I just get back from Amsterdam and two of our engineers are leaving Tagged and we have a lot of job openings.
One of the departing wrote an interesting e-mail on leaving which I’ll quote below and maybe it’ll give you an idea what it’s like working here. But first, some open job reqs…
[Tagged Jobs Reqs and farewell after the jump. Read on! It’s worth it.]Continue reading
I guess the news in my world today is that Bebo sold to AOL for $850 million.
Trust AOL to make the Microsoft-generated $15 billion “valuation” look like a steal. I’m curious how much Hi5 must be worth now:
Earlier a bunch of us were discussing the internet porn industry. A friend mentioned that when you see companies like AdultFriendFinder selling out to traditional media outlets like Penthouse, it means that the players in the industry don’t see much growth potential and are cashing out.
Right before the internet bubble burst, Palm spun off from 3COM for higher than the parent company’s market cap.
Enjoy the crash.
While researching the previous article, I came across this hilarious quote:
This is a far cry from 1966, originally the Klingons were scotch tape Asians (Fong, 176); White actors given slanty eyes. The Klingon race incarnate all the characteristics that most scare White America. The Klingons are violent, ill tempered, lustful, and drunk. They are on a mission to destroy the peaceful Federation and take over the universe. Finally, they fight to the death preferring death to defeat or capture. One scene from an episode entitled The Trouble with Tribbles almost mirrors a scene from the 1944 film Dragon Seed. In both scenes the evil Asians show up at a restaurant and demand liquor, when they are denied they go on a violent rampage. Often, they are shown eating large hunks of meat off the bone Gengis Kahn style.
—“As-liens: The Final Frontier in Depicts of Yellow Peril in Popular Cinema”
I’m so going to have to do this at the next geek event.
I love Lunch 2.0. It’s ironic that something that started as a prank on Web 2.0 could become representative of the very thing it teases: free and open communication and “the lunch as a conversation.”
Even though I missed Lunch 2.0 at Oodle, you have to love this mobile post via Utterz by Chris Heuer catching the first words of this utter by Randy Corke of Utterz, talking at Lunch 2.0 to Devon Holmes about social media.
Now that’s so meta. 🙂
I wish I could have jumped in on the social media circle jerk. Of course, I’m not as hip as them so I went “old skool” and twittered it. You see these sort of random circular connections in my blog posts, so I obviously love it.
Lunch 2.0. It’s been a great year.
Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR, SB-800, Gitzo G1228LVL, RRS BH-55 ballhead
1/100 sec @ f/16, iso 100, 26mm (39mm)
Lunch 2.0 makes the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. Believe it or not, this is how we got a Facebook Lunch 2.0.
I thought I’d finish with how this last Silicon Lunch 2.0 of 2007 incident is a great way to close out the year, which began with the linked blog post above about how we created Lunch 2.0.
[Epicycles and thanks after the jump]Continue reading
Great news today! Halle blogs another gem about some social “research” results:
“One involved the creation of mock Facebook profiles. Researchers learned that while people perceive someone who has a high number of friends as popular, attractive and self-confident, people who accumulate “too many” friends (about 800 or more) are seen as insecure.”
High number of friends == attractive? Score! And what happens at 800? Does the Facebook CS team come and beat you with an ugly stick? I thought you’re supposed to troll their tagged pictures to decide about this one. And now that they’ve ajaxified the photos page, it’s oh so easy to do!
Unlike Halle, I’m under 800 friends, but I think it’s getting close. I better stop accepting friend requests…
Okay, maybe one more friend. 🙂
Another Friday afternoon ego boost, this time from Mashable and ValleyWag.
Thanks, Owen! 🙂
[newsfeed stuff after the jump]Continue reading
People are all in a huff about Ballmer being, as far as I can tell, Ballmer.
“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.”
—Steve Ballmer, Times Online
Now, I think Ballmer is an idiot as much as any man (or, at least, Mac fanboi)…
But am I wrong in thinking the whole idea of him saying this is so that they can purchase Facebook at a price that’s not astronomical, especially now that Yahoo! has dropped out of the running? Whether social networking is a fad or not, it’s seems good business to claim it is when you hold the money but not a product. Shit, isn’t that the first thing a VC does when they talk to a startup—try to make you and your business feel like shit? Sounds to me the same thing on a much bigger playing field.
Also is it really that bad of a quote?
“The Internet? We are not interested in it”
—Bill Gates, 1993
(For reference, this was said a year after I called home and said, “Dad, I want to quit Caltech. You know this thing Mom and I use called the Internet? It’s going to be big!” So, basically, any of the “younger people” who wasn’t a complete moron at the time had figured out that the Internet is definitely something a company like Microsoft should be interested in.)
Marc Andreessen points out, the true beauty of the Ballmer quote is it applies to nearly everything. In fact, I think I’ll be saying that as an reverse “not into pokémon”. Any time someone dismisses something I’m really into, I’ll say:
I.
Love.
This.
Quote.
I don’t think I could be screaming monkey Ballmer very well, but this, this I can do.
(By the way, if any of you are wondering why I’m behind on my photography, read Jim Goldstein’s post on digital photography: “Digital Photography: So Good, It’s Bad.” So true! Applies also to blogging about photography.)
[Thanks and thoughts.]Continue reading
First, Yahoo! Mash is up. It used to be called Yahoo! Mosh, but since Nokia has a beta product called Mosh, they changed it.
Surprisingly they kept “Pulse” which is direct conflict with Plaxo Pulse.
Go figure.
Speaking of Pulse, feeds, and other things… [after the jump]Continue reading