Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz

Social software is not enough, try social dinners!

Remember all that buzz around social software, about 1-2 month ago ? (this is already history in the blogosphere!): Bruno was saying he was interested in getting in that space, Loic has posted gazillion times about social software, Joi is announcing that the founder of ebay Pierre Omydiar has co-invested in one of his social software companies, SocialText, run by Ross. One VC spotted the trend, and warned to look at this space with lots of skepticism.

My take is that online discussion is good, but let's take it offline as well. We already had our entrepreneur-blogger dinner in Paris a while ago (thanks Pascal for organizing it). Patrick is organizing a marketing dinner at the end of september. Now, Loic is inviting everyone to come meet a silicon valley character, Marc Canter, the founder of Macromedia, the K3wl company that produced Flash, Shockwave, etc. It's this friday in Paris, and you can register on the wiki page.

In the meantime, why don't you enjoy some great macromedia-product-based animations on the web? They were all winners at recent Flash film festivals.

Update: Loic has posted some pictures here. Laurent has posted some pictures here. On this one you see Marc Canter singing OPERA (!), while Patrick Chassany (CEO of amen.Fr) and myself laugh away...

If Europe really existed, it would rank #1 at the Olympics

If the European Union were the great political entity Hugo, Schuman and other Founding Fathers had in mind (and not this 25 country loose union, with 12 countries in the Eurozone, even less in the Schengen zone...), then Europe would rank #1 at the current Olympics (at least it's the case tonight!!!!=.

Since I can't link to the official site, google the official results page, and you'll see with some maths, that if you add up the medals from the following countries: FRA GER ITA GBR GRE NED HUN SWE POL SVK ESP DEN BEL AUT CZE POR SLO EST FIN LAT LTU, then Europe ranks:

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	S/T
Europe	51	66	66	183
China	23	15	11	49
USA	22	23	16	61

Makes you wonder what defines Europe really. There was some discussion recently about this topic at the WEF event in Poland.

Think about it: I went to the Olympics the other day: I hardly understood any word on the street, and it took me a while to start reading some greek. BUT: I came through the Eleftherios Venezolos airport without going through customs, and used my credit card to get some money (hey... EUROS, a currency I use at home everyday) at an ATM (by bank did not even charge me anything for that). After a while, I was walking by the Acropolis and discussing the greek heritage in our modern western world; even words started to become familiar and etymologies converged!

Compare that with going to London, one of the most important European capitals, and one of the great European powers with Germany: you have to queue at customs, get a different currency (my bank charges me almost 6€ every time I use an ATM), and wherever you go, you talk to euro-sceptics! Hey, Tony!!! are you making an effort to have the European constitution approved, or what ? Your alternative is to join the USA, with other "associate" states such as Guam, the Marshall Islands and Puerto-Rico!

Final words: I wish we had seen more European flags and heard the European anthem more often at these Olympiads!

No blogging from the Olympics ? Try pictures!

This is ludicrous: the Olympic committee is banning all officials and athletes from running blogs, (and I suppose posting to existing blogs...). You can't even wear a brand that is not one of the official global sponsors! When I was there 10 days ago, I saw a guard strip the label on a water bottle from an English girl just after the metal detectors, because it was not the official brand ! The brands of fire extinguishers and clocks present in the stadiums were covered with black tape!!! Ridiculous.
And you can't even link to their websites unless you're authorised (check the comment on my post here)!

Update on 24/8/04: the IOC is even forcing internet radio streams to shut down...
Update2: aha! athletes are refusing to become Epsilon citizens ! They have started to blog nevertheless!

On the positive side, the trip to Athens was well worth it. I saw fencing (sabre & sword), swimming, beach volley, volleyball, men and women gymnastics. It was like a big party, with people cheering their country, or someone else's country (whatever), just to have fun and spend a good time together. We ended wondering if they were parties organized every night so that the Olympic spirit could last 24/7... Still time for you to go for a couple of days, you won't regret it. Still second thoughts ? Check some of my pictures here.

A political manifesto for the US

Just before the holidays, I found the ressemblance between a movie I rented on glowria.fr and a book I had bought at the airport rather striking and thought-provoking.

The movie is a 1971 oddity: Punishment Park. It is filmed like a documentary, and for a while, you think you are watching some kind of post-60s documentary. The movie is heavily edited, constantly switching between
a) a trial of refuseniks (try Kafka's Trial for a similar feeling) whose only crimes are to refuse the Vietnam war by singing, shouting or even meeting with people with the same ideas. The jury are represented by the usual good citizens: a senator, a family-oriented housewife, a union leader... No mercy from their point of view, for criticizing or even challenging government. You wish they had learned something from the excellent 1957 psychodrama 12 Angry men!
b) the punishment: with the 'culprits' literally running for their lives.

A very emotional movie, more than 30 years old, dealing with the aftermath of McCarthysm and the danger of fascist America.
(read more reviews from the NYTimes and here).

Well, guess who said, 30 years later, almost as a parody of this movie:
"'You are either with us or against us'!"

For an answer, try reading Mike Moore's "Dude, where's my country". Behind the usual rethoric and average jokes of America's most well-known whistle-blower of today, I was really surprised to find someone voicing in America, the same concerns we all have about the Bush administration in parts of Europe, the way the Iraq was handled, how Saddam's name was associated with the twin towers, how Bush is connected to the Bin Ladens, how his father is connected to the Carlyle Group, how oil interests were greater than humanitarian concerns of a country that provided Saddam with its WMD in the first place... BTW, why would the world's hegemon be the only country allowed to have WMD (along with some "civilized" allies)? I agree to leave it to rogue rulers is *very* dangerous, but in hands of the current US administration is no better... Check the Iraq Body Count project: the number of people killed because of this war far exceeds the victims of 9/11!

I haven't yet seen Fahrenheit 9/11. I should probably. Nevertheless I suspect most of the material in his book made it to the movie (very well researched - as is the movie, check the facts here). The most surprising thing about this book is that it is a real political manifesto for a rather left-wing government in the US. Moore describes his ideas, describes why, and suggests ways to do that. Have you heard any politician speak so clearly recently ? You might challenge his idea of a candidate to the WhiteHouse (Oprah or Gen. Clark), but at least he explains why he supports them.

Update on 24/8/04: Pierre discusses Gen. Clark here as well, and supports his candidacy. Interesting.

This dude is far more a real politician (in the greek sense: a man in the city) than a clown as many portray him.

To finish off, Michael also suggests the following reading list for you.

Advice for all aspiring entrepreneurs

Give yourself a treat. Print this article from the NYTimes and keep a copy of it somewhere. It is not often that VCs say 'I wish I had invested in that company...'. Well of course others will say, I'd rather miss a good opportunity and invest only in treasury bonds...

A good description of the inner workings of the folks at SandHill Road. Check here for a behind the scenes discussion on investment bank fees for bringing you public.

Anyways, now that Google had popped (intro price at $85, currently over $110...), John Doerr did get rich again (announced here). The NYT article's back of the enveloppe calculation figures it's some $100m personal money to add to his bank accounts. Well still a long way from the top guys at Fortune...

By the way, where's the list of the top ROI at VC firms, and most successful GPs ? I suspect VentureSource might have some of that somewhere...

Using Wi-Fi in a park is illegal in the USA (well, assuming we can find the law...)

Funny (and worrying) story that happened to rev. AKMA yesterday: he was sitting in a park using his laptop, and connecting to the wireless signal from the near by public library. A policeman ordered him to stop using the signal, because although it was a free and open access point, their terms & conditions (nowhere to be found) assumed you could only use the signal while sitting inside the library...
After the "culprit" switched off his wi-fi card, the policeman returned to tell him that using a laptop in a public bench in a public park was a threat to public order, and was asked to get going...

The policeman was referring to a law, told to him by a Secret Service agent... It seems this federal law is nowhere to be found... Hey, but do you quarrel with the police in the USA ? (or elsewhere ?)

The story is all over the web by now (waow... power of blogs...), and the comments on his post are worth reading.

Firefox 1.0 due shortly

This post on Maqx tells us something on the upcoming new features from the upcoming firefox 1.0 ! They include a better find tool, pop-up blocker, and an RSS feed reader (although an extension was already available, of course).

Anyone knows about the final release date ?

Beef up your computer with some freeware

Well, I suppose I have still not convinced you to try linux ? Try the latest liveCD from Gnoppix version 0.8: it is supposed to give you great features. Reminder: a liveCD distribution is an image file that you can burn onto a CD, and then boot off the CD, without having to install anything on your computer! Great for a test or carrying Linux with you around.

And for those still hooked to M$-Windows, OSnews has a post about some great freeware for playing back music, ripping CDs, managing MP3s, video editing, Internet browsing (hey Firefox again!), etc. Check it out.
The post mentions the OpenCD project, compiling most of the above mentionned programs into a CD image you can burn at leisure. An alternative is the GnuWinII CD repository.

If mega-retailers were to compete with telcos

What if Wal-Mart decided to put a Wimax antenna on top of all its stores in the US? What if Carrefour did the same ?

From the Institute of the Future:
"However, what if Wal-Mart were to take its near ubiquitous presence in the United States (and, increasingly around the world) and offer something a bit more? It's clearly idle speculation right now, but over at the Institute for the Future, someone is wondering what happens when Wal-Mart decides to offer WiMAX? The post there points to more speculation about this possibility, that paints a picture of WiMAX wiping out the entire telecom industry. The suggestion is that with so many people within 30 miles of a Wal-Mart, it wouldn't be hard to drop a WiMAX base station on top of every store, and supply a free modem with any purchase over $200. Add to that a simple VoIP system and some video-over-IP technology, and suddenly Wal-Mart has the potential to route around the entire telecom industry (if you ignore the backhaul bandwidth it would need to get from the store to the backbone, but, those are just details)."

An cellphone operator here in Europe has on average between 5,000-10,000 base stations. Retailers I believe have an order of magnitude less stores. So there is a challenge here, but add all the network of retailers in a country, and this idea might make sense ?

Ethernet inventor full speed behind wireless, and hot-roaming in particular

From Business 2.0: "Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of the Ethernet networking standard, knows a thing or two about the computer industry."
"Now he says that computing is moving to a new era, with wireless as the platform.
"Why is this worth noting? In the late 1980s, the rise of the personal computer unleashed one of the greatest periods of wealth creation to date, as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists rushed in to create software. Metcalfe sees similarities when it comes to wireless. "The PC was the platform, Internet is a platform, and wireless is the same," he says. "Even Ethernet has gone wireless," Metcalfe says, referring to the 802.11 networking technology popularly know as Wi-Fi."
"Now a general partner with Polaris Ventures, a company based in Waltham, Mass., the sage of networking says he is focusing all his energy on wireless. One can hardly blame him -- more than 400 million cell phones are sold every year, and that number keeps rising. That's nearly three times the total number of personal computers sold every year. The sheer size of the market makes investment there compelling."
"Metcalfe notes that the opportunities are not in chips and hardware. The cell-phone handset business has become a low-margin, high-volume one, largely dominated by Asian manufacturers. Similarly, the chip business has been locked up by major players such as Qualcomm (QCOM), Samsung, and Texas Instruments (TXN)."
"Rather, if there's one thing history can teach us, it's that software and applications are where riches abound. Take something frivolous, like those annoying ringtones. At 99 cents for a few measures of "Super Trouper" or the Love Boat theme, the music industry rakes in $2.5 billion a year. Downloadable games and wireless content are inching up on that figure. Swedish company Opera made a tiny browser for cell phones, beating out giants such as Microsoft (MSFT), and has profited handsomely from it."
"Certainly, there is still a lot of room for new ideas. The emergence of wireless as a platform opens up opportunities for small independent developers -- who can hack tiny apps such as an instant messenger or a photo-blogging tool and sell it to millions of users worldwide. The software doesn't have to be aimed at the consumer market either. Metcalfe is funding BridgePort Networks, a Chicago-based startup that makes software to facilitate seamless switching between Wi-Fi and cell-phone networks. BridgePort sells the software to large phone companies. "

Remember we mentionned 2 month ago, that Kleiner Perkins was also investing in hot-roaming technologies?