Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Hey there's a MacWorld Expo in Boston this week. Weird coincidence. 

Yesterday's surprise mystery guest was John Sculley, former CEO of Apple Computer.  

Check this out. Brad Feld and Philip Greenspun had dinner last night in Homer, Alaska, thanks to a serendipity observed here on Scripting News. Now that's power!  

Salon: "George W Bush say he won't comment on an ongoing investigation. Funny, it didn't seem to bother him before Karl Rove was in the hot seat." I noticed that too.  

2PM Eastern: Arrived safely in suburban Boston area. 

Today's a travel day, so not too many updates. 

If you're in the Boston area on Thursday and want to see the OPML Editor, come by Berkman Center at 7PM. Open to the public. Bring your Q's. 

I'm still getting lots of email, every day, about the podcast re Audible and DRM. Got one this morning that says their RSS feeds don't work with iTunes 4.9, because of the DRM. I tried to explain to the CEO how the design of podcasting rejects the entire concept of DRM. He didn't want to hear it. Instead he wanted to tell me How It Is. Hah. Apparently he's hearing it now, just two weeks later. Sometimes it pays to listen, and not talk so much, when a former customer explains why your idea doesn't work. He probably understands, even better than your competitors. A company that insists on talking when that kind of information is coming over the pipe is one without much of a future. 

Reminds me of the greatest TV line of all time (TV shows aren't really famous for great lines). The West Wing, of course. Amy Gardner the beautiful and sharp-witted Washington operative, sitting on Josh Lymon's front step, waiting for him to return from some major Presidential crisis (we know what it is but he can't tell Amy), surprises him. Flirty small talk, then she asks why he never kissed her when they were in college together at Harvard. He delivers a long, soulful, well-intentioned soliloquy. You want to say to Josh, shut up and kiss her already. Right when you think you can't take it any more, she interrupts. "You know what," she says. "Enough of you with the talking." And she kisses him, and then walks off, leaving Josh about the plotz he's so in love. (Us too.) 

NY Times: "Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, perhaps Silicon Valley's most famous venture firm, will announce that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is joining the firm as a part-time partner." 

Last night's OPML roadshow went off without a hitch. If I have one regret it's that there's too much to demo, but there's not much that could be cut without sacrificing some major part of the understanding. There was a Linux developer in the room, so that's good, and Jason Calacanis asked some great questions, so perhaps there's a publishing empire that will come on board. The room was comfortably filled, with a peak of about 35 people. A memorable night.  

Britt Blaser, who lives 3 blocks from Ritchie, was there last night. He's an outliner guy from way back. He and I both saw Doc's comment last night, and now I can say with confidence that while today's OPML Editor isn't all that 1986's MORE was, in many ways (networking and blogging) it's much more (pun intended).  

Fran Babiss's rendition of the Wave Diner.