New York Times: The Bilingual Advantage: the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms.
The impending Age Of Abundance was prophecied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
No Alzheimer’s For Me
Hilary Rowland
One thing to admire about Hilary Rowland is she started really young as an entrepreneur - maybe 17 - and she has grown her small business empire organically. That speaks to me a lot because my tech startup - at least one of it - is very much in that organic growth mode.
Open Coffee MeetUp: New Location
Open Coffee MeetUp: New Location
The Mother Of All Twitter Lists
I follow too many people on Twitter - 45,000? - for my Twitter stream to make any sense to me. I will log in and before I click on the Mention button - the Twitter inbox - I will glance through the first few tweets in my steam, and sometimes I will find a snarky comment from someone - Having Coffee - that I will retweet and then I am done. That is not to say I don't want to follow people. I have gone to great lengths to build my lists on Twitter. I add people to my lists every day, most days.
But there are a few problems. Twitter allows you to create only 20 lists. I don't get it. Why is 20 such a magic number? Why not 30? Why not 40? Or 25?
Monday, May 30, 2011
What Fascinates Me About GroupOn
Image by smemon87 via FlickrOf all the tech companies out there, the one that most fascinates me is GroupOn. It speaks to me. Its emphasis on people action, and its emphasis on words - cute emails - are really something. Of all the tech companies out there, the one that I find most inspiring in terms of what I would want to do with my microfinance startup, GroupOn stands out. You focus on a few basic human actions, and you go for it. You splurge. I also like how fast they have grown. They were not here at all. And suddenly they are everywhere.
This blog post explains where I think group dynamics stand on the tech map: front and center.
My Web Diagram
GroupOn is the web maturing to land in the human domain, in the flesh.
Live Nation And GroupOn: That Offline Component
18 Months Ago GroupOn Did Not Exist
GroupOn's Legacy: Cute Email?
Image via WikipediaGroupOn, Zappos, And The Non Tech ComponentsGroupOn Did Not Launch At South By South West
GroupOn Did The Right Thing
The Internet Week: The Thing To Do
Image via WikipediaI think you show up less to soak up the knowledge and more to meet people. And I just discovered something that makes Internet Week look like a better deal than Social Media Week. For the most part you stick to one location. Get a 15 dollar pass, and stick to one location.125 W. 18th Street
The Internet Week Is Mumbojumbo
Monday
Where Social and Impact Intersect: Lessons for Brands
01:00 PM — 01:50 PM
Official IWNY Ford Opening Party with music by Noisey.com
07:00 PM — 10:00 PM
OMMA's Tablet Revolution
08:00 AM — 05:00 PM
Digital Archaeology
10:00 AM — 06:00 PM
ShareThis & SMG present: Social Media Sharing
11:00 AM — 11:20 AM
VICE Speed Interviewing
11:00 AM — 11:50 AM
The Rise of the Daily Email Newsletter
11:30 AM — 12:20 PM
Facebook Marketing Best Practices
12:00 PM — 12:20 PM
Mobile Engagement 101
01:00 PM — 01:45 PM
The Neighborhood Experience (Beyond Hyper-Localization)
02:00 PM — 02:45 PM
Your Startup's Technology: The First 60 Days in Examples
02:00 PM — 02:45 PM
Social Media & Hospitality: Driving Traffic, Boosting Sales & Upping Engagements
02:30 PM — 03:00 PM
Rallying to Restore Sanity in the Digital Age
03:00 PM — 03:45 PM
The Onion’s Team of Three
04:00 PM — 04:45 PM
How to Survive Internet Week: Using Social Media to Make Offline Connections
04:00 PM — 04:45 PM
The Internet Week Is Mumbojumbo
Image via CrunchBaseI was just at the Internet Week page. There's a lot going on. And looks like you have to pay for each event. It is not like Social Media Week which was mostly free events, or rather all free events. First of all, there are soooo many events. You can't even browse through all just to get a glimpse.
One good option probably is to buy a pass for 15 dollars but that only covers events at one location for four days, June 6 to June 9.
I guess the arduous process is to go through all the events and be selective and go to a few events. This below is not a list of all events I am going to. These just caught my eye. And I might go to one or two that I might not mange to list today.
You read the lists of events and you realize there is so much knowledge in the blogosphere.
Monday, June 6
04:00 PM — 04:45 PM The Onion’s Team of Three
Metropolitan Pavilion
HQ Aol Broadcast Stage
125 W. 18th Street
Tuesday, June 7
06:00 PM — 09:00 PM wimlink: The Social Experience of Media: Personalized Apps, TV, ECommerce, what's next..
Samsung Experience
10 Columbus Circle
Time Warner Center
$15
Liking Is For Cowards
Image via CrunchBaseMy Web DiagramNew York Times: Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts.: I’d developed trust issues with my Pearl, accountability issues, compatibility issues and even, toward the end, some doubts about my Pearl’s very sanity, until I’d finally had to admit to myself that I’d outgrown the relationship. ..... or doing that spreading-the-fingers iPhone thing that makes images get bigger ..... our technology has become extremely adept at creating products that correspond to our fantasy ideal of an erotic relationship, in which the beloved object asks for nothing and gives everything, instantly, and makes us feel all powerful, and doesn’t throw terrible scenes when it’s replaced by an even sexier object and is consigned to a drawer. ...... the ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self. ....... the world of techno-consumerism is therefore troubled by real love, and that it has no choice but to trouble love in turn. ..... e the wedding industry, TV ads that feature cute young children or the giving of automobiles as Christmas presents, and the particularly grotesque equation of diamond jewelry with everlasting devotion. The message, in each case, is that if you love somebody you should buy stuff. ......... liking, in general, is commercial culture’s substitute for loving. ...... a narcissist — a person who can’t tolerate the tarnishing of his or her self-image that not being liked represents, and who therefore either withdraws from human contact or goes to extreme, integrity-sacrificing lengths to be likable. ....... If you dedicate your existence to being likable, however, and if you adopt whatever cool persona is necessary to make it happen, it suggests that you’ve despaired of being loved for who you really are. ...... You may find yourself becoming depressed, or alcoholic, or, if you’re Donald Trump, running for president (and then quitting). ...... Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery. ....... We like the mirror and the mirror likes us. To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors. ...... a contrast between the narcissistic tendencies of technology and the problem of actual love ....... “getting down in the pit and loving somebody.” She has in mind the dirt that love inevitably splatters on the mirror of our self-regard. ...... trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you’ll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don’t like at all, things that shatter your self-image as a fair, kind, cool, attractive, in-control, funny, likable person. Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you’re having an actual life. ....... Suddenly there’s a real choice to be made, not a fake consumer choice between a BlackBerry and an iPhone, but a question: Do I love this person? And, for the other person, does this person love me? ............. There is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle of. ...... But there is such a thing as a person whose real self you love every particle of. And this is why love is such an existential threat to the techno-consumerist order: it exposes the lie. ....... Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self. ....... The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay safely in the world of liking. ....... To go through a life painlessly is to have not lived. ...... then a funny thing happened to me. It’s a long story, but basically I fell in love with birds. I did this not without significant resistance, because it’s very uncool to be a birdwatcher ........... and although one-half of a passion is obsession, the other half is love. ...... And love, as I’ve been trying to say today, is where our troubles begin. ..... When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, there’s a very real danger that you might love some of them.I came to this article thinking this was about group dynamics. It is about face time alright, but not the large scale group dynamics I had in mind.
Brett Martin Of Sonar
So there is this guy called Brett Martin.
He looks like the actor Matthew McConaughey.
He presented his app Sonar at the TechCrunch Disrupt. We exchanged a few tweets and a few emails. The guy is buying me lunch during Internet Week.
He looks like the actor Matthew McConaughey.
He presented his app Sonar at the TechCrunch Disrupt. We exchanged a few tweets and a few emails. The guy is buying me lunch during Internet Week.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Internet And The Emperors
Image via WikipediaI have liked what Sarkozy has done for Libya. (The Arab Revolutions And My Rethinks On Britain And France) But the guy is on the wrong side of history on the Internet. For a guy who has sought to bring American style individualism and entrepreneurship to his country, he is missing out. Some of the rants by Sarkozy remind me of a story I read a long time ago that I just tried to look up on the Internet but was not able to find. There was this king. Some of his citizens came to him to report the river in the kingdom had flooded. Don't you worry, the king replied, I will command the river to stop flooding.
The Internet is a genie out of the bottle. That is not an argument to legalize drugs and prostitution. The opposite is true. The massive scale actions that need to be taken to tackle the biggest problems and challenges of our times can not even be imagined without the Internet. The massive data collection that we need to do to tackle global warming is about building an Internet of things. We have to add intelligence to our entire ecosystem so we take real time readings on all metrics to do with the global environment. Globalization minus the Internet would be chaos. But with the Internet globalization will lead to creations of unprecedented levels of wealth in all parts of the world. Cross cultural understandings are not possible without the Internet. Minus the Internet the governments of the world are too cocky, too inefficient, too inept, if not outright despotic and cruel. Minus the Internet a no name black man could not have ended up in the White House. The Internet is a tool with which to cure poverty, to end human trafficking, to end sex slavery. The Internet is the tool with which to bring democracy into every country.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The Music Tag On Tumblr
Image by Matthew Buchanan / Flickr via CrunchBaseTumblr sucked me in somewhere along the way. I am on Tumblr pretty much every day, often times more than once a day. When I need to take time off work, I often end up on Tumblr.A recent addition to my Tumblr experience has been the music tag. Suddenly it feels like I am reaching out to humanity. Music is the most obvious of tags. Often times I come across some music clip that I most certainly have never heard of, I might not even hear a second time, I might never have come across on my own. And I reblog. And often times I am the first person to reblog a clip by someone. And it feels like I am saying hello to strangers who could perhaps use a hello.
Music has fast become my favorite tag on Tumblr. There is always something to listen to. And I dig the randomness of the whole experience.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Immigration Court Date: June 6, 2011: Prepared Statement
Image by Barack Obama via FlickrNepali Song: Lyrics By My Immigration LawyerJune 3 Immigration Court Date
April 22 Immigration Court Date
Lingering Detail: December 18
Hello Barack, I Was In Chicago
Request For Change Of Venue
In South Africa They Had Apartheid, In America They Got Immigration
The Dong Rule
Fred, How About Some Money?
My Non Personhood Of 2009, 2010
Look, you are not trying to figure out if Nepal is a high risk country. You have already established that on your own. Tens of thousands of Nepalis have been granted political asylum over the past few years, and hundreds continue to be granted every month. The country is going through a transition period. The civil war ended a few years back. But the country still does not have a new constitution. The law and order situation continues to be weak. Only a few weeks back a cabinet minister got stabbed multiple times right in front of his house, and the perpetrators are still at large. That is just one high profile example. Those who intend to do harm can do harm and get away with it. That is Nepal today. And you know it. You don't need me to tell you. I don't believe you have questions about the country.
Obama 08: NYC Video: 10 Hours
And I don't think you should have questions about me. For that you don't have to look at Nepal. You don't have to look at the fact that I was the only Nepali in America to have done full time work for Nepal's democracy movement in 2006. When you do something like that, you end up making enemies, and they are not always in the opposition camps.
You can look at New York City, a ground more familiar to you than Nepal. I was not a Barack Obama volunteer in New York City, I was not Barack Obama's one of the top volunteers in New York City. I was The Top Volunteer. That is a qualitative statement to make. If that makes you uncomfortable, how about a quantitative statement? I was Barack Obama's first full time volunteer in New York City, perhaps the country.
August 2007: DL21C Annual Summer Bash: Barack Won The Straw Poll
The First Time I Heard The Obama Name
Brooklyn And Santogold/Santigold
Southern Hospitality
The founder of Manhattan For Obama at an Upper East Side party in 2007 organized by a Harvard Law School classmate, later Chicago law firm colleague, and family friend of Barack Obama, said the US constitution should be changed so some day I could run for President of the United States. My personal ambitions are not to do with the UN, or the US, they are to do with the Internet, so I am not too into the details of such talk, but I appreciated the sentiment. The founder of Brooklyn For Barack at one point insinuated in a private one on one talk that I did not seem to have elected office ambitions because I don't have the option to run for president.
That is the kind of political acumen I have brought to the table when I have done democracy work for Nepal. When I first approached you about political asylum, I was thinking about Nepal and my personal safety. But what is going on in the world today as you see unfold across the Arab world, in Africa, hopefully also later in Russia and China, by now my request for political asylum is also to do with this big political tsunami that unfolds before our very eyes. I needed to be in the safety of New York City to exhibit the fearlessness I exhibited for democracy in Nepal in 2006. I need that safety to contribute to that which is 100 times, maybe a thousand times bigger than the magic that happened in Nepal in 2006. I am absolutely the top authority on the planet when it comes to political revolutions in Third World countries. I have contributions to make, and I will make them even as I work full time towards my chosen career as a tech entrepreneur.
The Long March Of Democracy
Putin Is No Different
To Zimbabwe Through Ivory Coast
A Rwanda Was Prevented
Ultimately It Is About Iran, Because That Is Where It All Started
Syria's Turn
Barack Obama Proved Me Wrong On Race And Libya
Don't Let Benghazi Fall
North Korea In Sight
Saudi Arabi Next
The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy
Friday Prayer: Let A Million Libyans March In Tripoli
Nicaragua, Ortega On The Radar
Et Tu, China?
Even my work as a tech entrepreneur is to do with the Global South. After you bring democracy to a country, which you can do in a few weeks, a few months, a few years, one of the very first things you note is you face this immense poverty that will take decades to bring to an end. And my career as a tech entrepreneur is dedicated to that cause.
Look I am not someone trying to stay back for the good life. I have not had much of a good life in America, at least not yet. I mean, you had me in jail for six months with petty criminals, drug lords, half a dozen murderers. For the past 10 months or so, I have not even had my own place. I have been bouncing around like Sean Parker was bouncing around at one point in time.
Charlie Rangel was personally involved in my case. I am high profile. Some people in this town decided to press a bogus charge against me, a charge that normally might have got you 20 hours of community service if you were found guilty, but even that small charge they promptly dropped after it got me into the immigration mess, because that was the whole idea. The idea was to get me into the immigration mess. There are people in this town who never expected to see me ever again, one way or the other. This is serious business. I was in jail for six months because I was Barack Obama's top volunteer in New York City, and the dude won the Democratic nomination and that frustrated the federal ambitions of all sorts of characters in this town. They had me disappear the same day the national primary ended, they wanted to make sure I did not miss the message. That is who I am. You have to believe me when I say I am going to be very unsafe in Nepal, a country that I think about every day, a country I hope to contribute to for decades, a country I hope to visit at the first available opportunity, which might be a few years from now. But it is my predicament that for the rest of my days now I am going to have to take all sorts of safety precautions if and when I do visit Nepal. I might have to simply stay away. I might have to hire personal security, if and when I can afford that.
Third World Guy
I am someone who thinks about his physical safety every single day. It is not like I say, okay, it is 4 PM, time for me to think about my physical safety. No, it is not like that. It comes to me on its own, for a few split seconds. And it goes. And I know what it is about. It is called having sound political instincts. I have been through a lot in my life to end up with the political instincts I have today. It is with those instincts that I declared in February 2007 that Barack Obama was the next President of the United States. It is those instincts that tell me I would not be safe in Nepal today. And that is a tragedy, because I have done so much for that country. It is a country that hates Indians like me. The Tamils in Sri Lanka also have it tough. They are also Indian origin.
I Take This Threat Very Seriously
The Scary Version
The Bin Laden Operation
Barack Said In 2007 He Would Do This
There are very few people in America, politicians and non politicians alike, who understand democracy like I do. I was not born in America, but I have more than earned my right to be in this oldest of all democracies. Safety is the number one reason. But while I am here, I am also going to do work. I have already started. I am a tech entrepreneur.
New York City
My BusiCopy Cofounder Anuj Bikram Thapa
My Web Diagram
The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance
PayCheckr: Not Dead Yet
Politics is to me what sailing is to Larry Ellison, I take it very, very seriously - I mean, I am so looking forward to Obama 2012 - but it is not my career. I am a citizen of the Internet, I am a Netizen. At some level I am never going to be an American, emotionally speaking. My country is the online world. I am global. I am a New Yorker. But I will take the paperwork. I want to be safe. And I want to do some good work. I see my career as a calling.
It Will Be Barack Vs Palin
Two Terms Please
Donald Ratass Trump, And So, I Was Born In India
I Am Going To Act Like This Is 2007
Obama 2012 Is On
I ask for political asylum. What I really deserve is an honorary citizenship.
Storm Brew
(Via Nick Bilton)
This picture looks like the end of the world. A storm developing in Tornado Alley, USA: http://t.co/FOY2qcQless than a minute ago via Twitter for Mac 
nickbilton
@nickbilton Global warming. Scary. But if you can get past the scary, it is also beautiful. If you can think of it as a painting.less than a minute ago via web 
paramendra
Thursday, May 26, 2011
PayCheckr: Not Dead Yet
Square: Jack Dorsey's Second Act?
(Article first published as Square: Jack Dorsey's Second Act? on Technorati.)
As I was watching Jack Dorsey call cash registers "ugly" the other day at TechCrunch Disrupt, I found myself thinking, is Square Jack Dorsey's second act? Is he getting to do with Square what he was not allowed to do with Twitter?
I think so. The Founder CEO is a rare animal, but it is my favorite animal. All the trailblazing companies I know have had Founder CEOs. Twitter stands in stark contrast to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has relentlessly pivoted, he has relentlessly added features. What used to be The Wall became The Stream. We now have a like button to press. There are Facebook Comments at blogs. Twitter, by comparison, stagnated. There has only been scaling and a little bit of monetization.
As I was watching Jack Dorsey call cash registers "ugly" the other day at TechCrunch Disrupt, I found myself thinking, is Square Jack Dorsey's second act? Is he getting to do with Square what he was not allowed to do with Twitter?
I think so. The Founder CEO is a rare animal, but it is my favorite animal. All the trailblazing companies I know have had Founder CEOs. Twitter stands in stark contrast to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has relentlessly pivoted, he has relentlessly added features. What used to be The Wall became The Stream. We now have a like button to press. There are Facebook Comments at blogs. Twitter, by comparison, stagnated. There has only been scaling and a little bit of monetization.
Mark Pincus Is Really Something
(Article first published as Mark Pincus is Really Something on Technorati.)
Image by Joi via FlickrMark Pincus stands out. He really does. He does not fit the stereotype. The guy is responsible for one of the fastest growing companies in history, but his past is littered with all sorts of entrepreneurial failures. To the seasoned eye, those failures were the stepping stones to his grand success, but only in December 2009 he was being pilloried by some small name journalist to whom Pincus pleaded on the air: "We go way back."
He did not drop out of college. He was not 19 or 23 when he started Zynga. He is not 20s young. He is not the most photogenic entrepreneur out there. His public appearances tend to be littered with all sorts of horror stories of him having had to deal with venture capitalists and other creatures of the tech ocean. John Doerr's firm rejected him several times, and Zynga has been better for John Doerr than Google has. Now why would John Doerr do that? I think there is a cultural bias against people who are not the most photogenic.
Image by Joi via FlickrMark Pincus stands out. He really does. He does not fit the stereotype. The guy is responsible for one of the fastest growing companies in history, but his past is littered with all sorts of entrepreneurial failures. To the seasoned eye, those failures were the stepping stones to his grand success, but only in December 2009 he was being pilloried by some small name journalist to whom Pincus pleaded on the air: "We go way back." He did not drop out of college. He was not 19 or 23 when he started Zynga. He is not 20s young. He is not the most photogenic entrepreneur out there. His public appearances tend to be littered with all sorts of horror stories of him having had to deal with venture capitalists and other creatures of the tech ocean. John Doerr's firm rejected him several times, and Zynga has been better for John Doerr than Google has. Now why would John Doerr do that? I think there is a cultural bias against people who are not the most photogenic.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Dong Rule
Presenting At The Dot Com Hatchery
This was a time in my life when I did not have the option to accept investment money.
My Non Personhood Of 2009, 2010
But I ended up with five minutes at the Hatchery. After I was through the Hatchery came up with a new rule called The Dong Rule. That rule would now on allow the organizers to ask a presenter to get off the stage even if their alloted time was not up yet.
This was a time in my life when I did not have the option to accept investment money.
My Non Personhood Of 2009, 2010
But I ended up with five minutes at the Hatchery. After I was through the Hatchery came up with a new rule called The Dong Rule. That rule would now on allow the organizers to ask a presenter to get off the stage even if their alloted time was not up yet.
Microsoft's Alliances And Acquisitions
Image via CrunchBaseForbes: Nokia’s Smartphone Chief On Microsoft Alliance, Future Windows Devices: the Finnish giant’s transition from its homegrown Symbian platform to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system ....... The future of Nokia and, to a certain extent, of Microsoft’s mobile ambitions largely hinges on the success of the two companies’ alliance. ..... several Nokia devices were already running Mango, the latest version of Windows Phone software. ...... the first batch of Nokia Windows Phones will be a “small portfolio” of multiple devices. ...... Nokia was an early advocate for NFC, which enables phones to wirelessly exchange data such as payment information, mobile tickets, business card contacts and website links. ...... Early Nokia Windows Phones may also include a China-specific device.Microsoft allied with Nokia, the number one name in mobile phone hardware. Nokia was struggling under the onslaught of smartphones and it looked like Android was about to take over the world. And Microsoft was largely missing in action. The Windows phone was widely considered a joke.
Bing - But It's Not Google - used to be an industry joke as well. Search was best left to Google.
Windows and Office looked passe. Chrome was coming. Google Apps were all over the place. The smart crowd was into Google Apps.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sonar: How Whales Roll: Mike Arrington My Sonar Friend
National Geographic: Military Sonar May Give Whales the Bends, Study Says: Undersea noise from naval exercises appears to give beaked whales the bends, an ailment most commonly associated with scuba divers who rise to the ocean surface too quickly ...... Scientists for years have suspected a link between sonar activities and mass strandings of marine mammals—similar events have occurred recently in the Bahamas and Greece—but they are uncertain as to why sonar causes the animals to strand themselves. ....... They found gas bubbles in blood vessels and hemorrhaged vital organs. ..... Sonar technology, such as that used during the Cold War, was passive: essentially big microphones that listened for the distinctive sounds emitted by large submarines. ....... Environmentalists say incidences of marine mammal strandings have sharply increased since this mid-frequency sonar technology was deployed. Environmentalists are now actively opposing testing of a new technology, called low-frequency sonar, which they say would significantly expand the geographic range the sound travels. ...... the sonar likely either causes a behavioral change in the whales such as rising too rapidly, or there is a physical effect of the sonar on bubble precursors in nitrogen-saturated tissues. ...... low-frequency sound waves can rapidly compress and then expand microscopic bubbles of gas in the tissue. Each sound wave causes the bubble to absorb more and more of the gas dissolved in the bloodstream, eventually making the bubbles big enough to rupture tissues.Standout App
Sonar was an app that stood out of the many that presented at the TechCrunch Disrupt. I am not saying that was the best app. I am not saying I watched all presentations. I did not. But Sonar is the one I remember.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Major Music Talent
Am I A Musician?
The Magic Letter A
The Magic Letter A
@paramendra 10 Things to do right now to improve your music sales --> @TALENTHOUSELIVEless than a minute ago via web 
Ronine581
@Ronine581 You obviously think I am a major music talent. #music http://bit.ly/mJdaV3less than a minute ago via web
paramendra
Video Blogging Would Beat Panels And Ignite
Image via WikipediaInternet Week Fail WhaleIgnite NYC Premonitions
It is only a matter of time before I get into video blogging in a dedicated way. Video blogging, to my mind, would beat sitting on panels and presenting at Ignite, neither of which I am opposed to.
Brad Feld says he does what he does not for accolades or money, but because he has stayed curious. So maybe the lesson there is to work on being curious if you don't have the accolades and the money already. Those will follow if you stay curious. And staying curious is a reward on its own. It perhaps is the primary reward.
Fred Wilson does not like to sit on panels. He has sat on panels. But he does not like to.
JFK absolutely hated the idea of shaking hands.
To me all of that points to the promise of video blogging.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Wow Technorati
See that spike in daily income from AdSense? Almost all of it is coming from Technorati on a lazy Sunday from just one article: Microsoft's Second Act?
It is the shortest of the few posts I have done for Technorati so far. And it brought me $12 in just one day. Wow. This is my best one day return on AdSense ever.
Just when my tech startup is taking off in a way that I don't really need to make money from blogging, my blogging is also taking off looks like.
Southern Hospitality
Story 1
I showed up in Kentucky. For a few weeks I did not understand people. People did not understand me. I would ask questions in class. The professors would make me repeat a few times and give up. I spoke fast.
"Are you from New York?" someone asked me.
Never been was the correct answer.
Meet My New Friends Twin Sisters Joy And Cindy
Met them at this party last night. Talked to them for two hours. They are good people. Joy sent me a Facebook friend request on her phone in my presence. I just sent Cindy a friend request as well.
"Your name is Joy, and her name is Sydney. How come she lucked out? How come she got named after a city?" I asked. That is how the conversation began.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Organic Growth
Image via WikipediaMy Cofounder Anuj is really something. He grew from one engineer to 50 engineers over five years completely organically. They don't do angel investing in Kathmandu. Venture capitalists live on Mars, not in Kathmandu. But so far the team has worked like hired guns for clients across the world. They have done some pretty sophisticated work on top of the regular web design and development they do on an ongoing basis. Now that we have teamed up to do a tech startup, it is quite something to watch Anuj's thought processes. He is Mr. Organic Growth. Even for the tech startup what he has in mind is organic growth. His gameplan is sound. He is not opposed to me raising money on behalf of the company. It is just that he does not see raising money as do or die. We might as well not do it. The idea of raising money is not in his universe.
BusiCopy is a social network for businesses. No, we are not a Facebook imitator. If it is just about creating a simple page for your business, you can do that either place. But BusiCopy is more. If you are a business in NYC, and you want to list yourself on BusiCopy and also need web design, development work done, BusiCopy can help you, Facebook does not do that. If you are a business in Kathmandu, and you want to go global without getting on the plane, without getting a business visa, we will have the platform for you. We don't have it yet. But we are working towards it.
My Post At Technorati Tweeted Out By Google News
Image via CrunchBaseThe credit goes to Technorati. Google News does not know who I am. But I just noticed my newest post for Technorati got tweeted out by Google News. That's amazing. Technorati is a Top 30 web property. It is the best thing that has happened for my blogs' traffic. 
What was my peak traffic by a wide margin two years back is now not even my floor on a slow day like Saturday. That's amazing. And there is nowhere to go but up. All those links that I send to my blog from my posts at Technorati have been working wonders for traffic to this blog.
Microsoft's Second Act?
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