A big march ("No mas farc") of the Colombian people who've finally had enough of the violence in their country, organized in a few weeks on Facebook.
Open?: "Being socially exposed is AOK when you hold a lot of privilege, when
people cannot hold meaningful power over you, or when you can route
around such efforts. Such is the life of most of the tech geeks living
in Silicon Valley. But I spend all of my time with teenagers, one of
the most vulnerable populations because of their lack of agency (let
alone rights)."
Martin Belam has a great OPML file of the IA Summit attendees (so far) that have blogs. I just imported it into Bloglines. Thanks Martin!
Not a hoax :)
There's a challenge on Facebook going on, it ends in about 2 hours. The
charity with the most people donating (it doesn't matter if you donate
the minimum) gets an extra 50,000$.
My friend Nathan is part of a GREAT charity called the Tibetan Freedom Movement.
They're 5 people away from winning. If you want to help, do this within the next hour or so:
1. Log on to your Facebook account. If you don't have an account already, please open one at www.facebook.com.
2. Once you're logged in, go to: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/47691
3. Donate $10 to the Tibetan Freedom Movement.
Thanks so much! I'd consider it a personal favour. Again, they only need just a few more donations...
Chupacabres suck. No, wait, Verizon sucks, chupacabres are cool! Well, they do suck, but in a good way.
I love it when an old post gets lots of discussion, like the chupacabre one, or the verizon sucks one.
Clear up that forest
p.s., Facebook must be happy, M$ is trying to take out ("acquire" they call it) a major competitor, and Google was never good at the social stuff. It's like suddenly some big trees in the wood are cut and now there's more sunlight for smaller trees.
A freestyle translation of the Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo
January 31, 2008
Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer
Dear Members of the Board:
"Yahoo is cheap right now, we want to buy it" I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft’s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.
"We'd pay a good price" Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.
"The Microsoft stock you'd get ain't bad either." We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!’s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft’s share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.
"We've tried this before." Microsoft’s consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.
"You said no last time, but come on, you're not doing well fighting off Google by yourselves." In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that “now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.” According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board’s confidence in the “potential upside” if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.
"We can combine our advertising bits, there's a lot of money there!" While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:
"If we partner up in advertising, we can kick Google ass!" Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.
"Let's combine our advertising platforms into one." Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities. Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.
"It'll be a good excuse to fire some people too." Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.
"And you can give us Flickr too." Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.
"Join us and we'll give you all a big payraise too!" We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.
"Let's work on this now." We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.
"It'll take some time to work out the details." Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.
In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.
"Yahoo board, we're serious here, get off your butts or we'll go around you." Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earlies t convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.
"Yey!" We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Steven A. Ballmer
Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft proposes to buy Yahoo. Surely nothing good can come from this.
I wonder why the sharing of OPML has never really taken off? The lack of a good and easy to use service? mmm... there's an idea :)
Between LinkedIn, Facebook, Crowdvine and others, I now have to spend like 10 or 20 minutes every morning adding friends all over the place.
ps: I was playing with Facebook photo albums the other day: it's better than Flickr. Truly. Better. It doesn't look as hip, and it's not as focused on photographers, but it does much more with your social network than Flickr (an area they have always kinda neglected), and the images load faster (I think they just preload the next image while you're watching the current one, a simple trick Flickr should copy.) Overall, it's a much nicer social experience, which in turn encourages you to share your own pictures too.
I still don't like behemoth social networks though.
The ia summit is using crowdvine to power the social network for the conference. One thing I don't like about it (I love it overall), is that I want to meet everyone and am a fan of everyone. So then I have to click those things 500 times and spam everyone I know?
Hey, Snap started a blog defending themselves against people who don't like snap (I don't like Snap previews, they're just sooooo annoying and 1996).
The fact they felt the need to start this blog speaks for itself I think. And things like "Peter Van Dijck won't give it a rest" after a blogpost or 2, 3, ... bad taste, I feel kinda intimidated almost, not sure why, maybe it's because they use my entire name. Oh well.
I started http://snapsucks.org to have an easy link that explains why I dislike snap. Now, I have to admit, I understand where they're coming from. You've got a product, a startup, traffic is going well, you work hard, then someone starts a yousuck.com site, it's no fun. And the Snap guys have been cool about it, defending their product in blog comments and such. But I'm sorry guys. I dislike snap shots, I think they're bad, and I don't feel any urge to not say that to people.
Weird.
Some damn nice recipes here. Simple ones, but I made the humus and it rocks. 5 minutes.
The language of social networks
Just a few messages from Facebook the other day:- "You are now friends with X".
- "You now have a relationship with Y." (my wife) (!) (We had a little celebration after this one, it felt like something official.)
"Something that Anil Dash once wrote on how to charge: Slap the client
in the face as hard as you can, then tell him your rate. If he’s
shocked that you slapped him, you’re not charging enough."
A year after I moved on from Mefeedia, the team is still going strong and cranking out features, as evidenced in this new video playlist.
All the "newsfeed"-style implementations (and I include Twitter in that) have it wrong: I want to see 1 item per friend, ordered by the latest active friend first, not all activities of my friends ordered by date (because that means I see 20 updates of my very active friend and none of my not so active one). At least, that's how it should work in my mind.
Snap preview still really really sucks.
A good start of 2008.
So first Sun buys MySQL (for a billion dollars) and now Yahoo supports OpenID. It's going well for open source standards and infrastructure.
Sun is acquiring MySQL for a billion dollars. This is a big deal, MySQL is vital infrastructure for most of the web.
You gotta love Dreamhost
One of the reasons why I like Dreamhost is there style. Here's an email they sent after messing up:
"Hi Peter!
Ack. Through a COMPLETE bumbling on our part, we've accidentally attempted
to charge you for the ENTIRE year of 2008 (and probably 2009!) ALREADY
(it was all due to a fat finger)!
We're really really realllly embarassed about this, but you have nothing
to worry about. Please ignore any confusing billing messages you may have
received recently; we've already removed all those bum future charges on
your account (#154088) and fixed everything up.
Thank you very very much for your patience with this.. we PROMISE
this won't happen again. There's no need to reply to this message unless
of course you have any other questions at all!
Sincerely,
The Foolish DreamHost Billing Team!"
Gotta love them. Plus, together with mediatemple, they're the best host I ever used. If you're looking for a host, try them out.
A brilliant localization client and server for Drupal.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkzNOEiW4M8&rel=1&border=1]
I hate how Google reader has this neverending scrolldown "feature". It's like you're never FINISHED! I WANT to reach the bottom of the page, thank you very much!
If you're in Phoenix (USA) and interested in videoblogging, check out node101 Phoenix.
Good post by Johan on pagination. That's pretty much exactly the way I've been doing it.
Belgium most globalized country in the world.
It turns out Belgium is the most globalized country in the world.
technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born
Aphophenia: "I had just finished giving a talk about youth culture to a room full of professionals who worked in the retail industry when a woman raised her hand to tell me a story. It was homecoming season and her daughter Mary was going to go to homecoming for the first time. What fascinated this mother was that her daughter's approach to shopping was completely different than her own.
Using Google and a variety of online shopping sites, Mary researched dresses online, getting a sense for what styles she liked and reading information about what was considered stylish that year. Next, Mary and her friends went to the local department store as a small group, toting along their digital cameras (even though they're banned). They tried on the dresses, taking pictures of each other in the ones that fit. Upon returning home, Mary uploaded the photos to her Facebook and asked her broader group of friends to comment on which they liked the best. Based on this feedback, she decided which dress to purchase, but didn't tell anyone because she wanted her choice to be a surprise. Rather than returning to the store, Mary purchased the same dress online at a cheaper price based on the information on the tag that she had written down when she initially saw the dress. She went for the cheaper option because her mother had given her a set budget for homecoming shopping; this allowed her to spend the rest on accessories.
Mary's mother was completely flabbergasted by the way in which her daughter moved seamlessly between the digital and physical worlds to consume clothing. More confusing to this mother, a professional in retail, was the way in which her daughter viewed her steps as completely natural.
In the 1980s, Alan Kay declared that, "technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born."
Oh just go read the whole thing.
Just a regular guy, this made me laugh.
Viralsuckiness
Yahoo Mash goes beyond "inviting your friends" to get all viral, it says: "X created a profile for you - claim it!". So now I have to clean up my profile that someone else created on your service? Sigh.
Will someone give this guy a job?
Vloggercamp is four (!) days and NO (!) internet ("so you have to actually talk to people"). Now that sounds like something I'd go to.
An old install of Wordpress of mine got hacked. The site is more of an archive of a past project anyway, so I spent 2 or 3 hours making a static version - much easier to maintain and archive and not so hackable as an out-of-date Wordpress install. http://colombiamigrationproject.net
Damn, what a great talk. Companies in rapidly changing markets compete on speed. Here's the video embedded:
Speed of development
A great talk (video) on competing on the basis of speed in product (and software) development. Check this talk out, and happy xMas.
Amazon's SimpleDB question
Amazon's SimpleDB question: lets say you have a unique ID and a number of indexes on that, perhaps 6. How many rows will fit in one container (= 10 GB)? MySQL's table limit is derived from the OS and is often 2 Gigs, if I'm not mistaken. So are we saying that a SimpleDB "table" can be then about 5 times larger? That doesn't seem much of a win... Am I missing something?
What happens if you actually try waterboarding ("It's not torture") yourself? If you're an experienced diver, and in complete control of the situation? "It took me ten minutes to recover my senses once I tried this. I was
shuddering in a corner, convinced I narrowly escaped killing myself."
Google is finally removing RSS feeds from their search results. Good. They're leaving in feeds with enclosures (podcast feeds) because it seems a lot of them don't have an associated html page (podcasting's history is to blame for this).
Personas are user-centered bullshit
Steve Portigal: "Personas are user-centered bullshit".
The most expensive drink at Starbucks.
A 13 shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel. It cost a total of $13.76 (with tax).
The weird and fun thing about Amazon's SimpleDB is that some people totally get it, others totally don't. So when they discuss this it gets funny.
I for one can think of a few apps immediately I'd use it for.
Coscripter is quite brilliant. (Yea I'm late to the game.)
LinkedIn doing ok.
A LinkedIn email states: "Fact: 23 people join LinkedIn every minute", which means 33,120 people a day (pretty good), or about 100,000 new signups a month. LinkedIn is definitely doing some things right, although they're struggling to give direction to their niche.
A great infographic at the BBC illustrating the sub-prime crisis in the USA, with a brilliant little checkbox: "how it went wrong".
Facebook: It ain’t the Web and it ain’t better.
Doc Searls: "Forgive me for being an old fart, but today’s “social networks” look to
me like yesterday’s online services." Yep, Facebook does indeed have a distinct AOL feel to it. And that's not something they'll be able to shake off.
You gotta love the Doc: "it creeps me out when people treat facebook as “The Web, only better”. It ain’t the Web and it ain’t better."