March 2009
WatchA few weeks ago Mary Kathleen Flynn over at the Deal asked me to do a interview. She was interested to hear why we frequently co-invest with Union Square Ventures and how we ended up investing in Tumblr together.
Here’s the clip.
Bob Lefsetz doesn't like the new Microsoft ad...
I shared my thoughts about the new MSFT ad over the weekend.
I subscribe to Bob Lefsetz “letters” and got this one today.
He nailed it.
——— Forwarded Message From: Bob Lefsetz <bob@lefsetz.com> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:33:31 -0400 To: Bijan Sabet <bijan@sparkcapital.com> Subject: Laptop Hunters Stop lying. The Web has a zillion sleuths just waiting...
Moonlight Mile - The Rolling Stones
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-29) →
Bright Eyes (83)
U2 (56)
Nada Surf (33)
The Who (26)
Ben Kweller (14)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Microsoft's goes on the offensive... with a really...
Microsoft has a new ad that is getting a lot of attention.
The punchline: Microsoft Windows laptops are cheaper than Macs.
The ad is a reflection of Steve Ballmer’s line last week:
“The economy is helpful,” Ballmer said at a conference today in New York. “Paying an extra $500 for a computer with a[n Apple] logo on it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in this...
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You’re A Wolf - Sea Wolf
I heard this song...
“Oh help me, please doctor, I’m damaged
There’s a pain where there...”
– Dear Doctor - The Rolling Stones
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Jailbreaking MacOS
I was at the local Apple store yesterday with a friend of mine.
We were looking at a bunch of stuff and my friend said that he was really impressed with the Dell Mini 9. I can see why. It’s 2.5lbs, battery life is 4 hours and its less than $250.
But the kicker? Users have figured out a way to install MacOS X on these low cost computers.
While we were at the store another Apple customer...
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Inside of Love - Nada Surf
listening to the album...
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Yeah! Oh Yeah ! - Tracey Thorn & Jens...
“It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that,...”
– Shaquille O’Neal - aka @the_real_shaq - commenting on people who use ghost writers on Twitter
When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking - NYTimes.com
(via mdoeff)
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Help I’m Alive - Metric
So good.
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My new Facebook public page along with a "vanity...
Last night I set up a public page on Facebook. My friends at Facebook also helped me set up a “vanity url” so you can find this page by simply going to
http://www.facebook.com/bijansabet
I have only done a few things to this public page so far. I added a photo and it also grabs my tumblr posts.
I can’t figure out how to configure it so my tweets go there as well. But hopefully...
“Because Boxee represents a potential future for television that looks a lot like...”
– Mike Hudack - Boxee, Not Boxxy
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Boxee on a roll
Our portfolio company Boxee keeps building and shipping great new updates.
For those of you that may not be familiar, Boxee is a free media center application that runs on Macs, AppleTV, Linux and Windows (closed alpha for windows users at this time)
In my opinion, Boxee provides the best 10-foot, TV-user interface for navigating music, video and photos from your home network and from the...
Announcing Start@Spark
I’m excited to share something we have been working on some time now. Today our firm Spark Capital introduced a new program called Start@Spark.
My partner Santo wrote a post describing our thinking and the new site describes our various initiatives including a new seed program.
I’m very excited about Start@Spark. Lots more stuff coming. Stay tuned!
—-
One more thing: I want...
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Papa Was A Rodeo - Bright Eyes
My friend Raj came...
Bandwidth to the home
When I left the bay area, I had dsl in my house. That was in 2001 and I had something like 1.5mbps downstream and I think 256k upstream. When I moved to a sleepy suburb outside of Boston I couldn’t actually get DSL or cable modem. I had to sign up for ISDN. I swear.
Just 8 years later and I now have 20mbps up & down thanks to Verizon FIOS. Right now the internet bandwidth to my home is...
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A Shot In The Arm - Wilco
Hard to believe this...
“Arrogance shows up in several ways. The most easily identifiable one is Mr....”
– A VC’s Biggest Flaw: Arrogance - Entrepreneur.com
My friend Brad Feld always calls a spade a spade. Well done.
“I’m not saying that you will pay separately for every channel you might want to...”
– Media Companies, Beware the Priceline Negotiator - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
Saul Hansell weighs in on the Mark Cuban post about Boxee and the future of video.
Congrats to Steve Perlman & OnLive
I had the pleasure of working for my friend Steve Perlman twice in my life. In both cases it was an incredible experience and I learned a ton from him directly that I’ve taken with me. I owe him a lot actually.
When it comes to his professional life, there are three things to know about Steve. He loves huge ideas. He is master of the stealth (here’s the original website to Artemis...
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1901 - Phoenix
For the past few weeks Phoenix has...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-22) →
Phoenix (64)
Ben Kweller (25)
Nada Surf (14)
M. Ward (13)
Badly Drawn Boy (10)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Left Of The Dial - The Replacements
Sunday...
Mark Cuban: We don't think you are stupid but that...
I just read Mark Cuban’s recent post and all of the comments about why internet video is problematic, why cable has it right and why video bundling is the only viable solution.
In the post he takes on Boxee and everyone that doesn’t think the current model of video delivery is best one for consumers.
And he asks why “internet people think content people are stupid”.
I...
Dancing Shoes - Arctic Monkeys
The first Arctic...
Girlfriend In A Coma - Noah and The Whale
Great...
There is a lot big media can learn from the...
I try not to write about why big media is broken or needs to be fixed. It’s complicated and there is huge money at stake.
But I’ve been part of a number of so many conferences, dinners and meetings on the subject lately. I just can’t keep still (read quiet). And I hear that “analog dollars vs digital pennies” thing one more time….
First a few things.
1. I...
Red Hill Mining Town - U2
I recently bought the...
WatchI was invited to lead a discussion at MIT Innovation Lab this afternoon about open source hardware from a vc perspective.
This is a (very) rough draft I put together on the train. Need to fix a few slides. work in progress.
but since the topic is open source I had to publish it here first :)
“But how will Google ever make money? There’s the rub. The company’s adamant...”
– “Will Google’s Purity Pay Off?” BusinessWeek, Dec 7, 2000 - via “Remember When Everyone Wondered How Google Was Going To Make Money” - cdixon.org
“Boxee is the scrappy little home media software that continues to win the hearts...”
– Boxee iPhone App: A Little Late, but Worth the Wait | Geekdad from Wired.com
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Treehouse - Nada Surf
The early songs from Nada...
The question that users, my kids and VCs ask all...
Most kids (including mine) are well known for asking the famous question:
“Are we there yet?”
Kids aren’t very patient. When we drive from Boston to NYC they will ask this question 10 minutes into the trip. Everytime. Just like clockwork.
VCs ask this question too. Founders tell us all about the new stuff coming down the road and we can’t wait to see it.
Users of...
“Between the venue, David and John’s hospitality, and Gary Vee going the...”
– How the Tumblr party and Gary Vee got SXSW’s its groove back | from This is going to be BIG!
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Wake Up - Arcade Fire (acoustic)
This is one...
Thinking about the future of search engine...
There have been a ton of small, medium and large sized business built on the back of orgnanic Google traffic. In a variety of categories.
As a result many websites are highly optimized in their desire to become the first or second result from a google search query.
I just did a Google search for the Canon 50d. Here’s what the results page looks like:
You may have guessed that the first...
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A New England - Billy Bragg
I don’t post...
“And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace...”
– Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky
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Streaming from the cloud > my home server
I have a server on our home network that stores all of our home videos, music and photos.
But my home network needs care and feeding to run properly. I get disk failures or for whatever reason it will occasionally lockup.
This weekend the entire local music share didn’t show up on Sonos. I couldn’t see it on my other Macs either. I double checked everything, rebooted everything and...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-15) →
Pixies (50)
M. Ward (50)
Arcade Fire (45)
The Kooks (45)
The Rolling Stones (22)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
I Need You Back - Ben Kweller (live)
Found this...
Birds - Neil Young
Enjoying “After the...