John Furrier

Mountain Lion in Palo Alto - There back!

It was 10 months ago that a mountain lion came 25 feet from attacking my two kids in my backyard before my black lab (Kelsey) chased the 'big cat' up the tree where police shot and killed the cougar.   Click here for the video of mountain lion shooting.

Now there is another cathunt in Palo Alto. 

Here are the previous links from the last lion incident that happened in my yard.

Mountain Lion News Links

The CBS Video of the Cougar Shot in Tree

Mountain Lion shot and killed in Palo Alto

Uproar continues over mountain lion shooting

Mountain lion killed in Palo Alto; Chased by dog; Killed by Police

Mountain lion shooting stirs controversy

Upset residents mourn cougar shot by officer

Officials Defend Mountain Lion Shooting

Black Lab Trees Mountain Lion

Wild Kingdom

more stories

Reality Media

A new AlwayOn Network column by a member of the Open Source Media Platform founded by Tony Perkins.  Bernard Moon first column on Reality Media focused on covering the intersection of the blogosphere and social networking. 

All the rage from VCs and entrepreneurs is the revenue model for blogs.  I posted a view on this - Advertising Model for Blogs

Reality Media is about information not biased reporting. 

Semantic Technologies Enabling New Solutions and Innovations

Tony Perkins, pioneer of Open Source Media, posts a "spot on" article on the future of online communities, social networking, search, and all Always On technologies.

I believe new tools will automate the ontology "seed" process. Having built nameservers in the past for keyword search and navigation, I can tell you the creation and evolution of the taxonomy issue is HUGE.

RSS and new syndication technologies combined with search capabilities (not paid search) then overlaid ontop of an always on network will have a profound effect on user experience.

"What you saw in first-gen solutions [was] Ask Jeeves—fragile ontologies that required tons and tons of human labor to keep them updated. The next gen has succeeded because they have a more automated way of keeping the taxonomy up-to-date and being able to give a consistently good-quality solution to the end customer."

This important addition to already developed ontology paradigm will change the nature and definition of "search eninge optimization"

Tony Perkins and I are like minds in this area... see my previous post on the Future of Online Advertising.

Six Apart to Buy Live Journal

Om Malik reports that Six Apart is buying LiveJournal.  Great scoop Om!

As of late Blogging has gone "BlogWild".  Blogs are not only a new form of publishing, but also a new form of communication. "the killer app for "citizen-generated media" and " trusted expert commentary".

Blogs are comparable in import to e-mail or instant messaging. As a result, they will have a huge impact on business and emarketing such as lead generation and search businesses. 

My Prediction:  SixApart gets bought by Microsoft.  Let the Google Microsoft War begin.

      

VC Business School for Entrepreneurs

Business School for entrepreneurs.  Brad Feld is blogging hard on VC information very valuable to any entrepreneur looking to raise professional money.  These insights enable any entrepreneur to navigate the financing process with VCs.  This is the kind of stuff that should be must reads for anyone in business school looking to understand the deal sides of VC financing both from a VCs perspective and entrepreneur.

Excellent blogging! 

Here is the link

Blog Trends for 2005

Blog Trends:

Blogs will become the standard publishing platform

Blogs will assimilate other network and software technologies to boost its' effectiveness as a utility and platform.

Current users will become the industry vendors.

Open source media will emerge as a communicatin and collaboration platform.

A New "New Media" will emerge.  No barriers to entry for publishers.  A new breed of folks will enter.  These "new age" entrepreneurs will think different and look at the network resources differently. 

Search as we know it will go away...and be replaced by a convergence of networked technologies (alwayson technologies).  There will be massive disruptive forces around content and data colliding with communications and voice technogies.

By the end of the year, the world will begin to realize that "blogs" are in fact an extraordinarily heterogeneous ecosystem comprised of scores, if not hundreds, of different "types" of sites.

Meanwhile, the Long Tail will become the talk of the "old line" media world. To capture some of that value, we'll see a slew of deals and new publishing projects from the established brands that seek to capture the idea of community journalism, affiliate commerce sales, and collaborative content creation.

VC Financing Term Sheet Postings Series

Another good post by Brad Feld, VC Blogger from Mobius.  Term Sheet: Price.  First in a series by Brad and Mobius General Council Jason Mendelson

In general, there are only two things that venture funds really care about when doing investments: economics and control. The term "economics" refers to the end of the day return the investor will get and the terms that have direct impact on such return. The term "control" refers to mechanisms which allow the investors to either affirmatively exercise control over the business or allow the investor to veto certain decisions the company can make. If you are negotiating a deal and an investor is digging his or her feet in on a provision that doesn't affect the economics or control, they are probably blowing smoke, rather than elucidating substance.

The best way for an entrepreneur to negotiate price is to have multiple VCs interested in investing in his company.

Brad also posted a previous post on VC Finacing Alegebra on the basics of valuation.

NY Times Story on the Blog Effect on Tsunami Reporting

Classic NY Times posture - "Bury the Lead"  - Blogs are more reliable than other mainstream media (e.g. CNN, NY Times..etc)

In the NY Times story today by John Schwartz "Myths Run Wild in Blog Tsunami Debate" the lead story is buried at the end...

The real story in this NY Times Blog Tsunami piece is:

1) Blogs have gone from obscurity to ubiquity in a blink. Bloggers were selected as "People of the Year" by ABC News, and Merriam-Webster declared "blog" its "word of the year."   -- Blogs matter

2) Online discussion can evolve toward truth that has a process that is more reliable than many new media, where corrections are often late and small, if they appear at all. - QED

NY Times buries the lead because they are in danger of becoming exstinct by new blog media.  I do have to give the NY Times credit they are embracing blogging but this story by Schwartz needs a rewrite. 

The New Network News - Blogs Work from a Election to a Tsunami

Bloggers and Blogging will become the "New Network News". 

The AP is running a story today called Blog Creation, Readership Rises in 2004. 

This is just another data point that blogs have credibility in reporting.  In the world of decentralized computing the blogging paradigm is the new "network news".

From AP report.."Readership of online journals known as blogs grew significantly in 2004, driven by increased awareness of them during the presidential campaign and other major news events, according to a study released Sunday.

Twenty-seven percent of online adults in the United States said in November they read blogs, compared with 17 percent in a February .."

Despite the attention to blogging, a large number of Americans remain clueless - only 38 percent of Internet users know what a blog is: online agglomerations of ideas, information and links, usually presented with the most recent postings on top, and often offering a mechanism for visitors to post comments.

Software tools developed in recent years have made blogs easier to create and maintain.

Good news ... better tools and technology are being developed to make it easier to publish and find information.

Tsunami Video - Video of Tsunami

Video of the massive Tsunami is available.  Our prayers go to the families of the lost and those that have survived.  Maybe technology could be available to warn of future events like this. 

Here is a link to some videos.

Before and after pictures from space 

AlwaysOn-Network ...

Definition of Tsunami - word comes from the Japanese tsu (harbour) and nami (wave).

Tsunamis are large waves (like tidal waves) caused by seismic activity such as volcanic eruptions or a vertical displacement of the oceans - by earthquakes, landslides or meteorite strikes.

More video links:

http://www.brturbo.com/noticias/videos_tsunami.htm

**This post is sponsored by "A Rise and Shine Bed & Breakfast" - Monmouth, Maine- getaway retreat in picturesque lake region of Maine and with high speed Internet Access via WiFi - mention WiFi access and John Furrier and get a 10% discount