Lightning

September 2, 2007 | Filed Under Photo | Leave a Comment

Black Bear

July 16, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I saw one tonight! Not too big but maybe about 300 or 400 pounds (like I can actually tell right?). I was riding my bike up Boulder Canyon, saw some dirt sliding down the hillside next to me and my thoughts were literally: “oh, what’s that; i bet it’s an animal; maybe a fox; wow, maybe a mountain lion; better keep pedaling by whatever it is… oh my god it’s a black bear!” It was only about 10 feet away. I stopped a little ways up and turned back to watch it cross the street and go over to Boulder Creek.

The last time I saw a bear was while in Alaska in 2002 with my wife at the time, Michelle. She ran the midnight marathon in Anchorage. It was an amazing trip and the wildlife there is unbelievable. It really does feel like the last frontier.

Seeing a bear for me is one of those moments that will permanently be embedded in my mind and I’m thankful for that.

The iPhone is scary

July 6, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I hate that I’m actually writing about the iPhone. I feel like a total wannabe because I don’t even own one and because everyone has been writing about them. But oh well, I’ll get over that. The fact is that I really think this little device is scary. Scary not because it’s bad or evil. Scary because I really think it’s quietly marking its place in history as the moment when technology started becoming deeply integrated within the rest of our lives.

Yeah, I know there’s been a lot of hype around the thing. I don’t care, I still think the hype we’ve heard around it is relatively inaudible compared to the changes it’s going to create over the next 5 years.

Apple sold tons of these super expensive devices over the past week. Something like 200,000 of them and made like 200 Million in profit - or so the numbers say. Still, the mobile phone market is gigantic. It’s got a long way to go. I don’t know the exact figures for when the iPod first came out. All I know is that everyone has one now. I never thought in a million years that we’d all fork up 300 bucks for a freakin music player. But we did and we did so by the millions. I mean, just before the iPod we had big clunky MP3 players. Some of us, like me, had portable CD players. I think I paid like 60 bucks for mine. The thought of forking out 300 for a music player just didn’t make sense.

And then all of a sudden everyone was walking around wearing the little white headphones. (I’m on a bus from Boulder to Denver right now and I just took a quick look around. The dude right in front me has a 5G iPod. I can’t see everyone but I see two women a few feet away that are wearing the white headphones. Two rows up some girl is wearing black headphones and I think I saw a smaller black MP3 player on her belt…. loser). Anyway, there’s lots and lots of iPods out there - no surprise there. My point is that there’s going to be just as many iPhones out there over the next couple years - and that’s going to cause some things around us to change…

What am I talking about? Ok, so everyone’s got a new phone. So what? Well, I think that’s where its gets scary. I think the iPhone (and other devices that try to copy it) are going to shepherd in a wave of new devices and appliances that are designed to communicate with it. The communication between the two is going to create very new ways for us to keep our physical world digitally synced with ourselves.

Ever since I’ve been in grade school I’ve kept idea and invention books. I haven’t done anything with them for a couple years. But about 8 years ago I wrote myself an entry about a digital device that basically acted as the digital representation of myself. It would contain my preferred “settings” for the world around me. If I were in my car it would set the seat and steering wheel for me, it would load my music and playlists, and it would sync up my contacts so I could make calls. If I were home it would tell my home what temperature I prefer, it would dim the lights for me, open the shades. The device would talk with every smart device around me on my behalf. That’s web 3.0. It might even be web 4.0.

The iPhone itself isn’t what is revolutionary. After all, it’s a cooler version of other smart devices that have been out there for a while. The reason I think the iPhone is scary is because it’s going to cause a huge change in different devices in our lives.

By making the iPhone fun and cool and easy to use, Apple has made sure that tons of people are going to want one. With enough adoption there will then be a standard device for other devices to communicate with. Think of how many stereos now say they’re “iPod” compatible?

Has anyone read about that project between Mercedes and Apple? It’s starting to happen already and I think Apple knows exactly where they want to go. Microsoft has been saying that the living room is the end game. I think that’s mostly true but I’m not sure Microsoft is going to be the first one to get there. Whoever controls the personal digital device, controls everything around it.

Apple wants to own our pocket. They already had half our pocket with their MP3 player. Now they finally kicked that other little device out called our cell phone. Now that they have the device to own our pocket they’ll start to figure out ways of using it to sync with the rest of the world. Today you can sync your iPhone with your laptop. Tomorrow, maybe your car, your TV and fridge… with other people.

A digital representation of ourselves - controlling everything else digital around us.

Damn this thing is scary. Scary sci-fi cool.

Tagged is definitely a spam site

June 13, 2007 | Filed Under Social Networks | 4 Comments

I agree with Dave Taylor; Tagged is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s a total con. I was a “victim” of this site just recently. I got an invitation from a friend of mine so I went to the site to sign up and add myself as their friend. So the site asked me if I wanted to check and see what other friends of mine were already on Tagged. I figured sure why not. So I let it go through my Gmail address book and “check” to see how many people I knew were already on Tagged. Then is said 15 people I knew were already on Tagged and did I want to add them as friends… I figured sure, Why not?

Well what followed was complete horror. I started getting emails from people I haven’t spoken to in a long time asking me why I want them to join me on Tagged. It turns out Tagged spams everyone in your address book. No wonder this site is doing so “well”.

Techcrunch wrote about how Tagged is one of the fastest growing social networks and how they’re now profitable. I think it’s a crime that a site can hide behind completely cheap and unprofessional tactics and be getting recognition.

What I have a hard time understanding is how the folks at Tagged can sit in a room and talk about the product and knowingly come up with all these ridiculous ways of sucking people into their social network. Apparently their CEO Greg Tseng is known as the King of “viral growth”…. Yeah. I have nothing against the people here but c’mon guys, this site is just spamming everyone.

Anyway, here’s some new data on the site. Stats from Comscore and Alexa are pretty consistent. Comscore data isn’t available for June yet but when it is, I hope it tells the same story Alexa does.

comscore_tagged

Alexa Tagged

Google Earth kicks ass

May 28, 2007 | Filed Under Mapping | Leave a Comment

I went for a bike ride today in Boulder. Boulder is really a beautiful place. I love how you can just walk out your door and have tons of different things to do, whether run along the creek, play basketball outside, or get on a bike and be in the mountains within minutes. Then of course, there’s the places to go out at night, lots of options within walking distance. Anyway, I was playing around with Google Earth tonight, checking out the route I took. I used a separate site called walkjogrun to trace the actual route out but then wanted to look at the area in 3D using Google Earth. I was able to get the view just right and take a picture like the one below. The navigation within the program is simple enough but I just wish it were even more natural feeling - that would really give it the sense of being a fluid and interactive environment. Google has definitely improved on the easy of use from what the Keyhole folks had originally done, but I still think they could go a little further. It’s almost too simple now and lacks some of the nerdiness of the older versions. Anyway, cool shot below:

Sand Dunes National Monument

May 17, 2007 | Filed Under Photo | 2 Comments

I wanted to try out some of the new video sharing sites. I tried Vimeo but the upload crashed on me during a 107MB upload. Veoh worked better so I’m including the videos below. I took these while I was visiting the Great Sand Dunes National Park near the Sangre De Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains in Southern Colorado. I was there the week before I started Techstars. It’s one of the most amazing places I’ve seen.

Online Videos by Veoh.comUpdated July 5th, 2007: The Vimeo site was apparently having some problems. I just went and tried it again and the upload worked great. Here’s the second video, this time using Vimeo.
Sand Dunes from Alan on Vimeo.

Sand Dunes 3 from Alan on Vimeo.