Thursday, May 28, 2009

Hunger, Vision, Money

"If you kick it around enough, it starts to look like a ball."
- Skip Shuda

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but we aim too low and reach it."
- Michelangelo
"Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."
—Albert Einstein
Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures

Why would someone, anyone come with me now? I am not a certified engineer. I am not rich. I feel like I have been both a high school and a college dropout. Why come along? Why come with me? Why team up with me? Why invest in my round one? Why believe?
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
- Mark Twain
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Bad Time To Start A Company?
New York City: Transformed Forever?
"The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place."
- Jim Rohn
Reimagining The Office
Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
David Gelernter: Manifesto
"An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he'll quickly learn how to chew it.
- Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries
Hunger

You have to feel the hunger. Everyone I know is online. If that is your line, you might not have the hunger. You have to have a passion for search to go work for Google. To connect every human mind to the web, and then some. That is the vision statement for my startup. If you don't feel for the five billion plus that are not online, you are not coming along. That's the bargain. You have to liberate a people if you are serious. Once a people can vote, they are in a position to help themselves. Internet access is the voting right for this 21st century. Today Mahatma Gandhi would have poured his energy into internet access for the billions. MLK would have . It is broadband that will bridge the gap between the west and the rest.

I grew up in the poorest country outside of Africa. I have the hunger. Do you? You don't have to have grown up in a poor country to have the hunger. You could simply care.

People who can't pay for food, how will they pay for broadband? They can pay because every human being has something called mindspace. Every human being is capable of consuming ads. I can't think of one village on the planet where Coke does not want to put up a billboard. They want to keep reinforcing the brand name. (Brands Will Still Matter) Broadband catalyzes work on all the other noble goals like fighting poverty, liberating people, conquering hunger and disease. Electricity is fundamental to economic activity. Broadband is like that, only much, much bigger.
"Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming."
- Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises
Vision
"I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent."
- Thomas Edison
Are you someone who gets excited by new ideas? If new ideas threaten you, this is not for you. Do blinding visions blind you, or do they awaken you, stretch you? Are you too comfortable in your comfort zone? Are you risk averse as a rule? Or can you stretch? Because this startup has a panoramic vision. The idea is not to set up a corner coffee shop. The vision has global ambitions. This is not for the faint hearted.
"We were young, but we had good advice and good ideas and lots of enthusiasm."
- Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation
Money
"The cover-your-butt mentality of the workplace will get you only so far. The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business--but it's a whole lot more fun, don't you think?"
- Bill Rancic
If you have 100,000 dollars to invest, you should put 10K into this, or something like this. Most people never get an opportunity to come into the round one of a company that is headed for Nasdaq. If you have 10K to invest, you would be lucky to put 2K into something like this. Because the growth is astronomical. This is the oil beneath the ground in your backyard you did not know about. This is your winning lottery ticket. The risks are huge. That is why the rewards are humongous. To invest, to team up. Oh, the lure.

If a company's valuation goes from five million to 50 billion in 20 years, a $2,000 investment in round one has become 20,000,000. What could you on your own do to take your 2,000 to 20,000,000 in about 20 years? Many companies have achieved this kind of a growth trajectory before. This is no science fiction. This is history.

The rewards are huge for those who invest early, and team up early. I have not made a final decision on the formula for ownership stakes yet, but broadly speaking, earlier you join the team and higher up you are on the team chart, more your share. Anyone who leaves or is asked to leave before the company goes public goes to zero ownership. I want to come up with a new formula that is fair also to people who might team up five years after the company has gone public.
"My son is now an 'entrepreneur'. That's what you're called when you don't have a job."
- Ted Turner, broadcasting entrepreneur
The United States Of Entrepreneurs
The Human Is The Center Of Gravity In Computing
Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World
That StartUp Mentality (2)
That StartUp Mentality
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb

Robert F. Kennedy, Cabinet Room, White House, ...Image via Wikipedia

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
- Robert F. Kennedy

An Event Invite From DL21C: This Can't Be Real
Nepali Diaspora: Rethink Time?





"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Firstrade



Firstrade: Online Brokerage Firm
Simple and affordable. For you. For the casual and serious investor alike. One of the lower charging online brokers. 10,000 types of mutual funds offered.

Firstrade: Online Brokerage Firm
This is a great online only place for early investors. It is cheap, it is easy. They don't ask for a minimum amount in the thousands of dollars before you can start investing.

The site is very easy to navigate. It scores high on functionality. Firstrade does stocks, bonds, mutual funds. Many reviewers have ranked it above Schwab, Ameritrade and Etrade.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Wolfram Alpha: An Answer Engine, Not A Search Engine

Image representing Wolfram Alpha as depicted i...Image via CrunchBase


Wolfram Alpha Approaches 100 Million Queries Mashable

Google is a search engine. Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine. Microsoft is a desktop company. Google is an internet company. Google is a search engine. Facebook is a social site.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine. It is not even trying to compete with Google, but it is already a niche king.

Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess

Yahoo's boast of wanting to "kill those 10 blue lines" is on the vacant side. Microsoft wanting to rename and remarket an old search engine is not exactly challenging: where's the innovation? But Wolfram Alpha does kill those "10 blue lines." That is its strength and weakness.

100 million queries? Come on. That is prime real estate already. And the site was selling ad space before it launched. Smart. A sound answer engine and a sound business model: what else do you need to fuel growth?

Google Is Working On Search

It has a small database for now. But that will change as it makes more money and has more resources. But it is good enough now to make good money now.

Wolfram Alpha is not a Google challenger, I don't think so. But what if it were? Look at how fast it hit 100 million queries. That might be the real news. Google, be awake, be very awake.

https://twitter.com/paramendra/status/1908944676


You know how you can watch a video clip on YouTube, and then you can get the code to embed that clip on to your blog? I wish this answer engine had a similar share/embed appendage.

But I guess you can always just plain link: New York.

http://www.wolframalpha.com

In The News

Hyped-up Wolfram Alpha gets delta-minus from me New Zealand Herald
Wolfram Alpha doesn't impress me FierceContentManagement
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Saturday, May 23, 2009

Contents 2009

An Open Google
Paul Carr: Bringing Nothing To The Party
Avatar
Her Morning Elegance
Volcanic Eruption 4,000 Feet Below Sea Level
Panic Attack: $300 To $30 Million
Whuffie: Vamsi Sistla
Time, Facebook Connect, And Comments
Tiger
John Chow 
Pete Cashmore 
Dennis Crowley: I Underestimated Him
2010 Trends: Pete Cashmore's Take
Discovering Andrew Wong
Droid Does
Google Wave For The Masses
Finally Real Time Search From Google
The Pro-Blogger's Daily Routine
New Yorker, New York Times Style, Twitter And Me
December 2009 NY Tech MeetUp
Arrington's Thanksgiving
Madonna Is Dating Jesus, No Kidding
Ustream: Realtime
Finally, Twitter Ads
Scam
Web 2.0 Expo NY 09
I Got My Retweet Button Now
When O'Reilly Said 2.0
This Blog's Alexa Rank Is Up Substantially
Web Search, Real Time Search, Social Search
And If This Is Not JP Rangaswami
Deindexing Murdoch
Eric Schmidt
C++ plus Python = Google GO
Kevin Rose
Steve Mills Of IBM: RealTime
My Talk On Social Media At The Science House MeetUp
Hackers/Founders MeetUp: Last Thursday Each Month
Twitter Should Go For A Netscape-Like IPO
November 3 NY Tech MeetUp 
I Now Have Google Wave
I Have Access To Twitter Lists
Web 2.0 Summit 09
Jeff Jarvis, Me And Twitter
Google, Bing And Social Media
Droid Does
Content, Microcontent, Blogging, Microblogging
I Must Be Following A Lot Of People On Twitter
Between A Rock And A Hard Place: Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen
A Netflix For Books Needed
The Next Big Thing In Social Networking
NYC Twitter Elite: Number 12
Sitting Next To David Rose At The NY Tech MeetUp
My First Time Seeing Jimmy Fallon In Action
Pete Cashmore
Celebrating YouTube
Zuckerberg Interview
Tweets And Facebook Updates: The Mumbojumbo
My First Tweet From My Phone
Larry And The Cloud
Twitter Top 100 NYC: I Am In
October 2009 NY Tech MeetUp
Almost There
Twitter Top 100 NYC
Make Money On Twitter
Search: Pregnant Territory
What Makes An Entrepreneur Tick?
That Thing About Changing The World
The Science House MeetUp
Google, Micropayments, And Online Newspapers
Jay Leno Should Go On YouTube
Tim O'Reilly Mentions Scott Heiferman On TechCrunch
Twitter Top 0.1%
Netizen: The First Blog To Place The PayCheckr Button
The PayCheckr Promise
NY Tech MeetUp: Gravitas
Anil Dash On Google Wave
September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp
What's The Big Deal About Real Time?
CubanSpeak: Controversial Take On Entrepreneurs
CubanSpeak: Change And The Internet
The FriendFeed, Facebook Merger
Bing + Yahoo + Wolfram Alpha
Something's Rotten, It's Not The Fish
Twitter Should Hand Over Search To Google
Melange
It's Not HP, It's The PC
Twitter Number 115 In New York City
[WordPress #336657]: Not Being Able To Leave Comments
Harlem
Roosevelt Island
India Day Parade
Empire State Building
George Washington Bridge
It's Not Dell, It's The PC
Columbia University
Photo Blogging
Rockefeller Center
Bryant Park
Grand Central
UN Building
Union Square
World Trade Center
Staten Island Ferry
Brooklyn Bridge
Downtown Brooklyn
Prospect Park
Little Bangladesh
Coney Island Beach
Central Park
July Was Netizen Blog Carnival Month
Ridgewood
Times Square
Blog Carnival: Global Poverty
Jackson Heights
Blog Carnival: Entrepreneurship
Paramendra Bhagat July 2009
Mobile Web Is Still Web, Not Desktop Gone Small
Blog Carnival: Android
Bill Gates, Chrome OS, Natal, Wave
Twitter, TechCrunch, And The Stolen Docs
Blog Carnival: Google Wave
Bill Gates Drove Up Traffic To This Blog
Subscribe
Bill Gates: Behind The Curve On Chrome OS
Blog Carnival: Bill Gates, Chrome OS
Bill Gates On The Chrome OS
PayCheckr Potential
Taking Broadband To Every American: What Google And The Feds Can Do
Blog Carnival: Google (2)
Blog Carnival: Google
July 2009 NY Tech MeetUp
Bing ---> Chrome OS ---> Office 2010
Tens Of Billions Of Hours Available
TechCrunch Rebuttal: Google Should Not Make Its Formula Transparent
Seth Godin And Blog Traffic
Google Chrome Operating System: Pinging Bing
Blog Carnival: Venture Capital
PayCheckr: Bringing Money Into Blogging?
Sparq And Tweet Ads
Blog Carnival: Microfinance
Best Of
A Small Hiatus
Everest And Me
Seth Godin Looks Like A Movie Star
Blog Carnival: Cheap Laptops
On Business Models: Free Is Not Always Good
Bleak Job Numbers
Free Is The Future: Picking A Fight With Mark Cuban
TechCrunch Has Linked To A Blog That Stole My Material
140 Characters: Enough
The Future Is Multilingual
Blog Carnival: Wimax
Telecommuting: Choice 1, Not Second Choice
Oracle, Oracle
Blog Carnival: Internet For The Billions
July: Netizen Blog Carnival Month
Bye Bye Geocities
Social Capital And The Venture Capital Game
There Aren't Enough Photos And Videos Online
So I Have Decided To Launch A Blog Carnival
Search: The Human Vs. The Machine
Michael Jackson's Death And The Internet: A New Way To Mourn
My Tweet Psych
The Best Follow Friday I Ever Received On Twitter
Seth Godin: Best Business Blogger?
Fred Wilson
InRev TwitIn Now Does People Search
Data Rich Customer Service
Dynamic PageRank And Real Time Search
The Kevin Marks Departure
This Reminds Me Of The Web 3.0 Definition Fight
I Did My Part
Google Wave API Google Group: Got To Undo The Ban On Me
Microblogging Search: What Took Google So Long?
Google Wave Protest
Google Wave API Google Group: Stalinist Mindset
Space, Time And Twitter: Are There Plant Twitters?
The Google Wave Developer Community Will Be Vibrant
JP Rangaswami, Utterly Confused Of Calcutta (2)
My Twitter Suspension Lifted
Can Tweet Google, Can't Tweet Twitter
Damien Mallen In Town
The IC Vision: Sequencing The Components
7 Ways To Make Money Blogging
Tagged: Chugging Along, But What Differentiates?
Opera Unite: New Definition For Client/Server
Maybe America Does Not Need To Make Things
Monetizing Twitter: A Few Ideas
Five Blind Men And Google Wave
A Little Trouble At The Google Wave API Google Group
Lessons From The Open Source Community For The Wave Community
Google Wave Developer Community: Asking For A Culture?
The Google Corporate Culture
Facebook Landgrab: A Friday Midnight Call
15 Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Blog
Mashable Did It
New York Times, Don't Die, Live
How To Become A Professional Blogger
Google Wave: Organizations Will Go Topsy Turvy
JP Rangaswami, Utterly Confused Of Calcutta
Facebook And Mashable: Social Media And Social Media Blog
Information As Service, Service As Information
How To Increase Your Following On Twitter
Bowling Alone: Another Look At Rajeev Matwani's Death
Rajeev Motwani
Google Wave: Enormous Buzz
Larry Ellison
Possible Google Wave Applications And Innovations
All Books Need To Go Digital
Google Wave Architecture: Designed For Mass, Massive, Global Innovation
The Google Wave Architecture
17 Suggestions To Blogger
Square Search
Google Wave Ripples
NY Internet Week: NYTM Showcase
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Blogger Search Gadget: What Took You So Long?
Of Waves And Tsunamis
Google Wave: Wave Of The Future?
Each Snowflake Is Unique
Google Wave: If Email Were Invented Today
Hunger, Vision, Money
Wolfram Alpha: An Answer Engine, Not A Search Engine
Contents 2009
Contents 2005-2008
Feedburner Jump: 6 To 31
Facebook's Ad Space Is Different
Netizen Is No Spam Blog
Best Way To Increase Traffic To Your Blog
The Android Architecture
Android Netbook
Donut Android: Android 2.0
Android
Google: Tweet Me Baby One More Time
Real Time Search: Twitter Is Not Doing It
Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures
Distributed Search
Wolfram Apha Is Cool
The Plateau Will Last Less Than Nine Months
Google Falling Behind Twitter?
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android
Donut Android: Windows 95, Android 2009?
Cupcake Android Delay Reason: Donut Android
Eminem: The Relapse: Twitter
Bad Time To Start A Company?
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging
Cisco's Big Dreams: A Clash Of Titans?
Google Analytics Says I Am Paul Krugman Friend, Cupcake Android Expert
What Does Your Resume Look Like Today?
What Just Happened?
Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess
Google Is Working On Search
What If The Plateau Lasts Nine Months?
Mideast Peace: Tech Industry Style
Job Hunting And 2.0
Brands Will Still Matter
Facebook Faceoff Firefox
Ggoats
Stand Up Comedy: Thinking On Your Feet: 2.0
Is Reading Socializing?
New York City: Transformed Forever?
Reimagining The Office
Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
Microfinance, Nanotech, Biotech, Software/Hardware/Connectivity
Define Social Media
Peter Thiel: Primitive Mind In The Tech Sector
May 5 NY Tech MeetUp
The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
David Gelernter: Manifesto
Blogging: Monkey Business?
Content Is Queen
Cyber Security: Growing Challenges
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
Stephen Hawking Has Taken Sick
NewsDesk: China, Twitter, Hawking, Obama
Blogging = Learning + Teaching + Churning + Entertaining
The United States Of Entrepreneurs
Spamming Om Malik
Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher
The Human Is The Center Of Gravity In Computing
Blogging Several Times A Day
Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World
That Plateau Feeling
Blogging Tips
0 Tweets, 30,000 Followers: Could That Be Oprah?
That StartUp Mentality (2)
That StartUp Mentality
A Blogger Is Also An Editor
Blog Daily
Where Have You Placed Your Ads?
Twitter Is Not Micro
Cupcake: Android 1.5
Skype: Hub
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
Sites That Pay You To Blog
Five Years Of Gmail: What Would Gsus Do?
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Cisco Unified Computing System: To Tidy Up Data Centers
NYTM 03/09/09: Fashion Institute of Technology
Jeff Jarvis: Bold Restructuring
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
NYTM Mailing List Continued Controversy
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
NY Tech MeetUp Mailing List Web 5.0 Controversy
Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb
Competing For the Web 3.0 Definition
NY Tech MeetUp: 02/03/09
Conceptually Diligent: Web 5.0 Is Repackaging Hello
Onto Digital Publishing
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King
Defining Web 4.0
I Get Twitter
Indra Nooyi: Power Woman
Yahoo: The Original Dot Com
Craig Silverstein

Contents 2005-2008