Yup, Information Overload [Babbling VC]

Good article from Wired on information overload caused by the Twitters, Facebooks, RSS feeds, etc. of all sorts out there. I can completely agree with what they are writing. I too am considering getting off RSS at least for a while to detox. There really is a point when it's simply too much and everything going in becomes garbage and hence only garbage can come out. I too have also felt a bit of an addictive tinge to all of this stuff, be it information or social networks. It's absolutely necessary to step back every now and again and re-evaluate where you're getting value and where you are not.

Good article from Wired on information overload caused by the Twitters, Facebooks, RSS feeds, etc. of all sorts out there. I can completely agree with what they are writing. I too am considering getting off RSS at least for a...

Emerging Markets' Oil Appetite Exceeds U.S. [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

This year for the first time the collective oil appetite of emerging markets -- many of which don't pay the market price for oil -- will exceed that of the U.S. It is striking stuff, as evidenced by the following figure:

[via Bloomberg]

Murdoch's WSJ Changes Claim Top Editor [Silicon Alley Insider]

Managing Editor Marcus Brauchli is leaving the top job at the Journal after trying (and apparently failing) to find what Time.com described as a "a middle path between the paper's traditionalists and Murdoch's new vision for the paper."

The old vision: business newspaper of record. The new vision: The Clinton vs. Obama newspaper of record.

Meanwhile in other News Corp. news, Rupe is about to buy Newsday for $580 million. Doesn't that seem like a big deal? Not in the NYC media world -- Newsday is a Long Island newspaper, so don't expect to hear much play-by-play about management changes, editorial shifts, etc.

links 04/22/08: End is Nigh Edition [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

Emptying my burgeoning browser tabs of "end is nigh" material:

• Russia looks at using oil money to buy U.S. companies (Times)
• Japan's food shortages becoming more dire (TheAge)
• Food shortages -- okay, rice shortages -- have spread to the U.S. (N.Y. Sun)
• U.S. faces recession recovery alphabet soup: V vs U vs the dreaded L (FT)

No More VC Eulogies, Please [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

Okay, no more eulogies for VCs please. Coming after all the overdone pieces over the weekend parroting the data-blather about a downturn in VC spending -- everywhere except Silicon Valley, where most of the VC spending happens anyway -- we have an article on the subject in today's FT. This entire genre is turning me into a VC sympathizer. 

More importantly, I'm really struggling with the supposed corollary, which is that angel investors will fill the investing void. While I have no doubt that angels are more sophisticated than ever, wonderful people that they are, sometimes there is a reason why a market gets abandoned, and that's because it has become a crummy market. And with returns trailing considerably less risky interest-bearing accounts, that is currently the case in early-stage venture.

Stock Market Noise Abatement Act [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

The trouble with oil/dollar/etc. records is that once you're at a record the odds are awfully good you'll set another record. After all, if we assume that prices generally follow a random walk, the odds are darn close to 50% that on the day after a record high that we set another record high. And that leads to a non-stop series of noisy headlines, "New record XXXX price set!"

I think we should institute a new rule: No talking about a record price until at least 40 hours day after a record has been set. Call it a kind of market noise abatement act.

The Boston (SMS) Marathon [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

There is some fascinating data out from Verizon on the upsurge in SMS messages during the Boston Marathon today at key points along the route. In general, nearby SMS traffic was up 213% compared to the previous Monday, with the largest volume between 1 and 2pm.

Here is the data, with percentage changes week-over-week, for various locations along the Boston Marathon route:

What's so special about Kenmore Square? It is normally a zero SMS traffic area? And I wonder how much of this was Twitter-related SMS traffic this year compared to last year.

Aurora, Draper Labs, and BAE Team, IBM’s Merger Machine Steams, Lonelygirl15 Beams, & More Deals News [Xconomy Venture Capital Feed]

Roundup, deals, VC

Robert Buderi wrote:

New England firms had a dismal first quarter in terms of securing venture capital investment, but the past week saw a few of them make stabs at turning around Q2, in much the same way the Sox came back to beat the Rangers.

—Stromedix of Cambridge, MA closed a $25 million Series B financing led by New Leaf Venture Partners and joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Red Abbey Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, and Frazier Healthcare Ventures. Rebecca profiled the 2-year-old startup, which jumpstarted its clinical program by in-licensing drugs from Biogen Idec.

—Boston’s Spark Capital led a $5 million financing round for Los Angeles independent studio Eqal, the firm behind the Longelygirl15 series of YouTube video fame.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency tapped Aurora Flight Sciences, Draper Laboratories, and BAE Systems, all of which have Bay State operations, under its “Vulture” program to help build a plane that can stay aloft for five years.

GuildCafe, of Cambridge, MA, announced it had closed a $3 million Series A round from Boston’s Flybridge Capital Partners and was changing its name to GamerDNA as it moves to build a platform that lets gamers record and share their gaming experiences across platforms.

—Regulus, a joint venture between Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) and Isis Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ISIS), inked a multi-million-dollar alliance with British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline to discover, develop, and market therapeutics for inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Regulus gets $20 million up front, and several hundred million more is on the table.

—VisEn Medical of Woburn, MA, raised $5 million in an expanded Series B financing round led by Merck Capital Ventures and Flagship Ventures. The company is developing fluorescence technology for research and medical imaging.

—Wade wrote a fascinating piece that looked at how IBM’s software division makes acquisitions—something it has done 66 times in the last 12 years, often times in Massachusetts.

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New England firms had a dismal first quarter in terms of securing venture capital investment, but the past week saw a few of them make stabs at turning around Q2, in much the same way the Sox came back to beat the Rangers. —Stromedix of Cambridge, MA closed a $25 million Series B financing led by [...]

The Innovation Cycle and the Commercialization Cycle [Cleantech Investing]