Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- The Washington, DC organization Consumer Watchdog is making a big publicity push for its "Do not track me" campaign, which asks Congress to create a list for people that don't want to be monitored on the Internet.If the campaign succeeds it will be a massive blow to Internet advertising and e-commerce companies because they will lose the ability to tailor targeted commercial messages and discovering user behaviors across a range of web destinations.Consumer Watchdog has purchased a 540 sq. Ft. Jumbotron digital billboard on Times Square and is showing a video showing an animation of Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, driving an ice cream truck so that he can spy on kids.

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- [Daniel Romero is a Ph.D Candidate at Cornell Univeristy in the Center for Applied Mathematics. He works with Hewlett-Packard's Social Computing Lab Bernardo Huberman and colleagues.]By Daniel M. RomeroThe importance of mainstream news has changed with the advent and immense popularity of online social media. The mainstream media is now aware that they have to be involved in the social media in order to keep their audience engaged. They understand that they no longer have complete control on what information people will attend to. With social media...

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- [From left to right: Loren Feldman with Mike Arrington, Loic LeMeur, Robert Scoble during happier times - photo from Loic LeMeur]Loren Feldman is the New York City based publisher of 1938Media.com, a fascinating, irreverent and funny critic of the West Coast tech scene. Loren used to be an insider, a close friend of the princes of the Web 2.0 world: Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Loic LeMeur, and others. But Loren has managed to upset all those people, and more; and so have I simply by retweeting some of his comic puppetry.

Phil's Blogservations:- An exchange today, reacting to a press release about a topic that I have never been even remotely interested in: Sammy Spamalot: [Insert spray-and-pray release here.] Phil: Please take me off of your list Sammy: Use the unsubscribe link in the email please Phil: Way to blame the victim, dude. Sammy: Thanks Phil, it would just take me ages to find your addres in our database. Phil: Probably no more time than it took for me to fish your note out of the trash and find the link, I'd imagine. Almost as good as the time the PR person told me that she was blameless and advised that I call the company that sold them their media list.

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- {Rebecca Kaplan and team built the above 20-ft metal sculpture for Burning Man which travelled to San Francisco.)

Phil's Blogservations:- Quick Update So, I spent some time here: Met this way-cool guy:

a shel of my former self:- I would never hire someone who posted an attack on social media gurus.

a shel of my former self:- A scandal anywhere is a scandal on the Net. A scandal on the Net will reach everywhere.

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- [Sol Tzvi is head of Genieo, an Israeli startup. She shares her story of starting a startup.]

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- [Sol Tzvi is head of Genieo, an Israeli startup. She shares her story of starting a startup.]

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- This is an event well worth catching, it gets better each time: The 2010 01SJ festival is September 16-19.Steve Dietz, the artistic director, and Jaime Austin, Assistant Curator, write:The future is not just about what's next. It's also about what we can build to ensure that what's next matters. How can we, as resourceful, innovative, and knowledgeable local and global citizens build and participate in a desirable future in the face of global climate change, economic meltdown, political instability, and cultural divisiveness? The 2010 01SJ Biennial is predicated on the notion that as artists,...

a shel of my former self:- The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #562: August 30, 2010

Phil's Blogservations:- NYT Profile On Jolie's Media Management Shows PR Profession Has A Long Way To Go I'm still not sure whether The New York Times was repulsed or intrigued by the fact that that Angelina Jolie exhibits greater media savvy than the average Hollywood type, taking more than 1,500 words to tell its very literate readership what it already intuitively (or explicitly) knows about celebrity PR. Where The Old Gray Lady sees a "carefully orchestrated image", I see a very smart woman who has a greater level of media savvy than the average actor or actress. Like Princess Di, Jolie also knows that she can channel interest in her celebrity life to bring attention to the topics and world issues she cares about. Putting aside for the...

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- Mathys van Abbe, one of my favorite European entrepreneurs is in town this week. He's the founder of Moby Picture, one of the top photo sharing sites and also the developer of a unique media platform: MobyNow.With MobyNow you can coral all that fragmented media: tweets, blog posts, shared photos, audio, video, location data into one page. It's excellent for companies or organizations that want to bring together all that content, from multiple locations into one location. The upcoming Burning Man festival is an excellent event to demonstrate the flexibility of MobyNow.If you are headed to Black Rock City this year you should check out "

mediations:- Everybody knows to be a little wary of the blurb on the back of books but the pitch for Peter Mandelson's memoir is still a bit rich. Did I really buy TheThird Man because "Much has been written about the...

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- How much media content should I produce?As a professional journalist this has been a question that I've struggled with over the past five years since leaving the Financial Times.I can produce a lot of media content, and hopefully, it is all quality media content. But my concern is that if I produce too much it will cause my readers and subscribers to switch off because there is too much from one source.I know that if some of my sources are too noisy on Twitter, Facebook, even on their blog or web site, I will switch them off because it is too much -- even if all their content is good. I don't want my readers doing the same to me.This question of how much media is too much media is not just my concern, it should be a concern for others, especially companies. I've been writing about how every company is a media company, (

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- Women In Technology International (WITI) is holding its Annual WITI Women and Technology Summit September 12- 14.Here are some details: Keynote Speakers · Sandy Carter, VP, SOA & WebSphere Strategy, Channels & Marketing, IBM · Bernadette Nixon, SVP Global Field Marketing, CA · Nilofer Merchant, Entrepreneur, CEO & Chief Strategist, Rubicon Consulting · Kathrin Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer, EMC The 15th Annual WITI Hall of Fame Awards · Honoring key women innovators from science and technology on Monday, September 13th. This year’s honorees are: Sandy Carter of IBM, Dr. Ruth...

Phil's Blogservations:- Fishin'

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- [In this guest post Georges van Hoegaerden argues that Limited Partners should take an active role in reforming venture capital investing in the US.]By Georges van Hoegaerden, Managing Director, The Venture CompanyI was reminded again by how dumb capital has destroyed innovation by listening to Paul Kedrosky's interview with TechCrunch, in which he concludes that The Kauffman Foundation (which Paul represents as a Senior Fellow) may get out...

Phil's Blogservations:- Media Postions GM PR Adviser As 'Auto Analyst', While Arrington Derails PR's Focus Yuck: CBS’s 'The Early Show' included a statement in its Dec. 18 report on the Big 3 bailout from 'auto industry analyst,' Dan McGinn. Letting the massive car companies fail 'would be like 10 Katrinas hitting America at the same time,' McGinn asserted. 'The American public understands that.' What the report didn’t say is that McGinn is also an adviser to General Motors. Furthermore, TMG Strategies the public relations firm McGinn heads, lists GM as a client. McGinn has been making the case for an auto bailout in many news stories and issuing some compelling statements on behalf of his client. You'd think media organizations would know the difference before booking such a guest. And, yet,

Phil's Blogservations:- Sad At a volunteers' meeting at UIC tonight, I noticed that this Silicon Graphics O2 workstation was serving as a doorstop in one of the Science & Engineering Lab's rooms. Funny thing was, I hadn't yet heard the news that SGI was sold to Rackable Systems for $25 million. Remember when SGI was synonymous with "Hollywood blockbuster?" What a long, strange trip it's been.

Phil's Blogservations:- Sorry... My Libertarianism has been showing the past couple of days. *blush* Fruit-smashing comedian Gallagher used to joke that "If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' then 'Congress' is the opposite of 'progress.'" I can hardly disagree, given how our legislators are considering applying regulatory burdens on venture capital. From the always-insightful Techdirt: In a recent Congressional hearing where venture capitalist Trevor Loy explained this to our elected officials, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky apparently told Loy that he didn't believe him...

Phil's Blogservations:- Instructor's Notebook: PROpenMic At Six Months Cross-posted from Authenticities: Auburn University's Robert French is to be congratulated for what he's accomplished with PROpenMic. In just six months, the site stacks up quite favorably in every measure to the likes of myragan.com (the closest thing I can compare it to) and even some other well-known PR-focused sites. I'll let Robert's analysis speak for itself. For my part, there are a number of lessons for all PR...

Phil's Blogservations:- From The NYT: Vinod Khosla, the prominent venture capitalist who has been investing hundreds of millions of his own dollars in green technology companies for the last several years, will now invest other people’s money, too. Khosla Ventures, the firm he founded in 2004 after leaving Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is announcing on Tuesday that it has raised $1.1 billion in two funds that will invest in green technology and information technology start-ups. This is the largest amount raised by a venture capital firm since 2007 and the largest first-time fund raised since 1999, according to the National Venture Capital Association. Technorati Tags:

a shel of my former self:- The lesson I took away from Leo Laporte’s experience with Google Buzz.

Phil's Blogservations:- From The Wall Street Journal: In the Treasury financial reform proposal, who comes in for more regulatory retooling: Fannie Mae, or your average 14-man venture capital shop? If you said venture capital, you understand why one of America’s greatest competitive advantages is now at risk in Washington. It's clear to me that government isn't interested in solving problems but, rather, interested in "problems" it can "solve." Technorati Tags: venture capital,

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- There has been much written about why Intel offered an astonishing $7.7 billion for McAfee, the PC anti-virus maker. I've been an Intel watcher for more than 25 years and I'm struggling to make sense out of this deal.I've also been reading other Intel watchers trying to make sense of the deal. The most recent attempt is by Jon Stokes at Ars Technica: Why Intel bought McAfeeHis article doesn't answer the headline but here is a fascinating snippet:At the most recent Intel R&D day, Intel CTO Justin Rattner did a Q&A session with the press in which he was asked something to the effect of, "What do you spend...

a shel of my former self:- The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #561: August 23, 2010

Phil's Blogservations:- On September 15, the Federal Trade Commission is going to begin offering workshops for media organizations entitled "Can News Media Survive the Internet Age? Competition, Consumer Protection, and First Amendment Perspectives." "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." For one thing, it's unclear how the FTC reconciles the delivery of this seminar with its self-stated mandate of working "for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them." Lacking a "Ministry of Information" in the U.S. I suppose this had to be filed somewhere. For another... Any media outlet that lets in the government, in any form, loses a proportionate share of its credibility. At that point, you might as well call it a "newsletter" or, less charitably, "propaganda." The First Amendment implications,...

Phil's Blogservations:- The Fairness Doctrine Is Not A PR Tactic PR Week discusses the quite inappropriately dubbed "Fairness Doctrine" and basically ends with the the following message in the form of a quote by Chris Battle of the Adfero Group: PR people can use this crusty old regulatory idea to browbeat broadcasters into covering their clients. From the article: However unlikely its reimplementation, Battle adds that the Fairness Doctrine – even if applied only to now-conservative-dominated talk radio – could benefit the PR sector. If the measure were to gain passage, PR firms could, in theory, demand airtime for their clients, he says. “In a sense, it could be a...

Phil's Blogservations:- I don't mean to spend my two most recent posts picking on our armed forces (which I do have a very deep respect for), but this strikes me as a little crazy: The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks, effective immediately. “These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries,” reads a Marine Corps order, issued Monday. “The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel… at an elevated risk of compromise." In any event,...

Phil's Blogservations:- One Name Missing From Atlantic's "End Times" Piece As The Atlantic speculated about the fate of The New York Times, it occurred to me that one name was conspicuously absent from the writer's list of possible acquirers: It’s possible that a David Geffen, Michael Bloomberg, or Carlos Slim would purchase The Times as a trophy property and spare the company some of this pain. Even Rupert Murdoch, after overpaying wildly for The Wall Street Journal, seems to be tempted by the prospect of adding The Times to his portfolio. Why not George Soros? His net worth is not quite Michael Bloomberg's, but more than David Geffen's. Moreover, his politics...

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- The value of Linden Lab, which operates the virtual world Second Life, has plunged by more than 21%, according to SharesPost, which tracks the private secondary market.In late June, Linden Lab brought back founder Philip Rosedale as interim CEO, after CEO Mark Kingdon stepped down.The current value of Linden Lab is estimated by SharesPost to be about $271 million or about $100 million less than a year ago.The plunge in value appears related to today's news that the company is closing the five year old "Teen Second Life" virtual world at the end of this year.The company said:

a shel of my former self:- Communicators may not actually implement the search engine optimization techniques video will increasingly require, but we do need to know the options in order to supervise the process.

Phil's Blogservations:- If you're wondering why there haven't been a lot of updates here lately, it's because of this: But, more importantly, this: More news as it develops... *8-) Technorati Tags: phil gomes,

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- Wednesday evening BroadVision launched the Clearvale SecondFloor speaker series focused on thought leaders in enterprise 2.0. Clearvale is BroadVision's name for its collaborative enterprise platform.Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter consulting group, was interviewed by Pehong Chen, CEO of BroadVision. The event was video recorded by Sina.com, the Chinese Internet giant, on the second floor of BroadVision HQ in Redwood City.The series is the creation of Giovanni Rodriguez, CMO of BroadVision.Here are some notes from the evening:- Charlene Li spoke about her new book Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can...

Phil's Blogservations:- The Big Dow Drop Meets The Nanny Index I recently read David Harsanyi's excellent book Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children. It was a thoughtful birthday gift from my folks, who thoughtfully indulge my libertarian bent with such works. In this book, Harsanyi says that the five most frightening words than can be uttered by the typical U.S. government official are "Something needs to be done." Starting last Friday and cresting today thanks to the stalled mega-bailout, that devilish phrase is at a six-month all-time...

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- Stephen Jannise, ERP market analyst at Software Advice, has put together a poll asking who's next on Oracle's M&A list. [NasdaqGS: ORCL] Oracle Mergers & Acquisitions: Who's Next? He has a chart of Oracle's acquisitions over the past five years:He has made a few educated guesses on who could be next, concentrating on some of the larger potential targets. And Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems expands the potential field beyond enterprise software companies.He has divided the choices up into the following:

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- There's been much written recently about angel investors and venture capitalists especially about the rise of the "super angels" such as Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Marc Andreessen, etc.The VC community is disdainful of the angel investors and their puny funds but the angels can go into deals that the VCs cannot because they are too small for the large funds. Today's entrepreneur has a choice: angels or VCs or none of the above.It's worth considering the "none of the above" option because startup costs are very low. Joe Kraus, co-founder of Excite, which was the Google of its day, told me that they needed $5m for a data center when they first started. Today, with the ready availability of cloud computing you don't need to raise lots of capital to fund your capital costs. Development...

Phil's Blogservations:- We're at about six months since the United States Air Force's blog-response chart made its rounds online. Since then, it has crossed my desk often. I've always found it well-designed and comprehensive, though something has always bugged me about it. The other day, I figured out what it was. Somewhat incredibly, it ignores the number-one rule that all combat pilots must follow: "Lose Sight, Lose the Fight." The flaw is in the little box at the lower right-hand corner. INFLUENCE: Focus on the most used sites related to the Air Force. Seems narrow to me. For example, let's imagine that, say, and influencer like Robert Scoble is talking with a buddy in the Air Force. One day over coffee, the buddy says that the plane he flew in Iraq had an intermittent issue where the readouts would blink for no good reason...

Phil's Blogservations:- For those of us who love freedom, this is a must-see. More at Reason.Tv. Technorati Tags: freedom, communism, cold war, berlin wall

Phil's Blogservations:- From peHUB about video processor startup Novafora folding yesterday: "'VC appetite has really dried up for later-stage semiconductor companies,' says a former Novafora executive, reached at his home this morning. 'They all want to do social networking and things like that.'" Sure, you want to go where the money is and where a quick exit can be had, but isn't that how you got into that whole mess in 2001? NB: If we don't invest in keeping pace with Moore's Treadmill, the next-generation social network, entertainment device, toaster, or garage door opener simply won't happen. As I told a colleague some years ago: "Dot-coms make headlines. Well and good. But science makes history." Technorati Tags:

Phil's Blogservations:- ...to watch the serve.gov site, presumably. Found this evening, though I don't expect it to be up for long. Technorati Tags: fail

Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media:- As Hulu preps for an IPO comScore has released viewer numbers and related info for July 2010:Property Total Unique Viewing Sessions Minutes per Viewers (000) (000) Viewer Total Internet : Total Audience 178,148 5,234,655 882.0 Google Sites 143,226 1,884,498 282.7 Yahoo! Sites 55,107 238,322 28.6 Facebook.com 46,571 166,186 18.3 Microsoft Sites 45,558 219,149 40.2 VEVO 43,911 202,091 68.5 Fox Interactive Media 38,136 164,760 27.2 Turner Network 33,442 107,793 25.3 Viacom Digital 30,715 70,617 44.8 Disney Online 28,475 64,104 6.0 Hulu 28,455...

a shel of my former self:- It’s possible to get a query from Twitter and respond with a YouTube video. This would be real engagement, not just a spin on an ad campaign.

a shel of my former self:- The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #560: August 16, 2010

a shel of my former self:- FIR Live #18 - August 14, 2010: Web Pages or Facebook?

Phil's Blogservations:- In Defense Of The "Purist" I while ago, I was having lunch with my friend "Bart" whose supervisor "James" had left the firm he worked for at the time. Naturally, this meant that Bart had to take on some of his former boss's responsibilities — some considerable shoes to fill. James was a leader in this company's online communications strategy, not just because of his considerable technical knowledge but, rather, the instincts he developed over a period of time. During one of the necessary transition meetings, Bart had a meeting with James' former boss. "The thing is about James was," the boss said. "He was just too much of a purist." Considering Bart and James were pretty much parallel philosophically, this wasn't such good news for my friend. Bart would leave the firm soon afterward. Since Bart told me this story, I've been asking myself, "What did James' former boss mean?" It occurs to me that there are some...

Phil's Blogservations:- Having A "Message" Is Fine, It's "Messaging" That Sucks In PR 2.0 circles, it has long been hip to say that there is no place in modern communications for a company with "messages" and that any company with "messages" is somehow lost in the digital weeds. A PR person who says otherwise is derided as a knuckle-dragging troglodyte while the supremely useless you-don't-get-it crowd gleefully jumps in and piles on. I disagree with the premise that messages are necessarily dead. This was a fallacy that was allowed to progress because the some PR folks were too busy ingratiating themselves with a small set of influencers to think the issues and distinctions through. If your company doesn't have a "message" — a set of clear ideas that codify how it sees itself, its industry, and the world at large — then why the hell does it even exist, let alone communicate? Frankly, a distinction needs to be made....

a shel of my former self:- More than one commentator has lamented that Twitter is turning us into a nation of whiners. The truth is, people are just employing a new channel to resolve differences with companies, just like they did when the telephone came along.