Sunday, January 8, 2006
Molding the break
It's time for a VC to break free of the form: VC gossip, catty VC valuation badmouthing, anonymous confessions of the top 10 ways VCs blow off venture beggars, sex tips of the nearly wealthy.... Or perhaps follow Tom Evslin's lead and tell funny stories with deeper meaning.
Other exceptions: Rick Segal, Jeff Clavier, Christopher Allen.
You may already be qualified
Says here blogs, wikis and podcasts are now eligible for Quill Awards from the International Association of Business Communicators. Each, in fact, is a new category.
Elsewares
Graeme Thickins has updated and renamed his blog. Graeme also reminds us that Guy Kawasaki is blogging now too.
We would like to thank the podcademy...
Joe Moraca gives the Gillmor Gang an award for Best Roundtable Tech Talk Podcast. Lots of other winning podcasts in there, too.
Free PC 2.0?
I was at the meeting with reporters where Google CEO Eric Schmidt could not have made clearer the company's lack of plans to come out with a PC. Yet I am encouraged by Jason Calacanis' speculative CES analysis: Why I know Google will do an office suite and a desktop OS in 2006. Specifically,
I don't think Google will make a PC. I think Google will:
a. launch calendar and office suite in the next six months.
b. by the end of the year they will come out with a Linux-based OS and offer it for free to PC makers. Those PC makers will love Google for giving them a free OS and Google will love extending the reach of their money maker: google Adsense.
The big win: Google can offer PC makers something they have never had: reoccurring revenue. Not only can Google give a free OS and office suite, they could offer them 10% of the Google Adsense revenue of that computer/user--FOR LIFE!
Can you imagine if Dell or Compaq could not only sell a computer for $500 with $50 in profit, but also make another $25-50 a year in Adsense revenue? The person keeps the computer for another two years and Dell makes more from the Adsense than the computer.
Where will the ads run? Just wondering.
Anybody need a good IT guy in Savannah? Or anywhere?
My Catharsis is the unfinished story of a an IT professional's employment journey to (but not yet from) hell. At IT Garage.
See ya (even) later
My flight this morning from Las Vegas to Oakland was cancelled. For awhile it looked like I might need to rent a car and drive; but United got me a nonstop tonight to San Francisco.
On the downside, this puts me in Las Vegas' biggest departure crowd of the year.
Meanwhile, a big thanks to friends new and old I got to know better through the CES 2006 Camp. Uploads are slow here at the hotel (where I'm hanging for a bit), but eventually you'll see some shots from our evening get-togethers in my CES photo collection. After that one uploads, I'll put more up at Bubbleshare, which was very helpful through the whole show.
I had thought of going back to the show, but I have a lot of work to catch up on, and hope I can find somewhere at McCarran Airport to take advantage of its free wi-fi.
DRM beat
Engadget and David Berlind report on more depressing news from the DRM front.