Disqus - Latest Comments for SamJacobs

Re: Ten Thoughts On The President's Speech Last Night

SamJacobs — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:55:17 -0000

However, I think the word 'gig' implies a detachment that relates directly to the fourth comment about working hard. I sense a post-modern detachment from our culture (including myself) implying it's not 'cool' to care about your job or be sincerely passionate about doing the hard work required to make something succeed at a level below the executive suite.

Re: Ten Thoughts On The President's Speech Last Night

SamJacobs — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:03:48 -0000

I agree with both of you. I suppose the point is what are the relevant opportunity costs of different courses of action. This feels like the least worst. Honestly, I was thinking this morning that it's just a shame that the Bush administration had to be so incompetent setting the stage for an Obama "mandate" that assumes such a significant increase in the size of the federal government and its role in our society. But at this point we're left with few options in my opinion and I prefer this approach to doing nothing. But, yes. Unintended consequences. I'm having dinner tonight with the former CEO of a major poultry producer who was driven out of his job, in part (ok small part), because of the cost of rising grain prices based on government stimulated ethanol demand.

Re: Twitter Fills The Tank

SamJacobs — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:59:10 -0000

I assumed. I was being a bit glib. Regardless, it's enough to buy more
than a couple of years to figure things out. Still impressive. Congrats.

Re: Twitter Fills The Tank

SamJacobs — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:30:50 -0000

they now have 35 years to figure out a business model. should be enough time to build a good contextual ad service and integrate it with geo-services/local/micro-community features. an impressive raise in this environment. congrats, fred.

Re: Twitter Files for an IPO….‘TWEET’ as the Ticker Symbol?

SamJacobs — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:45:00 -0000

Buckner - I'm everywhere on this big wide superhighway they call the Internet. Congrats on a strong January.

Re: Twitter Files for an IPO….‘TWEET’ as the Ticker Symbol?

SamJacobs — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:12:45 -0000

Howard - this post is highly enjoyable. Kudos. You have beautiful balls. Gorgeous, in fact.

Re: Selling Apple and Google Today

SamJacobs — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:52:58 -0000

I feel like the Xmas/Holiday season was a critical and aggregating inflection point for AMZN. They continue to be an impressive company.

Re: Pareles and His Generational Divide Strike Again

SamJacobs — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:45:11 -0000

This is all representative, for me, that the music industry itself is dying, shifting, changing and that maybe our idea that you could make a living writing and recording original material is out of date and archaic. Digital technology has a very specific effect on music specifically that it doesn't have on more tactile art forms.

Here's the thing I wrote about this on my old blog:

http://www.theflyingchange....

Re: Thinking About Christmas

SamJacobs — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:19:46 -0000

Fred-

Good stuff. Happy Holidays. I'm curious as you survey that past 47 years, and really the past 25ish that you've been working, what strikes you as the most challenging/difficult period and what lessons you learned.

Anyway, I continue to enjoy the blog.

All the best,
Sam Jacobs

Re: Getting The Fill (aka buying on the way down)

SamJacobs — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:22:55 -0000

I totally agree with you about the analysts. My employer doesn't let us trade individual securities but I saw GOOG at 290 yesterday and was wishing I could buy. When Jim Cramer said GOOG was going to 750 it was time to short and when Henry Blodget says it's going to 200 it's time to buy. They are a reflection of market sentiment, not its predictor.

Re: Hacking Education

SamJacobs — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:47:56 -0000

I've been thinking recently about the concept of 'teachers' and whether we need to reform our vision of 'teacher' as a core profession or as a feature-set of a well-rounded successful person or, to Fred's point, if we need to increase the scalability of great teachers to enable them to reach a broader audience.

The Internet and technology tools will undoubtedly help people learn more and better but it does seem hard to replicate the experience that a great instructor can have on a willing mind. So then I solve for more great instructors. But in a fluid market I always come back to the fact that the opportunity cost for a great mind to spend all their time teaching will always be too high. So then I try to think about how to parcel out a few units of time from successful people so that they can teach and educate without having to make it their vocation.

Beyond technology, it does seem like an investment that the culture needs to make as a society. Which is why government is probably the tool to aggregate the collective social will in this instance and a cultural tradition of service and education through programs like AmeriCorps may make an impact.

Re: Authenticity

SamJacobs — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:58:59 -0000

I'm obsessed with this topic. It's actually a conundrum for many artists, particularly up and coming artists, because the reality of their 'authenticity' may be to present an image or an act that is under-developed from the marketing world's perspective. It's the shower shoes argument from Bull Durham.

Artists like to foster illusions about their persona which historically they've believed have helped further their brands. It's unclear whether that illusion was also related to a monopolized restrictive distribution platform and mentality or whether it actually did help drive sales or awareness.

In my tiny world, I've opted for more authenticity even though it's meant being transparent about the nascent state of the enterprise. Here's a post: http://www.theflyingchange....

Beyond Twitter, it's also fascinating to see how artists treat their blog presence. Again, most treat it like the old 'News' section of their website rather than use the medium to create a real voice through which they can talk to their community. This seems like a blown opportunity.

My favorite artist blog is Kanye's. It's a photo blog on products and design concepts he finds interesting. It seems like it's straight from him but the volume of posts might prove me wrong. http://www.kanyeuniversecit...

Re: America Needs A Turnaround Plan

SamJacobs — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:24:27 -0000

You're an impressive writer, Fred.

Churchill (I think) said democracy is the worst form of government except when compared to everything else. But I fear our country does not have the collective will to impose a lot of these changes and reckon with ourselves about the reality we are facing.

The fact that the election is as close as it is and that people identify so tightly with core elements of the Bush/McCain policies is one such reason for this opinion. The way many in this country fetishize ignorance and have lampooned 'elitists' is representative of this 'head in the sand' ideology.. Another is the reactions I've seen to the splurge ideas. Many of colleagues and friends have visceral reactions to the idea of the government purchasing these distressed assets that don't seem to align with reality. When the bill did pass the Senate, the upper house made sure to laden it with a fistful of pork and wasteful spending. Which would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.

What enables a turnaround plan to be effective is control. And I don't believe Obama will have the control or the influence he will need to effect a turnaround plan in the way that you propose, Fred. The system is simply not set up the right way.

It's a scary thought that, to your point, other countries are wondering about the federal government's solvency. We've squandered so much in so little time and it will take a long time and a lot of focus to rebuild it.

I just wonder if we're equipped.

Re: Real Time Blogging

SamJacobs — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:40:09 -0000

Thanks for the insights. I love Tumblr but will be using Wordpress for the
longform blog and will see how to incorporate the tumblr posts into the long
form blog.

I wonder if Tumblr content SEOs well which is why I don't want to make the
Tumblog the ultimate destination.

I wonder if there is a business in licensing the Tumblr audio player and/or
incorporating text or visuals as a drop down interface below the player.
The player itself is wonderfully elegant. If you attached ads to the player
and had people choose from a library of pre-licensed content you could
funnel revenue to publishers and musicians/labels themselves.

Re: Real Time Blogging

SamJacobs — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:42:07 -0000

Fred-

Question. How unwieldy do you find it to manage a Tumblog and a regular blog concurrently? Do you worry that you lose half your audience at any time by having two sites? Do you prefer the different sites to allow you to create essentially two brands and would you consider integrating your tumblog into your regular blog or do you actually enjoy the distinction and the creativity it facilitates?

Just curious.

Re: Blogging's Dead, Long Live Blogging

SamJacobs — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:25:53 -0000

Great post, Fred. I tend to agree that the good stuff on the social web is generated by individual voices rather than corporate voices. There's probably some kind of happy medium maybe illustrated through Nick Denton where a publisher can aggregate individual voices and help provide editorial guidance on the tone.

To kidmercury's point, there is something about the evolution of our personal identities that is tied to this discussion. Can we separate work from play? Can we separate corporate from individual? Are those distinctions becoming increasingly obsolete? I've wrestled with them in my own life. Corporate blogging and/or the creation of a drone voice seems like a 1.0 idea (to be a bit glib) rather than a 2.0 idea. But these valuations you're citing would contradict that intuition. My sense is that truth and the individual voice will slowly emerge as the dominant paradigm but it's hard to say.

Re: Comments Can Be Blog Posts

SamJacobs — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:40:40 -0000

What I want is centralized identity management for all content that I create on the web. Aggregation of every piece of content created including blog posts, comments, Tweets, Facebook status, Gmail status, etc. I suppose Facebook has the most succinct means of getting to this universality and maybe Disqus can address something like it.

It would help a lot of things including an individual's recognition in the new social web/micro-celebrity environment. Any one individual would have much more Google juice if they could aggregate all their various macro- and micro-content creation in one place and then use that as the linchpin for search engines, web recognition, public profile, etc.

Re: What Comes After Post Modernism?

SamJacobs — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:26:42 -0000

Thank you for reposting, Fred.

This feels like such a fertile period in our culture/race's evolution.

Amanda's comment that this is an anti-movement I think misses the point. Putting a perjorative on it *feels* a bit cliche to me. We sound like our parents.

In a society where everyone has a voice, a bunch of different things seem to happen. The proliferation of voices *probably* commmodotizes any individual voice on the margin and the cultural dialogue shifts from a lecture to a conversation. That will understandably feel weird for people used to lecturing and/or people that have felt comfortable within the old structures and contexts.

Using the music industry as an example, maybe it means fewer superstars. But, to the point of all the music being created, it maybe means also that there is an articulation of a community where before there wasn't. Micro-communities where smaller groups are having more conversations among themselves and "culture" as defined by a broad set of values, characteristics, likes, dislikes, etc. becomes fragmented and disaggregated.

That's all pretty obvious but kind of interesting. I'm used to defining myself in the context of a broad pursuit with clearly defined mileposts and goals but I think those definitions are shifting. Feels healthy though.

Re: Who Owns The Comment? - A Strawman Bill Of Rights

SamJacobs — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:35:25 -0000

Disqus is a cool company and the evolution of micro-blogging, of which I consider comments to be the core component, has also been really interesting. Good commenters are the farm leagues for the world of good future bloggers. That plus the true micro-content like Twitter, facebook status, and Gmail status, all of which I'm finding I am updating in a manner similar to a blog.

I like the idea that the writer owns the comment but the publisher can choose how they are presented on their site. But that somewhere the repository is stored as the commenter's own personal archive that they can do with as they wish (even if they've been deleted).

This is a great article about participation in the creation of media. The 'conversation' as it were:

http://www.shirky.com/herec...

Re: Can We Live In Public?

SamJacobs — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:11:14 -0000

Great post, Fred.

My struggle is less about having a public life online per se but when that public life diverges or separates from the life I want to portray in another context. My online life is mostly about songwriting and music. But most of my day is spent at a company where I am looking to portray a somewhat different face to the people I manage and to my superiors. In fact, when I first published songs I tried to use a pseudonym but ultimately found the distinction overly complicated and largely unworkable. For awhile, I tried to not even tell people at work I was in a band or that I wrote songs.

But, particularly over the past few months, that wall seems to be deteriorating. For people whose public personas mirror their private lives to a high degree (like professional bloggers) I think a public life is tricky but manageable.

For people who are trying to essentially lead two existences it becomes decidedly more complicated. "Honesty" in songwriting or blogwriting or any form of personal expression can run quite counter to what is acceptable as a senior executive at an operating company.