Month: October 2008

  • Change is in the Air

    By now, people who follow me on Twitter or other places around the web may have picked up on the fact that I’m going through changes right now. I guess everyone is. The economy is bad. Jobs are hard to come by. It just seems like that cycle of life has come where everything changes…

  • Passion, Relationships and Thought Leadership

    Back in the bad old days of blogging, the way to get attention was simple. Flame someone long enough and hard enough and they would take notice and respond in comments, or otherwise. Bloggers realized their power for change and took their platforms seriously, calling into question media accounts in politics, public relations nightmares such…

  • How the Cable Guy could salvage the DTV transition, and why he's afraid to try.

    If you don’t live under a rock, you probably know about the U.S. transition to Digital TV broadcasts coming in February. If you’ve been following it, you know that the number of people affected, i.e. those who receive only over-the-air television, has constantly been in dispute. The Federal Communications Commission, National Telecommunications and Information Administration,…

  • Things we can agree on.

    I had the misfortune recently of sitting through a discussion of the policies of both Presidential candidates on data protection and cybersecurity. Or so I thought. While the representative from the Obama campaign, a respected law professor and privacy expert who I have seen testify before Congress many times, was direct but cautious in his…

  • Startup Layoffs, Pt. 2 — Two Perspectives

    There are two sides to every story, and two unenviable roles to a firing. While I don’t expect newly aroused sympathies to change anything, awareness of each other’s perspective can help make the process a little less painful. That is, if you believe yanking off a band-aid is less painful than pulling it off slowly…

  • Discussing DISQUS

    Several months ago, I decided to give Disqus a try. Disqus is a company that provides a social commenting functionality to blogs. It replaces/hijacks a blogs comments and replaces with their own commenting system. I really liked the ability to reply to comments via email as well as comment threading. Jason Yan and Daniel Ha…

  • Even During a Recession, Small Businesses Still Should Consider Macbooks

    I was talking to someone recently who just took a new job at a small web-company. She has been a Windows user all her life but she asked me what she should get in her new job. They were buying her a new computer. Naturally, I suggested the new Macbook that Apple announced yesterday. The…

  • Non-Competes in a Down Economy

    I keep inching and inching into the beat of my colleague, Ray Capece of Venture Files, but I think it’s pretty important and weighty times for web professionals and small business owners alike. Unlike anytime in our history, the uncertainty of the future of our world and country are great. Everyone is speculating about what…

  • Startup Layoffs — The Unkindest Cut

    Last week, Seesmic let seven of its 21 employees go — a full third of the company. Were they in a crisis? Depends on how you look at it. CEO Loic LeMeur had raised $12M, a Series B $6M of which came in June. But do the math: 21 employees, fully loaded is around $200k/month.…

  • BlogHer Comes to DC, Technosailor.com represents 33% of Male Population

    BlogHer, the female-focused blogging organization and ad-network, touched down in Suburban Maryland yesterday for the Washington, D.C. edition of the BlogHer Reach Out tour. I had a chance to attend and apparently now have the label of a BlogHim (whatever that means). It was my first event and, as with most guys that go to…