The iPad

Farmville Farmer's Market: My Idea

A few days back the image above started showing up when I loaded Farmville for me. And I am like, yes! I suggested this directly to Mark Pincus. He said he liked the idea, but that was a while back. Looks like finally he has gotten around to doing it.

I came to Farmville late. I have not been much of a gamer. But Farmville was talked about so much in the blogosphere. And the TechCrunch dude Mike Arrington had just given the game quite a beating. Some of my friends were on the game. What had most got me interested was there were reports Farmville was using the Facebook platform to beat Facebook itself in the monetization game. That piqued my interest. It also helped that I grew up in a farming family. Have you watched the milking of the cow/buffalo - by hand - the milk that you drank an hour later? I have.

So I got onto the game and was hooked. So hooked I went on to become the richest farmer in my neighborhood, bought a million dollar villa, and so on.

My Facebook Photo Album: Farmville

Note, Anu Shukla is one of my neighbors. She just might be my very best neighbor. And, by now, she has the most beautiful farm in my entire neighborhood. She has really taken to farming these past few weeks. There is something to be said of people who sell their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. When they take to farming, they really take to farming.

Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla

I have said several times in Fred Wilson's comments sections, (Fred Wilson's Insight) and I will say it again, Farmville is the media savior, it is not the iPad. Look at the Farmville business model, 99% of the users do not pay anything, and Mark Pincus is not up in arms about it. In fact, Farmville has been teaching Facebook how to make money. Trying to walk away from the browser is not a good idea. Trying to create artificial scarcities and artificially high prices is not a good idea.

And, while you are at it, call the firefighter.



This is from Social Media Week in early February. (Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever)

Startups And Immigrants

Thomas Friedman, New York Times: Start-Ups, Not Bailouts

“Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less,” said Litan. “That is about 40 million jobs. That means the established firms created no new net jobs during that period.” ..... “Roughly 25 percent of successful high-tech start-ups over the last decade were founded or co-founded by immigrants,” said Litan. ...... What made America this incredible engine of prosperity? It was immigration, plus free markets...... “We ought to have a ‘job-creators visa’ for people already here,” said Litan. “And once you’ve hired, say, 5 or 10 American nonfamily members, you should get a green card.”

Voices like that of Friedman are important because we are about to embark upon the great national debate on comprehensive immigration reform. The success on health care will make it easier to wade through this new debate because success will be a foregone conclusion, but some of the debate is going to be nasty. We have to brace for that. Free speech can try you sometimes.

Fred Wilson: Immigration Reform And The Jobs Bill

Links: April 2

Charlie O'Donnell: Rainy Day At The Ace
ReadWriteWeb: Tellmewhere Makes Location-Based Social Networking More Useful
Fred Wilson: Do Network Effects Span Geographies?
Robert Scoble: Are Location Geeks At Where 2.0 Off The Path To Real Money?
ReadWriteWeb: Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login
Startup Strategy Roundtable: Beyond Validating Your Ideas
Blog Of Note: Sramana Mitra On Strategy
ReadWriteWeb: Chatroulette Clones: A New Market for Random Connections
Gmail Becomes an App Platform: Google Adds OAuth to IMAP
Life's Too Short: I'm Getting an iPad Right Away
Harvard Grad on Why MBAs Stumble Off the Blocks
Cracking Facebook's Dominance: New Cross-Network Commenting Protocol Could Be a Game Changer

News: March 30

CNet: Brightcove Eyes iPad Flash Void With HTML 5
Time: US UK Special Relationship Is Over
CNet: Clearwire 4G Launches In Houston
Time: Is A Biometric Identity Card The Key To Immigration Reform?
TechCrunch: Apple Market Cap Passes $210 Billion, Now Within $50 Billion Of You-Know-Who
Mashable: Apple To Launch Two New iPhones, One For Verizon
TechCrunch: Hello iPad, Hello Cloud 2
TechCrunch: Gruber Hints At Possible Next-Gen iPhone Specs ... Sort Of
Mashable: Minnesota's Governor To Host Town Hall Via Facebook
GlobalThoughtz: China Is Not Alone, Germany Has Web Censorship Too