The news media are covering the collapse of the eastbound 580 section of The Maze, which goes from the Bay Bridge to the 580, and its melt down onto the part of 880 south that connects to 80 because of a gas truck fire. I take this road at least 3X a month, and this collapse is wreaking havoc for many.
So, in the spirit of one picture being worth 1,00 words, here's some pix to ponder from photogs posting on flickr. Amazing, huh?
(photo credits: iluvpepero and thomas hawk)
I was beyond amused to see the I wanna be cool and reach 20-somethings NY Times magazine venture into writing an article on SF bondage and smut purveyors Kink.com and their founder, Brit economist Peter Acworth whose 10 BDSM fetish sites have given gainful employment to scores of Bay area digerati, artists and photographers, not to mention dozens of MBAs and such, especially since the article does such a straightforward job of describing how Kink.com's lures solid professionals away from other digital media businesses with good benefits, a calm workplace and regular hours.
More challenging--and braver--is the Times' writer's attempt to report on Ashworth's mission to not only make mucho bucks off his brands, but to “demystify†BDSM (bondage/discipline/sado-masochism) through moving it out of the hard core fetish scene and presenting it as something between (loving) partners.
The reporter says that Ashworth wants kinky but repressed people to "realize they're not alone and, in fact, that there's a big world of people that are into this stuff and that it can be done in a safe and respectful way. "
Writing that "What starts on the fringes works its way to the center. And this affects all of us since, more and more, the center of porn culture has converged with the fringes of popular culture" reporter Jon Mooallem posits that BDSM mores--troubling though they may seem--are entering the mainstream of the culture through the kind of thoughtful porn educated people like Ashworth & co produce--an assertion I found fascinating because its strongest expression might be that the Times chose to assign and run this article in the Sunday magazine.
For all that people that marvel at Nick Denton's cool (and Nick is cool); Peter Ashworth's transparent edginess seems simultaneously geeky and nervily deliberate.
None the less, the business that wins the biggest prize is the New York Times, who manages with this piece, to truly push the envelope of good taste without ever losing its G rating.
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" When I got back online, the most surprising thing was how little I had missed. I had 370 e-mails but most of them didn't say anything....When the work's not going well is exactly the time to turn the Internet off. "
--Writer Stephen Elliott, in an article in Poets & Writers Magazine about spending a month offline and how little he missed (and how much, writing time and otherwise, he gained).
(Via the always interesting Richard Grayson)
Yahoo News: Andrew Braccia leaves for Venture firm; Y! acquires right media.
Reuters acquires ClearForest, atextual analytics (and data extraction?) tool. (Go, Gerry.)
eBay launches auction widgets to go--embed on your website. (Susan sez: One more tool for recommendation/shopping.)
My old friend Rochelle Ratner came to California and spent time with me last week (she did a series of readings for her Balancing Acts, her new poetry book). We took some snaps, and I wanted to post a couple. (Rochelle is one of the few friends shorter than I am, so the statue photo, taken in Oakland, is sweet.)
"We're extremely social creatures, and I think people in New York really suffer from an inability to really interact with people....(Yet) What level of friendliness can you possibly sustain each day if you have to say hello to everybody you meet on 34th Street?"
--Susan Meiklejohn, associate professor of urban planning at Hunter College, quoted in a NY Times story on condos that function a bit like co-housing and intentional communities.
"I don't see myself as a first lady. That bores me. I am not politically correct."
--Cécilia Sarkozy, wife of candidate for the French Presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy, quoted in a New York Times' story on the unconventional relationships of the two front-runners--candidate Ségolène Royal, is not married to the father of her four children, another politician--and the strong contrast to American politicians' traditional family values.
(Susan sez: Is it that American politicians are more traditional--or that they just package themselves to present a familiar image? Hmmn. Answer to that seems obvious.)
Did you hear the one about the new portal home page that's in beta testing, but that is just like another big company's site?
Or the one about the executive who got a call from a head-hunter asking if he'd be interested in a job at a certain portal company--working for exactly the same exec who'd laid him off two years before (and doing fairly the same job)?
Welcome to AOLHell, the world where everyone means well, but getting out of that big crater in the earth is, well, kinda tough.
TechMeme's got the story on the new front page; a friend called last week with the head-hunter tale.
"Why says that reporters are in charge of interviews anymore?" and "Are interviews about information or gotcha moments?"
--Blog pundit Jeff Jarvis, commenting on a Wired reporter's attempts to do i nterviews for a story on Tech Crunch's Mike Arrington.
(Susan sez: Of course Jeff has a lot more to say, all well worth a read.)
"If somebody came to you and said you have a new competitor that has no price and has no cost structure you might stay up a night or two on that one."
--Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, taking about the dangers of open source software in a recent a talk at Stanford as quoted in Wired News.
The NY Times points this out is a relevant statement at a time when new ComScore data that shows Google has overtaken Microsoft as the most visited network of web sites, but I like this Ballmer quote from the same talk better in that regard:
"Google built one very good business. They only have one thing they do. Everything else is sort of cute. We do a lot of things that are cute, too."
"We made this video for our friends (and yours) that haven't yet felt the power of our friend the RSS reader. We want to convert people... if you know someone who would love RSS and hasn't yet tried it, point them here for 3.5 minutes of RSS in Plain English."
--Lee LeFever, Commoncraft, sharing about a video that explains the joys of RSS, newsreaders and aggregators.
(Susan sez: RSS is still near and dear to my heart, and yes, not everyone gets it--this is a nifty explainer even if it only focuses on one newsreader.)
IAC announced yesterday that Match.com CEO Jim Safka was moving to San Francisco to lead a new venture and that the COO was taking over. Safka's done a good job at Match, and it is going to be interesting to see what he develops in the Bay area as he takes over what sounds like a new incubator/venture fund/M&A operation.
The press release says "The mission of the new and yet-to-be-named company will be to identify new business opportunities for IAC, ranging from start-up ventures to existing entities in various stages of development. The new company will actively seed and incubate new concepts and leverage the strength of the overall IAC network to get them launched."
One would assume this means:
a) IAC looked at buying numerous sonets--and didn't--and it stung
b) Acquisition is the path to growth for them
c) They are worried about their base with 18-35.
Susan sez: Funny, that sounds like just about every big company I know--but is also sounds like Safka's going to get some neat runway to play with. Sweet.
"I'm walking upstairs and a guy i've never seen before pulls me aside with a panicked look on his face and goes: "AM I IN A GAY BAR??"
And i was like, "Um. No."
And he was like "Are you SURE?"
And I said "Well maybe it is normally, but not tonight" -- to which he says: "Then why are you like the third woman i've seen?"
To which i replied, "Ohhhh, because it's a DIGG PARTY!"
Apparently, he'd be dragged there by his friends and had no idea. ""
--Nick Denton in Valleywag, quoting a supposed male guest at a weekend digg party in SF that was attended by, oh, 99% men.
"... I want to point out once again that the essential problem for all local media companies is their insistence in the belief that a model of scarcity online will generate the kinds of revenue needed to offset losses to legacy platforms. This is an illusion, and it's why local media companies need to diversify and “become†entrepreneurial internet companies in order to fully survive. The longer we wait to aggregate the local web, the more we accelerate our own demise."
--Terry Heaton, The Pomo Blog, writing about how newspapers' challenge in monetizing content and getting eyeballs is no different than the challenge TV stations face in monetizing their content (video) and eyeballs.
Jeremy Liew's got an interesting look at the March 2007 ComScore numbers.
The 41 sites that visited 10 times or more on average by US internet users in the month of March 2007 include not only usual suspects Yahoo, AOL and Facebook, and ISP/Mail providers like Juno,but alspo include gaming sites, World Of Warcraft, Pogo, Webkinz and Runescape and a kids site tied to plush toys called Webkinz.
In the "other" list outside ISPs, SN, etc, are:
Pretty interesting, huh?
Violet Blue's got a long piece in the Chronicle on dating digerati in SF's Web 2.0 echo chamber--how many writers do you know who can cover dating services, social networks, tech nerds and Burning man folk all at once?
Sites VB references include Tribe.net, I'm in Like With You, and Consumating.com, but my favorite bit is this:
"But not all techies want to place and answer ads -- why not just have people fill out a form and apply for a date on your very own site? That's how MaybeMike, a new SOMA resident and dot-com consultant, rolls."
In other words, why not just date right from your own blog, eh?
"The reason is that when people tend to like what other people like, differences in popularity are subject to what is called “cumulative advantage,†or the “rich get richer†effect. This means that if one object happens to be slightly more popular than another at just the right point, it will tend to become more popular still.
As a result, even tiny, random fluctuations can blow up, generating potentially enormous long-run differences among even indistinguishable competitors — a phenomenon that is similar in some ways to the famous “butterfly effect†from chaos theory.
Thus, if history were to be somehow rerun many times, seemingly identical universes with the same set of competitors and the same overall market tastes would quickly generate different winners: Madonna would have been popular in this world, but in some other version of history, she would be a nobody, and someone we have never heard of would be in her place."
--Columbia prof Duncan Watts, in a NY Times article on network effects
(Via Bradley Horowitz and jason kottke)
Dave Morin & Ari Steinberg from Facebook gave a preso a the Web 2.o expo that I have been thinking about all week. The question they addressed was "What is a great API and how do we build one for Facebook?"
Of course, the real question behind that question is "How do we grow tools for developers so we can build Facebook into an ecosystem that will beat MySpace?
Or, in other words, do do we take a destination that has (according to Morin) 1.5 billion PV a day, and 500,000 new profiles created a week, and fast-forward to a number of compelling applications that can be developed for inside the FB community?
We've already seen the FB team introduce expanded photos, notes, and invites; the goal now is to permit developers to build additional services for FBers to use inside the tent.
Morin's preso becomes especially interesting to me when Peter Cashmore talks about Facebook's interest in developing their own classified ads and when Mike Arrington rips the covers off MySpace's (still not live) new news service (like, why, ever leave, huh?)
It's even more interesting when you look back at Web 1.0 companies and the network effort of traffic; what did Netscape and MSN seek other than to provide a host of integrated services that would incent users to *never leave* and to circulate around the network?
For social networks with strong communities and page views, the opportunity is the same: breed'em, keep'em, multiply'em and if you can stick some ads on there--and sell some premium services--you've got a win.
Or, in other words, the paradigm for success today goes two ways: create APIs that will distribute your data out--but if you seek to intensify the network effect--also make sure to create APIs that will incent developers to help you keep your users in.
More to come this theme...I want to explore to what extent there is a strong correlation between early or sustained success (think sixapart) and partner integrations via deal and/or API (think Mozilla).
"Well, after playing with always-on camera work yesterday I've decided that being on 24-hours-a-day isn't for me. "
--Blogger Robert Scoble, commenting on his experiment with a near-continous self-stream via Ustream.tv.
Well, Web 2.o is still going on today, but I am back in the office full-time--hey, we're shipping tons of stuff all quarter!
Some takeways:
Form--There were three conferences going on:
Highlights of #1 for me were Dave Hornick's talk (because he is both smart and a smart-ass); the Facebook guys' talk about their API, and the session Heather and Derek did the first day.
#2 were the moments when Tara was facilitating a discussion with Brad Templeton and others around OpenID, something we have to resolve into an open-source standard (or create a trillian equivalent).
#3 was many fold:
Substance:
So now, it's back to work.
"Are you happy?" The friend I haven't seen much recently peered down at me over his horn rims.
We were huddled at a party at the Web 2.0 expo, chatting after much time apart.
"Happy? Yeah, I guess so."
"You like your job?"
"Yes, I do," I said.
"Your blog's shot to shit, so I hope you're happy." He shrugged.
I laughed. "Well, I'm having a personal life."
"Just so you're happy," he said, and we both laughed.
(Susan sez: It's impossible for me to think about the time when I was blogging the most--and probably the best--and how it coincided with some truly bad stuff in my personal life and was that one good thing I had and could control. These days, I know I could spend more time blogging, but I don't choose to--and I consider that a higher order problem, one I am fortunate to have.)
Attending my first large conference in at least a year, it occurs to me that in some ways these big conferences are really the business version of The Secret.
Focusing on a techie version of the Laws of Attraction, people pay credible sums to attend and hope that their 36 hours of networking, learning and focusing energy will give them enough tools to to make their start up/company division/personal project become a success (or a bigger success).
Does it work?
Both CMP/ O'Reilly and Prime Time Productions seem to be profiting.
Just came from the Rich Skrenta/ Gabe Rivera/Ted Shelton/Oliver Muoto panel, moderated by Charlene Li at the web 2.0 expo on the topic of Media 2.0 and emerging technologies, revenue models and audiences.
Notes and comments from that session follow:
The alt title of this panel might be geeks who love media and the question of the day is “where is next generation aggregation and media going?â€
Rich's spiel is that folks don't appreciate the newspapers subsidize the 4th estate more efficiently than blogging, even as the Net siphons business and readers from print.
Ted Shelton (Personal Bee/Technorati) says that is view of media 2.0 is that whole new range of people are going to star thinking of themselves as publishers a and as content aggregators and or curators—the best things for the right audience at the right monument.
(Susan sez: This is personalization isn't it?)
Some discussion: Muoto Google is considered the 800 lb gorilla, but small businesses have a lot of problems with ad words and ad sense—they are too complicated to use and keywords can be too expensive. There is room for improvement—not everyone is online buying advertising.
Shelton: How do we help brand advertisers take advantage of the Internet? Google does not (yet), addressed this.
Charlene asks Gabe and Rich: How did you build your audience?
Rich highlights how advertisers want small zip code segments and how that problem isn't solved—yet.
Gabe says that TechMeme is about the links—the relationships—and growth has been driven by experiencing useful links as part of a larger web.
Ted Shelton (relentlessly plugging Technorati (already!) points out Technocrat's virtuous circle of tools and content roll ups—but also adds that his new employer got into this early and it is HARD to get traction in the audience—or to get customers.
Muoto says the novelty effect is great, but too limited. “It is easier for people who are stars to rise to the top and get recognition.†(Susan sez: What does that mean?)
Charlene: Innovation comes from unique perspectives, early in the space. The big players may not have the speed or even the capability. What do bigcos need to do differently?
Skrenta: For big cos to be nimble it's much more difficult to get things done. Having said that, Yahoo, in particular, has some very interesting businesses inside of it like Yahoo! Local and Yahoo! Groups—this is old stuff but it's a compelling opportunity for local community—but if you can't unify groups and message boards into the local services how can you move quickly enough to win?
Shelton says innovation is about big cos doing innovation but big companies can stifle smaller ones (he cites Caterina Fake's example of her niece squeezing her pet hamster to death from an excess of love).
There's more discussion about reaching audiences—Rich affirms that Google search is everyone's start page; Gabe reminds us that many of the tech driven Media 2.0 start ups don't have a persistent, lasting value—the founders were “too in love with the technology.â€
Muoto says audience development is the most important problem facing small web businesses.â€
Shelton: The mobile internet is going to put the final nail in the coffin of media. Ubiquitous mobile devices will finish off newspapers.
The talk continues for the alotted hour, but the (large and diverse) audience seems sluggish; interested in business models and specific tips more that high level issues, I suspect.
When 3,000 attendees log into a network, does the network function?
Basically, no.
I'm at web 2 expo. where reportedly 3,000 attendees piling into Moscone have slowed the network to a crawl.
So, most likely, I will be posting these notes later today or when I can get into the press room.
(If you're here and want to meet up, let me know.)
"For me, blogging is making a back-up of my soul."
--Pl aceblogger and friend Lisa Williams, writing a post describing howreal life (and the need to keep some things private) can screw up blogging (and ain't that the truth, Lisa).
So, it loks like I am going to actually go to Burning Man this summer, after talking about it for 2 years. I have the ticket, time off, people to camp with, and transportation. Now all I need is a kit bag like this one and about 200 gallons of sunscreen.
On one hand, the deadlines for completing most types of projects on the planet eventually become immutable.
On the other hand, shipping huge chunks of code to launch or upgrade new software applications seems somehow unique: the busy hive activity of so many individuals: engineers, front end engineers, QA folks, system architecture and sys admin, designers, project managers, product managers, editors, marketers and so on sometimes makes getting a significant project out the door take on a significance somewhere between Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill and the little engine that could.
We've just pushed all kinds of new code out on Y! Personals, with more to come, and it's feeling damn good.
"House prices have to fall more before housing becomes a clear buy again. These markets aren't as overvalued as they were a year ago or two years ago, but they're still unfriendly. And that's one of the reasons the market is still soft — people realize it's not a bargain.â€
-- Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, quoted in a NY Times article explaining that in much of the country, including New York,California, Florida and the Southwest, it may be more cost effective to rent than to buy right now.
According to the NY Times, Kurt Vonnegut died this week at 84. There was nothing like it when I discovered " The Sirens of Titan,†a science-fiction novel featuring the Church of God of the Utterly Indifferent in the library when I was 13 (except for the discovery, a few weeks later, of Heinlein's " A Stranger in a Stranger Land.")
Vonnegut's darkly comic, wildly satiric novels were just the thing for a young dorky teen in a close-in suburb, giving me tools to laugh, mock and understand the status quo--and the emerging counter culture.
Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut. So it goes.
"We are so desperate to have our voices back that we are willing to leap into the void. We embrace the Web not knowing what it is, but hoping that it will burn the org chart -- if not the organization -- down to the ground. Released from the gray-flannel handcuffs, we say anything, curse like sailors, rhyme like bad poets, flame against our own values, just for the pure delight of having a voice.
And when the thrill of hearing ourselves speak again wears off, we will begin to build a new world.
That is what the Web is for."
-- Dave Weinberger, writing in 1999 in an essay entitled The Longing, referenced by Doc Searls in a post on his belief that " Newspapers are an endangered institutional species that it is critically important to save, and to improve"--and that Sam Zell may be worth a listen.
Okay,this is the post where I am outing myself: I can't keep up.
While my friends in general may think I am tech-obsessed, Miz Edge of the Universe (at least the blogosphere), insiders in the Valley know that I'm hopeless outclassed by the digerati whose deepest passion is having an opinion on the next big thing (and all the little things on the way to the NBT).
I-just-can't-keep-up. And frankly, Scarlett, I'm not sure I should give a damn.
What is Mernit whining about tonight?
I just can't keep up. All the bites and bytes we create are just burying me.
I can barely read and use and experiment with the things I already know and use, let alone make room to have an opnion about the river of products and data flowing into my life.
Arrgghhhhh. What have we wrought?
Oh, I know--information and application fatigue. Welcome to Monday, everyone.
"My own stand on anonymity, stated frequently in this space, is that I will not give full respect and credence to things said by people who do not have the balls to stand behind their words. When people complain that I'm trying to get rid of the anonymous nature of the web, I say no, I wouldn't do that. I'm simply telling you the way I judge your words when you're too chicken to put your name on them."
--Newsman, prof and blogger, Jeff Jarvis, always a noteworthy quote, commenting on the recent Brad Stone NYTimes story on blogging code of conduct efforts
