Sunday, January 29, 2006

Essay: "Here's the rough outline of my plan to reshape the VC industry around the philosophy of the web." 

Matthew Ingram: "I'm not sure anyone should listen to how he wants to 'reform' the venture capital business." I've heard this before. Once David Weinberger and Howard Rheingold told me that people wouldn't listen to my ideas on anything other than technical issues. I tried to explain that those kinds of barriers are exactly why I started blogging, because good ideas can come from users, and from people who receive investments, not just from people who make them. It's that kind of thinking that the Internet is so good at routing around. Of course the intermediaries don't think I have the qualifications to talk about VC or friendship, but the fact is I am a technology investor, and I've done fairly well at it. I'd love to know how much money Matthew Ingram has bet and what his track record is on tech investments. I've won some, lost some, but so far I'm solidly in the black. Over the years I've gotten a return that any VC would be delighted with. So, even if you only want to hear from people with experience (which imho is a big mistake) you'd still have to pay attention to my thinking (or find another excuse, I suppose).  

Rex Hammock: "If VCs and conference organizers attack the ideas instead of explaining the benefits of their current models, then you know they think the ideas are great." 

A postscript explains the I insist on this part. "It came from a chance meeting on the street with John Doerr shortly after the dotcom bust." 

Lowell Sun: "The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month." 

Jeff Jarvis on reforming the conference business. 

NY Times on RSS as an advertising medium for travel.  

Web 2.0 as viewed by big media. 

On this day in 2002, a reader took out an ad on Google, targeted at me, knowing I would look up John Doerr, to see how my investment was doing (still strong).  

Local microjournalism 

With Flickr you don't have to go to industry events to see how old aquaintances are doing. We live in the age of microjournalism folks.

Here's an interesting picture taken at OSAF with fellow Berkeleyite Scott Rosenberg eating a bit of food, lurking in the background. Scott has just finished a book about Mitch Kapor's latest project. I think that's (a skinny) Stewart Alsop standing next to Stewart Brand of the LongNow Foundation.