Monthly Archives: February 2007

Scraping Ideas

After the Adobe Engage event a few of us grabbed drinks at the Jade Bar. The conversation spanned the gamut from RIA design patterns to magic tricks (thanks to Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering). Many interesting stories were told. … Continue reading

Posted in Adobe, startups, VC, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Adobe Engage Notes

The Adobe Engage event worked out well. The audience was sharp and with a broad range of perspectives. A few interesting points worth noting: Apollo Apollo comes with the WebKit engine. This is telling of Adobe’s ultimate desire to let … Continue reading

Posted in Adobe, Mobile, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

MySpace Doesn’t Want You to Make Money

In the continuing saga of MySpace vs. third-parties-who-want-to-make-a-buck, MySpace recently blocked Revver. TechCrunch got MySpace PR to explain why it happened. If a widget violates our TOS, we block them. Breaches would include any person, widget or software that violates … Continue reading

Posted in Digital Media, MySpace, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Adobe Engage

I’m in SF this week to attend Adobe Engage on Tuesday, a private all-day “influence the influencers” event. The focus is on the Adobe platform, encompassing both online and enterprise technologies. (I don’t think the Mobile group will be represented–they … Continue reading

Posted in Adobe, Flex, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Guy Kawasaki: Why Good Strategies Fail

Guy’s post came on a day when I was engaged in a conversation with two separate startups about the truths and myths of startup strategy. This is what I call the strategy paradox. That is, the same strategies that have … Continue reading

Posted in startups, VC, Venture Capital | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Beyond Bootstrapping: The Third Way

Finding the right trade-off between bootstrapping and raising money early is not easy, in particular if these are the only two available choices. One of the great thing about good entrepreneurs and VCs is that they find ways to create … Continue reading

Posted in startups, VC, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

The Ideal Mobile Software Stack

I’m a contributing blogger to the OpenGardens blog. My latest post there is The Ideal Mobile Software Stack where I’m advocating a layered Linux/Java/Flash|AJAX architecture for high end feature phones and smartphones. In terms of presentation, I’m slightly biased towards … Continue reading

Posted in Mobile, Web 2.0 | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Making Money From the Paradox of Choice

In parallel to 3GSM, Ogilvy runs a telco conference in the beautiful Dolce Sitges Hotel, about 35km from Barcelona where the main even is. Sitges is a vacation town for the Barcelonians, a quiet place fit for a more exclusive … Continue reading

Posted in Advertising, Digital Media, Mobile, startups, VC, Venture Capital, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Lessons From Allaire

I didn’t know that Macromedia (now Adobe) would release the video from ColdFusion’s 10th birthday party but here it is on Google Video. Several of the members of the founding team (JJ and Jeremy Allaire, Charles Teague, Adam Berrey and … Continue reading

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The Ecosystem Test

Roaming the 3GSM halls and talking to operators and vendors, one thing becomes painfully clear: many players in the mobile space have never experienced an open ecosystem evolved through market forces. This has an effect on how they see the … Continue reading

Posted in Mobile | Tagged | 3 Comments