Yael Naim….wow!
Saw Yael Naim perform last night at a celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary. She stole the show (which actually wasn’t very hard though did require competing with MC, Natalie Portman). People who don’t recognize the name, surely know her most popular song, New Soul, licensed by Apple for the MacBook Air commercials. Along with all the other accolades afforded to Steve Jobs, people are giving him credit for discovering this talent. I’d be curious to know the real story here. I suspect an ad exec with a finely tuned ear suggested a few songs and while Jobs made the final call, it’s this anonymous (for now) guy or gal who deserves the credit. Either way, I’m in love. Here are videos of her performing the two songs I saw her do last night:
Congestion pricing - what’s the problem?
On Wednesday this week, my trip from Cobble Hill to Midtown took me 90 minutes. The subway was experiencing delays, so I went above ground at W4th and cabbed the rest of the trip. Sadly, the taxi portion consumed more than 30 minutes because 6th and 8th Avenues were totally clogged. This has been the case increasingly in NYC, as there are simply more automobiles on the island, than Manhattan can support on an average day. Even in Brooklyn, the roads are jammed. On Tuesday of this week, my drive to Coney Island (to defend a speeding ticket on the BQE, go figure) took 50 minutes.
Just two weeks ago, Sheldon Silver and the Democratic majority of the NY State Assembly vetoed Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan in the New York City Council, preventing the measure from reaching a public vote. While I usually vote Democratic (or even more liberally), I can’t understand the ill will towards this measure from NYC representatives. (Governor Corzine was also opposed to it, but for more obvious reasons, as he’s representing his constituents in NJ.) Automobile traffic in Manhattan has reached epic proportions. Nobody will argue that. Traveling by car mid-day is unbearable. It’s one of the most unattractive qualities of our great city. Can you imagine other global cosmopolitan centers with this issue? Traffic in LA is bad, but it’s all on the freeway. Same with San Francisco. Inner city traffic in DC, Boston or Chicago doesn’t compare. London is crowded, but all the streets are one-way which keeps traffic flowing. Paris….no chance. This measure would have raised an estimated $350 million in federal funds that would be used to improve and add subway capacity. Then, drivers entering Manhattan would be charged $8 for the day. Money also would flow towards bike lanes (an increasingly popular mode of transport) and other greener forms of movement. While yes, some people of lesser means may have lost perceived access to Manhattan, those who truly rely on the city day-to-day would benefit greatly with increased mobility. A city of this size needs the latest and greatest public transportation technology, and this measure would help raise the funds to pay for it. Mayor Bloomberg called the votes against his bill cowardly and I agree on this one. Sheldon Silver was also a major factor in stopping the Manhattan Jets stadium construction plans, a move that would have added some periodic traffic on Sundays, but one that would have revitalized Hell’s Kitchen and brought a professional sports team to the NY Metro area for the first time since the Brooklyn Dodgers. Assemblyman Silver has been in office for more than two decades and usually is elected without challengers. Given his recent voting record, which shreaks of stagnation and fear of change/improvement, it may be time for the Assemblyman to consider his next career. I hope Governor Patterson and Mayor Bloomberg will be able to resusitate this plan that would have benefited so many New Yorkers.
in da AOL Sphere
Yesterday was the big day, we announced our acquisition by AOL:
TechCrunch Coverage
Sphere blog Coverage
NYT/The Deal Coverage
All Things D Coverage
This is a thrill and very exciting, but also a tad bittersweet. Exciting because any time a small fledgling startup that you’re a part of building is acquired by one of the large Internet superstars, it signals that we’ve made it; that we’ve created something of value that others recognize and appreciate. Based on our traction in the market and accelerating demand for partnership, we knew this internally, but an acquisition by a brand like AOL announces it through a bullhorn to the rest of the world. It’s also exciting because AOL is giving us the opportunity to remain independent, which we love because the team has really gelled and is hitting on all cylinders right now. It’s fantastic that we get to continue working together and building out what we started with the resources of AOL. Of course, this is also where the bittersweetness comes in. I’ve been involved with Sphere for 14 months. For eight of those, we were engaged in a courtship ritual dance of sorts, that eventually resulted in me joining the team. For the past six, we’ve been sprinting towards the finish line and fending off other competitors trying to take a piece of our pie. Our pipeline is full with some of the biggest and most exciting brands and publishers. Our business should continue to grow and naturally, there’s a part of me that would have loved to ride this one out a tad longer, especially since six months was just enough time to really get in a groove. Though I imagine this is a sentiment that one feels whenever a sale of a business takes place, whether after six years or six months. Now, time to focus on the great opportunities this brings and to finish what we started. Onwards and upwards we go….
Ranching it up with Sphere at our “on-site”
Spent the past week with the Sphere team at the COD ranch outside Tucson, AZ. It was a great opportunity to get to know all the members of a team that’s been working closely together over the past 6+ months. When you’re a virtual company, personalities don’t play as strong of a role in the functioning of the organization. It’s more about the task at hand and raw performance. I think this is one of the reasons we’ve been so successful at Sphere. It’s all about personal accountability and this puts pressure on each of us to perform. I’ll always be curious to know how our performance would have been affected if we shared the same office space. I’m guessing we’re better off in our virtual structure, and our friendships are probably better off for it as well:)
Anyway, last week was a great few days on the ranch, getting to know the team better, and drinking a few beers around the campfire. We coded a few new features and even pushed a new product or two out the door. Our founder/CEO, Tony Conrad, turned me onto some new bands, a nice surprise and thereby fulfilling his status as all-around groover.
Interview with Jason Falls on Social Media Explorer
Jason Falls just posted the video interview we did together down in Austin a few weeks ago during SXSW. It’s posted with an article on his Social Media Explorer or you can watch the YouTube version here:
Barack Obama’s “A more perfect union”….
Barack sums this speech up with the essence of why he needs to be our next president. Hope and aspiration don’t solve our problems nor do beautiful speeches, but they are the right places to start if we are to have any chance of accomplishing these feats. Despite what the nay-sayers preach, a leader first needs to be able to articulute our hopes and dreams before we have a chance of living them….
Connecting The Conversation - NYC Fete
Last night Sphere co-hosted a cocktail party with The New York Times, Automattic (WordPress), Giga Omni Media (GigaOM), Hearst Corporation and True Ventures. The event celebrated the evolution afoot in the media industry, bringing together large publishers and bloggers. Quite an evening. Thank you to everyone who joined us and a special shout out to True Ventures and Hearst for making the event possible. Here are a couple of photos from the event which took place at the top of the new Hearst Tower overlooking Central Park.
$2 bill taped to Bear Stearns HQ entrance
Just plain wrong….
Jack Nicholson ad for Hillary
Just came across this ad for Hillary that Jack Nicholson sponsored and endorsed. Pretty creative stuff….
SXSW - Recap from Austin
Woah! Seven days in Austin for South by Southwest were all I could handle (in fact, more than I could handle as I escaped for one night to Dallas). I signed up for SXSW without knowing much about it, but with the general impression that it was a fun event and unique in the professional world. Both these assumptions proved spot on. By the second day, I was referring to SXSW as Burning Man for Business. In fact, there is significant overlap in attendance and I found myself discussing Burning Man several times over the week. The format of SXSW is very similar to Burning Man, with sessions and panels organized throughout the four days of the conference (and many people skipping the sessions altogether). While some of the sessions were entertaining and educational, the real meat of the conference happened outside the convention center at the parties, in the bars and throughout downtown Austin. In the evenings, tech stalwarts like Google, Apple, Adobe and a few upstarts in a Super Bowl ad-like move, throw parties at local bars where booze flows freely (as in gratis) into the wee hours. This scenario creates an extremely social ethos, not to mention makes for late nights and late mornings, all making SXSW a giant party for the industry. If you weren’t there, this might sound like a giant boondoggle, but interestingly, I found that more valuable networking and business actually happened that at your average conference. In an industry that is relatively young, where founders and execs in their early 40s represent the high end of the range, we’d all rather do business in fun, social environments than staid office-like conference halls. This proved out over the course of the week as I networked and connected with many dozen industry professionals from around the country. I also found these relationships more authentic and more likely to lead to friendship since the formality and forced interaction are lifted. I did manage to attend a few valuable sessions, my favorite of which was given by Jason Fried on Lessons Learned at 37 Signals. His message was overwhelmingly simple and the lessons he conveyed were mostly common sense. Sean Ammirati has a nice review of the session on ReadWriteWeb. Another session that scored high marks was The Worst Website Ever delivered by Merlin Mann which you can watch here on Viddler. Overall, SXSW was nothing short of awesome, and I’ll definitely be back in future years.