Weekend Watcher: Hornucopia - a Celebration of all Things Horny . . . and the Importance of Culture

By Tom Foremski - September 4, 2008

It is difficult to escape our day-to-day lives but it is important that we do. I love spending time in environments where people just know me as Tom rather than in my professional roles.

The geek-life is fun but it's not enough. Understanding the culture of our times is important to every business, to every startup--but you won't get it unless you go out and get it. No TechCrunch, no Giga, no Twitter, know tech-nothing--just getting out into a wider culture is important.

Here is one way to do that...

Here is an event, the 11 day Hornucopia music festival in San Francisco, a celebration of any music with horns-- that deserves support--especially the upcoming Saturday show with the Jazz Mafia Summit at the Rickshaw Stop in Hayes Valley.

Allison Lovejoy from Lovejoy Lowdown has the details . . . She interviews Sol Crawford, one of the more interesting of San Francisco's young music promoters. He is a co-partner at Amnesia, which has earned a stellar reputation as one of the best live performance rooms in the Mission district.

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - September 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Weekend Watcher
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Who is Making the Most Money from Web 2.0?

By Tom Foremski - September 3, 2008

The Web 2.0 sector is a vibrant sector that is supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital. But how many "Web 2.0" companies are profitable? What's the value of the Web 2.0 market as a whole?

It depends how Web 2.0 is defined but probably there aren't any profitable Web 2.0 companies yet, and the total value of the market is too small to measure.

So who is making money out of Web 2.0? That's easy, it is the conferences such as TechCrunch50 with tickets at $2,995 each. And of course Tim O'Reilly's trademarked Web 2.0 conferences such as the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit at $3,795 for each ticket.

BTW, I thought TechCrunch50 was supposed to kill DEMO? Last I looked DEMO is very much alive and kicking. It is just $2,999 but you can save $4 with this promo code: F8STANDARD1, which makes it exactly the same price as TechCrunch50.

- - -

Please see: Web 2.0 Is On The Ropes. . . Kleiner Perkins Halts Investments

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - September 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Web 2.0
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Foremski's Take: GOOG Browser Designed to Please Wall Street

By Tom Foremski - September 2, 2008

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today launched Google Chrome, a new open source browser intended to create a better web experience for users around the world. Available in beta in more than 40 languages, Google Chrome is a new approach to the browser that’s based on the simplicity and power that users have come to expect from Google products.

Google Press Center: Press Release

Foremski's Take:

Google's new browser will reclaim millions of dollars that it pays to third parties such as Mozilla, the open source organization that develops and maintains the popular Firefox browser, for traffic directed to its sites.

Mozilla received revenues of $66.8m in 2006 and $52.9m in 2005, about 85 percent came from Google payments for each search query conducted by a Firefox user through Google.

Apple also receives substantial payments from directing Safari users to Google. These payments are all part of Google's Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC), a closely watched number by Wall Street analysts. A small reduction in TAC is always welcomed by a large boost in Google's share price.

Google's payments to third parties such as Mozilla and Apple, have jumped by more than 77 percent over the past year.

In GOOG's most recent second quarter financial report, TAC, not related to its AdSense ad network, was $154m. One year ago it was just $87m.

With its own browser, Google can capture more traffic directly and reduce those payments significantly, which drops straight to its bottom line, boosting its overall profitability. It's an excellent ROI that is bound to please its investors.

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - September 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Google [GOOG]
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Finland Funnels $1.3m into Innovation Journalism Research

By Tom Foremski - September 2, 2008

Innovation journalism is a concept that has been popularized by David Nordfors, who leads the Innovation Journalism program at Stanford university. The subject just received a big boost from the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation with the award of a 900,000 euro ($1.31 million) research grant to a Finnish research consortium that will work with the innovation journalism program at Stanford.

If you have about a minute, here is David Nordfors explaining, "What is innovation journalism?"

http://www.blip.tv/file/1226742

More details from David Nordfors: The Innovation Journalism Blog: Finnish Innovation Journalism Research Gets 900.000 Euro

The main aim of the new research project (acronym as Ginjo) is to enlarge and deeper the knowledge of global innovation journalism, and also develop new working methods and tools for news media. Case studies will concentrate on topics such as “green tech” and eldercare innovations.

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - September 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Media Watch
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Judy Estrin on the Gender Gap in Silicon Valley

By Tom Foremski - September 2, 2008

I recently interviewed Judy Estrin, one of Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs, and asked her about the gender gap in the valley and why there aren't more women in senior executive ranks.

Here is her reply:

http://www.blip.tv/file/1224262

Also, here is my recent interview with Ms Estrin about her new book:

Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

We spoke for about 90 minutes, here is a highly edited version of that conversation.

- - -

http://www.theinnovationgap.com/

- - -
And coming to a Friday near you . . . Fridays with Foremski!
New promo reel, shorter, with faster name dropping :-)

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - September 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Silicon Valley
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Weekend Watcher: Sol Crawford's Pioneering Hornucopia Music Festival

By Tom Foremski - August 31, 2008

Allison Lovejoy brings us the Lovejoy Lowdown on Sol Crawford organizer of the upcoming SF Hornucopia music festival.

Sol Crawford is one of the most interesting of San Francisco's music promoters. He is a co-partner at Amnesia, which has earned a reputation for one of the best live performance rooms in the Mission district.

Hornucopia is a celebration of any music with horns, and that's a very broad definition. Starting September 4th 35 bands will play across 9 venues in 11 days.

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Weekend Watcher
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Fishwrap: PR bloggers urge vote early and vote often . . . The Mad Professor plus SeeqPod . . . TubeMogul for Micro Media Moguls

By Tom Foremski - August 29, 2008

[Wrapping up the week in three dots . . .]

The slow days of August haven't been that slow. And September will blow in like a hurricane with a slew of events, with Office 2.0 the first week in September.

. . .

Vote early, vote often . . .

The PR Week awards for best PR blogs has been interesting to watch. PR bloggers have been asking their supporters to vote, and to vote often, which brings up some interesting ethical issues.

How good is a PR blogger if that PR blogger can't pull together the PR to get out the vote? Is it OK to do that or should votes happen in an organic way, without cheerleading the way?

What about all the other type of "vote for best Web 2.0 company" type awards? Is it OK to hire a PR company to help get out the vote or should it be a natural process?

This is why I think the best awards are those judged by a panel of peers, imho.

. . .

Sites I like . . .

Seeqpod: Interesting music service. What it does is it finds music you search for and then plays it via a streaming front end. You can save your playlists and share them. The music it finds is on other people's sites, so it isn't licensed. It finds the music files and plays the files without downloading the files and so it tries to avoid the licensing issue because the files are out there in the cloud and not on its servers.

Here is an example: Last night I went to see the legendary Lee Scratch Perry. I'm not a fan of reggae but this was an extraordinary experience (he is playing the Independent tonight (Friday). Here is a Seeqpod playlist of Lee Scratch Perry I put together: http://tinyurl.com/6n7tfu.

TubeMogul: I just signed up for this service and if it delivers on its promise I will be forever grateful. I'm launching "Fridays with Foremski" in September, a weekly video show featuring interviews with top CEOs, thought leaders, profiling startups, covering major events and conferences - plus a gang of pundits/pals discussing recent events. It'll be a round up of video work I'll be doing during the week. Video takes a lot of work and one part that is a pain, is uploading it to many sites and then tracking the views and other analytics.

With TubeMogul you upload it once and it does all the rest: uploading to multiple sites and doing any neccesary transcoding etc. This service will potentially save me a lot of time, which can be used to do more interviews, etc.

Fridays with Foremski is coming!

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Friday Watch
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Thought Leader Interview: Judy Estrin on the Innovation Gap in Silicon Valley and Beyond . . .

By Tom Foremski - August 28, 2008

Here is my recent interview with Judy Estrin, former CTO at Cisco and one of Silicon Valley's most successful serial entrepreneurs. She has been concerned about the topic of innovation for many years because we aren't making the investments needed--in Silicon Valley and as a nation.

She says that the explosion of Web 2.0 type innovation is masking a large problem.

She has a new book on this topic: Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

We spoke for about 90 minutes, here is a highly edited version of that conversation.

- - -

http://www.theinnovationgap.com/

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Thoughtleaders
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Fridays with Foremski Coming in September...

By Tom Foremski - August 26, 2008

I put together a fun promo reel for "Fridays with Foremski" a weekly video show launching in September that chronicles my travels around Silicon Valley. I'll be interviewing top CEOs, thought leaders, profiling startups, and covering major events and conferences. The focus will be the business and culture of Silicon Valley.

Plus, I'll have my own gang of pundits, similar to Steve Gillmor's excellent Gillmor Gang, with a discussion on the week's events. I'll be working with Alex Ross, my new VP of business development and the publisher of "Friday's with Foremski."

We are just beginning to pull together the sponsorships so if you'd like to find out more, please contact Alex Ross [alex(at)siliconvalleywatcher.com].

I'm out of town until the end of this week but when I return I'll tell you more about the series--and I'll be looking for suggestions from my readers about topics and people that they'd like to see on "Fridays with Foremski."

Here is a flavor of what you'll see, compiled from my work over the past year.

You can also download the video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-744734598136285785&hl=en

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: About SVW
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

We Have a Serious Innovation Deficit Says Silicon Valley Thought Leader Judy Estrin

By Tom Foremski - August 22, 2008

I just got back from a very inspiring conversation with Judy Estrin, a serial entrepreneur, former CTO at Cisco, and one of Silicon Valley's top thought leaders.

I first met Ms Estrin about 7 years ago when I profiled her achievements in the Financial Times. What makes Ms Estrin interesting is that she is a dyed-in-the-wool Silicon Valley entrepeneur spanning several decades and she is not afraid to speak her mind.

Over the past few years she has been sounding the alarm about the lack of innovation in Silicon Valley, and in the US. We are living off of investments in innovation made many years ago and we are not creating the conditions for a new crop of innovation. And we need to harvest a bumper crop of innovation if we are to solve four major crises: energy, climate change, healthcare, and security.

Her work has led to a new book - Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

Her research includes many interviews with corporate leaders and many others around the US.

"It was wonderful to get out of Silicon Valley and talk to people about what is happening to innovation," Ms Estrin said. "Too often we get caught up in our own little world in the valley, and we don't see what is happening elsewhere." She discovered that we are running a national innovation deficit, and that we need to act now to avoid serious consequences. She describes the problems and offers solutions.

I will have a video and podcast audio of my interview with Ms. Estrin coming up on SVW.

- - -

http://www.theinnovationgap.com/

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Silicon Valley
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

A Peek Into My Day at Intel Developer Forum

By Tom Foremski - August 21, 2008

I spent much of the day at the Intel Developer Forum Wednesday at the Moscone in San Francisco (Intel is an SVW sponsor). It was great to bump into old UK buddies such as Joe Fay, news editor at The Register, and Mike Magee, the UK's most entrepreneurial journalist, and many others, including a bunch of my favorite ex-Podtech people.

Here is a short peek into my day at IDF.

A short description:

Here is part of my day at Intel Developer Forum. You get to see some of the Intel Insiders in action; plus you meet the founder of XIHA Life, a multi-lingual social network site from Finland, and a lady from Intel, demos TV widgets, developed by Intel and Yahoo.

Included: cameo's from well known local bloggers and personalities, such as Cathy Brooks, JD Lasica, Eddie Codel, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Heuer, Ken Kaplan, Christine Ngo and other familiar faces...

Jeremiah Owyang

Cathy Brooks

Eddie Codel

JD Lasica

Ken E Kaplan

Chris Heuer

Christine Ngo

Please see: UK's Pioneering Publisher Mike Magee Launches Indian-based IT Publication

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Intel [INTC]
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

SDForum: Corporate Innovation Fair

By Tom Foremski - August 19, 2008

Last week I popped into SDForum's first "Corporate Innovation and Research Fair." I recorded part of the lunchtime panel on video and there were some very good points made by a stellar panel.

Here is an edited highlights version:

From left to right:

Roger Meike, Sun Microsystems

Harold Yu, Orrick

David SMith, Tynax

Deborah Magid, IBM

Roy Levin, Microsoft

Dr. Ike Nassi, SAP

Towards the end I ask a question about the term innovation and if it has been over-used. Dr. Nassi agrees, and says it has lost all meaning.

InnovationSDForum.mov

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Disruptive
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Intel Announces $100K Prizes for Innovation

By Tom Foremski - August 19, 2008

Intel (An SVW sponsor) today announced it would give out four awards of $100,000 each for innovative ideas in education, healthcare, economic development and the environment in 2009.

The announcement was made by Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

Dean Takahashi from Venturebeat reports:

I can remember years when Barrett, as CEO, came out on stage to pound home the message that Intel’s processors were better than those from Advanced Micro Devices and we would all one day be using computers with Itanium chips. Now that there are a billion Internet users in the world, Barrett is taking his foot off the pedal on that hard sell on Intel. It tells you, perhaps, how unconcerned Intel is about competition now that it has reasserted its dominance over AMD and what Barrett really cares about.

Intel Developer Forum: Chairman Craig Barrett takes us on a world tech tour » VentureBeat

I'll be at IDF on Wednesday and Thursday.

Here is some additional info on todays IDF from Annie Rodkins:

The conference unofficially started today with a press briefing put together by Intel’s Corporate Technology Group – the guys and gals who run R&D here at Intel. Here, researchers spoke about their vision of the future as Connected Visual Computing; you can catch up with Intel Fellow Jim Held at http://tinyurl.com/58hnlc or see some pretty amazing slides and highlights athttp://tinyurl.com/5e9cc2.

Rehearsals took place for two talks that will be livecast on Tuesday: “Using Information Technology to Meet 21st Century Challenges & Opportunities” and “Nehalem: Screaming Performance, Efficient Power.” For links to livecasts see http://tinyurl.com/5mtsek.

Lastly, the Upload Lounge is all set and ready to host bloggers and podcasters the world over:http://tinyurl.com/5j6mcm. Tomorrow at the Lounge you will be able to meet some guests from Craig Barrett’s opening keynote (we can’t say who), astronaut Story Musgrave and Intel Sr. Fellow Gene Meieran, and others.

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Intel [INTC]
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

Public Relations is Such a Sensitive Profession . . .

By Tom Foremski - August 18, 2008

PR is such sensitive profession. Anytime anyone criticizes any aspect of the practice of public relations the industry pays lots of attention along with a lot of mea culpa. If journalists did the same we'd never get any work done.

Jennifer Leggio over at ZDNet has a good account of the latest PR bashing incident: Bloggers vs. PR - the broken record continues to skip | Feeds | ZDNet.com

It seems to me that the PR industry takes on criticism in two ways:

1 - it agrees with the criticism and pledges to do better accompanied by donning of hair shirts and self-flailing blog posts that go on and on for pages.

2 - It dismisses the criticism as massively ill informed and the ravings of an idiot..

It is usually 90 per cent number 1.

Whenever I come across such behavior in a friend I know that something is up, that there is a self-esteem issue at work, maybe, and that there must be something deeper going on. . .

The deeper stuff is that things have changed in the PR industry, and they've changed forever. Yet sometimes things look the same as before. And that can be a confusing time.

Some of my friends in the PR industry get upset with me for saying that things have changed. But my saying that things have changed didn't cause it, I'm just saying what I see.

It is similar to when I became a journalist "blogger" 4 years ago. My friends at the Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, SF Chronicle, Forbes, Fortune, Reuters, AP, etc would sometimes shoot me cold looks as if, as a "blogger," I was responsible for making their lives a misery, because they now have work longer hours, and live under the threat of job cuts, and they can't go home at 5pm every day, anymore.

The trends in media have nothing to do with me, I'm swept up in the dynamics of this industry the same way as everyone else--I'm trying to deal with the disruption.

What I understood four years ago was: the business model for media had changed forever and it wouldn't return to the old ways, and that is the future for PR too.

The same forces that are dramatically changing, and remaking the media industry, will do the same for the PR industry. Yet that change isn't very visible yet, it is masked. This is because PR is making money with traditional services plus making money selling "new media/social media" services, these are boom times for PR. Change only happens when it hurts to do things the old way, that's why the media industry is changing.

It sometimes seems as if the PR industry is Wiley Coyote chasing the Roadrunner--all is well as long as no one looks down and notices the road has gone, and there is nothing there but gravity and a distant canyon floor.

- - -

Please see:

Chris Anderson's PR Blacklist Backlash - The Long Tail of Bad PR

Raining on the PR industry's parade...

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: PR Watch
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile

"Social" Product Pitches Ring False . . .

By Tom Foremski - August 15, 2008

For a long time I've disliked the use of the word "social" when it comes to press releases or applied to any other business-related software or business activities. Yet I do recognize that there is a grey area when it comes to online communities such as Facebook, where my business contacts get co-mingled with my friends.

However, in other areas, especially when it comes to press releases and business software, "social" seems to be an inappropriate use of the word.

I've been one of the key evangelists for what I've called the "new media release" it is a news release that includes links, tags, photos, graphics and video. Lately, people have been calling it a "social media press release." I'm not a fan of that term and I'm not the only one.

Tamera Kremer over at her Wildfire Strategic Marketing blog says it well in a post titled: What's so 'social' about product pitches?

The title says it all, imho. But here is an extract:

Let's be realistic and clear-- Social Media Press Releases are micro-sites for a product or announcement. This isn't "game changing", it's just borrowing from what interactive advertising was doing 7 years ago and adding RSS and API feeds and using it as a landing page to direct bloggers and journalists to. That's hardly something that deserves the amount of air-time it's been getting if we are being honest (and doing more than patting each other on the back within the echo chamber).

Let's just call them commercial product pitches . . . a media release with links...(!)

 Subscribe in a reader

By Tom Foremski - August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Social Media
| SVW Toolbar | SVW Newsletter | SVW Mobile