Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Why Jack Dorsey Invented Twitter

I think Jack Dorsey invented Tumblr, sorry Twitter, is because so he could claim and hog the Twitter handle Jack. When you are on Twitter it feels like Jack Dorsey is the only Jack in the world.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is Hugh Jackman. There is Jack Nicholson.


Traffic

Digital Efforts Have To Be About Transforming NYC Into A Small Town

I don't know Kirk Love. I have never met Kirk Love, although I hope to some day. The guy shows up in my Gchat window on and off, and it is because one day I pitched him to come in as an angle investor. Why not? He said, no thank you, I can't, but nice meeting you too. (The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance, My BusiCopy Cofounder Anuj Bikram Thapa)

I started following him on Tumblr because he was on David Noel's list of people to follow. David Noel is out of Berlin. (My Tumblr Just Got An Upgrade) Just from following Kirk on Tumblr I had seen many, many pictures of his wife.

Lilian Riveros met Kirk on an online dating site. Apparently they clicked enough when they met in person to end up married. Lilian is a New Yorker, of course, a Paraguay native.

Roadmap For Digital New York City

Watch live streaming video from nycgov at livestream.com

26 Best Cities
Rachel Sterne: CDO
To: CDO Sterne
To: CDO Sterne (2)
Pitch Mike

NYC ODC 90day Report 5-15C

Watch Out For Steve Ballmer

en: Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. Camera: N...Image via WikipediaStepping into Bill Gates' shoes was going to be a tough act to follow for anybody. It just was not possible. Bill Gates ruled the industry for a decade and a half. 1995 was the high point. Windows was the only game in town. And then the guy went into philanthropy where he has been as amazing as he was in software. It has been a second career to him.

Microsoft pretty much missed out the smartphone and tablet trains. But then competing with Steve Jobs is as hard as succeeding Bill Gates. Steve Ballmer has had to do both and I feel for the guy. He was an Economics major at college. And there is a cultural bias against fat, bald people. So people end up thinking he is less smart than he actually is. And he is a non coder in a coding business.

There is this story from the mid 1990s. Ballmer returned back to Redmond from one of his trips visiting with customers. And he got a group of his engineers together and said, "I don't know what TCP/IP is, I don't want to know what TCP/IP is. Just make the pain go away." Everywhere he had gone people had been talking about TCP/IP.

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?

Monday, May 16, 2011

My BusiCopy Cofounder Anuj Bikram Thapa


Me In The New York Times

A few weeks back Anuj and I became Cofounders at 50% each to BusiCopy, a social network for businesses.

Before I came to America I was renting a place near the largest library in Nepal. Anuj was friends with the landlord's son. And we got to know each other. I came to America and kind of lost touch for the most part. He went to Japan. He was there for seven years doing hotel management. We might have exchanged an email or two along the way.

He returned to Nepal. The country was going through the final phases of a decade long civil war. And so going into tourism, his first choice, was not an option. To that point his only experience with computers was that he had used them for personal use.

In January 2006 he decided to go into IT. He, his brother in the US Amit Thapa, and that brother's friend Ujjyol Raj Singh teamed up. Amit was studying IT in Texas. He dropped out. Little knowledge is dangerous. You end up becoming an entrepreneur.

A Data Plan Is All You Should Need

Image representing Skype as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBaseYou pay 30 bucks a month, and that is your data plan. And it is good for your smartphone, it is good for your tablet, it is good for your laptop, one data plan for all. The data plan should cover voice and text messaging. Skype ought to morph, Google Voice ought to morph into smartphone apps that make irrelevant the traditional phone number. Landlines are gone, phone numbers should go too.

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?
Image representing Google Voice as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
The plan should be 30 bucks a month. And if your speed does not double every two years, the company providing the data plan should declare bankruptcy. The only calling plan that should be allowed is the unlimited calling plan, and that too for a limited period.

So Proud Of My New Tumblr Theme

Image representing Tumblr as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBaseI installed a new theme for my Tumblr blog a few days back, and it has been such a pleasant experience. You should go check it out.

I seem to have a thing for the color black. I really like the color. The color black to me feels like is inclusive of all colors. There is this inner glow to the color.

My Tumblr Just Got An Upgrade
David Karp: Tumblr Or Hipstr

I am not black, so it can't be a black pride thing. I am not white, so it can't be a remnant guilt over slavery and segregation thing. People who know me know I am very, very political. But I'd like to believe for me it really is about the color. I really like the color.

The New York Times Is Bullish On Twitter

Image representing New York Times as depicted ...Image via CrunchBaseThe New York Times is Twitter's new best friend. I have cultivated a new habit. Now when I see a link to a New York Times article even on the New York Times website itself, I copy the subject line and feed it into the Twitter search engine. Twitter has never failed me so far. There is always some soul out there, usually a whole bunch of souls, that have tweeted out that particular New York Times article. It is called crowdsourcing the need and desire to not pay the New York Times a dime.

Me In The New York Times

The UN, The US, The Internet

Visualization of the various routes through a ...Image via WikipediaThe UN is not it, the US is not it, the Internet is it.

I have made that statement a few times at this blog.What do I mean?

I do not imagine a future where the UN as an organization has been dissolved, and the US federal government no longer exists. But I do imagine a future where the Internet has fundamentally altered the very fabric of what the UN is, how it functions, how far it reaches, how well it functions. I imagine a US federal government transformed by the forces unleashed by the Internet.

The Internet is transformative technology. But it does not operate in a vacuum. You take away people and you end up with computers. It is adding people to the equation that gave us the Internet. And so human institutions are very relevant to what the Internet is all about.

Slow Down The Blogging

Blogging HeroesImage via WikipediaWork is picking up, and that might mean I might have to slow down the blogging a bit. But I don't want to. Blogging is working out for the mind, and it makes no sense for a knowledge worker to slow down on blogging.

But one post a day is the goal, and anything more is bonus. Or at least that is what I thought. I have been blogging several times a day for months now.

Blogging several times a day feels like this.

2000 Squats
Freehand Exercise: 1000 Push-Ups, 1000 Squats, 1000 Crunches

Some people have asked me, how do you make time for blogging? Implicit in that question is the suggestion that blogging is something you do on top of work. I don't see it that way. Blogging is part of my work. And, no, I don't mean AdSense peanuts. I mean blogging is like my online resume. My blog allows me to do a lot of work related socializing online. I have entered into credible conversations because I have an active blog.

Because I am an active blogger, I believe I am a more active reader of tech news.