Monthly Archive for February, 2006

Page 3 of 3

Entrepreneurship 2.0

Published on February 3, 2006 in Web2.0. 2 Comments

Dave Hornik recently explained to his 8-year old son what his job entailed (Dave’s a VC) and the response was as follows:

A couple nights ago my son came to me with a handful of papers with various designs and announced that he was ready to start his skate brand. After an exhaustive process, he had decided to name his company Ollie King ™, and he was ready to go. I told him that he would have to wait because I was reading to his sister, at which point he stormed up stairs to his mother, ripped up his skate designs, threw them in the trash, and creamed to her “daddy won’t fund my company!” This did not sit well with my wife — apparently, as his father, I have an obligation to fund my son’s skate brand.
from ventureblog.com

The elegant solution to the situation was actually to give the boy a domain name, a blog and set up a Café Press shop with T-shirts, baseball caps and stickers. “User generated content is going to continue to proliferate as the eight year olds of the world create MySpace pages and blogs and skate stores. Who knows what they’ll create when they are nine.”

The “long tail” has made entrepreneurship so much more accessible. Maybe not if you want to start a bank or an airline company, but to set up a small venture for a rock group, youth’s organisation: all you need are (free) tools like these:

  • set up a free blog on Wordpress.com, Blogspot or .Mac
  • host your pictures on Flickr, Pixagogo or 23hq
  • print them on posters via Qoop
  • host your videos on YouTube, Dailymotion or Google Video
  • host your audio files on MySpace
  • sell your CDs via CafePress
  • create and sell DVD via ?
  • create and sell ringtones via ?
  • mashup your data with Google Maps
  • set up a forum, wki, digg-clone fo your members/customers
  • monetize your site with Adsense (if the traffic picks up, that is)
  • create apparel like T-shirts and caps with CafePress or Spreadshirt
  • if you want to make a steel/plastic prototype of an invention, print it in 3D

What I see is a lot of building blocks, the only tricky thing is to glue them together. So there will be work for people like me to puzzle them together. The future’s bright.

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List of quartets

Published on February 1, 2006 in meme. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

Here you go, Ine dear:

Four jobs I’ve had/have (skip this one, it’s boring):
- Programming databases on Sun/Sybase
- Selling a not-yet-ready biometric authentication toolkit
- Product manager for digital certificates
- Research and development for a security/storage/photo ASP

Four movies I can watch over and over:
- Lucia y el sexo
- When Harry met Sally
- Le fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain
- Rear Window

Four places I’ve liked living
- Leuven
- Louvain-la-neuve
- Merchtem
- Brussels

Four TV shows I love
- Lost (currently at S02E11)
- West Wing
- L-Word
- Prison Break (thx Trish)

Four places I’ve vacationed:
- US West Coast (honeymoon, actually)
- Cedeillan, Massac (my parents’ eagle’s nest)
- Tuscany, Italy (with Clemence in her mommy’s belly)
- tango holiday in Abano Terme (felt like a millionaire’s trip)

Four of my favorite dishes:
- Thai soup a la Bar Sabir
- Scampis in garlic
- Stoemp (with sausage AND bacon!)
- Steak Bearnaise

Four sites I visit daily:
- blog.outer-court.com
- analogindustries.com (with the ‘hard-core gear porn Friday‘)
- avc.blogs.com: Fred Wilson, an NYC VC who gets Web 2.0
- factoryjoe.com: Flockstar Chris Messina

Four podcasts I always listen to:
- The Transmission (’Lost’ fan podcast)
- Diggnation (video) podcast
- In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
- Basic Soul Radio Show

Four places I would rather be right now:
- Buenos Aires, trying to get that volcada just right
- Mountain View, for easy access to ideas, funds and Free(!) Wifi(!) Everywhere(!)
- Madrid, where an evening out in the winter doesn’t mean pneumonia (Global Warming? Bring it on!!)
- Rio, because I want to witness for myself how Brazilian hips move to funky deep house music

Four bloggers minxes cheeky monkeys I am tagging:
- Bieke
- Francois
- Ingrid
- Trish

Four roads I’d love to ride again
- from the maternity to Vilvoorde city hall (to declare Clemence)
- from Brussels to Cedeillan (every year)
- from LA to San Francisco (along the coast, scenic view)
- from Brussels to Exeter (felt like on top of the world)

The transmission has ended …

Published on February 1, 2006 in podcast. 0 Comments


Ryan and Jen have just announced that they are putting an end to their popular Lost fan podcast, “The Transmission“. Started in May 2005, the show has grown into the most popular Lost audio podcast program, featuring discussion of each episode right after it aired, feedback from listeners and ‘The forward cabin‘: theories and spoilers for following episodes. A very well-produced (Ryan apparently has some radio background) show of 30 minutes each week, presented by two big fans with a good voice. I am subscribed to the podcast, and it almost feels like I know them.

I have no idea what the reason for the sudden decision is (they remain vague on the issue, so I’ll respect that), but I can imagine the show was taking over their lives to some extent. Me for one, I will miss them, I learned a lot about the Lost characters, the storylines and the Hawaii setting (Ryan and Jen are both very proud -and lucky- to be living in Hawai). It takes me more effort than the regular U.S. fan to get to see each episode when it airs (because I can’t buy them on iTunes) so I often heard the podcast before I saw the actual episode, but I still enjoyed both of them.

Ryan and Jen, thanks for your dedication and efforts. Whatever you’re up to in the future, I wish you all the luck.

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