Jeremy Hague of Skylook (which lets you record Skype calls inside Outlook) has been sending me WaxMail’s. What’s that? It lets you send voice from right inside Outlook. So, if you are tired of typing you can send a voice message. It’s an MP3 generator, basically. Hmmm, I wonder if I could use this to record a podcast? I’d love to be able to record a WaxMail, and then email that to a podcast service and have it put up.
Chris Law interviews me (he works in a Silicon Valley startup)
October 26, 2005 By
When I was making my tour of Silicon Valley’s startups yesterday I sat down for lunch with Chris Law. He recorded our conversation and podcasted it (he has other interviews including with a VP from Yahoo).
One thing I disagree with is when he says “I haven’t seen an example of a startup using Microsoft stuff in a serious way.”
Out of the three startups I met yesterday here in Silicon Valley, only one is using Linux stuff. And, a fourth, that I just talked with on email, is Ingenio.
They are making a BIG bet on Microsoft technologyl. They are serving 20 million minutes of calls every quarter. Ron Hirson, program management director of Ingenio says they are very happy with our stuff.
Another startup using our stuff? Weblogsinc.com. They just sold to AOL for $25 million. They run on our stuff. We are interested in working with all businesses, whether it’s one guy in a Silicon Valley garage, or it’s something like MySpace.com that runs the fourth largest Web site in the world (they are using our stuff too).
Technosight interviews Blogniscient Founder
October 26, 2005 By
Blogniscient is a competitor to my favorite Memeorandum (and to Digg too). They are planning a bunch of new stuff in the next couple of weeks, I hear. Here Technosight interviews Blogniscient’s founder, Ben Ruedlinger.
More on Picaboo
October 26, 2005 By
So, yesterday I visited Silicon Valley startup Picaboo. They are doing a photo sharing and book making service. Their first office is the famous office on University Ave where Google, PayPal, Logitech, and a few other famous companies started up.
They showed me their next version. It was most impressive. Fun, easy to use, graphic, creative.
One of the naysayers in my comments yesterday made the point that having a download and install app is “so yesterday.” Yeah, that certainly is a belief that’s very popular one here in Silicon Valley.
But, sorry, you simply can not do what they’ve done on the Web.
What I find interesting is that they do both an application for creating photo experiences, and they have a Web component for sharing those experiences.
That’s very powerful. Use the right tool for the job.
By the way, they are already heavily using Visual Studio 2005 (which isn’t even released yet). They said that’s their competitive advantage because they can add more features faster than their competition can.
For a Silicon Valley startup that’s very important. Why? Cause startups don’t have unlimited cash. They have a small window in which to get a product out or they go out of business and join the pile of many many Silicon Valley failures.
Turning down John Doerr
October 26, 2005 By
I met John Doerr last night. He’s the guy who funded Google, among others. Real nice guy. Anyway, after the usual chit chat he turns to me and says:
“If you’d like to start a new Microsoft, give me a call.”
I answer:
“I’m already starting a new Microsoft and I’m doing it at Microsoft.”
Not every day you get to turn down John Doerr. That said, I kept his business card. 
Trulia, real estate listing winning raves in Silicon Valley
October 25, 2005 By
The ScanR folks are raving about Trulia, which is a new Real Estate Search page. Very interesting. A couple of Stanford kids started it.
Speaking of which, in 10 minutes I’ll be in the office where Google, Logitech, and Paypal started their business lives. I’m meeting the current company: Picaboo (they do a peer-to-peer photo sharing application). Are they the next Google, or even Flickr? Well, we’re heading across University Ave. to get a look.
