Steve Ballmer at the Boston College CEO Club (Video)
It was great to see the head of the world’s largest tech firm speaking at a Boston College podium!  Fortune’s “Microsoft Reboots” provides a recap of Redmond’s recent history and predicted trajectory.  While last year the firm missed earnings by $1 billion, and Vista has been widely panned, a tough year from Microsoft still has the firm in a stunningly strong position. Various versions of Windows run on 95% of the world’s PCs.  While the firm needs multi-billion dollar markets to push its stock needle north, Ballmer will spend more coin than anyone to reach that goal.  Microsoft $9 billion+ in R&D spending represents about 3% of the U.S. total.  Windows 7 kicks off ‘a year of product launches unlike any in Microsoft’s history’.  Microsoft may spend 10% of operating income over the next four years on Bing. And while Microsoft is frank about Vista’s shortcomings (MS-sponsored Win 7 launch party that I was invited to came with the e-mail tag “Microsoft Gets it Right”), the new OS has been widely praised.  Tech earnings are already way up (Microsoft, Intel, Google, EMC, Neflix, and Apple are among those crushing expectations), and Win 7 should ignite sales of super-slim notebooks and other products as users who’ve waited buying during the recession seem finally ready to open their wallets.  All signs point to Microsoft having a great year.

Apple: All Systems Go
Of course, Microsoft will have to contend with Apple, which posted another killer quarter and introduced a new iMac, a new Macbook, and a new Mac Mini, among others.  In the teeth of a recession, Apple announced it’s second highest quarterly revenue ever, and a 46% jump in profit over last year.  And Apple clearly senses opportunity with the Windows 7 introduction.  New Mac promotions strike at the heart of the Windows 7 migration – the message – hey, if you’re going to have to make a big switch, why not move to the firm that’s #1 in customer satisfaction?

University of iTunes
I’m in my fourth year of podcasting my biz-tech courses (slides and readings from my open textbook project are also online), and it seems many other b-schools are also capturing their courses and bottling them as bits. CNN highlights the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, Fuqua School of Business, and Yale School of Management content all available within iTunes U.  BC is still evaluating options on making publicly accessible content available within iTunes U, so folks looking for my courseware will need to visit my podcast page for now, but we do have some great content from FrontRow and other sources online.

New Approaches to New Markets: Prahalad’s Bottom of the Pyramid is Paying Off
The U. of Michigan prof’s book on big, profitable markets among the world’s 4 billion poorest is now in a revised, fifth year edition.  Students recognize these concepts from our Moore’s Law chapter, which covers the empowering role of the mobile phone among the world’s most economically disadvantaged.  In this Knowledge@Wharton interview, Prahalad highlights mobile use in emerging markets “All the companies in every one of these areas [sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, and China] — Celtel, Safaricom, MTN, Airtel, Reliance, Globe — all of them are making money. So the first lesson here is if you can find the right sweet spot in terms of business models, there is a really huge and very profitable opportunity.”  India alone is seeing 12 million new mobile subscribers a month. Millions worldwide are transferring funds using mobile phones, bypassing banks (for more, see The Economist’s recent report on Mobile Money).  It’s likely only a generation or two  of Moore’s law advances until most of these folks tote phones that can tap into the kinds of educational content mentioned in the prior story on iTunes U.  The Prahalad interview is chock full of great examples, like how GE took a BOP (bottom of pyramid) $800 EKG machine and used it to replace a $10,000 product used in the US.  We used to talk how special it was when firms had 50% of revenue outside the US. Now firms like Unilever, Nestle, and P&G are seeing 50% of revenue from emerging markets.

We’ll have more inspiring examples from the empowering force of entrepreneurship when the CEO of the Grameen Foundation, Alex Counts, speaks at BC as part of the Clough Colloqium on Nov. 16.  BC students – spend a summer or semester in an emerging market.  Having studied (then latter worked & researched) in Russian and China in 80s and 90s, I can tell you first-hand these experiences will highlight your time in college and shape your insight as a global citizen.  And thanks to the BC alums behind the McGillycuddy-Logue grants for helping this happen for more of our students!

PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail
The headline facts in the YouTube video promo for Adam Penenberg’s new book read like a snapshot of slides from my lectures!  I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s been receiving great buzz. TechCrunch excerpts a chapter (and of course, Kindle apps that you can now find for iPhone & soon, PC, offer up the first chapter of Kindle books for free).

Those interested in the topic might also find this Network Effects chapter a useful read, with concrete strategies for competing in markets when viral loops are present.  I was delighted when a member of the economics faculty at the highly-regarded U.C. Berkley recently sent a shout-out on using the chapter in his course.  Thanks!

Can Amazon Become the Wal-Mart of the Web?
That’s the question posed by the NY Times, but it looks to me like they’re already there.  And with blowout earnings (sales surged 69% – in a recession!), they’re positioned  to keep their scale, tech, data fueled assets humming defensibly along.  Amazon is no longer ‘that big online bookstore’.  N. American sales media (books, music, videos) have been eclipsed by non-media sales, and if trends continue, the firm’s global sales will follow this milestone later this year.  Amazon’s worldwide media biz grew only 1% in the June quarter, but electronics & general merchandise were up over 35%. The firm has created separate hubs for sporting goods, cellphones and wireless plans, and purchased Zappos for leadership in footwear (all while taking out a highly-regarded firm that was emerging as a competitive threat). And sales of third-party product listed on Amazon now account for 30 percent of all Amazon’s sales (Amazon takes about a 15% cut on these transactions).  That long tail of product listings makes Amazon a first-stop to search for products, prompting Wal-Mart and others to introduce their own third-party listing services.  And Amazon has begun private labeling its own line of products, that now include kitchen items, cables, blank media discs, and outdoor furniture.  The firm’s operations are a marvel.  The data-rich business is able to predict demand months out, keeping stocks low and inventory turns high.  This lets Amazon sell most products way before it has to pay suppliers for them, creating negative working capital, or float, so efficient that the firm’s inventory accounting looks closer to what you’d find in a grocery store loaded with perishables rather than a big-box retailer.  And those warehouses are stocked in non-traditional ways.  Walk around one of Amazon’s 25 worldwide shipping centers and you’ll see diapers next to TVs, bagel chips next to Beatles Rock Band video games. This minimizes the chances that a warehouse worker will choose the wrong item.  And warehouse workers tool around with software-generated maps telling them the fastest path to get items from stock shelves to shipping.  The model is so radically different than what a traditional big box firm has, that many firms have outsourced to Amazon rather than straddle the market with two parellel yet incompatible inventory facilities (shipping many products to one is very different than shipping pallets of products from warehouse to store).  Yet, Amazon’s growth is now seen as such a threat that Target has announced it will stop using Amazon fulfillment by 2011, continuing an exodus that includes Toys R Us and Borders.  This might not matter – it’s doubtful that any late mover can eat into Amazon’s huge scale, data, brand, and technical advantages in the very different business of online fulfillment.  Perhaps these rivals need to see what BC students learn about strategy and technology!

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A quick thanks to all those who have written to me about this year’s Boston College PSA.  The great folks in BC’s Public Affairs office did a tremendous job (it takes a lot of makeup and camera work to stop my big, bald head from shining too much).  While I’m hugely honored to be in the BC ‘commercial’ running during this year’s sporting events, I’m humbled when I look around and see so many great stories in our IS department. alone. With Prof. Gips’ continued pioneering work with Eagle Eyes (and with Marketing Prof. Brasel, on tech’s impact on marketing), Prof. Fichman’s national ranking in IS research leadership, Prof. Ransbothamn’s Google grant, and Prof. Kane’s emergence as a social media rock star and one of the nation’s strongest young IS researchers, we’ve got a lot of great stories for us to share.

But a PSA highlighting the field study courses is a chance to share thanks with the BC alumni, parents, and so many others that have helped create world-class programs and opportunities for our students.  And the work continues on The Heights.  This semester alone we’ve had campus visitors from alums who manage search quality for Google, security for Facebook, and who have led investment in Twitter, plus the CEO of the largest social media site in the Northeast (wildly highly profitable TripAdvisor).  The week before Windows 7’s launch some of our MBAs and I spent time at a round-table with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.  Steve was in town as part of BC’s top-ranked Boston College Chief Executives Club (see above).  BC’s ascendancy as a biz tech powerhouse owes a great deal of debt to the contributions of so many who care about our University, and we all remain grateful for the opportunities that you provide for our students.  Thanks, again!

So how’d they win? Wired’s Epicenter reports “Teams that had it basically wrong — but for a few good ideas — made the difference when combined with teams which had it basically right, but couldn’t close the deal on their own.”  Winning formula came from diverse ideas.  Yet more ammunition for diversity in your brain trust!

Netflix used the prize award ceremony to announce a new contest.  This time no individual movie ratings data is offered up.  Instead teams will use anonymized demographic and behavioral data, including ages, gender, ZIP codes, previously chosen movies (although genre ratings are included). Contestants have to to predict movies that these customers would like.  There’s no accuracy target.  Netflix will instead award half a million dollars to the leader after six month, and another half million bucks to the leader at 18 months.

Netflix Everywhere: Sorry Cable, You’re History
I’d disagree with the title of this Wired article (this person obviously never watches live sports – ESPN remains one of Disney’s most lucrative properties & live sports aren’t likely to be replaced by streams served from the red envelope guys), but the piece is otherwise loaded with great factoids useful to faculty teaching with the Netflix case.  Among them: by the end of 2009, some 10 million Netflix-equipped devices will be scattered throughout living rooms worldwide, including stream-ready TVs, Xboxes, and Netflix-equipped DVD players.  Getting rid of the mail infrastructure & postage could be a boon for Netflix, which spends roughly 1/4^th of the firm’s revenue on mailing costs.  But streaming is hampered by windowing agreements.  Cable stations like HBO and Showtime spend a combined $1.7 billion a year for exclusive rights to show movies to their subscribers.  The Oct. 2008 deal Netflix cut with Starz helps given them access to lots of content that would otherwise be locked up by the cable network, but lots more remains out-of-reach. Another neat fact is revealed on streaming vs. network TV revenue: Fox loads up each 30 minute prime-time slot for the Simpsons with 18 commercials, earning 54 cents per viewer, but earns only 18 cents per viewer from the 3 spots that run on Hulu – a site jointly owned with NBC & Disney.

Facebook Shuts Down Beacon
When studying the Facebook Case, we take a look at Beacon, the firm’s botched attempt to post Facebook user purchase data from third-party sites to their Facebook feed.  Rent a video at Blockbuster, say, and Beacon would show this in the feed.  Unfortunately the service was initially opt-out, too much was revealed (including Christmas gift purchases), and the effort was re-tooled as an opt-in program.  Now Facebook is extinguishing Beacon, agreeing also to fork over $9.5 million for the creation of a foundation to promote online privacy, safety and security.  The lawsuit, filed Aug. 2008, shows what could go wrong with systems that aren’t thoroughly tested.  Not only was Facebook mentioned, but also Beacon partner firms, including Fandango and Overstock.com.  The firm’s subsequently-launched Facebook Connect corrects many of the Beacon gaffes, operating as an opt-in service that let users share Facebook data with other sites.  Facebook has also launched an effort with Nielsen, called Neilsen BrandLift.  The polling function (also opt-in) will measure awareness, ad recall, brand favorability, and purchase intentions in quickie one & two question surveys.  Collected data will be aggregate and won’t be identifiable with individual users.

How Facebook Copes with 300 Million Users
Facebook handles about a billion chat messages each day and, at peak times, serves about 1.2 million photos every second.  Just rendering a user’s page requires real-time querying all of the databases that make up the ‘social graph’, serving this up in a second or less.  And this is performed several billion times a day. A conventional database query would be too slow, so Facebook keeps major database work in RAM, enabling it to return a core set of results much more quickly than via conventional storage. The architecture also has to be highly connected.  Add a new feature such as “like”, and a whole new set of real-time interconnections takes place.  And turning on that feature theoretically pushes adoption from 1 percent adoption to 100 percent adoption in a day – all while demanding no perceived drag or downtime.  For content stored on drive storage, Facebook has built their own storage system called Haystack that’s completely built on top of commodity hardware.

USB-IF Sides with Apple, Spanks Palm in iTunes Spat
For those teaching with network effects, the chapter mentions that firms with dominant standards might seek to keep their standards free from imitation.  An updated example (likely to make the next version of the book) is Apple’s blocking the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes.  Some might wonder if this is legal.  According to AllThingsD, The USB Implementer’s Forum “dismissed Palm’s claim that Apple has violated its USB-IF Membership Agreement. Worse, it took issue with Palm’s alleged use of Apple’s vendor identification number, which it says violates USB-IF policy.”… “the USB-IF goes on to suggest that Palm itself is violating its Membership Agreement by using Apple’s Vendor ID number to disguise the Pre as an Apple device.”

Tech Companies Getting Rich Quick
Gonna be an investment banker?  Be prepared for Tech M&A. Tech stocks have outperformed the broader market in the past few months, largely as cash-rich firms bulk up for more growth (especially important for those firms in maturing markets).  Dell bought Perot Systems for $3.9 billion (a 67.5% premium), Adobe recently bought web analytics firm Omniture for $1.8 billion (a 24% premium), and there’s bags of geek corporate coin out there for more deals. Cisco has $35 billion in the bank, Microsoft $30 billion, and Apple & Google each have about $20 billion.

Intel Plans to Replace Copper Wire
USB and similar peripheral cables are cheap, but slow.  They shoot electrons over copper.  But if you could shoot light over glass using fiber optics, you could speed things up significantly.  At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, the chip giant announced a new type of cheap optical cable that will replace conventional cables linking peripherals to your PC.  By 2010 the new Light Peak cables will allow the equivalent of a Blu-ray DVD to be squirt from one device to another at speeds of about 30 seconds.  That’s a perky 10 Gbps! Intel also plans tinier circuits, with 22 nanometer chips, packing 2.9 billion transistors in an area the size of a fingernail, due out the second half of 2011.

Courier: First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet
The late-stage prototype uses many of the gestures familiar to iPhone users, but the hinged, two-screen ‘booklet’ style device has lots of wow.  Definitely check out the video!

For faculty teaching with my Textbook, I’ve launched a Ning community where others are sharing links to video, images, and articles that supplement material from the book. Any professor using the material (either the free, online version or the for-fee print version) is welcome to request access.

Google FastFlip
The new release from Google Laps allows users to quickly eyeball stories, flipping browser pages as quickly as one might thumb through a magazine.  Google places display ads alongside the stories and shares the majority of the takewith publishers.  BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, MIT’s Technology Review, TechCrunch, and Salon.com.  Critics abound, but I really like FastFlip.  While certain sites (Newscorp, Gannett) aren’t in, I find the fast flip delivers more than an RSS headline, but pops up much faster than clicking on various links in Google reader.  And being able to quickly scan for photos, charts, and graphs to supplement my lectures is a big bonus over an RSS crawl.  I’ll likely make a scan of the SciTech and Business sections a regular part of my day.  While the saying goes “you can’t beat books for bandwidth”, if you got this on a Kindle-like device and it’d go a long way to approximating the dead tree experience.  The revenue prospects for the current implementation seems sketchy, though. The ads run along the side of the screen next to the forward and backward arrow and seem strikingly easy to ignore, making it unclear if there’s any sort of industry-satisfying revenue in this first-cut offering.

Times Web Ads Show Security Breach
Of course, if you read those ads on the NY Times, you had to worry about being hacked! Bad guys posing as the telecom firm Vonage switched from running the Vonage ads to ones that displayed virus warnings from user browsers.  According to the NY Times “The malicious ad took over the browsers of many people visiting the site, as their screens filled with an image that seemed to show a scan for computer viruses. The visitors were then told that they needed to buy antivirus software to fix a problem, but the software was more snake oil than a useful program.”  Click the image to the right to see what Times users saw an anti-virus popup ad.  The NY Times has also posted notes on what to do if you fell for the scam.  Sites ranging from Fox News, the San Francisco Chronicle, and British tech site The Register, have also been hit with ad-scams in the past.  In class we’ve discussed how it’s essential for firms to regularly audit their supply chain partners.  It seems this complexity now extends to ad firms, as well.

Massive Study of Net Vulnerabilities: They’re Not Where You Think They Are
A study of 15,000 organizations finds the greatest tech security that organizations face stem from unpatched and insecure applications, and that these, not operating systems, have become the primary target of attack.  While Microsoft products are often cited as being full of holes, vulnerabilities have also been found in Adobe Flash & Acrobat, Apple QuickTime, and even Java, among others.  Even worse – the highest priority often get the lowest attention, with firms taking twice as long to patch these vulnerabilities on average. The study also found that most website owners failed to scan for common flaws in web applications, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting flaws.  Server-side website attacks accounted for 60% of all Internet attacks, and 80% of discovered vulnerabilities. Put these together and it’s a one-two hacking punch.  Bad guys sneak into a server, then exploit application flaws to compromise desktops and laptops.

Misha Glenny on Global Crime Networks
A stunning TED talk from BBC’s Chief Correspondent Misha Glenny on the global mafia. Organized crime now accounts for 15% of world GDP. With the collapse of the Easter Bloc, some 14,000 people whose chief skills were surveillance, smuggling, and killing people, have flooded the job market.  Glenny claims Congolese warlords & global mafia have driven central African conflict that in Congo alone has led to over 5 million deaths – the biggest conflict since WWII.  And the bad guys are online, too.  Glenny links the worldwide mob networks with a need to promote finance reform.  A chilling must-watch.

Apple Launches New Music Products
Cisco bought the maker of the Flip cam pocket video camera for over half a billion. But now Apple has enveloped similar features into the iPod nano.  Interestingly, the nano doesn’t support stills (the censor’s too big for quality pics), but lower-quality video can be shot in the super-skinny music box. Apple also introduced software upgrades for iTunes, the iPod Touch and iPhone.  And the statistics behind Apple’s dominance remain stunning.  Over 30 million iPhones & 20 million iPod Touches sold.  That means app developers now have a 50 million+, and growing, target to shoot at.  Over 75,000 apps are available, accounting for some 1.8 billion downloads to date (remember, Apple crossed over 1 billion app downloads just 5 months earlier).  And there’s no question that iPods are also enveloping the handheld game market.  21,000 of the apps are games, and a host of developers joined Steve Jobs on stage, including EA, which is launching an AppStore Madden.

Polaris Announces Dog Patch Labs
While we once lamented Y-Combinator’s departure from Boston, alternatives are continuing to sprout up.  The latest is Polaris Venture’s Dog Patch Labs, a startup incubation and geek hangout space in Cambridge.  Check out the list for other area ventures fueling the revitalized Boston-area startup scene, and the new ‘recommended resources’ area on my website.  Also check out Scott Kirsner’s take on the best networking events for Boston-area entrepreneurs.  LIkeminded folks might also want to check out the upcoming innovation-focused scavenger hunt The QUEST for Innovation.

YouTube’s Sea of Red Ink Downgraded to Great Lake Status
So how much is Google losing?  The Google Case covers speculation on this.  But it seems the $360 million/a year loss numbers that were widely quoted a few months back have now been downgraded to somewhere below $300 million.

Intuit Acquires Mint for $170 Million
Mint.com, which launched in 2007, is a free tool for tracking income and spending. A sort of next-gen quicken, the site pulls together electronic information from checking and savings accounts, loans, investments, etc., and offers up nifty charts and graphs to show network, spending trends, and other useful info.  The site makes money by pushing out ads and offers from firms that might improve a user’s financial position.  Mint.com was a previous winner of the TechCrunch 50 – the $50,000 startup showdown associated with the popular online news site.

Google Launches Internet Stats Center
This is hugely fun and very useful to anyone teaching where tech & business meet.  Google’s new Internet Stats site culls through third-party sources and presents ‘Twitter-sized’ factoids. Stats are currently broken down into Technology, Macro Economic Trends, Media Landscape, Media Consumption, and Consumer Trends.

The Cloud Hanging Over Skype
eBay has unloaded all but 35% of Skype.  The buyers include Netscape/Opsware/Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen’s new firm, Andreessen-Horotwitz, which ponied up about 1/6^th of its capital for a stake.  Also included in the buying consortium are Silver Lake Partners, London’s Index Ventures, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.  Last year eBay wrote down about a billion in its initial $2.6 billion investment (often reported as an even higher number).  But the new deal re-values Skype at $2.75 billion, total.  But there’s a potential fly in the ointment.  While eBay owned Skype, it apparently never owned underlying technology.  Instead it licensed JoltID, code used both in Skype as well as KaZaA, the music ‘sharing’ software also developed by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.  And now Skype founders are suing, with the potential that Skype could be shut-down.  Was this deal really as risky as it sounds?

The Crime-fighting iPhone
Back before earning my Ph.D, The Fabulous Mrs. Gallaugher and I lived on the boarder of Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood.  It was a lovely, tree-lined place.  But recently some dudes tried to spread bad in our former haunt.  Thanks to the iPhone, though, the ‘burgh is a bit safer.  After perps mugged a late-night stroller and stole his wallet and 3Gs, the victim turned on Apple’s “Find My iPhone” feature in MobileMe.  Good Morning Silicon Valley reports MobileMe tracked the evil-doers through their shopping trip to a Wal-Mart, a meal stop at Eat’n Park, and then to the gas station where cops dropped a bag of hurt.

VC Behavior in Board Meetings
If VCs say don’t check your laptop, smart phone, or texts in board meetings, that goes for class, too.

New Gallaugher.com Site
I’ve also updated my website for the semester.  Included are links to my online textbook and a Ning-hosted community for faculty using the book.  Definitely worth a look is the new Recommended Resources page listing must-reads as well as Boston-focused tech/startup events & organizations, and some other features.  I hope you like it!

The Cultural Revolution – Which Side are You On?
A must-read for New England tech-folks.  The Globe’s Scott Kirsner offers a run-down of how Boston’s startup culture, long a distant laggard to Silicon Valley, is being recast.  Kirsner lists a number of organizations, events, meetups, and programs.  Heading out to any of these events?  Drop an e-mail or tweet!  Scott’s become a bit of a local hero, single-handedly initiating the Boston-area Innovation Open House series.  The events can be a great way for folks to get Tech Trek style visits with firms and startups not yet on our roster.  Students as well as firms wishing to sponsor visits should join the Facebook group!

How Netflix Gets Your Movies To Your Mailbox So Fast
Talk about secrecy – if you work for Netflix Chicago-area distribution center, you sign a contract agreeing not to divulge its locale.  But the Tribune was invited in to the undisclosed location (no logos, hidden behind another office park building) to provide the inside scoop on what it’s like inside one of the firm’s 58 hyper-automated hubs.  At the Carol Stream, IL facility, 42 people in the 28,500 facility move 60,000 discs daily. 95% of the firm’s inventory is watched each quarter.  The routine looks like something out of a Japanese factory – red-shirted staffers inspect 650 discs an hour, then each 65 minutes, take an orchestrated calisthenics breaks.  To keep the veil of secrecy, unmarked trucks ferry discs to and from the post office. Netflix can’t have customers dropping off their own discs (many who have discovered warehouse locations have tried) – that slows down the process.  Even warehouse staff have to use the mail.  According to the U.S. Postal Service, Netflix is the fastest-growing source of first-class mail.  Good for the USPS and good for Netflix.  The firm recently saw a 21% revenue jump despite being a consumer-brand operating in a recession.  The 27 image slide show that accompanies the story is a great supplement for faculty using my Netflix Case.

Computer Hacking Made Easy
Russian hackers recently went after a Georgian blogger critical of Russian actions in the former Soviet republic.  Hackers launched a bot-net, marshalling thousands of hijacked ‘zombie’ machines (your PC might be one of them), instructing each to to flood the blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts of their Georgian Nemesis.  While the Russians were after one guy, the attack hobbled Facebook, blog site Live Journal, and completely shut down Twitter.  Thing is, these attacks aren’t tough to launch.  The nefarious can actually rent bot-nets, cloud computing style.  BusinessWeek maintains the sign-up is as easy as renting servies on Amazon. And since there are now dozens of networks with a million or more hijacked computers, demand has pushed prices south.  Know the right bad guys and you can now rent 10,000 machines for just $200 a day, a tenth or less the going rate just two years ago.  For insights on how crooks have tried to use bot-nets in ad-fraud (and how ad-networks can stop this), see the section Search Engines, Ad Networks, and Fraud, in the Google Case.

Arrest Over Software Illuminates Wall Street Secret
Think geeks aren’t paid much?  Without tech talent, Wall Street couldn’t move greenbacks, euros, and yuan. The former head of markets systems at Fidelity Investments says “A geek who writes code — those guys are now the valuable guys”.  Hedge fund The Citadel Investment Group recently revealed that it paid tens of millions to two top programmers over seven years.  But get caught leaving a firm with some of the code you wrote and expect to do time.  A New Jersey man and former Goldman Sachs coder was recently detained and held on $750,000 bail when logs showed that just prior to resigning, he transferred Goldman code out of the firm and into a German server. The Goldman code allegedly gave the firm a tiny fraction-of-a-second advantage in trading.  But the systems and super-fast networks allow automated trading that can play arbitrage and lock-in pricing before slower firms lumber in with more visible market moves.  While GS has aggressively recruited our technology studies these past several years, the alleged perp was not an Eagle!

New Event Pokes Holes in Startups (but in a good way)
DartBoston runs Boston-area cocktail schmooze fests, but has also launched a new webcast called “Pokin’ Holes,”, where you can watch as an entrepreneur gets expert feedback after presenting an idea.  BCVC teams – tune in and get tips!

NetApp’s Georgens, Warmenhoven see Bright Future
Dan Warmenhoven helmed storage giant NetApp, creating the only multi-billion dollar US hardware firm of the past decade in a half. Warmenhoven was Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, one of BusinessWeek’s Managers of the Year, and led his firm to be ranked first on Fortune’s 2009 list of Best Firms to Work for in America.  Dan didn’t just build NetApp, his generosity helped BC build TechTrek.  He personally delivered nine master-classes to our students over the past several years.  Dan was even a keynote speaker at the E. Coast Boston College Technology Council dinner a few years back. Dan leaves NetApp in great shape as he passes the baton and jumps to Executive Chair.  BC remains grateful for all he’s done for us!

Google Now Able to Diagnose Clogged Arteries
Once upon a time you needed to build a sensor network to get reliable traffic data.  But since all but the most basic new mobile phones will be GPS-equipped in the next few years, Google figures the sensors are in your pocket and you can help it crowdsource the data!  Careful monitoring of opt-in participants (you’ll be anonymized, Sergei and Larry clearly understand the privacy concerns of identified tracking) will allow Google to reveal which back roads are backed up, and which are detour-friendly.  A great example for faculty using the Moore’s Law for Manager’s Chapter.

What’s Really Happening to the VC Industry
Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital offers a spot-on primer on supply, demand, and institutional risk concerns that are plaguing the VC industry.  A great read for anyone trying to make sense of what’s happening in startup financing and how this impacts VCs, LPs, and entrepreneurs.

Video: Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think
This one’ll give you goosebumps – a great video by Erik Qualman, former Yahoo who now runs Global Marketing for education giant EF over in Cambridge.  Definitely worth showing in class as a jump-start to the Social Media, Peer Production, and Web 2.0 chapter.  Run across any other killer video?  Please share your links & I’ll post for all and add to our Chapters page!

myYearbook Finds Profitability In Hyper-Competitive Social Networking World
Two years back my students and I were privileged to have myYearbook.com co-founder Catherine Cook come speak to us.  Catherine started her site as a sophomore… in high school.  Having raised millions in VC coin and rebuffing several buyout offers, it seems the teen-focused site is now pulling in over $1 million a month.  Once named one of BusinessWeek’s Young Entrepreneurs to Watch, Cook’s success continues to inspire.

The Mercenaries in Facebook’s Midst
Facebook has $500 million in revenue, it’s the fourth largest site in the world, and it grew twice as fast as Twitter in July. New revenue streams (such as ‘real gifts’) loom on the horizon. Still, the firm’s $100 million program that allows employees to cash out up to 25% of options before going public, is oversubscribed. The buyout offer comes through Digital Sky – a firm that invested in Facebook earlier in this year at a valuation of $10 billion. The buyout offers value Facebook at $6.5 billion – a nice bit of arbitrage for the Russian investors. Interesting side note: Sarah Lacy, who wrote the BusniessWeek column above & also writes for TechCrunch states that TC has been valued at $30 million!

Twitter 101
Twitter offers up a neat resource for explaining the service to the business-focused twtiter newbie. The case studies are particularly interesting. Some more resources:

• Katherine Boehret’s “Software that Makes Twitter So Much Tweeter” provides a great overview of the various Twitter clients.   From a business perspective I find this a fascinating example of how openness can spur innovation, but create business model challenges. All these new clients are free-riders, essentially piggy-backing on Twitter’s infrastructure and service, while offering nothing in direct revenue compensation to the no-revenue startup.
• The NYTimes piece on “Managing an Online Reputation”, by Kermit Pattison, contains a great quote: “Social media for business now is life or death”.  Some good advice in the piece, although stay tuned for a forthcoming, more comprehensive article this fall by several of us from the BC IS Dept.

BTW: I’ve found Twitter to be a great way to stay in touch with WiG readers, and to more quickly learn and share. Do feel free to follow at http://twitter.com/gallaugher. I’ve also been impressed with how BC has started using new media. See http://twitter.com/BostonCollege and BC’s Facebook Fan Page.  And my son *really* liked The Boston College Football Experience with ”your name” inserted into the streaming video!

Netflix Challenge Ends, but Winner Still in Doubt
After struggling mightily since 2006 to beat Netflix’s Cinematch recommendation engine accuracy by 10 percent (curse you, Napoleon Dynamite!), two teams vaulted past the threshold last month. First across the line was BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos: a combined team of prior top-performers that included a pair of coders from Montreal; two U.S. researchers from AT&T Labs; a scientist from Yahoo! Research, Israel; and a couple of Austrian consultants. But with less than 24 hrs. to go, combined efforts billed as “The Ensemble”, popped atop the prior leader’s score, with the Netflix leaderboard showing a 10.10% improvement vs. BellKore’s PC’s 10.09% bump. The NYTimes suggests BellKore may still win, when results are verified against a separate, private Netflix dataset. Look for an Sept. ’09 award ceremony.

BTW: Netflix posted a strong Q2: revenue up 21% from a year ago, 10.6 million subscribers, churn up slightly (4.5%) and revenue per subscriber down slightly, but the firm has raised targets for subscriber & revenue growth for ’09, despite the horrible economy. The trend is opposite what the industry is experiencing: Home-video sales dropped from $15.9 billion in ’07 to to $14.5 billion last year. Movie rentals remained flat. And 20% of Netflix users are using the streaming service. The WSJ has great charts, plus video chat with Reed Hastings. Also check out the Inside Netflix video segment, from WLOX, showing the firm’s Memphis processing center. Great background for those using our Netflix case (to be updated, soon).

Crowdsourcing Closer Government Scrutiny
A fascinating video from TechReview demonstrating the new, publicly-accessible Government IT dashboard. Useres can view IT spending across government agencies, chart how this has changed over time, and see the success rates for various agencies as they attempt to meet milestones and goals. Also a neat class example of dashboards, particular for anyone using the Data Asset chapter.

Amazon Taps its Inner Apple
A must-read cover story from FastCompany. Kindle’s a stunner – blowing past most pundit estimates. It’s on track to be a $1.2 billion business by next year (the book publishing biz itself is a $24 billion a year industry). According to Bezos, “Kindle e-books add 35% to a physical book’s sales on Amazon whenever Kindle editions are available”, so it’s not surprising nearly all of the NY Times bestsellers are in the Kindle store. The device sucks down a book in less than a minute via a 3G network with no bandwidth charges. Those titles usually run less than half the price of a conventional hardback. A single Kindle can hold 1,500 books. And the Kindle store lets you read the first chapter for free at your leisure, then buy from anywhere.

Amazon has between 10 and 15% of all book sales, but an 80% share online. Markets like this migrate to standards – open or closed, they’re often won by whoever dominates first. Some speculate that if Amazon wins this market, it can crush the distribution channel and redefine the publishing industry. Dead trees go away, costs drop, author royalties skyrocket, and Amazon rakes in huge coin for zero inventory – perhaps taking 20 percent and sharing the rest with authors who no longer need bookstores or publishers. Other firms are scared and rushing rivals to market. Barnes and Noble (which followed Amazon by nearly two years w/e-commerce and never recovered) has recently introduced it’s own reader. Hearst is planning an e-reader for magazines. Murdoch is investing in Plastic Logic. And of course, Apple does have a patent application for multi-touch e-book technology.

And unifying two cover stories from thsi year, Amazon bought Zappos for about $850 million, absorbing a growing competitor that was branching out into other forms of e-commerce and fulfillment services.  TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy shows just how lucrative the deal was for various parties involved.

Sony Gives Blessing to Viral Wedding Video, Rings Up Sales
Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz got married on June 20^th. Perhaps you’ve seen their entrance into the wedding chapel? It’s been viewed over 13 million times since it was uploaded YouTube two weeks ago. The too-cute wedding party surprises guests by busting a move to Chris Brown’s “Forever”. Smiley wedding fun, but Sony could have requested the video get pulled from YouTube. Instead, Sony had the Google unit put in a click-to-buy overlay. FINALLY a media company gets it. Click-throughs were twice the average for similar ads, “Forever” vaults to #4 on iTunes and #3 on Amazon. The couple and wedding party even recreated their groove on the Today Show. Mazel tov Jill, Kevin, and Sony!

The iPhone App Economy – Who’s Making Money?
The iTunes AppStore has surpassed 65,000 apps, downloaded 1.5 billion times. With Apple taking 30% of fee-apps, the AppStore alone might surpass YouTube’s revenues by 2010 (for the record, recession-proof Apple posted sales record sales – up 12% this past qtr – and $1.23 billion in profits).

XO Laptop Two Years Later
Wired provides a great overview of the One Laptop Per Child initiative: 825,000 PCs to kids in 24 countries, with continued growth. Congrats to a personal hero, my former BC professor, Charles Kane (President and COO of OLPC), and the rest at the effort.

Chuck spoke at Tech for Good last Spring. We also heard from Bob Metcalfe on Energy Tech, and Jamie Heywood on PatientsLikeMe. I’d welcome your suggestions for future Tech for Good speakers! BTW: as a Save the Date: The Fall 2009 Clough Colloquium will feature Alex Counts, President and CEO of the Grameen Foundation and author, Small Loans, Big Dreams; How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World, Monday, November 16, 2009, at 4:30 p.m., The Heights Room, Corcoran Commons.

Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground
While so many are trying to change the world with Tech, a terrible undercurrent, led by deceptive “recyclers”, is also polluting the planet. All our students gain background in source-to-EOL eWaste issues via our open-source Moore’s Law chapter (soon to be updated for 2009). The Frontline documentary above, combined with last Fall’s 60 Minutes expose on e-waste in Guiyu, China, will prove powerful teaching aids for anyone using the e-wate module in our course materials.

Chrome vs. Android
Businessweek provides a brief overview of Google’s second OS initiative: Chrome OS. Google must unify or clearly distinguish OS brands (PC firms committed to using each), or risk MS-esque brand gaffes MSN/Live/Bing, Windows Portable Media Center / Zune.

Facebook Lures Advertisers at MySpace’s Expense
Social networking ads are down 3.1%, MySpace ads are down 15.5%, but Facebook ads are up 9.5%. And yes, these stats will find their way into the soon to be posted 2009 update of the Facebook case.

The Great Wall of Facebook
Facebook / Google comparisons look weak on the surface. Facebook burned through $350 million last year, while Google earned $4.2 billion on $15.8 billion in net revenues (take that, recession). But Wired’s Fred Vogelstein (who’s doing some of the best tech-business coverage) points out that much of what happens on Facebook is in the dark web, out of the reach of Google’s crawlers. The 250 million Facebookers (enough to make the site the 4^th largest ‘country’ in the world), share 4 billion pieces of information each month, including 850 million photos and 8 million videos. Facebook Connect is fast becoming the ‘single sign-on’ that everyone from Microsoft to Sun to Yahoo failed to create on their own. And Open Stream API is bringing content streams out of Facebook, too, albeit with serious free-rider concerns (see Twitter discussion above).

But is Facebook’s content enough to create value via a referral network, win over users via ‘dark content’ search of your private friend data, or leverage other benefits? According to Facebook research cited in BusinessWeek earlier this year, “an average Facebook user with 500 friends actively follows the news on only 40 of them, communicates with 20, and keeps in close touch with about 10”. Some experiments show value in ‘friend targeting’, but we’re a long way from proving Facebook is the next Google.

Why is Obama’s Anti-Trust Cop Gunning for Google?
Last year, Christine Varney referred to Google’s rising anti-trust concerns, stating “I think you are going to see a repeat of Microsoft”. Varney’s now the DoJ’s top cop on anti-trust. Does Google deserve this kind of scrutiny? It’s based on open software. It fiercely promotes open standards. And it doesn’t have tight switching costs or user-driven network effects (want to switch to bing.com? You save two letters!). Sure, there’s a network effect on the ad-side (more advertisers attract more content providers with more niche-targeting opportunities for said advertisers), but advertisers and content providers can pursue other ad networks all while working with Google. Those backing a Google probe say it’s time to examine how Google integrates its own property results into PageRank (the algorithms used for organic search). If the firm showed favoritism in promoting its own maps, news, and other services ahead of rivals, that may be akin to court-pursued bundling advantages linking Windows to IE and Windows Media Player. I’m skeptical a Google case will hold water, particularly with Yahoo-Microsoft showing credibility. Wired suggests DoJ action is likely at least five years away. Google shows that bigness will bring scrutiny, even for firms that fiercely try not to ‘be evil’.

The Data Asset: Databases, Business Intelligence, and Competitive Advantage
The 11^th draft chapter in my forthcoming book is now online. This chapter covers the managerial value of the data asset. Also introduces how data is organized, how it’s created, how it’s stored, and how it’s used. Mini-cases highlight data leverage healthcare and private sector use, while longer cases, rich in current information, are provided: Wal-Mart (for product retail) and Harrah’s (for service industry data leverage, and where a BC alum is CMO). For those interested, the response.  Here is a download map of the first 24 hrs. after the first draft of The Google Case was posted online. We’re very much worldwide!  Thanks SO much to all who have written.  Your support & feedback are much appreciated.

Data Center Overload
Like fight club, the first rule of data centers is: don’t talk about data centers. Well, it seems some folks have – to Tom Vanderbilt of the New York Times. Follow him past biometric hand scans and through the sensor-laden multidoor man trap to get inside Microsoft’s Tukwila, WA data center. These centers are big! Microsoft’s Quincy, WA facility could hold 6.75 trillion photos. Among the interesting facts: “the electricity on a low-end server will now exceed the server cost itself in less than four years”. Microsoft’s Gen 4 data center in Dublin will be built entirely of containers – no walls or roof – using the outside air for much of the cooling. Interesting info for those teaching with the Cloud Computing section of the Software in Flux chapter. Great slideshow to the left of this link!

Zappos Way of Managing
Inc. recently ran a cover story of the rabidly customer-focused Internet shoe selling giant. The firm booked $1billion in sales in ’08, up 20% from ’07, and has been profitable since ’06. And it’s moved beyond just selling its own stuff. In ’06 Zappos launched an outsourcing program to handle sales, custom service, and shipping for other companies (even more direct competition with Amazon). The last December the firm launched an educational website for small businesses that charges $39.95 a month to tap into Zappos execs for advice.

The firm’s shipping center is impressive, with 70 brand new robots allow the firm to ship a pair of shoes in as little as 8 minutes. Says the firm’s CEO (and relentless ‘Twitterer’ Tony Hsieh (pronounce Shay and tweeting @zappos), the firm’s entire business revolves around happiness. Zappos is regularly voted one of best firms to work for, even though it often pays employees below market rates. Trainees famously offered $2,000 to quit after two weeks of training. Managers are required to spend 10-20% of their time goofing off with the people they manage. The customer-focused Zappos prominently displays its toll-free customer support number, offers personal buying service, throws in free socks – anything to put a skeptical customer at ease and generate the best form of advertising – positive word of mouth.

Zappo’s isn’t Hieh’s first success. When he was 24, he sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million. His Venture Frogs firm also helped start Ask.com and OpenTable (which went IPO earlier this year).

CraigsList Revenue Said to Top $100 Million
That’s a 23 percent jump from the firm’s 2008 take and up hugely from the firm’s $9 million revenue just five years ago. The firm is still mostly free and not at all interested in going public, but with the majority of content free (it charges for some corporate job listings and some real estate ads), CraigsList has been killing conventional newspapers. Newspaper classified ad revenue dropped 29 percent last year.

Digg’s Amazing Business Model Explained
Video clip of Digg CEO Jay Adelson on Digg’s model. Among the info revealed: “We are getting 10-20 times the price for an ad that a social network will get”. “1.5 billion impressions of those Digg buttons across the Web every month and they are growing by 100 million to 200 million a month.” Digg sends 80 million visits a month to major newspaper websites and is helping them to understand how to leverage social technologies to better monetize these users. Jay also talks about funding and having cash. Highland Capital (where two partners BC alums) led the firm’s Fall ’08 round, and Jay kindly spent time with my undergrads last spring.

Dude – Dell’s Making Money Off Twitter!
Dell claims that it’s netted $2 million in outlet store sales referred via @DellOutlet (>600,000 followers), and another $1 million from customers who have bounced from the outlet to the new products site.

How Twitter, Cell Phones, Facebook Make History
In a week when Twitter and Facebook have been a major tool to organize and disseminate information from Iran, it might be interesting to check out Clay Shirky’s TED video from earlier this year.

Microsoft Sues Over Click Fraud
Using techniques described in our Google chapter, Microsoft uncovers click fraud and takes the perps to court. I do have strong reservations over the article’s claim that 1 in 7 clicks are fraudulent, though. Google’s provided academic papers disputing this (referred to at the end of my chapter). Surprising major media hasn’t challenged some of the high rates they’re hearing from fraud auditing firms.

Sales of iPhone 3G S surpass the 1 million mark in 3 days
Headline says it all. So did the press release – made by Steve Jobs, who is back on the job!

Google: Search, Online Advertising, and Beyond…
The latest draft chapter in my free, online textbook project is online.  This one covers about one to two weeks of lecture material wrapped around Google. Goal of the project is to leverage what we’ve used at BC (where we’ve seen IS majors balloon 3 fold in 3 years) to provide courseware that’s as engaging as Fortune or BusinessWeek articles, all while wrapped around durable management & tech concepts. This chapter covers organic search, Google infrastructure, search advertising, ad networks, geolocation, customer profiling, privacy, the growth challenge, Google vs. Microsoft, strategy, competitive advantage, anti-trust, and more. Slides from last semester are also online. Comments welcome! And thanks to faculty from Maryland, USC, UC Berkley, UC Irvine, Syracuse, Nebraska, and the many others (large & small) who are already adopting earlier chapters! Your feedback is hugely motivating!  Note: Everything you find outside constitute’s my own drafty work.  The material will be professionally formatted and professionally hosted later this summer.  There’s a link on http://gallaugher.com/chapters for folks interested in formally beta-testing, too.

Commentary: A quick shout-out to David Wiley, COO of my publisher, Flat World Knowledge, who was named one of FastCompany’s most creative people in business, and to Flat World themselves, who made one of Outsell’s 30 innovators to watch in 2009, ranking next to Google! Interesting they’re the textbook case (literally) for Chris (Long Tail) Anderson’s “Free” thesis (original Wired article). The Globe’s Scott Kirsner just called “Free” one of the most highly anticipated books of the year, so timing on: press interest, the economy, and model, may be perfect! Here’s hoping that FWK, with free online texts and sub-$30 printed texts, can disrupt the $175-a-pop titles peddled by rivals.

Pogue on the Latest From Apple’s Big Show
Lots of updates from the Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference, headlined by a campus favorite (pictured).  Also see the NYTimes’ live blogging coverage or the keynote video at Apple.  Phil introduced the new iPhone 3G S. (“The S stands for speed.”). Comes with auto-focus 3MP camera (tap to shift focus), video camera (plus video trim/edit within phone), voice commands for dialing and iPod (you can even voice command Genius functions). There are now 50,000 iPhone apps. IPhone can now leverage a ‘find my phone’ feature if you’ve lost yours, plus now has the ability for consumers to ‘wipe’ lost/stolen phones. ZipCar showed an app to have your Zip-rental remotely ‘honk’ to find it in a full lot (even a non-driver like me thinks this is super-cool)!  Neat adoption stat: in ’07 there were 25 million OSX users, now across Macs & iPhones there are 75 million. Old iPhone 3G is now just $99 for 8GB. 3G S ships June 19th, the iPhone 3.0 software update for all will be available on June 17th.  In March we learned the free update would include: Copy/Paste, Bluetooth stereo audio, rotatable wide keyboard in all apps, photos in text messages, universal search, audio recording and editing, and more. 13” and 15” MacBooks get those 7 hour per charge embedded batteries. Snow Leopard (the new Mac OSX) should ship in Sept, be faster, smaller (a first) and upgrade will cost just $29.

Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads
The popular online music service was founded in ’00, but should finally turn a profit next year. And ad-supported Pandora can thank the iPhone. The firm’s iPhone app has over 5 million users, and brings in another 18-20K new users each day (there are 27 million users overall, mostly desktop, < 1 million on non-iPhone mobile clients). Users currently hear about one 15 sec. ad an hour, but that number will go up to two or three within the year (the avg. Pandora mobile user listens for about 90 mins a day). Ads are pretty innovative. Domino’s Pizza ads on Pandora mobile have a ‘click-to-call’ option, Dockers offered a 20% promo-code discount. Nike & Kraft ads bring users to mini-sites with running tips & recipes, respectively. And home audio firm Sonos claims a 5% click through rate (way above 1-2% best-case averages the firm had seen on other services), and clicking users were more likely explore other messages.

What’s a Friend Worth?
Some fascinating nuggets in BusinessWeek’s cover story & beyond. Facebook, with estimated revenue of $300 million, will bring in scarcely a dime a month per member. Map that against data reported by BusinessInsider, and it seems that by pulling in $500 million, Facebook app developers collectively make more than the platform does (great fodder for the free-rider discussion in our Facebook Case). A few years back Yahoo found that if a user clicked on an ad, their friends were 3 to 4 times as likely to click the same ad. Rapleaf leverages tracking cookies to build these profiles and is seeking three-fold click-through boosts. The avg. Facebook user with 500 friends actively follows only 40, communicates with 20, and keeps in close contact with only about 10. Microsoft just established a Cambridge research division focused on social sciences. Follow @zephoria to get insights from danah boyd, the group’s rock star.

Map of Social (Network) Dominance
Risk-like map showing top social networks around the globe. A great example to bring up during discussions of the Facebook case, particular in case’s section on int’l growth and the value/ROI of international users.

Microsoft’s Effort to Best Google Yields Results
Microsoft’s new ‘decision engine’ is it’s third entry into the search market. Of course, the industry saying is that an MS version 3 is the one you’ve gotta really watch out for. Bing, sports nifty tweaks for specific kinds of queries. Restaurant searches in Bing are bundled with ratings stars, product searches show up with reviews and price comparisons, and airline flight searches not only list flight schedules and fares, but also a projection on whether those fares are likely go up or down. TechCrunch suggests several queries to try. Bing also comes with a $100 million marketing budget, showing that Microsoft is serious about moving its search market share out of the single digits.

Of course, I have a big problem with Bing. It assumes any searches on my name really didn’t want the ‘u’, and instead put a bunch of links for a certain watermelon-smashing comedian, despite all the content associated with the ‘u’ spelling. Blog posts, wiki work, academic papers, teaching material, PowerPoints and podcasts. But to Bing users looking for this stuff, it just assumes you’ve made a typo. For the bald man it’s no respect from Redmond.

The Dubbing of Bing
What’d it take to find the name? Six months, and dozens of experts, including two trademark lawyers and 20 linguists, all poring over 600+ choices. Of course, MS wanted a solid, verb-sounding name, and wanted to avoid other band failures this year (example: Mattel’s latest American Girl Doll, “Rebecca Rubin”, shares a name with an alleged arsonist wanted by the FBI).

Microsoft Reveals New Strategy for XBox
Redmond definitely sees XBox as an entertainment hub beyond just games. New partnerships integrate Facebook and Twitter. Users will be able to view Facebook photos on TVs and watch television in a ‘virtual party room’ with online friends. Steven Spielberg introduced Microsoft’s new Project Natal – a video camera that lets us do away with the controller. The Natal demo Video is a must see. Move hands as a virtual steering wheel/shifter, pretend you’re a monster and breath to blow fire, even voice recognition for trivia games. Very slick!

Hands-on with Weird and Wonderful Wave
Aussie Googlers who gave us Google Maps have come up with a communication tool for our time. Their goal – create a new, open communication platform for today that moves us beyond e-mail and the web. It’s in Beta for developers at Google IO (their version of WWDC). Wave has tremendously slick features, but most impressive were platform hooks that could allow all sorts of collaborative features. Demo video is an hour and a half long, but there’s a lot in there.

Kurzeil on Singularity
This TED talk is two years old, but still right-on for folks using the “Moore’s Law and More” chapter. Great examples, great graphs. And Ray Kurzweil’s the king of goose bump inducing quotes as he charts how room sized tech is now in your pocket and on its way to fitting inside a space roughly the size of a single blood cell. RK closes with the Singularity University announcement, which will start running in the Valley this summer. One of their faculty? Our energy tech, Ethernet inventing, Tech for Good speaker from this past spring, Bob Metcalfe. Follow Bob’s experiences on Twitter @BobMetcalfe.

4 Apps that Turn your iPhone Into a Canvas
A Recent Cover of The New Yorker was actually created using the iPhone Brushes App (watch the video – it’s mezmorizing). That migth inspire you, but if you lack the skils of a pro, the NYTimes suggests four other iPhone apps for doodling.

Google’s Street Mapping Tricycle
To navigate tightly-packed, historic city centers, Google’s commissioned an image-capturing tricycle. PC World offers a photo gallery of the geeky three-wheeler.

Jobseeker buys Facebook ad to find Microsoft Gig
I loved seeing this come across my browser! Resourceful Eagle (and former TechTrekker) Eric Barker is an extraordinarily talented student. A former screen-writer with film and game industry experience, he spent last summer working at Nintendo. Not only brilliant & experienced, Eric may have more industry passion than any previous student I’ve had in class – reworking his schedule to attend nearly every speaker & new media event on campus or in the area, and always asking the most insightful questions. Now he’s leveraged guerilla job-seeker tactics in a way that doubtless will be copied by others. Afterall, Facebook lets you serve ads directly to anyone pre-qualified as being in an organization’s network.  In a good economy firms would be fighting over him. For any Microsofties looking to hire, you can’t do any better than Eric Barker!