I have a few personal goals that have lead me down the path of wanting an Amazon Kindle.

• Use less paper (Save the environment)
• Save money (Spend more wisely)
• Read more books (Increase knowledge and create ideas)
• Read more periodicals (Increase knowledge and create ideas)
• Read more newspapers (Increase knowledge and create ideas)

The Kindle seems to have hit what I need out of an e-reader.

• Relatively cheap for a new gadget.
• Smaller than a stack of books.  I’m tired of having a backpack mostly full of books and printed documents.  It’s bad for the environment and for my back.
• Great user interface for long reading sessions.  I hate reading long documents on a monitor.  Not only would I read books on it but longer work documents that I don’t want to print or read on my laptop.
• Easy shopping for reading material through Amazon — a trusted online retailer.
• Diverse reading material support.  Books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, PDF’s, etc.
• Cheaper books.  Amazon sells most popular books for $9.99 or an average of 60% off of retail.
• Less paper.
• Free wireless updating

Now, I’m holding out for the Kindle 2 which is supposed to be release early 2009.  I hope it comes out soon.  I don’t want to buy another physical book — I’m out of shelf space.

In a day when newspapers are going out of business and reading material is mostly on the web, I have to throw some kudos to Wired Magazine.  It’s the only magazine that I enjoy reading cover to cover.  Here are two articles that I found interesting from a few months back …

• As Seen on TV (Frank Rose) — The story of Hulu’s rise to Internet TV mover and shaker
• “We Should Build Our Own” (Steven Levy) — Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

[Found on Lifehacker]

Here is a great little article from Wired Magazine about how economic turmoil breeds innovation.

“With the world’s economies apparently snowballing into a deep recession, it feels uncomfortably Pollyannish to see signs of hope. But for the bravest inventors and entrepreneurs, conditions are ideal to pounce on a business opportunity. In periods of economic turmoil, people are hungry and work cheap, and entrenched companies often concentrate on in-house cost-cutting instead of exploring new markets, which can explode with the next turn of the business cycle. When VCs from Foundation Capital met with their nervous investors recently, the partners advised them to stay the course rather than follow their peers into the bunkers. “Our strongest companies have the potential to be whales when the market opens up,” partner Paul Holland told the group. “This is the crucible that forges great companies.”

I’ve been trying to get into these iPhone Tech Talks with no success.  Full!  Meanwhile, I’m forced to hack it on my own which does not bother me to too much.    If you happen to attend any of the talks, let me know what you thought of it.  I’m curious to know how good the free content is.

Dear Renato Mascardo,

Thank you for your interest in attending the iPhone Tech Talk being held in San Jose on 12 December 2008.Due to an overwhelming response, we have reached the maximum capacity for the venue and cannot confirm your registration. We will keep you informed of any future iPhone developer events scheduled in your area.

We appreciate and value your interest in developing for iPhone.

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program

TechCrunch reported today that Pownce is shutting its doors. The famed Kevin Rose start up is shutting down December 15th and the engineers are joining Six Apart.  In my inbox, I received the following note:

We are sad to announce that Pownce is shutting down on December 15,
2008. As of today, Pownce will no longer be accepting new users or new
pro accounts.

To help with your transition, we have built an export tool so you can
save your content. You can find the export tool at Settings > Export.
Please export your content by December 15, 2008, as the site will not
be accessible after this date.

Please visit our new home to find out more:
http://www.sixapart.com/pownce

Our thanks go out to everyone who contributed to the Pownce community,

The Pownce Crew

What is amazing is how Twitter is just running away with the micro-blogging space regardless of the performance issues and lack of features everyone has been clamoring for.  I’m still very bullish on the micro-blogging space and am very curious to see how the space plays out.  There is still lots of growth to be had.

It’s Cyber-Monday and Victoria’s Secret can’t keep up!  

(Insert all the funny puns) 

I’ve been trying to buy a few things … uh … for my mother and have not been able to check out.  The real questions are … 

1. How much time is wasted by employees shopping online at work?
2. How much money is being lost as their site is down? 

Ouch!  Well, at least their “site is down” image is better than Twitter’s whale.  

Just a few weeks ago, Google announced Gmail Voice and Video chat embedded into Gmail.  You simply download a client onto your computer and you’re off!  Here are a few of my observations:

• Setup was simple and if you have a Mac with an embedded camera, it’s even simpler!
• Having it embedded in my Gmail client makes a world of difference.  I’m much more likely to use the tool given the fact that I use Gmail all the time.  Plus, it’s my primary contact management tool.
• Quality is good.  Compared to Skype and Yahoo IM, I think its better.

A video conference is a much more robust form of communication comparied to instant messaging or email.  It makes a world of difference when it comes to managing remote teams or just trying to connect with family.  This afternoon I walked my not-so-computer-savy dad through the setup and we had a cross-continental video conference with my family in Connecticut.  My 2 year old daughter enjoyed it alot, especially when my dad raised our dog Patton up to the camera.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What makes a successful entreprenur?  What does it mean to hire for entreprenurial qualities?  

There probably is not a hard answer to these questions but there sure are a lot of opinions.  I’ve had the opportunity to mentor under the most successful entreprenurs in the industry and tried to come up with the top 5 list of characteritics that make up a successful entreprenur.  I tried to stay away from the obvious ones like confidence, hard work, risk taker, sense of vision, etc and focus on the ones that were insightful for me. 

Here we go ….

1. Ability to suspend conventional thinking — conventional thinking surrounds us and it takes a certain personality to “swim against the current” while all the other fish laugh at you.   Not only does it surround you but society will enforce conventional thinking and beat down your idea.  It’s funny that this often can be percieved as a lack of common sense.  Just imagine, what people said to Walt Disney in the beginning.  ”The crazy guy is drawing cartoons in his basement.”    
2. Hunger and Drive — this is more of a generic trait but it was important enough to keep on my list. People can’t just get a degree in “Entreprenurial” thinking and be successful.  There is something deep down that motivates you to work 20 hour days.  It’s different for everything but personal motivation is key.  
3. Raw execution skills — some would say that start ups are 10% idea and 90% execution.  Every entrepreueur that I have worked with has the ability to just get things done.  Whatever it takes –even  McGuyver style!   The real trick here is being able to balance the execution skills with visionary thinking.    
4. Ability to learn from failure — as the old saying goes, “Just rub some dirt on it”.  Failure and learning from failure is just part of the process.  You try something, pick yourself up, figure out what you did wrong and try again.  
5. Luck — And most important of all, luck!  Sometimes it just a matter of being at the right place at the right time.    

Please let me know your thoughts.  I would love to hear what is on your list.  

Sometimes the dumbest concepts can turn into huge ideas.  Don’t let conventional thought hold you back and be open to different thinking.