John Furrier

Heidi Roizen on Venture Capital and Silicon Valley

A PodTech.net conversation with Heidi Roizen about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs, and the climate in the venture business. Roizen is a seasoned entrepreneur and now venture capitalist talks about the previous years of nuclear winter and the renewed energy taking place in the Valley.

"Seeing a lot of life come back to the market after the nuclear winter. Seeing more activity … entrepreneurs are starting companies again, customers are buying, revenues are going up."

"Expenses are under control, business models make financial success — all those old fashion things are back again, and valuations are going up."

“The Internet is changing the venture investment dynamic. Companies can be global from the very beginning from talent to customers. Silicon Valley has the continuing role to play as being the epicenter. The resources, capital, knowledge, and support teams are here in Silicon Valley to make things happen.”

More great stuff—listen to the podcast...

Fresh Voices: You’ll hear it here first.

John Furrier is the founder of PodTech.net and the host of the Podcasting Show: “Silicon Valley, Technology, and Media InfoTalk—The Fresh Voices Platform.”

Web 4.0 - Collision Course with Convergence

Web 4.0 is coming ... Finally my policy based universal lookup engine might see the light of day...

From the NYTimes John Markoff - great story that points to the future and where the net is going. 

The National Science Foundation is planning an effort to fundamentally re-engineer the Internet and overcome its shortcomings, creating a network more suited to the computerized world of the next decade.  It's possible to design a network that was better able to handle traffic from the edge of the network, at the level of individual users. In the next decade, computer researchers expect an explosion of data from mobile and wireless devices as well as sensors that will vastly outnumber today's PC's.

We are on a true collision course with true convergence up and down the stack ... everything will be on the table and up for grab the next 10-15 years.   

Rackable Message on blog with audioblog

I stumbled across my friend Tom Barton on a blog giving a videoblog interview and there it was AudioBlog being used on the Deal weblog.  Great stuff from Eric Rice on audioblog.  I have to say that the quality though for Rackable didn't put Tom (the CEO) in the best of light.  I thought it came out too weak..could have been produced better but hey this is user generated content AND a Silicon Valley company is going public.

Go Rackable and Tom!

iTunes Phone - About Freakin Time

NYTimes reports that Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a long-awaited mobile phone and music player next week that will incorporate Apple's iTunes software, a telecommunications industry analyst who has been briefed on the announcement said on Monday.

Hello...big surprise here...cell phone with iTunes

Go Podcasting

Podcasting Growth = PodTech.Network is Growing

Slow post going on with all the catchup from vacation and building PodTech.NETwork.

Alot of folks asking about what's happening with PodTech.Network Inc. - PodTech is doing great and doing the show has been a ton of fun both in meeting great people and learning a ton about what's needed in the podcasting platform.  So I'm looking to hire some talented folks in sales and in engineering. 

Yes we're growing off of some great seed execution.. Looking for killer web developer (info architect) and engineering talent... engineering background in open source, managed services, web services, grid computing, XML & metadata genius, and of course analytics.  Also folks who can develop business fast.  While I'm at it how about $5-7m in financing :-)

Anyone know of anyone interested drop me a line at john at podtech dot net

Charlene Li of Forrester Podcast on PodTech.net

On PodTech.Net

Here's my podcast with Charlene Li from Forrester on where the blog and podcasting trends are going. Li spoke with me about blog trends, and she is putting the finishing touches on a upcoming report on “How marketers can use RSS.”

Have a listen. To download the podcast, go to PodTech.net and search for Charlene Li

"Blogs and podcasting are changing the nature of the email newsletter."

"[I'm hearing from marketers:] 'I don’t want to give up my email newsletter in favor for RSS.' But actually corporate marketers can now shift the heavy lifting forcing into email newsletter to RSS, and have email newsletters play a different role. For example: instead of holding a product launch for another 2-3 weeks waiting for the next email blast, now with RSS, marketers can put it up whenever they think is the right time. And get feedback and conversations back and forth very social and control goes back to marketing."

"Forrester using blogs as conversation platform to use as an outlet to get ideas out there… Premium written research is great for 'big ideas' and the blog is perfect for the little ideas. It’s all about influence at Forrester."

More great stuff—listen to the podcast...

PodTech.NET Fresh Voices Platform: You’ll hear it here first.

Back from Vacation into BarCamp

I get back from a 3 week east coast vacation and walk right into two nights of BarCamp.  It was a great event hosted by Ross Mayfield in Palo Alto.  Barcamp's a conclave of geeks just hanging out putting on their own conference in a adhoc manner.  It's a load of fun and exciting to watch 15 people in a room geeking out at 12:30 am while another 30 are partying outside.  Met a lot of cool people also good to see Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo, Dave Winer, Dave Hodson, Mike Arrington, and a slew of other notables...

Podcast Advertising - The New Model for Web2.0

Nextpage joins Barracuda Networks in being a leader in using podcast as an ad vehicle via PodTech.net. Nextpage put out a press release today.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050815/lam079.html?.v=18

I have to say that I'm really excited about working with the NextPage team. They make a great product and a solution that fits the "new" model for the Web 2.0. Plus they understand marketing in this new model - provide value to users in forms they appreciate - InfoTalks via podcasts.

Like Barracuda Networks Nextpage will be setting up their own media channel on PodTech.NETwork for all their new content starting with podcasting today and then videoblogs soon after. This is the new ad model for the Web 2.o - Transparent Advertising: credibility, valuable information, helping people, and changing lives = community of customers and potential customers.

Soon more to come and big names in advertising.

Family vacation feels great

For the first time in 10 years my wife and I travelled to Massachusetts for our annual family reunion without packing a dedicated bag full of diapers and wipes .... My youngest is out of diapers and on his own (so to speak).  What a difference it makes for vacations and the vacation schelp factor. 

We are enjoying great beach weather and I can't wait to get back to building up PodTech.NET when I get back in full swing in September.  Alot happening with PodTech and podcasting these days.

PodShow Inc nets $8.85m in financing from sequoia and kleiner perkins

Podshow inc just secured financing from sequoia capital and kleiner perkins according to PE Wire...Daniel writes in his email newsletter

There is little that gets Valley girls and boys as hot and bothered as when an Internet company gets funded by both Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. So it's worth noting that the iconic venture shops have participated in an $8.85 million Series A round for PodShow Inc., according to a regulatory filing. For an added bonus, both John Doerr and Ray Lane have taken board seats, joining both Jerry Newman of Bear Stearns and omnipresent angel investor Ram Shriram (Google, Plaxo, Zazzle, etc.), who is representing shareholder Harris MyCFO Inc.

PodShow is a Miami Beach-based company focused on the development, management and promotion of online audio programming, with an obvious focus on the podcasting phenomenon. It seems to be the renamed version of Boku Communications, which was launched last year by Ron Bloom and "The Podfather" Adam Curry