Disqus - Friends of michaeljpastor

Re: The FPhone

BillSeitz — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:43:56 -0000

How about a MID with a headset?

Do you want only WiFi as the network transport, or telco data protocols like GPRS?

http://webseitz.fluxent.com...

Re: Why Boston is Bloggiest

BillSeitz — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:26:10 -0000

How about giving the 2 "raw" numbers for each city?

Re: The Changing Publishing Landscape – Introducing Wrox Blox

BillSeitz — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:53:04 -0000

I think it's a great idea.

Those particular first titles don't interest me much, though.

And, depending on the layout requirements, I think you should consider providing HTML alongside PDF.

Re: Techmeme: A Cautionary Tale

BillSeitz — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:26:05 -0000

I find that TailRank does a better job of filtering, but perhaps it filters too much to the people I already read...

Re: The serverless Internet company

BillSeitz — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:41:57 -0000

I believe that SmugMug stores all their image files on S3.

But that doesn't mean
* their webservers run on EC2
* they don't need some sort of database to generate views from meta-data.

Clearly they're still running something
http://blogs.smugmug.com/do...

Re: The serverless Internet company

BillSeitz — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:54:02 -0000

Maybe because Mogulus is focused on live/streaming video, they have less in the way of archives to generate views/lists on.

(For a long time the Yahoo directory was driven by static files rather than a db. On the other hand, to *search* that directory, rather than browse its hierarchy, would still require a persistent engine. On the other-other hand, maybe you could generate your index, store it on S3, etc....)

Some actual details (I googled but didn't find anything) on Mogulus' infrastructure would take this beyond smoke.

Re: The next step in Digg clones (Scripting News)

BillSeitz — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:30:12 -0000

How much value would the rating process add over TailRank's "My Tail" feature, which just reports items linked to by the people you select?

Re: I Don't Want To Consume Media That I Can't Interact With

BillSeitz — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:36:42 -0000

At the moment of reading that may be true, but that doesn't mean you don't want more interaction *around* the reading itself. Sharing, looking up confirming/denying opinions/data (even for fictional scenarios), etc.

"Highlighting" features may be key to being able to go back to things you want to take non-reading action on.

Re: Programming less (Scripting News)

BillSeitz — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:11:30 -0000

Could you give a really specific example of a data structure change you've made?
* the before
* the issues
* the change/solution

Re: What To Say To A Roomful of CTOs

BillSeitz — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:59:36 -0000

Really sorry I couldn't make it this month to the meeting.

Re: Quote Of The Day

BillSeitz — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:05:43 -0000

I used to think McCain had principles, but I think he sold them to the Bush administration, just like Colin Powell did.

Re: How Yahoo! Can Get Out Of The Microsoft Bear Hug

BillSeitz — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:10:50 -0000

This seems even more pessimistic about exits for startups than your TimesAChangin recent bit.

Who's making actual operating revenue? That's sustainable/non-evil (which, according to Umair, would exclude Facebook)?

Re: How Yahoo! Can Get Out Of The Microsoft Bear Hug

BillSeitz — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:48:36 -0000

Oh, I was also thinking that, rather than pile up cash to spend on acquisitions they do nothing with, maybe Google should keep a lower share of AdSense revenue made on a site, so those sites can make more money and be more viable as independent entities...

http://www.mydigitallife.in...

Re: My Head Is In The Cloud This Morning

BillSeitz — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:50:00 -0000

a related-but-different issue is whether this leads to a near mono-culture in infrastructure, with worrisome implications for macro net resilience

Re: Guidelines for competing with Twitter (Scripting News)

BillSeitz — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:39:01 -0000

Dave, do you personally use the SMS features much, in either direction?

I don't. I wonder what % do.

Re: Guidelines for competing with Twitter (Scripting News)

BillSeitz — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:11:00 -0000

I've been thinking that the twitter folks always mention that they get more traffic from their API than from direct access.

I wonder if that's a good thing.

Or whether eye-candy-apps are creating more load than "real use".

Re: Maybe Obamaman should name his VP now (Scripting News)

BillSeitz — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:44:06 -0000

JimWebb voted for the "Protect America" update to FISA.

http://webseitz.fluxent.com...

Re: The Disruptive Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

BillSeitz — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:51:33 -0000

I still don't see a compelling need here.

Andrew identifies

1. places like taxis that don't handle a credit card. This problem is already going away in NYC, I expect it might be easier to solve the problem that way.

2. situations with high credit card fraud problems. Where are those? Paying for online content (or ASP service like 37signals) could be one, since there's no physical good shipped.

Finding the niche audiences with the compelling need seems like the right place to start... (identify multiple options, to find cases with less need to BoilTheOcean).

Re: The Audience Prompter

BillSeitz — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:26:45 -0000

What might be a good compromise idea: you (the speaker) get a friend to monitor the backchannel, and send you a msg (tweet? or longer?) only if they have a recommendation based on what they're reading. They're your coach/aggregator.

Re: The Declining Power Of The Firm

BillSeitz — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:13:30 -0000

I think that rather than make huge profits which they plow into acquisitions which they can't integrate, the big players like Google should keep a smaller piece of the ad-revenue pie, so that players in their eco-system (hello AppEngine) can build a sustainable model...

Re: We Need A New Path To Liquidity

BillSeitz — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:39:11 -0000

I think there are 2 dimensions here which will be increasingly unbundled:

1. what governance/ownership model maximizes future profitability (from actual revenues) of a start-up? Does it *need* to be brought into a big player to leverage that parent's user base, revenue stream, etc?

2. assuming a future stream of profitability, how can some near-term liquidity be provided to those investing their time and money?

I think it's going to be hard to answer/change #2 until there are more cases of start-ups staying "independent" while reaching profitability.

Even once that happens, the next question becomes whether, as a potential provider of liquidity, you can feel safe about future profitability, esp if your cash can be seen as reducing motivation of the founders... Staying independent raises an exec-succession issue that hasn't been solved either...

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

BillSeitz — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:26:20 -0000

comparing to StumbleUpon might be interesting

Re: This is Nuts

BillSeitz — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:45:34 -0000

Here are some links in chrono order

Jan3'2007 http://www.harris.com/view_...
* picture of handheld http://www.harris.com/image...

May14'2007 challenges with handhelds (biometric security, GPS) http://www.computerworld.co...

July15'2007 history; criticism of lack of RiskManagement process http://www.govexec.com/feat...

Apr03'2008: big failure report http://computerworld.com/ac...

Apr09'2008: blaming govt not contractor http://govexec.com/dailyfed...

Re: Adding Intelligence To Search

BillSeitz — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:31:08 -0000

What's really awesome about this is that it might nudge companies toward actually posting *real* ranges as corrections to the Indeed estimate.

Re: Google's Gift to NYC - Continuations

BillSeitz — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:02:41 -0000

Are many of the NYers early-enough employees to have made big $?