December 2009
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-29) →
The Avett Brothers (57)
Arctic Monkeys (35)
Mike Doughty (23)
The Rolling Stones (16)
Mumford & Sons (7)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
November 2009
1 tag
My Droid decision
I picked up the Droid the day it first came out and shared my initial thoughts.
I wanted to love it for a number of reasons. Open app model, Verizon network, promise of a great browser and integration with google apps (which I rely on more and more). In full disclosure, I’m personally friends with Andy Rubin & Rich MIner, the founders of Android that sold their company to Google —...
1 tag
Fright Lined Dining Room - Arctic Monkeys
New...
In defense of bloggers
Much has been discussed about the “death of journalism”.
I won’t get into the full story but many of you are familiar with the issues. In a world of low cost distribution, google search, aggregation, freemium, fragmentation of classifieds and an increased supply of content, the traditional way of producing news (with layers of management, layers of costs and layers of rules)...
“thousands of people explored a new way of interacting with merchants, posting...”
– Some Jostling, but Less of a Frenzy Among Shoppers - NYTimes.com (via fred-wilson)
I am thankful
This is my favorite holiday by far.
I am thankful for my kids, wife and my family. I am the luckiest man alive.
And I appreciate all of my dearest friends that mean the world to me.
It’s so great to see all of the thankful posts on my Tumblr dashboard and my Twitter timeline today. A lot of positive energy from folks spending time with their loved ones and taking it all in.
Happy...
Some thoughts about mobile apps vs the mobile web
Long before the itunes app store there was a third party app market for mobile phones.
Ten years ago jamdat brought bowling, tetris and tiger woods golf to low cost mobile phones.
Then the Treo was born and palm os developers were able to bring those apps to a cellular phone.
But now we have an evolved different model for mobile apps and distribution.
The app store model.
There is no...
1 tag
You Got The Silver - The Rolling Stones
I had...
People Meeting Business
I am a venture capitalist. I do my best to invest in the best people pursuing their best ideas.
As a result I’m in the people meeting business. I try to meet as many great people as possible and as often as possible. It could be online, on this blog, in my office, in your office, 3k miles away or in the park. The location doesn’t matter much.
I encourage entrepreneurs in our...
Light blogging this week
i’m taking the rest of the week off to see friends for the holiday.
so my blogging will be on the lighter side this week.
i’ll try to post or reblog some tunes to keep bijan.fm fresh
and you can also follow me on twitter as well
gobble, gobble.
:)
1 tag
Winter Winds - Mumford & Sons
Every time I...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22) →
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (39)
Bon Iver (34)
Eels (17)
Neil Young (10)
Vampire Weekend (10)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Google Voice
I’m loving Google Voice.
It’s coming in very handy now that I’m carrying two devices. (more on that in a future post)
But it’s kinda crazy that I can run the google voice app on a new Verizon Blackberry 8530 (aka Curve2) and not on an iPhone.
Verizon has historically been hostile to third party services. While Apple iPhone was supposed to be the best mobile platform...
1 tag
I And Love And You - The Avett Brothers
I may be...
“Email is not going to disappear. Possibly ever. Until the robots kill us all.”
– Paul Bucchheit http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/20/gmail-creator-thinks-email-will-last-forever-and-hasnt-tried-google-wave/
So my daughter wants a mobile phone
This morning, like most Fridays, I take my daughters to breakfast before school (the boy hangs at home with mom. No preschool on Fridays)
My oldest is now 10. And these days she is selling me hard on why she wants a phone.
This morning was no different.
I’m not ready to give her one yet. And i gave her my reasons.
Then she asked “dad, when did you get your first phone?”
...
Google Health
I just set up my profile on Google Health.
I added my basic vitals (birthdate, weight, height) plus the date of my recent flu shot, my allergies as well as past surgeries.
I shared my profile with my wife so she now has full access.
A few weeks ago I had a routine physical including blood tests to check on my cholesterol. I still don’t have the results. It’s on my todo list to call...
2 tags
A very cool upcoming event: Boxee Beta
Our portfolio company Boxee is hosting a free event on Monday, December 7th in Brooklyn.
At the event they are going to show the new beta version of Boxee which has an overhauled user interface and a number of awesome new features. The team worked very hard on the beta and it shows.
Last year Boxee hosted a similar event and over 600 people showed up. I know Avner, Boxee’s ceo/founder, and...
“but everyone involved with the Litl deserves tremendous credit just for having...”
– Daring Fireball: The OS Opportunity
“The government is already using technology to talk to citizens. But we’re going...”
– Anil Dash
Dash to D.C.! Tech Guru Will Head Gov’t Incubator, Digitize Democracy | The New York Observer
(via fred-wilson)
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-15) →
Wilco (65)
The Who (57)
Radiohead (36)
My Morning Jacket (18)
Nada Surf (14)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
"Oh, you are a geek"
I’m on the train this morning, going from Boston to NYC.
I sit down next to a lady who asks me if there is open wifi on the train. I tell her there isn’t but I have a MiFi that I can set up so she can access it.
I then type in 192.168.1.1 to get to the admin panel to set up public sharing. But it’s not working right.
She then says, “oh, don’t worry about”. I...
Little Bird - Eels
via fred-wilson:
the Eels...
1 tag
Come In Please - Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic...
1 tag
A few thoughts about the mobile world
It’s been a pretty interesting couple of weeks since Android 2.0 & the Droid came out.
I’ve been meeting with a lot of entrepreneurs, startups and hackers that are working on mobile apps and services.
Sunday night is my night to make dinner for the family so I’m in a bit of a rush (pls excuse any typos). Here’s a few things i’m thinking about in the mobile...
“On June 7, 2005, Safari developer Dave Hyatt announced on his weblog that Apple...”
– WebKit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I give Apple a hard time about their current App Store model which requires approval by Apple as the ultimate gatekeeper.
One thing often overlooked is that they open sourced webkit years ago. Webkit is the layout engine for Safari and is now being used...
1 tag
Skinny Love - Bon Iver
It’s a Justin Vernon...
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No Intention - Dirty Projectors
Unplugged and...
Creative products born from a mountain of data
I’m a regular reader of my friend Brad Feld’s blog.
As usual, his post today, I Want More Information, Not Less, got me thinking. I just read it a few moments ago on this flight that I’m on from SFO to Boston.
Brad’s post is about information and data. Brad addresses the typical sentiment about data overflow and how can we manage all of this data. It’s a great...
2 tags
After The Gold Rush - Radiohead
From the genius...
2 tags
“My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s...”
– Joe Hewitt, Facebook iPhone Dev, Quits Project Over Apple Tyranny
1 tag
Still evaluating the Droid
I bought my Droid last Friday.
And I’m still not sure if I’m going to keep it or return it.
There are a bunch of things I really like about the Droid
-Android 2.0 is a huge improvement over 1.5
-Verizon Network is awesome.
-The Maps app is much better on Droid than iPhone
-Exchange sync is great.
-gmail integration is better on droid than on iphone (one click archive, etc)
-I...
“I’m making this post because I know the design of this feature will be somewhat...”
– Evan Williams | evhead: Why Retweet works the way it does (via fred-wilson) 