Monthly Archives: September 2006

Bad Patents and Patent Trolls

I was on a panel on that topic at the MIT Emerging Technologies Conference today. The panel was nicely balanced with multiple perspectives from large and small companies, the EFF, investors, lawyers and the press. The audience asked great questions. … Continue reading

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Amazon Web Services & Standards?

I’ve been thinking more about AWS since Jeff Bezos’s talk yesterday. Whenever infrastructure outsourcing comes up, the question of standards is not far away. Amazon can wait for its services to become de facto standards or they can lead with … Continue reading

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eBayMatchUps: Meg Whitman vs. Fruit Helmet Cat

Smart people inside eBay have been looking at ways to drive more traffic to the site and figure out what’s on the minds of people in their community. One of the cool ideas must have been to do eBayMatchUps. Apparently, … Continue reading

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Spam Comes to Ning

I got my first spam “friend” request on Ning. It was a standard affiliate scheme. The Ning app is populated with a ton of content. The programmability of a social infrastructure platform is a mixed blessing as it lowers the cost of doing … Continue reading

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Jeff Bezos on Amazon Web Services (Mechanical Turk, S3 and EC2)

I’m at the MIT Emerging Technologies Conference today. Jeff Bezos was the first keynote speaker. His talk focused on Amazon Web Services (AWS), in particular, Mechanical Turk, S3 and EC2. Jeff didn’t talk about the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), which is … Continue reading

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Alan Greenspan On SOX & Software

Last night I went to a Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MTLC) event featuring Alan Greenspan as the speaker. The format was 60min Q&A lead by Paul Denninger, Chairman of Jeffries Broadview. Paul did a great job of keeping Greenspan away from economic … Continue reading

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The Third Place

Jason Fry has an insightful post on the role MMOGs and online communities can play in our lives. Your first place is your home. Your second place is your work. Then there’s the more-elusive third place — somewhere you feel … Continue reading

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E-Commerce 2.0

The “2.0” in the name is, of course, a play on the 2.0 naming craze of the day but the subject of the article I wrote for Web 2.0 Journal is real (see “E-Commerce 2.0” – The Velvet Revolution). I … Continue reading

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Oblatoo & Google: a New Twist on Search and Charity

Well, some folks from my high school, Atlantic College in Wales, have developed an interesting concept. Oblatoo, a non-profit, uses Google search results and for every search you make one penny is pledged to a charity of your choice. Because … Continue reading

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Coincidence?

Interesting how Microsoft is ramping up the conversations around the Zune rollout right after the Apple announcements of the new iPods, which came out yesterday…

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