flickr Guest Pass and told me about PicLens.

PicLens gives you full screen slideshows of Flickr photosets inside of Flickr itself. I've been wanting this for a long time. I tried it on the MacMini connected to HDTV and played back our photos from our recent vacation. Works great.

(Only supports Safari on a Mac. Firefox version coming soon)

More Nephews

  IMG_7897.jpg 
  Originally uploaded by asabet.

My brother's kids are so cute. Recent photo of Oliver showing his kid brother some fancy moves.

Happy Birthday Kevin

  Kevin showing his hoola tricks 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Wishing my oldest nephew a very happy birthday today.

And many more Kev.

Last.fm hack needed

Last.fm is a big part of how I discover new music. The community is amazing. But it only keeps track if you are listening to tunes on your PC/Mac.

Probably the biggest bummer is that it doesn't track Sonos activity. Hopefully the Sonos folks are working on this (and a better search app). It shouldn't be too hard. Luke at YottaMusic added Last.fm support just a few days after I sent him an email asking him for this (those guys are awesome by the way).

In the meantime it would be cool if someone created a web service that allowed users to manually enter their musicstreams into last.fm. MOG allows for manual entry for their service which is great but I want it for last.fm.

It would be a temporary hack but anyone addicted to Last.fm and listening to music outside of their of their PC/Mac (e.g. sonos, ipod, satellite radio, etc) would get a lot more value from the last.fm community.

GSM lust

Every six months or so a little voice inside my head tells me to switch to a GSM provider. GSM subscribers always get cool phones much earlier than us poor CDMA folks.

The upcoming blackberry 8800 (super thin, full qwerty keyboard, WiFi) is making the voice louder than usual.

Unfortunately, I need the coverage of VZW here in New England so I really can't jump carriers.

Maybe the eventual VZW version will have a camera.

Yet Another Post about Second Life stats

There are a lot of opinions about Second Life these days. A lot of bullish commentary and cynical stuff too.

Raph Koster presents hard numbers with an nice analysis. I learned a lot.

38

Today is my birthday.

Having a birthday at the end of a vacation week with my family feels good. And this song feels right.

In My Life by Richie Havens.

I love the original by John and Paul but this cover by Richie Havens is pretty special to me.

Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I do.

MyBlogLog Spam

I've been getting hit by spam on the MyBlogLog reader roll on the sidebar of this blog. It started a few weeks ago and then recently I've seen an increase.

I love MyBlogLog and getting spam this way is a real bummer. Spam deserves its rightful place on Fred's internet axis of evil.

I'm sure Eric and the guys are working on a fix. In the meantime there is a workaround.

Technicolor 3.0

On vacation at Disney World it's obvious that this is an amazing company. The attention to detail for the kids, characters, brands, packaging, promotion etc. Consumer marketing nicely executed.

But I'm also thinking about the history of Disney and its respect for technology in the creative process.

The history of technicolor is an interesting one. In the 1930's Disney was able to get a 2 year exclusive contract on the technology and as result was able to create effects that was unparalleled at the time.

Fast forward a few decades and with the acquisition of Pixar they purchased a hit machine. They also purchased RenderMan. RenderMan is Pixar's technology to create incredible photorealistic images. Call it Technicolor 2.0.

Technicolor 3.0 is coming soon. Probably from some startup. It will deliver videorealism to the world of CGI. And if history is any guide, Disney may just acquire this future technology.

Flickr: Guest Pass

Last summer I made the move to Flickr.

Lots of my photos are public and lots are private.

But sharing private photos on flickr with family members and close friends was a bit of a hassle. Until recently it usually required them to register and sign up for a new flickr account.

So I was really excited to see that Flickr has created Guest Pass. I recently tried it out. It's great and doesn't require your friends/family to have a flickr account to see your private photos. Good software.

Now we just need better looking (high res) slide shows from flickr so slide shows on the big screen look as they should. Please.

I agree with Steve

More openness sunshine. This time coming from Cupertino.

Steve is right. DRM is dead. Let's move on and figure out new models for content ... especially music.

Aloha from Florida

  Luau at the Polynesian Resort 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

The sun was out today and we went swimming this afternoon. Swimming in February outside is good for the soul.

This evening we went to the Polynesian Resort for the Disney Luau. It was a bit cheesy but there was one guy who did some amazing tricks twirling torches.

Overall it was extremely highly entertaining for the kids. Afterwards they danced all the way home.

Open Source Phone

When I wrote my last openness post for the CE industry I forgot to mention the most important device that needs to open up. The mobile phone.

I saw this on slashdot tonight. Lots of naysayers but OSS for mobile phones needs to happen.

I know of a few other projects that are working on this for real. Some are grass roots efforts. Some are being led by start ups. There is also a large, very successful company pushing open source very hard for mobile phones and they have just enough clout and talent to make a difference.

A day at the Magic Kingdom

  Prisoners 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

We spent the entire day at the Magic Kingdom today. From the time the park opened to the closing fireworks show. Fun and busy day. Meals with the characters, fun rides, parades and other activities.

Sophia's favorite was Splash Mountain (she did it 3 times). Ellie's favorite was Thunder Mountain. Lauren was a fan of Space Mountain. James loved the Dumbo ride. My favorite today was the ice cream after dinner.

I love this photo because somewhere (I think at my parents house) there is a photo of me and my brother taken 30+ years ago at DisneyWorld in a similar pose. I gotta find it.

Lots more photos from the day on my flickr photostream.

Me.dium in the news

Our portfolio Me.dium had a great exposure from Demo last week. Brad wasn't too sure about Demo beforehand and I was kinda feeling the same way but boy were we wrong. Video of Kimbal from Demo here (wish I could embed it but they don't offer the code) and some Business Week coverage.

I really like Howard's post on community & power. He's so right. I think Me.dium is going to create entirely new ways to browse and interact with online communities.

And best of all Me.dium is really fun.

Disney World vacation - Day 1

  Morning at SeaWorld 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

We are having a ball at Disney. Last night we were all in the mood for sushi. We had dinner at Kimonos. The food was excellent and the service was really good.

Today we had a character breakfast and then spent the day at SeaWorld. The weather is a bit cool (62 degrees) so the park was pretty empty which was very nice. Sophia and Ellie did the roller coaster about 6 times in a row.  James didn't go on any rides today but he loved all the people watching and had fun watching the various shows we went to.

Kids are having a blast and so are we.

JetBlue rules

We are about to leave for orlando.

The folks at jetblue know what they are doing. There are a zillion young kids on this flight and yet everything feels just right.

Friendly service.

Wish me luck.

Balance

I've been wrestling with life balance forever. Sometimes I feel like I'm winning and other times I feel like I'm losing. But I know the melody I'm going for and I'm trying to stay in tune. (disclaimer: to the person I was IMing with at 2am about work last night please don't turn me in)

One of my favorite things about blogging and reading blogs is the honesty and transparency that exists in the written word. The insight is powerful. Especially when it's from someone that you like and respect.

Brad had a great post about life balance a few years back. At the time I didn't know Brad but I remember reading this post and bookmarking it. The honesty and insight was moving. And since then I've gotten to know Brad and it's even more helpful to me.

I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow for a week. Kids are excited and it will be fun to spend so much time with them and Lauren. And less time with my work. I'll probably still blog from the trip but less frequently.

Online Video Quality

The team at N3 (creators of Channel Frederator, VODCars and more coming soon) launched a blog recently. I really like Herb's latest post about online video quality. (I also like that Herb is a fellow Ramones fan). I thought his quality post was spot on.

Readers of this blog know I'm a fan of robots. Here's a cartoon from Channel Frederator called "The Secret Life of Robots". I think it's hilarious.

Tabbed windows in iChat

My friend Stu showed me Chax today. Tabbed browsing for iChat.

It's beautiful.

Skype + iSight = Goodness

I use iChat with my AIM handle all day long. But I haven't been able to get iSight on my macbook (video chat) to reliably work with Windows AIM users.

So I am really digging the latest version of Skype for the Mac. It automatically works with iSight on the Mac and I can video chat with Windows skype users with ease.