Baseball’s All-Star Break this week proved to be quite special - not because this was the last All-Star game at The Yankee Stadium, the cathedral of baseball and a place where I fell in love with this distant cousin of cricket. No, it was not special because the All-Star game went into the wee-hours of the night and took 15 long innings before the American League took their rightful place in the winners’ circle. No, it was not special because Josh Hamilton put on an awesome display of power and sprayed home-runs during the HR derby.

To me it was special because it was all about young talent, many making their first (and not their last) trip to the All-Star Game. The HR Derby had none of the established hitters vying for the prize - instead it was all young turks. The All Star game was no different - packed with youth, energy and enthusiasm of talents like Justin Morneau, Scott Kazmir, Grady Sizemore and Evan Longoria. David Wright, Dan Haren, Dustin Pedroia, and Joe Mauer. This was a year where the guard changed.

The game is still the same, except there were new heroes and new starts. That is the beauty of the game I have come to love more dearly than life itself. I think that is the case with my other passion - blogging. Like baseball, the art of blogging remains the same, we just get new players. You see the changes on the Techmeme leaderboard, as new voices emerge, and take their rightful place center stage. We see an emergence of new class of bloggers who are on their way to getting our full attention, playing with some of us old timers (by blogging metrics at least.)

Some (not all) of them (in no particular order) are Eric Eldon at VentureBeat, Allen Stern, MG Siegler of ParisLemon, Caroline McCarthy at The Social, and Andrew Chen. Like Josh Hamilton, blogging also has have a reclamation project in Henry Blodget, leaving his past behind, and playing a new game.

They are among many others who I read daily, just like I read the folks on our team. The rise of 1990s Yankees dynasty came when they took home grown talent of youngsters like Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera and teamed them up veterans like Paul O’Neill. I feel the same way about our little team - I feel especially fortunate that the future of blogging is working alongside me in our little company - Katie Fehrenbacher, Craig Rubens, Chris Albrecht, Liz Gannes, Stacey Higginbotham, Judi Sohn and Mike Gunderloy.

The point I am trying to make is that blogging, like baseball, is a continuum of talent. Instead of hitting and pitching, blogging is about having something meaningful to say, informing, entertaining and educating your community. But most importantly it is about ability to converse, connect and prod your readers into thinking differently. I learnt that from Dave Winer & Doc Searls. I don’t see why those truisms should change - just like the sinker, the long ball and the stolen base.

With that said, like some of my favorite veterans on the All Star Steam, I am not ready to hang up my blogging cleats. Not anytime soon! Now back to regular baseball and of course, blogging.

PS: does anyone have a photo of the All_Star game they want to share with my readers? Email me the link or leave it in comments.

Just like that, it has been six months since I had my life-changing experience. And perhaps that’s why I was comfortable flying out to Tel-Aviv to attend Yaron Orenstein’s TWS 2008 conference, meeting with tons of startups and getting together with friends. The journey, not the visit to Israel, turned out to be quite arduous, mostly because of the modern air industry’s inability to observe punctuality and show any degree of respect for their customers. (Of course, if you follow my Twitter feed, then you are up on the news.)

Since coming home, I have been struggling with a jet lag and some other issues that have prevented me from writing my recap of the Israel 2008 trip. For the past two weeks I have struggled with the urge to smoke, for the heat has triggered memories of sitting at sidewalk cafes, drinking espressos and smoking with friends, watching life just take a lazy stroll. Fighting to stay the course and not smoke took all of my energy, so now you know the reason for my sporadic appearances on the blog, and not replying to your emails. Perhaps that is why the foggy weekend was a welcome opportunity to write about my visit. (The photo gallery of the trip is embedded at the bottom of the post.)

Xen Mendelsohn To Report On Israeli Startups For GigaOM

First, an announcement: Xen Mendelsohn, whom I first met on my 2007 trip to Israel, is going to be our blogger in Israel. She is going to be contributing posts about Israel’s more promising startups and the mobile industry in general. Her thoughtful, intelligent and understated ways are in sync with how we work around here. She writes the Xellular blog. Welcome Xen, to our little family of writers.

TWS 2008: Nice Start, Needs To Get Bigger.

Now a bit about TWS 2008. The conference was organized by Yaron Orenstein, the guy behind the popular Israeli blog the.co.ils. He told me that he got 8100 applicants and the aim was to pick the 10 most promising Internet startups in Israel. A big panel of judges helped narrow down the field. I saw many companies but frankly, only four stood out. (You can find the complete list on Yaron’s web site.)

WorkLight has developed a middleware platform that allows enterprises to securely use Web 2.0 tools including widgets. I wrote about this being a big opportunity for the now defunct Business 2.0, so it is hardly a surprise that I liked this company. Another company that impressed me was

Nuconomy which has developed analytic tools for the social web, and helps get more meaningful information, not just page views. (Longer piece pending.) In the same vein was HiveSight which has developed a platform that helps marketers actually make sense of social media. Peanut Labs would be a close competitor.

The company that stole the show for me was Mo’Minis, which has come up with a development and publishing platform for mobile games. I wanted to write more about these guys but somehow we couldn’t find the time, though I remember meeting the two co-founders at a bar the night before the conference. Anyway Xen can follow up.

Another startup that merits a mention is Wix, which is an online platform that allows users to create striking and easy-to-build web content in Flash (web sites, widgets, blogs etc.), and publish it anywhere they want online. A close competitor would be Sproutbuilder of San Francisco, and like that company, I don’t see these guys as a business. Still, it’s worth trying out.

Some thoughts about the conference: It needs more resources, and the Israeli tech community needs to help grow this event. For a first-time event, I was impressed by the sheer number of startups Yaron had attracted. The event also got the attention of many European investors. For instance, Seedcamp’s Saul Klein was in attendance. I hope Yaron includes more than just web companies next year. I can’t wait to go back.

And some other notes…

I met close to 24 startups and over the next few days I am going to write about some that made an impression. As you might imagine, I didn’t get much time to relax, because I got swept up in the thrill of meeting new companies and entrepreneurs. No, it wasn’t all work. I had sushi in Tel Aviv, took a drive through the desert and attended a Jewish wedding ceremony of my friend Shirin, whose family happens to be from Calcutta. (Mazel Tov!) And somewhere in between, I found time to meet students from IDC and talk about how to blog about innovation.

And if that wasn’t enough, I got to attend Tel-Aviv’s fabled White Night, a night-long party across the city. Now that was wild. This trip was actually made more than fun thanks to three people — Ouriel Ohayon, who is Mr. Techcrunch France, but lives in Tel-Aviv; Orli Yakuel , who is super awesome and knows everyone in Israel’s web community, thanks to her blog, Go2Web2; and finally Benchmark Capital’s Michael Eisenberg, who has become such a dear friend that he let me use his conference room as workspace for a day. Now he is a busy guy; how he manages to find time to blog I don’t know. With friends like these, are you surprised that I want to go back?

Today!

P.S.: In case you wanted to know — I am still smoke-free!

Related Israel 2008 posts

Destination Tel-Aviv: Some Work, Some Fun
Will They Really Modu
Destination: San Francisco.

Photo Gallery

The week-long whirlwind of a tour to Israel is finally over. Waiting for my flight, I’m wondering when I’m going to get to sleep in my own bed. It is about 18 hours of flying time — London and Philadelphia are two stops on the way — with about six hours of layovers. Given that I am going to be flying on US Airways — an airline with a patchy track record of timeliness and service — I’m not sure if everything is going to work out. Never mind the fact that both Heathrow and Philadelphia Airports are shining examples of tardiness.

The nightmare ahead not withstanding, I have to say, the trip has been quite satisfying, for I am always amazed by the tirelessness of Israeli people. Tel-Aviv is a unique place, almost matching the pervasiveness of technology (and tech startups). Twice I got pitched while waiting for cabs on the street, a scene right out of a random meeting in Palo Alto. (Check out TypeMock, one of the companies I got pitched on.)

One of the promises I made to myself on this trip was that I would keep my computer time to a bare minimum and rely almost entirely on my mobile device of the month, the Blackberry Curve. The reason for my computer-free diet was to get some downtime and enjoy the lovely beaches of this country. I also wanted to take some time to write a longer-form report from Israel.

Well, the downtime didn’t quite happen, for I ended up meeting tons of companies — about 40 in all. Those meetings consumed a lot of cycles, not to mention the pages in my trusted MoleSkin notebook. I am going to use the long flight home to type out the notes about some of the more promising startups.

One of the highlights of this trip was an informal meeting with Yari Goldfinger, co-founder of ICQ, at the TWS 2008 conference in Tel-Aviv. Our chat was long, expansive and rambling, but enjoyable nevertheless, despite my jet lag.

Before I take off, one last word about the deplorable state of commercial Wi-Fi. The GoBoingo continues to fail the review, for the Tel-Aviv Airport is yet another location where Boingo — via its new client, GoBoingo — refuses to work.

The network shows up but error messages abound. You guys are aware of my troubles with Boingo thus far and how the service failed to work in certain major airports. The company’s spokespeople emailed and did some major verbal gymnastics, but the proof is in the pudding. Next stop will be Heathrow and then Philly. Maybe…just maybe Boingo can redeem itself, but I’m not holding my breath.

See you next week!

Updated From Frankfurt: It has already been a long day! I got up at 3 a.m. to get ready and head to the San Francisco Airport in time to catch my early morning US Airways flight to Charlotte and then connect to Frankfurt and then to Tel-Aviv. US Airways doesn’t tell you that you that you’re flying through “some city” on your way to Europe, which was funny because I ended up at the International Airport and then had to head back to the domestic terminal.

I am going there for the TWS 2008 conference, where I am one of the judges. I fell in love with Tel-Aviv on my trip last year, but never got to really chill and enjoy the city very much. This year, I plan to enjoy the beaches and recover a little from Structure 08-related madness. I have to say, I am seriously nervous, because this is a long trip, my first one since my heart attack and my first attempt at normalcy.

While the first part of the journey turned out to be fine, at Charlotte I found out that the connecting flight was going to be late by three hours, so the day — which was going to be around 18 hours — is now going to be even longer. While waiting for the next flight, I tried to log into T-Mobile via Boingo, whose new offering, Go Boingo, is going to be released on Monday and I am testing out right now. You can try out their free day pass, and the best part is it’s ready for Mac users — and is pretty awesome.

Speaking of Mac, I saw dozens of people toting Macbooks of various kind in the airport and its various lounges. Something interesting or maybe just a coincidence? I’m not sure. Regardless, it’s nice to carry the AIR as it doesn’t break one’s back!

Without access, I had to come with a way to connect. My connection with my 3G Nokia N95 didn’t seem to work, so instead I turned to JoikuSpot, an application I’ve written about earlier. Now the connection via JoikuSoft isn’t fast and isn’t letting me download emails, but it is letting me surf the web. It’s better than nothing, and JoikuSoft delivered as promised. Now I’m glad that I wrote about this little application. (Anyway, if you have any tips on how set up a Nokia N95 as a 3G modem, let me know. The default settings aren’t quite working.)

Update: Finally got to Frankfurt at about 3 a.m. PT, or around 11 a.m. local time. The airport is a mess — chaotic and disorganized. It can’t be called “efficient” by any means, and reminds me how old this hub really is. In comparison to SFO’s International Terminal, Frankfurt is provincial. Lufthansa’s business lounge is nothing but a giant, messy hall. For some odd reason, the T-Mobile USA hotspot passwords are not working and it costs 18 euro cents to get a WAN connection. Nice to be a monopoly.

On Boingo: Well it’s proving to be utterly worthless. In the places you really need it — like my two stops thus far, the damned so-called Global Wireless Service hasn’t really worked. I’m wondering if the the dream of a seamless global network that provides endless connectivity will remain just that — a dream.

My flight isn’t till 11 pm tonight and I get into Tel-Aviv at around 3:30 a.m. in the morning. There is little or no chance of any sleep. It’s the last time I trust a failing airline like US Airways fulfill to my travel plans.

I will update the post when I get to Tel-Aviv.

My inner nerd is thrilled at the prospect of Pixar’s upcoming movie “Wall-E.” Rich Greenfield, an analyst with Pali Capital who is typically very stingy with praise is waxing eloquent about the movie after watching the preview. In a note to his clients this morning, he writes:

…Investors have been wary of Wall-E’s box office potential given Pixar’s risky bet on an offbeat main character, who rarely speaks during the film. Nonetheless, the film substantially exceeded our expectations and was well-received by the audience.

We believe Pixar hit the mark, delivering a very rich story in Wall-E.: We see the film appealing to younger children who will be drawn to the quirky but extremely lovable characters (especially Wall-E).

The love story between the two main characters and the presence of a solid female character (Wall-E’s love interest, Eve) should also appeal to girls of all ages. Finally, we believe the film will resonate well with older audiences who will find much to like in Wall-E’s character and antics, the love story and the film’s other messages (e.g. the environment).

Our only concern: There is somewhat less action and the pacing is somewhat more measured.

Looks like this could be Steve Jobs’ other big summer blockbuster hit. Sure he doesn’t run Pixar anymore, but he owns a big portion of Disney. Greenfield expects the movie to make $550 million to $600 million (or more) at the box office worldwide, and says it “should be a solid contributor to Disney’s DVD sales in FY Q1 2009.”

A few days ago, commenting on one of my posts, a reader inquired about my health, in particular whether or not I was behaving myself. While on the one hand I found it mildly amusing, as it felt like my mom was asking the question — which she does every Sunday — his comment also made me realize how much our little community cares about my well-being.

I’ve been meaning to write about my progress, but I’ve shied away from it because it always felt like I would be imposing on people’s time. And I’m still not ready to share it all.

But in the meantime, I can show off my new icon/avatar for the site. Gone is the old hat-wearing, cigar-chomping, newshound look. Instead, what you have is a simpler, more understated icon whose sparseness reflects my new mantra — less is really more. And doing more with less is really hard. Let’s call this version of me Om 2.0.

Simple food, simple clothes, a simple home and simple, clear writing. Hopefully I can stick to that plan. I have incorporated physical exercise into my daily life, given up smoking, gone almost completely vegetarian and taken to wearing jeans. Life, as they say, is uncomplicated. More importantly, about six months after my heart attack, I have resumed some of my regular activities — including playing tennis on the Wii!

PS: Check out this awesome little illustration Mivui did using the new icon. This is how I am supposed to look like in 10 years. Worthy goal - both from a fitness and a longevity standpoint. 

The passing of Tim Russert, a man I greatly admired, came as the result of a massive heart attack, an event that cannot be predicted. Having suffered a heart attack myself earlier this year, I know this firsthand — the heart is no match for the high-stress, multitasking lives that so many of us lead. And before we know it, our poor habits catch up with us. It’s why I urge you to get yourself to the doctor and get your much-delayed physical. You would be doing yourself, your family and even your startup a favor.

As part of my recovery process, my cardiologist Dr. Eduardo Rame of UCSF suggested that I take some time out of my busy life and spend it on projects that are focused on helping others. It is the best and most effective way to de-stress – doing good and breaking your routines. So I decided to get involved with UCSF and help them raise some funds. (If any of you would like to help, please drop me a note.)

Some of the encouragement to help UCSF came from Ron Conway, a well-known angel investor who is as passionate about charity work as he is about startups. He helped build the cardiology ICU facility at UCSF that helped save my life. (He is on the board of the UCSF Medical Foundation.) Today he unveiled another effort that I urge everyone to support.

UCSF along with YouTube have launched a comprehensive Internet video channel dedicated to the improved understanding of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases. The YouTube channel is part of an overall Internet campaign that will help UCSF’s researchers and clinicians reach out to a global audience.

It was inspired by the “Fight for Mike,” an initiative by Silicon Valley leaders to save the life of former Apple/Netscape marketing ace Mike Homer, who was diagnosed last spring with CJD and is being treated at UCSF. Since June 2007, the Fight for Mike has raised more than $7 million for CJD research at UCSF. Maybe you want to join hands and help support the cause.

Sundays will never be the same. Earlier today, Tim Russert, the man who hosted “Meet The PressNation” on NBC, passed away. He apparently succumbed to a heart attack, although the exact cause of death has not yet been determined. It was a rude reminder of the fragility of life, and how quickly it comes to an end. It also reminded me of my own brush with mortality and how lucky I am to be around. Russert was a gold standard for many of us in the media business — a role model who never disappointed, constantly prodded and almost always informed.

Watching Russert, I learned how to ask tough and uneasy questions, be charming when charm was called for and indulge in indignation when an iron fist was necessary. Moreover, I learned how important it is to never be malicious, angry or improper — even though that has become the way of the world. At 58, he died too soon, for I think he would have liked to cover the historic upcoming elections. He passed while hard at work, and I suspect he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Not meeting him is the first big regret of my life.

Yesterday was one of those days when I was dragging my feet, mostly because I stayed up way past my bedtime for the launch of NewTeeVee Station and then woke up at my usual time — before sunrise. The foggy state of my brain reinforced how necessary sleep is for connecting the dots and being productive.

With the sun shining brightly, a walk along the Embarcadero to the office seemed like the perfect antidote. As Celine Roque writes on WebWorkerDaily, “Being exposed to images, sounds, and people that we don’t encounter on our daily routines can give us a fresh perspective we never would’ve gotten otherwise.”

I agree, and my walk got me ready for a spirited discussion with my good friend Pip Coburn, who was previously the technology strategist at UBS but now runs his own research and money management shop. His business is based in New York, but his company is as virtual as any, which in my book makes him a perfect web worker. He hadn’t seen me since before my heart attack, and wanted to catch up. And so did I. Why? Because Pip has the unique ability to look beyond the obvious. Our discussions almost never focus on corporate minutiae; we talk about the philosophy of technology instead.

As we sat and enjoyed the rare San Francisco warmth, we contemplated the issue of data deluge, whether it be from blogs, news outlets, Twitter or FriendFeed. We’re confusing noise with information, and information with useful information, he said (and I paraphrase), and he urged me to focus GigaOM on being not just another information resource but an actionable wisdom resource.

The conclusion of our chat — it’s not data that’s important but what you do with it — carried into my next meeting, with Robert Hohman, co-founder of Glassdoor.com, an online resource for job hunters to get accurate reviews of the companies they want to join

Glassdoor.com, which launched today, is like Epinions for the job market with the rating features of TheFunded added in. Hohman’s co-founders include Rich Barton (founder of Expedia and co-founder and CEO of Zillow) and Tim Besse (also previously of Expedia). The Sausalito-based company is funded to the tune of $3 million by Benchmark Capital, the same firm that backed Zillow (and where one ex-Epinions guy is an EIR).

As it stands, I think Glassdoor has an interesting yet marginal opportunity. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t intrigued by the idea behind Glassdoor, and what it could eventually offer by analyzing its data in a more meaningful way. I asked Robert if we could take the information he has collected and put it to use. For example, to answer the question: What kind of a relation is there between the CEO’s rating by his employees and his company’s market performance? Robert was kind enough to run a little analysis, and indeed, despite the low input data, in the computer hardware sector there is “clearly a correlation between overall company rating, CEO approval rating and the price/earnings” ratio of the stock.

Obviously a lot more data is needed to get a sharper image of the overall trend, but it makes sense: Loyal and happy employees work harder, make a company better and thus increase shareholder value. This was actionable wisdom out of pure data. I also harangued Robert about his co-founder Barton’s other company, Zillow, and how it missed a huge opportunity to use its data to warn people of the mortgage crisis.

I think a lot of companies are failing to use the incredible resources of data that we have at our disposal with the Internet. I blame this on the marginality of ambition. Even Google, the number nerd’s utopia, as reflected by this post seems to be missing the opportunity to put its data to work. Still, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as some startups are beginning to take notice.

Over the past 18 months, there has been quite an explosion of video choices on the web. The number of interesting shows keeps going up by the day, making it harder to keep up with the new, cool stuff that makes Must-See-NewTeeVee. I’ve often wondered, what if there was a web service that collated and curated the best of the NewTeeVee shows, finding cool videos before they became a meme, shows that genuinely entertain? In other words, a web app that took the time to scrub out the noise and deliver the best video experience according to select editors. I wanted a place on the web that would do all that but during the lunch hour — the new prime time — and without cutting into people’s daily Facebook fix.

It was a wild idea, I admit, but it seems like the guys in our little company were up for the challenge, and in less than three months have brought it to fruition. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you NewTeeVee Station, available now at station.newteevee.com.

Some facts about NewTeeVee Station:

• Features editorial reviews of online videos written by a team lead by Liz Shannon Miller, who comes to us from Variety and the Daily Reel.
• Has over 100 NTV shows & videos as part of the launch effort alone.
• Sports a database of cast, crew and other details to map out the expanding web video universe.
• Invites readers to become part of the editorial process by adding their own reviews, comments and ratings.
• Boasts eight channels of the most memorable comedy, commercials, drama, music, news & talk, personalities, reality and zeitgeist picks.
• Showcases what’s hot at that moment, right on the front page.
• Can be subscribed to via the Station RSS feed or be bundled with NewTeeVee Feed.

It’s still a work in progress, and will be for a time, as we plan to tweak and improve it each day for the foreseeable future. I didn’t want to place the “beta” tag on it because I feel that the web keeps evolving, and web applications keep growing, just like all of us — and we never put a beta after our names. Om 2.0, however, is OK if you’ve had a heart attack and change your lifestyle and habits. Sorry for that personal digression, but it’s an important backdrop to this new site.

In my opinion, the most unfair part of the job of CEO/founder is taking credit for the work that everyone else puts into making your dreams and crazy ideas become real. So I wanted to set the record straight: This new effort is a testament to the intelligence and excellence of the GigaOM team. Apart from coming up with a harebrained idea back before my heart attack and some occasional Jobs-ian rants, this is the work of the following people:

On the editorial side, Liz Gannes, Liz Miller and Chris Albrecht worked with our tech team of Chancey Matthews and Kyle Johnson. They were all shepherded by Joey Wan, who rose to the challenge and became the project manager for NewTeeVee Station, in addition to helping us out on Structure 08. Mule Design came up with the design to fit with the original NewTeeVee look, and the folks at VodPod worked hard to help us build the viewing widget. Our editors, Carolyn Pritchard and Celeste LeCompte, helped add spit and polish to the editorial content.

Liz on NewTeeVee writes: “I haven’t meant to neglect NewTeeVee lately, I swear. But I have a very good excuse (and a newfound regard for product managers and PR people!)” Yes, it has been a great learning process. Thanks everyone, you made us all proud. When we all gather together soon — we will pop the bubbly! Now let’s watch some NewTeeVee.

Earlier this evening, I had something happen to me that made my day. I was sitting down in the Starbucks where GigaOM got going, talking to Liz, who happens to be in New York for Internet Week, while I waited for Tony Jebara, CTO of Sense Networks, a company I wrote about earlier this morning.

While I jawed on the phone, a kind lady by the name of Nina left me a little note on a Starbucks napkin, encouraging me to stay healthy and saying how much she liked reading us. (See photo). Nina, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Your gesture really touched me.

The wishes and prayers of such readers is why I have been able to find to strength to deal with my medical setback. These random acts of kindness remind me of what Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron said on Twitter: “After Sysiphus’ bolder fell down the mountain, during his descent to get it again, his time was free for the beautiful things instead.” This was a beautiful thing!

It didn’t quite have the sentimental feeling of the Steve Jobs & Bill Gates talk from last year, but it was interesting to see the dynamic of Steve Ballmer & Bill Gates. I think it was great to see Bill step back and let Steve enjoy the limelight, and not take himself too seriously. I think instead of writing about the whole conversation, I am going to share this tiny bit I captured on video that shows how relaxed Gates is feeling these days, now that he has shifted all responsibilities to Ballmer.

Click To Play

Bill was very candid about Vista and its problems. “We never ship a product that I am satisfied with 100 percent” he said. “There is always improvement. Vista gave us lot of opportunities for improvement.” Funny… anyway

What I did find strangely amusing: the Microsoft duo has a tough time using the phrase “Google” and constantly referred to them as the other guys. I really wish I could ask the duo about why they are so obsessed with Online Advertising? Are they acknowledging that all innovation and growth opportunities in applications and operating systems are done? Why not obsess about being the world’s best on-demand software company? Anyway that’s for another day. I picked up some great notes for my post about Search and the competitive landscape.

Now moving on to Windows 7. The company showed off a nice demo of the multi touch features of Windows 7 and how you could paint with your fingers, or open applications and use maps in the new version of Microsoft’s operating system that comes to market sometime in 2009. (More details and videos here.)

I think if you have used iPod Touch, iPhone and Coverflow, you are not going to be as wow-ed by multi-touch, but I have to admit, that even in its rudimentary form, it looked pretty darn good. I have a feeling Apple is going to bring this to market much before Microsoft. Stacey joked about the new features pointing out that the smudging caused by multi-touch would surely make money for companies like 3M.

Anyway more on the conference tomorrow!

Original Post

I have just arrived at the D6 Conference organized by Kara Swisher & Walt Mossberg. I will have an update in an hour or so. Our good friends at D tell us that Bill Gates is going to show off an early version of Windows 7. Now that is something to look forward to and dig into. I have my trusted Sanyo Xaacti in the tow and I will be doing some video updates from here. Given the noise at the conferences, don’t expect stellar quality but hey, it sure beats nothing.

Weather in San Francisco Bay Area is especially nice and is likely to remain that way for a while. It makes perfect sense to sit outside and talk about the hottest topic to hit the Innerwebs: Data portability/interoperability. Whether it is Facebook, MySpace or Google, each has been coming up with ways to control the user. Somehow the noise has gotten ahead of the fact, and I would like to meet smart people about this over the weekend.

A frank conversation with non-conflicted parties that would help me write smarter and conceptually sound posts going forward. I propose: 2.30 PM at Starbucks on Clay & Battery in San Francisco on Sunday, May 18th, 2008. I will buy coffee and cakes, but please don’t pitch me your company. I want some honesty about this topic.

Looks like there is a lot of debate about this today. Check out Techmeme. I have confirmation from various folks including Marc Canter who has been a lightening rod on this issue for a while.

Not many of you know Gopal Raju, a man who has played a big role in my journalist life. He passed away this week and his passing brought back some bittersweet memories.

I can still remember the first time I met Gopal Raju. Joe Aranha, a NY-based freelance photographer introduced us. I was terrified to meet the man who had started and built India Abroad, one of the largest Indian American weekly newspapers. He did nothing to put me at ease but he gave an opportunity to write for his paper where I met some people who became lifelong friends. He sent me on assignments that made me appreciate the virtue of traditional, pound the pavement reporting, that has stuck with me.

There were many times when we didn’t see eye-to-eye, but that didn’t diminish my respect for the man and his ability to put out a fine paper. As they say, we are all a sum of many parts. Mr. Raju (as I used to call him) played a big part in my life. Good bye … front page will be ready Sunday at 6 pm!

Dan Farber has a new home for his blog, Outside The Lines. I was reading it using the best Windows RSS reader, FeedDemon, this morning when I stumbled upon this little video by Lenovo that pokes fun of the MacBook Air. Funny stuff! It also reminded me that I needed to share my early impressions of this new device. First, it has been great to have it around since I am watching the Twenty20 cricket tournament that is going on in India right now.

Willow.tv only works on a PC and Internet Explorer, which is seriously lame. Still, it has forced me to use ThinkPad X300 for about four hours a day, and I can understand why people rave about solid-state hard drives. This machine (running Windows XP) is fast — and I mean fast — for basic computing (or the cloud computing tasks we typically do these days.) I wish I had a Macbook Air with SSD to do a one-on-one comparison.

My very quick take after spending a week with X300: If you are looking for an ultra-portable with a great keyboard, decent screen, you like using Windows XP and money is no object, then there is no way you can go wrong with x300. Automattic CEO Toni Schneider just got one.

OStatic, the newest addition to our network, has made friends with oDesk, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup whose marketplace connects businesses to remote workers, including software developers. oDesk has 67,500+ tested and rated professionals on their network. (related post from WebWorkerDaily.)

We are hoping that with this new partnership, developers on the oDesk network are going to use OStatic and help the open-source movement by providing reviews for projects, adding additional resources and information to the wiki-style project pages, and listing projects alternatives. More importantly, we hope they can provide more answers to the questions being posted by the OStatic community. I’m really excited about this new partnership. When you have a minute, please check out OStatic and send me your suggestions and thoughts as to how to improve the site and make it more useful.