U2 in Second Life (kinda)

new trend starting in Second Life - a U2 cover band made lookalike avatars and "performs" live in SL.

What's a Sunday Times worth?

Among the various 'questions of faith' that i pose to friends is "What's the maximum you'd pay for a Sunday New York Times?"

Imagine whatever most desperate or pleasurable scenario you wish. Layover in some airport, beachside on a remote island. What's a Sunday Times worth to you? Highest $ thus far is $25. Who you pay more?

That being said, today's paper was just so-so.

PersonalDNA

A new website in a space that i've been noodling about, PersonalDNA is a myers-briggs-like profile test with some neat web 2.0 functionality - 360 feedback abilities, DNA color bricks of your test results to display on websites, etc.

Virtual Worlds getting Real(er)

Kevin Werbach joins the crowds of people getting excited about virtual worlds.

"It's sort of like what I felt about 15 years ago, when I was actively using proprietary online services and starting to dicover the Internet. A few years after that, I remember how excited I was when I first saw a URL on a billboard -- it meant the Internet was something mainstream companies thought mainstream users understood. I'm eagerly awaiting that transition for virtual worlds."

And on related news, Second Life release SLurl - another tool bringing the SL web and the traditional web closer together.

And Philip is coming to Google next week for a tech talk. Yipee.

Three things I did Tuesday

At the pre-TED dinner I....

1. Was taught a Prius hack by a billionaire
2. Introduced myself to a politician with whom i share two mutual friends (one very obscure, one more famous)
3. Exchanged off color stories and jokes with a colleague that i respect greatly

i'd say that was worth the 4 hr round trip (made easier by the Google cruiser)

"Will you watch this for me"

During Saturday evening coffee with new friend Dave Shen at Cafe Borrone, we discussed the awkward "will you watch this for me" question that folks in airports, coffee shops, etc make when needing to dash to the restroom. I'm often at the receiving end of these requests, must be my trusting face.

Would be an interesting study in perceptions to put several folks with different ethnicity, dress, etc in public places and see who gets asked more often to "watch my stuff" a.k.a. "you don't look like you'd steal my laptop or luggage."

Consumers? Nah, personalizers.

Brad Horowitz at Yahoo jumps into blogging with a well-lauded post on "creators, synthesizers, consumers" and the 1:10:100 ratio between them. Although nicely written, bloggers are a bit too lathered up about the theory, giving Brad first mover credit for making sense of user generated content and how it scales. I can't find the citation right now but i could have sworn that Will Wright has been saying this for years with close to the same ratio.

Anyhoo, i had a similar theory at Linden Lab but it was 1% creators, 4% customizers, 90% personalizers (of course that's based upon product crossing over to mass market - right now Second Life is still very creator/customizer heavy). My definitions are:

Creators build from wireframe
Customizers take pieces, widgets, model kits and build something out of them - they take something from a creator and make it different
Personalizers slap their name on it or change its color - something to make it their own. I don't like "consumers" because inherently everyone is a personalizer (they want something unique to them), it's just a question of whether they want to put any work into it or would rather have it done without their participation.

That's some fine counterprogramming

Although it went without notice, the Google Video Blog posted cat videos to take on Yahoo's Westminster Dog Show footage. The eternal battle rages (dogs v. cats that is).

Anything can be securitized

When i was in college i wrote an economics paper on the idea of securitizing future income streams from individuals and entertainers. It became a reality several times.

Here's the next idea - securitize people's banked vacation and sick days, which are payable when they leave their job at their current pay grade. Especially for city employees who can accrue these forever and might be willing to cash out midway through their career, it's a really interesting calculation. Takes into account the solvency of the employer and your forecast of the increase in salary of the individual.

Hey, all i know is that anything will future or accrued value can be securitized. Especially since this is a liability for employers, why wouldn't they want it hedged?

Great Headlines

"Scott Stapp Gets Married — And Arrested For Public Intoxication"

(former lead singer of Creed)

My famous friends

A very "valley" day for me as two good friends are independently featured in Silicon Beat, one of the top tech blogs.

First, news of Gibu Thomas launching sharpcast at Demo 2006.

Then, Paul Gutierrez joins Peerflix.

congrats and good luck to both new ventures.

Three cheers for Best Buy

Excited to see Best Buy experimenting with three different retail footprints outside of their megastores. As noted in Wired, the Minneapolis retailer has these concepts currently in play:

1. Studio D: Tech and home for women
2. Escape: Tech and home as lifestyle for early adopters
3. Eg-Life: Tech and home meet wellness lifestyle for boomers

A few years back when i was at Linden, Jed Smith asked me to speak with an exec from BB who was interested in building out gaming centers/lifestyle lounges - looks like that has become Escape.

But did dad get a board seat?

My friend David Hornik, partner at August Capital, has a really good post about explaining VC to his eight year old. Also gives a nice clue why user-generated content matters, even to a pre-teen. Create, remix, comment, share. Powerful trends.

Calacanis blasts YouTube

Jason Calacanis lays the smackdown on the web's latest buzz generator - YouTube. Notes that they are basically building their business on the backs of copyright content.

Great Pumpkins

MTV delivers news of an impending Smashing Pumpkins reunion, although it's not clear if we're talking a full revival of the band, or a Chinese Democracy-era Guns n' Roses sorta situation.

Music is very much about time and place - the events of your life associated with a certain moment or feeling. That's one reason I'm skeptical of the music matching services that try to recommend songs which "sound similar" to the tunes you like.

So what does this have to do with the Pumpkins? Well, one of their shows is among my top five best concerts, because both of its ferocity and my situation at the time.

It was early fall 1996 and the Pumpkins had returned to the road following the drug overdose death of their keyboard player. I was in the midst of a consulting projects, shuttling between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The travel had resulted in a feeling of disconnectedness for me - dressing out of a suitcase and heading back to New York City when i could.

Finally in September I just kinda dropped out of the game for 72 hrs. Instead of flying east, I stayed in Pittsburgh one Friday night and scalped a seat to the Smashing Pumpkins playing at the hockey arena. It was a blistering show - loud, angry, defiant. Came back to the Hyatt with my ears ringing and partied with the desk staff once they got off work, which meant i finally got to kiss the dark haired woman who had been checking me in each week.

The next morning I stowed my bags with the bellhop and took a taxi to the airport. Basically picked the next flight going anywhere interesting (Denver in this case) and bought a ticket. Landed, rented a car, checked into a hotel and just spent the next 48 hrs mixing extremely introverted and extroverted behaviors - e.g. drove to Colorado Springs by myself and just read in a park all afternoon (it was chilly but not too bad), met strangers at a LoDo bar and went back to their house until wee hours.

So whether it's the opening chords of "Zero" or the chorus of "1979" I kinda get taken back to that weird weekend by Billy Corgan and the gang. Which means, yeah, i'll go see a reunited Pumpkins if they tour in 2006.