December 2012
andrewice asked: Hey you obviously know a ton about cameras and love photography. You also look like you've tried at least a couple micro 4/3's cameras over the years. Which one is the one to get these days? If you had to get two 4/3 lenses which ones would you get?
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“In a dark sea of unreadable terms of service, Tumblr’s version rises to the...”
– Terms & Conditions: Every company should copy Tumblr | Digital Trends (via rickwebb)
The readability is completely due to David. His obsessiveness with details (even the seemingly boring ones - come on who gets excited about ToS) is a very special gift. (via derekg)
Can a social graph last more than 10 years?
Hunter Walk wrote an excellent post the other day about whether one social graph can rule them all or not. Hunter is in the latter camp. And it’s clear by our investments at Spark and my social mobile/web activity that I agree with him (location, mobile, music, education, photos, television, et al).
But the one thing Hunter points out is something I’ve heard a number of folks bring up...
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I Walked — Sufjan Stevens
heard this yesterday...
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That Leica feel
Marco recently wrote up his thoughts on using a Leica M9.
The M9 has been my primary shooter for over a year. Marco’s post was a fair and thorough review like all of his other product reviews.
He’s correct in that it is slow. It’s not easy for action photos. And it’s quite challenging in low light. And the price is outrageous. It takes time to learn. I’m still discovering the qualities of...
Wiseman — Frank Ocean
via frankocean:
django...
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“And, as I have said before, network effects help on the way up and hurt on the...”
– A VC: Single User Utility In A Social System
I Wanna Be Sedated — Rhett Miller (featuring Ben...
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Some (tech related) thoughts from Paris
We took the overnight from Boston to Paris and arrived early this morning. We stumbled to our hotel, grabbed a bite and went for a walk. Twenty minutes into the walk James and Ellie were woozy so we went back to the hotel for a three hour nap.
It was just what we needed. After that we walked and walked and walked. I love this city. It’s been two years since we’ve been here and to...
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Happy Christmas (War Is Over) — Damien Rice
shared...
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My favorite albums in 2012
This year was an absolute blur.
One of my goals in 2013 is going to be to slow down a bunch.
Thankfully many of my favorite artists released a new record this year.
In no particular order here my top 10.
Ben Kweller - “Go Fly A Kite”. Ben returns to his roots in this record. It’s a rocking set of songs. Extra highlight: Ben thanks me and @fredwilson in the liner notes on the vinyl...
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If your revenue plan isn't written in stone, your...
One of the (many) benefits of being an early stage private company is that you don’t have to forecast your revenue and earnings to the public to judge
It’s great because you can change it without having a massive impact on your company quarter to quarter.
Often times when we see early stage startups predict revenue they almost always get it wrong. Even the best performing companies...
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“As the experience of TV viewing continues to evolve, our TV partners have...”
– Twitter Blog: Coming Soon: Nielsen Twitter TV Rating
Years ago, my partner Todd years called Twitter “the EKG for television”. Very cool seeing this idea productized.
“More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides in six months than have died in...”
– Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?
(via nick grossman)
The health of a platform (continued)
There are a lot of wars in the mobile and social space these days.
Perhaps, the wars are in every sector but I’m focused on mobile and social so I see it more.
Anyway, Google is unique because they build apps and they build a platform (android).
Several months ago, I was thinking out loud if Google would make a version of Maps for iOS that would be as good as their Android version. There...
hidrees asked: Hi Bijan! I'm considering buying a Leica camera, noticed you have one and post some wonderful shots from it, and figured you'd be a good person to ask this: how does the Leica perform in low light situations? Do you find you get satisfactory results or do you take multiple shots and luck out with one? Thanks!
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Funding startups that rely on advertising
“I’m not looking to fund startups that rely on advertising”
I heard this from another investor yesterday.
There is no question that building a company around an advertising business requires significant scale. Fred has a great post highlighting the facts about CPM rates over time.
And here’s the thing.
Building a company around advertising has always been hard. And so is building an...
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“But the logic of noncompetes is horribly flawed. It puts the short-term goal of...”
– Noncompetes Are Lame — Let’s Set the Creators Free | Wired Design | Wired.com
Software, Sync and the Cloud
A number of years ago Craig Mundie at Microsoft started talking clearly and openly about the need for software to developers to avoid hitting the “power wall” and learn to develop for multi-core chips.
The logic at the time: software engineers previously hadn’t had to deal with developing parallel software.
You can argue whether this effort has served Microsoft well as...
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