September 2008
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-8-31) →
Radiohead
Ben Kweller
Arcade Fire
Broken Social Scene
Franz Ferdinand
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
August 2008
Best Friend - The Beat
fred-wilson:
Lost In Boston - The Walkmen - A...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-8-24) →
Radiohead
Radiohead- House of Cards live in Mansfield, MA
Cat Power
múm
The Delgados
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Silver Lining - Ben Gibbard
Original by Rilo...
Thinking about our investments in NYC
Charlie O’Donnell has a post today about the need for more early stage VCs in NYC. He believes there is a significant impact a firm can make if they are local and part of the community. He also points out that we have been active in NYC and perhaps we should have an office in NYC. Here are some thoughts that come to mind after reading his post. 0. On a personal note, I love NYC. I grew up in...
Love Vigilantes - New Order
I was listening to...
Tumblr Search now searches your entire Dashboard
This won’t mean as much to those of you that don’t use Tumblr.
But if you do use Tumblr v4 beta then you are going to absolutely love this.
Tumblr now searches your Dashboard. Just click the “all posts” link as if you were going to do a Tumblr 3.0 style filter and then you will see the search box.
This rocks.
It would also be killer if it was on the new Tumblr home...
The work of a critic is easy
The kids watched the movie “Ratatouille” today. They loved it. It’s a cute movie but there was a line I heard today that caught my attention:
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the...
Introducing Tumblr Explore
The home page at Tumblr has evolved several times since the company was formed less than a year ago.
It started as a page with the basic info on what a tumblelog is and then asks for email and password and then presto - you have your own site.
The home page then evolved to include a number of new things like Tumblr Radar which are the most interesting & popular things amongst the hundred of...
WatchApprently I made the evening news as more folks are asking me to take a run at the White House.
Believe me. I’m as surprised as anyone.
“I’m gripped by “Smash N’ Grab”. This ain’t Crocs music. This ain’t...”
– Bob Lefsetz review of the new AC/DC record. After this review, I’m getting it.
WatchJeremy Toeman was at Gnomedex this weekend and presented the idea behind our portfolio company Bug Labs. Here are the slides from his talk.
A Change Is Gonna Come - Arcade Fire
Great cover...
Learning about mobile from my nephews
I have been on the beach in Delaware over the last few days.
So my blogging has been light. Actually yesterday, I didn’t post anything the whole day which was a first for me in a long time I think.
My in laws are down here and I’ve spent a bunch of time with 4 of my nephews. All of them are older than my kids. They range from ages 9 to 16. And watching and talking to them taught me a...
Random Friday thoughts
This is my second or 3rd time doing a list of random thoughts on a friday. I might make it a weekly thing.
Here are a few of my random thoughts for today:
1. I did end up buying the Flip Mino. I really like it. Not HD of course but very easy and convenient.
2. My friend Bryce created this VC twitter group. I agreed to join in on the fun.
3. I saw some of the things that David Karp is working...
My icon
I’ve been wanting my own custom icon for a long time.
Several months ago my friend Om Malik told me about Tina Sedonne. Tina was the artist that created all of the illustrations for the bloggers on GigaOm.
But I kept putting it off and never reached out to Tina.
Then a few weeks ago after having fun with the whole FaceYourManga craze I finally sent Tina an email. I wanted something that...
reblogged via scout:
Ben Kweller - God Only...
“seinfeld pitching for Microsoft? his humor is about his inadequacies. did they...”
– (rafer via twitter)
funny
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - Jeff Tweedy
...
Like A Rolling Stone - Jimi Hendrix
I confess. I...
Clear
At Spark, we typically make early stage investments. That means before the product has been built and/or pre-revenue. Most of the time we are the first VC investors in a company. And in these investments we will invest between seed investments of $250k up to $5M-ish. Initially.
But we also keep some dry powder in our funds for larger, later stage investments as well. In this area we like to see a...
After Muxtape
I miss Muxtape. To tell you the truth, I didn’t get Muxtape at first. I thought the UI was fantastic but I didn’t get how to navigate or discover.
Charles Forman told me awhile back that he would just open up 4-5 random muxtapes in the morning and then play and FF until he found tunes that he liked.
But then two things happened:
1. Muxfind came out which provided a great search...
Hurt - Nine Inch Nails
I have to go see the...
Bubble Tea
There is place just a down the street from my office that sells bubble tea. I love it and there are days that I literally crave it. Especially in the summer.
This afternoon was no different. So I added this tweet at the time.
I got a few @replies with some loving them and others not familiar. Then an hour ago, I noticed Greg Pass from Twitter wanting one as well.
So I decided to check Twitter...
It's easy to be negative
Its often the case that early adopters are blasted for being part of the echo chamber or that products that initially target early adopters won’t translate into a mainstream audience.
I like products that build around early adopters and engage with an active community of users. It’s a great way to start. And there are plenty of success stories that followed that path.
And while those...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-8-17) →
Radiohead
Box Set
John Mayer
Radiohead(OK Computer)
Holy F**k
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
The Re-Arranger - Mates of State
I’m really...
“The whole summer was full of surprises. The best was that the hypothesis we were...”
– Paul Graham, Oct 2005, after the first YC summer program.
5 Thoughts about Y Combinator Demo Day in...
On Thursday, Y Combinator hosted their Demo Day. It’s the day that all of their startups that were recently funded come show what they have built over the last 2 months or so.
Scott Kirsner has a recap of the day and a quick summary of each company and a video as well.
Rather than offer my opinions on each company I came away with a few thoughts.
0. It was interesting to me that none of...
Tumblelog search
reblogged via staff:
We’re rolling out search across Tumblr, starting with individual tumblelog search.
You can check it out on our tumblelogs here:
David’s Log
Marco.org
Search boxes aren’t in any stock themes yet, but they’ll be included soon.
There’s still more to do. We’re not segmenting, so text without spaces between words (such as German compound words or most Japanese text) isn’t...
So What’cha Want - Beastie Boys
This song...
Mushaboom - Bright Eyes
It’s cover Friday,...
Social Blogging
Om has a post today about needs of next generation of blogging services. He wants these services to evolve from publishing platforms to social services.
Om has it right when he says:
We have two choices in order to consolidate these — either opt for all-purpose services such as Facebook (as tens of millions have done) or use our blogs as the aggregation point or hub for all these various...
New updates to the Tumblr v4 beta
reblogged via Tumblr staff:
We just pushed a few small updates to beta:
You can now reblog any post as a Text post, Link, or Quote.
If you prefer browsing Photo thumbnails in your Dashboard (or just need to be discreet at work), you can uncheck “Show full size photos” on your Preferences screen.
Based on this clever Dashboard hack, nested blockquotes now get darker, making them easier to...
Bones - Radiohead
We went to see Radiohead last...
Bug Labs is hiring
Our portfolio company Bug Labs is hiring.
The Bug blog has all the info here. They are looking to hire across the board:
We are actively interviewing for folks that can write linux device drivers, help with marketing and outreach (like our .edu program), or help write technical documentation. You can see more details for each of these jobs at www.buglabs.net/jobs.
We are also keeping our...
US Mens 4x100m Free Relay →
This was the most amazing thing I’ve seen in any athletic event ever - never mind olympics.
If you haven’t seen this before then make sure to watch the last 60 seconds of the race. Unreal.
Everything In Its Right Place - Radiohead
...
Watch“Knowledge Navigator” - by Apple Computer in 1987
I remember the first time I saw this in undergrad. Between this video and getting my first Mac a year later, all I wanted to do was move to the bay area & work for Apple when I got out of school.