Web X.0

Cosmic VC

Charlie Federman - a VC and a friend - has recently launched a new and excellent blog about VC's, startups, etc.

One post I couldn't agree more with:

"Try as you may, but no young company, founded with a growth oriented DNA, that I remember, has ever slashed their expenses to victory. Many companies appropriately encouraged to slash budgets find themselves with now unproven markets, or a value proposition which has not yet resonated. Nevertheless, if a company has momentum, this environment presents an incredibly capital efficient time to garner market share as distribution, R&D and customer acquisition expenses are in a deep downward spiral."

As bad as things are today, it's important to keep in mind that there will be big big winners in 2010-12, and those winners are being incubated right now. The smart companies are going to figure out how to provide clients with great value in a down market. They're going to have massive access to great talent and cheap office space. They're going to have the full attention span of their potential clients.

VC's that are panicking out of investments today are probably missing out on the companies facing the best opportunities in nearly a decade.

Supermarket 2.0

Unfortunately I missed Yossi Vardi's Kinnernet event last week (actually 'booted' would be a more appropriate term... ;-).

Here's one video that came out of that... it's absolutely hilarious if you've been drinking the web2.0 koolaid, and probably meaningless if you haven't... (link via Gogelmogel... thanks!)

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

On profiling, part 3

I wrote about profiling and airport security stuff here, here and here.

I didn't think I'd come back to that subject anymore, but this post by Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) was too good to pass... :

Recently an airport security guy confiscated my 4 ounce shampoo container because he said the maximum allowed is 3 ounces. I pointed to the airport’s own sign that says 4 ounces is allowed, but that didn’t seem like a good argument to him. It was too late to check my bags, so he confiscated my mostly empty 4 ounce container.

But here’s the interesting part. (read the rest)

Best press release ever

I generally hate press releases. They all seem to come out of the same cookie cutter, watered down by the same lawyers, etc.  In short - it seems like all press releases are a result of something like the Bullshitr - "The Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator™"

So reading this press release really knocked me off my chair. Wow - excellent!

Review of one of the finest headbutts ever thrown

Daniel Davis from The Guardian writes an in-depth and highly recommended analysis of Zidane's headbutt:

Oh, it was a great headbutt. Connoisseurs of the noble art of the headbutt have very few opportunities to see a genuinely world-class practitioner in action; it is a banned tactic in the Ultimate Fighting Championship these days. And Jimmy Nail isn't on the telly as much as he used to be. But Zidane's was a classic.

Full analysis here.

Cracking the Lost programming formula

Cracking the formula that ABC is using to schedule LOST episodes is a bigger challenge than cracking the Enigma.

Finally the solution is here. This site is simply awesome - has all the information you (a LOST viewer) needs and literally none that's redundant. Hats off to this site's designer for keeping the design so clean and effective.

ABC should definitely look into acquiring this company, as it provides an invaluable service to its viewers.

http://www.islostarepeat.com/

BillMonk - highly recommended

Once in a while a web company comes along and does a fantastic job solving a very particular day-to-day issue. Not trying to become the next big web thing or to dethrone Google or anything like that. Just solving one issue and doing a great job of it.

My 2006 favorite in this category has got to be BillMonk. They explain the service better than I could:

Friends cover for each other all the time. We make it easy to manage roommate expenses, split restaurant bills, settle up after a group vacation, and record simple debts.

They've also recently added support for tracking stuff (books, DVD's, whatever) you borrow or lend:

Friends lend books, movies, and other stuff. Make us your librarian and we'll make sure you know where everything is. Friends can even share their collections and browse the group lending library!

They do it all with a great simple interface and have all the right features (SMS support for when you don't have access to a PC, shared bill support, etc, etc) with none of the useless features they could probably bloat it with. The only feature I couldn't find is the payment option!... I'd happily pay a few $'s a year to help support this great effort.

Go and take their product tour or sign up now.

TechCrunch has a more comprehensive review of BillMonk here.

My favorite podcasts

A few podcasts I recently listened to and highly recommend:

1) Gregory Galant of Venture Voice in an excellent interview with John Bogle, founder of The Vangaurd Group. I couldn't help but thinking of him as the 37signals of mutual funds...
Download the MP3 here

2) Craig Newmark's keynote at SXSW. MP3 here. XM and Sirius should be fighting over Craig for a radio show...

3) James Surowiecki's Presentation at the same SXSW conference on The Wisdom of Crowds. MP3 here.

My favorite blog

Posts like this are what make SvN my favorite blog. So simple and sooooooo true...:

Does this company respect me? Try the sticker test.

If you're one of those poor souls that isn't already subscribed to their feed, grab it here today.