I'm so fascinated by who reads this, especially because of the great people I've met through this blog so far.  That's why I did a demographic survey last week.  I got 95+ respondents, and given my estimate of 2000 readers (roughly 4x the people that show up on Feedburner), that's statistically significant.  Thanks to Pollhost.com for their cool survey service.  It was really easy to setup.

So here are the results:

Selection   Votes Male 76% 74 Female 24% 23 97 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

Selection   Votes Under 25 17% 16 26-30 33% 32 31-35 21% 20 36-40 8% 8 41-45 10% 10 46-50 7% 7 Over 50 3% 3 96 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

Selection   Votes NYC Metro Area 20% 19 Boston/New England 13% 12 Southeast 8% 7 Midwest 10% 9 Silicon Valley area 2% 2 Other West Coast 15% 14 Europe 12% 11 Asia 1% 1 Somewhere else 19% 18 93 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

What do you do?

Selection   Votes Entreprenuer 32% 32 Investor 7% 7 Programmer 15% 15 Other IT 16% 16 Non-IT 29% 29 99 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

First, I was a bit surprised by the gender gap, not because it was so wide, but because I figured it was even higher.  Blogging, especially vc/tech blogging, is so male-dominated, that I was glad to see 24% female readership.  However, I have a feeling that most of that female readership is more of my friend base than anything else.  I don't know very many female entrepreneurs and technologists and I don't think I've had any of them comment on my blog or contact me through it. 

As for the age spread, this I wasn't surprised by.  I've had this theory that I get a good chunk of the younger end of Fred's more normally distributed age spectrum, mostly because people can more relate to me being a guy on the bottom end of the ladder.   

Location turned out to be really screwy.  I can't believe that only 2% of my readership is Silicon Valley based.   Perhaps it is, in fact, true that more of the Web 2.0/web services crowd is more diversified geographically because they're not as tied to hardcore tech centers.  Perhaps it is, in fact, true that more of the Web 2.0/web services crowd is more diversified geographically because they're not as tied to hardcore tech centers.   The other screwy thing is the 19% somewhere else crowd. Is that Canada?   South America? Where are those people?

No surprises in the job area...and in fact its what I want..  While I do like hearing from other investors, I'd much rather be chatting with the creators, operators, etc. than have this blog be a bunch of VCs chatting with themselves.

Link: VentureBlog: Pandora and Persistence.

So many things to blog about.  So many people to get back to.  Lots of connecting to do...

I've been thinking a lot about Pandora lately.  A few months ago, Toby from MusicMobs came to meet with us and we talked about whether or not people could make businesses out of recommendations when content was widely available and approaching incremental costs near zero.  When you get the "music dialtone", finding new music (new to you) becomes the challenge.

Pandora was free for a while and now they're going to start charging $36 a year...  so, are recommendations worth $4 a month to me.  Maybe, but for how long?  Admittedly, I did find some groups from my Pandora station Rammstein Me, including Icon of Coil, which I LOVE and listened to on my bike ride into work today.  (Great sound, kind of cruddly lyrics, but I'm not a big lyrics guy).  But, I don't want to just listen to the stream on my computer...  I want to take it around with me.  That's why I have XM.  I can take the console out of my stereo and plug it into my car when I get it.  Mobility is worth something to me.

Plus, recommendations without a built out download service remind me a little bit of a social network for social network's sake.  If Pandora would power iTunes or Rhapsody, that would be great, but to just listen... I dunno...  my own streaming internet radio station really isn't worth $4 a month to me...  not if you compare the value I get out of the same price for Flickr.

I'm really curious to see if they can built a sustainable service out of this.  I'm really surprised they couldn't make enough from affiliate sales of the tracks or at least didn't try to.

Wolfgang...

...Amadeus...

...Mozart.

I don't know which is more brilliant, the title charactor or the movie.  (Well, I know the answer to that, but still, the movie is pretty damned good.)  F. Murray Abraham narrates the movie as Salieri and we obviously get his perspective of the story, otherwise we'd probably see someone a little less childish than Tom "Pinto" Hulce playing Mozart. 

Most of the composers of the past are pretty dead to us as charactors.  What Amadeus did was to bring Mozart alive in our pop culture minds...  to tell his struggling artist & tortured soul story.  It put a fresh face and a story (and a laugh) on a body of music centuries old.  Its really hard to imagine that all that music tying dozens and dozens of instruments together into melodies even little kids know all came from one man.  How much of the story is true to life?  Who knows...  but even a fictional retelling loosely based on fact gets us closer to his life than stale old engravings on a CD cover. 

I wonder what Mozart would listen to today.  I wonder what his Pandora radio station would sound like.

Photo 506, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I'm finishing up painting the bedroom. This is my most ambitious decorating move to date.... the blue in the bedroom. I'm much more of a grey, black, wood, kind of guy... color isn't my forte. But, I took a risk, and I think it paid off.

Photo 508, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

This was just stuck on the bench by the Downtown Boathouse yesterday.

Once again, Sal Pugsley proven right...

Love is it.

The Red Cross has put up a banner page that links back to places for you to give.  Its textbook sell side advertising.  They put up the ads and people just come and grab them.  Smart idea!  So, in addition to donating a few bucks, if you can donate some pixels to spread the word on where to give, that would greatly be appreciated.

I voted for George Bush...  not the first time, but the second.  I really didn't see much to John Kerry and didn't think I knew enough information as everyone else thought they knew to look back at Iraq and say it was a bad decision.  Actually, I still don't think it was a bad decision--its just obvious that there was no execution.

And now, again, our management team is proving they can't execute.

I don't think George Bush is evil.  I don't think he's a religious fanatic...   but right now, at this very moment, he has failed millions of Americans in the South.

Jason wrote a great post about what it would be like if Rudy was President now and I feel exactly the same way.  After September 11th, Rudy Giuliani's actions made him the Mayor of America.  He stood in the trenches, walked the streets, pitched in and got the job done.  He went to most of the firefighter and funerals... often times several a day.

We don't have that kind of leader right now... its obvious to me.

In fact, its not just Bush.  Its the whole damn government.  Check out Sen. Mary Landrieu getting raked over the coals by Anderson Cooper.  She was thanking the President who "will be here tomorrow 'we think'".  And she's a DEMOCRAT!!  What the hell was she thanking him for?

Frankly, I think all these people would have been safer if we bused them to Bagdhad.   At least there are some National Guardspeople over there from what I hear.

There are two tragedies here.  One is Katrina.  The other is our government leaders.  We knew this was coming...  a flood in New Orleans was one of FEMA's top three concerns just a couple of years ago.  And yet, its taken days for supplies to arrive, and armed looters run the streets.  And yet, no one wants to take responsibility.

Is it because they're poor and black?  I don't know.  I'd hate to think that.  I think its more the case that our government became obsessed with terrorism and forgot about anything else.  19 assholes hijack some planes in a really hack operation when you think about it... boxcutters... jeez...  and kill off three thousand people.  If that justifies every man, woman, and child fearing for their lives for "what Osama will do next" and $190+ billion to fight terrorism then what should a destroyed city (yes, New Orleans has been destroyed, let's not kid ourselves), potentally 10,000 dead, and millions homeless justify?

How about getting the bodies off the streets?   How about fixing a levee or two?   A few buckets of food airdropped from a plane wouldn't hurt either.  Days after the tsunami, I remember seeing footage of airdropped food...  how come I haven't seen it here?

What the fuck are we doing?

I think everyone in New Orleans should get a tax refund.   Every dollar they've given the government for the last ten years should go back to them, because clearly we haven't spent dime one for their benefit. 

I backed you George...   gave you the benefit of the doubt for going into Iraq... didn't quite like what you were doing with the place... but this...   this is awful.  Its unforgivable. 

For more good links on this top, check out everything tagged both Bush and Katrina on del.icio.us.

Link: Nerdvana: A Better Tool For Communication (I Can Dream, Can't I?): Corante > Get Real >.

Stowe (Who is hilarious to watch tear apart panels at conferences, btw...) is trying to tackle an issue that I've been discussing with Keshava.  The current modes of computer communication, particularly with people that you know, suck.  They don't tie identities together.  He's totally on point that having a meeting with someone, an IM convo and an e-mail exchange with the same person should all sit in the same place or at least be viewable from the same place.

But there's one application/communication form he missed... its collaboration around a subject and wiki's or wiki-like things.  My world isn't just divided up by people, its divided by people+subject.  For example, Fred, Brad, and I have continual reply alls about firm management.  Are we closed today?  Aren't we?  Should we try a cheaper conferenceline service, etc?   In a people focused app, these conversations would be tied together with conversations about one of our portfolio companies.  That makes no sense, and what's more, what you want to do with those conversations differs greatly depending on the subject matter.  A conversation about the a/c that hardly works in our office doesn't need to be tagged, indexed, collaborated on, etc...    It just needs to be a priority for all of like 10 minutes and then hopefully we come to a quick conclusion on it and then its done.

But what about a conversation around Indeed?  What if Brad writes something really insightful over e-mail?  Perhaps we want to revisit that again, or even build on it.  Fred can't build on top of Brad's e-mail... he can copy and paste and resend it, but that's just kind of a silly, cludgey way to do it.  Plus, what if we want other people in on it?  Perhaps Brad's interesting comment is best built upon by Paul and Rony--the guys at Indeed, or John Battelle.. all of whom were never part of the original e-mail.

Well, we could go and build a wiki and then ask everyone to collaborate on it, but that's not very lightweight.  Plus, maybe we don't want the whole world in on it.  Maybe its just for our little small group.  Its so much easier to reply to an e-mail thread, and some e-mail threads can be very interesting and insightful reads.  The problem is permissions.  Paul and Rony can't read our e-mails...  and even if we cc'd them, an e-mail to you kind of implies that we want you to write something and you're rude if you don't.  No, what we want is to give people permission to get into our small group discussions.

Ok, so we could probably cc the Indeed guys, b/c we know them well enough that it wouldn't be too random, but what about loose connections.

For me, its more about random new people who are loosely connected by subject interest, like Greg.

Whereas Stowe seems to have met Greg and even had dinner with him, according to his mockups, Greg and I have only exchanged IMs and read each other's blogs.  So, for me to start randomly cc'ing him on my identity related e-mail would be sort of weird.  But what if there was a place that Greg could connect to that he could post all of his identity related thoughts to, and see the identity related thoughts of others who wish to include him in a small group.  I'd give him permission to contribute to my little small group thoughts on that.

Its kind of like wikis remixed the way del.icio.us remixes content.  On del.icio.us, you can find the most popular stuff related to blindness, and you don't really care that much about where it comes from, whether its the AFB or a gaming magazine.  Tags take all the content from everywhere, organize them by subject, and make it easy for people to consume subjects, often in a socially connected way. 

But what about the two-way web for collaboration?  How do you colaborate and communicate in a remixed way?  Blogs allow you to contribute to a group of interested parties, but they don't really allow you to collaborate--to build a knowledge base together.  Complaints about comments not being on the same level as posts are the tip of that iceberg.  What's bringing all the related blog posts together and letting people build on top of that in a social way?

Some attempts are being made to do this with
 

This is the Greenday I grew up on... "Sometimes I give myself the creeps..."

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Photo 486, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Ok, so he got clobbered last night... it was still nice to be at Shea late in August with the Muttsies still in contention for a wildcard spot. Plus, Pastore and I had great seats. Castro's shot was a bomb.... Mike who?

I'm just curious about who is reading.  If you wouldn't mind, please take 10 seconds to answer the polls on the left column on my blog.  You need to click vote after each selection, and don't forget to click "back" in the results page so you can answer the next question.  The poll will be up for a week.  Thanks for your time.  I'm curious about the results.

Its   1AM.  When I got home from tonight's Met loss, I found an NES emulator called Console Classix.

Of course, what was the first thing I did.

You guessed it.  I played a game of Tecmo Super Bowl.  I was the Raiders.  In this game, for some reason, Bo Jackson is a god among mere mortals.  I mean, he can't be touched.  Even when the other team picks the right defense and 11 guys pile on him, he breaks out of it and runs down the field.  I dominated the Houston Oilers 58-7.  Here's the final boxscore:

Things to note:

Bo only ran for an 27.7 yards per carry and only 8 of his 18 runs resulted in touchdowns.  At only 499 yards, this was a subpar game for Bo, but its been about 12 years since I've played the game.

I did attempt one pass with Jay Schroeder, whose scrubbiness in Tecmo was surpassed only by his real life ineptitude.  He got picked off in his one attempt.  That was the end of the Jay Schroeder experiment. 

Marcus Allen did not get the ball.

Do you think Bo has ever actually played this game?

This is interesting, because I find myself on the capitalistic (versus altruistic "teach a  man to fish vs. give him one) end of the how do you fight poverty argument.   Rob has an interesting take on how technology enabled participation in the global economy helps fight against the most extreme poverty.... and he's seen it firsthand.

Link: Software by Rob : Using Technology to Fight Poverty.

Link: Fordham University Welcomes Class of 2009.

“You will be challenged and nurtured to overcome limitations that you wrongly think you have,” Father McShane told a standing room-only crowd in the Leonard Theatre at Fordham Preparatory School on the Rose Hill campus. “Never be satisfied with mediocrity—be hungry for knowledge and bothered by injustice.”

There isn't much I can add to all the discussion over New Orleans, but I just watch a CNN video that is probably the saddest thing I've ever seen.  It annoys me that I can't link to it, but just go to CNN.com and look for the clip about the man who lost his house and his wife. 

Now if only we could divert some of the manpower and $191 billion being spent in Iraq right now to right here at home, perhaps we could actually help these people.

Link: How Long Will I Live? - Life Expectancy Calculator.

Amazingly, this calulator corroborates what the Death Clock told me, even though its a lot more detailed, within reason.  Both put me well into my 85th year. 

The interesting analysis with this one is that it lets you analyze your heath risks and tells you where you could improve your expectancy.  So, for example, if I never wanted to have sex again, I could extend my life 1.67 years.

Umm....   riiiiiight.  I don't see that as such a great tradeoff, especially considering where the years are being tacked on.  Two more years of bingo and tapioca?  No thanks. 

Nice post from Dave Cowan...   

Link: Who Has Time For This?: Consumer Investing (2).

That's why we believe that the formula for any successful consumer venture is to be as scrappy as possible until you see that exponential growth curve. Twist, tweak and test until you find the mark. Only then is it time to raise lots of money, hire expensive VP's, and "monetize" your users. (Be sure to read this excellent post from Brad Feld on finding the next killer app.) If Google taught the world anything, it's that you start with the customer experience, and then build the business only after you've got that one nailed.

Over the weekend, I did a lot of biking.  On Friday, I went up the west side to the George Washington Bridge and then had a little waterfront picnic.  I snapped off a few sunset pictures, too.  The sunset cloud cover over the Hudson in the city produces some really great skies and I've been having a ball taking pictures of them. 

The moss on these rocks seemed to glow in the sun.

I also biked in Prospect Park in Brooklyn on Saturday.  This picture is from the lake.

You may have noticed I have a new little iKarma badge on the left column of my blog.  iKarma basically is PeopleTrust--a concept that I blogged about earlier this summer.  Its a distributed reputation system.  I'm curious to see the traction that it gets.

So, if you know me and want to leave a comment and rate me, click on the badge.  Tell everyone what you think of me.

I like this better than the rep system on eBay and LinkedIn because those are closed systems and I can't take my rep with me if I leave them or if I just want to maintain a consistant rep across all my digital identities.  I am concerned a bit that this might become another Y.A.F.P., but its hard to seperate out rep from network.  Anyway, it will be interesting to see who bothers to use this and how.

Some of you may have read about Flickr's proposed integration with the Yahoo! network that will require users to sign in to Flickr via a Yahoo! account.  Well, at this moment, 800 Flickr users have banded together in a FlickOff group that is threatening to leave Flickr because of the integration.

I'm sure I'll get some flack for this, but to all you FlickOff protesters:

Quit whining!

One user writes:   "I don't want to join with Yahoo, if I'd have known this was going to happen I would have never joined Flickr in the first place."

Gag.

Because you know what will happen?  If you have to sign into Flickr with a Yahoo! ID, men in black suits from Yahoo! will come to your house and implant Y! chips in your head.  They may eat your babies, too...

I think people have taken this a little too far.  Flickr is a great service made even better by the Yahoo acquisition if for no other reason than it now has a place to live where I don't have to worry about the darn thing going out of business.  Now, perhaps the integration and communication could have been a bit smoother, but changing the way you sign in to get your photos is no different than the bank giving you a new banking card when it merges with another bank... and I'm sure this has happened to most of these people before.  You never hear anyone go, "Had I known that North Fork Bank was going to give me a North Fork banking card when they bought Hamilton Federal Savings, I never would have put my money here in the first place."  At most, its a minor inconvenience with the tradeoff being a more permanent service.  As an independent company, there was nothing guaranteeing Flickr staying around or a plan B if Caterina and Stewart got hit by a bus. 

Remember way back when we used to get messages saying that AOL was going to start charging extra for IM?  Even recently, forwards went around Friendster that said that Friendster was going to turn people's profiles off if they didn't log in everyday or some ridiculous thing like that.

No, I believe that Yahoo! has some smart people there and that they didn't build a userbase of 200 million people accidently.  They're not going to shut Flickr off, hold my photos for ransom, or implant chips in my head.  This is just a minor step in the integration of two systems (Flickr is a BETA, remember??) and I'm fine with it.  Its a fantastic service--so far out ahead of anything else that the occasional hiccup won't bother me.