Things I come across in my free time

ROTFL. Bravo Michael Lewis

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNvAqh8kvSkI&refer=home

My favorite quote: "Of course, no major airline would ever consciously set out to kill you. But..."

How Open will Facebook be well all is said and done?

I am truly shocked to be saying this, but I am kind of in agreement with Valleywag on this one. It really was only a matter of time before Facebook replicated applications that (a) were seeing significant adoption and (b) were core to their user experience around communication utility. I don't fully agree with the premise that all application developers are doomed, but I am skeptical of investing in applications if their sole purpose is for use within a social network. There needs to be an out of network value proposition, whether it is in the digital world, mobile world or offline. More innovation is going on outside of Facebook than inside of it, which will continue, but it is interesting to see how the new regime at Facebook may be limiting the value of that innovation as it is showing signs of closing its highly touted open doors to recreate an AOL 1.0 like walled garden, albeit in the Web 2.0 era.

Hulu and Arrested Development

I saw Jason Killar, CEO of Hulu, speak at the Federated Media, Conversational Media Summit in NY last month. While the meat of the conference was the panel discussions, the company and product demos were pretty impressive. In addition to Hulu, I saw a short demo of the Spore Creature Generator. Not going to lie, I really want to play Spore, but am frightened by the amount of time I see myself spending playing, so may resist. We'll see

Anyway, Hulu is slick, and Jason was great. I liked the fact that he has a concise view of their value proposition, what he calls their "rallying cry" and their guiding design principles. I see all well represented in their product development, which i can't say for all companies. Here is a link to the video of his demo at the conference, as well as a Hulu embed of one of my favorite Arrested Development episodes. Love the search features in the embedded video player

Quick recap before i get back into my blog...

I got engaged. Yep. Wow. The anticipation of the wedding is more exciting than i ever expected. Can't really describe it, so I won't try. 

Approximately the same time I got engaged, MSFT made an unsolicited bid for YHOO. I think that most blogs and media outlets have done more than enough to cover that drama, so I wont go into it.

Since then, I have visited Philly, NYC (3 times), Hudson, Los Angeles and am about to head to Scranton. My wedding is less that 3 months away, my bachelor party is less than two months away and the YHOO shareholder vote is less than 1 month away. So why, you may ask, haven't i posted on any of the past or upcoming events? I can't explain it. Just didn't really have an interest. I was more focused on my engagement and traveling, and less on the web in general. The MSFT bid and subsequent drama that has consumed most media channels for the past 3 months has really left a bad taste in my mouth. It was refreshing to step back and not spend 24/7 online.

But as the summer starts to kick into high gear, i am feeling the urge to re-engage with my blog. Lots happening inside and outside of work, so more to come

Everything in New York is tougher, even the cream

I got to spend a couple days in New York this week. I really enjoy my trips to New York, not only because I am from the East Coast and like being back, but because they are generally exciting trips. On one hand, I am definitely more efficient, given that I have meetings spread throughout the day with great people on the East Coast and still work with people in my office on the West Coast until the end of their day, so I get a solid 12-13 hrs of quality work done. On the other hand, there is more to do outside of work so I end up wearing myself out by burning the candle at both ends, but have a great time doing. That is why New York is so exciting. The people have more endurance and there is just more to do. But what I didn't realize until this trip is that everything else in NY has more endurance too. I was at the office and opened up the refrigerator to get some half and half for my coffee, checked the Sell By date and it was...wait for it...here's the punchline...DECEMBER 17! Umm...its November 16th. Thats a month away! When I buy half and half in San Francisco, is has a shelf life of about a week. I guess there are some things that I have grown accustomed to on the West Coast and fresh natural food is one of them. I am not going to use half and half today...

Silversun Pickups at the Fillmore...Finally!

I have attempted to see the Silversun Pickups twice over the past year. The first time, they were the opening act for Ok Go and Snow Patrol at the Bill Graham Civic Center in San Francisco, and for some reason, they decided to go on stage at 7:30PM even though the show started at 8:30PM, so I missed them. I never really figured out why that happened, but needless to say, it was a bit frustrating. Ok Go made things whole, because they were incredible. Snow Patrol...what I expected. Really good show, but didn't blow me away.

The second time was at Live 105 BFD at the Shoreline Amphitheater. The whole reason for going was to see Silversun Pickups and Cold War Kids.  Alas. Had to work for most of that Saturday and missed both bands. I did get to see Social Distortion, which was very entertaining, and Bloc Party who had their show cut short because Social Distortion went over their time. Like I said. Pretty entertaining.

I will finally get to see them this Friday at the Fillmore, which is probably my favorite venue in San Francisco. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will be worth the wait, but fairly confident I won't be disappointed.

The horizon for online Music

A couple things that have occured in the past few weeks that have given rise to some excitement in the hallway discussions about the online music industry. Two of the primary events: Radiohead's album release via its website, with Oasis and Jamiroquai following their lead, and Nine Inch Nails breaking away from the labels with some rumors of other notables following their lead. 

I will leave the bulk of the editorial to Ian and last100 who did a pretty good job of summarizing things. Truth is that there are a number of ways that the online industry can evolve from this point, and I think that Ian is in one of the best positions to be catalyst. I have had the pleasure of sharing thoughts and ideas about music, Yahoo! and technology in general with Ian for the past couple years, and although I wasn't in the audience for this presentation, am excited about sitting down with him in the coming week to talk about the "next 8 years". Take a read, its an energizing perspective

Gooooooooaaaallll!

calcio balilla, originally uploaded by letisssia.

Its painful to watch and the perfect storm is forming

Redskins 20 - Eagles 12

I am proud to be an Eagles fan. I am. But with last night's painful loss to the Redskins, I can't help but wonder if I will have anything to cheer about this season. They are going to win games, they are. They have been a perennial NFC championship team and that hasn't changed this season, so things will go there way as the season progresses. But I am not very confident that will happen often. They look rusty. And now they are tied for last in the NFC East with the Cowboys 2-0. Aggh.  Next week needs to be a win and I am going to the Sunday night Giants game in two weeks. I better have something to cheer about while in NYC, or it will be a long flight back to San Francisco on Monday morning thinking about how it will be impossible to have a shot in the division, starting 0-3.

Its a been a while...sorry about that

My last two posts date back to July, and they are simple links with no real opinion or dialogue, which is a bit upsetting. I am happy to say that my summer was packed with travel, personal and work related, and that August was one of the most interesting months I have had at Yahoo. Unfortunately, that should mean that I am posting more, but I haven't. My bad. A couple things I need to do on this blog: begin connecting and linking to people that I find myself admiring, listening to and enjoying, and start speaking about what I learn about or come across day to day. I am probably going to start writing about non-work related activities more often, as I am less restricted in publishing about those topics.

Apologies to the handful of folks that check in on this blog and haven't scene much recently. That will change...more to come soon