O-wesome!


O, originally uploaded by a sack of seattle.

My wife and I were in Las Vegas over the weekend. We saw O at the Bellagio. Simply put, it was the best theatrical event I've ever seen in my life. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Worth every penny of the $170 per person ticket price! The event defies verbal description and just needs to be experienced. I recommend that everyone see it when they're in Vegas.

Microsoft buys Facebook!

Just my attempt at starting a rumor that should become reality.  Can't you see the headline now?

Here's why Microsoft should buy Facebook:
i) Facebook is the definitive social network platform play. Microsoft understands platforms.
ii) Microsoft has no capability anything close to Facebook.  It would get them current in the web world.
iii) Facebook has the largest engagement of the new developer community. This is the asset that made Microsoft so successful in the past and the asset needs to be renewed and reinvigorated.
iv) Plus, both founders went to Harvard....it'd make a good story.

Amazon Fresh is webvan redux

I'm impressed with Amazon. I think they're doing a lot of cool stuff and are a very cool business. I like Jeff Bezos a lot and think he's a very smart CEO. This Amazon Fresh concept is an interesting play that capitalizes on Amazons core strengths: A strong consumer brand with excellent high volume logistics for e-commerce. If successful, this business could be huge. In their day, HomeGrocer and Webvan were on on the verge of making this direct delivery of groceries a huge business. I actually think Amazon may figure out how to make this work. I'll have to log on and try it out as a consumer. You can also read about it here on Techcrunch.

My day

I'm in chicago today attending the ShopLocal multi-channel shopping conference. I woke up at 4am and was in chicago by noon. Heqrd a presentation buy a forrester researcher and learned that ecommerce still only represents 5 percent of purchases. The other 95 percent happens in store.
I'm now sitting next to greg sterling listening to the shop local VP marketing talk about their product direction. There's one more presentation and then dinner at Smith and wolinsky.
Looking to possibly attending a cubs game. And that's my day in a nutshell.

Michael Moore's movie Sicko looks great

I have grown to love Michael Moore. I know he's a bit controversial and biased ....but I love him. I read this and couldn't help but chuckle to myself. If you want to read the whole article it's here on ABC news.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department is investigating Moore for what became the movie's showpiece: Moore took ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba to dramatize the notion that Cubans and even U.S. prisoners at Guantanamo get better health care than these Americans. In doing so, the government said he may have violated restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Secrecy surrounding the Apple iPhone

 I loved this vignette:
Apple chief Steve Jobs relishes a level of secrecy that the CIA would admire. Unlike other electronics companies that spread new gizmo prototypes around like candy, Apple guards its prototype iPhones like weapons-grade plutonium. An example: At this year's big cellular phone industry trade show, Apple had an employee personally fly an iPhone to Randal Stephenson, the chief operating officer of AT&T, which will provide wireless service to the iPhone. Stephenson got to show off the phone for a few minutes. But even he confessed that was the first time he ever held an iPhone -- and he runs the company. The anonymous Apple courier in blue jeans then whisked the phone back to California.
If you want to read the whole article you can do so here.

A new trend with cell phones and voice to text

I've been hearing and reading about a company called simulscribe which is a company that allows you to read your email. Essentially, they have paid labor (supposedly in a low cost English speaking country like India or South America) that transcribes your voice mail once per day and emails you. It's a pretty cool service that I'm thinking of trying out.
What I think is even cooler is some of the business applications for this.  Guy Kawasaki's new site truemors did a deal with Simulscribe (I think -- though I'm not 100% sure) to power their 1-800-truemors number.This is a low cost way for businesses to add a whole new market.
I suspect there are going to be lots of applications like this in the next 24 months. I'm so confident in that fact that about 9 months ago I made a small angel investment in a company called jott that does some similar things. Worth checking both companies out. 

A toyota family

We're now a 2 hybrid car family. Last night I bought one of the last hybrids available in the Seattle area.  We've owned and been really happy with the hybrid Camry....so much so that we went out and bought a prius!  Need I say anymore?
There were 3 interesting things about the purchase for me:

  1. Demand for Priuses is super high and getting higher as the price of gas continues up. So much so, that supply is short and this makes the Toyota dealerships ("appropriately"?) snotty. I went to buy a prius and was already pre-sold before I walked in the dealerships door. Once there, I asked them if I could put a deposit on one of their last 2 cars but wanted to check with my wife on color. i.e I wasn't sure my wife would like the color and wouldn't prefer to wait 6 weeks for the color and style she wanted. (it was her car). The dealer said no -- they wouldn't hold the car for 24 hours. That I either had to buy it or not because someone was going to buy the car tonight. That's what I call sellers advantage.
  2. I ultimately didn't buy the car at the above dealer. I got into my car; looked up another dealer in the area on my cell phone, called the dealer, and made the purchase over the phone. There was one snafu-- they wouldn't  accept a fax signature as a signed deal. They ended up coming to where I was eating dinner and getting me to sign the purchase agreement.
  3. The analysis of purchasing a prius is simpler than ever: reliable car, great gas mileage in a more costly gas environment, and feel good for the environment PLUS excellent value retention.

The American Girl Phenomena

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the movie Samantha with my daughter. Samantha is one of a series of movies put out by the American Girl company.  This company is amazing. The company is based in Chicago and started as a doll company. The company sell dolls that are characters from American history. In so doing, the company manages to tap into the "educational" doll market -- making parents and grandparents believe somewhat justifiably that the doll purchase is contributing to the education of their child.  Each doll comes with a book that you can also purchase that tells the story of the doll in history. Samantha - for example - comes from the early 1900 to 1910 period and covers the woman's suffrage movement and the industrialization of America as well as the explosion of New York, its immigrants, and its subway system.  Sounds pretty neat, huh?
Well, I suspect the economics of the business are even neater. The dolls retail for $200 to $300! The books retail for about $15. You can purchase period level clothing (dresses, nightgowns, evening gowns etc) for approximately $30. And the movies / DVDs just top it off. My wife and daughter recently took a long weekend vacation to go to the American Girl factory in Chicago -- quite the factory tour. This company is in the same lines as the Build a bear stores and Disney. 
All this is off topic --  this weekend, I watched  Samantha and it was a great movie. I was nearly moved to tears by this completely cheesy, contrived tear-jerker of a movie. A great take as a movie ...go figure.

My commute just got a whole lot worse


commute, originally uploaded by a sack of seattle.

For those of you who know the geography of Seattle, you know that there are a few small but very important bridges that connect the city together. This is a picture of the university bridge which is part of my daily commute. Normally, my commute is about 10 minutes. I'm expecting my commute to be close to an hour over the next month while this gets fixed.

It make s me wonder what is going to happen when the viaduct fails in Seattle before they can agree on what to do to replace it.