Netizen

Friday, June 04, 2010

After Entry Level Jobs, An Internship

Steve Case, founder of AOL at Kinnernet in Isr...

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Ed Carroll wrote:

Paramendra,

I haven't talked you in a little bit, so I am not sure what you are up to....but I came across something that might be perfectly suited to your talents:

http://ambassadoroflifestream.com/

I am curious to know what you think....

-ed

A guy called Ed who is a good friend of Alex Great Minds Think Alike Cybriwsky yesterday talked me into applying for an internship with AOL. The next person is going to ask me to apply for college: Back To The Future.

Lady Liberty Whispers
Entry Level Jobs
Job Search
Me @ BBC

Luxury apartment in SF; swank hotel in NYC?
VIP access to concerts & events?
Input on core product decisions?
Reporting to Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL?
Basically, the internship of a lifetime.

Job Overview

We're looking for one very savvy individual to fill an important position. It's an easy job because all you have to do is be yourself. There's not a job like this anywhere else...guaranteed. Intrigued? Read on...

A Little About You

You're the type of person we can see spending a lot of quality time with this summer. You have the perfect balance of charisma, insight and ambition. You might be thinking, "Sure, but what's in it for me?"

Frankly, a lot.

But we'll get to that later.

First, let's talk more about you.

Like a bloodhound on the hunt, you've got an uncanny ability to sniff out new trends. You go with your gut. Like a sixth sense, it always leads the way.

Your enemy is the status quo. Status updates, however, are your friend. You judge others not only on the content of their character, but also on the content of their Tweets.

People listen to what you have to say, because they know that you know what's up. You’re a social-media butterfly with the wingspan of a jumbo jet—you don't flutter, you soar.

You're comfortable in your own shoes and your friends love that about you.

Why? Because you’re cool, that's why.

Like it's your job.

Which brings us to why we're here...

The Job

For two solid months you'll be an integral part of the Lifestream Team and have the opportunity to work directly with Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL. You'll sit in high-level meetings and speak your mind to our top product engineers, marketers and executives. You’ll tell them what you like and what you don't like about AOL products. We're depending on you to tell it like it is, and we know that you will.

Ok, we know. You’re still wondering what’s in it for you.

Here's The Deal

This is not your average summer internship. In fact, if we didn't know better, we'd think this was some sort of Employment rickroll.

You, friend, will not only receive a paycheck, but you'll also be living the bi-coastal lifestyle. A luxury apartment in San Francisco. A hip hotel in NYC.

Through AOL Lifestream, you'll be sharing all your experiences with your social networks via Facebook updates, Tweets, Flickr uploads, Foursquare check-ins and YouTube videos. Give your followers a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes culture of AOL. Remember, your friends are our friends, too. And if our friends have something to say, we want to hear it.

We've been making a lot of changes around here and we're not afraid to take risks. To inform those risks, we're counting on you to bring us weekly dispatches from the frontlines of the latest pop culture trends. So throughout the summer, you'll have in your possession VIP access to events around the country—the hottest clubs and restaurants, the most coveted live concerts, sporting events and industry social gatherings. Your loyal followers will benefit too, all because they know you.

You'll get all this and more for allowing us to harness the awesome power that is you.

(Oh, and did we mention the expense account?)

Think you can handle it?

If so, please fill out the application.

We can't wait to start working with you this summer!

Key Dates:
June 8th: Last day to submit applications

June 9th: Finalists will be notified; in-person interview may be required this week

Week of June 14th: Videos of Top 3 candidates posted to this site; final winner is determined by an online vote

June 28th: First day on the job in San Francisco

Mid-August: End of internship

Social media, as opposed to broadcast/mass/old/traditional media, is going to drop that first word in a few years and simply become media. Social media is the way media should always have been. The talkers matter, but so do listeners. Thanks to social media we are now having two way conversations at small and large scales. It has become easier now to participate in family and social/political lives. It has become easier to stay in touch with friends. As for businesses, finally the dog has caught up with the car. Businesses have always wanted to have intimate conversations with customers, all customers, and now that is actually possible. This total feedback loop will only get more sophisticated over time. And customers will see through all aspects of businesses. They will be designing products and services. They will be participating in customer support. They will become small investors. Social media is about bringing democracy into our everyday lives. We are now constantly voting, every hour of the day.

This description totally speaks to me. I kid you not, but I put out this blog post this morning several hours before a friend emailed me the link to this opportunity: http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/06/top-web-properties.html AOL is still one of the top web properties in the world, but you don't have the buzz you had 10 years ago. It might not be possible to recapture that buzz, but I think Tim is walking down the right path in trying to turn AOL into a major content platform. Me, or anyone else who might fill this intern position, is not going to be your turn around artist. That is Tim. But you are looking for someone who will offer some brutal out of the box thinking in the ways you do business. You are looking for someone who gets visibly uncomfortable in formal clothes. Big, old corporations are yawn, yawn, they are scary. You are looking for a Maverick, like in Top Gun. That is me. I got the attitude. Not only that, I am deep into social media. My entire social media presence and more would be at your disposal. Whatever you pay me and spend on me, you are going to get back in all the marketing buzz I will create five times over, before the internship is even over.

And Steve Case follows me on Twitter. I have a Direct Message from him. That has to count for something.

http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/05/direct-messages-from-ann-curry-steve.html

What I am is a tech entrepreneur at heart, but I am a year away from getting my green card. Until then I need to go work for someone else. This allows me to postpone going to work for someone else for a few months. And if things work out, hey, I could be with AOL for that year before I get my green card and go launch my company. I would love to have Tim Armstrong as one of my angel investors. http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/06/larry-ellisons-1995-network-computer.html

Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far

Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan

Image via Wikipedia

I signed up for the NY Tech MeetUp after Nate's blast email. I missed out the last NY Tech MeetUp, the one in May.

The Biggest NY Tech MeetUp Ever?

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 Laguardia Place
New York, NY 10012

A few minutes back I got an email from Neha Chauhan. She hosted the best panel of all events I went to during Social Media Week. And there is also that ethnic pride thing. So I signed up for the Women In Tech Media Conference. That is Monday evening.

Monday, June 07, 2010 from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (ET)
277 Park Avenue
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10172

Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Email marketing works.

So far I have resisted the Ignite event. The pull is strong, I must admit.

I signed up for the World Cup party. Okay, I don't need convincing there.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 from 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (ET)
The Parlour Bar
250 West 86th Street (at Broadway)
Downstairs
New York, NY 10024

"A tree is a tree, how many do you need to look at?"
- Ronald Reagan

A party is a party, how many do you need to go to?

Lady Liberty Whispers

Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Isl...

Image via Wikipedia

How To Date An Indian: Andrea Miller
Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly
Immigration Status
Job Search
June 3 Immigration Court Date

Court dates

December 2008: Chicago
June 2009: New York City
November 2009: New York City
Eligible to apply for work authorization papers: March 2010
Final court date: June 2011

Pinch me.

A Time Warner Vacation

Thursday, June 03, 2010

This Is Not Happening: King Dennis

Wired

The FourSquare Appeal For Me
FourSquare Must Cut A Deal With Yahoo
FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology
4:16 PM @ FourSquare
Selling FourSquare Would Be A Mistake, Partnering Would Be Genius
The Foursquare Rap: Badges Like Us
Craig Newmark, Dennis Crowley, Jennifer 8 Lee: Koreatown
Dennis Crowley: I Underestimated Him

How To Date An Indian: Andrea Miller

Amitabh Bachchan via last.fm

This blog post by an Andrea Miller normally would not fall in tech and biz categories - technbiz.blogspot.com - except that she is an entrepreneur, and this blog has touched upon the world of online dating before. Besides, anything goes. And this post seems to be Miller's first and only post at The Huffington Post. She comes across as a fairly accomplished individual. Most people start at the collective level. Individual spark comes later. That is why so few of the relationships out there are cross-cultural, inter-racial, even in a diverse city like New York.

Online Dating Newsflash: Race And Religion Matter

Andrea Miller: Bio

.... founder and CEO of YourTango ..... a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School ..... positions with Goldman Sachs, ICF Consulting and Enron’s international finance team. While with Enron, Andrea was based in Mumbai, India for three years. ...... a frequent panelist and guest speaker in classes at Harvard University, Columbia University, Fordham University, The Wharton School and New York University. .... a licensed private pilot, and is a passionate karate practitioner ..... one of the original co-heads of the New York Chapter of 85 Broads, an independent global network of female professionals and students. She actively seeks to promote entrepreneurship among women; she is the co-founder of the Women Entrepreneurs Network, an active network of females who represent some of the tri-state area's most talented and promising young entrepreneurs.

Andrea Miller: How To Date An Indian

Indians are the true Chosen People .....There are obvious reasons one would want to date an Indian, such as how successful and professionally desirable they are. Indians dominate as engineers, doctors, lawyers, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. They make up a large proportion of our graduate students -- just walk around the campuses of Harvard, Columbia or Stanford or and you will see these incredibly attractive brown people all over the place....... Indian people tend to be really good looking. ..... According to Wikipedia*, "India holds the highest number of Miss World winners, only to be tied with Venezuela." ...... Most Indians are innately gracious, social creatures; they highly value friends and family and have a calendar filled with various holidays and occasions to celebrate, which they typically do with gusto. Those endless jubilant dance numbers in Bollywood movies pretty much channel the Indian soul. Moreover, Indian men love to dance. If for no other reason other than you want someone to dance with you (or without you for that matter), date an Indian. ....... learn seven things that should ingratiate you with them. The first five have to do with Bollywood. Indians take Bollywood and their celebrities very seriously. ....... If you bust out something like, "Yea, I loved Kuch Kuch Hota Hai," you are very likely to get a second date. .... Major bonus points if you suggest seeing a Hindi movie together. ...... Bhangra ...exhibit the right dance moves, i.e. patting an imaginary dog while screwing in an imaginary light bulb. ..... Indians love their food. Probably more than they love dancing. ...... Indians love when you speak their language. ..... there are several iPhone apps that will give you translations .... I hope Laxmi, Goddess of Prosperity, smiles on you as you endeavor to date one of her people. ..... one more big bonus when it comes to dating an Indian: communication with cabbies. Think I'm kidding? New Yorkers: Just imagine if you could stop a taxi during the 4pm transition time and your date could say, in Hindi, "Hey brother, will you please take us to Spring and 6th?"

Okay, so this blog post is not what I thought it might be. I came here hoping to get all defensive. But this is quite a flattering piece, and, I must say, hilarious to boot. This post is as entertaining as a Bollywood masala movie. The blogger's description of Bhangra is the most hilarious I have ever seen: "Bhangra ...exhibit the right dance moves, i.e. patting an imaginary dog while screwing in an imaginary light bulb."

The post is funny but she is curiously right in some ways. I guess it takes an outsider to get you some perspective. Bollywood movies were stuff you did not watch too much of when I was growing up: good students watched movies only moderately. I came to America and the Bollywood movies became my culture.

She is to the point about food. During my road trip across America I realized I missed Desi food more than my family.

"I hope Laxmi, Goddess of Prosperity, smiles on you as you endeavor to date one of her people." Hilarious. A college friend once said to me, it was a green card, gold card swap.

That cabbie part. I never thought that was an advantage. I mean, I am very much a subway person. But when you talk to a brown person, you might as well talk Hindi. They appreciate it. White guys similarly have advantages on Capitol Hill and Wall Street. Although I am not so sure about Wall Street. Goldman Sachs is one third brown. And we are about to send Reshma to DC, so we will be good there too.

Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly

Okay, so this picture is me right out of high school. You can see I was trying hard to imitate Amitabh Bachchan's hairstyle. If you don't know who that is, you are an illiterate. He just so happens to be the most recognized face on the planet. You don't have to date an Indian to know that.

There is Hindi, and there is English. There is Bollywood, and there is Hollywood. There is democracy, and there is democracy. We are breaking even. I am all for cross-cultural understanding. Peace and love.

Sree In A Candy Shop

@sreenet

The Mashable Success Story

Image representing Mashable as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Mashable has been a remarkable success story in blogging. Pete Cashmore started it when he was 19. He started it in his bedroom in Scotland where he is from. By now it gets more page hits then the top tech blog TechCrunch. That has been true for months. Mashable has a more well defined niche than TechCrunch, and it is more focused on the user.

Switching from being a one person blog to a team blog must have been a major milestone for Mashable. The fact that Mashable has no plans to be sold - "Everyone has a price, but ours is a really high" - should tell you the blog has serious plans to keep digging in its niche. Getting sold to a bigger name company might only blunt that one edge the blog has, that it is your ultimate social media guide. Why not just keep building the traffic, and keep adding to the content, and keep charging more for the ads, right?

The Facebook founder was also 19 when he launched Facebook.

Mashable Did It
Facebook And Mashable: Social Media And Social Media Blog
2010 Trends: Pete Cashmore's Take

TechCrunch Vs. Mashable: There's No Competition Mashable is more about internet culture than pure tech news these days..... if there's a hot celebrity story trending on Twitter they'll find a way of covering it to reap the search engine traffic, if there's a viral video doing well they'll embed it to get the retweets.
AOL In Talks To Acquire Mashable -- Reports AOL is trying to transition from an ISP to a next-generation media company. .... It already has 80 or so independently branded blogs and is planning to grow to more than 100.
The Man Behind Mashable He's been crowned the king of Twitter and is one of the most influential figures in the technology industry. ..... Since setting up Mashable in 2005, while working as a web technology consultant, Cashmore has divided his time between his home town of Aberdeen and the bright lights of Silicon Valley. He's been in Scotland since October, and won't return to the US until January, relying on his team of 15 full-time bloggers and 50 regular contributors to help him keep on top of the key stories.
Mashable’s Identity Crisis They’ve reached that point of critical mass that most bloggers only dream of. The last I heard they had suprassed 20 million page views a month ...... a few months ago Mashable made BIG NEWS by announcing they were going to be hiring real, actual journalists .... some kind of direction shift for Mashable and that they were now interested in serious reportage and investigative journalism ....... s sensationalist and often pedantic blogging ..... Right now it is on track to be the People Magazine of social media. ..... they are interested more in acting like a tabloid.
So What Do You Do, Pete Cashmore, Mashable Founder and CEO? not yet 25. ..... Founding the site was pretty much his first job, as he worked as a Web consultant for a short time beforehand. The site's mission is to be "the social media guide" and cover all things social media. ...... starting Mashable in 2006 from his bedroom in Scotland. He was 19 at the time. ....... I just was really passionate about the space, and wanted to get involved, and I felt like social networking wasn't being covered to the degree it could be. ....... It was personal interest. I didn't necessarily know there was an audience for it. ...... In 2006, we did our first ad deal. It was only a few thousand per month, but it kind of legitimized blogging as a business. Selling a first ad legitimized that this may go somewhere -- this may actually work. ....... When you compare [Mashable] to old school tech magazines, we certainly say we're more focused on the user and the utility for users. For example, we don't cover things like funding announcements. We focus on the user. ...... there is value in both original reporting and curation ...... They're going to cover what they're going to cover. It's up to them. ...... There is no point in writing like the pyramid anymore. You have to write the story in three paragraphs. ..... They need to become both sources of news and curators of community-sourced news. ..... Content is not a scarce resource; attention is a scarce resource. If you put [up] barriers, they will go elsewhere. In the vast majority of cases, a pay wall is a hindrance. We should be focusing on how we [can] make ad models that are more engaging rather than push readers to other sites. ....... We're in a niche where we feel we're leading.
History Of Pete Cashmore's Mashable.com
Mashable Lost its Visitors after the 2010 Redesign Techcrunch now has more unique visitors than Mashable. Techcrunch also seems to have grown ‘only’ +35.54% since last year where Mashable has grown +29.00%. ..... Pete Cashmore’s ‘little’ start-up blog Mashable first overtook the might of Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch back in May 2009 ..... Its Change of pure tech news into tech news + Celebrity news

Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly

Reshma Saujani, running for New York City's 14 Congressional District talks to The Next Web from Chad Cat on Vimeo.

Reshma Saujani At The Huffington Post
An Afternoon At The Reshma 2010 Headquarters
A 14-7 Office For Reshma 2010
My Political Resume, Reshma 2010, And September 14
Reshma Saujani, Carolyn Maloney
My Talk With Kevin Lawler Of Reshma 2010
Reshma 2010 Get Together In Little India
Reshma Saujani Ad Spotted At The New York Times Website
Reshma Saujani, Scott Heiferman, Chris Hughes: TechCrunch Disrupt
Reshma Saujani, Haiti Earthquake, Harvard Yale, And 2016
Reshma Saujani "Gets" Tech
Reshma Saujani: Innovation, Ethnic Pride, Thought Leadership

Reshma 2010 has been on the forefront of technological innovation. Reshma 2010 has been the first campaign in America to use Square, Jack Dorsey's revolutionary new product. More people are going to use Square than have used Twitter. And now Reshma 2010 is the first campaign in America to use Pro.Act.Ly.

Pro.Act.Ly is going to define campaigning going into 2012.

Reshma 2010 is not just a campaign for the 14th district, it is a campaign for all of New York City, the entire metro region. She is the embodiment of the New Woman. That has got to speak to the East Side. Women should be able to take equality for granted. The brave new world of technological innovation also has to shift the paradigm on gender relations. They go hand in hand. Technological innovation and social progress have to go hand in hand for technological innovation to be meaningful.

Call Out The Sexism

Reshma Saujani deserves the support of the entire NY tech community. She has huge support among the techies in the Bay Area. New York gets to match that. The only other New York politician wearing the tech hat is Mayor Bloomberg himself. I like the guy. I supported his reelection effort last year.

I became an Independent For Bloomberg, I think Reshma Saujani might be able to pull me back into the Democratic fold.

I call it a double whammy. Obama went to Harvard. Clinton went to Yale. Reshma Saujani went to both. Another double whammy is she is a woman, and she is Indian. Electing Barack Obama was a big deal. Race is America's original sin. But electing someone of Reshma Saujani's background is going to be a bigger deal. It should not matter if people who look like you are 70% or 12% of the country. It should not matter if they are not even 1%. Individual excellence should count. But for anyone to suggest Indians are any kind of a minority is off. We live in a global era.

Reshma Saujani is the national candidate for the tech community, the innovation community across the board. I am not just talking dot coms, but also green tech, bio tech, nano tech.

Top Web Properties

Fred Wilson has displayed this chart at his blog this morning.

Compare this to some of the charts from the past years. Facebook's rise is amazing.

Yahoo, AOL and eBay are still going strong. Wisdom has it they are also rans. The numbers tell you otherwise.

I am surprised by Apple.com's numbers. Are there aspects of their site I am not aware of? That is very possible considering I have never bought an Apple product. My next computer might be an Acer.

Apple: Remarkable

I am glad to see Twitter at 29, but they could be doing much better. 2009 was the year they worked on scaling. But I strongly felt they needed to walk and chew gum at the same time. They needed to add features and simplify the service while they had the buzz.

And I am glad my blogging platform of choice - Blogger - is doing so well.

Fred notes the US has only 17% of the internet audience, but that 75% of the top web properties are based in the US. The number that I find myself looking at is the 1.2 billion number. I want that number to go up substantially. The new country - the Internet - is the biggest country in the world.

Fred's observation is extra true in the blogosphere. There are more bloggers than lawyers in America. Go pro.

The Big Money Is Not In Blogging

Here's Google's chart.

Average Internet User in Singapore Spent More than 10 Hours Viewing Online Video in April
Visitation to Travel Sites in India Surges 50 Percent in Past Year
Social Networking Ranks as Fastest-Growing Mobile Content Category
comScore Releases April 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings
Nearly 9 out of 10 Internet Users in Hong Kong View Online Video
comScore Announces Introduction of AdEffx Smart Control™ Ground-Breaking Methodology for Measuring Digital Advertising Effectiveness< comScore Reports Q1 2010 U.S. E-Commerce Spending Accelerates to a 10 Percent Growth vs. Year Ago
comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top-Growing Properties and Site Categories for April 2010
Mobile Music on the Increase Across Europe
Americans Received 1 Trillion Display Ads in Q1 2010 as Online Advertising Market Rebounds from 2009 Recession
Customer Experience Takes Center Stage in Online Banking
comScore Releases April 2010 U.S. Search Engine Rankings
Regional ISPs Drive Broadband Growth in Rural Markets
comScore to Speak at Upcoming Investor Conferences in May
Mexico’s Online Population Soars 20 Percent in Past Year

The Next Web, January 2010: comScore, Calacanis, Wilson, And TechCrunch – Oh My!

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Larry Ellison's 1995 Network Computer Vision

BMW Oracle Racing Team Honored Aboard USS Midw...

Image by Port of San Diego via Flickr

Oracle's Lost Revolution WIRED magazine January 2010 (18.01) issue By Daniel Roth

He had lived in Gates’ shadow since March 1986, when Oracle, Ellison’s database- software company, had gone public just a day before Microsoft. Gates got attention for everything he did, but barely anyone knew Oracle. Windows 95 was the last straw. “There was peace in the Middle East and war in Bosnia the same week,” he later groused. “And all that the major networks seemed to cover was people in parking lots waiting up all night to get their first copy of Windows 95.” His grudge wasn’t just about ego; Microsoft had already begun nosing around the database- software industry, and its mounting war chest meant that it could easily fund a push into Oracle’s territory. ......... Immediately after the Windows 95 launch, Ellison called one of his lieutenants, Farzad Dibachi, to his mansion in Atherton, California. ..... They imagined a simple machine that would eschew software installed on a hard drive in favor of accessing applications online. ...... It was a powerful idea, one that would enchant companies and analysts throughout the IT industry. But it would ultimately fail. In 1999, after spending four years and losing nearly $175 million, Oracle pulled the plug, changing the name of its network computer spinoff to Liberate Technologies and focusing its business on set-top box software for interactive television. (Ellison personally funded another network computer startup that didn’t fare any better.) ........ The network computer failed as a product and as a business, but it seeded an idea — and a group of technologists — that would go on to remake the computing world. ....... “A PC is a ridiculous device,” he said, launching an attack on Microsoft’s core business. He ran down a list of the desktop’s deficiencies: It was hard to learn to operate, expensive, overpowered, and — thanks to the arrival of the World Wide Web — increasingly irrelevant. That’s why he was ushering in the post-PC era with the network computer, or NC, which Oracle would help build within a year. The simple $500 box would be a stripped-down unit that served one purpose: to connect to the Internet. For the NC, the Web wouldn’t be a mere feature but a utility, as fundamental as water and electricity. “What the world really wants,” Ellison told the crowd, “is to plug into a wall to get electronic power, and plug in to get data.” ........ Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen declared the NC “a pretty major new business opportunity,” predicting that hundreds of millions of the machines would be in homes and offices within 20 years. ....... Perhaps nobody was as excited as Eric Schmidt, CTO of Sun Microsystems. Within months, Sun built an NC prototype and began developing a lean operating system to run on it. Speaking to U.S. News & World Report, Schmidt couldn’t stop raving about the idea’s potential. ...... The company’s salespeople fielded more questions about the NC than about the databases that constituted the bulk of Oracle’s business. ........“The NC story just exploded beyond anything I imagined,” Ellison said later. “It took on a life of its own.” ........ Looking to stem the momentum of Windows, Ellison promised to release low-cost machines within a year. That meant rushing out computers before they were fully developed. ........ an underpowered ARM processor that produced blocky graphics and strained to render a Web page in less than four seconds ........ “We thought we had a full product,” he says. “But when we took it to market, we realized it was an alpha.” ....... with wide-scale broadband penetration still many years away, Internet apps didn’t stand a chance against local software. ...... By 1999, the NC was basically dead. ....... Gates delivered his own, gloating coda in late 1998, speaking at the same Paris IT conference where Ellison had first announced the NC. “The network computer is pretty discredited,” Gates told the crowd. ....... almost immediately after the NC was announced, PC prices began to plummet, partially in response to Ellison’s threat. From the 1970s to the early ’90s, the cost of desktop PCs — adjusted for performance — dropped an average of 15 percent a year. Between 1995 and 2000 — the NC era — PC prices fell at an annual rate of 28 percent. By the late ’90s, consumers could get a full desktop computer for less than $800. For just a few hundred dollars more, the PC could do everything the NC could, and much more. This was bad news for the NC, but it was also bad news for Microsoft’s main allies, the PC makers, who had to slash their margins to compete with the phantom product...... After initially downplaying the threat and importance of the Internet, Gates became obsessed. Rather than attacking Oracle, he went after Netscape in what became an all-consuming fight that nearly drove Microsoft to a government-imposed breakup. Oracle may have spent a ton of money on its NC gamble, but its now $112 billion database business never faced a serious threat from Redmond. ....... All the excitement about the NC had also raised Oracle’s profile. Ellison was no longer an also-ran; he was lauded as a seer and started getting the same kind of press adulation as Gates. In April 1995, Charlie Rose had Ellison on to talk about the Internet for just a few minutes — sandwiched between discussions of the O. J. Simpson trial and Pope John Paul II. By 1996, Rose had Ellison on as a featured guest. ......... He summed up the entire project in a typically blusterous quote: “As for the network computer, I don’t care about it at all.” ....... In 1997, Eric Schmidt was lured away from Sun to take over ailing enterprise-software company Novell; four years later, he was brought on as CEO of Google. Yet he could never let go of the NC concept. In 2005, he noticed the emergence of Ajax, a technology that enabled Web-based applications to run as smoothly as their shrink-wrapped, locally installed counterparts. It enabled programmers to develop and deploy software in ways that Sun had only dreamed about when creating Java. Almost instantly, Google engineers began building software — most notably Google Docs and Spreadsheets, direct competitors to Microsoft’s flagship Office suite. ........Last summer, Google announced an even more ambitious project: a lightweight operating system engineered to power inexpensive portable computers that lack hard drives. Called Chrome OS, the software is designed to be barely noticeable. Its sole function is to connect the device to the Web. Sound familiar? “I’ve been giving the same speech for 15 years,” Schmidt says. “But ultimately, the reason the NC didn’t work was that the technology wasn’t mature enough.” Now, he says, that’s no longer true. “Chrome is the consequence of the network computer vision.” ........ while the netbook may be the direct descendent of the NC, its cousin, the smartphone, is seen by most alumni of the NC movement as the more powerful force. ....... We tend to think of technology as a steady march, a progression of increasingly better mousetraps that succeed based on their merits. But in the end, evolution may provide a better model for how technological battles are won. One mutation does not, by itself, define progress. Instead, it creates another potential path for development, sparking additional changes and improvements until one finally breaks through and establishes a new organism. .....

Larry Ellison

I first thought of the IC - Internet Computer - concept around 2000. It was called having grown up in the poorest country outside of Africa. There was that Third World pull. Internet access needed to be cheaper. I have never been a great user of the Microsoft Office products. I don't remember any memorable PowerPoint presentation I ever gave: I doubt I have given more than five total, ever. Big letters are for dumb people. If the idea is to get ideas across, a webpage does a better job, I think. Webpages back then, now blog posts. I have never had much use for Excel. I was forced to use Word, but even there I would rapidly convert my papers into webpages online. Printing them out took less space, and they looked more beautiful. I wanted to do my word processing in HTML. And I did.

But it was not the office concept, it was the library concept, the communication concept. Hotmail was my idea of email. Things needed to be online. This was before the nuclear winter. I called the device IC, Internet Computer. It was more than a year before I came across the Larry Ellison terminology Network Computer. Some others had talked of dumb terminals. That is not what I had in mind. Dumb terminals still ran the Office programs, only they were hosted on one big computer in a big room somewhere on campus. I wanted to bypass that and go straight to the internet.

I was throwing around my idea online in different forums. In one forum of a leading tech online magazine, I met a VP of one of the top ten VC firms in the country. He happened to be Indian. I pitched him. We moved to email. He asked me if I had a prototype. No, I did not.

The nuclear winter was time off. I missed the Clinton era. I saw a relationship between the Clinton term limit and the onset of the nuclear winter. A third term for Clinton would have prevented the nuclear winter.

Then I moved to NYC summer of 2005 to launch my IC company. Too bad I got sucked into working full time for Nepal's democracy movement. But some time early I met someone who had met Bill Gates before Bill Gates became Bill Gates. Gates showed up for a conference in Denver. This dude went to pick him up at the airport. He had to pay the cabbie because the future billionaire was not carrying any cash. This dude was now running an incubator somewhere upstate. He asked me if I would be willing to move to where his incubator was. I said yes. But we did not follow up. I really have no desire to step outside the city boundaries. And, besides, I was soon enough working full time trying to put out the fire in Nepal. Nobel Peace Prize quality work, but time spent away from the IC startup.

That Nepal phase ended. Obama showed up. That was another diversion, but it was finally therapy after 500 years of world history, and a high school run by white people, and a college run by white people. But I did start work on the side on the startup. Round one money was raised. A small team was assembled. Some techies in India got into orbit. And then in February 2009, most investors walked away. The sky was falling. "We still believe in you, we still believe in the vision, but we have to go." This shit seems to happen about once every 10 years. Two gifts from Bush: the nuclear winter, and the Great Recession. Who says voting does not matter?

The vision of getting everyone onto broadband is fundamental. It is the size of India's struggle for independence, and voting rights for black Americans. I have been talking about a barebones operating system for a few years now. I was talking about something like the Chrome OS a few years before Google started talking about it.

Chrome Operating System

The IC vision has had three components: hardware, software, connectivity. I have long said Google is the leading IC software company. Chrome OS is an important addition. A free OS is a good OS. I am excited. A $300 Chrome OS Netbook is still not cheap enough, but it is a pretty good starting price. The bottleneck was and is connectivity. There is the part about laying down the infrastructure. And that part is also easy. You just go ahead and auction off the spectrum.

India Broadband Spectrum Bids
Kayak, Paul English, Africa, Free Wireless Internet

The real challenge is at the business model level. And there I see as much room for work as ever. The rise of the mobile phone does not take away from that huge need. The IC vision rings as true for me as it did in 2000, only now it feels much more real.

Google's Advertising Business

But I am set to do the job thing for a year or two. I am about a year away from a green card. I am going to need that piece of paper. It is frustrating. I left Nepal in 1996. Back then you had to wait in long lines in Nepal to get a phone. Years. That was frustrating. The immigration regime in America feels that frustrating and that anti-entrepreneurship.

Going to work for Google New York for a year or two might be a great idea. Sam Walton launched Walmart when he was 42. He did fine. He did better than Bill Gates, measured in dollar terms.

Immigration Status
Entry Level Jobs
Job Search
Google New York
Has Google Been Able To Scale Well?
Me @ BBC
Who Is Chetan Bhagat? 2010 Time 100

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

The Biggest NY Tech MeetUp Ever?

Nate (@innonate) is touting the June 8 event as the biggest NY Tech MeetUp ever.

The name has stuck. It is not the New York Technology MeetUp. It is not the New York Tech MeetUp. It is not the NY Technology MeetUp. It is the NY Tech MeetUp.

850 people? Wow. Wow me.

Perpetually
Thumbplay
Tynt
Meetup.com
Forrst
Fare/Share

The venue is different. It is not FIT, it is NYU.

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 Laguardia Place
New York, NY 10012

This is supposed to be the biggest event of Internet Week 2010.

Pages

Friday, June 04, 2010

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Wednesday, June 02, 2010

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Tuesday, June 01, 2010

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