February 2012
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Blockboard has been acquired by Klout →
Big news in my world today: my startup Blockboard has been acquired by Klout! More to come…
blockboard:
We’re very pleased to announce that Blockboard has been acquired by Klout!
If you’ve been following Blockboard (or using it in San Francisco), you know that we’re all about using technology to connect neighbors and build stronger neighborhoods. Along the way we’ve learned a lot...
November 2011
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Steve Jobs, Google Maps, and the digital afterlife
Because Google Maps (like other mapping services) utilizes imaging data from multiple sources gathered at different points in time, the same geographic spot can sometimes look very different as you move between zoom levels and views.
Weather and seasons can change unexpectedly. Cars can disappear without a trace. Things that were are suddenly no more. It is, quite simply, a time machine.
...
October 2011
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Remembering how I got here
The first time I saw a computer — an Apple ][+ in my elementary school’s library.
The first time I made the turtle move in Logo.
The day the guidance counselor nervously asked my mother, “Do you know how many floppy disks your son has?”
The first time they kicked me out of the local library for cheering too loudly while playing Karateka on their Apple //e.
The...
April 2011
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Unlit Social Graphs and the Post-Friend Economy
Lawrence Coburn of The Next Web wrote yesterday about “The Unlit Social Graph”. It’s a well-framed article and worth a read. Coburn’s premise is that Facebook, despite its pervasiveness and dominance, does not represent the only type of social graph in our lives. There are many other networks out there but they currently lie dormant. Tremendous opportunity exists for...
December 2010
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We can save Delicious, but probably not in the way...
I left Yahoo over two years ago, but prior to that I spent three years running product for Delicious. Since then I’ve remained a loyal user and supporter. To this day I keep in touch with former Delicious colleagues and consider many to be friends. And though I’ve felt that Delicious has been frustratingly slow to evolve in recent years, I’ve always wished the best for the...
November 2010
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My month with the 11" MacBook Air: an extended...
Everyone seems to agree that the new MacBook Air represents a significant step forward in laptop design and execution, with the 13” model earning nearly universal acclaim.
But the 11” model is a strange beast. Is it an under-powered, over-priced netbook? Or is it a viable primary computing device with a tiny footprint? Answering these questions requires more than benchmarks. It...
September 2010
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Google Instant is an example of how Yahoo could...
Today Google launched Google Instant, and make no mistake: this is big. It’s far more than just a new fancy interface. It’s a fundamental change to a user interaction model that’s been largely unchallenged for years. It also represents a significant financial and technical commitment on Google’s part (all those new searches and suggestions aren’t free). Last...
June 2010
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A Caltrain Showdown: Verizon vs. Sprint
Well, here we go. My startup (BlockChalk) is setting up shop in San Francisco. That means I will soon be spending a lot of time on Caltrain. And that means I need a 3G wireless data service, stat.
But which provider to use? Surely here in Silicon Valley I’m not the first Caltrain commuter to ponder this question. Or am I? I searched around for relevant comparison data and...
May 2010
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Initiating Stage 2
Obligatory.
So the news is out: we’ve raised our first round of funding for BlockChalk!
It turns out that today is an especially appropriate day for the news to break. I’m currently in Washington D.C. for O’Reilly’s Gov 2.0 Expo, the leading conference on open government and citizen engagement. These values are at the heart of what we’re doing with...
April 2010
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My talk from Where 2.0
O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference has just wrapped up. I’ve been to my share of conferences lately but Brady Forrest and company really outdid themselves with this one. The entire experience was solid at every level of detail, from the big (interesting and relevant keynotes and sessions) to the small (food and drinks that actually didn’t suck).
I had the pleasure of...
March 2010
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SXSW: it's not a war, it's a scouting mission
As everyone knows, the focus at South By Southwest this year (at least from a tech perspective) is on location-based services (I’m there representing BlockChalk).
Oh, and apparently we’re all at war! Foursquare and Gowalla are at each other’s throats, and the other startups are fighting over the scraps. It’s a Highlander-esque battle royale, and only one fighter can...
February 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Don't think you care about privacy? You will......
In the tech industry it has almost become embarrassing to voice concerns about erosion of personal privacy. After all, it’s no longer a social norm, right?
In this brave new world that Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare hath wrought, privacy is often seen as an outdated concern. People who speak out to the contrary are branded as Luddites or dinosaurs because, apparently, the future is already...
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Living in the bubble (or, why the future of...
[For my first post I’m reprinting a piece I wrote for the BlockChalk blog in late November of last year. With the recent Google Buzz privacy fiasco, the subject matter seems more relevant than ever.] Last Friday I attended TechCrunch’s excellent Real Time CrunchUp in San Francisco. Real time web services are all the rage these days of course, and this conference brought together...