I’m in the second row of the paidContent 2011 conference at the amazing TheTimesCenter and I just watched a panel called “Quality, Quantity and Mass Content.” Larry Dignan from ZDNet hosted a panel that included Jason Rapp from Mahalo, Chris Ahearn from ThompsonReuters, Luke Beatty from Yahoo’s Associated Content and Lewis D’Vorkin from Forbes and True/Slant. The feedback IContinue reading “Content farms vs. Felix Salmon’s Twitter stream”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
LAUNCH takes off
I was a grand jury judge for my buddy Jason’s LAUNCH conference in San Francisco last week. There are two kinds of LAUNCH judges: celebrity judges who spend a half day on stage judging live presentations and the grand jury kind that watch all of the presentations and then pick winners for LAUNCH awards. I was one of theContinue reading “LAUNCH takes off”
Kojak, bang bang!
A long, long time ago I saw the Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn’s Foul Play in a Virginia movie theater with my sister Jennifer and my cousin Kimberly. To this day I vividly remember the car chase scene over the hills of San Francisco. Chevy had stolen a cab and it turned out there was a JapaneseContinue reading “Kojak, bang bang!”
Marketing
I often love Fred Wilson‘s blog, A VC, but sometimes it’s not so easy to love. A few days ago Fred posted a dismissal of marketing. He said marketing is only for companies with lousy products or companies like Zynga, Budweiser or Viagra who can only grow their businesses marginally through customer acquisition. I’ve been on the roadContinue reading “Marketing”
Strategic Conquest
My best friend in Texas, Chris Nottingham, asked me about an old computer wargame we used to play in college. He said his mother just got an iMac and he wanted to put that old game on there. A quick Google search for “old mac game destroyer tank island” uncovered Strategic Conquest. I spent so manyContinue reading “Strategic Conquest”
Apologies to Arianna
Lots of people are complaining about how everyone worked on The Huffington Post for free and how they should get paid now that AOL has paid $315 million for their work. Some have suggested $50 per post. Comedian Andy Borowitz tweeted: My share of the Huffington Post sale, zero dollars, was a little disappointing. This is nuts. First, everyone who blogged for free on Huffington PostContinue reading “Apologies to Arianna”
I am so glad AOL bought the Huffington Post
For one simple reason: I was sick of being the guy who runs the second hottest company in Greycroft’s portfolio. Recently, Greycroft partner Ian Sigalow wrote a blog post comparing VC exits to baseball hits. He said an exit of 2-3x is a double. 5x is a triple. I asked Ian if the AOL/Huffington Post deal was a double,Continue reading “I am so glad AOL bought the Huffington Post”
Too many hits: Prince at Madison Square Garden
Friends of ours bought us tickets to see Prince at Madison Square Garden. It was my first Prince show ever and now I’m wondering how I waited so long to see him. Prince’s stage was shaped like that symbol he changed his name to years ago. After an opening act by the comedian Sinbad, legendary bass player LarryContinue reading “Too many hits: Prince at Madison Square Garden”
Darren Murph is a blogging machine
And by machine, I mean he is a powerhouse, not that his writing is stiff and robotic. Good grief people! Yesterday I saw that Darren Murph’s 17,212 Engadget-related blog posts had snagged him a Guinness World Record. My first thought was, “Now that is a staggering number of blog posts.” Between this blog, Blogstakes (from back inContinue reading “Darren Murph is a blogging machine”
My dog died today
Back in 2001 when Niki and I were having tons of fertility trouble — before we had our three kids — we did what fertility-challenged couples are not supposed to do. We got a puppy. Barkley was the first of our three Cavaliers, but she wasn’t the first Cavalier we tried to get. Our breederContinue reading “My dog died today”