Disqus - Latest Comments for Jeff Nolan

Re: Our New Address: AOL.COM

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:10:26 -0000

Congratulations Tony, great news for you and the team!

Re: Carbon credit (tax) madness

Jeff Nolan — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:32:49 -0000

@dennis, my issue with the climate change movement is not the underlying desire to have mankind live a renewable lifecycle instead of depleting finite resources, but I do take exception with the artificial sense of urgency that is being applied. The very real risk is that the crying wolf strategy is starting to boomerang back as average people don't see the doom-and-gloom scenarios developing, and that hurts the bigger goal of sustainability. This is happening in the UK as we speak, which despite a near universal public policy agenda promoting climate change as a real issue that must be addressed at all costs, the public is increasingly not believing it and this is of greater harm to the government than doing nothing at all. Governments function as a consequence of moral authority as much as actual authority and when they are viewed as antagonistic to the people they are serving the result is a reactive shift in the opposite direction that is usually just as disruptive as the status quo.

Re: Carbon credit (tax) madness

Jeff Nolan — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:13:16 -0000

Dennis,
I totally agree with you that cap-and-trade will not result in a change of behavior. It has not done so in Europe and the one clear success story for it was the program put in place to deal with sulfur dioxide emissions (acid rain) but in that case the program was an intermediary step to stringent legislation on emitters, so the cap-and-trade program was designed to soften the economic consequences of significant and costly change.

I do want to take exception with you on the linking of the automobile industry to this issue. If fuel efficiency were to blame for car makers woes then we would not be seeing the across the board declines in sales. The companies are not selling cars and trucks because they 1) can't finance them in this environment due to increases in FICA score requirements, and 2) fear about the future driving consumer purchasing behavior. Sorry but fuel efficiency is a bit player in this current environment.

Re: Has Zoho won the online productivity apps arms race?

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:12:46 -0000

Dennis,
If you read my post again you will see that I made two points, the first being that google spreadsheet sucks and the second that Zoho is "a remarkable company". Neither of those claims depends on the supposed GE deal.

Zoho, IMO, is the leader in this category because of the portfolio and quality of products they have delivered and the success they have had growing a user base without the name "Google" or "Microsoft" in front of them. Users have declared this company a winner, not good PR.

As for GE and Webguild, I don't know where the truth is but suspect it is somewhere in the middle as you suggest.

Re: Cover-it-live: adding client value

Jeff Nolan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:45:11 -0000

Twitter collapsed at MacWorld too...

Re: New design

Jeff Nolan — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:06:33 -0000

Nice redesign Dennis. Good layout and I like the color palette. I think the simplified sidebar is a welcome trend btw.

Re: Going Gator

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:08:44 -0000

Dennis,
Thanks, it means alot to me to have people I respect write such complimentary things.

RE Google Reader, they have done a fantastic job developing that service. The integrated search is a welcome addition. I also like some of the newer relevance services, like AideRSS and Newshub, even though they are not readers unto themselves but bolt ons for existing readers.

In the final analysis, the enterprise and media syndication businesses in Newsgator are really interesting to me, more so than the client apps. Have you checked out what we are doing with USAToday as an example?

Re: Is Craigslist the victim of a witch-hunt?

Jeff Nolan — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:38:31 -0000

What I find interesting with this case is that if we were talking about Walmart of Exxon exhibiting behavior that could be defined as profiting from human exploitation there would be no debate whatsoever. Yet go to erotic services on CL any day and it is revealed to be an endless stream of advertisements for what are prostitution services, regardless of whatever semantic hoops the posters jump through, and well CL's position as upstanding community citizen is not questioned. Worse, when the debate is initiated, in this case on ABC, you say Bashir is "baiting Newmark". It's all the media's fault.

CL supporters say the company is already aggressively combating postings for illegal services, stolen property, drugs, and cooperating with law enforcement for violent crimes, yet there is no meaningful decrease in the number of postings for said services, and an anecdotal observation is that there is an escalation of violent crimes, therefore Occam's Razor would suggest that CL is either not effective or not interested in being effective at combating ads for illegal services that they are generating a posting fee from.

After watching the interview with Newmark and Buckmaster I became convinced that these issues are not a priority for them and/or Newmark is interested in a "community solution" because he does not see it as a problem, which probably reflects a position that prostitution should not be a crime in the first place. Debate prostitution all you want but it's still a crime and businesses that willfully enable it are acting as agents.

As for cooperating with law enforcement, sorry but they don't have a choice on that matter because they are not entitled to any privilege or confidentiality while operating what is most certainly a public service. They can cooperate, be subpoenaed, and ultimately be subject to warrants and seizure of data, which could be massively disruptive to their business. I believe that Newmark and Buckmaster understand the downsides of not cooperating and are acting according, in addition to whatever moral obligation they feel.

As for Buckmaster, he should be outraged that Craigslist's many positive contributions are being overshadowed by a small number of serious violent crimes and a more general view on sex and property crimes. That outrage should be visible whether being asked about it for the first time or the 10,000th time.

I appreciate you suggesting I "seem like a smart guy" but in reality I'm just someone with an opinion on this that does not correlate to any ideological position or deification of Newmark. We are challenging businesses to be socially responsible in many ways right now, Craigslist should not get a pass.

Re: Is Craigslist the victim of a witch-hunt?

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:32:19 -0000

It's a service that connects buys with sellers FOR MONEY in these cases. The postings for erotic services are not free so it's entirely appropriate to point out that CL is profiting from human exploitation. Buckmaster knows this and that's why they said they would donate the revenue from some subset of erotic services listings, which suggests they have a pretty good idea of what % of erotic services ads are prostitution, to charity but to be quite frank I can't imagine many groups that would want to take that money. The nonprofit board I am on would certainly not want to touch it, so perhaps a human trafficking victims advocacy group would be the only appropriate recipient of this money. As for Buckmaster himself, it's entirely a style issue and you know as well as anyone that PR is about perception as much as substance. Buckmaster should stay away from the camera, he comes across as entirely lacking in empathy and emotion, which Newmark himself displays quite well despite being monotone while doing it, and that hurts Craiglist's case in the public eye. I really taker issue with anyone suggesting I am being disingenuous by pointing this out, especially considering that you pointed out the same characteristic about Buckmaster. I have no dog in this fight other than finding prostitution in general to be morally reprehensible, I don't have any investments which would be competitive to CL, have great admiration for Newmark himself (I don't know him but many of my friends do, such as my friend Hugh below, who speak highly of him), and lastly, am an avid CL user myself, although not for erotic services :) Yet I firmly believe that this is a problem that is only going to get worse for CL and rot out from the core if they continue on the same path, how can that be disingenuous?

Re: Is Craigslist the victim of a witch-hunt?

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:20:02 -0000

It's always curious when people defend prostitution by stating it's long standing professional status. Imagine where we would be if slave trading were successfully defended on tenure grounds.

I do keep my moral perspectives targeted on my own actions but that does not preclude me from commenting on the actions of other entities in the public arena, nor is there any inherent conflict so what's your point? I probably do offend someone's moral fabric and given the fact that I write a public blog, fire away because I can take it... being the big boy that I am a little criticism may sting but is otherwise not fatal.

Why am I so concerned with this issue... you do understand that this is the kind of issue that I write about? By your logic I suppose a question back to you would be "why are you so concerned about what I write?".

Re: Is Craigslist the victim of a witch-hunt?

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:12:19 -0000

1) aggressively moderate the ES category by adding headcount. There you go, not only does it address the problem but also attacks unemployment.

2) employ a blacklist of words and word pairs that automatically flag a listing for review before posting. For example, "massage" is what it is but "prostrate massage" is categorically a sex act. When a listing in the ES section includes the word "donation", flag it for review. It's not that difficult.

3) the phone verification system CL implemented appears to have a lot of issues (google it) so a rethinking of this system may be in order. I'm not sure what the point of phone verification is anyways, aside from blocking bulk posters.

Having offered three ideas I think it is now appropriate to point out that it should be up to CL to define the solutions... which was the essence of what I wrote originally.

No ulterior motives, in fact I write quite frequently about the demise of the newspaper industry and I am neither nostalgic about it nor sympathetic to their plight, believing instead that newspapers have fully earned the pain they are experiencing right now. It would be entirely comical to suggest that I am writing about CL because of what they have done to newspapers; if you take the time to read my newspaper industry commentary you will quickly realize that.

Re: Is Craigslist the victim of a witch-hunt?

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:57:00 -0000

I don't know because they haven't been very transparent about what they are doing beyond "listening to the community" and the aforementioned voice verification system (which apparently doesn't work with VoIP). If they are doing more they should be speaking up about it, IMO. Nobody will fault them for providing too much information or taking more aggressive steps to counter this problem.

Re: The Larry and Sergey test

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 07:12:48 -0000

They should post the programming test for all to see. Secondly, given the obvious ethical issues that arise should the programming test be more than a simple screening mechanism, then the company should protect themselves through the use of a blind mechanism where they use a third party to evaluate the results and present a candidate index rather than the actual results

Re: San Francisco to control blogs?

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:41:21 -0000

but why should we accept any registration requirement for political news and information dissemination? Would the Comical have to register if not for the fact that they are a business?

FYI, I spend over $1k a year hosting my blog, it's offensive to think that I would have to register in order to continue doing what I do. I am not a business, I don't generate any revenues, don't hire any employees... I'm one guy sitting in my home office expressing my thoughts, and if I were to live in SF the Board of Dupes would require me to register my activities in order to continue them. The Constitution means what it says, and it says that government cannot restrict my right to free speech, either by direct or indirect means. Requiring me to register in order to enjoy my Constitutional right is a restriction.

Re: Deleting Gmail

Jeff Nolan — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 03:04:20 -0000

there may be some issue with this script that causes gmail to lock you out of your account due to "unusual activity". I would recomend that you not continue to use this until the issue is resolved.

Re: SpyMedia offers online spot market for photos

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 04:11:36 -0000

A few years ago I looked at a company called Digital Railroad (http://www.digitalrailroad.net/corpsite/) that was going after the stock photo market in an attempt to take on Getty Images. What was appealing about this service is that it didn't introduce radical changes in the way photographers, or agencies for that matter, went about their business, but rather focused on providing an efficient online marketplace that disrupted the status quo by enabling buyers and photographers to do business directly. Don't know how well they are doing but it appears that they have been getting traction.

Re: Arguments against the Prop. 87 oil tax

Jeff Nolan — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:34:27 -0000

you are confusing the price of gas - which is certainly related to the unique blend that California mandates - with the taxes per gallon that the state imposes. You say "its just making them pay the same taxes they pay in say Alaska or Florida" and what I wrote is that when you look at it strictly from a tax standpoint gas in California, on a per gallon basis, is taxed at a much higher rate than states that do produce oil. For example, you reference Alaska which has a tax on gas of .08 cents per gallon on top of the .184 cents per gallon that the Federal government levies for highway construction. In California there is the same .184 cents from the Feds (of course) plus another .18 cents from the state as an excise tax plus another 7.25% use tax, which by the way is applied on top of the other taxes (notice how they are taxing taxes).

BTW, I do want to correct my numbers, I wrote "up to .42 cents a gallon in addition...", it should read "up to .32 cents..."

Re: Arguments against the Prop. 87 oil tax

Jeff Nolan — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 14:00:11 -0000

How is taking $4b of taxpayer money and putting it in the hands of another agency with little oversight run by political appointees "good policy"? If want to fund alternative energy research then great, take $4b of taxpayer money and make the state an LP in the top 30 venture capital firms in the country who are already funding these companies. Of course, Vinod wouldn't want that because then Kleiner would have to make public their performance data following Matt's lawsuit when he was with the Merc.

Now that I have brought up Vinod, I should add that I think he is intellectually honest about this because everything he has done points to a genuine interest in creating energy solutions. Having said that, it's a little disingenuous for him to say we should use taxpayer money to fund ethanol, among other things, research when he's made a huge financial investment in an ethanol plant and would gain from that personally. The appearance of a conflict of interest this strong is enough to actually represent one.

Jay, if you think there really is one global price for crude oil you are mistaken. On top of that, the price of a gallon of gasoline is 53% the crude oil itself, the other $1.20 (at current prices) is refining, transportation, taxes, and marketing. If you artificially make CA crude more expensive through a tax then it's a sure thing you will see more crude coming in from Mexico and declining investment in CA oil fields, which a great many would like but I'm not one of them.

If anyone wants to increase taxes on me, and it will hit all of us despite what any politician tries to say, then let's increase gas taxes by $4b and create an incentive to conserve while at the same time funding highway improvements and buying polluting vehicles and taking them off the road. Either of these initiatives would have a greater impact on the environment than this initiative, of course we would also benefit from not having the $20b in debt that Prop. 1B is proposing... and if we did that and actually expected our legislature to spend tax revenues from gas and diesel on transportation improvements (like the Feds do) then we wouldn't need Prop 1A either.

Re: Mitt Romney flubs understanding of the VC tax

Jeff Nolan — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:17:00 -0000

Bill (and Kevin) are right, the GPs are putting capital (say 1%) into the fund which then becomes the taxable basis for the cap gains treatment on the returns represented by the carried interest.

"And it is a capital gain because those individuals do make an investment, it’s a small investment, but they make an investment of their own capital..."

If anyone is mistaken on this issue it is Congress by not recognizing that the general partners are in fact participating in the fund as an investor, not just a manager.

Re: Meebo raising round, valued up to $250 million. Bear Stearns sold for $236 million

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:41:36 -0000

while the headline is indeed a sober comparison, the fact remains that Meebo won't require the "up to $30 billion" in financing that the Fed guaranteed to JPM to finance less than liquid assets.

Re: Leaving Yahoo - Going Mobile

Jeff Nolan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:18:06 -0000

Ian, Congratulations on the new opportunity, Nokia will benefit greatly from having you on board.

Re: Notes on Jeff Nolan’s Software VC Outlook for 2008

Jeff Nolan — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:16:59 -0000

That is from Bryan Stolle of Mohr Davidow, I just quoted what he wrote.

Re: 2008/06/30/twitter-enhanced-profile/

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:44:11 -0000

let's not go putting anything more than the basics on twitter for the moment!

Re: No, the BMW did Not Crash

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:58:22 -0000

Zoli,
Your first mistake was buying a Volvo, surpassed only by your decision to purchase a first model year. There is something about Swedish cars that inspires a binary reaction among mechanics.

On a related note, over the years we have all had experiences with modern automobiles and electronic problems but in recent years I have seen a marked increase in reliability and, more important, troubleshooting capability.

We have had 5 vehicles that were 2004 or newer model year and not one experienced any electronic problems despite an abundance of gadgets. In fact, on a Denali my wife had, we were notified of a transmission software upgrade via email as part of their automated monthly diagnostics (through OnStar the car sends diag data back to GM), much like modern software update services.

Re: No, the BMW did Not Crash

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:58:22 -0000

Re: No, the BMW did Not Crash

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:41:53 -0000

I actually called OnStar and asked them why they didn't do over-the-air updates. My wife had a car that was 1 year newer than mine and the voice command software was much better, so I did what any software guy would do and went looking for the update.

After working through the tech support levels I ended up talking to a guy who knew something about the onstar network. He said that the data costs were steep so they wouldn't do software over the air, plus there was the whole issue of an update not properly installed and the car breaking down as a result. Maybe in a few years...

Re: No, the BMW did Not Crash

Jeff Nolan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:41:53 -0000

Re: MyBlogLog Blew Up Again

Jeff Nolan — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:48:38 -0000

Would be nice if they pushed out the new widget on top of the old code so I don't have to reinstall it.

Re: MyBlogLog Blew Up Again

Jeff Nolan — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:48:38 -0000

Would be nice if they pushed out the new widget on top of the old code so I don't have to reinstall it.

Re: MyBlogLog Blew Up Again

Jeff Nolan — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:54:16 -0000

Ian,
What is the advantage of using the wordpress widget vs. a text widget with the code? Based on my experience, the latter is generally more reliable.

Re: MyBlogLog Blew Up Again

Jeff Nolan — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:54:16 -0000

Ian,
What is the advantage of using the wordpress widget vs. a text widget with the code? Based on my experience, the latter is generally more reliable.

Re: Newsgator moves RSS feeds into corporate life

Jeff Nolan — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:56:31 -0000

Thanks Frank but the company had an enterprise focus well before I joined, in fact the strong emphasis on enterprise while still straddling the consumer world is what makes it interesting to me.

Craig, I've been doing this for long enough to know that attacking competitor offerings like you just did really doesn't do your cause much good, it just makes you look petty. That's really a shame because I have a lot of respect for your accomplishments going back to Now Software, including what you did at Attensa, and am looking forward to what you will do with Pump.

We just had a good exchange with Robert and I don't know why you just couldn't let us have our day. We're all competitors but we are also in the same boat with regard to trying to grow a market.

Re: FORE! A Golfer’s Guide to Social Media Marketing

Jeff Nolan — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:28:57 -0000

you are really messing up my google news alerts.

Re: Updated: Arbitrageur John Paulson Discloses 50 Million Share Stake In Yahoo

Jeff Nolan — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:19:05 -0000

The key to the game is your capital reserves - you don't have enough you can't piss in the tall weeds with the big dogs.

Re: Earnings: CBS Net Income Plunges 96 Percent; Interactive Rev Down 8 Percent

Jeff Nolan — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:21:10 -0000

when did the Cnet revenue consolidate with CBS Interactive?