BijanBlog

New blog location

I'm now blogging over at www.bijansabet.com

Please come by and say hello.

I'm now Tumbling

I met David Karp last year. He was helping out a number of folks create, design and develop their web properties. We started spending more time earlier this year when we made our investment in Next New Networks. David had been helping Fred Seibert for years At that time David also showed me his latest creation - Tumblr. And since then we've gotten to know each other and I started to really love what Tumblr was all about. Tumblr makes blogging super simple. And you can create a tumblelog just by linking & sharing in addition to a "traditional" blog posts like this one. If you have found blogging to exhausting but love the idea then give Tumblr a try. It's a lot of fun. Some great examples of tumblelogs powered by Tumblr include: -Jake Jarvis (jeff javis son and creator of very cool facebookapps)

-Jakob Lodwick (founder of Vimeo)
-Kevin Rose (founder of Digg)
-David Karp (founder of tumblr)
-Fred Wilson (general partner at Union Sq Ventures)
-Marco Arment (software genius behind Tumblr)

By early fall, David decided to create Tumblr Inc and spend his time building out the service. We recently invested in the company along with our friends at Union Square Ventures, John Borthwick, Fred Seibert, Jakob Lodwick and Albert Wenger.

David is gearing up for a new release of Tumblr on November 1st and the new stuff looks fantastic.

And I'm now tumbling as well. So this will most likely be my last post on typepad.

Please check out my new site at www.bijansabet.com from now on. And I hope to see you on Tumblr too.

(note: If you are subscribing to his feed then you don't have to make any changes to your reader. This feed will now grab my new site. Thanks to Brad Feld and David for the tip on how to do this. If you aren't reading this feed than subscribe now :)

New blog, new url coming

I hand my data off to web services every day. The ones that give me the best value in return I use most often. Simple. That's why i share my personal data with me.dium, last.fm, google, flickr etc.

The place that I probably give the most data to is actually Typepad. Typepad hosts this blog. All of my posts, comments, trackbacks, links, etc.

I'm in the process of moving this blog to a different service that I'm really excited about. So I need to migrate my data from typepad. I'd like to think that my data on typepad is actually mine but it doesn't feel that way as it's hard to make the move.

Since I started bloging, my url has been sabet.typepad.com. This weekend i bought the domain BijanBlog.com. So now if you goto www.bijanblog.com it will redirect you to this blog for now.

I need to figure out how to move my feedburner feed or most likely I will have to set up a new one. And I need to figure out what technorati will do with inbound links. I suspect I'll have to keep this typepad blog alive in parallel for months while I make the transition. Sigh.

And what to do about comments? I never liked typepad's commenting system. My friend David Karp from Davidville introduced me to Daniel Ha at Disqus several weeks ago. Now I have Disqus powering my comment system. Not only does Disqus provides a substantially better commenting system than typepad but the commenting data is portable.  I will be able to bring the service *and data* with me to my new blog. Daniel is a super cool guy and I want to thank him for all of his help. Daniel uses Tumblr and blogs at obscurelyfamous.com

Please let me know if anyone else has info or tips on typepad migration. I'm all ears.

How not to blog: see Microsoft Mac Unit blog

I subscribe to Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit blog.

Why? Because I'm anxiously awaiting the upcoming version of MS Office 2008. The current version of Entourage is ridiculous. It's old, crashes and it's the last major app to not run natively on Intel hardware.

The Mac BU has been forever trying to convince the Apple faithful that they care about Mac users. Read their posts. They publicly declare their love for all things Mac. And that is great.

But their blog is pathetic. All of their posts are either self congratulatory or they talk about features that people don't care about. Consistently in the comments for every post, customers (only) want to know if Entourage is going to fully support MS Exchange properly or not.

And with each blog post, the folks at the Mac BU at MSFT refuse to answer the question or even acknowledge the question. Here's a recent example of the continued frustration

They might as well just turn off comments at this point. Blogging is an opportunity for companies to talk directly, openly and honestly with their users (read: good, bad & ugly).

Microsoft's Mac blog is anything but.

The trouble with Trackbacks

Trackbacks and how they are implemented with todays blogging platforms are way more trouble than its worth. Its clunky to manage to say the least.

But links, trackbacks and comments are a critical part of the blogging conversation. I use technorati a few times a week to see what people are saying about my posts. Unfortunately Technorati isn't used by everyone that reads this blog. So all of that conversation (other blog links) is missing from my blog posts.

We need a system that is smarter and easiser to use.

For example what if a service was built so that my comments section was automatically populated with related links and content. Just like how technorati does it but inside of my blog.

Or maybe some software that allows the reader/blogger to mouse over a blog post and see other blogs that reference this blog.

It could work the same way with comments too. 

(Blogging from my blackberry so excuse any typos)

Why I blog?

Scott Kirsner has an article in the Boston Globe today about venture capitalists that blog and don't blog.

I'm quoted in the piece along with other VC friends of mine. Scott also follows up his article with a post on his personal blog, Innovation Economy. In his follow up, he has a video with me and some other folks on the subject too.

First and foremost, I don't consider myself a "VC blogger". I don't talk about venture capital/business exclusively. Or even most of the time. Those that read/interact with this blog know that. This blog is about me. All of me - work, personal, family, everything.

My blog is about getting my thoughts, observations & interests down on digital ink. But this blog is also about the feedback from you all. The conversation is a big reason why I keep blogging. The feedback comes in so many different ways. Sometimes its a link from another blog. Sometimes it's when I meet someone in person that has read my blog. Or I'll get an IM or Twitter after a post. Mostly I get email feedback & less frequently I will get comments after a post. And I'm learning along the way.

The new friends I discovered thru blogging has been wonderful. Even better are the existing "offline" friendships that have deepened in a special way.

Why do I blog?

I blog because I love it.

Garmin on Wallstrip

My friends at Wallstrip do a much better review of the Garmin Forerunner than my previous review on the product. Howard blogs about Garmin as well and why it's the stock to own. I'm glad I own the product and the stock.

It's another great Wallstrip show. I love Lindsay's "punch in the face" question at the end. So funny.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

New layout

I'm adding a new widget to my blog on Monday. It's from one of our portfolio companies and it's very cool.

It encouraged me to think about my blog's layout given all of my various widgets and sidebar items & links.

I moved both sidebars to the right side. I think it's easier to read. At least it is for me.

What do you think?

Scott Kirsner's blog

Scott Kirsner wrote me a note this morning telling me about his new blog called Innovation Economy.

Scott is great and I'm looking forward to his insights and observations as he covers the Boston technology scene.

Welcome back.

Transparency vs Privacy

I've been thinking about this topic lately as it relates to blogging.

My blog is a personal journal for me that I like to share with others. It helps me learn, rant, share my kids lives with my friends and family, talk about startups and share ideas. Mostly it's fun or I wouldn't do it.

Sometimes I hold back on sharp issues as it relates mostly to startups or products. But I think that my openness is how I've met a bunch of people. Here on this blog and all of my various profiles around the web.

But I know there are lots of folks that don't like sharing their thoughts publicly or being part of the public conversation. I know my wife reads my blog but she has never posted a blog comment. I get them at home :) In fact, the vast vast majority of the feedback I receive from my posts come in email or offline chats.

It seems that this is happening all over the web. There is still a big difference in the number of public voices vs private voices. Think about reviews on tripadvisor or amazon. Clearly most people read vs write.

I wish that some of my close friends would start blogging. They have such a unique, intelligent perspective. But to date they have held off. And some have started but they haven't kept up. Maybe blogs  take up to much time. Fortunately there are new, easy options like Tumblr that should bring these folks online.

But privacy is important as well. I see it at home with my daughter Sophia (8). She keeps a diary that she writes in several times a week. It's extremely valuable to her and extremely private. She even hides it when she's not writing in it. It would be tragic if she lost it or if someone else read it. Lauren keeps a private journal as well.

I wonder how many private bloggers are out there. Folks that are active at blogging and linking but keep their posts behind a password. Their voice and content however valuable is comfortable under lock and key. And yet they wouldn't trade this privacy for anything.

In a world that is opening up faster than ever before, there will always be a place for privacy.

Sometimes its easy to overlook something so basic and so important.