3G iPhone Pix: Comes in Ugly Gray With Video Chat [Silicon Alley Insider]

We've waited a whole year for this? CrunchGear posts photos of what is allegedly Apple's "iPhone 2" (a.k.a., 3G iPhone). Bottom line? It's thinner, it comes in gray and red, and it includes video chat (which looks pretty cool, actually).

Full gallery on CrunchGear

Trying Zemanta [A VC]

Image via Wikipedia

One of my favorite VC quotes comes from Bill Kaiser of Greylock. He once said, "when I hear about a company once, I often ignore it, when I hear about it twice, I pay attention, when I hear about it for the third time, I take a meeting".

It happened to me this week. I met with Reshma who runs seedcamp, the european version of Y Combinator, on Monday and she told me about Zemanta which came out of last year's seedcamp. Then I saw this blog post about Zemanta on Techmeme the next day. And then on Thursday, Alex Iskold, founder of our portfolio company Adaptive Blue, introduced us to Andraz, one of the founders of Zemanta.

Three hits in one week is absolutely a "pay attention" notice. So this morning I am trying Zemanta out. The image and most of the links in this post were automatically provided by Zemanta.

Zemanta is a blogging tool plugin that provides a set of advanced services for finding related content (photos and related posts). It also provides something I've wanted for a long time, a way to do a tumblr style reblog in typepad.

The company is based on Slovenia and was funded through relationships it made at seedcamp. I am very interested in what's going on with seed state web startups in europe right now. I'll be over there next month and will spend some time trying to get a sense of things. One stop is likely to be Slovenia to meet the Zemanta team.

Image via Wikipedia One of my favorite VC quotes comes from Bill Kaiser of Greylock. He once said, "when I hear about a company once, I often ignore it, when I hear about it twice, I pay attention, when I...

kendalldoesit: Let’s all take one minute and fifty-two seconds... [bijan sabet]

kendalldoesit:

Let’s all take one minute and fifty-two seconds to remember how lucky we are that this man will not be running the country next year.

We need President Obama.

Windows Live Writer and the Pain Hoop [The Post Money Value]

I'm doing my thing (or trying to) on a MacBook Air. I'm working on a post that talks about this but one thing stood out that I thought was relevant to those company managers/founders out there.

Ask yourself this question: How many hoops would a customer jump through in order to use your product. Put another way, how much pain will somebody endure before dumping your product or service.

Consider Windows Live Writer.  I think the product is off the charts great. I've found nothing - on the Mac- that beats it. I like this product so much that I spent the money for Parallels and have a Windows session running on my MacBook Air which contains exactly one application: Windows Live Writer.  The Parallels session makes this device a bit pokey, I don't care. It's a hassle to boot up and get to Windows Live Writer; I don't care.  I'll take the pain, jump the hoops because the product, along with some great add-ons, simply is the best.

And your product? Your service? What hoops and pain will your 'loyal' users endure in order to use or keep using your stuff.

It does matter when somebody else is only a click away.

I'm doing my thing (or trying to) on a MacBook Air. I'm working on a post that talks about this but one thing stood out that I thought was relevant to those company managers/founders out there. Ask yourself this question: How many hoops would a...

Take-Two: Trust Us! We've Definitely Got Other Buyers Out There (TTWO) [Silicon Alley Insider]

A major part of the Take-Two's (TTWO) argument against accepting Electronic Arts $25.74 offer: We've got other buyers. The company made the same claim during its conference call yesterday, announcing that it's moved from general interest to "formal discussions" with potential buyers who aren't EA (ERTS).

In recent weeks, that's gone over well with investors, who have pushed TTWO shares up about $2 more than EA's last offer. But at some point Strauss Zelnick and crew will actually have to produce a living, breathing buyer, or the Street will get antsy again. Maybe it already is: A day after TTWO released a blowout Q2; shares closed today at $27.36 -- down 1%.

Bad Day in the Markets [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

There is something about the conjunctival redness of this market heat chart (via Finviz) today that is overwhelming:

SanDisk Shuts Down Would-Be iTunes Competitor Fanfare/TakeTV [Silicon Alley Insider]

That was fast; seven months from press release to vapor, to be exact. SanDisk (CP) killed its PC-to-TV device, TakeTV, along with its iTunes-like content portal, Fanfare, just seven months after introducing them. The sad part is apparently this happened on May 15th and no one noticed until Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee made a call to the company.

When it was introduced, TakeTV/Fanfare was pitched as a clever, low-tech workaround for the Web-to-TV problem: download digital video to a USB device, carry it over to the TV and--presto!--digital video on your TV.

It was rolled out about the time NBC was in its deathmatch with Apple (AAPL) over pricing for TV shows on iTunes. NBC eagerly inked a content deal with them in December and NBC U president of digital distribution JB Perrette said "Fanfare is going to be like an iTunes store for us." So much for that.

The problem was Fancast didn't get much content aside from NBC and CBS. And after that last flurry with NBC, we didn't hear much about TakeTV/Fanfare, which probably sums up what happened to it--ok idea, plenty of great press, and simply no interest from the public.

See Also: NBC U: SanDisk Fanfare=Our New iTunes Store
SanDisk Gives NBCU What Apple Wouldn't: Pricing Flexibility

Howard Lindzon on Tech Ticker Talking About Twitter [A VC]

Acceptance [The Fein Line]

Oh yes, the sad memories remain from Super Bowl XLII.  The Patriots lost, dashing their up-to-then perfect season.  I was there, which made the feelings worse.

I have been forcing myself to deal with this.  I now accept the result and can think about the experience.  I am pulling my Super Bowl XLII T-shirts out of the closet and can wear them without too much pain.  I don't think of them as bad luck or representing a bad time.  We've been so spoiled in Patriot Nation that a lot of people think that Super Bowl XLII should be forgotten.

It certainly wasn't as good as the Super Bowls that they won, but it was a great year.  You can't win them all.  And, the team had to work so hard and perform so well just to get there, let alone to get there with an undefeated record.  Adding to the irony was the catch phrase for Super Bowl XLII -- Who Wants It More?

So, as a loyal Pats fan who is following this week's minicamp in preparation for next season, I can smile about last year.  It was a good season, and almost great.  It hurt at the time, but I have finally accepted it for what it was.  A chance for a lot of excitement and enjoyment, until the last 2 minutes...

Amazon Did NOT Just Lose $3 Mil of Revenue In 90 Mins Downtime (AMZN) [Silicon Alley Insider]

Around 1:30 ET, Amazon's site crashed (AMZN). Around 3:30, we got an email with what will no doubt be the first of many estimates that try to quantify how much revenue Amazon just "lost." (The first estimate was $1.8 million an hour, or about $3 million during the 90 minutes of downtime.)

But how much revenue did Amazon really "lose" during this outage? Most likely only a small fraction of this.

Why? Because when customers who wanted to buy something from Amazon went to the site and found it down, the majority of them likely figured the glitch was temporary and decided to check back later this afternoon. And lo and behold--it was temporary. So they're probably placing their orders right now.

Amazon does not win business by having the "lowest prices on the web," so folks who are obsessed with having the "lowest prices on the web" wouldn't have bought from Amazon anyway.

Did Amazon lose some revenue in the 90 minues the site was down? Definitely. Did it lose "90 minutes-worth". No.

What they did lose: About half a billion dollars in market cap, if only briefly. Amazon was trading at $82.25 at 1:37 p.m. ET, and dove down to a low of $80.90 at 2:40 p.m. That's a 1.6% drop that shaved around half a billion dollars off Amazon's market cap.

Warner Music (WMG) Pulls Out Of Last.fm (CBS) [Silicon Alley Insider]

Warner Music Group (WMG) has pulled its catalog out of Last.fm's "on demand" free streaming service, which the CBS-owned service launched to great fanfare in January. Users can still hear Warner artists via the site's "radio" option, which doesn't allow you to select individual songs. But you can't order up individual songs from WMG artists. Like, say, Madonna:

What's the issue? We don't have the details, but we assume this is a straightforward debate about money: As in, Warner wants more of it. The company has licensed its music for on-demand streaming to iMeem and the forthcoming MySpace JV; in both cases, it has ended up with equity stakes in the services.

We're told WMG had licensed its music to last.fm on a month-to-month basis and hasn't renewed. A WMG spokesman confirmed that the company's music isn't on the service but wouldn't offer comment. Last.fm's response:

"We are currently negotiating a new agreement with Warner Music Group and are working hard to build the most comprehensive music service on the web. While we work things out, be assured that there's more then enough music to fill a lifetime of listening on Last.fm, and we are continually adding to it.".

As far as we know, Last.fm still has working arrangements with the other 3 majors: EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.

Perspective [The Fein Line]

Now that Senator Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, there is a lot of interest in him picking Hillary Clinton as his VP.  Since the battle between them was so close, people think that teaming them up will give the Democrats the best chance to beat John McCain in November.

I don't get that.  One reason why the race between Obama and Hillary was so close was that their positions are not that different.  Certainly, they have different levels and types of experience and have different styles.  I like Obama but would have been willing to vote for Hillary had she been the nominee.  Strangely, there are many Hillary supporters who say that they'd rather vote for John McCain than Obama.  Huh?

Maybe they are bitter that Hillary lost.  The press was tough on Hillary, particularly the conservative pundits.  It may not have been fair and may have been misogynistic.  But, I don't think that Obama showed her anything other than respect.  And, if you support Hillary's positions, you can't be that disappointed with Obama.  There are some differences, but mostly those of degree.

Meanwhile, if Obama wants to build a strong ticket, he needs balance.  Someone with more Washington experience.  Someone with some complementary positions who is willing to support Obama.  Maybe from the South or West or a state he's got to carry.  And, dare I say, an old white guy may not be a bad selection.  Race does matter, although Obama's nomination shows that progress is being made.  I don't know enough to suggest anyone, but Jim Webb from Virgina is mentioned a lot (he says he's not interested).

It would be easy to rush to a decision to put Hillary on the ticket, appease her followers, and strive for unity.  But, time and perspective will lead to a better decision.  This is often the case, and big decisions should only be made when they need to be, after sufficient time and consideration.  Anyway, Hillary is going to support the Democratic ticket no matter what.  She doesn't have to be on the ticket to endorse Obama.

Amazon, Twitter and Operant Conditioning [Florida Venture Blog by Dan Rua]

Twitter/FriendFeed updates announced Amazon.com was down for at least an hour this morning. It has since come up and down a few times. CNet, Mashable, TechCrunch and, thus TechMeme, eventually realized it too. It's up for me now.

I have no idea what happened, but I know Amazon gets a surge of buzz/traffic when it returns. I've seen Twitter leverage this strategy masterfully, reaping the rewards of variable scheduling to maximize conditioned behavior.

Wikipedia's description of operant conditioning has this to say about fixed and variable scheduling of stimulus:

"According to the laws of operant conditioning, any behavior that is consistently rewarded, every single time, will extinguish at a faster rate while intermittently reinforcing behavior leads to more stable rates of behavior that are relatively more resistant to extinction. Thus, in detection dogs, any correct behavior of indicating a "find," must always be rewarded with a tug toy or a ball throw early on for initial acquisition of the behavior. Thereafter, fading procedures, in which the rate of reinforcement is "thinned" (not every response is reinforced) are introduced, switching the dog to an intermittent schedule of reinforcement, which is more resistant to instances of non-reinforcement."

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