Drawloop Integrates with Box.net

Drawloop, a company my CEO invested in, signed a recent partnership with Box.net. If you're not familiar with Box.net, they have over 50,000 customers who are small businesses to Fortune 1000s that looked to simplify online content management and improve team productivity.

This integration with Drawloop allows Box.net users to create PDFs of Box files and combine different file formats into one PDF document. More from the Drawloop blog here.

2010 AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas

Just received this notice for you mobile developers out there:

"The 2010 AT&T Developer Summit is a full day event giving developers first access to exciting technology announcements, strategy, guidance, and tools for developing applications on the AT&T Network and devices.

By attending the 2010 AT&T Developer Summit, you will be the first to learn about new developments in our technology roadmaps through a morning of General Sessions including the Executive Keynote by Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. You’ll also be able to customize your Summit experience through four different tracks of presentations, panels, and demos for developers wanting to build, market, and sell applications and devices."

The event will be on January 6th, 2010 at the Palms in Las Vegas.

Blogger Down, Blogger Down!

It's been a while since I haven't blogged or posted links in two consecutive days, so I apologize. Maybe in over a year? I've been swamped with work and being a recent parent. I'll post something later today.

News & Links List

"Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5%" NYTimes

"Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw: The system isn't rewarding the right people: innovators and creators." Forbes, Sramana Mitra

"Fannie’s Draws From Emergency Treasury Fund Reach $60 Billion" Bloomberg

"Electronic Arts buys Playfish for as much as $400 million" VentureBeat

"Investing in a mobile future with AdMob" Official Google Blog

"Google Looks to Dominate iPhone and Android Advertising With AdMob Acquisition" ReadWriteWeb

"Exclusive: Google Has Acquired Gizmo5" TechCrunch

"IBM’s Steve Mills on RealTime" TechCrunchIT

"Betting on a Metal-Air Battery Breakthrough
A government-funded start-up claims it can make ionic liquid energy storage feasible." Technology Review

"Yes, $2.6 Trillion! A Closer Look at the Full 10 Years of Spending in the House Health Bill" The Foundry

"What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says
Here are some important passages in the 2,000 page legislation." WSJ

"Bloodless President Barack Obama makes Americans wistful for George W Bush" Telegraph

"Our clueless C in C" The American Thinker


"Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut " Telegraph

"Newborns Pick Up Language in the Womb" Discovery News

"Where are Food Network's Asian Girls and Boys?" channelAPA

"Goal Obsession" InsideWork 52

From InsideWork 52, a very amusing study. I guess words do not always lead to action:

Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter
What Got You Here Won't Get You There - How Successful People Become Even More Successful!, (p. 102), Hyperion, 2007

One of the most ironic examples of goal obsession was the "Good Samaritan" research done by Darley and Batson at Princeton in 1973. In this widely-referenced study, one group of theology students was told that they were to go across campus to deliver a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan. As part of the research, some of these students were told that they were late and needed to hurry up. They believed people would be waiting for them to arrive. Along the route across campus to the chapel, Darley and Batson had hired an actor to play the role of a "victim" who was coughing and suffering. Ninety percent of the late students in Princeton Theological Seminary ignored the needs of a suffering person in their haste to get across campus. As the study reports, "Indeed, on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!"

My guess is that few, if any, of these seminary students were "bad people." ... they probably were ethical, well-meaning people who deeply believed in the value of helping others. But goal obsession clouded their judgment...

They were chasing the spotlight. They were under pressure! They were in a hurry! They had deadlines! They were going to do something that they thought was important! Other people were depending upon them!

These are the classic conditions that can lead to goal obsession.

Luke 10:29-37
The New International Version

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

Korea's Cyworld Shuts Down US Cyworld

I received this notice today from Cyworld:

"Thank you to all members with Cyworld.

Due to Cyworld shuts down US service, US Cyworld will no longer be able to service.
We sincerely apologize for shutting down the service with unavoidable reason.
Before US cyworld close the service, you will continue to access to US cyworld contents but not purchase items. Also, you will not use your acorns.
If you have unused acorns, you will be given a full refund for paid acorns only."

Obviously, they already let go of all U.S. staff since it's written in broken English along with poor spacing, but this also could be reflective of the overall problem of Cyworld's efforts in the U.S. market. They didn't localize their product. Cyworld assumed they could bring their team that was successful in Korea, target the same market and execute in the same manner. It didn't work out.

I'm focused on their early efforts, which I believe was a critical factor for their failure. Cyworld attempted to target the similar demographic in Korea, but for the U.S. market I thought their avatar-based social network was more suited for a younger demographic of junior high and high school students.

It seems that SK's other entities have made similar mistakes in trying to enter the U.S. market. A prime example is their MVNO effort with Earthlink, Helio, where they invested over $400 million. They tried to target Korean Americans by assuming ethnic affinity would drive consumer purchasing habits not quality of service, pricing, or phones. Hopefully, SK, which is one of Korea's largest conglomerates, will learn from these spectacular failures.

News & Links List

"How Far Will Google Wave Go?" Forbes, Dan Woods

"Interview with Offerpal Media CEO Anu Shukla on the offer 'scandal'" VentureBeat

"Cisco, EMC, and VMware make alliance official" CNET

"Lean startups aren’t cheap startups" VentureBeat, Steve Blank

"Buffett Takeover Reduces Successor’s Need for ‘Amazing Insight’" Bloomberg

"How Capitalism Will Save Us" by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames

"Deathbed Wishes: I Wish I Had Spent More Time Working" InsideWork, David Wooldridge

"Big Picture: The CEO as Diplomat: An Interview with Richard Haass" InsideWork

I Am Korean American, A Barrel Project

The guys at Barrel, a brand and web consulting company, are always doing creative projects whether for clients or on the side. Here's a cool little side project they are doing called "I Am Korean American":

I AM KOREAN AMERICAN is an on-going web project that aims to collect brief profiles of Korean Americans.

Every new profile of a Korean American will be featured on the homepage. A profile will consist of the person’s name, age, location, occupation, and a personal statement that could be a mini bio, a memorable story, a rant, aspirations, or anything else. Our goal is to compile a collection of profiles that showcase the diversity and many interesting personalities of the Korean American population. We hope that our collective efforts will provide a snapshot of the Korean American community at this point in our history.

News & Links List

"Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell" TechCrunch

"Scamville: Zynga Says 1/3 Of Revenue Comes From Lead Gen And Other Offers" TechCrunch

"How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession" TechCrunch, Dennis Yu

"Zynga Takes Steps To Remove Scams From Games" TechCrunch

"Google Wave Federation: Why it Matters" ReadWriteWeb

"Why iStockphoto embraced Google's Gears" CNET

"Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0" TechCrunch

"Is the LinkedIn Platform Dead?" Gigaom
Platform? Maybe, but they are making a lot of money.

"The Future of the Social Web" by Brian Solis

"Is Twitter Successful?" bokardo

"Lufthansa auto-tweets passengers' midair location" Springwise

"The Salmon Protocol: Introducing the Salmon Project" Abstractioneer

"For Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, failure is an option" VentureBeat

"Lessons From the World's Best Project Managers" BNET

"The Secrets To A Smooth Succession: Family-business hand-offs are fraught with peril. Here are some solid guidelines." Forbes, Chris Carey

"Roubini Says Carry Trades Fueling ‘Huge’ Asset Bubble" Bloomberg

"Reports: Cyberattacks Traced to NKorea" NYTimes

"Top Obama fundraisers get posts" USAToday

"The pro-Fox Democrats" Politico

Conflict History

This is pretty cool. A Google map integration of almost every world conflict since 3000 B.C.

4 Emerging Trends of the Real-Time Web

My op-ed on the real-time web is up at Mashable. HatTip to Adrian Chan, Dave S. and John S. for providing their insights on this piece. Check it out, comment and retweet if you can :)

4 Emerging Trends of the Real-Time Web

There is a lot of hype surrounding the real-time web, and much of the feeding frenzy reminds me of the RSS space four years ago — though there is a lot of potential, there is also a lot of noise. How do you navigate through it all and which developments should you be paying attention to? What are the emerging trends for companies and entrepreneurs to watch for? Here are four real-time web trends that I’m tracking.

Real-Time Collaboration is Ripening
Real-time will play a major role in the future of online collaboration. We’ve seen all the hype around the new Google Wave platform, as well as the growth of Twitter and Twitter-like communications (such as Facebook status). On the business side, SAP’s Gravity, a prototype of real-time collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave, is a good example. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg.

Companies that are more efficient have an advantage whether within their walls or with their customers. Imagine being able to make real-time changes with your colleague in another city and graphic designer at your local Kinko’s to finalize a presentation and print it hours before your meeting. Or working with your manufacturer in Nanjing, China on changes to your new BBQ grill design and seeing if it’s possible in real-time. Or game developers in Korea and Dallas story boarding a new video game concept in a new real-time game development application. There is massive potential for real-time collaboration across almost every discipline, and I believe there are an incredible amount of exciting possibilities here... (full post)

News & Links List

"It’s Not My Company" by Brad Feld
'VCs say a lot of stupid things...'

"Never Say 'VC'" by David Troy

"Who Should you Hire at a Startup?" Both Sides of the Table

"Whitehouse.gov using Drupal" Dries Buytaert

"Sequoia branches too far" Fortune Brainstorm Tech

"5 myths about Wall Street pay days" The Washington Post
HatTip to Dave L.

"Not So Fast: Scientific management started as a way to work. How did it become a way of life?" The New Yorker

"The WellPoint Revelation
Private insurance premiums could triple under ObamaCare." WSJ

"Abortion Kills More Black Americans Than the Seven Leading Causes of Death Combined, Says CDC Data" CNSNews.com

"Attack on Fox News right out of Alinsky playbook" Sense of Events

"Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group" Gallup

"Hoffman is the Obvious Choice" American Thinker, Bruce Walker

"What if George W. Bush had done that?" Politico

"Former Celtics star Antoine Walker is broke and in debt" Yahoo! Sports

Sustainability: The ‘must have’ holy grail

My guest post went up over at VentureBeat yesterday. I bit swamped with work, so I'm behind with my posts and links :)

Sustainability: The ‘must have’ holy grail

When I was a kid, Atari dominated the gaming scene. Sure, Mattel’s Intellivision and Coleco’s Colecovision had their loyalists, but to the general public, when you mentioned video games, Atari was the name that sprang to mind.

The company maintained that status for years, but as competitors like Nintendo and Sega became part of the industry, Atari quickly fell from its perch as gaming’s “must have” system to a nostalgic memory.

Sustaining a leadership role is a Herculean task. Once your product becomes a “must have,” how do you keep it that way for over a year? Five years? A decade?

Just like the music industry has one hit wonders, the business world is littered with product fads that were, at one time, must haves. Remember the Pet Rock? Cabbage Patch Kids? Or, if you’d like a more recent example, there’s Crocs. The company reported profits over $168 million in 2007 and then a $185 million loss in 2008.

Others? Kozmo.com, which promised free one-hour delivery of anything from DVD rentals to groceries, raised over $280 million in 1999 and landed a $150 million promotional deal with Starbucks. It was a “must have” service in NYC, but made costly expansions into less dense metro areas and liquidated by 2001. Friendster launched in 2003 with a lot of fanfare as it paved the way for the new age of social networking. Within two years, it was the ugly, unwanted pet that seemed to be consistently down or besieged with long server delays.

The fall from grace can be quick – and ugly. Brian Kellner knows this well... (full post)

Maybe CNN's Last Place Position Is Due To Their Anchors' Intelligence?

Amusing article at the New York Post, "Anchors sink on 'Jeopardy'":

CNN should consider banning its anchors from appearing on "Celebrity Jeopardy" after the humiliating defeats of Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien.

Of course this article is posted during this week when it's announced that CNN dropped to last place among cable news networks. Any correlation between their anchors' intelligence and the last place ratings? :)

I actually enjoy most of their programming and I watch it the most out of the news networks, so I'm a bit surprised that they are last even after MSNBC.

News & Links List

"Schmidt: Enterprise is Google's next opportunity" CNET

"YouTube’s Bandwidth Bill Is Zero. Welcome to the New Net" WIRED

"The VC Gender Gap: Are VCs Sexist?" peHUB

"Real-time pricing alerts for consumers to pounce on" Springwise

"Verizon Launches Direct Attack Against The iPhone With Ads For The Motorola Droid" TechCrunch


"Playing For Real Money: Start-up kaChing wants to rip the covers off the mutual fund business." Forbes

"Atheists Run Ads on NYC Subway, Creating Sarcasm Backlash" BNET

"Lessons from the Massachusetts healthcare experiment" LA Times

"Five Creative Ways to Improve Health Care in the Developing World" Fast Company

"Landrieu blasts public option" The Hill
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) echoed Republican criticisms...

"Taking On the 'Democrat-Media Complex'
The conservative Internet entrepreneur on bringing down Acorn, Hollywood liberals, and embarrassing the mainstream media." WSJ, James Taranto

"Hunger breeds violence
Peacemaking strategies must include denying extremists recruits from a hungry population by providing food to alleviate the suffering." by Samuel Berger

"Wayne State Study Shows Adult Stem Cell Grafts Help Paralyzed" WWJ Newsradio 950

Zynga Presentation @ Web 2.0 Summit

HatTip to Eric Eldon:

Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus' presentation at this week's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Zynga Presentation

View more presentations from Eric Eldon.

'Gone Global' Campaign, Finally Some Marketing Dollars Spent

CNET covered Google's new ad campaign as they beef up their efforts into the enterprise market:

Google claims more than 2 million businesses and 20 million people have switched to Google Apps, a movement the company is touting through its expanding "Gone Google" marketing program.

Google's philosophy when it comes to marketing has been that "products sell themselves," so the company spends very little on marketing and advertising. Obviously to really enter the enterprise market they have to spend a fair amount of marketing money. It will be interesting to see how much they actually spend and whether they are willing to battle Microsoft and others with increased marketing expenditures.

Even for their consumer efforts, I believe Google could strengthen their position by allocating more resources to marketing. This is especially true for markets where they are not leading, such as China, Russia, Japan and Korea.

Oakland Local Live!

Oakland Local went live yesterday (well, about 16 hours ago). It was founded by Susan Mernit, who was an early advisor to my startup and a prominent tech blogger. Susan made her mark in technology and media as an executive during the early years of Netscape and AOL, and her recent position as a Senior Director at Yahoo!.

Oakland Local has a New Voices grant from J-Lab, funded by The Knight Foundation, as seed money. Her new venture is riding a trend of where the future of media is going: local and hyperlocal. The question is how will it be sustained and in what form? Oakland Local is taking the nonprofit route which is an avenue that some people believe is the only way for local news to survive. I'm not certain of this, but it will be great to watch Oakland Local develop and become a model for many to consider. More from their website and Susan:

Oakland Local is an independent, non-profit community news and information hub, connecting community and news. Our site combines original investigative and feature reporting with community news and information about Oakland non-profit organizations, community groups and engaged citizens.

"Oakland Local is launching in partnership with 35 local nonprofit, neighborhood & community organizations—we combine postings of their news and information with blogging and with reported stories from a top quality news team (Susan Mernit, Amy Gahran, Kamika Dunlap, Kwan Booth, Ryan Van Lenning and others). We are media partners & collaborators with Spot.us, Newsdesk.org, The Center for Investigative Reporting, New America Media, Endless Canvas, Youth Rising, Youth Radio and Youth Outlook as well. Our site offers forums, a directory of 320 local nonprofits and a blog directory of 180 active local bloggers as well."

"Consumer & Market Trends during Recession"

I'm such a lazy blogger, but these recent slides have been great :) This is a great "Cross Industry Research Report" by TrendsSpotting.com:

"The 'Consumer and Market Trends during Recession' report covers the U.S. market in the following consumer industries: Food and Beverage, Apparel, Media and Electronics, Travel, Health, Automobiles, Education and Pets. It provides a broad perspective on consumers' changing behavior during the current economic downturn."

Consumer & Market Trends during Recession - Cross Industry Research Report by TrendsSpotting.com

View more documents from Taly Weiss.

Youth Digital Media Landscape

HatTip to Christine Moon :) Presentation by Derek Baird:

"Most brands have built deep bonds with Gen X and Boomers, but they haven’t yet connected with younger users. Here's why you can’t afford to lose them."

Youth Digital Media Landscape

View more presentations from Derek Baird.

Go-To-Market for Geeks

Good overview by Chris Yeh.

Go-To-Market for Geeks

View more presentations from Chris Yeh.

"What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later"

Great overview by Marta Kagan.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.