The structure and culture of a typical prepackaged software company is not attuned to the long-term needs of society for software that is part of its infrastructure. This essay discusses the ecosystem needed for development that better meets those needs.
I have not heard of a software development environment being called an ecosystem before, however it is an interesting concept. Shallow ponds could be considered small software companies, with each company having it's own lilypads of silo'ed groups working on ideas. Every once and awhile someone would hop from lilypad to lilypad, trying different roles & working with other people in the company. Sometimes they would miss a leap and fall in the water, other times they would make the separate lilypad's grow, until there is no water left to fall into.
The shallow pond concept could relate to many things. If you are a corner variety store you are in a shallow pond. If you are a Wal-Mart you are an ocean, or a Northern Snakehead invading all ponds, depending on your perspective..
The knowledge, with the weekend catch, that there is more than one fish in the Crofton pond is what is keeping biologists awake at night.
"Our biggest fear is that there are more than one and they'll reproduce," said Lunsford.
Sounds like a line straight out of Aliens. "She'll breed. You'll die."
A second fear, based on the fish's ability to breathe out of water and travel across land, is that the snakehead could leave the pond and travel the 75 feet (23 meters) or so to the Little Patuxent River, and from there invade the state's river system.
I always got a kick out of that image; this big ugly snakehead fish chasing stray dogs and cats around our neighbourhoods before jumping back in the local river.
Not sure what I'm getting at here but the essay is a good read if you are interested in that kind of stuff. Some of the highlights:
We need to start thinking about software in a way more like how we think about building bridges, dams, and sewers.
The problem with this concept is that only government should then be building software, since it will cost so bloody much.
The most successful prepackaged software applications have been those that may be inexpensively customized to meet the needs of users by developers with less and less computer skills, most desirably by the users themselves, or that form a base on which other prepackaged or custom software are built.
Simplicity is key. If somebody doesn't understand something or has to make an effort to understand it, they usually leave it alone until someone more curious picks it up and starts talking about it again, and then they will want it. People actually run away whenever something new and different shows up at their door. Change is dangerous in the minds of many.
The software itself may be available with no or little charge, but the organization is set up so that support of various sorts is provided by the company which has special knowledge of, and access to, the product. Again, there is a culture of obsolescence, to keep customers upgrading to new versions and paying for maintenance.
This is kind of like the story about how the Cadillac got its fins, and how the environment got laid to waste over the culture of obsolescence.
As part of this, buyers must get used to funding projects in advance. This is already the case in many areas, and the addition of cooperative funding with others can lower the costs or increase the scope of potential projects. Buyer funding lowers the requirement for potential "big hits" to incentivize development.
I like this idea the most of all. Warren Buffett's business model and many others is successfully based on the idea of gathering capital in advance, using part of the money to grow the business and then diversifying into larger growth-potential investments, not necessarily in the same industry.
A prepaid software plan sounds like a plan to me. If someone has already been paid they have the necessary capital to grow and prosper. If someone is constantly collecting payments they are getting the short end of the stick.
Warren Buffet's quote goes something like this:
"How do you tell the difference between a wealthy man and a poor man. The poor man signs the front of a cheque, the wealthy man signs the back"
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Saturday, July 24, 2004
911 Commission Indexed and Categorized
Vivisimo, a top-rated search engine that competes with Google for being #1, has some really cool indexing functionality that displays 'clustered results'. Clustered Results provide related terms & # of results, with drilldowns into a tree'd display.
There's a plugin for Firefox too.
It has indexed the 911 Commission Report as part of its service.
Another product they offer is a massive indexing of a company's databases, intranets, filesystems, etc.
There are some great demos for the medical industry here.
Plus you can search various Open Source repositories (Sourceforge, Freshmeat) which provides some amazing results.
How about Microsoft's Patent Portfolio (is double-click in there somewhere?)
Maybe RBC Financial for some good stock tips?
Definately a bookmark candidate.
There's a plugin for Firefox too.
It has indexed the 911 Commission Report as part of its service.
Another product they offer is a massive indexing of a company's databases, intranets, filesystems, etc.
There are some great demos for the medical industry here.
Plus you can search various Open Source repositories (Sourceforge, Freshmeat) which provides some amazing results.
How about Microsoft's Patent Portfolio (is double-click in there somewhere?)
Maybe RBC Financial for some good stock tips?
Definately a bookmark candidate.
Sunday, July 18, 2004
The International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna
World's Appetite for Tuna Threatens Supply
| Sat Jul 17,10:16 PM ET |
|
By MORT ROSENBLUM, AP Special Correspondent
<>FAVIGNANA, Italy - Over thousands of springtimes, as far back as Homer's Odyssey, the fishermen of Favignana have battled giant bluefin tuna lured into vast chambers of intricate netting. This year, the nets were empty.This is awful. I really enjoy eating sushi, and Tuna hand rolls are my favourite. Looks like I'm going back to california rolls.
There is some more troubling information if we dig deeper here.
Japan and China seem to be the most prolific consumers and subsidizers of fish, which explains the trend of all these sushi restaurants opening up around here. What impressed me the most is the fact that Japan will pay up to $150,000 for one bluenose tuna. That is probably worth the cost of chartering a boat for a month to search for a couple of them, if you could get the right licenses. No wonder organized crime has gotten into this game.
The chicken of the sea are not happy.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Book Napster Spyware?
Dummies guide to shooting self in foot: Publishers dream of limiting resale of books
While Cory Doctorow and David Weinberger are lighting up the internet (cosmos 1, 2)
with their principled pleas to Microsoft on the perils of DRM - a group
of publishers are talking up trying to chisel away the first sale doctrine which allows you to resell the books you buy.
This is an interesting concept. Amazon.ca & .com let you list
your entire library for resale online for no cost other than sales
comissions. You need to reply to any sales within 3 days to
be valid, and that's it. A great way of getting rid of those
books you've already read.
You can also do the same with CDs, not sure if you can on Amazon yet
though. I met a couple of university students awhile back who
ended up taking this concept and creating Deja-Vu discs, a used-CD
music store with tons of high-quality material and guarantees on
quality. They ended up picking up a new Nissan 300ZX in their
first year I think.
Can you do the same with MP3s or Itunes you purchase? Resell them for 1/2 price, or compile an album and resell it?
My latest thing has been picking up books from garage sales.
Where else can you find brand new hardcovers for $1 or less?
One problem with this addiction is lack of space and shelves.
Another is lack of time to read all this stuff. Finally there's
keeping track of your books.
Here's one solution. Bibliophil.org
I haven't really explored this site yet, however it looks
promising. This is sort of like a file-sharing system for
books. You have a buddy list and your entire collection of books
online, which can be loaned, traded, or sold fairly easily.
One scary thing about this is the privacy concerns.
Since I'm a garage sale addict, I have noticed that you can judge a
book by its cover, and an owner by their books. Generally I can
tell almost immediately what interests, occupations, and training a
book owner has, simply by looking at 3 or 4 titles in their boxes of
books. It is really amazing.
Imagine profiling people based on their book lists. Marketing to
them based on their interests. Taking the idea of Chapters or
Indigo Rewards to the next level.
Sounds alot like Google GMail to me.
A couple books I'm reading right now:
Golf for Dummies
The New Investment Frontier II
The Discipline of Market Leaders
How the Cadillac Got its Fins
Trump's The Art of the Deal
Friday, July 09, 2004
Speaking of Copyright Infringement
The RIAA, scourge of the United States, attacker of the commoners and protector of all artists rights and freedoms, has spread to Canada via CRIA.
Yay to the artists!
Boo to the bootleggerz and those evil grandmotherz and teenagerz downloading MP3z!
I am going to pick on Jann Arden tonight for lack of a better target. Nothing personal Jann. You seem to be a brilliant lady with deep emotions, and have a liking for dogs like I do, so I hope you understand that this is my opinion and nothing else.
In a statement released by CRIA, Arden said she was "heartbroken" over the charges. "Touring is an incredibly important part of my career as a singer/songwriter. It's my job and it's how I connect with people," the musician noted. "Something special was taken from me and my audience."
C'mon Ms. Arden. I saw your concert a few years ago in Niagara Falls on New Years. You're a very talented person, and an amazing singer, but I don't think I'd buy your CD, even though you're getting a ton of stars at HMV Amazon. GM or Chrysler or Microsoft might buy it to advertise their cars though, and they seem to have a few more dollars in the bank than I do right now, plus maybe it will make me buy their car instead of the Nissan I'm driving around. You can reach a much larger audience via television, books, and radio than concerts, though it's much cooler seeing you in person and wigging water bottles at bands during those festivals at Molson Park in Barrie. Maybe you can sell USB keychains with your concert footage at the concert itself and avoid these pesky bootleggers.
My friend and I just paid $150 to Ticketmaster, $100 for dinner, gas & parking, $50 for drinks for us and our significant others, and got soaked in the rain waiting in line to see the Barenaked Ladies open for The Nits last Wednesday at The Mod Club. $75/person isn't that bad I guess, though in the end all I have my memory of the event, and my memory is none too good lately, plus my fiancee and I are trying to pay for a wedding and really can't afford it. My good friend did pay for dinner and two of the tickets so it really only cost my fiancee and I $55.00 each. It did made us all happy to go there though, and for $55.00 it was well worth the price of happiness and having a good time, and I will reinvest myself in this venture in the future for the four of us again.
I probably won't buy the Nits Album or the Barenaked Ladies album for awhile, but I would definately pickup the concert DVD when it's available, my friend and my fiancee will probably buy the BNKL albums if they don't already have them, and the people we talk to will know who The Nits are and how amazing the Barenaked Ladies concert was.
That guy made $3.2 mil/year CDN, which is like $1.2 mil/year US. I'm sure he wasn't hanging around at some scuzzy flea market in Hamilton, he was actually schmoozing the underpaid roadies in the bands.
After he was caught by Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman recording a Rolling Stones concert in 1992, the musicians pursued him through the High Court and he was put under a "perpetual restraining order" to halt his activities.
Now Mick and Bill are amazing businessmen. That's how you get the job done.
Maybe it would make more sense for the artists rather than the criminal justice system or the RIAA/CRIA to take control of things like these. Make it a civil violation for first-time offenders. Seize all his assets from 'crime' and make the perpetrator work for a record label or an artist he stole from as a cheaply-paid intern, paid the same price as it would cost to house him in jail. Hey, indentured servitude sounds good! I'm sure the Rolling Stones could use someone to wash their yacht in the Caymans, or clean Mick's house in St. Maarten after he rents it out to the rich and famous. Maybe Virgin Record's Richard Branson would like his airlines cleaned on a daily basis. Sounds like pretty fitting and demeaning punishment to me, and much more productive than sticking him in a taxpayer funded cell so I have to pay for his bootlegging your concert footage.
Hey, he's a bootlegger, he's probably got good recording skills! Have the police or a designated civil appointee mail the artists back their bootlegs at his expense. At least then they could profit from these copyright infringements if they wanted to, or at least see a cool concert that they played 10 years ago but never thought was recorded, or redub it and offer good-quality bootlegs to their fans for $5 on their web sites, or get some free tapes in the mail so they could erase them and tape episodes of Friends on.
I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 a couple weeks ago. Great movie, though Michael Moore is totally one-sided he gets his point across. I think the moral of the movie was never trust the media, never trust politicians, only trust in yourself and empower yourself to know more. I have to read Michael Moore's blog some more to get a better idea, and also the opposing sides of Mooreexposed.com and I guess I could buy a Time Magazine now that he is on the cover.
Here is an interesting link about Saudi Arabia's legal system. How about deafening one ear of the copyright infringer. That would probably violate some Amnesty International agreement, but might be an effective deterrent for copyright infringers over there, plus they couldn't tell if their bootlegs are working or not. The US Military already has the technology to do this to fishes in the sea. James Taylor tells me so.
Here's another Frank Zappa bootleg on eBay. Go get 'em RIAA!
You can donate to our wedding account to your left if you would like, Jann. I'm trying to sell some stuff on e-Bay myself to make some extra cash too, since I heard this was the easiest way to earn money on the internet. Hope I don't get busted for selling unlicensed Batman or Simpsons memorabilia I found at a yard sale or an auction or in my basement, or infringing royalty rights for that old Mini-Pops record my fiancee picked up. I wonder if James Taylor is selling anything on eBay? He has some interesting links.
Jann Arden's blog is here
Yay to the artists!
Boo to the bootleggerz and those evil grandmotherz and teenagerz downloading MP3z!
I am going to pick on Jann Arden tonight for lack of a better target. Nothing personal Jann. You seem to be a brilliant lady with deep emotions, and have a liking for dogs like I do, so I hope you understand that this is my opinion and nothing else.
In a statement released by CRIA, Arden said she was "heartbroken" over the charges. "Touring is an incredibly important part of my career as a singer/songwriter. It's my job and it's how I connect with people," the musician noted. "Something special was taken from me and my audience."
C'mon Ms. Arden. I saw your concert a few years ago in Niagara Falls on New Years. You're a very talented person, and an amazing singer, but I don't think I'd buy your CD, even though you're getting a ton of stars at HMV Amazon. GM or Chrysler or Microsoft might buy it to advertise their cars though, and they seem to have a few more dollars in the bank than I do right now, plus maybe it will make me buy their car instead of the Nissan I'm driving around. You can reach a much larger audience via television, books, and radio than concerts, though it's much cooler seeing you in person and wigging water bottles at bands during those festivals at Molson Park in Barrie. Maybe you can sell USB keychains with your concert footage at the concert itself and avoid these pesky bootleggers.
My friend and I just paid $150 to Ticketmaster, $100 for dinner, gas & parking, $50 for drinks for us and our significant others, and got soaked in the rain waiting in line to see the Barenaked Ladies open for The Nits last Wednesday at The Mod Club. $75/person isn't that bad I guess, though in the end all I have my memory of the event, and my memory is none too good lately, plus my fiancee and I are trying to pay for a wedding and really can't afford it. My good friend did pay for dinner and two of the tickets so it really only cost my fiancee and I $55.00 each. It did made us all happy to go there though, and for $55.00 it was well worth the price of happiness and having a good time, and I will reinvest myself in this venture in the future for the four of us again.
I probably won't buy the Nits Album or the Barenaked Ladies album for awhile, but I would definately pickup the concert DVD when it's available, my friend and my fiancee will probably buy the BNKL albums if they don't already have them, and the people we talk to will know who The Nits are and how amazing the Barenaked Ladies concert was.
The Nits are a really inspiring and eclectic band, and I can see where BNKL got their ideas and music influences from. The two bands were nearly identical in the way they presented themselves. It was great to see the torch being passed down through two generations of music. I wonder who The Nits inspiration was?
The Mod Club is a venue owned by the former frontman for Platinum Blonde and is a great one. It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to, and I have been to more than a few. An acoustic set, intimate and interactive, with around 300 people there. I found out about this one on The Barenaked Ladies blog since there wasn't much media hype about this. I will try and post some of my camera phone photos once my moblog is up and running. They are really bad quality and may tick off the Barenaked Ladies and their label to no end but I am a fan now so hey... it's worth it to me. If it shows up in HMV I will buy the DVD. If it shows up on e-Bay I will buy the bootleg.
But wait.
I just found out I could have waited a day and got some Barenaked Ladies concert footage for free on MSNBC since they played The Today Show in New York at Rockefeller Plaza. (Maybe not, since I'm using Firefox and the service only supports Internet Explorer browsers...) Oops, am I bootlegging that link? Sorry MSNBC & BNKL.
If I could find your concert that I attended on e-Bay I may just go ahead and pick it up though. There were a few artists I liked there and your set was really good, plus maybe my stupid big head was sticking out in front of the camera. If it's crappy quality I lose out, and if the artist doesn't make any money you lose out, and this guy wins. In this case, it is my stupidity for not going to HMV and paying $55 for your high-quality concert DVD, it is your stupidity for not tracking down this bootlegger yourself via your fan base or your record label or your lawyers or e-Bay and suing him in civil court to get your property back, and it is his advantage he gets to feed his family and support his elegant jet setting lifestyle from the proceeds of crime.
Maybe I am not taking this problem from the right angle, but just my $0.02, which is probably how much you made from your record label anyway, so I feel kind of bad for saying the above. Sorry Jann.
Wait a minute, do you have my concert DVD or video I can buy from you at HMV?
This link doesn't let me find one. Do you have any DVD's or video's for sale?
Not on E-Bay, the largest e-commerce site in the world with over $70,000,000,000 billion million dollars in transactions every quarter and growing. You don't even have any bootlegs on there. Great job on that one, you had better send a thank you card to your lawyers and RIAA/CRIA.
Guess I have to go back to that flea market in Hamilton, or that used CD store in Kingston, or that fan web site in Germany to track down this amazing concert I saw that you haven't published yet. As usual, most of the media hyped this local bust of this concert video bootlegger, without divulging the fact that he was a one-legged disabled man with two children selling his videos on eBay and at flea markets to support his family. (Of course I read this in a left-wing newspaper today so I don't really believe it, or should I?)
Not exactly the mastermind criminal portrayed in the media though. He was selling his stuff at a Hamilton flea market for heaven's sake! I do like these lines though:
Record and CD shows are common throughout Ontario. Catering to collectors, the shows specialize in used records and memorabilia. Most vendors are legitimate.
There were 48 vendors at the June 13 show, but plainclothes RCMP found only four selling bootlegs. One was caught burning a bootleg DVD for sale to a plainclothes Mountie. Two others voluntarily handed over their products to the RCMP after being warned. One other grabbed his computer and fled. RCMP Corporal Michele Paradis said
their investigation is continuing.
Is he worthy of months of investigations and judicial proceedings in the Canadian legal system for destroying the cash flow of these hundreds of uber-popular artists and their labels? Could it be that was what Jann was talking about when she said she was heartbroken, or was it the fact that he is a disabled man trying to support his family?
I do agree with Jann on this one though:
In England, a London bootlegger was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail yesterday for creating counterfeit CDs of artists like Oasis, the Beatles, Eminem and Madonna. The court was told Mark Purseglove, 33, pocketed £15 million (about $36 million Cdn.) between
1991 and 2002, using illicit recordings made by sound engineers and concert-goers.
That guy made $3.2 mil/year CDN, which is like $1.2 mil/year US. I'm sure he wasn't hanging around at some scuzzy flea market in Hamilton, he was actually schmoozing the underpaid roadies in the bands.
After he was caught by Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman recording a Rolling Stones concert in 1992, the musicians pursued him through the High Court and he was put under a "perpetual restraining order" to halt his activities.
Now Mick and Bill are amazing businessmen. That's how you get the job done.
Maybe it would make more sense for the artists rather than the criminal justice system or the RIAA/CRIA to take control of things like these. Make it a civil violation for first-time offenders. Seize all his assets from 'crime' and make the perpetrator work for a record label or an artist he stole from as a cheaply-paid intern, paid the same price as it would cost to house him in jail. Hey, indentured servitude sounds good! I'm sure the Rolling Stones could use someone to wash their yacht in the Caymans, or clean Mick's house in St. Maarten after he rents it out to the rich and famous. Maybe Virgin Record's Richard Branson would like his airlines cleaned on a daily basis. Sounds like pretty fitting and demeaning punishment to me, and much more productive than sticking him in a taxpayer funded cell so I have to pay for his bootlegging your concert footage.
Hey, he's a bootlegger, he's probably got good recording skills! Have the police or a designated civil appointee mail the artists back their bootlegs at his expense. At least then they could profit from these copyright infringements if they wanted to, or at least see a cool concert that they played 10 years ago but never thought was recorded, or redub it and offer good-quality bootlegs to their fans for $5 on their web sites, or get some free tapes in the mail so they could erase them and tape episodes of Friends on.
I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 a couple weeks ago. Great movie, though Michael Moore is totally one-sided he gets his point across. I think the moral of the movie was never trust the media, never trust politicians, only trust in yourself and empower yourself to know more. I have to read Michael Moore's blog some more to get a better idea, and also the opposing sides of Mooreexposed.com and I guess I could buy a Time Magazine now that he is on the cover.
Here is an interesting link about Saudi Arabia's legal system. How about deafening one ear of the copyright infringer. That would probably violate some Amnesty International agreement, but might be an effective deterrent for copyright infringers over there, plus they couldn't tell if their bootlegs are working or not. The US Military already has the technology to do this to fishes in the sea. James Taylor tells me so.
Here's another Frank Zappa bootleg on eBay. Go get 'em RIAA!
You can donate to our wedding account to your left if you would like, Jann. I'm trying to sell some stuff on e-Bay myself to make some extra cash too, since I heard this was the easiest way to earn money on the internet. Hope I don't get busted for selling unlicensed Batman or Simpsons memorabilia I found at a yard sale or an auction or in my basement, or infringing royalty rights for that old Mini-Pops record my fiancee picked up. I wonder if James Taylor is selling anything on eBay? He has some interesting links.
Jann Arden's blog is here
My friend's legitimate Indie Pop music site, www.poppolar.com is here.
My Disclaimer: I do not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, even though it is pretty much accurate from what I can see from Google™.
Make More Mistakes
Eric Sink's articles are always an interesting read. Eric's company created SourceGear Vault, a source control system that is worlds better than the MS alternatives out there right now.
I blogged his article from last year, Make More Mistakes, awhile ago from Robert Scoble's blog.
I really like this comment. It embodies my attitude right now, so he must have read the same books I am now reading.
Sometimes you have to ignore the naysayers. If you know the odds are in your favor, you can go back and take the same risk again, even if people think you're crazy.
Craziness reminds me of quite a few entrepreneurs I have worked with and for. His lessons learned are great. Here's a few:
Be careful about fixed-bid projects.
Be careful about using bleeding-edge technologies.
Small ISVs should do software and stay out of real estate.
Investors don't like low-margin business models.
A market with no competition ain't.
The negative connotations of the word "middleman" are often deserved.
All contracts must be reviewed by an attorney. No exceptions.
Cash is supposed to flow from your customers to you, never the other way around.
Small ISVs should build apps, not platforms.
His new Hazards of Hiring article linked above is even better.
1. Hire After the Need, Not Before
2. Realize That Hiring Is All About Probabilities
3. Know the Law
4. Make Sure To Get a Variety of Opinions
5. Look for Self-Awareness
6. Hire Developers, Not Programmers
7. Education Is Good
8. But Too Much Education Is a Yellow Light
9. Look At the Code
10. The Very Best
Sorry for scraping so much of your articles Eric. Imitiation is the best form of flattery I guess. (or copyright infringement depending on how you look at it)
I blogged his article from last year, Make More Mistakes, awhile ago from Robert Scoble's blog.
I really like this comment. It embodies my attitude right now, so he must have read the same books I am now reading.
Sometimes you have to ignore the naysayers. If you know the odds are in your favor, you can go back and take the same risk again, even if people think you're crazy.
Craziness reminds me of quite a few entrepreneurs I have worked with and for. His lessons learned are great. Here's a few:
Be careful about fixed-bid projects.
Be careful about using bleeding-edge technologies.
Small ISVs should do software and stay out of real estate.
Investors don't like low-margin business models.
A market with no competition ain't.
The negative connotations of the word "middleman" are often deserved.
All contracts must be reviewed by an attorney. No exceptions.
Cash is supposed to flow from your customers to you, never the other way around.
Small ISVs should build apps, not platforms.
His new Hazards of Hiring article linked above is even better.
1. Hire After the Need, Not Before
2. Realize That Hiring Is All About Probabilities
3. Know the Law
4. Make Sure To Get a Variety of Opinions
5. Look for Self-Awareness
6. Hire Developers, Not Programmers
7. Education Is Good
8. But Too Much Education Is a Yellow Light
9. Look At the Code
10. The Very Best
Sorry for scraping so much of your articles Eric. Imitiation is the best form of flattery I guess. (or copyright infringement depending on how you look at it)
Thursday, July 08, 2004
MP3 Blogs
One of my friends asked me where to get MP3s. The new underground way is now blogs. (well, it's not so underground now - see post)
I like reading Yahoo Most Emailed & Yahoo Most Viewed to see what the top news is that people are talking about or reading.
From a blog perspective, it would be interesting to be able to find some metrics sites on blogs, to be able to see what really are the most read and emailed blogs out there.
Mine would definately be in the bottom 99.985%. Let me go check my counter to see if it has gone up yet.
I like reading Yahoo Most Emailed & Yahoo Most Viewed to see what the top news is that people are talking about or reading.
From a blog perspective, it would be interesting to be able to find some metrics sites on blogs, to be able to see what really are the most read and emailed blogs out there.
Mine would definately be in the bottom 99.985%. Let me go check my counter to see if it has gone up yet.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Google IPO info
This is an interesting read, even if it is an SEC filing. Google should be a neat IPO to follow. My thoughts are it will go in high and then tank when MS releases MSN Search. Just a prediction, do not hold me to anything!!!
Excerpts...
DON’T BE EVIL
Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.
Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers’ payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.
MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE
We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place. With our products, Google connects people and information all around the world for free. We are adding other powerful services such as Gmail that provides an efficient one gigabyte Gmail account for free. By releasing services for free, we hope to help bridge the digital divide. AdWords connects users and advertisers efficiently, helping both. AdSense helps fund a huge variety of online web sites and enables authors who could not otherwise publish. Last year we created Google Grants—a growing program in which hundreds of non-profits addressing issues, including the environment, poverty and human rights, receive free advertising. And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Google is not a conventional company. Eric, Sergey and I intend to operate Google differently, applying the values it has developed as a private company to its future as a public company. Our mission and business description are available in the rest of the prospectus; we encourage you to carefully read this information. We will optimize for the long term rather than trying to produce smooth earnings for each quarter. We will support selected high-risk, high-reward projects and manage our portfolio of projects. We will run the company collaboratively with Eric, our CEO, as a team of three. We are conscious of our duty as fiduciaries for our shareholders, and we will fulfill those responsibilities. We will continue to attract creative, committed new employees, and we will welcome support from new shareholders. We will live up to our “don’t be evil” principle by keeping user trust and not accepting payment for search results. We have a dual-class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me.
In this letter we have explained our thinking on why Google is better off going public. We have talked about our IPO auction method and our desire for stability and access for all investors. We have discussed our goal to have investors who determine a rational price and invest for the long term only if they can buy at that price. Finally, we have discussed our desire to create an ideal working environment that will ultimately drive the success of Google by retaining and attracting talented Googlers.
We have tried hard to anticipate your questions. It will be difficult for us to respond to them given legal constraints during our offering process. We look forward to a long and hopefully prosperous relationship with you, our new investors. We wrote this letter to help you understand our company.
Excerpts...
DON’T BE EVIL
Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.
Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers’ payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.
MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE
We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place. With our products, Google connects people and information all around the world for free. We are adding other powerful services such as Gmail that provides an efficient one gigabyte Gmail account for free. By releasing services for free, we hope to help bridge the digital divide. AdWords connects users and advertisers efficiently, helping both. AdSense helps fund a huge variety of online web sites and enables authors who could not otherwise publish. Last year we created Google Grants—a growing program in which hundreds of non-profits addressing issues, including the environment, poverty and human rights, receive free advertising. And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Google is not a conventional company. Eric, Sergey and I intend to operate Google differently, applying the values it has developed as a private company to its future as a public company. Our mission and business description are available in the rest of the prospectus; we encourage you to carefully read this information. We will optimize for the long term rather than trying to produce smooth earnings for each quarter. We will support selected high-risk, high-reward projects and manage our portfolio of projects. We will run the company collaboratively with Eric, our CEO, as a team of three. We are conscious of our duty as fiduciaries for our shareholders, and we will fulfill those responsibilities. We will continue to attract creative, committed new employees, and we will welcome support from new shareholders. We will live up to our “don’t be evil” principle by keeping user trust and not accepting payment for search results. We have a dual-class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me.
In this letter we have explained our thinking on why Google is better off going public. We have talked about our IPO auction method and our desire for stability and access for all investors. We have discussed our goal to have investors who determine a rational price and invest for the long term only if they can buy at that price. Finally, we have discussed our desire to create an ideal working environment that will ultimately drive the success of Google by retaining and attracting talented Googlers.
We have tried hard to anticipate your questions. It will be difficult for us to respond to them given legal constraints during our offering process. We look forward to a long and hopefully prosperous relationship with you, our new investors. We wrote this letter to help you understand our company.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
Other People's Money and Garage Sales
For a couple of months now, I have been reading the assortment of books (mostly business and investment books) I have acquired from garage sales in the Toronto area. It is really amazing how many books people will buy for $50 or more, and never even crack the spine on them.
A few of the books I read talk about the concept of OPM (Other People's Money) and it is a great concept. Consider this:
Someone buys a book (say Java 2 for Dummies) for $50 bucks.
They sell it to a used book store for ($5)
The used book store sells it for ($10)
Someone else sells it at a garage sale for $1. (or in my case $0.25)
I buy it from them.
I just used other people's money to purchase a $50 book for $0.25. Not a bad deal, eh? What happens when I sell that book to a used book store for $5 and repeat the cycle? What about taking all these books and putting your entire library on Amazon.com.
No wonder books are one of the top selling items on the internet.
A few of the books I read talk about the concept of OPM (Other People's Money) and it is a great concept. Consider this:
Someone buys a book (say Java 2 for Dummies) for $50 bucks.
They sell it to a used book store for ($5)
The used book store sells it for ($10)
Someone else sells it at a garage sale for $1. (or in my case $0.25)
I buy it from them.
I just used other people's money to purchase a $50 book for $0.25. Not a bad deal, eh? What happens when I sell that book to a used book store for $5 and repeat the cycle? What about taking all these books and putting your entire library on Amazon.com.
No wonder books are one of the top selling items on the internet.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Buying Swampland on the Moon
The original Moonland Registry, which sold novelty deeds as an affiliate of the Lunar Embassy, has been discontinued following the arrest and conviction of its operator, Lisa Fulkerson, of Chatham, Ontario (Canada), on a variety of criminal charges, including fraud.
Too bad there's no waterfront property on the moon.
I found this site when looking for cheap land under $50k. www.dignam.com gives you a free catalog of land across Canada for under $50K, which you can drop on your credit card if you like. Please comment if you have heard of this one or if you get some good deals.
What I'm really interested in is land in Brazil. Fortaleza is one of the nicest places I have been to, with mountains, sand dunes, oceans, beaches, and civilization and lack of it. Try this beachfront property if you're interested in purchasing something that you need to see a satellite photo of to comprehend the size. All for 400K in Euros (about 650K CDN)
How about building the first golf course in the state there... sounds like a good idea to me.
Too bad there's no waterfront property on the moon.
I found this site when looking for cheap land under $50k. www.dignam.com gives you a free catalog of land across Canada for under $50K, which you can drop on your credit card if you like. Please comment if you have heard of this one or if you get some good deals.
What I'm really interested in is land in Brazil. Fortaleza is one of the nicest places I have been to, with mountains, sand dunes, oceans, beaches, and civilization and lack of it. Try this beachfront property if you're interested in purchasing something that you need to see a satellite photo of to comprehend the size. All for 400K in Euros (about 650K CDN)
How about building the first golf course in the state there... sounds like a good idea to me.
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