http://martysmind.com Marty Poulin's Random Thoughts Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:34:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Wherever you are, with friends or family, we wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a fine new year. Happy Holidays, and remember to Drink Eggnog Responsibly! (Or end up like the poor sod above) Share This http://martysmind.com/2008/12/26/79/ Yelp has been growing at a good clip and in the last couple days touted how well they were doing. This growth was probably a big factor in Yelp's rumored $200 million valuation on its fourth round in February. A lot of this growth has been fueled by ... http://martysmind.com/2008/11/20/yelp-needs-help/ On June 25th Dr. Robert Lai (Mr. Lai Chi Tau) Chief Scientist of China's Cyber Recreational District (CRD) passed away in his sleep at the age of 50. I met Robert at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo (VWCE) and in November I had the privilege to be invited ... http://martysmind.com/2008/06/29/farewell-to-china-and-my-freind-robert/ A recent discussion about what critical mass is for a social network site started me thinking about the difference between tipping points and critical mass. Technically both are defined in similar words (sometimes considered synonymous), but they do have different connotations. A tipping point can be defined as "the culmination ... http://martysmind.com/2008/04/03/the-tipping-point/ It comes to no surprise to many that I am an ardent follower of the economic trends and business models that are evolving online. Among other things this affords is a perspective on what happens when you take traditional media and services and move them online where the cost of ... http://martysmind.com/2008/03/27/the-free-economy/ Today there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about what uses of GPL’d software might compel a company to open source their software. Having run into this issue at Disney, Sony and several startups, this article is meant to clarify my own understanding as well as hopefully help a ... http://martysmind.com/2008/02/10/sleeping-with-the-gpl/ “It” is a paradigm shift. A concept that may be elusive, visceral and something that we need to understand completely to be part of the conversation. We see the symptoms in sales statistics and market reactions and try to understand it in terms of what we already know. ... http://martysmind.com/2008/02/02/getting-it/ One of the realities that some may have to face when trying to get a company funded is that although your company rocks, another company may just be rock stars. BrightQube is one of the companies I would feel hard pressed to compete with if I were in their space. ... http://martysmind.com/2008/01/31/brightqube-blowing-the-bell-curve/ I have attended a few events for Angel Investors this week to get a feel for the community and how the system works here in LA. While I got a great perspective at the Tech Coast Angels Fast Pitch Competition, today’s time at the Pasadena Angels Screening Event cemented some ... http://martysmind.com/2008/01/30/talking-to-angels/ Last night I went to the Tech Coast Angles Fast Pitch competition at UCLA. Overall I thought it was good event that gave me a bit more insight into what the organization is looking for and how they function. You get a fair amount of access to practical ... http://martysmind.com/2008/01/29/tech-coasts-best-fast-pitch/ ___________________________________________________ This year is set to be even more exciting than the last, so fasten your seat belts and have a great 2008! Happy New Year! -Marty Share This http://martysmind.com/2008/01/01/happy-new-year/ Jeremiah Owyang posted a question about how we define "Online Communities". In referencing Jake Mckee's post on the subject he wonders is Twitter a community? Before we answer that question we have to define what a "Community" is? As has been pointed out by Robin Hamman, "Community" "has dozens ... http://martysmind.com/2007/12/29/what-is-community/ To a previous post, MaxS commented that my reaction to SPAM was different than his and particularly to that of teenagers and young adults (Millennials). SPAM is in the eye of the beholder. The point of the other article is not whether we should consider one thing or ... http://martysmind.com/2007/12/28/what-is-spam/ Holidays are a time to reassess and reconnect with friends and community. Wherever you are, with friends or family, we wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a fine new year. Merry Christmas, and remember to Drink Eggnog Responsibly! ___________________________________________________ Please note that Christmas is in fact not only a celebration ... http://martysmind.com/2007/12/25/happy-holidays/ Moore's Law wins. In a recent twitter conversation Jeremiah Owyang asked the question, " Did we break Dunbar's Number of 150 members per social network? Or are tools more efficient?" The reality is that we have been pushing Dunbar's number since we first invented the little black book. By offloading ... http://martysmind.com/2007/12/12/moores-law-vs-dunbars-number/ I was saddened today when I came across a story about the death of Chuck Riechers, a person I had worked with and respected. Chuck was a good guy who was incredibly smart and capable. One of the few straight shooters I know in Washington. He not only had ... http://martysmind.com/2007/12/04/rip-the-last-honerable-man-in-washington/ We have been making a lot of noise about the long tail for a while now in our little world of Web 2.0 and it struck me this morning while reading a post by Gordon Haff that we don't really talk about where it comes from. The long tail has many ... http://martysmind.com/2007/11/28/who-is-the-long-tail/ A friend on Facebook suggested that Amazon's Kindle was perhaps the perfect eBook reader and worth a try. I haven't tired it.. and wont. The reason is that I have been using the hacked books app fro the iPhone for a while now. The iPhone has a great screen, ... http://martysmind.com/2007/11/24/amazon-kindle-too-little-too-late/ For little while now I have been dabbling in the open source content management framework Drupal . Drupal promises ( in time) to allow practically anyone to be able to set up and mange complex social web sites with more features than a swiss army knife. Today a friend ... http://martysmind.com/2007/09/28/drupal-is-growing-up/ When we "follow" people in Twitter we either want them to be part of our virtual co-presence and conversation or are subscribing to broadcasts we find interesting. If you use Twitter and you are noticing a high noise level then its time to ask yourself if the people you are ... http://martysmind.com/2007/09/15/twitter-housecleaning/ OK, so I am terribly fond of sarcasm, you are only surprised if you don't know me. That said I think Ben Croshaw (Yahtzee) is absolutely brilliant in this video review of Psychonauts. Depending on your tolerance of Sarcasm your mileage may vary. Share This http://martysmind.com/2007/08/24/zero-punctuation-psychonauts-brilliant/ From time to time I have read Guy Kawasaki's blog. It was usually engaging, informative even if I didn't always agree. It also exposed sides of the venture beat that I wasn’t familiar with. I came to respect Guy and still do. When Guy started his new project ... http://martysmind.com/2007/08/12/truemors-and-guys-clay-feet/ Over at Wired, Melinda Wenner writes about transcranial magnetic stimulation where with a few Transcranial Zaps they can possibly treat migraines, depression, help you sleep better and even make you smarter. Inducing brain activity may be a good idea in some cases such as brain disorders as exemplified by the coma ... http://martysmind.com/2007/08/06/15/ On GigaOM Carleen blogged that she thought that Club Penguin sold out to Disney and it might ruin Club Penguin. I think she came close on a couple points, but missed the bigger picture. Disney is by its nature a big lumbering beast that is mired in bureaucracy. ... http://martysmind.com/2007/08/05/is-disney-good-for-club-penguin/ If you have been curiously watching the news around Club Penguin you may have wondered aloud, is this really worth $500-$700 million? The answer is it depends on who you are. Certainly on its face the projected revenues by themselves don't seam to make sense, especially as was ... http://martysmind.com/2007/08/01/penguins-disney-duh/