Daily Archives: October 11, 2007

Facebook is not worth $100,000,000,000.00 ?! What is this, the 1980s?

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Jason Calcanis has an excellent post noting that Facebook madness has become so absurd people are now seriously suggesting that a company with 100 million in revenues could be worth 100 billion.   

Ha – only a year ago knowlegeable people were scoffing at the notion that Facebook  is even worth a billion dollars.   Although Facebook has grown a lot in this past year and has distinguished itself as a brilliant Web 2.0 juggernaut powerhouse in social media, the hype is almost nauseating.  

Unless, of course, you own a piece of the action….

Bubble investors better pack a a golden parachute, because it seems with all these low revenue sky-high valued companies it could all get very ugly very fast. 

Google and Wikipedia combine to “bomb” NYC.

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Update – below was “fixed” with Wiki’s correction and Google’s refreshed index. Looks like the bogus snippet lasted about 1-2 days at Google – probably even less at Wikipedia because they have people reviewing the edits.
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Search credibility is still a challenge for Google and Wikipedia as today’s second result for the query “New York City” indicates:

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New York City– Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

new york city has just been hit with a nuclear bomb and it has destroyed half of the cityand has left thousands dead. george bush says the people involved …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City – 315k – Cached – Similar pages

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This is a very clear example of the challenges of information systems that have no human intervention in the routine editing process (Google) , or have defective human intervention (Wikipedia).    What happened here was a malicious change of the NY City page at Wikipedia followed by Google’s spidering of the bogus content.   I’m hardly a naive user but during my search tonight for NYC info I did a double take on this Google query result and quickly had to reason out that it was bogus.    Wikipedia’s been fixed and this will probably go away within days when Google refreshes it’s listing, but you can sure see how things can get out of hand fast online. 

A recent study suggested Wikipedia and Brittanica were about equally authoritative, and I do think this is an exception to the normal super quality at Wikipedia.

Tennis at the Burj-al-Arab?

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Burj-al-Arab

This is one of those real things that at first seems too amazing to believe until you do a little research to confirm that it is in fact a real Tennis Court – the highest in the world.  The Burj-al-Arab is one of the world’s most luxurious and spectacular hotels.   Rooms are $2000 per night unless you opt for a top suite where you can expect to pay some $28,000 per night.

The helipad at the top of the hotel was turned into a tennis court for Andre Agassi and Roger Federer when they were visiting for the Dubai Open.    Amazing.

Hotel Pictures

Burj-al-Arab website

Madonna Rocks the Music

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Madonna’s $120,000,000 deal ( Wall Street Journal story) with Live Nation signals a powerful shift in the music industry that hopefully will lead to a cutting out of the middlemen in favor of the best for the artists and for the music consumer.  I don’t follow this industry all that closely but my take on the coming trend is different than most of what I’ve been reading.  It seems to me that over the coming decades we will see music thankfully shifting to a less sensational and more “niche genre” focus.   We’ll see more emphasis on quality music, and perhaps on quality concerts because the human to human aspect of music will not go away anytime soon, and may even be enhanced as artists move to online communities where they can interact with thousands effectively and somewhat intimately.    We’ll see more independent artists who can make an “OK” living thanks to an online global fan base, and this will thankfully come at the expense of the Britney Spears and Madonnas who have been rather spectacular beneficiaries of the giant music marketing empires that made all stars what they are today.  

The idea that individuals are the key component in these things is absurd.  They matter in the big profit and entertainment equations but the key component is generally the huge support system that starts as a small gathering behind promising talent and then blossoms to a cast of hundreds as the promoters step in to “discover” the new talent. 

American Idol’s brilliant model created a huge fan base for the participants as the weeks went on, and many of the top 10 American Idol singers are now doing quite well as actors or singers.   This “social networking” approach will become increasingly important in a music world ruled by the fans and not the big players.

LitLiberation

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LitLiberation is a new idea about raising money for charity.   Because of the “prizes” for top fundraisers I was thrown off a bit but when I saw the list of donation folks, which includes Matt Mullenweg and Marc Andressen, and saw the neat way they are having people help build schools in developing countries I thought I’d help point people to this great cause. 

A bit later…. I’m really warming up to this great idea because it is connecting donors to the recipients and I think that is a key thing that has been somewhat lacking in aid, and is one of the reasons it’s hard for people to support US aid projects and other charities where you don’t generally see the results of your contributions.   There is a practical reason for this – my understanding is that NGOs have to spend valuable resources arranging for visits and such.   However I think connecting donors to recipients is a key part of expanding the global reach of charities.

 I have not set up my own donation page but I just gave to this Vietnam “build a school” project  by the founder of the LitLiberation idea, Tim Ferriss:  http://www.firstgiving.com/timferriss

 From LitLiberation: 
…. 30-percent of rural children in developing countries aren’t enrolled in school. As one project, a group of people can choose to build a school for $17,000. When split among 10 friends, it breaks down to $1,700 each or $850 if 20 people contribute.  Those involved will provide education to tens of thousands of children, have their names forever associated with the school, and also enjoy the opportunity to visit it in the future.  

In conjunction with DonorsChoose.org and RoomToRead, Tim Ferriss formed LitLiberation to raise $1 million in 30 days, and in the process, help educate children around the world.

Described as a scalable education revolution, LitLiberation makes it incredibly simple for anyone to fund a specific project in developing countries or support U.S. public schools. It is the first time that anyone can, in five minutes, sign-up as a fundraiser and compete to raise money, winning world-class prizes in the process