Win a Free Pass to Future of Web Design on November 3-4 in NYC
Mashable is pleased to announce that four of us (Adam Hirsch, Alana Taylor, Brett Petersel, and Tamar Weinberg) will be attending the Future of Web Design on November 3rd and 4th in New York City. The conference will ask and answer some key questions related to web design:
- What is the future of web design?
- How to take advantage of jQuery and other JavaScript libraries for your design
- The future of web app interface design
- Educating clients to say yes
- How to create beautiful websites that stand out from the crowd
- The future of web typography
Speakers include Hillman Curtis, Ryan Singer of 37Signals, Khoi Vinh of NYTimes and Subtraction, Daniel Burka of Digg, Nick La, Derek Powazek, Joe Stump of Digg, and Dan Mall of Happy Cog, among others.
The event has only 95 seats left, but you can book tickets now. Better yet, if you want to win a free conference pass, all you need to do is take a look at the speaker list and let us know what question you would ask to any of these speakers and why. Two individuals who write the most creative answers will get a full conference pass.
Winners will be contacted on Tuesday, October 28th.
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Google I/O Developer Conference in San Fran: Ticket Giveaway
Google I/O Ticket Winners Announced
Reminder: Enter Now for the Google I/O Conference in SF
Announcing the Winners of the Google I/O Ticket Giveaway
Announcing Our Recent Ticket Giveaway Winners
Mashable Web 2.0 Expo Winners Announced
Future of Web Apps Miami – Vote for 4 People to Win Tickets
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Optimism springs eternal at Web start-ups, VCs
Shared by Moah
This post makes me happy UNLIKE the other gazillion articles that make me want to cry. And yes I fit into the category of those who can afford to go broke. No kids, no mortgage, no student loan, no car loan, cheap rent. My burn rate is as minimal as possible if I stop buying clothes and cancel my expensive vacation trips planned. That’s hard but I could do that.
Still this economy makes me Scared!
There's more happening in start-up land than just a shedding of personnel. In talking with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, I'm picking up on the beginning of a shift in attitude: a move away from the panic reaction that had set in last week, and towards more thoughtful plans.
The shakeup in big public companies is actually driving people towards start-ups, according to Rob Hayes of First Round Capital. "You've got an environment where big companies are in flux," he said. "Yahoo is having layoffs. Google options are under water. Even the good people there are saying, I'm not going to be able to get things done for the next six to 12 months. People who want to get something done are going to want to shift out of the large companies to small ones. If you're going to suffer the death of a thousand cuts, why not go somewhere where you can shape your destiny?"
"You are going to see a lot of interesting companies get started," Hayes says.
It's an open question as to whether these companies will be able to get funding. "The venture economy is not going to get worse than the economy at large," Hayes says. Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of room for pain. VC funding is already reeling (see VC confidence level takes third-quarter hit) and the next quarter's results are likely to be much worse.
Even so, Hayes is looking to see where there are good people "loose in the socket" at current jobs that he can encourage to move to start-ups. "There are plenty of companies that have plenty of capital and are going to grow and take market share," he says.
The people most likely to be able to take advantage of the new reality, which carries both potentially high reward as well as high risk, he says, "are the stars and the people who can afford to be broke for a couple of months." Middling performers, he says, "don't work in this economy. But that hasn't ever been what built the valley."
Entrepreneurs continue to adjust in their own ways. Even companies that are not laying off staff are changing their hiring. Lorenz Sell, CEO of Blue Lava Technologies (which makes software for organizing digital photos called iLovePhotos), told me he has "reduced hiring projections," and has closed down some open job reqs without filling them. This is in part due to caution about the economy, he says, and in part because he's raising money for his company and doesn't want to appear profligate in front of a group of what he perceives to be increasingly skittish venture capitalists. "Your board doesn't want to see you hiring; your investors don't want to see you hiring," he says. It doesn't really matter what the market realities are. "VCs are flipping out about being efficient."
But Sell still believes it's a good time to be aggressive. The downturn, he says, "makes us smarter about where we go," but, "It's a good time to be aggressive." There's good talent available, and with marketing budgets getting cut there's, "less noise, so you can be heard more."
Still, his advice for the jobless or for those looking for a new job is sobering. He advises people to follow the advice VCs are giving to their companies: "Minimize your burn, get ready to ride out the storm."
Seesmic's Loic Le Meur, who laid off seven people last week, adding to the three he had let go in September, told me that the tough times are forcing him to focus. "We try a lot of different things," he says. When start-up experiments don't work, unfortunately, people can lose jobs. Le Meur says the downturn will enforce a discipline on the company as it drives towards revenues over users. Future hires will be funded from revenues, he says, not fund-raising activities.
"I have three years now to make it work," Le Meur says, referring to the cash he has in the bank. "Nobody should go into panic mode with three years of funding."
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New Lala.com may be (too) ahead of its time
Shared by Moah
Alex has been gushing about Lala for a while. I still don’t quite know the appeal since I don’t seek out music much. I listen to whatever. but for music lovers out there, check it out and see how it goes.
Lala is betting big that consumers will one day pay to store songs in digital music lockers.
(Credit: Lala.com)
Lala.com is finished helping users swap CDs and no longer is it interested in just being a Web radio station.
Stick with me here because Lala.com’s new business model, as well as its history, is kind of convoluted and that’s part of the problem.
The music service–on its third incarnation–is offering a way for consumers to store songs in digital storage lockers and access them from any Web-enabled device. For those of you who have been around a while, this may sound a lot like MP3.com or even MP3tunes.com, companies started by Michael Robertson, the serial tech entrepreneur. (MP3.com is now owned by CNET News publisher CBS Interactive.)
Robertson wanted users to upload copies of their own music into digital lockers. In contrast, Lala has licensed music from the four largest recording companies and a host of indie labels. Once a user downloads the company’s software, it will scan the user’s hard drive and maintain a copy of their music libraries in the so-called cloud. The beauty of this is it will even make copies of music protected by copy-protection software. The library can then be streamed to any Web-enabled device. Cool, right?
But there’s one big obstacle. I still can’t access the Web from everywhere. I take San Francisco’s Muni train. What happens when I’m underground and don’t have Internet access? That means dead air. And above ground, there are still plenty of places that lack Wi-Fi or network coverage.
–Bill Nguyen, Lala.com cofounder
Internet access will only continue to grow, but it’s got a long way to go before it rivals my iPod or any other digital music player. I download a song to my iPhone and it’s guaranteed to play regardless of my location. Bill Nguyen, Lala’s charismatic cofounder, disagrees. He sees a world dominated by the browser.
“Will you ever (in the future) use an electronic device if it’s not connected or doesn’t have a browser?” Nguyen asked. “Think iPhone/iTouch/iPod for a moment. They went from $200 for 60GB to $300 for 16GB. What did you get for the 50 percent increase in price and 73 percent drop in storage? We got a wireless connection and a browser.
“PC’s are going the same way,” Nguyen continued, “with the hottest category being Netbooks that forego fancy hardware and big screens for an affordable price, light weight and a Wifi connection. You’ve got to face it, there’s nothing you don’t do in a browser.”
The novel way Lala plans to make money is by requiring people to pay for unlimited access to their songs. If a user wishes to listen to an entire song free of charge, he or she can but only once. To have unlimited access to the music in their lockers, users must pay 10 cents a song. Great price, but it comes with some serious strings. Remember, you can’t download these songs to any device. They have to be streamed.
For those people who want to own their music outright, Lala will be happy to sell tracks free of any copy protection software. But so do a lot of other stores, including Amazon.com, Rhapsody, and Walmart.com.
My point is that there are very few problems that this version of Lala solves in a unique way–plenty of companies, including MySpace and iMeem already offer streaming music. (I won’t even get into how difficult it likely will be to explain all of this to consumers.)
The biggest selling point Lala offers is that users can claim their music from a range of devices and that means they are not locked into one gadget or any DRM scheme. Where Lala fails–at least for now–is that it can’t deliver music where Wi-Fi or network coverage is spotty.
Lala has to hope technology catches up to its business model.
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Five great things about being CEO in a tech recession
Shared by Moah
scary but true. man, all these things are scaring the hell out of me. 🙁
It would be easy to come up with a list of why the current downturn sucks. In fact, who needs a list? You can feel it in your bones. But a lull in any battle, or economy, can be an opportunity for those with the foresight and resources to press it. And we’re not talking about lame cracks like the traffic getting better. Here are five genuinely good things about the current tech economy. Which ones will you be able to take advantage of?
1. The downturn will kill off your most annoying competitors
You may be in a crowded market now, but you won’t be for long. Companies are going to fold in this downturn. Less competition from silly companies that aren’t playing by the rules of good business means you can focus more on your product and on getting your message straight compared to the remaining competitors that really do matter.
2. You can hire cheap
See No. 1. There will be unemployment. The job market will change from a seller’s market to a buyer’s, which means you’ll be able to hire better people cheaper. Maybe not so good for them (be sure to salary up when things improve). But good for you.
3. You can lay off at will
Unhappy with your organization as it is? Worried about the effects on morale of shutting down that experimental project you keep in a corner? Worry no more! While a year ago layoffs might have been seen as desperation play and thus acted as a staff morale killer, if you do judicious layoffs today the remaining staffers will be glad to see you trimming the fat so they get to keep their jobs. Plus, it will get your investors and board members off your back.
4. Your customers will cut you some breaks
Users and customers who like your product are far less likely to give you hard time about minor flaws in your service. If they like you and want you to stay in business, they’ll understand that you have to focus on the core of your operation, and on generating revenue, to stay afloat.
5. Whatever doesn’t kill you…
Yes, it’s true. Tough times focus you on what really matters. You will have to spend the majority if your time on revenues, customers, and product, and far less time on offshoot projects and handholding nonproductive employees. On the other side of this economic phase–if you make it there–you will have a better company.
Related: “CEOs get paid for vision and holding to a budget.”
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A Meeting of the Spring Street Young Republicans Club
Shared by Moah
ha. men. they wish it was still 1700s.
Guy #1: Women should be kept in pods like in The Matrix. And whenever we want one, we just pay a fee and rent them for a few days for sex and cooking. Then we put them back. They shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets…ever.
Guy #2: Or they should be put in a one big room where they sew and cook and sip tea until they get a call.
Guy #1: Yeah, that’s a bit more humane, I guess.
–Spring & Varick
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Original source : http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/016627….
Best of one world
Shared by Moah
The concept of ‘don’t be a wuss.’ pick one and go all out. Case in point, Apple products. Their attitude “Make things pretty. Maximize beauty even if it sacrifices many important things.”
Do one thing and do it extremely well.
As always, the truth lies in the cliches.
"Having the best of both worlds" is something that marketers shoot for all the time. They want the traffic that a community site will give them, but they also want the control they get by only having authorized employees participating. They shoot for their favorite parts, and get nothing. Always nothing.
Instead, perhaps it's worth hoping for the best of one world.
Compromise, by its nature, means giving up part of one thing to get part of something else. So you end up with a little of this and a little of that. The low fat of prunes and the shelf appeal of a cupcake. Sounds good on paper, but when given the choice, the diet conscious will pick a real prune and the gluttons will pick a real cupcake. And you're left with an overstock situation.
When in doubt, maximize.
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Public Debt about to hit 10 Trillion $$$
Each American owes $30,000 if you divide up the public debt. The new baby you just welcomed into the world? well, he owes $30K already! So this post from CalculatedRisk made me look up the actual numbers. Then I discovered that the Treasury Dept has been publishing the total public debt number daily since Jan 1993. Here is the quick comparison I made using ManyEyes.
If you want to get the whole data set and the rise of this humongous number, see the daily figures here as data set and line graph.
I understand this bailout should happen or must happen or whatever but really can we start freaking taxing the rich?
One other note, I don’t know how Americans see debt. I hate debt, in any shape or form. I know it’s a bit extreme and may be slightly irrational. People claim there is good debt such as mortgage. Even so, I still hate debt. So guess how much of the national budget is used to pay the interest for this public debt of 10 Trillion?
Here is your answer : 16.194%, which is equivalent to 8 times what the government spends on education (~2%). So last year, $4858 of my fed tax payment went to China as interest. excellent right?
Thank you George W Bush, I am waiting for Jan 20th 2009. And it better not be ‘that old dude’ who wants to keep Bush tax cuts and make them permanent giving the inaugural address.
09.24.08Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates
Stereotyping is a lot more fun than actually trying to understand comprehensive personalities of people, especially if they are celebrities who deserve some jealousy. So let’s do some shallow stereotyping. 🙂
I am not sure how I got around to this transcript of NerdTV episode. I actually didn’t even know who Andy Hertzfeld was until I read the whole thing here.
Andy: Yeah. Steve came over to my house shortly after it aired in 1996. I asked him what he thought of the documentary. He said he thought it was really good, but when he watched it on TV he thought his comment about Bill Gates having no taste might have been a little too harsh. So he called Bill Gates to apologize.
I don’t know how you call Bill Gates, but if you are Steve Jobs you get right through. He said, “Bill I’m calling to apologize. I saw the documentary and I said that you had no taste. Well I shouldn’t have said that publicly. It’s true, but I shouldn’t have said it publicly.”
And Bill Gates replied, “I’m glad you called to apologize, Steve, because I thought that was really an inappropriate thing to say.”
Steve couldn’t help himself, he said, “You know it’s true, it’s true you have no taste.”
And Bill Gates responded to him, saying “Steve, I may have no
taste, but that doesn’t mean my entire company has no taste.”
So Bill admitted he had no taste, but thought it was an unfair slur to say that MICROSOFT had no taste.
It’s amusing to see the roots of alleged stereotypes for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs called to apologize and yet he continued to insist that his insult was correct. what an ass! Bill Gates sort of admitted that he had no taste but he’s more worried about his company’s image. what a soulless business man!
They also talked about Andy H. trying to sell a program to both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. He made this conclusion.
Bill Gates was being extremely analytical, trying to figure out how many lines of code, how long that would take, how many dollars per hour you should get. Whereas Steve Jobs’ approach was to just pull a number out of the air, insist it was right, and not even allow you to argue with him – just divine interpretation.
I kind of like Steve Jobs’ style of working. Well, if you had the charisma and persuasion power to pull off crap like that, wouldn’t you? I know we all like to think we are rational and analytical and in engineering and tech fields, that’s valued above soft skills. Especially from the engineering training MIT gave me , I am supposed to value my analytical skill as my primary strength. But is it really that bad to be an irrational ass who makes beautiful things?
08.8.08Dignity, Grace and Courage
I heard Randy Pusch passed away on July 25th. The first time I heard about him/his lecture was several months ago and his video was still on Google Video site. It’s now on Youtube. Make sure you watch it if you haven’t seen it already.
He gave this speech at CMU 2008 Graduation a few months ago.
I have been thinking about the way he went through the last few months of his life. He has the dignity to accept the fate with grace instead of asking ‘why me? why now?’. And he had the courage to tell people what he’s dealing with. It takes incredible amount of courage to rise above wallowing in self pity and to make the best of the time you have left. As the joker in The Dark Knight said ‘you find out who a person is when he’s about to die’ (I am loosely paraphrasing here).
Since I have watched the first video, there is a phrase from the video that I have already incorporated into my life over this past year. Whenever I or someone near me is upset about any material thing, I remind myself and them “It’s a thing, not a person” . So his speech changed the way I see ‘things’ (I believe that will stay with me forever.) Random note: it’s awesome that he taught HCI at CMU.
To be honest, all this is coming out from me not just because Randy Paush passed away a few weeks ago. It’s also because it’s August and August makes me think of my late brother who passed away in August 99. He also had the dignity and grace to prepare for his last moments with us without panic, anger or self pity. He, too, kept working on his dreams and things he cared about up until the last minute. He didn’t give up and stopped trying even though he knew how little time he had.
He finished his advanced certificate for computer science while he was getting chemo in the hospital. His team project was basically implemented in his hospital room. (His team mates were the best people who obliged him and didn’t tell him that they couldn’t do the project with him cause he was in the hospital.) The weekend before he passed away, he was trying to convince the doctors and my parents to let him be part of his university’s rowing team for the next race since he’d been doing better for a while.
I am going to end this post with the link to Jamie Livingston who took a Polaroid a day for 18 years. The pictures from last month showed that he married his wife right before he died and that he was surrounded by his friends in his last days. He’s another person who kept on living up until the last minute.
this is the Polaroid he took on the day I was born.
Things don’t matter. People do.
Introducing LagoMorph : New author
Since I’ve been completely crushed under the stress of getting my spec done for the last two weeks, I haven’t been able to post anything new lately. And opportunity presented itself for me to make sure my fledging blog not die from lack of updated content.
I got into a very long discussion/argument with LagoMorph on our ride down to Rangoli, our favorite Indian restaurant in Boston. And I got tired of telling him ‘Google is all about money. Nobody is going to get rid of their sponsor search results if that’s how their stock is worth over 500 a piece.’Â So I told him to go write his argument as a post to my blog as a contributing author.
Hope you enjoy it. He will be contributing every now and then.