So I was just searching del.icio.us for links about Lacuna Coil, because they do this great cover of Enjoy the Silence, and I noticed ads on the results page.  I don't think I've ever noticed those before.

Def doesn't bother me...    I'm searching, I see ads.  That's normal. 

I also added a del.icio.us network badge, which I think is the tipping point for me for a slight blog "reorg".  I've got too much crap in the sidebar not exactly in the order that I want.   Look for some changes coming in the next week. 

I'm thinking of doing a half screen blog area on the left, and then two sidebars on the right... one with identity stuff, like my avatar, AIM status, my BlogLog, etc... and then links, comments, etc. on the other one.

I'm a big fan of Newsgator Online and Brad showed us the other day how to create a blogroll from it.  I still want it to be synced to the /contacts folder that I created where I actually read my blogs, but the creating a new location hack will do for now.

One of the best things about blogging is that it can take your passions and interests, magnify their intensity, and act as a lightning rod for like minded people and a great network.

It also has the unfortunate byproduct of being non-discriminating in this process, particularly with people like me who are still a bit rough around the edges.  I put myself out there and sometimes, it comes back to bite me... more often than I'd like to.

So if you're thinking about blogging, currently blogging, etc. just remember every post is something you feel reflects you and you don't mind being representative of who you are... pretty much forever.  Its generally not a good place to start yammering about things you really don't even care much about and let your mouth go where it will.  Blogs are better when you are thoughtful about stuff that really interests you, lest you find yourself in a bad place, taken there by a post not really worth it in the first place.

Rooster paraphernalia?  There was a story in the news this morning about how cops broke up a cockfighting ring in the Bronx.  They confiscated a whole bunch of roosters, plus assorted "rooster paraphernalia."   I haven't the faintest idea what that could possibly mean.  Little tiny boxing gloves?  Beak guards?  Championship belts?

Link: The Mobile Andrew: November 2004.

Did you notice what's hilarious about this pic?

Andrew Anker has been moblogging for some time now, which basically means he has a camera phone that he takes pictures with, and e-mails them straight to his blog with a little note.  He works for Six Apart, which is the company behind Typepad, which powers my blog as well as my Find My Path career site. He snapped off the photo above at Six Apart's recent board meeting.  The picture is of the co-founder of the company, Mena Trott, but what really struck me was the two gentlemen in the backround.  One of them is someone I had the fortune to meet earlier this year, David Hornick, who is a VC from August Capital who funded the company recently.  The other guy... well... the other guy is HUGE... or at least appears that way in the picture.  So David wouldn't make the Sand Hill Road basketball team (which, by the way, would likely be dominated from the guys at ComVentures and John Hummer, who used to play in the NBA/ABA), but still...  this is just hilarious.   

I brought the pic to David's attention and he responded:

"Just clicked on your link.  That's hilarious.  The guy I was talking to was
a mere 6 foot 8.  Of course that seems pretty darn tall when you're 5 foot
4."   

At least he takes it in stride, no matter how short those strides may be.   Good luck guys!  I've enjoyed keeping up with this company.

Ugh.  Not many bright spots in a 16-3 loss.  After two innings, Fordham was down 2-0 and it looked like Charlie O'Donnell might turn in another serviceable start.  Then, the wheels came off the train.  Five walks, some singles, and some defensive misqueues opened the door and Linkshare never looked back.  In fact, Fordham didn't actually push a run across until the last inning, when they scored their only three runs, mostly on walks.  Kevin Rodricks turned in an inning saving catch in Saskatchawan after reliever Brian Cuthbert served up a bomb to left, but that wouldn't prove to be enough.

The manager had this to say to the press at the end of the night during an interview at the Third Thursday bar, P.J. O'Hurley's:

"They outhit us.  They outpitched us.  They outplayed us in the field.  So, really, when you think about it, by category, it was only a 3-0 loss." 

Either way, we got a nice turnout after the game at the bar.  Remember, each 3rd Thursday of the month, we'll be out at a bar celebrating the happiest of hours.  Tonight, we had a couple of '04 grads show up, as well as much support from the '99 crew.  Come on out next month.  "Y'all come back now."

Ok, so not really...  someone stuck this on me.  :)  Proud to support female blogging!

Link: ESPN.com - MLB - L.A. deals Ishii to Mets for Phillips.

The New York Mets plugged a hole in their starting rotation Sunday, acquiring left-hander Kazuhisa Ishii from the Los Angeles Dodgers for catcher Jason Phillips.

Only the Mutts can plug a hole by digging a deeper one.  Kaz Ishii has great stuff, but, like Victor Zambrano, none of it is near the plate.  Trust me from someone who could never put it together and find the plate, guys who don't throw strikes very rarely succeed in baseball.  They put your fielders to sleep and they don't go late into games, eating up your bullpen.  Ishii's ERA last year was 4.71.  Did anyone watch Jae Seo pitch the other day against the Marlins?  You're telling me he can't put up better than 4.71 over a full season?  Who couldn't?  Its one thing to replace an injured pitcher with a real replacement, but Ishii?  You couldn't pay me to watch this guy pitch.  All of the sudden, I'm not feeling so good about this season.  Don't get me wrong, Jason Phillips is the worst base clog this side of Johnny Helmet, but he did bat .298 in '03.  One bad season and we're done with him?  Wasn't he the Mets leading hitter this spring?  I don't know.  I can't remember the last time this team made a deal that made me say, "Wow, I really like that deal."

One thing I talked about with Kristin from Fordham the other day is the idea of scheduled blogging...having different types of posts appear of specific days to get a blogging routine going.  I got the idea from Fred, who has a VC Cliche of the Week post and a running Top 50 Albums thing going.

Well, I like music, but I'm not much of an album guy.  Most of the music I have is sliced up into individual songs.  For me, its movies.  I love going to the movies.  I especially love the previews.  In fact, if someone came out with just an hour and a half of previews of all made up  movies with real celebrities, I think I'd go see that.  When I see a movie, I usually have a pretty good idea that I'll like it, and I haven't seen a lot of movies that "everyone" goes to see.  I never saw Titanic or My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  I like movies with style--ones that have a little hint of surrealism to them.  I like certain actors--Kevin Klein, John Cusack, Sean Connery, Bill Murray...  and I don't mind a good car chase or explosion.  I don't mind stupidity either.  That being said, for the next 50 weeks, I am going to post, every Monday, a new addition to My Top 50 Movies List. 

Its not the best 50, so I'm not soliciting feedback as to what should be on the list.  Its my list.  There are a lot of movies that you would figure a guy my age would be putting on here, like maybe Goonies or the Princess Bride, that won't show up.  They're fine, but they're not my favorite.  There are lots of people out there who can recite those movies by heart, just not me.

That being said, here's the first one.  Its kind of a bridge between the inspiration for this list, which is Fred's album list, and my movie list, because it has a fantastic soundtrack and that really adds to the movie.  My first movie is Grosse Pointe Blank, with John Cusack and Minnie Driver. 

In short, its about a professional killer who goes back to a Detroit suburb to attend his 10 year high school reunion.  That right there makes for a unique situation, but throw on top of it that he left is high school sweetheart at her front door on prom night...  never picked her up and dropped off the face of the earth for ten years. 

For me, the movie is about being nostalgic and  never forgetting the connections you had when you were coming of age.  There are a few people in my life that I wish I could go back and talk to--people who probably think I'm broken but could be convinced I'm just "mildly sprained".

The soundtrack is one of the best things about the movie.  Not a lot of people at the time realized that it came out in two volumes, and you didn't get all the music you wanted on the first.  The soundtrack features the Violent Femmes, David Bowie,  The Clash, A-Ha and The Specials.  Great songs...  great supporting performances from Dan Aykroyd, Alan Arkin  and Joan Cusack, and a little high school romance revisited.  Feel free to pick up a copy at Amazon (they're selling the movie cheaper than a single volume of the two volume soundtrack), because "You can never go home again, but at least you can shop there."

I was trying to explain to my dad on Saturday what RSS was and I came up with this analogy:

Web content is like pizza and there are a couple of ways to get your pizza.  HTML is like having it "to stay."  Web pages written in HTML are all about getting you to come in, stop in one place and spend some time on it.  RSS is like getting your content "to go"--no tray, dish, glasses... just your food in a box, formatted to be sent exactly where you want it, when you want it.  E-mail content from a website is like having pizza sent to you as well, in that same box, just not always when you want it, which is hardly convenient at all.

So I'm doing the round trip to my parents' house on my bike in a few minutes, which is about 32 miles round trip.  I made it a point of pulling my never-used helmet out of the closet. I promised myself I'd become a helmet wearer this year, given all the biking I plan to do.  Well, the helmet that I bought is a cheap one and waaaaaaaay too big.  It really is the dumbest looking thing I've ever seen.  If anyone can recommended a smaller, slimmer helmet (one that doesn't weigh my head down so much that it might actually cause me to get into an accident), I'd appreciate it.  Yes, I know, its completely ridiculous that I'm not wearing a helmet.  I'm fully aware of the risks, and yet, in the interest of not looking dorky, I'm still not on the helmet bandwagon. Show me a slim one, though, and I think I'm finally on it.  (Especially that now, it won't mess my hair.)

I think Seinfeld sums this helmlet stupidity up best:

"There are many things that we can point to as proof that the human being is not smart. The helmet, is my personal favourite. The fact that we had to invent the helmet. Now why did we invent the helmet ? Well, because we were participating in many activities that were cracking our heads. We looked at the situation, we chose not to avoid these activities, but to just make little plastic hats, so that we can continue our head-cracking life styles. The only thing dumber than the helmet is the helmet law, the point of which is to protect a brain that is functioning so poorly, it's not even trying to stop the cracking of the head that it's in.

  Live from Webster Hall 
  Originally uploaded by ceonyc.

The Faint.  Bright Eyes Plays next.

I know I'm going to have to reset my catagories.  I'm realizing that most of my blogs fit into like eight catagories and then I've also got both a "Friends and Outings" and "Outings and Friends" catagory.  I don't know how that happened.  So I'm at the airport now, shelling out another six bucks for 60 minutes of TMobile wireless.  Actually, I don't mind it, because I use it sparingly, since DTUT covers me pretty well in terms of wireless usage. 

I was reading apophenia and she commented on the nature of the blogger/audience interaction...

"For me, the plausible deniability invoked in blogging is strong. I can convince myself that i write for me and me alone ::wink:: and convince myself to be shocked when i receive feedback. I can check my stats, but those are just numbers - nameless, faceless people. Yet, here i am, speaking to nameless, faceless people, only i'm required by this situation to convince myself that you do really exist, even if i cannot see you. In this situation, i have the expectation that i am a face to you and you're just an assumption to me. It really brings life to the idea that i'm just a talking head."

She's actually studying the socialogy behind blogs and social networking over the web, among other things and she writes some really thoughtful stuff.  Her archives go back to 1997, making her the earliest blogger I know.

This trip was fantastic for me.  I feel reenergized.  Beware my next big project.  I hadn't actually taken a real non-family vacation since.... well, I can't actually remember.  Perhaps it dates all the way back to when Deirg and I went to Jill's wedding.  This vacation thing could be a good thing, even if I am enjoying my life.  Sometimes, its good to get a restart.

So, I'm looking at my fellow passengers waiting to get on.  These are all the cheap people, because there was a $200 difference between the red eye and the afternoon flight.  I'm debating what will make me sleep easier....  light food or a big turkey sandwich.  Either way, even if I don't get good sleep, I'm heading straight to the gym when I get into the city.  That will make me feel better.  I'm looking forward to that post-gym shower.  Ok, boarding soon.   I gotta figure out what zone I am.

Oh, PS...   Good for the Scott Peterson jury.  We all knew he was guilty.  Of course, I still can't figure out how, where, when, or why... but I suppose that doesn't matter.  You know some goofball will marry him while he's in prison, too.

Last night, I found a spot on the right side of the street for today, making it six consecutive days of alternate side parking that I have found a spot.  Four times, I found the spot in the morning on the day of, and twice the night before.  Manhattanites with cars will appreciate this.  Everyone else...  just trust me that this is truely a personal triumph.  :)

So I forgot to post yesterday, mostly because of the holiday, and a lot because I am totally out of sorts because of this move to Brooklyn.  Therefore, I see no more fitting movie about forgetting on my list to post today than Momento--a movie about a guy who has no short term memory.

In Momento, Guy Pierce can remember everything just about until his wife's death, which he thinks he has a clear enough recollection of.  His memories since then, however, are all recorded on Polaroids, tattoos and little notes for himself.  In the meantime, instead of just trying to survive in this less than ideal situation, he's out trying to find his wife's killer.

Oh, did I mention the whole movie is shot backwards, tracing each scene to the scene before it?

And you thought the Polaroids were confusing.

The beauty of it is that you watch each seen as he experiences it--completely without prior context.  He arises in a hotel room.  Is it his room?  Someone elses?  Should he be there?  You don't know until the next scene.   One of the best moments in the movie is when he finds himself running, but he's not sure if he's being chased or doing the chasing, until his pursuer fires a gun at him.  "Is he running after me or am I running after him?  [Boom.]  He's running after me."

The supporting cast has two stars from the Matrix--Carrie Ann Moss and Joe Pantolino.  Both do a great job and you're not sure how much either is manipulating poor Guy and his condition at any point in the movie. 

You probably need to watch this movie twice... with a friend you can have a good argument with, because you'll probably see the movie differently.  Its thought provoking and definitely requires a careful viewing.

Here's my attempt at adding something to the vocabulary of the blogosphere.

I often write posts about things I'd like to see on the web... everyone does.  The number of web services out there has exploded and, in turn, generated a TON of other ideas in the process... hence all these mashups.

But not all of us can code.  (I'm thinking about teaching myself a little php/mysql over the next year...   feel free to tag me books, beginners sites, etc with the for:ceonyc tag on del.icio.us). 

So, instead, why don't we try and match the idea people with the execution people using del.icio.us.  I propose a tag:

Anyone who has an idea for a technology enabled service, or simply an improvement/add-on to one can tag their own blog posts (or anyone elses if they see one) with wibci.

wibci   (pronounced wib-key)

Wouldn't It Be Cool If...

I've gone ahead and tagged my "convert to meatspace" idea to start things off.  I'd love to see what people come up with.  I'm also thinking about doing a wiki where people could just throw all these ideas out there, collaborate on them, and essentially outline whole services together.

Corporations and private equity firms have, over the years, created a number of different types of transactions and resulting structures to meet their strategic needs. We've seen carveouts, spinouts, joint ventures, special purpose vehicles, etc. Each is meant to get the right kind of resourses to the right kind of projects within the context of the larger organizational goals.
Many times, that means pushing assets away from the company for various reasons with the option for a buyback or something. This happens many times in the pharmaceutical industry in the case of "orphan drugs"--compounds that have been developed, but never really marketed or even fully tested. Its more often a result of lack or organizational bandwidth, either in sales channels, or simply strategic attention span than it is for lack of resourses. There are some private equity firms that will buy these compounds, match them with other similar products in a sales channel--other orphan drugs--and try to revive them. Often, the seller retains some right to the deal in the form of equity or some kind of call facility.
Lately, I've been wondering if this could work for web services. There are a lot of "orphan" web properties out there that don't seem to fit in a company's strategic vision anymore that could be significantly improved with some "startup" type focus, ambition, and creativity. VCs approach this situation by seeding a competitive service and climbing uphill to develop a brand and a userbase from scratch.
What if VCs could take stakes in existing services, infuse them with some entreprenuerial talent, and reinvigorate them, giving the owner the chance to buy them out if their operation was successful?
Take Evite, for example. Everyone knows Evite and thinks of it first when planning something. Yet, the service hasn't changed at all in like five years. Clearly that's an orphan property. Perhaps IAC can't seem to fit it somewhere, so they're not focused on it. Yet, there are a lot of entrepreneurs thinking and building around the calendaring and event space. They've got an uphill climb to reach the kind of usage that Evite has--but yet Evite doesn't seem to be taking the best advantage of that usage either. I think it would be interesting to go to IAC with an offer to take a synthetic position in that property, turn it around, and then have IAC buy you out after you've done your job. Its a little bit like when consultants take options as part of their compensation, but in this case the equity would have to be tied to some agreed upon metric beforehand.
The target web services would benefit from some fresh ideas and new perspective... Perhaps even an expertise not present within the company at the moment. Maybe all of the really thoughtful event people have left IAC because Evite has languished as a property. I don't know, but I'm quite sure Evite isn't the only one that fits this profile. Up until recently, Citysearch was in this same boat at AOL, but they found the resources and made it a priority to turn it around on their own.

Being able to work with an existing property would have its pros and cons for an entrepreneurial management team. On one hand, they would benefit from an existing userbase, synergies with other properties within the company, and better resources. On the other hand, culture might be an issue. A culture that is resistant to change might be the reason why the service languished in the first place. There's something to be said for being able to create a culture from scratch.

Working with a small set of trusted VCs. However, might prove very beneficial and have unanticipated benefits. When a company opens the kimono to a vc, the vc becomes better informed about where the current technology leaders are going to try to lead the market. They become better able to fund accordingly, creating the systems that spur innovation. They also become better partners, since they have their ear to the ground and may be able to find properties that fit with the company's strategic vision.

Does anyone else have any ideas about a languishing web property or service that could use some startup style ingenuity better able to take advatage of the platform its on?

Old Homestead, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Steaknight with Brian

     Last week, I had dinner with Larry from GM and he asked me a question.  Now that I'm on this side of the table, what am I learning about how VCs work that would help an LP better assess the groups they were going into?  Admittedly, I've only been here about a month, but one thing has become very apparent to me.  At GM, we thought a lot about how to diligence a network and it always proved very difficult.  One could extrapolate that some VC who spent a few years building Stratacom obviously had some kind of a network, but a lot of people worked in that organization.  How could you really tell who still had live contacts and what did they mean?  Reference lists?  Well, most LPs ask for reference lists and get back a list of CEOs and other VCs.  Both, to be honest, are pretty poor samples.  Every CEO uses their board differently, and a lot of the CEOs weren't even at the company at the time of the initial investment, so they're not going to give you a lot of insight into the investment process.  Its good to hear that a VC behaves well on a board and adds value, but you also want to understand how investment decisions actually get made as well, and the insight into that is tougher to come by.  As for other VCs, I've never heard of a VC bashing another VC.  At worst, they won't comment.  That's not entirely helpful. 
     Perhaps the most important contact that no LP ever asks for is the "first non-VC call."  No VC can possibly know every single little detail going on in every niche that they play in.  They need to rely on an active network of practitioners and experts that they rely on to get a "first read" on a new technology or a company.  It might involve setting a company up with a potential customer to get feedback on their product or their pitch.  Sometimes, its just a market call from an experienced entrepreneur already in the trenches.  Either way, understanding the quality of the "network in the field" and how a VC uses that network is key to understanding how a VC wades through their opportunity set.
     At USV, if we're looking at a new online advertising technology, I know who we'll probably call not just for market intelligence, but to feel out the team/entrepreneur.  Its also a great test for a company we're interested in to send them to someone that we know that they can pitch their wares to, so that we can get the feedback afterwards. 
    If you're an LP diligencing a fund, you want to know who those first calls are.  Ask a VC what the four or five areas that he or she is most interested in at the moment, or the spaces of the last four or five deals that got past their first screen.  Who were the first non-VC, non-customer diligence calls?  Who did they call for the quick market read?  Did your VC just look at an RFID deal for supply chain?  What manufacturer did he call to see if the technology was applicable?  Is that a contact the VC goes to often?  Is the contact a real decision maker?  Do any other VCs speak with that contact? 
Often times, the quality of a quick read market call is going to depend on the quality of that first non-VC call on a deal that passes the first screen.  That's not someone who shows up on your typical VC/CEO reference list, but they're obviously key to the deal process.

Any minute now, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I'm sitting in the water like an idiot waiting for everyone to screw around with all their gear. Takes me 10 min to get in the water.