Brij's One More Idea

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more

2008-07-18T21:40:54Z

As if we are watching movie in slow motion.

Last couple of days I saw lot of bloggers turning sour on the state of Silicon Valley (by extension start-up ecosystem). Lot of this is credited to muddy macro picture. Yesterday's rare gasp by GOOG made some people go home early as well.

Om Malik has great analysis on why everybody should be worried now. Related to that is the Vallewag report on funding challenges faced by widget makers. Big hitter VC Kleiner Perkins is sending a big signal by pretty much leaving Web 2.0 market.

Now this is all cyclical and we will come out fine as overall economy shakes off current crisis. There is no denying the fact that lot of business models have added layers of froth and they need to trim down fast.

Ad revenue based online services, mobile applications, social media start-ups (and SaaS to some extent) will go through long slog before they are meaningful to mainstream consumers (and investors)? Deals are not happening fast enough and that has clogged the pipeline. It will take some time to clear up.

Also companies in Bay Area need to go global very fast. Google is now making majority of it's revenue from outside US (52% based on yesterday's call). There is only so much small company can do sitting here. They need to venture out and strike up partnerships and sign distribution contracts.

Markets are cyclical. Remember that.

[Photo courtesy Forklift]

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Hi I Am Mr iOpportunity And I Am knocking!

2008-07-17T18:09:35Z

Never owned Honda cars but always liked their Mr Opportunity campaign. Especially the knocking sound. That knocking sound is getting louder and louder for the Mobile Web.

For any idea to be fully 'invented' it first has to move to Silicon Valley. We finally passed that test for Mobile computing.

After languishing in Nokia and Motorola WAP'ish interface for many years, Mobile web is finally becoming a reality. iPhone (and the accompanying baggage of GPS, App Store, SDK, iTunes etc) present once in a decade opportunity to reprogram lot of existing use cases. There is a play here, that's why Kleiner Perkins started $100 million fund. I hope it gets allocated to address broader Mobile Web market. Tim Oreilly echoes that there is a strong startup mindshare working in favor of iPhone.

How to play in this new mobile web is still a challenge. Market is moving fast, time window to declare victory is longer than what contemporary funding circus allows. All that Facebook F8 hype ended up helping top 10 or 20 applications. Rest of the 30,000 odd applications became glorified focus group studies. How to plan scarce development resources so that your iPhone app doesn't end up as a focus group experiment? More questions than answers right?

I think many trends are converging and they present higher abstraction play opportunity. Mobille Web, Voice Web, Smartphone SDKs, etc are evolved enough that they can be addressed from single development environment.
Key is to find horizontal services in this emerging category. Clear visibility into revenue model won't hurt either.

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Picture is worth thousand insolvencies

2008-07-15T08:35:42Z

Brendan Smialowski, at NYTimes, has a very interesting photo of Fed chairman Bernanke:

Does this mean Fed Chairman is caught in the bureaucratic mess?

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And you thought mainstream media is irrelevant!

2008-07-15T04:15:34Z

Saw this news story in local news section of Mobile News AP ( App Store app). Show how deeply we are tied to mainstream media for managing our civic affairs. “Maybe they should examine their must-publish list”

Website Snapshot

Mobile News Network : Maybe they should examine their must-publish list

Local News : Maybe they should examine their must-publish list

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Depositing recent tweets to blog.

2008-07-08T21:54:40Z

Last 10 tweets from @brij

Razor’s Edge/Path to salvation - @pkedrosky interesting discussion http://is.gd/Oel at 07/08/2008 05:47 PM

Twitter eating tweets. Oh well.. at 07/08/2008 05:38 AM

Forstmann thinks its not over, because now ‘idiots have made their entrance’ http://is.gd/N66 at 07/07/2008 06:43 AM

Meyer Lansky was a geek?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky at 07/07/2008 06:28 AM

OH: techmeme links are reflecting social media’s equivalent of credit crisis at 07/07/2008 03:02 AM

’because a 1% fall in the dollar means $4 more on the price of oil’ - OPEC chief
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/opec-president-blames-oil-prices/story.asp… at 07/06/2008 11:35 PM

Power of group-generated content (GGC). Today’s target = Twitter. at 07/06/2008 10:53 PM

Greatest match ever seen by the biggest maverick - john at 07/06/2008 08:32 PM

[PHOTO] Nadals - Proud and relaxed parents
http://messagedance.com/message/show/0de2849c16fb38b6688cafdf2bfbd01f at 07/06/2008 08:30 PM

[PHOTO] Great athlete, great sportman and a great sense of humor
http://messagedance.com/message/show/029f10673cd5c9f8c3dc0425c3fbb9ea at 07/06/2008 08:26 PM

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My name is Jimmy Burns. I’m a liar, a fake, and a fraud.

2008-06-30T22:00:21Z

(shooting war, circa august 12, 2011)

Website Snapshot

Shooting War

Shooting War is a serialized graphic novel about the future of war, terrorism, and journalism. The year is 2011, and Jimmy Burns, a young anti-corporate blogger has just seen his Williamsburg apartment blown to bits by yet another terrorist attack on New York City. He’s recorded the gruesome scene on his videoblog camera — footage Burns beams live to a freaked-out world and that makes him an overnight media sensation. Exploited by his own network (Global News: Your home for 24-hour terror coverage), enraged by the terrorists, and determined to tell the American people the truth, Burns takes off for Iraq to get the real story of a war that’s been raging for more than eight years. SHOOTING WAR is written by Anthony Lappe, illustrated by Dan Goldman.

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Reading skill and reading motivation influence each other

2008-06-28T22:27:25Z

Source: council for exceptional children

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“Robert Noyce: The Man Behind the Microchip” - Leslie…

2008-07-07T18:35:11Z

Steve Jobs was greatly influenced by Bob Noyce. Reading this book in pieces. Fascinating stuff.

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ConsumerWatchdog.org email campaign - Send Your Gasoline Bill To Congress!

2008-06-19T22:25:36Z

Gas pump adventure continues. With gallon costing close to $4.60 in California, this everyday pain is now ready to generate serious comedy (and political campaigns as well).

I received this email (see below) from ConsumerWatchDog.org organization urging me to send complaints to local congressmen. Which I am not sure I will do.

Email campaign is a good move to get citizens involved in the issues but urging elected representative to act for some short term fix is not something we need. What we need is a good long term strategy around changes in consumption model, investments in alternative forms of energy, incentives for people to own less number of vehicles and incentives for using public transport. While congress needs to go tough on tax rebates, and getting oil companies to pay their part, ordinary citizens cannot continue drunken sailor consumption pattern.

While reading this campaign I noticed interesting Google ads for oil related keywords. Some of these ads are funny and some are plain old hustle. Should Google allow this kind of ad - "Run your car on water"? To his credit this fellow succeeded in outbidding VW and ABCNews!

Facts on Fuel

Learn more about supply, demand, and the pricing of fuels from API.
www.factsonfuel.org

Is Water For Gas A Scam?

Can You Really Convert Your Car To Run On Water? Find out the Truth!
www.RunCarByWater.com/Reviews

Run Your Car on Water

Do you know about this way to add water to fuel and save on gas?
YouBetterReadThis.com

Gasoline Prices

Save Money on Gas Daily with the All New Diesel Models, Only at VW.
www.VW.com

Gas Locked in at $2.49

AGRP locks in gas prices at $2.49, Saving Americans Hundreds
www.radiogasdeal.com

Increase Gas Mileage 40%+

Tested & Proven Device Saves Fuel GASOLINE
centemax.net

Dream Ticket

Obama Hits Clintons on 'Dream Ticket'. Read Full Story.
ABCNews.com

Burn Water, Not Gas

Don't let gas prices pump you dry. See how to save up to 65% on fuel!
www.Water-Gas-Scam.com

Send Your Gasoline Bill To Congress!

I'm sending my maddening gasoline bill to Washington and inviting you to do the same. Elected representatives don't pull into the corner gas station and pay from their own pockets. They need to know what it's doing to you.

I had my own harsh moment this week at the gas station, pumping $4.60 gasoline: My 50 mpg Prius now costs more to run than my old 15 mpg sedan did in 2002, when gasoline sold around here for as little as $1.13 a gallon. My salary sure hasn't kept up.

Click on the Send Your Free Message button below to tell the president, your Senator and your Representative in Congress what gasoline is costing you and what it's doing to your budget. Just fill in the short form (cost of your last fill-up, where you bought it and what gasoline is costing you each month) and send it. Then forward this message to your friends.

Gasoline prices are hitting record highs every day ($4.075 nationally today, and $4.607 in California, per AAA) Oil company profits are out of sight, as you can tell from looking at our "Oil Profits Monster" database. Yet Congress hasn't even acted to regulate out-of-control oil trading markets. Or to put oversight on refineries that restrict their gasoline and diesel production to keep the retail price high.

Thanks so much for helping us get the message to Congress: If they don’t feel their own pain at the pump, we have to tell them about ours.

Consumer Watchdog is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer protection organization. Your contributions are tax-deductible

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Sharing recent tweets with blog readers.

2008-07-07T18:51:55Z

Would appreciate feedback on tweet blogging (flow versus sidebar).

Last 10 tweets from @brij

Retweet: @stevebaker Tim Berners-Lee: “You can look at a blog, but what’s impacting the world is the blogosphere.” at 06/18/2008 09:47 PM

[PHOTO] One rape every 29 minutes. Shame India! Watching news at Indian restaurant in Cupertino.
http://messagedance.com/message/show/ad5866ab145a91dcc01b523464b54c72 at 06/18/2008 08:22 PM

Child abduction drill, reporting live from the streets of Wellesley, MA http://www.messagedance.com/WPDPhoto at 06/18/2008 07:43 PM

[BLOG POST] Reddit goes open source with CPAL license, probably caused major LOL in Diggnation Reddit is releasin
http://www.onemoreidea.org/reddit-goes-open-source-with-cpal-license-probably-ca… at 06/18/2008 07:33 PM

1and1 customer support emails can put Colbert show to shame. Time to move on. I had to chase down their CS head on LinkedIn at 06/18/2008 05:33 PM

RBS - all chickens come home to roost! [u]
http://messagedance.com/message/show/262d76d580ccf3f0458e7a88e6975832 at 06/18/2008 04:17 PM

[PHOTO] Type in about:robots in FF3 to see this - thanks @danishkhan
http://messagedance.com/message/show/292854f0c22533033b5cebbc490a8f90 at 06/18/2008 05:44 AM

What is common between Daily Kos, MichelleMalkin, BetaNews, HotAir etc? - Bipartisan willingness to AP-ee at 06/18/2008 05:24 AM

for events like this, media units should have dress code as well http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7460005.stm at 06/18/2008 05:21 AM

@danishkhan better luck next year. I can feel your pain #LakersFor2009 at 06/18/2008 04:32 AM

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