500 Internal Server Error

500 Internal Server Error

As I was writing this, news of the HP / Dell bidding war for 3PAR broke on the front page of Yahoo. This made me laugh, as it typified just how crazy this story has becomefew things outside of a bidding war will make a storage acquisition sexy enough to make mainstream news. At $30, HPs current offer is the sixth bid, a 200 percent premium over 3PARs previous $10 share price. Not only is this insane, but its also nearly unprecedented in M&A;history. And since 3PAR is trading above $32 the market thinks Dell will bid even higher. First Off, Is 3PAR Really THAT Unique?

Yes and no. 3PAR is a classic disruption play, its value proposition based on the premise that unused storage is wastefuloften times just 10% to 25% of allocated disk space is actually used. 3PARs thin provisioning technology enables disk space to be allocated only when applications need capacity, greatly reducing IT management costs. Think of it as storage on a just-enough and just-in-time basis. In the cloud era, pre-allocation of storage is especially wasteful, because on-demand storage and computing services delivered via the internet have wide variability and less deterministic usage patterns. This makes 3PAR a great fit for data centers, and its partly why the technology is suddenly perceived as very valuable. Not surprisingly large storage vendors have been slow to adopt technologies like 3PARs for a simple reason: making storage more efficient ultimately means selling less gear and is essentially akin to committing commercial suicide. EMC CEO Joe Tucci actually once went on record admitting as much saying If I only have hardware and I just keep helping to make you more and more efficient at less and less cost, eventually Im going to hit a wall and its going to be tough for me to make money. HPs Vanishing R&D;Budget and The Mark Hurd Effect This classic Innovators dilemma definitely applies to HP. But something else has hamstrung its ability to innovate in high-end storage, a market HP has been a leader in for many years. And its correlated to former CEO Mark Hurds recent firing. Word on the street is Hurd wasnt let go for his affair or even for his embellishment of trivial expense reports. Instead the board kicked him out because his employee approval rating was absolutely atrocious. And the reason employees hated him is because he traded short-run profits for long-term innovation by laying off entire design teams and killing HPs R&D;budgettake a look at this chart and compare HP to Cisco and IBM, both storage leaders. In this way, I believe acquiring 3PAR is actually the beginning of a secular trend for HP in using M&A;to make good on the companys lack of organic innovation. Yes thats right, believe it or not, the real reason why HPs board is obsessed with 3PAR is closely correlated to Hurds departuredivisions like HPs storage group simply havent kept pace with peers. I used to sell to HPs storage groups (as well as Dell and 3PAR) and have plenty of friends who tell me that projects have been canned and innovation has languished. Dell is Desperate for Similar Reasons Innovation within Dell is even more of an oxymoron. If you thought HPs R&D;allotment was low, compare it to Dells. Dell is not an engineering driven company. They are a system integrator desperate for growth outside of the personal computing market. And storage consolidation threatens Dell for another reason. Storage has traditionally been like a cross selling catalog, with vendors filling in their product portfolios by OEMing equipment from othersDell actually resells EMCs high-end storage gear today. But these cross-sell deals are becoming more tenuous to defend as vendors build out more complete portfolios. This is because cloud computing requires complex virtualized resource allocation, management and provisioning. Vendors are increasingly moving up the stack in providing services beyond hardware, which is all but a commodity. Owning 3PAR would give Dell a chance to stay in the game and complement the low end storage solutions it acquired from EqualLogic in 2007. And the Dell board is prepared to break the bank since there is a scarcity of other good high end storage virtualization plays (Pillar Data and Compellent are two of the largest, but dont have 3PARs traction). Why HP Will Probably End Up with 3PAR So there you have it. With its DNA as a system integrator, Dell doesnt have a hope in hell of organically growing complex ASICs and software like 3PAR has, and is desperate to move up the food chain and stop reselling EMCs portfolio. And the HP board is tacitly admitting it needs to rectify the fact that Mark Hurd sort of killed the HP. Invent culture. 3PAR would give HP several hundred R&D;focused engineers and a talented ASIC team. The interesting thing about this bidding war is that it conveys a larger lesson about why M&A;often fails. Its easy to listen to investment bankers and overpay on acquisitions. But its much harder to actually handle post-merger integration. Dell is the perfect example. They have essentially no precedent for running an ASIC team, and would take a company like 3PAR that spent 25% of its revenue on R&D;and eventually starve it. 3PAR is a better fit for HP, and in the end its likely that they will prevail. It sure seems that way anyway. HPs board is set out to make up for lost time and right its innovation ship regardless of cost to shareholders. But the synergy premium for 3PAR will be enormous, and history suggests that deals with such a massive allocation of acquisition goodwill generally fail to pay for themselves.

Ali Partovi is an angel investor, startup advisor, and serial entrepreneur.

Earlier this month, Paul Graham wrote a terrific article, “What Happened to Yahoo,” blaming Yahoo’s demise on two factors. First, “easy money” from banner ads led Yahoo to ignore search in the late ‘90s. Second, ambivalence about being a technology company meant Yahoo hired sub-par engineers and didn’t empower them to innovate. While I agree with Graham’s points, there’s a broader story to be told.

The story begins in 1996 with an 18-year-old college dropout named Scott Banister, who came up with a simple but elegant concept that turned out to be one of the best business ideas in history.

This is the true story of the search business model -- a concept that John Battelle and other search historians have erroneously attributed to Bill Gross for Goto.com. Although Gross deserves the lion’s share of credit for recognizing a good idea and more importantly for implementing it, the credit for developing the idea itself belongs elsewhere. But first, let’s recall the world of search in the late ‘90s.

Success in Silicon Valley, most would agree, is more merit driven than almost any other place in the world. It doesnt matter how old you are, what sex you are, what politics you support or what color you are. If you idea rocks and you can execute, you can change the world and/or get really, stinking rich. For the most part Ive sat on the sidelines over the years during the endless debates about how we need to do more to encourage more women to start companies. What I mean by sat on the sidelines is this until today I havent really said what I felt. Now Im going to. Heres why. Yet another article, this time in the Wall Street Journal, takes a shot at us and others for not doing enough to help women in tech. Says Rachel Sklar, a perennial TechCrunch critic: Part of changing the ratio is just changing awareness, so that the next time Techcrunch is planning a Techcrunch Disrupt, they wont be able to not see the overwhelming maleness of it, said Ms. Sklar, referring to the influential tech conference. Yeah ok, whatever Rachel. Every damn time we have a conference we fret over how we can find women to fill speaking slots. We ask our friends and contacts for suggestions. We beg women to come and speak. Where do we end up? With about 10% of our speakers as women. We wont put women on stage just because theyre women thats not fair to the audience whove paid thousands of dollars each to be there. But we do spend an extraordinary amount of time finding those qualified women and asking them to speak. And you know what? A lot of the time they say no. Because they are literally hounded to speak at every single tech event in the world because they are all trying so hard to find qualified women to speak at their conference. Whats The Real Problem? I could, like others (see all the links in that Fred Wilson post too), write pandering but meaningless posts agonizing over the problem and suggesting creative ways that we (men) could do more to help women. I could point out that the CEO of TechCrunch is a woman, as is two of our four senior editors (Im one of the three). And how we seek out women focused events and startups and cover them to death. But Im not going to do that. Instead Im going to tell it like it is. And what it is is this: statistically speaking women have a huge advantage as entrepreneurs, because the press is dying to write about them, and venture capitalists are dying to fund them. Just so no one will point the accusing finger of discrimination at them. That WSJ article also criticizes Y Combinator for having just 14 female founders out of their 208 startups to date. But I know that Y Combinator wants really, really wants female founders and that there just arent very many of them. I know this because Y Combinator cofounder Jessica Livingston has told me how excited they are to get applications from women, and that they want to do everything they can to get more female applicants. What they probably wont admit, but I suspect is true anyway, is that the rate of acceptance for female applicants is far higher than for male applicants. The problem isnt that Silicon Valley is keeping women down, or not doing enough to encourage female entrepreneurs. The opposite is true. No, the problem is that not enough women want to become entrepreneurs. Why? I was asked that question as part of a New York Times interview earlier this year. I dodged it completely, and referred them to Cyan Banister, the founder of Zivity, instead: Q. Do you anticipate that there will be more companies led by women at the TC50 and Disrupt this year? A. Women are really tough. I have no idea why. We invited a team founded by a woman to Disrupt. But they canceled. There just arent a lot of female tech entrepreneurs out there relative to the number of men, I think. We celebrate the ones we find whenever we find them. Theres a chance well write about what theyre doing, simply because theyre a fairly rare thing in our world. But it is really hard to find female entrepreneurs in tech, in my experience. I really think this is an industry-wide problem. Q. How do the female tech entrepreneurs and investors in your community feel about this situation? A. Theres a fascinating company, Zivity, its a venture-funded, adult photography community yes, they put up pictures of naked women online it was co-founded and is run by a woman, Cyan Banister. She wrote me in response to a post about women who are entrepreneurs, saying, basically, though these are not her exact words, women [stink] as entrepreneurs a lot of the time because they are nurturing and not risk-taking enough by nature. She also said when men roll the dice and take risks, that society doesnt punish them at all, and its in their nature to take stupid risks. I didnt respond to that. I didnt want to jump into that debate. And I guess I still dont. Is Cyan right? I dont know, Im from Mars, not Venus and I cannot speak intelligently about the nurturing and risk tolerance needs of women. But I will say this. The next time you women want to start pointing the finger at me when discussing the problem of too few women in tech, just stop. Look in the mirror. And realize this there are women who complain about how there are too few women in tech, and there are women who go out and just start companies. Lets have less of the former and more of the latter, please. And when you do start your company, well cover it. Promise.

In terms of brand recognition, its hard to top a huge live display billboard in Las Vegas. But Foursquare has managed to do it. As you can see above, they now have a massive, multi-level and multi-angle display practically screaming about the service to all those in Times Square in New York City. Check in, find your friends, unlock your city, the ad reads. In smaller print at the bottom it talks about checking in to American Eagle for some kind of special. Foursquare head of business development confirms that American Eagle are the ones paying for the ad, which he says is the largest digital billboard in Times Square. American Eagle or not, this is clearly a huge ad (and a huge win) for Foursquare itself.Walker thanks Foursquares designer Mari Sheibley for designing the thing. And hints that a version 2 is coming. [photo via WillMcD on Flickr and Twitter]

Its no secret that Google, Apple and even RIM want a piece of the $1 billion-and-growing mobile advertising market. The fight over share of ad dollars is even resulting in possible anti-competitive practices. Apples developer licensing agreement update in June basically says it reserves the right to block Googles AdMob from serving ads on the iPhone and iPad, allowing only independent ad-serving companies to serve ads on the devices. But in July, AdMob founder Omar Hamoui said that Apple had not yet enforced the policy, allowing Google to continue to serve ads on Apple devices. Perhaps the FTCs recent interest in Apples ad policies delayed the blockade, but multiple industry sources take it as a foregone conclusion that its only a matter of time before Apple prevents Google completely from serving ads. If and when that does eventually happen, the mobile ad space could change irrevocably. Clearly, there is a very real danger that Apple will create a domino effect across the mobile advertising industry if it turns off the switch for AdMob. Lets just think this through. If Apple were to block Googles ad network from serving ads on iPhone and iPads, which make up the lions share of OS ad requests according to Millennials latest data (55 percent), Google would be forced to focus on the Android market. Android devices are no doubt growing fast, and even overtaking RIMs share of ad requests according to some reports. Advertisers are no doubt going to want to spend money on targeting Android users. And Google, who develops and distributes the Android platform, would need to make up for the loss of the Apple ecosystem from AdMobs mobile ad network by generating more revenue through Android. Of course, Google would be stupid to explicitly close their ecosystem like Apple, but if the company wants to financially capitalize on the growth of the Android platform, it might make sense to favor its own ad network above others. Its not just Apple and Android that want their own ad networks. RIM is also reportedly looking to buy an ad network, hoping to take a part in the wireless advertising industry. The BlackBerry manufacturer was reportedly sniffing around Millennial Media, a company that has also stated its intention to IPO in the next year. So in the coming year, we could see the top three smartphone device makers all have their own mobile ad networks. And RIMs ad network could also be prohibited from serving ads on the iPhone with Apples policies. The result of this would be a more device-centric, fragmented, mobile advertising market. Already Steve Jobs is promoting Apples iAds as a revolutionary ad format optimized for the iPhone and iPad. RIM and Google could be forced to develop and tout their device-centric ad formats. And thus, advertisers would be encouraged to go to each device manufacturer for the ad formats that promise the best clickthrough rates. It would be a nightmare however for advertisers and agencies to have to split their spending between all the different networks. Advertisers hate fragmentation. They love scale: buy once, plaster everywhere. Currently, advertisers can go to a mobile ad network like Millennial, AdMob or Jumptap, and be able to target Blackberry, iPhone and Android users. Developers will of course go where the money is. This would be disastrous for the remaining independent ad networks, who would all still be able to advertise on the iPhone, but would face a world where they are fighting with the worlds largest technology companies over mindshare and inventory. A device-centric mobile advertising world would deviate radically from the way the webs advertising networks operate today. It would be as if Dell, Apple, HP and other laptop manufacturers decided to buy ad networks to control a piece of the ad dollars spent to reach people on their computers. Or if browser developers such as Microsoft, Firefox and Chrome decided to only allow publishers to serve ads through their ad networks. It sounds completely absurd. But that is the way things could shake out. There are only two things holding Apple back right now: the FTC and the ire of advertisers. The first is not much of a deterrent, but the second should give Apple pause. Making life more difficult for advertisers is no way to start a relationship. Photo Credit/Flickr/AussieGal [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/apple,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/google,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/research-in-motion" name="Apple,Google,Research In Motion"]

Editors note: The following guest post is by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, the CEO ofWatchMojo, a producer and distributor of premium video content.Follow him on Twitter @ashkan or @WatchMojo Last week, Erick posted an article on TechCrunch titled Industry Insiders Say Online Video Advertising Is Reaching A Frenzy Point. It was a surefire way to get online video entrepreneurs excited, right? Not so fast. The article quoted two CEOs of large online video businessesnamely Keith Richman of Break Media and Jason Glickman of Tremor Mediawhose basic argument was as follows: It very well may just be the big ad networks and properties like Hulu that are seeing the vast majority of new ad dollars. If you are not in the top 10 on comScore you will have a tough time notes Break CEO Keith Richman, money goes to the guys who are big, That led Erick to summarize and wonder: Video is definitely shaping up to be a large and growing business for the bigger players and ad networks, but will those advertising dollars trickle down to the smaller guys as well? While one might think that the top 10 firms in a given industry will prevail, its important to think of legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welchs rule that a company should be either No. 1 or No. 2 in a particular industry, or else leave it completely. Online video frequently draws comparisons to search, which today has become a two-horse race between Google and Microsoft. Considering that the high-profile and defunct Veoh was a perennial top-10 competitor in video, one wonders: is anything other than No. 1 or No. 2 in video really a winning a strategy? It depends. Size vs. Quality Indeed, as with everything, size matters.But seeing how history repeats itself, its helpful to think of how the frenzy around large ad networks on the web fizzled and made room for something else: quality. Increasingly, marketers have grown wary of focusing solely on size (as measured by reach).A few years ago, marketers would pick up the phone and place one or two orders allowing them to reach 100 million uniques while paying rock-bottom CPMs. Today, many are paying more attention to where the ad placements reside (and how the ad views are being counted).This is why after the acquisitions of ad networks Right Media and Blue Lithium, the frenzy around online ad networks has waned a bit, and some ad networks (namely AdConion and Valueclick) have even begun to diversify to boost their offerings of quality (via content). Without a doubt, CEOs Glickman and Richman are right that size is a major consideration. But that doesnt mean that smaller or mid-sized video companies will fail, especially if they can play the quality card and leverage those who have size. The Four Pillars of Online Video In fact, while both men have built strong and valuable businesses, in their prognosis, they omit a major strategic consideration.While online video companies tend tospecialize in one of seven areas, ultimately they end up choosing one of four: Technology, Distribution, Advertising or Content. While incomplete and not a definitive breakdown or categorization of where each company focuses on, the following table is useful to understand who is doing what in the online video space:

CONTENT DECA, DBG, Eqal, Fora.tv, Funny or Die, Generate, Howcast, Katalyst Media, Machinima, Mania TV, Next New Networks, Revision3, VideoJug,WatchMojo. TECHNOLOGY Adobe, Apple, Avid, JumpCut, Sorensen, On2,blip.tv, Brightcove, Feedroom, Justin.tv, KIT Digital, Livestream/Mogulus, Ooyala, Maven, Permission TV, Qik, uStream, StudioNow, VMIX, Akamai, BitGravity, Edgecast, Grid Networks, Limelight Networks, Panther Express.

ADVERTISING Adap.tv, Auditude, Brightroll, Broadband Enterprises, Freewheel, Overlay.tv, Panache, Scanscout, Tidal TV, Tremor Media, Video Egg, Yume. DISTRIBUTION 5Min, AOL, Break, DailyMotion, Hulu, Kaltura, MSN, Metacafe, Nabbr, Revver, Vimeo, Yahoo!, YouTube, Blinkx, Cast TV, Clicker, Clipblast, Dabble, Everyzing, Google, Mefeedia, Pixsy, Truveo.

While Technology, Distribution and Advertising firms have a binary, winner-takes-all, zero-sum outcome, Content firms can leverage others in those three segments.Thinking back to Jack Welchs mantra, Id argue that you have to be #1 or 2 in Technology, Distribution and Advertising (think of the search engine industry) but not necessarily so in Content (hence, the four TV networks, for example). Enter YouTube Of course, talking about all of this without mentioning the eight-hundred pound gorilla is foolish. Today, YouTube retains 44% of the online video audience.Its parent Google accounts for the lions shareroughly 65% market shareof the search market, which in turn garners 40% of the online advertising pie. It then uses its $30 billion war chest to fund forays into new tech and media areas. As a result of this major reality, companies who operate in the Technology, Distribution and Advertising spheres are handicapped because they are fighting for 56% of the total online video market (less, when you consider that the No. 2 player in the market, Hulu, is equally protective of its domain and doesnt let just any company operate in its sandbox). In other words, without Googles blessing,

a video Advertising or Technology firms product cannot gain traction on YouTube; and a Distribution video company is competing head-on with the No. 1 and No. 2 search destinations online (with YouTube being the second largest search engine) and the No. 1 video site online.

One can cling to the fact that unless youre a Top 10 player according to comScore youre doomed, but I would argue that if you operate in Technology, Distribution or Advertising, unless youre name is Google or YouTube, you might not be spared, either.

An Uphill Battle Meanwhile, Content companies can leverage YouTubes platform as they pose no threat to the GooTube machine.They augment it by providing professional content for marketers to advertise alongside of within YouTube.This being said, they are not completely immune either.So long as Google doesnt break down individual content producers on YouTube for comScore and Nielsen reporting, most of the content producers will will face an uphill battle convincing marketers that they are worthy of their request for proposals (RFPs) and ad dollars. So long as this is the reality, then indeed, Content companies are just as much at the mercy of GooTube as Technology, Distribution and Advertising firms are, albeit in a different way. The Power of the Platform A couple of years ago, VCs tripped over one another to fund Facebook-ecosystem start-ups. Facebook itself launched the fbFund, but recentlyadmitted that the fund was dead.Playing in Facebooks sandbox was challenging at best and daunting at worst. Yes, Zynga built a powerful company by leveraging Facebook, but diplomacy ran its course.For every Zynga there are hundreds of companies whose fate turned of a dime. Take, for example, Offerpal who laid staff off after Facebook threwitself into the arms of a competitor.Countless others never even made it into the limelight to begin with.It wasnt just Facebook; Twitter and Foursquare have all been cast as the flavordu jour. YouTube Remains the Biggest Platform of All, Maybe One company that has been overlooked as a potential platform for other startups to build a business on remains YouTube, which Google acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are fundamentally different: developers build apps on Facebook and Twitters platform; content producers create videos and distribute them across YouTube but conceptually, all three provide the backbone that helps monetize the creators brainchild. Why?One word: Advertising Videowhich is what constitutes YouTubes DNAis a natural canvas for advertising to flourish.Its important to note that social networking (Twitter, Facebook or Foursquares DNA) is the latest form of communication, and communication tools like email, instant messaging (and now tweeting) have rarely proven to be money makers in an ad-supported ecosystem. Ironically, yet fittingly, the fact that Google owns YouTube has proven to be a larger hindrance to technology companies than media companies. For media companies, YouTube absorbs expensive bandwidth costs and reduces marketing costs by providing a targeted and captive audience, leaving them only with the third major cost: content production itself. As such, while its true that size and reach are going to be a major hindrance for small and mid-sized video companies, regardless of whether theyre in Content, Technology, Distribution or Advertising, Id still rather be producing quality content. Whereas the Content firms (small, medium or large) can leverage the strengths of the other three to build valuable businesses, in Technology, Distribution and Advertising, unless you are No. 1 or No. 2, then you wont have the gunpowder to stay in the game. Photo credit: Flickr/Paulo Brando. [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/person/ashkan-karbasfrooshan,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/youtube" name="Ashkan Karbasfrooshan,YouTube"]

I promise this is my last word on the subject. I had already promised myself, actually, that I wouldnt write any more about my decision to quit Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare, Blippy, Yammer, Dopplr and every other social network other than Twitter. But then I added Twitter to the list deleting my 10,000 follower+ account and returning to more traditional blogging and suddenly all (social media) hell broke loose. For reasons I cant quite understand its not like Ive quit food or oxygen my inbox has since been flooded with emails. Some are just standard notes of congratulations for cutting the cord while others scream that Im a Luddite who doesnt get Twitter (by and large these are the same people who describe themselves as social media ninjas on their profiles: the modern day equivalent of those My other car is the Batmobile bumber stickers). The majority of messages, though, are from people who are strongly considering following my lead, but are worried that their body or mind might not be able to cope with the shock. How do I feel since quitting? Can I offer them any advice? The semi-amusing thing is, this isnt the first time Ive experienced this kind of email flood of congratulations, insults and pleas for guidance. It happened last October too: when I finally made the decision to quit drinking. Make of that what you will. The difference is that, back in October, I completely understood the tsunami of mail. Millions of people struggle with alcohol addiction and for those who do, its a serious problem. Any advice or encouragement could be the difference between life and death. Certainly it was for me. But giving up Twitter? Seriously? Are there really people who cant get out of bed in the morning without sending a 140 character update, just to stop their thumbs shaking from the night before? (The RT DTs?). Or addicts who surreptitiously tweet throughout the work day, from a phone hidden in their desk drawer, hoping that their workmates dont find out? People who are unable to stop at just one OH:, sending more and more before they blackout, ready to start the whole Bukowskian cycle again the next day? Judging by my inbox, the answer is yes, there are. But, unlike with drink, I dont feel their pain. In fact, giving up Twitter (and the rest) has been a veritable walk in the park. Ive barely suffered any withdrawal symptoms, I dont feel any sense of loss, and Ive certainly not found it any harder to enjoy parties or talk to women without a phone in my hand (and I say that as someone who not long ago started dating a flight attendant after I tweeted about her on a plane. Seriously: I had a problem.) I admit, though, it does feel odd. For more than two years Ive been accustomed to sending half a dozen tweets a day, whenever something even vaguely notable happened. Lunch with a friend? Tweet. See someone nearly get hit by a car? Tweet. Think of a funny (ish) joke? Tweet. Fight with a friend or loved-one? Cryptic tweet. Like a Japanese tourist compulsively photographing everything he sees, it was almost as if something didnt really happen unless it was captured in 140 characters and shared with the world. At a stroke, thats all changed. Now if I see someone nearly getting it by a car, my initial reaction is the same as before holy shit! someone just nearly got hit by a car! but that reaction remains inside my head. And yet, amazingly, even without my 140 character acts of vital citizen journalism the world has carried on turning. And what of jokes? Is my brain filling up with amusing observations and bons mots that, unless released, will cause it to haemorrhage? No. I just write them down in my notebook to be used later: an act which and this did surprise me gives me almost exactly the same satisfaction as sharing them with 10,000 followers. The only downside, really, is the occasionally jarring sense that something is missing from my enjoyment of an experience. An involuntary twitch as I reach for my phone and realise I dont do that any more. I imagine anyone who has quit smoking feels a similar way occasionally; particularly in postprandial or post-coital situations. But the feeling soon passes. Maybe I should start chewing gum? As for the benefits: theyve been both noticeable and persistent. For one thing Ive rediscovered the joy of making notes, and then refining those notes sharpening jokes and tweaking arguments, all using a pen and paper prior to publication. Ive also come to re-appreciate sharing thoughts with my actual friends taking the time to email or text or IM someone who I actually know in the real world, to share something I think they alone would enjoy or appreciate. Ive remembered what it feels like to laugh loudly at a joke without having to disrupt the flow of conversation for two minutes while I overhear it. Ive become closer to my real friends, and more distant from total strangers. Which seems like the right direction for things to be moving in. One of the other things Ive been asked probably fifty times if whether I expect to stick to my decision over the long-term or whether, like others who have tried to quit Twitter before me, Ill come crawling back in a few weeks. My knee-jerk response is to scream are you kidding me? Ive been sober for 312 days. If I dont miss that shit, then I think Ill be fine without knowing what Guy Kawasaki thinks about the world. (SPOILER ALERT: nothing) My more, uh, sober reaction, though, is disturbingly similar to the one I give about returning to the sauce: I dont know if Ill go back to it. Certainly my life is noticeably better without it, I have more time, Im closer to my friends and Im getting more work done. But who knows how Ill feel tomorrow? The only thing I do know is that, in terms of things that are actually hard to live without, Im far more likely to succumb to the craving for delicious, delicious beer before I surrender to the almost negligible desire to send another fucking tweet.

While not the biggest Microsoft-related lawsuit news of the day, Microsoft just announced that it wants to take its patent infringement case against XML purveyor i4i to the highest level, seeking review by US Supreme Court. Last May a federal court of appeals upheld the decision of a lower court that Microsoft had in fact infringed i4is XML patent (449), by introducing Microsoft WORD in 2003 and continuing the XML editing capabilities through 2007. Microsoft was ordered to pay i4i $290 million dollars in fees and alter Word. i4i CEO Loudon Owen responded to Microsofts petition for a writ of certiorari, This next step of filing a petition was anticipated indeed, proclaimed for months by Microsoft. We continue to be confident that i4i will prevail. The Supreme Court has yet to decide whether they will review the case.

View this document on Scribd [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/microsoft" name="Microsoft"]

Inventor: Paul Allen Filed: August 27, 2010 Abstract: A method for preventing innovation, specifically in the tech sector, by way of a dangerous misconception of what is patentable and a sadly overtaxed intellectual property regulatory system. Summary of the Invention: During a period of change and invention, ideas may occur to a person, and a few possible ways of manifesting those ideas. By instantly submitting a patent request, the person can secure as their own property not only the methods they have actually invented, but all possible derivatives and independent creations resembling said methods. After waiting a suitable period of time, during which the entire landscape of the industry may change, the patent holder then can exchange these patents for riches, while simultaneously nullifying the gains of a decentralized, idea-powered economy. Continue reading

Today on their blog, URL shortening service Bit.ly unveiled a cute new feature: Clickabit. Its a Twitter account that surfaces some of the surprising and bizarre links being shortened and shared across their network. But the feature also hints at something weve been talking about for a while: Bit.ly Now. Were currently hard at work on several systems that will expose some of the interesting data were playing with. In the meantime, wed like to introduce @clickabit, Bit.ly writes in the post. They key part is obviously the first half. Weve known for a while that Bit.ly has been planning some sort of service to expose the best links being shared across the web kind of like Tweetmeme or Digg. But Bit.ly links are shared on email and Facebook too; it would be about more than Twitter. Actually, Bit.ly Now has existed for sometime on Twitter. But today, Bit.ly switched that account over to be the Clickabit one (the old tweets from 2009 when Bit.ly was using the account to surface popular Bit.ly links have been transfered over as well). They still control the @bitlynow account, and have switched the icon. The only tweet from the account now reads Follow the puffer fish to @clickabit! It would seem that theyre finally preparing to do something more with this account. Something like a system to expose some fo the interesting data weve playing with, perhaps. Its an interesting time in the popular link surfacing space. Tweetmeme is in the process of morphing into something else following Twitters launch of their own tweet button. Meanwhile, Digg has just launched the latest version of their site (version 4), in an attempt to try and recapture the link sharing crown. Then of course theres Facebook. That Like button is everywhere.

Some may get crushes on Hollywood stars. Some get crushes on blue, fictional Aliens. Sarah gets crushes on countries. And right now she is obsessed with Kenya. The closest shes been is Rwanda, but at Cape Towns Net Prophet conference last spring, several speakers made a compelling case for why Kenya not South Africawas the up-and-coming African tech hot spot to watch. One of those making the argument was Stef Magdalinski, well known in the UK as founder of Upmystreet.com and former CEO of Moo.com, but who last year who relocated to Africa to run Nairobi-based Mocality. We decidedin part to shut Sarah up about Kenyato invite Magdalinski to come on Why Is This News and talk about why he left the cozy confines of London and whether the Kenya-hype is justified. [SPOILER ALERT: Sarah is planning a trip to Kenya.] [tc_ooyala code="szbGRvMToxDAF72SuauqRZRgZorVRi61"]

It looks like that Xerox IP isnt the only thing Steve Jobs appropriated for Apple. Here he is in all his chubby 1997 glory, introducing the TBWA/Chiat Day produced Think Different campaign with an unattributed quote from poet Jack Kerouac. People who think they are crazy enough to change the world, are the ones who actually do. Whats most jarring about this video is the chasm between what Jobs holds as Apples core values in 1997 and those of the patent hungry-monopoly that is the Apple of today. As one commenter pointed out: Think different As long as we approve your application for download on the app store.

Or, Unless youre Adobe. Via: Hacker News [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/person/steve-jobs,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/apple" name="Steve Jobs,Apple"]

When it comes to online video, there is YouTube and then there is everyone else. Increasingly, videos on the service are getting a million or more views and some stars (like that Bieber kid) are getting made. So just upload a video to YouTube and became the next big thing, right? Well, not exactly. While there are an increasing number of massively huge videos on YouTube, theres also just more videos in general. And despite what you may think, not all of them can be watched every second of the day by everyone on the planet. In fact, there are plenty of and very likely more videos on the service with very, very few views. And believe it or not, there are some with zero views. Thankfully, there is a Tumblr blog to highlights those. 0 views is an excellent collection of the best of the worst of YouTube or, the best of the bottom of the barrel, as they put it. Here youll find 12 year olds walking around vlogging and putting pads inside of shoes. Or youll find Get it granddaughter! Or the dog drinking cola. To be honest, the best part of this site is that if it werent for the name 0 Views, I could easily be led to believe that each of these videos was a viral success rather than a video with zero views. Also, thanks to this site, several of these videos are now getting thousands of views. Awesome.

Earlier today I reported on a class action lawsuit against Facebook which argued that when it comes to teenagers, the social network should not be able to use their name or likeness to promote either Facebook itself or on behalf of advertisers without parental consent. If you dont like the law, change the law, John C. Torjesen, one of the lawyers bringing the suit, tells me. But I think people like that law. There are two main ways he says Facebook is using the names and likenesses of minors for commercial endorsements. One is through search. If you search for a teenager on Google, supposedly you will find a link to their Facebook profile, which brings you to a landing page enticing you to sign up or sign into Facebook to get the full profile. But Facebook says this is just not the way it works. A Facebook spokesperson provided the following screenshot at left (click to enlarge), which I will call Exhibit A. It shows the part of Facebooks privacy policy stating that the names or shared items of anyone under 18 are blocked from public search. This isnt available if you are under 18, its privacy policy states. The Facebook spokesperson elaborates: We believe this suit is completely without merit and we will fight it vigorously. The complaint misunderstands the law, its intent and the way Facebook works. For example, plaintiffs assert that minors are marketing Facebook through search engines but we do not allow minors to include their profiles in search engines. You can still find teenagers profiles and names turn up in search, but often that is because they lied about their age in Facebook. Torjesen would have to show this happening for a minor who Facebook knows to be a minor. So Exhibit A might help them there. This does not, however, address those instances when a teenager likes an ad and that is shared in his or her stream, or ads targeted to people using other friends who are minors as endorsers (if that is even possible). Again Torjesen would have to show specific examples of ads like this and confirm that all the teenagers didnt lie to Facebook about their age. That might be difficult to prove.
The one issue that might remain is when a teenager likes an ad, and that ad is linked to a Facebook page, and then it shows up in his or her friends streams that he liked that brand or product. Facebook has not answered my questions about whether or not that can happen, and my guess is that it can. But then we get back to my original question: how many teenagers actually like ads? [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook" name="Facebook"]

Last fall, social gaming powerhouse Zynga sued rival gaming developer Playdom for an array of charges including misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and breach of the duty of loyalty in short Zynga accused Playdom of stealing its confidential Zynga Playbook. Today, [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/zynga,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/playdom" name="Zynga,Playdom"]

Earlier today, Erick wrote about Windows Live Sync becoming Windows Live Mesh. Basically, its a service that allows people to sync files between PCs and with the cloud. As a product, it sounds great as Erick says, theres definitely a huge need for someone to do this right. But as usual with Microsoft, I have to ask: what on Earth is up with the branding? Yes Microsoft needed to combine Live Sync and Live Mesh as they were similar products. But doesnt Sync make a lot more sense than Mesh? What the hell is a mesh? I had to Google it. Im going to assume its in reference to mesh networking from Wikipedia: Mesh networking is a type of networking wherein each node in the network may act as an independent router, regardless of whether it is connected to another network or not. Okay, fine. But this is a product Microsoft hopes consumers will use. Dont we think sync makes a lot more sense than mesh? I simply cant envision a future where a parent reminds a child to mesh something before leaving the house. But I can certainly see a parent reminding a child to sync something. Okay, sure, its still fine if they use sync as a verb. But if Microsoft really hopes to drive usage among consumers they seriously need to rethink just about all of their branding. Just recently, weve narrowly avoided a new mobile phone platform that was almost called Windows Phone 7 Series. To be honest, Im still not sure if that was supposed to be the name of the OS or the phones themselves. Im not sure Microsoft was clear on that either. Heres what David Webster, the chief strategy officer of Microsofts central marketing group told TechFlash in April: Windows Phone is an OS, its not a phone. The idea was that we needed a handle to refer to the devices that ran Windows Phone 7 the family, in essence. Now, in a lot of the coverage and a lot of the usage cases, that context, I think, got lost. People got to thinking that the software was Windows Phone 7 Series, when really that was just an effort to refer to the devices that would be running Windows Phone 7. Um, what? I mean, I get it. Sort of. Maybe. Thankfully, Microsoft dropped the Series nonsense and now the whole thing is just Windows Phone 7. And thats the name of the OS, I think. But it seems like the old moniker, Windows Mobile, was better suited for software.I understand that Microsoft wanted to break away from theswan-divingWindows Mobile platform, but then why keep the numerical reference? Windows Phone 7 follows Windows Mobile 6. Again, the hope is that consumers will use these things. But Microsoft sure isnt going to make it easy. Anyway, lets go back to Windows Live services for a second. I understand that with the majority of Microsoft business wrapped around Windows, they want to keep that branding intact. But increasingly, these services have nothing to do with actual windows as in, desktop windows. I supposed its fine to tie it to the name of their OS even though many feel the OS as we know it will begin to decline over the next decade but wrapping in the whole Live element with Windows just makes the branding unseemly in a lot of cases. Just check out this list. There are like 20-something of these various Windows Live services. My favorite is Windows Live SkyDrive. It sounds like a synth band from the 80s. Then there are secondary services for feature phones like Windows Live Calendar Mobile, Windows Live Home Mobile, and Windows Live SkyDrive Mobile. You get the idea. Or do you? Windows Live itself came about as Microsoft wanted to rebrand from MSN as the age of the Internet was in full swing. But arguably the key component of that, search, has already morphed a couple times away from being Windows Live Search. The artist formerly known as MSN Search became Live Search for a bit, before eventually giving way to Bing. I dont think its a completecoincidencethat as soon as Microsoft dropped the whole Windows Live aspect of the name for search, the product started to take off. Sure, a lot (and maybe most) of that was marketing spend. But thats kind of the point its easier to market something called Bing rather than Windows Live Search. Or worse, just imagine if Microsoft had gone with Windows Live Bing Im sure it was discussed. So if Microsoft really wanted to go with the whole Mesh branding, maybe it should just be Mesh and not Windows Live Mesh. Or at least just make it Windows Mesh or Live Mesh why do we need all these words? And why do we need Live at all? Live.com, which Microsoft owns, currently points to Hotmail. As the worlds most popular email service, Hotmail seems to work as a name. Of course, Microsoft has tried to rebrand it as Windows Live Hotmail for no apparent reason. And they also have Windows Live Mail, apparently. I could go on and on and on but my head is spinning trying to make sure Im getting these names right. Theres Microsoft Office Live and theres Office Web Apps. Office Web Apps work on SkyDrive, I think but I dont know what that means. Microsoft Office Live contains both Office Live Workspace and Office Live Small Business. Dont ask me what either does. All I want to know is if I can hook up Microsoft Office Live with Office Web Apps using Windows Live Mesh, and then port everything to my Windows Phone 7 Series phone using my Windows Live SkyDrive account or just my Windows Live ID. In other words, will it sync?

Later this year, California residents will be voting on Proposition 19, a measure that would legalize marijuana in the state. And, given how much controversy revolves around the issue (think of the children!), were bound to see plenty of ads in the run-up to the November 2 election. Thing is, you wont be seeing ads in favor of legalization on some of the webs most popular sites, because their parent companies are afraid of being associated with a pro-marijuana stance. The issue has come to a head over at Reddit, which reported to its users earlier today that its parent company Cond Nast would not allow it to accept paid ads in support of Prop. 19. Redditors predictably rebelled, voting up numerous stories in favor of the law (see screenshot below). And now, in a daring move, Reddit is fighting back too: its announced that it will begin running ads supporting Proposition 19, free of charge. Cond Nast was afraid of taking money in support of Prop. 19, so Reddit is making sure that doesnt happen. Its a ballsy move, but Reddit would have faced a significant sustained backlash (and users perpetually upvoting Prop 19 stories on the site) if it bowed to Conds wishes. Weve reached out to Reddit for more details and will update if we get any. This isnt the first time pro-Prop. 19 ads have had issues with a popular social site. Earlier this week the Huffington Post reported that Facebook was barring ads in favor of Proposition 19 because the image of a pot leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies.

[crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/reddit,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/condenast" name="Reddit,Cond Nast"]

The entire Internet (aka Facebook, Google, Apple AOL, Facebook, ebay, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube) has just been served with a vague and vast patent violation suit from Microsofts co-founder Paul Allen. As patent suits are notoriously unpopular, the response from tech pundits has been apprehensive. Now the companies named are starting to punch back, a representative from Facebook told TechCrunch, We believe this suit is completely without merit and we will fight it vigorously. A representative from Google also commented on the validity of the suit. This lawsuit against some of Americas most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace. Innovation not litigation is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world. According to the WSJ, Mr. Allen, a pioneer of computer software, didnt develop any of the technology himself but owns the patents. In the suit, Interval Licensing LLC, a company owned by Allen, lists violations of four decade old patents (6,263,507, 6,034,652, 6,788,314, 6,757,682) that seem to cover basic operations of almost any Internet company including Google, Facebook and Microsoft who unsurprisingly is not listed by Allen as a defendant especially patent #657. It also seems as though patents #657 and #314 are exactly the same.

Patent #507 Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data. Patent #657 Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device. Patent #314 Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device. Patent #682 Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.

Defendant Facebook has infringed and continues to infringe one or more claims of the 682 patent. Facebook is liable for infringing the 682 patent under 35 U.S.C. 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent. Defendant Google has infringed and continues to infringe one or more claims of the 682 patent. Google is liable for infringing the 682 patent under 35 U.S.C. 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent. Earlier this month TechCrunchs Vivek Wadha wrote about why patents in the technology industry are somewhat absurd. But in software these are just nuclear weapons in an arms race. They dont foster innovation, they inhibit it. Thats because things change rapidly in this industry. Speed and technological obsolescence are the only protections that matter. Fledgling startups have to worry more about some big player or patent troll pulling out a big gun and bankrupting them with a frivolous lawsuit than they do about someone stealing their ideas. Paul Allen might have just provided us with the most extreme proof of Wadhas argument yet.