Josh Kopelman is a top web 2.o venture capitalist, the founder of Half.com and managing director of First Round Capital . He’s also just started writing a weblog called Redeye VC. If you are looking for startup capital, or just interested in the web 2.0 space, this is a must read blog. This is my favorite post so far.
So Gabe Rivera of Memorandum fame launched a new site and a new feature last night. WeSmirch is a celebrity gossip site. Wow, I guess Brad Pitt is dating Angelina Jolie? And Keanu Reeves is gay? I’ve been out of the hollywood scene for too long. My world revolves around startups, not celebrities. Still, I am fascinated by the new site.
We need something like this for the valley scene (oh wait we already do).
and Gabe has also added images across his sites. I like the new look.
Nik has more on TechCrunch.
Dave Winer says he will put Scripting News “in mothballs”, possibly by the end of 2006.
Dave, no. This isn’t allowed. Scripting News was the first blog I read, starting with an email subscription, then RSS. It is the only blog that I read every single day. Entire generations of bloggers exist (well, their blogs exist, to be more accurate) only because they started out reading Scripting News and were inpired by you. As somebody recently commented about my blog TechCrunch, at this point, Scripting News it really isn’t your blog anymore. It’s ours. You just write it.
Nik points out that the Technorati 100 is looking a little odd these days. It’s unclear whether they are trying something different or if its just plain broken. Anyone have any information?
Nik wrote about Dabble DB on TechCrunch last night. I met the founders and saw a demo of the company last week at the UTR event in Mountain View and was very impressed with their product. Dave Winer liked it too – he said it was one of the more significant demos at that event.
Dabble DB is a service that allows non technical people to set up and use a database, and includes import and export functions to excel. This is a powerful application, and bridges the gap between Excel and Access or FileMaker. I expect this one to get picked up very quickly by a big guy. Microsoft makes the most sense – and since the company is based in Vancouver, Canada, they wouldn’t have to move very far…
Tom Foremski has a good two part interview of SAP’s Jeff Nolan on his blog today (Part 1, Part 2). These are good posts:
Mr Nolan has an interesting job. He runs the Apollo Group, it is a strategy and communications organization within SAP, that is sometimes referred to as the “Attack Oracle” group–because Oracle is SAP’s largest competitor in enterprise applications. And with Oracle’s acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel, Oracle is getting serious about its so far lackluster applications business and is eyeing SAP’s huge 32,000+ customer base.
Mr Nolan’s goal is to make sure that SAP develops a strategy that enables it to compete against Oracle, whether it is through acquisitions, investments or just pure communications of SAP’s message–the goal is to rise above any noise that Oracle produces.
Jeff is a friend of mine and I always enjoy catching up with him at events to get his view on startups and news in the industry. If you ever meet him, make sure you ask him for his business card. His title? “Director, Apollog Strategy Group”. Below that? “Attack Oracle!” Nice way to keep your primary goals clear… 
More on the Meme here.
Steve Gillmor just posted a new Gillmor Daily where we debated the evilnes of Google. Listen to hear which side we each took this time. Lots discussed – Google Drive, Google’s stock price drama, Google Desktop and the infamous Google Calendar. It’s a good one.
Nik Cubrilovic, who handled TechCrunch for me the week I was away on vacation, came back and wrote tonight about Salesforce’s new mashup developer toolkit and a few sample mashups that include skype, writely and other integrations. The news in his post will be officially announced tommorow at the etech conference.
Salesforce is a huge company with great products and they are doing things in the business application space that no one, with the exception of perhaps Microsoft with Office Live, is even thinking about. If they can succeed in getting in the middle of business-driven application mashups they will remain relevant in today’s changing web. The announcement tomorrow suggests that they are going to be a player, or THE player, in this market.
Nik is an excellent writer and I’ve asked him to write occasionally for TechCrunch going forward (really as much as his time allows). I think he adds a lot to the blog and I enjoy working with him.
Brian Oberkirch interviewed me today for about 45 minutes on TechCrunch and edgeio and posted the results as a two part podcast. Part one is here (TechCrunch). Part two is here (Edgeio).
He’s posted these on his new PodServe service, which is pretty nifty. I posted on PodServe over at TechCrunch tonight as well. It’s a really interesting new product for podcasters.
I’m hesitating before posting this, because some of the people involved are my friends, but what the hell is One Web Day supposed to be all about?
“The mission of OneWebDay is to create, maintain, advance, and promote a global day to celebrate online life: September 22, 2006″
and from an email I just received on it:
the web is going to be celebrated.. like earth day!
please come help spread the word that the “one web” we have now is under threat and needs to be protected and celebrated for all the ways it’s enriched our lives and given us tremendous opportunities!
And it gets better:
OneWebDay
The Web is worth celebrating.
OneWebDay is one day a year when we all – everyone around the physical globe – can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.
As with Earth Day – an inspiration and model for OneWebDay – it’s up to the celebrants to decide how to celebrate. We encourage all celebrations! Collaboration, connection, creativity, freedom.
By the end of the day, the Web should be just a little bit better than it was before, and we’ll be able to see our connection to it more clearly.
OneWebDay is September 22 every year, starting in 2006.
If you write about OneWebDay or take a picture related to OneWebDay (there’s a special hand signal — you extend your middle three fingers and have your thumb and little finger touch in a circle) tag it onewebday and it will show up on this site.
Bleh.
We must be in a bubble.
There is a great event tomorrow on IT, Mobility, HealthCare And Security being held in Oakland, California from 8-10:30 tomorrow (Thursday). If you are in the area, consider registering for $28 and attending. These are good, high level networking events.
Now here’s an interesting idea. In a series of comments to my latest rant about the newest Ajax home page (Fold.com), Axel Wolf, the founder of Fold, suggests (in an exchange with Pageflakes founder Christoph Janz) that I come to Europe to meet with the European entrants into the space (Pageflakes, Protopage, Netvibes, Fold) to get a better understanding of why they have a chance at success:
10. Comment by Christoph Janz — March 1, 2006 @ 8:38 am | Edit
Axel, one of my personal goals for 2006 is to convince Mike of the viability of the personal startpage concept. Ten months left… I chose Mike because I think he’s more bearish about it than anyone else I know.
I’d appreciate your support.
@Mike: Did you have a look at Pageflakes lately? We released a number of cool new features since our Beta Release three weeks ago. Congrats on the edgeio Release!
13. Comment by Axel Wolf — March 1, 2006 @ 9:52 am | Edit
Christoph, maybe we should invite him to Europe for a fact finding trip; after all, with regard to start pages this is where the actions is (Pageflakes, Protopage, Netvibes, Fold…)
14.Comment by Michael Arrington — March 1, 2006 @ 9:54 am | Edit
Guys, I’d love to do it. Think we can get everyone in one place, like London, for a summit? I’ll be there. Early April is perfect.
I’m up for it, and it could be a fun event to bring together these companies and a bunch of bloggers.
We’ll need a sponsor or two for the event to cover costs as well.
Who’s in?
Dave Winer released a new format and specification document today for public comment called OPML 2.0.
It is actually a roll up of a series of RFCs and guidelines that were written by Dave late last year. OPML 2.0 adds new features such as type, ownerID, support for namespaces, documentation for certain nodetypes and other “niceties”.
See his post to get involved in the 60 day public review period.
