BijanBlog

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 :)

Bug Labs meetup recap

Last night Peter, Ken, Jeremy, Brian, Heather and the Bug Labs gang hosted a meetup in Cambridge. I think about 70+ people show up. 

I met a number of folks at the event including Erik Schwartz from Foneshow who I met thru this blog. Erik lived in the bay area for a long time and moved back east about the time I did so we had a nice chat about Bug Labs and life on the east coast vs west coast.

I also met Dan Bricklin last night which was pretty cool. For those of you that might not know, Dan is the creator of VisiCalc. And he's an active blogger. Check out Dan's post about the Bug gathering last night and his podcast with Peter.

Wade from Xconomy was there last night as well and has this great post

Thanks to everyone who came. The enthusiasm for Bug has been really special.

Update: This is really funny. Here is Bug Labs Episode B which is a follow up to their first video on the beginnings of Bug Labs.

(disclosure: Bug Labs is a Spark portfolio company)

Join us for Tech Blogs

I'll be chatting it up with friends at Scott Kirsner's Tech Blogs in a few weeks.

Scott's description of the evening :

Tech Blogs: How are Blogs Changing the Way Technology is Covered?

Entrepreneurs, CEOs, VCs, journalists, and PR professionals are increasingly cranking out blogs, podcasts, and video dispatches. How does this change the way the tech sector gets covered? What does it mean for CEOs trying to get their stories out, PR firms trying to get coverage for their clients, VC firms touting their investments, journalists trying to cover important news, and customers tracking the market? (Not to mention the relationships between all of these players.)

We'll bring together representatives from all four camps for a wide-ranging conversation (definitely *not* a panel) about the way blogs are changing the game in the tech world.

General Info: Oct 23rd @ the Cambridge Innovation Center. It's free to attend but seating is limited. RSVP.

Correction: Bug Labs MeetUp

I made a mistake on my original post about the upcoming Bug Labs MeetUp in Cambridge. It's taking place Oct 9th (tomorrow!). I had the date wrong before.

Hope to see you there.

Let's get rid of the Non-Compete

I spent nearly 10 years working in the bay area. I worked at a number of startups and most importantly I worked with some amazing people. And I worked with those same amazing people over and over again in different companies.

My experience was hardly the exception. Many great companies in Silicon Valley have teams that have worked together time and time again.

When I moved back to Boston I forgot all about non-competes. I was frankly surprised that employers not only require them but they actually enforce them. This means that if you leave a company, you are not allowed to work for a competitor. The definition of a "competitor" is often broad and confusing.

As a result Boston startups have a real disadvantage from day 0. Boston entrepreneurs have one arm tied behind their back compared to their west coast counterparts. Imagine if Mass. didn't have a non-compete. What could the successful alumni from EMC, Lotus, Lycos, Akamai, DEC, Avid, Sonus, Groove, etc have possibly created after leaving those companies?

Or think about the reverse? What if CA had a non-compete. We might not have seen Intel, AMD, Apple, Oracle, SalesForce.com, Adobe, ,  develop the way they did (those companies were started by entrepreneurs that were at "competitive" companies prior).

Scott Kirsner has a post about last weeks NEVCA lunch where Paul Meaeder from Highland Capital calls the non-compete a "silent killer"

There are many reasons why the east coast vs west coast debate continues. There are some complex issues at work and it might take some time.

Getting rid of the non-compete should be an easy one though. Let's do it.

Dave opens up Flickr-to-Twitter

I've been using Dave Winer's Flickr-to-Twitter for a few months now.

Using Dave's software, I take a photo with my iPhone or Curve, email it to flickr, and it automatically posts to Twitter with the name of the photo and the url. It works simply and perfectly.

It's one of my favorite uses of Twitter & flickr. Sharing a photo "in the moment". But it is been a closed service and unavailable to the general public.

Until now. Dave has decided to open up the service to anyone. If you use Twitter and use Flickr then this is a no brainer. You'll love it.

If you use Flickr and haven't tried Twitter than I bet this will get you twittering away.

Bug Labs MeetUp in Cambridge - Oct 9th

Bug Labs is having an open event on Tuesday, Oct 29th 9th in Cambridge.

Please join us if you are interested in open source technology, consumer electronics and the idea of web services + hardware. Peter, the founder & CEO of Bug Labs will be there. I'll be there too.

Here is the event info. No RSVP required

Hope you can make it!

Update: I'm very bummed but I won't be able to make the event. I have a personal commitment that evening that I forgot all about. Ugh.

Update 2: My plans have changed again and I can make the event after all :)

(disclosure: Bug Labs is a Spark portfolio company)

Internet People at N3

Next New Networks (a Spark portfolio company) introduced Internet People a month ago. The results have been simply awesome. It has been watched over 4 million times and it has generated over 10k comments.

Last week the team at Next New Networks created this live, one-shot version of Internet People with the employees of the company. These guys rock.

Check it out.

Real-life "Internet People" performed by NNN from justin on Vimeo.

Y'up, what he said

Santo has a post today about Greylock's investment in Facebook.

Santo is 100% right. Couldn't agree with him more.

Bug Labs is coming to Cambridge

Bug Labs held their first meetup in NYC in August. It was a great turnout.

Well Peter & the company are now coming to Cambridge, MA on Oct 9th. Please join us if you are interested in the world of consumer electronics, open source and a world where web services meets hardware mashups.

Here are the details.

I'll be there. Hope you will be there too!