Google Kills Feedburner

This is sad, and I have to wonder what the motivations behind it might have been.



About a year ago, Google bought Feedburner, an RSS tracking system that did a very nice job of creating advertising revenue for RSS powered content. Google announced they'd shut it down a few days ago.

Why would Google spend a reported $100M on a company and then, a year later, shut it down? I don't think they transferred that business to their adsense network (Allen Stern, in the video above, agrees with me here).

I suspect this was an example of a big company seeing that a small company had something very innovative, were first movers and were creating an 'alternative' ad network to adsense on Google.

Having worked in some really big companies I've seen this kind of behavior over and over so it's possible I'm being overly cynical ... Maybe I'm giving Google too much credit for thinking into the future and being a little bit evil here. But, maybe not.

I'm effectively saying that Google bought Feedburner with the intention of, eventually, shutting it down. They did it in a way that bought off the digitari so their image as 'not like other big companies' would be held intact. Feedburner folks and it's investors were well paid and, in the end, that's what makes for a lot of positive buzz in the blogosphere. I find this to be the goodness part of this. Unlike some companies that smash small startups that might threaten them, this IS, in a oddly mercenary way, a 'nice' way to shut down a budding competitor.

I still think it's sad though. Dick and gang put a lot of mental horsepower and hard work into creating a great company and a compelling product. I'm sorry to see it go.

The good news is without a similar product that provides similar functionality and monitization levels to take it's place at Google (adsense is not that product) someone, somewhere, can now do it again.

Librarians as Free Speech Shock Troops

Every so often, I read a blog post that makes me go 'wow' and sticks with me long and hard. Posts like that are rare so when I run across them I believe it's important others have the opportunity to read them as well.

Jamie Larue just wrote such a post called "Uncle Bobby's Wedding".

The subject matter is a childrens book about gay marriage, but it could be about any idea that one person or group of persons disagrees with and doesn't feel should be made available to another group (in this case, children aged 2-7). It addresses the importance of free speech and open thought. He's addressing libraries, but it extends well beyond that to any free speech be it in a library, or on the internet.

"Our whole system of government was based on the idea that the purpose of the state was to preserve individual liberties, not to dictate them. The founders uniformly despised many practices in England that compromised matters of individual conscience by restricting freedom of speech. Freedom of speech – the right to talk, write, publish, discuss – was so important to the founders that it was the first amendment to the Constitution – and without it, the Constitution never would have been ratified."

It's an incredibly well thought out and respectful response that I find, in our polarized world, sadly lacking in the public discussion of ideas.

"Finally, then, I conclude that “Uncle Bobby's Wedding” is a children's book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children's picture book area. I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won't agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don't imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life."

Bravo Mr. Larue. You have, again, reinforced my belief that The Librarians of the world are our shock troops for free speech and the dissemination of ideas and open discussion.

Benevolent Dictators and Cross Pollination in Boulder

Rebecca McKinnon did a great post on Silicon Valley's benevolent dictatorship. Personally, I think she nailed it. To a large degree, she exposed how a large number of high tech people tend to think about this space. Benevolent Dictatorships are, indeed, largely what creates great companies in Silicon Valley. I won't go into her take on the downside of that, read her post. It's worth it.

The guys over at Techdirt, not to be outdone, write a post about Rebecca's post that adds an important additional side note in the last couple of paragraphs about the cross pollination of people and ideas is one main reason Silicon Valley tends to be so successful. These two things, based on my 20 plus years of observing it and 10 years actually living there, make up a large part of why Silicon Valley succeeds beyond the obvious things talked about and copied by other areas many times before (money from VC's and Angels, access to universities, quality of life, etc.).

So....Benevolent Dictators and Cross Pollination of technology, people and ideas. Really really important.

Can you apply that formula to a place like Boulder, Colorado? A town that fancies itself many things, one of which is a '2nd tier' startup capital, alongside towns like Austin, Portland and Seattle?

I think you can, but I don't think, in Boulder at least, it looks the same.

Our benevolent dictators seem to also be our Money People. The VC's and Angel investors that make startups here possible. They don't act like Steve Jobs, they're far more subtle, but the effect is very similar. What they say goes, and what they want happens. This is certainly not a bad thing, but it's a real thing. We have no Apple like companies in Boulder, it's just not big enough, so a different configuration of a similar model seems to have formed up.

On the second point of cross pollination, I'm not sure we do as good a job. This is due mostly to scale.. we just don't have it here, and it's also who our benevolent dictators are.

Even 'Northern Colorado'....bringing Denver/Ft. Collins/Loveland/Longmont/Greely into it we don't have near the same number of high tech folks or money people as The Valley (I'm not counting Colorado Springs in here because Colorado Springs is to the rest of Colorado what Texas is to the US).

But, it's also partly due to our money people, or rather, our lack of them. Generally, VC's and even Angels are not overly keen on their companies hiring employee's away from each other. This is very understandable because, in a small company, a key person leaving can be devastating to that small companies progress. Because we have far fewer money people in Colorado than Silicon Valley has, there's alot more talk among the startup people running the companies about how 'VC X' really hates it when you hire someone from his/her company.

If that money person is already involved in your company, you don't want to do something to upset them. And, due to the size of the money pool being limited in this area, if that money person isn't involved with your company, chances are you'll want them to be, or at the very least have something nice to say about you, so, again, you don't want to do anything to upset any of those money people. This gives them a disproportionate level of influence (back to Benevolent Dictatorships) on the startup world in our area.

This isn't a Boulder problem alone, it's any area that doesn't have a big enough VC/Angel population which is pretty much anywhere but Silicon Valley.

Unfortunately, this creates a low level fear of hiring from other startups (i.e. limiting cross pollination) if they're involved with (or want to be) some of the bigger VC or Angel folks in the community.

In a smaller ecosystem like Boulder (or even Northern Colorado), that has a real dampening effect on cross pollination, one of the key features of Silicon Valley's success.

I don't have an answer here short of getting several dozen VC's and several hundred Angels to move to Boulder. And I'm not saying Boulder is a bad place for startups (it's actually very very good) but, the components that make Silicon Valley so successful don't yet exist here in Boulder (or by what I can tell anywhere else) and until that happens, The Valley will rule.

The Main Stream Media (MSM) is Trying Really Hard To Commit Suicide

I can't really think of any other explaination for what happened at CBS.

Apparently, McCain pulled a blooper during a CBS news interview by mixing up his timelines around 'The Surge' in Iraq which is actually a big story in itself (since he seems to be basing all his credibility on it) but the real story, for me, was how CBS, effectively, covered up the mistake.

Thank god for MSNBC madman (corporate newsroom speak for 'TruthSayer') Keith Oberman. He took the original footage, and the modified footage and played them side by side. Here's the Clip:



Of course, this is getting a much larger audience on the internet then when it was aired on MSNBC. If you want the facts, on demand, the internet is the place to go.

This isn't about McCain, I'm not picking on him.

What I'm astounded at is the CBS Evening News changing the content of an interview with a presidential candidate to make him look less foolish when he made a major mistake on camera.

So I have to ask: What's to keep them from doing the same thing in reverse: make McCain, or Obama, look bad.

I mean... why not? Where's the rule book that says 'you can change the content of an interview to make a presidential candidate seem better, but not worse'?

Isn't one.

So you can bet they'll be making presidential candidates look bad using fairly blatant manipulation like the clip of CBS's clumsy editing above.

And this means that the main stream media (not just CBS, but all of the majors.... NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX... etc.) get the 'are you bullshitting me again' filter applied. Hell, if CBS is doing it, how can the others NOT be doing it? Even if they aren't, it's what people will think.

I know this because, now, it's what I think. I can't trust what I'm seeing with my own eyes from the big news guys anymore.

When the MSM blows what little credibility it has, that's it.

The internet wins.

I'll bet Walter Cronkite is really really pissed right now.

July 4th and the Declaration of Independence

Although, as Americans, you'd think we'd all have a copy of the Declaration of Independence around, chances are you don't. And if you did, would you read it?

Spend a little over 14 minutes then and at least listen to it.

Punk Capitalism (The Pirate's Dilemma)

THIS is a book worth reading

The Pirates Dilemma
How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism

Or put another way: much of the worlds innovation was created by Pirates.

You can download a copy of it here.

Did you know Jankes was the word for pirates back in the 18th and 19th century? Its where the work Yanks came from because Americans were considered the most piratical bootlegging nation on earth. They stole, copied and ignored copyrights and patents. They looked alot like China of the 1990s, and Japan of the 1970s.

Did you know Hollywood is a bunch of pirates? Yep. Edison invented filmmaking and demanded a licensing fee from anyone making movies with his tech. What happened? A band of filmmaking pirates, including one named William, left New York for the then still wild west where they thrived, unlicensed, until Edison's patents expired. Williams last name? Fox.

CableTV: Same beginnings. In 1948 when Cable TV started, cable companies refused to pay the networks for broadcasting their content. For over 30 years operated like a primiative illegal file sharing network.

Excellent short video on the subject here:



It's worth all 4:59 seconds of time it takes to watch.

He also talks about the history of how punk music created the DIY (do it yourself) culture. Something we, today, call UGC (User Generated Content).

The basic ideas of this Punk Capitalism are simple and come directly from the philosophy of punk rock (From the book):

Do it yourself.
Punk refused to take cues from the mass market, and created a vibrant cultural movement as a result. Now a critical mass of punk capitalists is removing the associative barriers that held them back. They are working for themselves, setting up businesses, and finding ways to produce as much as they conume, laying the foundations for a wealth of new markets and business models. D.I.Y. is changing our labor markets, and creativity is becoming our most valuable currency.

Resist Authority
Punk resisted authority and saw anarcy as the path to a brighter future. Punk capitlists are resisting authority, too--by leveraging new D.I.I. technologies and the power of individuals connecting and working togethrs as equals. This twin engine of the new economy is creating new ways all of us can live and work, leaving old systems for dust. Technology plus Democracy = Punk Captialism.

Combine Altruism and Self-Interest
Punk had high ideas--it looked aggressive and scary, but through its angry critique of society and subversion of it, it sought to change the world for the better. Punk capitalists are using the same techniques, subverting a world full of empty corporate gestures, manufacturing businesses and producst with meanings that attempt to inject substance bank into style. Punk injected altruism into entrepreneurship, a motivator of people long overlooked by neoclassical economics. Not only that, punk made the idea of putting purpose before profit seem cool to an entire generation. It menufactured new meaning in an area where it was really needed.

It's written by Matt Mason, an ex-Pirate DJ and journalist. It's well researched and offers great real world examples.

Here's a overview of the book:

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Tornado's, Storm Chasing and Walk-Abouts

Every so often, it's important that you get out from behind your keyboard and drop off your usual grid.

I like walk-Abouts. Actually, it's more the American version re: Drive-Abouts. It's something I've done periodically for years and it takes the place of a planned vacation very nicely for me. Solitary, mind clearing and life re-affirming. You get in your vehicle, with no clue where you're going to end up, and you drive. I've ended up in NYC, biker bars in CA., deep in Mississippi's swamps and in the middle of Death Valley.

I also like storm chasing. Tracking down heavy weather and tornadoes is invigorating in ways I suspect is similar to how big game photographers must feel when stalking rhino's or lion prides. So, this week I'm dropping off the grid and mixing the two up by heading to somewhere in center of the country with my trusty little AWD, some video and still camera's, a GPS, CB/weather radio, a laptop with Swift WX and GRLevelX software(weather tracking/radar software) and a hankering for roadside diner food with no $5 a cup coffee shops within a 100 miles.
















I'll also be bringing along a high level of healthy respect for wall clouds (above). I've done this for years now and, generally, it's a hit and miss endeavor. I'd say 1 out of 4 times to I actually get close enough to see a tornado, but man, it's like nothing you've ever experienced until you've done it (and I've climbed mountains, raced cars and skydived in my younger days). Oddly, it's the opposite of doing high adrenaline sports in that you, really, have no control over the environment.

It's both terrifying and calming.

I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but one things for certain, after chasing a tornado across the long flat plains of Kansas and actually catching up and having one stare you down, it puts all the other concerns, fears and hopes in a persons tiny little world in crystal clear perspective.