Jake Kuramoto
or sign in to get started
Entries from Jake Kuramoto and friends. Private feeds are not included unless you are already subscribed.
Twitter
Voyagerfan5761 posted eight messages on Twitter
Twitter
James Gross posted a message on Twitter
Twitter
Aaron B. Hockley posted 19 messages on Twitter
Twitter
Josh Bancroft posted three messages on Twitter
Twitter
Jeff Nolan posted four messages on Twitter
Google Reader
Louis Gray shared an item on Google Reader
12 hours ago - Link
Thanks. I was following some but not all of these people. Have now added a few more thought leaders to my feed. :-) - Herb
Twitter
Robert Scoble posted a message on Twitter
Blog
10 hours ago - Link
I really like Peoplebrowsr and think it fills the gaps so many people have been whinging about. - Nicola Quinn
PeopleBrowsr FTW, that's for sure - Sociosophy Reviews via twhirl
now we need a peoplebrowsr desktop client! - sixbit
No breakthrough:( - YaDuMMeR
It's very nice. Kinda reminds me of TweetDeck in the presentation. Now they just need to expand to some more of the social services. - R. Alexander Spoerer
I know its alpha and all that but it seems wildly over-hyped to me - Trevor Cook
Remember the scene in "Big" where Tom Hanks keeps saying "I don't get it" to the toy presentation? Well, "I don't get it". - Chris Stevenson
You can *tell* (ask?) it to refresh every X minute but it, uh, doesn't. Pondering. - techPR
Great Tom Hanks reference in "Big". - Kevin Whalen
I am still yet to check out PeopleBrowsr - Joe Dawson (beta)
Plurk
Voyagerfan5761 posted two messages on Plurk
“voyagerfan5761 Really wanting to know why Twitter often displays "0 updates" on my home view. I know I have more than that. Caching/database issues?”
30 minutes ago - Link
“voyagerfan5761 system.unauthorizedaccess, your crash-causing existence can be found on every computer I do not control. You kill my DropboxU3. I hate you.”
40 minutes ago - Link
Jaiku
Voyagerfan5761 posted two messages on Jaiku
“Really wanting to know why Twitter often displays "0 updates" on my home view. I know I have more than that. Caching/database issues?”
30 minutes ago - Link
“system.unauthorizedaccess, your crash-causing existence can be found on every computer I do not control. You kill my DropboxU3. I hate you.”
40 minutes ago - Link
Twitter
Robert Scoble posted two messages on Twitter
Twitter
Todd posted 14 messages on Twitter
Twitter
Dawn Foster posted two messages on Twitter
Twitter
Ethan Jewett posted a message on Twitter
Twitter
Rick Turoczy posted six messages on Twitter
Twitter
Judi Sohn posted five messages on Twitter
Google Reader
Robert Scoble shared an item on Google Reader
August 19 at 10:19 am - Link
The semantic web is really interesting. But I think it will take some time before it "happens". I've been using the semantic interest network Twine for awhile...quite cool, although the semantics are still a bit rough at the edges. - Patrik Johansson
Interesting. Semantic web stratifying, unifying and ultimately destroying the web. The stratifying, unifying sounds like an undesirable potential side effect of Greader's new "bundle" algorithm. - Brad
cheers Robert, I've commented over there (in short: it won't "Think", but it'll help us in thinking/decision-making) - Danny Ayers
it will be in chinese, more meaning per character than in english, graphical components as well, everthing machine readable - Gregory Lent
There are as many semantic models of the world as there are individuals and groups at any given time. View the world through as many different conceptual lenses as you fancy. That's another vision of the future of the Semantic Web. The dominant global consensus model may well be wrong on a regular basis. - Sean McBride
Good point Sean. You view of a semantic result may not be my view. - Robert Miller
"Semantic" will be defined as something much less than it is, and victory will be declared. - Cliff Gerrish
Models of social networks and semantic/conceptual networks will merge into a single knowledgebase on the World Wide Web. That is going to happen for a certainty, barring an asteroid hit or some other unexpected act of God. :) Everything is nicely on track to produce this technology. - Sean McBride
FriendFeed
Paul Buchheit posted a link
“I Fell In Love With A Female Assassin”
7 hours ago - via Bookmarklet - Link
"Watching her take the pistol from her belt, unbutton her jeans and slip into bed I somehow couldn’t quite equate the woman in my arms with the bodies I had seen in the local morgue, their heads shattered by gunshots at close range, murders she confessed to having committed. High on a combination of the heady tropical climate, local rum, grade A cocaine and in the arms of nubile 22-year-old, fantasy and reality became blurred. It felt like I was living in a Quentin Tarantino movie." - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
fascinating - Rahul Deodhar
intense - Deva Hazarika
Great story, and for someone with such a short attention span I'm glad I stuck with it. - Toby Graham
"“When I killed the first person, I was afraid, I was scared. I killed the first person just to see if I could. But there is an obligation to kill. If you don’t, they kill you. That’s why the first was very hard, because the person I killed was kneeling down begging, crying and saying, ‘Don’t kill me. I have children.’ That’s why it was difficult and sad. But if you don’t kill that person, someone else from the AUC will kill you. After the killing, you keep trembling. You can’t eat or talk to anyone. I was at home, but I kept imagining the person begging not to be killed. I shut myself inside, but with time I forgot everything. The superiors always say, ‘Don’t worry, that was just the first time. When you kill the second one, it will all be OK.’ But you keep trembling. “The second time is only a bit easier, but as they say here, ‘If you can kill one, you can kill many more.’" - bob
You've got to admit, there's really no profession sexier than assassin! - Gabe
@Gabe: Just don't leave the toilet seat up. - Dylan Parker
This is just an incredible read...... - Iain Baker
wow powerfully stuff, really well written. Original article from the Independent here: http://www.independent.co.uk/n... - Thomas Hawk
seemed sort of sad to me, even the writer, certainly the circumstances that life presents in many cultures for brutality - Gregory Lent
FriendFeed
Robert Scoble posted a message
“VC shutdown underway? One entrepreneur told me her deal with Intel Capital fell apart after they lowered valuation from $5 mil to $1. Ouch.”
11 hours ago - Link
I think we have not reached the bottom until now. Worse luck! - Marcel Janus
wow, crazy. tell her to contact me if she needs any development - Jason Pratt
I am trying to remain personally optimistic, but I don't believe the bottom has been reached. - Louis Landon
This is what I love about being a student and working with other students. I can do everything much cheaper. $1 mil would probably fund my current business for 2+ years easily. - Daniel Zarick
It'll get worse before it gets better. Next two quarters will be tough. - Patricia
@Louis Landon Me too. I still hope thing will get better. - Marcel Janus
Eventually, things will get better. - Patricia
how people/firms/investors respond in bad times is much more telling of their character than how they respond in good times. they're doing it because they think they can get away with it. that window will close. - Bryce Roberts
Look, things are really bad and getting worse. They will eventually get better as Patricia says, but it will be hard for very many people. No one is really insulated, but there's no point in panicking or worrying about what you can't fix. However, we all should try to understand WTF happened and learn from it. I just shared a speech today by Charlie McCreevy of the European Commission in my timeline that everyone should read. It's simple and clear. - IRWebReport.com
better worse better worse better worse better worse better worse ... been going on forever, every up has a down ... why complain about the inevitable? - Gregory Lent
I don't doubt that VCs are having a tough time, but Intel Capital wanting to lower the valuation to $1 doesn't mean Intel Capital is having a tough time. It means some of the previous investors who participated in the rounds leading to the $5 mil are no longer putting in more money, and Intel wants to squeeze them out. They don't want to carry nonperforming investors. Those other VCs might be shutting down, I guess. - Denton Gentry
You kinda get the feeling that the 'world' is on hold until someone, anyone, suggests a REAL solution. Crazy stuff - Charlie Anzman
I have to say I agree with Denton. Value of a company is still consistent with the market. At the end, you're only worth what somebody's willing to pay. - Patricia
I also agree what Denton and Patricia have said. - imabonehead
I recently had one of those 'holy shit' idea moments, and I am wondering if I'll even be able to get seed capital. - Michael R. Bernstein
In many ways this is just a sign of a smart VC is it not? I'm hearing that most VCs are going to be lowballing valuations in 2009, using the economy as the 'excuse'. Extend your runway if you can and wait until the funding environment isn't as unbalanced. - AJ Kohn
I can understand if the lowered value was just 1M but from 5 to 1? That's gotta suck - Canada's Web Shop
Well the other thing is that VC isn't always the ideal expansion route. Everybody gets excited about, because it can be useful and it can be the right thing - but as somebody mentored by quite a few successful serial entrepreneurs, and a few VC, everybody says the same: don't do it unless you have to. The barrier of entry and costs of web business are so low. I went three years self funding, then started to look at financing options which I didn't end up needing. In a nutshell, it's not the only way to skin the cat in financing a startup. - Patricia
AJ, if I invested in a startup now, I would invest much less than a year ago. I think the risk in the economy is enough of a reason to give a lower valuation, since there is higher risk you won't get your money back. - Chris White
@Chris: Absolutely. I'm not saying there's not a real risk. The risk/reward ratio is steeper in this environment. But VCs are going to over-correct IMO, both to protect against risk and maximize reward. - AJ Kohn
As someone working on his own startup right now I can say categorically that if you are looking to raise VC money you are nuts. There IS NO potential for massive growth right now... there is no expendable income in the economy. Bootstrap - find partners and customers... sell what you can and try and survive. That is all. - Brian Roy
Another data point here is that very serious suitors of Genalyte, the company I work for, pulled back. We're now in survival mode, but that's not to say we aren't able to get some interest from some of the bigger players. My industry is biotech, and although the sector is down like everything else, we've not have a industry-specific bubble and crash yet. I think there's tremendous potential for growth in our sector for technologies that present significant cost savings over competitors. - Mr. Gunn
As CEO of a startup, I gave up on Venture Capital in September. Anyone paying attention could see the signs of slowing investment since the spring. But September slammed the door. What worries me now, though, isn't the VC markets. What worries me is the credit card market. AMEX is slashing credit limits, which will hurt small businesses and slow innovation far more than any VC slowdown. Real innovation happens on the back of credit, until a case can be made to risk-averse VCs that there's a real business opportunity. When credit is gone, our economy is like an engine running without any oil. - Chris Kenton via twhirl
So a good time for the super rich to help small businesses then ;o) - Rob Sellen
The first question you have to ask yourself is - can I do this and generate profit (or at minimum be revenue neutral)? If not you've got big problems. You have to do whatever you need to do to get to profit... NOW. - Brian Roy
Biggest way for them to boost revenue NOW would be to better track what they do, what works, what don't.. to much is simply wasted. Plough whats wasted into what works..what you KNOW works.. :o) - Rob Sellen
Oddly enough, this is the time when you can actually build real businesses and not starry-eyed-shoot-for-the-moon efforts. - mikepk
Lol.. but shoot high... no point shooting low... fail often fail fast... :o) - Rob Sellen
You can shoot high without drawing the "hockey stick", "we're going to grow to 20 million users worldwide in a year" statements that are necessary for VC funding. There *is* a middle ground, but problem is, if there are enough VC backed companies giving away everything for free to get "eyeballs" they suck out all the oxygen in the space. It's tough if you're not trying to be the next Google. - mikepk
But you have to remember - it is DEAD on both sides. You can't raise capital and you have to be able to sell it to someone... who is buying? I'm not saying don't do it (hell I'm doing it right now). I'm saying get realistic... - Brian Roy
All you CAN do is RAISE the VALUE you give. :o) - Rob Sellen
I almost think that VC's are trying to take advantage of the poor economic climate and steal deals away from hard working entrepreneurs. A 80% drop in valuation is brutle, and I hope this particular owner denies Intel the deal. - Jeremy Campbell via twhirl
If so, need to proove the real value of what you have and get the VC's wanting to invest in you... YOU as a biz be the picky one.. zig zag whatever ;o) - Rob Sellen
Jeremy, I don't believe it's just negotiation, I think it's also fear. VCs have to get their money from somewhere also, and right now it's not looking all that good. As a VC, you have to report back to your investors about why you lost them a sh*tload of money. - Chris White
It may be dead on both sides, but even in a downturn, if you can provide real value people will pay for it. This is especially true if your value proposition is based on boosting the efficiency of your customers to help them in the downturn. - mikepk
In the height of a cycle, with everyone trying to "shoot the moon", you can end up with VC backed companies giving away your value proposition for free to get traffic. This not only invalidates your value prop, it also has the unfortunate side effect of raised expectations of what should or should not be free. It's not sustainable and we're going to see a collapse of a lot of free services (IMHO). - mikepk
mikepk - I completely agree... but if you are doing free to attract huge subscriber base that isn't happening. Someone I respect yesterday told me to go "free/premium". I said no. Because in this environment there is no way to cover the operational costs of the free. 1) Find a way to add value 2) Sell it - Brian Roy
Interesting conversation this is ggetting to be.. 1, increase value of what you have 2, sell it!!! sums it up.. as i been saying but in more words. :o) - Rob Sellen
Twitter
Eric posted four messages on Twitter
identi.ca
Voyagerfan5761 posted two messages on identi.ca
“Really wanting to know why Twitter often displays "0 updates" on my home view. I know I have more than that. Caching/database issues?”
30 minutes ago - Link
“system.unauthorizedaccess, your crash-causing existence can be found on every computer I do not control. You kill my DropboxU3. I hate you.”
40 minutes ago - Link
FriendFeed
Twitter: johnny rodriguez posted a link
30 minutes ago - via Bookmarklet - Link
sneaky and kewl at the same time - johnny rodriguez via Bookmarklet
Blog
Change.gov
1 hour ago - Link
Twitter
Dan Norris posted a message on Twitter
Blog
Louis Gray posted an entry on louisgray.com
September 22 at 1:20 am - Link
So far, the commenters on my site _don't_ want Twitter and FriendFeed to go mainstream. Do you want to keep these technologies to yourself? - Louis Gray
I do, I'd say Twitter probably has the best shot right now. FF is still over the head of too many, they dont know (and dont want to know) about rss - sean percival
I really hope with the continuous feature additions and improvements to FriendFeed, it would soon have a universal appeal. There are so many Nay-sayers but I'm behind them 220%. :) As for Twitter - I don't really use it anyway, so it doesn't make a difference. Although I would LOL if they were to start charging monthly fees. ie: Threaded replies are only for premium accounts haha - Mona N.
This weekend I excitedly told an engineer-friend (hydrologist) about meeting the "inventor of RSS" last week. And he said "what's that?" -- Bastard. - Brian Hendrickson
I'm with friendfeed. And yes, it should go mainstream ASAP. Many just want to go to friendfeed because "nobody else but you are on there, I know". So that is the real problem. - Ryo
Twitter will go mainstream as people always want to be noticed. Friendfeed has a harder road because it is not about the user, it is about the information. If Friendfeed goes mainstream, it will be in a much different way, like a major research or news tool. - Rob Diana
FF will go mainstream as soon as people realize that it's *not* about the information, it's about the conversation. Twitter in its current form is a megaphone broadcasting system a la FB status updates, without a realistic and understandable method of replying. FF on the other hand not only let's you share information, but creates a method to *discuss* it. It's biggest obstacle for going mainstream is the UI. - Stupid Ninja (aka Tina)
Tina, I mostly agree about the conversation, but the conversation is typically based on the information at this point. I think the amount of information that passes through will be too much for most people until better filters are in place. I admit, I tend to be very pessimistic when it comes to growth and mainstream adoption of most tech. - Rob Diana
I am all for both apps hitting mainstream fast. Both serve excellent online communication needs. Twitter provides broadcasts and quick short replies; whereas FriendFeed provides the ability to share information and generate conversation / feedback regarding that info., which can blossom into an entire community around that topic. Twitter's challenge is stability, scalability and UI. FriendFeed's challenge is search, organization and UI. - Susan Beebe (Santa Claus)
Rob, I can only base statements on my experience of course, and they're going to be affected by who follows me. With that said, my most engaging conversations on FF have usually been around a topic tossed up as a status update/question, not a link to an external post. Also, unlike FB and TW which offer a one to one conversation model (excepting FB groups), FF automatically offers a one to many conversation model. - Stupid Ninja (aka Tina)
FriendFeed will go mainstream because it's a better medium than email for sharing links and news. I wrote in detail on this here: http://friendfeed.com/e/c2f76d... - Bruce Lewis via fftogo
couple quick comments: not everything needs to "go mainstream" to be a success, it is ok to fill a niche & some things are not products but rather features best integrated into or augmenting something else - i think friendfeed fits both these criteria (current and future) and i see that as a good thing personally... - mike "glemak" dunn
@Mike - I've been thinking this too lately. What is "a success"? Is Apple a "success". They only have about 5% of the market of computers, yet I think there is a lot more media buzz about Apple unveiling a revised macbook than there is about Dell or HP introducing a revised 1050e or whatever they call them. If you get 1% of Americans using your product, that is 3 million people. That is a lot. - Robert Felty
What is mainstream? 25% of US population? 10% of RSS/tech geeks? 1% of the world? 10% of people who would pay for this service? FF's current UX won't scale to a large population having lots of real conversations here. But it does serve a good niche (or two or three) right now. But what % of the world has/wants to have conversations like this? Mainstream would drive FF to be everything to everyone. Would we (as early adopters) still like it then? - David Lee
I have a radical idea... how about Twitter just finds a way to make some money. Mainstream is great... but completely misses the point... - Brian Roy
I am "mainstream", but I've been on FF for a year as of tomorrow. - Anne Bouey
Has anyone else noticed the push the major media give to some services and not others? How often did Television Programming (news, sitcoms, talk shows) talk about "googling" something; did you ever hear them talk about "yahooing" or "asking" anything? Then it was myspace, myspace, myspace followed by Facebook. Makes me wonder if those who own the media heavily invest and then push their investments. - Internet Strategist
Internet Strategist: media people just want to be cool. It's easy to understand why they push certain stuff. I do the same. I have no investments in anything. - Robert Scoble
Will Twitter and FriendFeed become mere commodities, fed to the masses by media moguls, to sell their product ? Because that is their job. I think Twitter is becoming more mainstream, more noticed and talked about - but not generally understood. How would it be affected by advertising and ten times the traffic? FF will take longer to catch on, even though it is better. Twitter plants seeds that can be grown in FriendFeed. - Chris Loft
frankly i don't think Joe the Plumber is really that interested in such a mass of content/dialogue, Facebook is about as much feed as an average person can handle. FF/Twitter are downright manic for them and they don't have/don't want the mental faculty to deal with the multiple perpetual conversations/topics - it creates more anxiety than fun and if it's not fun it's toast. Neither will get double digit % of the population using them - Bob
OTOH, is text messaging considered mainstream yet in the U.S.? (I realize we lag way behind the rest of the world in this.) I don't think the "mainstream" can handle more than one technological breakthrough at a time :) I still know people who are even just getting used to using a computer. - Victor Ganata
@Bob I think Twitter is so powerful that it can be used for many different purposes. Imagine a multi-dimensional Twitter with single or more refined services. For local councils, government, media companies, business services, geeks, gossip, etc. Each with their own customised Twitter serving their needs. This is where Twitter will produce an income stream; hiving itself off into customized services, without the noise. - Chris Loft
i dont think it is a "we dont want it to go mainsteam" it is more of a "the technology isnt quite ready for it to go mainsteam, we couldnt handle all our friends and family and colleagues nattering on our feeds, we can barely handle the information flow at the moment". We need better filtering, a better way to have several spheres in parallel on these services. - Joelle Nebbe
(translating my previous comment in pragmatic speech:) I am happy to have all that crowd happily segragated on facebook sending each other quizzes, i dont want them coming on my FF and twitter. I love them to bits but they are, well, embarrassing! I don't want "what peanut character are you" on my friendfeed, and it will come with the mainstream - Joelle Nebbe
hmmm, this bubbled up so I re-read it. man, that was a great old post - Sarah Perez
By old you mean 9 weeks, right Sarah? :-) - Louis Gray
Just remember what comes with being mainstream...tons of spammers. - April Russo
FriendFeed should go mainstream. Despite our selfish desire to want to keep it to ourselves, it is a smarter way for news and information to be disseminated that would benefit all once they are aware of it. - Thomas Hawk
No question, when a service hits critical mass, the conversation will change. Look at YouTube - people are always bemoaning the boorish, illiterate nature of the comments there. Will we stick around when Scoble or Louis pose an interesting question and half the comments are spam and profanity? - Laura Norvig
I don't want FF to go mainstream because then it will probably be blocked at work like FB, Myspace, etc... - Josh Begin
some ppl should think what this service is about: aggregating the feeds of people you trust and like aka friends as in friendfeed :) - Chris Hofmann
Twitter
Marshall Kirkpatrick posted a message on Twitter
FriendFeed
Paul Buchheit posted a link
6 hours ago - via Bookmarklet - Link
"As for social disruption, Hanauer gave a quick summary of what he meant: —If everyone thinks it’s a great idea, it probably sucks. —If people understand it, you’re too late. —If people don’t like it and don’t understand it, it probably still sucks. So entrepreneurship is a dangerous field, he said. “The difference between being an idiot and being a genius is very, very thin.”" - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
Something I've noticed: new Internet companies and products which precede their release with a wave of publicity and hype almost always fail. Google just quietly put their product out there, and it was so good that word of mouth pushed it to global preeminence. Don't tell me about your product -- show me your product. And it had better hit me between the eyes in under a few minutes, otherwise, next. - Sean McBride
By the way, I found this post with Google Reader, and almost certainly would have missed it on Friendfeed. - Sean McBride
I found it on Friendfeed. - Jason Wehmhoener
Amazon was the first real real e-commerce business? Really? I get the feeling he doesn't understand why his own product succeeded. Amazon integrated user generated content and community into product recommendations. That's what made them different. There were many large bookstores on the net before Amazon. - todd
"“The difference between being an idiot and being a genius is very, very thin.” reminds me of one of may favorite quotes from Spinal Tap: "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" - David St. Hubbins - Mike Doeff
Google Reader
Louis Gray shared an item on Google Reader
1 hour ago - Link
Of course. Ev looks at it like a business guy or an engineer, but the process isn't about what tools we use, rather its the idea that we all publish in order to inform each other. Blogging and twitter, from that point of view are the same thing, like landlines and cellphones are the same thing, tools for having one-one not-presence-based conversations. - Dave Winer
Somebody told me once: "when you write a post, be brief". Taking this rule to the extreme, microblogging is the best way of blogging around... ;) I tend to view Twitter more as an online conversation than anything else. Blogging is closer to journalism; Twitter closer to chat (although it's not exactly that). - Jordi Soler
Other ways to read this feed:Feed reader