BijanBlog

Peer-to-peer

Peer-to-peer computer networks have had an interesting history - especially since the rocket ship rise (and then fall) of Napster 1.0

P2P offers a lot of benefits - lower bandwidth requirements by the service/content provider, better redundancy since there isn't a single point of failure in the system and as clients get better and better (ie more storage, more computing power) the benefits will only increase.

After Napster we've seen continued innovation around P2P.

Probably the biggest commercial success story after Napster 1.0 was Skype. Many people don't realize that Skype uses P2P technology.

We've also seen other exits in the P2P space recently including Kontiki by Verisign and Red Swoosh by Akamai (the leading content delivery network).

Then the folks that created Skype came back with another P2P service for video called Joost.

This weekend there was a bunch of favorable and negative reviews on Vudu. Vudu has developed a set top box that will deliver movies over a p2p network.  The founder are smart so i will wait to try out the service before rushing to judgement. I just don't know if a separate standalone hardware set top is the best way to go after this market opportunity.

Of course my favorite P2P service is Veoh (disclosure: we are investors in the company).

Veoh offers a flash based streaming video service. But you can also download the Veoh client software which uses P2P technology to deliver full screen, high quality video (user generated, prosumer and professional video) to the PC, Mac, ipod and Sony PSP. And you can program the client software to subscribe to internet videos or even schedule a recording for your home computer from your office computer. It's pretty much like TiVo for internet video.

I think we'll see more cool stuff this year and next as P2P finds itself in new markets like mobile messaging, real time events, live video streaming and gaming.

OnHollywood

I'll be at the OnHollywood conference this week in LA.

I'm getting in Wednesday afternoon and then I'm on a panel Thursday morning.

Let me know if any of you will be there.

Jason is funny

I don't know him personally but I think Jason Calacanis is hilarious. This post and the follow up is so funny.

:)

A note from sophia

  Sophia's note asking for new tunes for her ipod - page 1 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Sophia dropped this note off on my desk at home today before running outside.

She wanted me to refresh her playlists on her ipod.
She's 8.

Translation:

To Daddy

iPod-   

-Hannah Montana
-Wake up on a Saturday night (by Hilary Duff)
-Jessica Simpson

  Sophia's note asking for new tunes for her ipod - page 2 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

[on the second page was]

-Ashley Tisdale
-I do anything you want me to (she meant "Sundress" by Ben Kweller)

Twitter (continued)

I'm still twittering and still getting a feel on how to best use it. The benefit seems to be evolving for me personally. It's definitely addicting

I like how I can easily and quickly publish something

But it's also a persistent, always-on chat room for the 19 or so friends I have in my twitter network

And I also like how 3rd parties are supporting twitter.

I can now post my current tune on YottaMusic to twitter

I use Twitterrific as my desktop client to publish and to tune in

I can think of a few others mashups with twitter - maybe 2-3 of our portfolio companies. Hmmm.

Presidential debates

The leading democratic candidates had their debate last night.

I was at a party for one of our portfolio companies in NYC last night and so I missed it.

I'm trying to find videos online this morning and it's a chore.

First I point my browser to MSNBC since they aired the broadcast.

Type in presidential debate in the search box and you get a link to a half page story covering the debate.
Doesn't help me, I want to see the video.

Then I click on the "Video" link on the top of the left nav and nothing pops out except for a story called "Hugh Grant busted for bake beans attack". I wish I was kidding.

Now what.

I click on the video link anyway and I see this:

Okay, I see something that says "Free video" in the description below Senator Clinton's photo. Click on that link and after watching a 30 second pre-roll I watch the every the candidates deal with the question of whether they agree with Senator Reid's recent statement that the Iraq was is lost.

After that 12 minute clip that's it. No more videos. Anywhere. Or at least I can't find them.

This is silly

Best scanner for Mac owners. Ever.

I've had a few scanners over the years.

They all sucked. Generally they had bad software and were super slooooow. Scanning pages of documents was a non-starter. Scanning old photos was even worse.

As a result, I never used these things.

That all changed this last week. My friends Stu and Jason gave me a demo of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S500M at their office. This scanner is unbelievable. I ordered mine a few days later. Received it yesterday.

This thing is super fast. And when I say fast, I'm talking 2 seconds per page or photo. Honest. You can feed in 20 pages at a time. No problem. It does single or double sided and it's smart enough to deal with a mixed bag. And it doesn't care what size document you are scanning.

And it's a breeze to set up and use. You press one button. The software is a great too.

I never thought I would write such a gushing review on a scanner of all things - but this is so worth it.

I'm scanning everything and shredding docs from now on. This is going to be great for the kids report cards, art projects, bank statements, photos etc etc.

GreenDimes

We just signed up for GreenDimes

It's a very simple service that does two things

-removes junk mail by 75-90%
-plants a tree every month on your behalf (you get to decide which continent you want your trees planted)

costs $36/year

no brainer

Now this is a first

Since we started Spark, I've received business plans & presentations in a variety of formats - online demos, powerpoint, word docs, webex, online videos, games and even a cd-rom. I'm not a big fan of these types of presentations especially if it's early stage idea/company. I'd rather just talk in person and use the product (if available.)

But today I received my first business presentation in a wordpress blog. Here's what the navigation looked like :

The text inside the presentation blog, as you would expect, had links to various websites and related information. It was concise, thoughtful and easy to read.

This came from an entrepreneur that I know and respect a great deal so I'm not surprised this is his format of choice.

But it's a first for me. I actually liked it.

Morrison Hotel

I've been listening to a lot of new music by known and unknown artists lately. Discovering new tunes is a blast.

But this morning I woke up and wanted to hear some classic rock.

The first tune I picked was Peace Frog by The Doors. This song is from the album Morrison Hotel

Is this record really 37 years old? Anyway, great song and great album.

Enjoy.

How much is Google's brand worth?

Clearly Google's brand is worth a lot but is it really the most powerful global brand?

According to this recent study it is.

i don't understand exactly how this ranking was compiled but it doesn't feel right to me.

I'm a very big fan of Google. Amazing company. Breathtaking stock. Their search engine is the best on the planet right now. I think I google about 20-30 times a day. Maybe more. I love it.

But I will switch in a NY minute when a new search engine comes a long that blows Google search away. It's not a religion to me. i just want the best experience. And it's going to get much better.

I'm sure we will look back in 5 years in awe at how far search as progressed. It might still belong to Google but I'm not counting on it.

How does that impact the value of the brand ?

For me a brand creates more loyalty through thick and thin. For example I had a bunch of choices when i bought a monitor for my office recently. But I bought the Apple Cinema display. It absolutely costs more than the competitive offerings. I'd like to think I picked the Apple monitor because I liked the way it looks and the stunning quality. Or was it the brand that won me over :)

Blogs helping non-profits

A couple of months ago, I started including Feedburner's ad network in my RSS feeds. I did it mostly out of curiosity. I wanted to see stats in action, impressions, click thru rates, cpc rates, types of ad units etc.

I'd like to use this blog to also do some good deeds as well. I'm looking into Kiva. In the meantime I'm now going to add Feedburner's ads into my blog posts. These ads are inserted only below the first item on every page of this blog so hopefully it won't be too jarring.

I also recently joined Amazon's affiliate program and where it makes sense I'm going to use that affiliate code in my posts (consumer electronics, music, etc).

I'm going to give all proceeds from the Feedburner ad network and Amazon affiliate fees to a non profit. I haven't decided which one yet. But at the end of the year I will post the non profit and the amount.

I would really like to hear about any experiences other people have using their blogs to generate funding for non-profits. DonorsChoose looks interesting. Others?

YottaMusic now syncs with Rhapsody

I've been using YottaMusic for awhile. It's a great front end for Rhapsody. My yottamusic profile says that I've played 2200 tracks on YottaMusic.

Back in November I suggested to Luke on their forums and email that we need a way to sync the YottaMusic library and playlists with Rhapsody. Then any playlist on YottaMusic would be accessible on our Sonos system.

Well yesterday Luke emailed me and told me that YottaMusic now syncs with Rhapsody. If you want to give it a try this new beta feature then go here for the easy steps to sync. It's a one time thing. And it works great.

YottaMusic started out as a super cool search & discovery front end to Rhapsody. Then they added Last.fm support and now Rhapsody sync. This has become one of my favorite online services.

Well done.

Soccer season underway

  Sophia's fancy footwork 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Spring means many things to me

One of my favorite signs of spring is watching the girls play soccer

Sophia is in 2nd grade and it's amazing how much faster and stronger they have become since the fall season.

Today, Sophia's team played the Orange Popsicles.

Great game today. Good passes, great goals and lots of action. Here she is (blue, #1) making her move.

  Blue Sharks 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Ellie's season started this weekend as well.

Her group is the 5 year old girls bracket where they run like mad, smile a lot and kick it everywhere. This photo of their silly faces about sums up the joy of 5 year old soccer

Next New Networks

I know I blog a lot about NNN.

Believe it or not, I often hold off so that my blog doesn't just become a big honking ad for one of our portfolio companies at Spark :)

But I really loved reading Jim Louderback's recent article in PC Magazine. He wrote this after visiting with the NNN guys. Herb sent it to me today. Very nice article talking about Fred, Herb and the team's ability to find great talent time and time again.

At the moment we initially led the investment in NNN,  a few notables in the industry were concerned that these established traditional media folks would have a very hard time in the brave new world of internet video. New rules, new business models, new content models, new ad models, new talent, new formats, new everything.

We still have plenty of work to do in this space and obviously it's still early days for the company. But they are finding great talent with more coming. And already we are seeing very nice audience engagement. This daily NNN show called Threadbanger has 289,000 views on youtube and counting. How cool is that!

So stay tuned and tell us what you think.

New hours for OpenCoffee Boston

Based on some feedback we decided to change OpenCoffee Boston hours. The new time is 9-11am on Thursdays.

Unfortunately I'm going to miss the next two meetings due to travel plans but see you at the one after.

Ben Kweller's grandma

We are big fans of Ben Kweller in our house. Even little Ellie sings along to "Sundress" which is adorable.

Last month when we saw Ben live he talked about his grandma starring in his new upcoming video for "Penny on a traintrack". I showed the kids this morning and they were howling and dancing along.

Awesome video. I really dig the exchange b/w Ben and his grandma at the end of the video. Enjoy.

Who am I

Lately i've noticed a trend. When my friends or business associates introduce me to new people they link to my blog. A year ago they probably would have just given a sentence or two about me or linking to my work bio on the Spark website or maybe my linkedin profile.

I agree that blogs are turning into the new resume. But they are so much more too.

On my blog folks know what kind of music I like, my political point of view, social causes, my work engagements, some of my family life, etc.

It started as a diary but it's now a two way, interactive experience. And that is the best part for me.

OpenCoffee Boston mtg yesterday

  OpenCoffee Boston 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Thanks to everyone that came by OpenCoffee Boston yesterday. It was great, lively discussions and lots of new folks came by too.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, OpenCoffee was started by Saul Klein in London and it's now spreading fast worldwide. 30 cities and counting.

I really enjoy seeing all the great energy in/around Cambridge right now.

Tumblr

We had a very good meeting at NNN yesterday. Lots of interesting ideas from multiple perspectives about new and old content distribution models. I really enjoyed seeing everyone and meeting some new folks like Brett Bullington.

David Karp was there and it was a good reminder to try out his latest creation, Tumblr.

Tumblr is very cool. It provides a nice simple blogging tool and a great way to collect data and objects across the web and integrate into your blog. If I didn't have so much invested in my blog on typepad I would consider switching. Certainly if I was starting to blog today I would use Tumblr.

But I think there is a lot more to it tumblr than just a simple, easy to use blogging tool. I've started stuffing it with a few of my feeds (my flickr, my blog, my twitter feed) and I'm going to add more and more to it. I already see it as a nice way to integrate my profile and my social networks into one place. at the very least it's a rich RSS reader for media. I'm going to add more stuff to it and see how it grows and complements or competes with this blog

The user interface and the simplicity is beautiful.

Entourage headache continues

I love the show Entourage but Microsoft Entourage on the Mac is killing me. Am I the only one ?

This is happening almost every other day or so. Sigh.

OpenCoffee Boston tomorrow

Just a reminder that the weekly OpenCoffee Boston is tomorrow at 10am.

I missed the last meeting but I'll be there tomorrow.

Hope to see you.

Introducing Veracifier

Veracifier is the latest network launched by Next New Networks.

And very quickly it is one of my favorites.

Veracifier is a network that has an interesting mix of content.

Mondays-Thursdays, Joshua Micah Marshall and the team at Talking Points Memo are the hosts of TPM TV. It's a new web show delivered by a passionate group of bloggers that are credited with breaking the US attorneys story wide open among other things.

On Fridays, there will be exclusive episodes of Alive in Baghdad. Alive in Baghad is web show created by Americans and Iraqis on the ground and shows the occupation through the voices of Iraqis.

There are also some great new community elements to Veracifier. In addition to the regular stuff you see in lots of places like comments and email sharing, readers of Veracifer can also upload their own videos. That's cool. I think their blog says it the best. So here's the quote

"Most importantly, we want to know what you, the viewers think. That's why there's a comments link under every video. An email address on every page. And a link to upload your own video. Whether its your own commentary, footage, an original report, or simply your thoughts recorded on a webcam, we want to see it, hear it, and put it on the network."

And here's todays show. Hope you like it as much as I do.

(disclosure: we are investors in Next New Networks)

It's all about Exchange

There is a lot of interest and excitement about new alternatives to Microsoft Office. Google has alternatives to Word, Excel and now Powerpoint. Just look at all of the links on techmeme to see the blogosphere's response.

I think its great that Google has launched these products with their own twist. But I'm not terribly excited. There have been alternatives for awhile now. And for the vast majority of users these alternatives probably solve the vast majority of our needs. I'm now using Keynote and even a text editor for simple needs. No problems.

What we corporate/business users need is an alternative to Microsoft Exchange.  If not an alternative for MS Exchange we at least better client apps and web services that tie into Microsoft Exchange. Outlook is a mess and the mac version is worse. And Outlook web access is clunky. Why? Because we are addicted to the Blackberry. Blackberry/exchange integration is spectacular. Really amazing.

The addiction is so bad that we do silly things with our Crackberry. I've tried IMAP and pop3 but on they are just second class citizens for blackberry users.

Create alternatives to Exchange then we can really have some fun - including new devices like you know what.

James is a genius

We were all getting a kick out of James latest discovery last night.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Fancast

I'm looking forward to Comcast's Fancast. In addition to the promise of rich content, I think there is ton of things that Comcast can do with Fancast given their content relationships, cable modem subs, cable tv and vod network.

Hopefully we can look forward to seeing new services that bring together internet video, enhanced DVR, VOD, personalization, discovery and search. If any one company has an opportunity to break new ground here it's Comcast for sure.

I'm also happy to see thePlatform as part of this announcement. Congrats to Ian, Andrew, Rahul, Tricia and the whole gang up in Seattle. I miss being an investor in that company but it looks like they are doing great in their new home.

Tivo running on Motorola boxes soon

A little birdie (in the know) told me last week that TiVo's port onto the Motorola 6412 is finally getting closer. This is the box that comcast uses to deliver their HD DVR service.

And the best part is that New England is going to get the Tivo upgrade first. Wahooo! It will be an optional service that subscribers can choose over the default DVR service.

I can't wait. I'm a big fan of Comcast (cable modem rocks, HD is stunning and we enjoy their VOD) but the current DVR software has problems. The ads in the guide are clunky and the software locks up or sometimes just doesn't work at all. And Tivo's search feature and season pass are light years ahead of the software in the Motorola box.

I was traveling last week and Lauren had more problems with the Motorola box. Here's the voicemail I received (transcribed by Simulscribe) from her.

I think Comcast is going to be very successful with the Tivo HD DVR product. And there is a ton of pent up demand.

Tivo HD DVR combined with VOD should be awesome.

War czar ?

The White House is now looking for a war czar. They are actually looking for a new leader to run the war in Iraq and the policy there. Shocking but true.

As usual the Daily Show has a hilarious follow up.

(this video expires 5/11, link to video here)

Me.dium upgrade in the news

Mashable has a nice post on the latest Me.dium update.

The UI is getting better and better and it's really a fun way to surf.

If you join Me.dium then feel free to add me as friend. I'm bsabet on Me.dium

(disclosure: we are investors in Me.dium)

Happy Birthday Oliver

  IMG_9999.jpg 
  Originally uploaded by Amin Sabet.

My nephew Oliver is 4 today.

What a big boy.

love,

bijan, lauren, sophia, ellie and james

A week of twittering

I found out about Twitter a few months ago but didn't try it out until last week

Now i'm completely hooked

I met up with Eric and Todd from MyBlogLog on Thursday for breakfast and I was telling them about my Twitter experience.  Originally I thought it would be a nice way to micro-journal my personal activities on an ad-hoc basis. Maybe highlight a few things that would never make a blog post. My first twitter entry was "time to read a book to ellie". That would never become a blog post.

But in such a short period of time Twitter is giving me a new way to interact with friends in addition to a an ad-hoc micro journal. Early last week I was hunting around for a camcorder and i twittered " need a camcorder. thinking about the Sanyo Xacti HD2. suggestions welcome."

Fred wrote me back saying that he loves his Xacti. 20 minutes later I primed it on Amazon. Cool.

And I'm also using Twitterific which is a sweet desktop Twitter app for the Mac. I get to see all of my friends Twitter posts easily that way and it's much less intrusive than getting notifications on the phone (which I turned off immediately). Some of my friends that never keep an active blog are using Twitter actively now instead.

I wonder how Twitter will compete or complement IM over time. In terms of pageview and uniques Meebo is way ahead of Twitter. No big surprise since they were in the market first with a web based version of AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yhoo messenger. But according to Compete Twitter is capturing more and more attention. Check out the time spent/attention since Feb. Wow.

It will be interesting to see how long the twittering will last for me personally. I said the same thing about blogging in 2005. And now i'm blogging every day

The Jam

I've been listening to The Jam for a long time.

They just rock.

Here's a great tune. In the City . Turn it up and enjoy.

Lorne Michaels longs for YouTube

Yep, the creator and executive producer of SNL is a big fan of YouTube

Great interview. Loren talks about the benefits of exposure and increased low cost distribution.

Especially interesting coming from an exec working for NBC.

He's so right

[Found this on slashdot]

First serve

  First serve 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

After the SendMe board meeting today I got a chance to play with the Nintendo Wii

My form was lousy, my hand is a bit sore but I had a blast. I gotta get one of these :)

What does Etsy have in common with Make magazine

Make magazine is very cool. I first learned about Make from Peter at Bug Labs. More about Peter in a post coming soon but not too soon :) Make is quickly becoming a very popular magazine for DIY electronics.

Etsy is a place to buy & sell handmade items. Great stuff. They both have a very loyal and growing community behind them.

And this week they have another thing in common.

I'm happy to say that both are featured inside the current episode of Threadbanger. Check it out.

(disclosure: we are investors in N3 the folks behind Threadbanger and other great networks)

BW interview with KickApps (podcast)

Business Week's Heather Green hosts a weekly podcast. This week is an interview with Eric Alterman, the founder of KickApps (we are investors in KickApps)

Download from BusinessWeek here or get it from iTunes here.

Nice job Eric.

OpenCoffee Club - boston

I'm going to miss tomorrows OpenCoffee Boston tomorrow but Nabeel and others should be there.

See you next week.

Looking for beta testers

  4th Media - John, Ed and Andrew 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

We are investors in 4th Media based in Denver. The CEO & cofounder of the company is Andrew MacFarlane who was the cofounder of Software.com which later became part of OpenWave.

The company is emerging from stealth mode and looking for beta testers for their personalized mobile streaming service. The service will allow you to search, discover and easily publish any audio content (video coming soon) to your mobile phone wirelessly. They currently have about two thousand pieces of audio content that they aggregate or you can upload your own content, link to RSS feeds or even URL's of 3rd party content.

I recently added Wallstrip's RSS feed to the service so I get an audio version of Wallstrip sent to my phone which is fun. I also have KQED streamed to my phone which I have missed since leaving the bay area. And the best part is that the 4th Media service does all of this without adding any additional software to your phone. No proprietary client app needed.

It's still an early beta so we are very much looking early adopters to help us . We especially need folks that will really try out the service, give 4th Media feedback and also be patient as features, functionality and user interface/experience will change a lot & often over the coming weeks, months.

So if you are interested, take 30 seconds and register at:

http://www.4thmedia.com/trial/user/register.action

Once you're signed up for the service you'll receive info on how to activate it on your phone. Please note that all media is delivered to your mobile phone via streaming, which requires a data plan and which will generate usage charges from your mobile carrier. Also for now the service doesnt work on the Blackberry.

Happy Birthday Sophia

Our Sophia is 8 today. That was too fast.

Here's a 4 minute video with photos from her first weeks all the way to recent week. Lauren noticed that most of the photos here were taken when she was much younger.

I guess I still think of her as my little girl. I probably always will

 

Badges?

I agree with Jeff Jarvis

This is in response to O'Reilly's effort to make the web/blogs/online communities more civil. THere is a proposed code of conduct. The tone is off in my view but even worse I don't agree with several of the specifics (no anonymous posts?). There is even a proposed Code of Conduct sheriff Badge.

The first comment to on O'Reilly's post, sums up my exact immediate reaction as well. Reader Shelly writes

"You created badges.
You actually created badges.
I just can't believe you created badges."

I'm sure Tim O'Reilly has the best intentions. I don't know him but I respect his work and accomplishments a great deal. And lord knows I hate spam comments. And nasty people aren't fun. Clearly we have laws in this country that should protect us and keep us safe when our lives are in danger.

But a code of conduct feels way wrong.

(From the classic movie, Blazing Saddles).

Click To Play

 

Keeping a secret

It's hard to keep a secret

In a world where you talk to entrepreneurs and VCs every day you hear stuff. Sometimes really cool stuff.

But it's important to keep your word and keep secrets.

I'm so glad this story broke about Yahoo and my friend Tim Bucher's company Zing. I saw a demo of the Yahoo Music integration at Zing's offices back in January but I had to keep mum about until now. It's really a beautiful product and I'm looking forward to getting one.

Congrats Tim.

Blue Menu + YottaMusic

I'm totally hooked on yottamusic. But I really find the Real plugin support on the Mac pretty lame. So I never watch music videos in yottamusic or rhapsody.com for that matter.

Well along comes BlueMenu by Adaptive Blue. I've been using BlueMenu for last month or so. It's making my life more interesting and useful online. But I'm finding it also more fun. When I'm on YottaMusic now I can rightclick, fire up BlueMenu and link to YouTube videos on that particular artist. Or I can link off to that artist on last.fm

BlueMenu + YottaMusic is a sweet combo.

Here Comes the Sun

The last of the snow & ice seems to be gone now

This tune seems timely.

Here Comes the Sun by Belle & Sebastian (original by John and Paul).

The evolution of RSS

Another great post by Alex Iskold about RSS. He covers the history of RSS, what it has become today and more importantly the future evolution of RSS.

Alex covers some very interesting ideas and poses some great questions.

I'm a RSS addict. I probably have too many feeds inside of NetNewsWire (my favorite RSS reader).

But there are some limitations for sure. Just a few examples:

- 3rd party support. I subscribe to several of my friends flickr RSS feeds. since I'm either a friend or family member I have access to their private photos. However new pix don't show up or update the RSS feed. Kinda defeats the purpose of subscribing to a flickr rss feed in the first place.

- Community. A few months ago I blogged about how I'm not showing up in my friends MyBlogLog reader roll because I only view his site via RSS. I'm sure Eric and the guys will figure this out but it shouldn't be a one off hack. We need format standards so this just works. Or another example, I can't see how many people may have commented on a post from a feed. I love reading comments on certain blog posts.

- Personalization. Many people, including me, have a lots of various content types (widgets, badges, links etc) on their blogs and profiles that simply don't show up inside of a feed. When my last.fm badge is updated every week there isnt' any indication in my blog feed. Or I won't be able to see Fred's twitter updates from his feed since its on his sidebar.

But things are getting better and that's exciting. I like what Feedburner is doing with FeedFlares.  I think format standards will help out a lot too.

The future of RSS is extremely bright and expanding. It's very powerful and it's still only early days. Thats the best part.

Bill Clinton speech from the TED conference

I hope to attend TED one day. It looks amazing and everyone I know that has participated has come back inspired and charged up to make a difference.

This years TED prize winners talks are now online.

I really enjoyed Bill Clinton's speech about his efforts to make the world a better place. It's a bit lengthy to watch on your computer but highly recommend it. Very powerful.

OpenCoffee - Boston week 3

We had our third mtg of OpenCoffee Boston edition yesterday.

Thanks to everyone that came.

I had a nice chat with Matt Gross at uLocate about some of the gps/location based services they are doing with Sprint. We talked about the need for better GPS built into a wide range of third party apps and services. And even more important we need better discovery for mobile content. They are working on some interesting ideas.

It was also fun mtg Prashant in person today. I orginally met Prashant through this blog/mybloglog. Since then we're also connected on last.fm and yottamusic. He was visiting from London. He might be the only guy that has been to two different OpenCoffee's on two different continents :)

We are only 3 meetings into this but I'm really happy that people are coming out. It's a great idea and special thanks to Saul for starting this whole thing. It's amazing that in such a short period of time OpenCoffee is sprouting up everywhere.

I'm going to be out of town for next week's OpenCoffee but I think Nabeel will be there.

Facebook

I've been putting off joining Facebook for sometime now. I never thought of keeping a profile/network there. I always thought of this blog as my profile and connection to a network. MyBlogLog certainly helps too.

My friend Jim Migdal just started working at Facebook. So when he invited me to join this week it was just the kick in the pants I was looking for.

My profile is a bit emtpy right now. But I'm going to add to it over time I think. Right now I'm including concerts I'm attending in the near future and any conferences that I'm speaking at.

Let me know if you are Facebook too