« May 2007 | Main | July 2007 »
I bought the iPhone tonight.
It's beautiful. The user interface is gorgeous and the display is truly stunning.
iPhoto & iTunes integration is slick. Safari is so cool. WiFi on a phone is killer. Activation on AT&T is a breeze with iTunes. I'm sure I could gets used to the keyboard.
But it's not going to replace my Blackberry Curve. Unfortunately it doesn't work with Exchange in a seamless way like the Blackberry. I want wireless email, calender, contacts syncing with Exchange. And I want push. The iPhone doesn't do this.
Sigh.
I'm sure Apple will figure this out and offer some killer integration with Exchange soon. Maybe with Goodlink software, Visto or ActiveSync or something. please god something.
And when they do I'll be first in line.
Now I have one.
Introducing my new virtual dog Herschel
You can feed him snacks by clicking on the snack bag. Or play ball with him by click on more.
And he won't pee on your carpet.
But I still love my jackson better.
Fred has an excellent post today about Facebook apps. After reading his post and looking at my Facebook mania post a few weeks back, I'm still excited about Facebook applications and what opportunities it might bring to startups.
However, I've gathered & refined my thoughts when it comes to facebook application developers:
Generally there are two types of application developers on facebook right now.
a) Those that are building apps just for facebook and don't have a service outside of facebook (and myspace). I've seen a bunch of companies in this category. They can build FB apps cheaply and quickly, get user feedback, build more apps, build value. Life is good. But I'm not sure these companies should raise venture capital. Especially if they don't plan or want to build services outside of their facebook. Angel funding might be a better approach.
b) Those that are building apps on facebook as a way to learn, get user feedback and use their facebook apps as a way to drive low cost traffic to their (current or future) services outside of Facebook. I like this model the best for vc or prospective vc backed companies or large companies even. This is the comment I wrote in response to Fred's post:
"great post.
i've been encouraging our appropriate portfolio companies to develop fb apps. Veoh launched one at the platform launch and we have another one that is going to launch a fun one soon.
since it's relatively cheap to develop fb apps, the first goal for us is about learning. Learning what's possible, what isn't.
For me, the ROI isn't about incremental ad dollars on the FB "canvas" pages though. Most likely it will be to drive (low cost) traffic back to their respective websites.
That's why my favorite fb application biz models are those that have services outside of fb as well. It will be a lot trickier if the apps only live inside of fb (at least for vc backed companies)."
My friend Jason sent me this link today with some nice high res screen shots of the iPhone email screens.
Looks like they are supporting Microsoft Exchange via ActiveSync.
That's huge.
I'm getting weaker.
Update: doesn't work with exchange like a blackberry. heart broken.
Nice turnout and some very interesting discussions today.
Met a bunch of new folks like Mike Feinstein and also Colin who recently went to OpenCoffee London.
We only talked about the iPhone a little bit :)
This is the first time I've heard this stated as a fact.
According to David Pogue at the NYT, the i-you-know-what will sync with Entourage which is a must have for me.
"Does the iPhone synchronize with my computer’s calendar and address book? Yes. It can sync with Address Book or MS Entourage on the Macintosh, Outlook, Outlook Express on Windows, or Yahoo’s address book on the Web. If you add appointments or phone numbers to the iPhone, they are added to your computer the next time you sync."
But these two statements make me uneasy about making the big switch
"Can you type with two thumbs? I’ve seen Apple employees flail away with two thumbs as though on a Blackberry , but it takes loads of practice. After two weeks, I’m still tapping with one index finger.
How snappy is the real iPhone, compared with Apple’s ads? It’s identical, with one exception: Apple never shows the iPhone when it’s on AT&T’s cellular network. That would just be embarrassing.
Decisions, decisions.
The founding team at thePlatform sent me this awesome photo last week. It made my day.
I sent it out today to have it framed for my office.
And exactly 1 year ago today, Comcast acquired thePlatform. They were our first investment at Spark and it was a fun ride.
It's wonderful to see them continue their success with cool new products. They are powering the high profile upcoming NBC/News Corp video service in addition to some other great wins.
I'm so happy for all of them. And this photo does a great job showing that they can kick butt in the marketplace and have a fun sense of humor along the way.
Happy Anniversary !
Wild horses couldn't drag me away from attending OpenCoffee tomorrow in Cambridge.
Everyone is invited. Very casual. No rsvp required. Starts at 10am.
Hope to see you there!
Alex Blum, the CEO of KickApps, has an interesting post today about the dramatic increase in social media usage online.
We all know in our gut that social media has been on an absolute tear over the past few years but the numbers are quite impressive.
We made the investment decision in KickApps late in 2005. It was the second investment we made after starting Spark. We believed then, as we do now, that web sites will need social media applications. There are thousands of big and small websites using KickApps to easily add social media experiences to their existing web sites.
I like BET's recent use of the technology. The BET audience was invited to submit their own award category introduction videos for the BET Awards 2007 show on cable last night. The audience voted on their favorite videos and the top videos were on the actual television show.
I thought this one was pretty clever for the "Best Collaboration" award intro.
Techmeme should call themselves AppleMeme tonight. The coverage is unbelievable. Truly amazing.
The iPhone reviews are coming in fast and furious now.
I'm rooting for Apple on this one. Whether I get an iPhone now or later or never. The point is they are innovating and people love that.
And so do I.
Readers of this blog know how much I dig robots (my various posts).
So it's no wonder I'm loving this recent fun cartoon from Channel Frederator.
(disclosure: yep, we are investors in Next New Networks, the creators of Channel Frederator and many more networks)Andrew was able to snag tickets so we're going to see Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem in Sept at Red Rocks in CO.
This show should be amazing.
I've never been to a show at Red Rocks but I heard it is something special. I remember as a kid watching this U2 video at Red Rocks. i'm sure it was a reason why I picked up my first electric guitar. The Beatles and Tenacious D have played there as well.
Anyone else going? More the merrier.
My current favorite tune from LCD Soundsystems latest album Sound of Silver
Enjoy.
My parents had been Vonage customers for over a year.
They had lots of service quality problems but they kept it going.
Finally they switched a few months ago to Cablevision's telephone service. They had their number ported over. Vonage kept billing them.
This afternoon my mom called to cancel the Vonage service. They said they couldn't because the phone was in my dad's name.
So my dad calls this evening. After talking to a variety of customer service agents and endless hold times, it ended up taking him an hour and twenty minutes to cancel his Vonage service. Unreal.
Vonage is in trouble. The stock has dropped over 80% since their IPO. Lawsuits with Verizon and Sprint aren't helping.
But horrible customer service like this experience is far worse than any lawsuit. Word travels fast.
I was under a rock this weekend. I guess I stayed away from reading my favorite blogs. Weather was too nice.
But I'm now caught up on the MIcrosoft/FM Publishing brouhaha and I don't get the violent response.
The publishers quotes are fine. The ad is fine. And Michael Arrington is right in this post and then the follow up.
People need to chill out. Everything is fine. Really.
(in the spirit of disclosure: all of the ad revenue on this site go to charity at the end of each year. this policy is on my About page too)
This morning we went to go cheer on Lauren and two of her friends in the New Charles River Run in Cambridge.
She did great.
We were all cheering her on. You can see Sophia in the foreground.
When my dad bought our first computer, the Apple II, it didn't come with any applications. But it did come with BASIC. And that kept us busy. Really busy.
It was fun to try and learn the language and build simple applications. That was my first "hello world" program.
When I was in undergrad I studied a bunch of computer languages, Cobol, Assembly, Pascal, LISP, C etc. These languages allowed us to build complicated software. And that was the problem for me. Everything was so complicated. They just got in my way. Did I really need five spaces in the first line in COBOL? Why?
Then in the late 80's I discovered Apple's Hypercard. Man that was a like a breath of fresh air. Brilliant really. It was so easy and fun to create applications, mixing media types, visual effects. And people were sharing Hypercard apps everywhere (floppies, aol, etc).
I love that Lego Mindstorms NXT comes with a programming kit and kids are creating and sharing apps. Giving kids easy software and hardware is smart. I also think Digital Brix could be on to something by allowing users the ability to create and share simple and fun games.
There is pent up demand here. Yahoo Pipes is interesting but maybe still too complex.
Give people the tools and web services to create simple applications. Software and hardware. Let's bring back the fun and passion that came with the Apple II and TRS80.
And not just for highly technical folks but for early adopters, creative types and ultimately mainstream consumers.
(n.b. thanks to this person for having a hypercard photo)
We went on pretty decent family bike ride today.
Lauren had James on the back basket
Sophia was on her bike
Ellie was on our trail bike hitched onto me
And we rode by the Babe's old house.
C'mon Babe. We need your help. Our team is 10.5 games behind those damn Red Sox.
Met the kids after work yesterday at the pool
James enjoyed the party at the club to celebrate the first day of summer. that kid has a sweet tooth. wonder where he picked that up from.
And here is my Ellie (5) training for summer Olympics 2016
"I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with youBut I still haven't found what I'm looking for"
-- U2
I still haven't found my next presidential candidate.
I need a candidate that isn't afraid to say that Iraq was a mistake
I need a candidate that is pro-choice
I need a candidate that is pro stem cell research
I need a candidate that is pro-gun control
I need a candidate that has a plan to fix our health care system
I need a candidate that cares about the environment
I need a candidate that will treat our educators with respect
And I need a candidate that is fiscally responsible
I guess I'm hoping Al Gore jumps into this race
I suppose I still have time to make up my mind
In the meantime, I'm happy that Comedy Central has created Indecision2008.com. It helps me smile through my endless frustration about the status quo.
I love Stephen Colbert. That guy is a hilarious. His take on Mayor Bloomberg
My friend Will Richmond thinks they should.
I don't see this happening but Will has some thoughtful reasons.
The iPhone has almost everything I want. The big screen, small & thin form factor, wifi, camera, cool apps, video, photos, tunes et etc. I really don't care about the lack of a physical keyboard.
But the iPhone is missing one thing. It doesn't wireless sync with Microsoft Exchange. And that's a problem for me. MSFT Exchange is a killer app and we need alternatives.
So despite all the various iPhone temptations out there, I'm going to keep my blackberry (and hold my Apple stock position).
In the meantime, I've loaded up the iPhone ringtone on my blackberry.
Pathetic
I'm just catching up on one of my favorite web shows,TPMtv on Veracifer.
Last week Josh sat down with Al Franken. Al is the man. Nice job Josh. Here is part 1.
If you like this one be sure to check out part 2.
(disclosure: Veracifier is part of the NNN family and we are investors in the company)
Just a reminder that OpenCoffee boston is now back to 10am-noon every thursday. See right side bar for details.
Unfortunately I cannot make it today but I will be there next week.
Very nice reviews of the latest product offerings by KickApps and Veoh today on TechCrunch.
(disclosure: we are investors in both companies)
Wow, these bands together will be incredible. I saw Arcade Fire back in May and would love to see them again.
Dear Andrew and/or Kimbal: we need to have our Sept BOD mtgs around the 17th :)
Boy, I really don't like my photo on my various profiles
Every couple of months or so I change the photo but i still look dorky as ever.
One time, after I updated my photo, Howard even sent me an email telling me that he didn't like my newest photo. With friends like that... :)
I think I want an avatar instead. They look cool. I like Fred Seiberts , Charlie O'Donnell's, and Fred Wilsons just to name a few. The ones on GigaOm look pretty good too.
I'll play around this weekend and see if I can come up with something fun. Love to hear any suggestions.
Update: wow, a few minutes after I published this post, I saw Nabeel had an avatar blog post today as well. I like the double agent concept for avatars.
In our house there is always music on. Either the sonos is rocking, or someone's laptop is streaming tunes or the kids have their ipods in various docks around the house.
But we really don't watch a lot of television at home. Lauren and I maybe watch 2-3 shows per week. Kids don't watch too much either. They spend most of their time non-outdoor time on Club Penguin or Webkinz.
Since the beginning of the year I've been traveling a ton. I'm in NYC a lot and I'm on the west coast 1-2 times a month. So I've been downloading tv shows (mostly) from iTunes.
I've never tuned into 24 before. So I decided to give it a try last week. I'm sure 99.99% percent of you are already fans of the show. But for me, after the first episode I just kept thinking, my god, I've been living under a rock. I'm only up to episode 7 in season 1 but I'm already a huge Jack Bauer fan. That scene with the tranquilizer gun in his office was killer.
Now I can't wait for my next west coast trip! So many shows ahead of me.
After the kids went to bed tonight, I grabbed the nano/nike+ and did a short run.
Not going to set any records but it did feel nice to do something to burn off the big honking chocolate chip cookie i ate after lunch today.
Seth Godin's post about Steve Jobs is spot on.
I was in LA last week. Stuck in traffic on the 405 and moving an inch/mile trying desperately to reach the 10 to make a mtg in Santa Monica. Even worse, I couldn't find a decent radio station on the dial. In my despair, i sent off a txt to twitter asking for radio station help in LA from my friends.
Fred came to the rescue on Twitter and suggested I tune to FM 103.1.
Awesome recommendation and a minute later I was jamming along to the Polyphonic Spree, David Bowie and Amy Winehouse. Then I heard a very cool, smooth reggae cover of You Keep Me Hanging On by Madness (original of course by the Supremes.)
This song is from the album The Dangermen Sessions, Vol. 1(which has some hits and misses). I added the tune to my summer party playlist.
Hope you enjoy it.
Our weekly edition of OpenCoffee Boston has now moved to a new time: 10am-12pm, still each and every Thursday.
All are welcome, no rsvp required, extremely casual and a friendly open forum for entrepreneurs and VCs to discuss various ideas and topics. Sometimes we get a few folks to come by and other weeks we get a much stronger turnout, 15-20 people. Always interesting.
These days I try to make 1-2 a month. I missed last week but I was there the week before (see photo) and met some new people and had fun seeing Shawn. And I'll be there this Thursday.
Hope to see you there!
Every summer we go away with our friends, the Jorgensen family, for an extended weekend. Luke and Reiko are our friends from undergrad. Their 3 kids are adorable and about the same ages as our three kiddies. It's pretty cool to see our kids friendships develop with each other.
This weekend we went up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire (ok, green can be as beautiful as brown). The White Mountains are just a few hours north of Boston. Beautiful country.
Friday we explored and had lunch at Otter Rock along the Kangamangus. Saturday we went to Story Land. And today we went hiking at the Lost River Gorge. That was my favorite. Lots of great caves and cool waterfalls. This cave was the hardest and most fun.
Awesome fathers day weekend. Great getaway, great friends, great memories.
We are heading up to new hampshire tomorrow thru sunday.
So I'm going to take a break from blogging until monday
I'll still be twittering away though. Updates are on my new super sweet twitter badge (thanks ivan and fred) on the right sidebar. Or you can add me as a buddy on twitter.
(Pls excuse any typos or lack of links. Posted from my blackberry)
About a year ago, almost every consumer internet startup I talked to was focused how google or myspace might hurt or help them.
Nowadays its all about facebook all the time. As a very recent example I had 4 meetings yesterday in SV/SF. 3 of the meetings have Facebook in their horizon. As a friend or foe. It will determine their fate. But in all of these meetings, yesterday and prior, there is a clear, consistent love affair (and genuine respect) that people have for Facebook's success. I feel the same way. Especially when it comes to third party applications, fka widgets.
The most popular apps on facebook are simply kicking ass. Goto the "most popular" section on facebook and check out the list. Some of my personal favoite apps are "foodfight", veoh (we are investors) and bandtracker. some of my favorite web sites don't have good apps yet (last.fm, flickr) but that will change soon enough. I suspect that after the top 15 or so apps the audience engagement is spreadout but I could be way wrong.
The best part about apps on facebook is that are easy to add and easy to share. There is no javascript or code to embed. Its one click to add and one click to share with the world.
Already there are hundreds of 3rd party apps on facebook. More are available as well since the api is open. How these apps standout over time will be something to watch.
This is exciting stuff. All good news for the consumer and entrepreneurs.
it will be interesting to see how these platforms (facebook and others) evolve and how the next generation application developers will need better tools, infrastructure, delivery networks, analytics and ad serving systems.
Its a big deal.
(Excuse the typos and lack of links. Sent from my blackberry)
In the late spring and summer, the bay area turns brown. The green grass fades and the brown takes over.
When I first moved to the bay area in the early 90's, one of my friends who grew up in SF told me that I would learn to appreciate the beauty of brown. At first I didn't get it. To me it just felt like nature was sleeping. It felt even a grim in a way. I was coming from the northeast where late spring/summer means rain which means green grass and lush plants everywhere. Lauren didn't get the brown beauty either at the time.
By the time we returned to Boston in 2001, we got it. We understood.
I'm in the bay area this week. This afternoon as I was driving from Palo Alto to SF along 280 I had to pull the car over and take this photo.
Brown is beautiful.
Last week I was reviewing some old posts and realized that this blog is mostly upbeat, especially when it comes to startups.
Obviously I'm not super positive on all things I experience online. There are some sites/services that just don't work for me.
But I've avoided giving negative reviews here. Its probably because I don't want to offend the founders or the investors behind the company. And the one thing I really don't like about this vc business is the comfort I see some investors have freely pissing on other people's investments. Its way too easy and typically not very useful.
Yet, I'm not satisfied with a blog that is filled with proud posts about our portfolio companies or my friends companies or all the cool products and services I'm using these days.
I don't know the answer yet.
But I don't like holding back.
Today Me.dium announced that they raised $15 million. Me.dium is one of our portfolio companies and is building a real-time, collaborative browsing environment. You can see your friends online wherever they are at the moment. And even better, you can see people activity online based on your online attention.
We have been believers in the vision behind Me.dium since the day the co-founders Robert and David first came to see us in our temporary office in Cambridge early last year. It's just great working with Kimbal and the team.
I was going to write a post about the technical ambition behind this company but Brad's post today just nailed it much better than I could have.
I'm online at Me.dium a lot. Add a bunch of friends and it becomes quite addictive. Feel free to follow me online if you want to join the fun. My me.dium handle is bsabet. I'll have to add that to my growing list !
Update: Earlier today, during Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC , it was fun watching the crowd huddle around various Apple related websites. Just look at the crowd around MacRumors.com which gave a minute by minute update of the keynote. Here's a screen shot of Me.dium taken at the time.
Sophia's soccer team finished up today. They actually have one more game but we are going to miss it.
We had a blast. The girls have improved a ton. And they are a fantastic group of girls. I also enjoyed coaching with Dave and Chris.
Today we had some great passing and tons of hustle. Sophia had a sweet left footer for a goal. Nice way to end the season.
I'm 10lbs overweight. Even worse my workout routine is random at best. Some weeks are better than others. But over the past month I've been pretty bad. It started with a torn muscle and then migrated to plain old laziness
With inspiration from my in-shape wife, I'm signed up for a mini-triathlon this August (my partners at Spark are very supportive). More on the August race in another post.
So this weekend I ran both days. Yesterday I ran 2.5miles in the rain. Today I did 2 miles mid day on a hilly run (yeah, excuses are starting already). We now have the Nike+ so I hope keeping track of my data will keep me going on a consistent basis.
Here's my graph from today.
The iPod/Nike+ software and website are fantastic. There are plenty of eye candy charts and you can do tons of stuff like share data, compete, set personal goals, keep track of your playlists for a given run and download new workout playlists of course. I have nike sneakers but you can use the iPod Nano/Nike+ Update: Lauren has been trying them with non-nike sneakers but they dont' seem to calibrate properly.
I've been following the very good TEDBlog's coverage of TEDGlobal 2007 this week. Well worth reading. Powerful information.
A few days TEDBlog posted an earlier video of Bob Thurman's talk (taken on 12/06) about how an all connected world, delivered by technology means that we can know anything at anytime. From TEDBlog:
"And this mass enlightenment, says Thurman, is our first step toward becoming Buddha. When we can know everything, we can see how everything is interconnected -- and we can begin to feel compassion for every living being."
Wow.
Here's the video. Hope you like it as much as I did.
It's easy to find me I guess these days. Here's just a "short" list of some of my profiles (in no particular order)
bijansabet on Last.fm
bsabet on me.dium
bijan on Twitter
Bijan Sabet on Facebook
bsabet on YottaMusic
bijan on MyBlogLog
bijansabet on ProjectPlaylist
bsabet on Veoh
bsabet on Flickr
bsabet on Del.cio.us
bijansabet on Operator411
bijan sabet on LinkedIn
bijan sabet on OpenCoffee
bijan sabet on netflix
bijan on Lijit
bijansabet on aSmallWorld
bijan on dopplr
bijan on Pownce
my tumblelog
bijansabet on nikeplus
I think that's all of them. Based on all of this info, it would be interesting if there was an automated way or streamlined way to build a tag cloud for my profile across the web. Lijit has a nice approach with one particular angle based on search/blog data.
Spock is tagging people and relationships as a cool people search engine. MyBlogLog already has had relationships and recently added people tags. So far this is how I've been tagged by others . I like that "dad" & "friends" are listed. Feel free to add some tags - but be nice :)
This thing is calling my name
Try as I might, this is hard to resist. I need to stay strong.
A few months ago Biz Stone introduced me to Adam Rugel. Adam is the founder of 71Miles which is a network of travel sites focused on regional travel.
They started off focusing on Northern California. The content and user experience is fantastic. I've been recommending the site to friends and have been meaning to blog about it for awhile.
Big Sur is one of our very favorite getaways. It's a special place. Surprisingly I know a lot of bay area folks that have never been. Here is a taste of what 71Miles has to offer on Big Sur. Very nice local content and even a slide show with audio.
I hope Adam covers New England next :)
We have a bunch of Macs in our house
Looking for the best backup solution out there. I need to back up documents (scanned images, quicken files, etc), music, photos and home videos. Its about 300 gigs and growing.
I'm open to either softtware backup to a mac server in the house or online somewhere.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Charlie O'Donnell has a terrific post today about how to become an analyst or associate at a venture capital firm.
We just hired an associate and Charlie's list actually matches up quite nicely with this person. Whew :)
I've been traveling a lot lately and missed the last few OpenCoffee Boston meetings.
I will be there this Thursday. Hope to see you there as well. 9am in Cambridge. More info here.
If you are into MMOs like EVE, Everquest, WoW or others then you will want to check out Total MMO.
It's a new show about the worlds of MMOs, tips, tricks, reviews. And its brought to you by Next New Networks. In addition to the show there is a blog and also viewers/readers are encouraged to comment and upload video as well. Hope you like it.
