Le Web 2014: Fred Wilson

Is Tech Blogging Dying?

Image via CrunchBaseMy short answer is no, not at all.

But there is a minor storm on the topic going on. It was, I believe, started by Jeremiah Owyang.

End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over

Many people have pitched in with their own reply blog posts. Notables like Pete Cashmore, Fred Wilson, and Loic Le Meur - founder of Le Web conference in Paris - have participated in Jeremiah's comments sections. Pete Cashmore's comment is particularly interesting.

Sarah Lacy: Golden Age of Tech Blogging Done? I Couldn't Disagree More
Brian Solis: Is the Golden Age of tech blogging over?
Marshall Kirkpatrick: The Next Era of Tech Blogging: 3 Things That Could Make it Better
Hugh MacLeod: Oh No! Blogging is REALLY, REALLY dead this time!!!!!! :D

Paris Action (5)

Paris Action (4)

Don't Count Out Microsoft
A Man Who Needs No Introduction
Paris Action (3)
Paris Action (2)
Paris Action

Don't Count Out Microsoft

People like to ask if Google has become Microsoft. They don't mean that as a compliment. But you only have to watch this video to realize not only is Microsoft in the lead on the next big thing - 3D - but it also now has a really sleep smartphone. And if Windows on your laptop/PC is going to have keyboard, mice a-n-d touch, that is big leagues.

Microsoft is very well positioned right now.

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?
Microsoft's Alliances And Acquisitions
Microsoft's Second Act?
Microsoft's Gesture
Microsoft: Smartphone, Tablet, Bar Code

A Man Who Needs No Introduction
Paris Action (3)
Paris Action (2)
Paris Action

A Man Who Needs No Introduction

I have been going through the videos from Paris. And this one struck me because it was put right next to the Eric Schmidt video, and I am like, who is this guy? I have never seem him before. Well, I still don't know who he is. But he got introduced as "a man who needs no introduction."

Paris Action (3)
Paris Action (2)
Paris Action

Paris Action (3)

Paris Action (2)
Paris Action

Paris Action (2)

Paris Action

Paris Action

The Facebook Effect

Berean/Parisian Lina Benete in town for the weekend: work trip. We might talk more this weekend than we ever did at college. Facebook effectless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyParamendra Bhagat
paramendra

Back to Thailand
Bollywood Show in Paris
Lithuanian Wedding
Beginning of the New Life in Paris

Pick Up That Bag

Barackface

Barack Obama said to Charlie Rose in 2007: "Only a few years back people were throwing keys at me in the parking lot."

So I am at this event Wednesday afternoon. And I don't even drink wine.

A Few More Events?

When it was time to get started, and people started to sit down, I saw an empty spot and took the seat. A little later one woman, then another came to get their bags. I was too busy tweeting away to give much attention. But my first thought was, oh no, did I just take someone else's seat?

"Was this your seat? You can have it," I said each time. And went right back to tweeting when the response was, "No, that's okay."

The Arab Revolutions And My Rethinks On Britain And France

Image by Brooklyn Museum via FlickrUltimately It Is About Iran, Because That Is Where It All Started
Syria's Turn
The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

For me Italy has been Mississippi. I have been everywhere in Mississippi. It is charming. But I never felt like I wanted to move there, or even perhaps visit again. Somebody might say something. I was all too aware of its racial history, and the coded racial language that can still permeate political campaigns in that part of the US. One ad against black guy Ford in Tennessee simply had a white woman say, "Call me!"

I have never been to Europe. I have long thought I'd want to have been to Africa and Latin America and if there is still some gas left, I might hop by Europe some day. But after the past few weeks I am much more thawed. Britain's and France's willingness to go in there and do something about the hapless civilians in Libya has shaken my own personal world. I am much more open to visiting Europe now.

NY Tech MeetUp: Europe Edition

The NY Tech MeetUp continues to be my favorite MeetUp in town, and the go-to event every month. When I first showed up in town years ago, I was signing up for MeetUps left and right, then I whittled it all down to one MeetUp, the NY Tech MeetUp. By now I have signed up for a few more. But I am not a regular at the few that I have signed up for. The NY Tech MeetUp is it.

And tonight they got something called The European Edition. I am looking forward to it.

Special NY Tech Meetup: The European Edition

1. From London, UK, Advertag - Tag-based search technology for classifieds and image search
2. From Bucharest, Romania & London, UK, Brainient - Helping video publishers monetize video content by adding interactive elements and affiliate marketing
3. From Warsaw, Poland & London, UK, Codility - Automated testing of programmers via the Web, saving employers and recruiters both time and money
4. From Tallin, Estonia, Erply - Comprehensive CRM, accounting, billing and inventory management for SMEs
5. From London, UK, Kukunu - A social travel planning platform to build and organize your holiday, because travel is better when you plan it yourself
6. From Paris, France, Kwaga - Makes your inbox easier to manage by intelligently screening and organising your emails
7. From Cambridge, UK, Patients Know Best - Patient-controlled medical records. First customers include the UK's largest private health care provider, and the UK's largest children's hospital
8. From Vienna, Austria, Platago - Helping game developers to publish their games on social networks
9. From Amman, Jordan, Talasim - The Comedy Channel of the Middle East, providing a space for self-expression and sharing humour
10. From Belgium, Wondergraphs - Social business analysis that saves organizations time and money with easy to use exploration, sharing and context aware search
11. From Israel, YubiTech - Enabling mobilization of Desktop application to cross-mobile platform, in a fraction of cost and time, bringing best user experience to the mobile users
12. From Zagreb, Croatia, Shoutem - Enables you to create your own microblogging community for your business or brand

The lineup for the January 4 event was along these lines.

SpeakerText - Living the NYC startup dream!
BlazeTrak - Are you star material? Find out!
UDorse - This NY Tech Meetup is brought to you by...
Artlog - This is NYC, and 2010 brings us our first art/tech startup?
1 min/NY Tech Minute pitches from:
PressLift
NYC Way
Taxi Hack
Yogoer

The after party was at the Black Door on 26th between 6th & 7th Aves. Bumped into the Hootsuite guy @quikness at the after party. And got to meet the LaunchCloud (a Crunchies finalist) @mikomercer. I just found out she is now Mayor some place as of recent. And to think I did my very first FourSquare check in last night at the Blue Note Jazz. (Jazz) It was a sold out event. I showed up early to get the bar option. Alex showed up for the 8 PM show. Tommaso showed up for the 10:30 PM show with two of his Italian friends. We ended up being five people. Around midnight we crossed the street and went to the bar there, "to wake up a little," as Tommaso put it: I thoroughly enjoyed the jazz. There was some noisy music in the basement. Alex and I stayed. The others left soon.

Alex is going to be at the MeetUp headquarters this evening for the European edition.

Related articles by Zemanta

• NY Tech Companies are Hiring (nextny.org)
• Zemanta at NY Tech Meetup Showcase - Today (zemanta.com)

Nic Butterworth's Open Coffee MeetUp

You get off the 6 train on Astor Place, and you just can't miss the Starbucks. It's right there. Thursday 9.15 AM. So that totally weeds out those who are just out for beer. Jobholders and entrepreneurs are two different species. If you should be at work at 9.15 in the morning, you probably don't belong here.

Nic Butterworth has the relaxed ways of someone who has already proven himself before. You feel easy around him. He is talking, then at the same time he is taking one step back and being his creative self. Parts of him keep churning what he is good at churning out even when he is very much with you.



I met him first on Tuesday evening at Scott's Tech MeetUp. (Scott 2.0, MeetUp.com 2.0) Nic's thing basically was that on YouTube you get lost. If you are into snowboarding, and you want many super clips of one particular move, you can't do that on YouTube. You come to Nic. This kind of vertical niche search has enormous value. He is definitely adding some serious value, and that is where the riches are.

That is the key question entrepreneurs have to ask themselves. Am I adding value?

I was the second person to sign up for it: The New York Open Coffee Meetup. So I am thinking, will it be just him and me? My train had a 20 minute delay, and so I was about five minutes late. And the place was full. It was crowded. How did he do it? How do you go from two on Tuesday midnight to 22 on Thursday morning? I am thinking, maybe the guy is famous.

Apparently most people had already introduced themselves. I got up, said my name, and talked up the IC for 20 seconds. The IC is a doughnut. It is not Nobel Prize for Physics material. It is meant to be a commodity.

The group broke into three, finance, real estate, and something else. I stuck with finance. The lead person had been in the Silicon Valley for 20 years. He made it sound like the East Coast, West Coast thing in tech and venture capital was no different than it is with rap music. New York is more conservative. Here people are not used to taking chances. You already should be churning some profit for them to pump money into you. Whereas in California, the idea sells.

I am not going anywhere. My market is right here. NYC is my number one market. Got contact info for one angel investor.

Met Christine, hardware Korean, software American. Cheerful. She was adopted by a South Dakota family when she was five months old. ("I have been to South Dakota.") She has worked at Microsoft in its XBox division. She is multicultural. She has lived in Paris a few years, for example. ("I have been to Wisconsin. It is like another planet.") She has that entrepreneur DNA, it is so obvious. Her company is called Mao Networks. And I am thinking Chairman Mao. She says it is an island off of Spain. Well then, that island must have been named after Chairman Mao.

And there was this London lady just passing through town. And three ladies around a table staying late. "Men don't change. Inside they are the same. Outside it looks different." Summary: it is a sexist world, and you feel that inside corporations, inside relationships.

There were so many good ideas floating around. It was so educational to get inside peeps into many startups at different stages of their growth. Frankly, I could not have enough of this. It could have gone on a few more hours, and I would still stick around.

Good thing this will happen every Thursday morning. Now I know what rush hour train rides are like.

It is important not to lose focus though. These meetings should not be the sharpening pencils sessions as a way to postpone actually doing the homework.

On The Web

Nicholas Butterworth
echospin | Our Team
Diversion Media Weblog
COMEBACKS: Nicholas Butterworth's New New Thing - Valleywag the former MTVi CEO and Silicon Alley Reporter coverboy, who, like many from Alley 1.0, was suddenly back at the table, buying back in ...... 'Everything is cranking up,'' said Butterworth. ''There is definitely something in the air. It's not exactly the same as it was the first time around, but it's got some of that same spirit.'' ..... Sounding very 1995 ..... his new firm, Diversion Media, launched Travelistic in late October. The site is billed as a YouTube for travel videos .... compelling, engaging user experiences in robustly profitable niches ..... moving beyond the strict user-created model and nabbing professional video personalities for the site.
Nicholas Butterworth: See what people are saying right now on ...
Nicholas Butterworth
The music man - Salon
Nicholas Butterworth
Nicholas Butterworth - Filmography - Movies - New York Times
thinkd2c

In The News

Carter Defends Pelosi's Syria Trip Playfuls.com
EU Bashes Apple Over iTunes Price in Different Euro-Regions Playfuls.com
Toshiba Enhances Thermal Power Generation Service in North America TechWhack
Cisco eyes future Linksys strategy Computerworld
Acer Up, Dell Down In Latest Notebook Numbers CRN
Review: Apple appalls where Xbox excels Canada.com
Greenpeace Ranks Apple Last for Green Chicago Tribune
HP targets PC performance-seekers on a budget ZDNet UK
Gartner: Intel Still Number 1, Despite Revenue DeclinesCIO India
Cisco set to fight aftermarket sellers Computerworld
Getting Started with Google’s My Maps PC World
Google Embraces Web 2.0 Model in 'My Maps' Feature CIO Today
Google blurs line between advertising and content, again ZDNet
Google Expands into Television Advertising, through Deal with EchoStar Teleclick.ca
Experts say Microsoft should consider change in patching process SC Magazine US
EU may force Microsoft to license server protocols for free Ars Technica
Breaking News Microsoft Sues Student Software Sellers CIO Today
Yahoo Patches Instant Messaging Flaw BetaNews
Reality Check on The Yahoo/Facebook Story Seeking Alpha Yahoo! made attempts last year to purchase leading social networking site Facebook. ...... Facebook has recently surpassed 21 million registered users and generates 1.5 billion page views a day. May's argument is that Yahoo will rue the day it didn't pay $750 million to $1.6 billion for Facebook. ..... Yahoo failed to buy Google in its early days and blew Facebook too. .... Facebook.com ranked as the 36th most-visited site on the Web in February 2007 ..... the second-most “engaging” site .... the number one site for photos, ahead of Yahoo!’s Flickr ..... the most viewed site by females in the United States (69%) ages 17-25 ..... the second most "in" thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and after only the iPod. ..... bonus if Facebook goes public: Wall Street will finally be able to short Web 2.0 directly.
Yahoo Needs a Face-to-Face With Facebook Barron's (subscription)
IBM donates translation software to US military Washington Post
IBM Targets India with Autonomic Computing Center CIO India
BMW Oracle wins warm-up cup BoatsandOutboards
Sun Microsystems And Boeing Team Up To Solve Extreme Data ... WebWire
Sun Microsystems celebrates silver anniversary AME Info
Sun Microsystems launches new updated UltraSparc IV+ processors TechWhack
Wal-Mart says sorry, this time to shareholders CNNMoney.com
Wal-Mart expands personal well-being programs Reuters.uk
Ford’s CEO Made Over $28 Million. In His First Four Months. New York Times
CEO confirms talks on sale of Chrysler unit Seattle Times
Oil Prices Rise Forbes
Solar Radio Bursts Could Cripple GPS Space.com
Lifting restrictions on digital music is just one small step Chicago Tribune
Deal brings Wimax deployment a step closer Computeractive
Solid foundation now in place for WiMax in Asia Pacific: In-Stat Indiantelevision.com Last year was a good one for the development of WiMax in the Asia/Pacific region, as a solid foundation was laid by the joint efforts of market regulators, operators and eager equipment vendors .... From a lean base of 0.27 million in 2006, total WiMax subscribers in 16 Asia/Pacific countries are expected to reach 31.43 million by 2012 ..... Carrier spending of WiMax and WiMax-backhauled WiFi network equipment will escalate from $394.9 million in 2006 to $2908.9 million in 2012.
WiMAX: Where and Where Not? CIOL
WiMax to reach 31 million in Asia VNUNet.com
Pipex in Nokia wireless broadband deal Broadband Finder
Rural Eastern Cape to get wireless broadband Dataweek (press release)
Warwick to pilot WiMAX broadband services PublicTechnology.net
Intel plans Centrino Pro for business notebooks CNetNews
iStockphoto sees new rivals everywhere
Photo wars: A $2 billion business gets rough Business 2.0
Online real estate has become a virtual land grab Business 2.0
New OpenOffice version includes security upgrade
Thailand blocks YouTube for clip mocking king
Apple PCs coming to 200 Best Buy stores

Related articles by Zemanta

• David Rose, the patriarch of New York's Silicon Alley to speak at May 7 Funding Symposium (mattscherer.blogspot.com)
• Westheimer Takes Position at New York Startup (nextny.org)