August 20th, 2013 § § permalink
Fred Wilson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We launched a fun new featurette today—the tech circle. You can read more about it on our main blog, and on Fred Wilson’s blog, but in essence it is a showcase for our latest product, the content discovery network.
This was my first product launch again in years, so I couldn’t sleep really. But not simply because something was going to go live.
Since Fred was leading the pack with his blog post, and since Fred blogs early in the morning, we had to flip the switch on his blog before he wakes up. Because all blogging tools are somewhat old, the best way to do that is to actually put some code into the design of the site.
I’ve had Fred’s
google analytics access for a while now, and now he shared his blog access as well. So I had the honor to hack my way trough Typepad’s opaque templating system. Of course I first tried on a test blog, and of course the templates changed on the live blog as well while I was still figuring out how it all works. Hopefully nobody noticed. 🙂
Anyways, our recommendations have now connected together a group of very interesting product people from very different backgrounds. Would love to hear your comments on it, and would love to hear if anyone would want to start a new circle with some of your blogging friends.
March 18th, 2013 § § permalink
I gave several book interviews since starting Zemanta and moving to NYC, most of them in the last 18 months. Lots of authors are exploring the technology revolution that we were fortunate to participate in.
Books are coming this year, discussing it from various angles – comparatively with .com boom, the rise of entrepreneurship Europe, new entrepreneurship as a lifestyle, … It is no surprise to me, that the first book to actually publish is the one specifically celebrating NY tech community and agility and resilience.
Tech and the City became available on Kindle two days ago, and hardcopies are coming in April. I received the notification from the authors this morning, and already I’m half way trough it. It’s that good.
It starts with an amazingly inspiring foreword by Fred Wilson, which alone is worth the $2.99, as it perfectly outlines the mental model of the greatest city on the planet. After that, the book only gets better, weaving the story trough fragments of conversations with participants in the ecosystem, rather than lazily throwing together yet another series of interviews. This enables the book to read like a travel diary, rather than a self-hype-help business manual.
For the finish, the authors have collected a very comprehensive list of the NY tech ecosystem institutions – vc’s, events, co-working spaces and competitions. They have also published them on the official blog of the book.
It’s cheap and it’s short, and it’s awesome. Go read it and learn how you should be thinking about helping entrepreneurs in your cities / countries.
May 8th, 2012 § Comments Off on Union Square Ventures adds technology ‘advocate’ to its payroll – how about other experts? § permalink
“WE ARE SAVING THROUGH PAYROLL SAVINGS” – NARA – 516067 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Great and important move, that USV probably decided to do because it has to be done right and there is nobody else who would take it on themselves.
It’s an established fact that technology and politics are increasingly finding themselves at loggerheads with one another, as issues of privacy, piracy, and copyright, not to mention net neutrality and media consolidation cut a larger profile on the national stage.
via: thenextweb.com
I was actually thinking recently that a different kind of activity would make sense for early stage VC – provide experts in residence for their startups, for instance: cutting edge virality ninjas, scalability/big data experts, startups finance expert… these guys should be seasoned, amazing, unaffordable by a normal startup, but if shared amongst a portfolio, they could really make a huge difference.
March 5th, 2012 § Comments Off on The Content Industry has Made Everybody a Pirate [Video] § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
not sure why i skipped this when it was happening, but Fred is totally right on this one.
Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, passionately argues that “everybody is a pirate” of copyrighted digital content because internet content isn’t convenient for consumption. The content delivery system is flawed, he believes, and “in a world where everybody is breaking the law, you got to look at the law: is it the right law?
via: www.geeksaresexy.net
his argument reminds me of public trash cans situation – if you feel people should trow less garbage on the streets, the first thing to do is to put up more trash bins, not increase the fines.
February 17th, 2012 § Comments Off on blacklisting pirates? § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
This is dangerous thinking:
SOPA foe Fred Wilson says everyone is a pirate, but supports a blacklist for pirate sites | VentureBeat
“If we created an independent body that essentially created a black and white list,†Wilson told a crowd of media executives at the Paley Center in New York. “The black list are those sites we all know are bad news. We all know who the good guys are who are truly licensed and are operating legitimately. And we know who the bad guys are.†CNET reports that Wilson named Hulu, Netflix, Rdio, Spotify and Rhapsody among the good guys.
venturebeat.com
I highly respect Fred’s intuition for solving complex problems. he is usually right about these things, but blacklisting is dangerous per-se, because it’s really a question about authority – who could possibly be authoritative enough to judge if a site is a ‘well known pirate’?
I will not state all the obvious examples from history where this type of thinking went awry, but the fact that it is even debated is an indicator that the topic is important. engage with it before it’s too late.
October 6th, 2010 § § permalink
OK, So I have a wish.
I wish there was a publisher who would gather best posts from best business/entrepreneurship/marketing bloggers and publish them as an eBook, so that fresh entrepreneurs can read all about their future in advance. I guarantee it will boost innovation like anything!
Here’s my list, add to it, and if we come up with decent Table of contents, maybe it will write itself 😉
