Shared by Kristopher
filomers rejoice... well maybe just me but after testing the beta filome is much more powerful. great lazy ui but still full of unfiltered crap.

Appealing to users' laziness is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, you risk offending users who like to think of themselves as essentially industrious, on-top-of-it, finger-on-the-pulse go-getters.

On the other hand, who are we kidding? We love being lazy, and if your app will allow for ever more user laziness, well, that's just what we call "driving innovation," now isn't it? For those of us who are too lazy for RSS feeds but still in the market for real-time, personalized blog searches, we recommend checking out LazyFeed. We've got invites, too; just keep reading.

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The site launched just two days ago and appears to be a bottomless pit of information culled from the depths of the blogosphere and sorted around a simple system of tags. Users type in a tag or single-word search term, and LazyFeed returns videos, photos, and blog posts tagged with that term. Users are then prompted to add that term as a topic, which essentially means the search is saved and results will be returned in real time through the left-hand topics menu.

Although LazyFeed combs through about 100,000 of the most popular blogs online, users can also add specific blogs, Twitter profiles, Flickr streams, and Delicious accounts for a more personalized feed of information and recommended topics. Topics are updated in real time, so users get up-to-the-minute information.

The drawbacks are apparent. Users can't refine searches; for example, I can have "realtime" and "search" in my topics list, but I can't have a "realtime+search" topic. And there's no way to tell LazyFeed to look for certain types of content within certain domains or accounts. Nor is there a way to limit the stream to certain types of media or block certain tags (such as "marketing") from appearing in the results.

Still, lazy beggars can't be choosers. In other words, it's still a nifty little tool that we barely had to lift a finger to use, and we did get some good reading out of it. Check out our screencast, and if you're one of the first 100 interested parties to read this, you can sign up with the promo code "Lazyrww." You're welcome.

Our second daily Comments Competition winner is theharmonyguy, for an insightful explanation of Googler Kevin Marks' "Social Cloud" theory. Congratulations theharmonyguy, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher, courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Amazon WishList Widget. theharmony guy argued that both OpenSocial and Facebook are "mainly creating a cloud for developers, not users." He explains more:

"The "social cloud" analogy is an interesting one. As Luigi pointed out, though, OpenSocial is more OpenWidget. But I think this still fits with the social cloud idea - it's just that OpenSocial, in its current form, gives developers a social cloud.

That is, developers looking to write applications that utilize social aspects (such as connections between friends) can write code which will run on multiple social networking sites and take advantage of those social features on each one. For the developer, the technology necessary to establish and manage those pieces of the puzzle become a social cloud, much like TCP/IP and DNS have become a cloud for people surfing the Web - those parts simply work, and we usually don't care how.

But users don't have a social cloud quite yet. If I want to find a picture of a friend, I may have login to Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Xanga, etc., depending on which friend I mean. For me as a user, social aspects like connections between friends are still distributed between various sites and require maintenance on my part.

I think Kevin recognizes this problem (the Social Graph API addresses it in a small way), but is overly optimistic about how OpenSocial answers it. A true social cloud for users will happen when social aspects of online activities become absorbed into the layers of the Internet.

As an analogy, look at online video. There was a time (and it's still partially true) when watching a video would usually require you to download some specific plug-in that a particular site used. Nowadays, though, most users have Flash installed, adding a layer on top of a typical browser that video sites can take advantage of. The layer is invisible to the user, as they're never prompted to install or configure something - they just visit a site and see video.

An imperfect analogy, granted, but illustrates the point - and points back to the idea of distributed social networking. Currently each social networking site implements its own variation of managing a social graph - in other words, you have an application with social functions built on top. But with technologies like OpenID and OAuth, we may reach a point where social networking sites are built on top a distributed social graph. Essentially, the social aspects of things like friend connections become invisible to the user and simply another layer that people consider part of the Internet. Then we'll have a true social cloud for users.

Not to say that Kevin would disagree with any of this, I just felt like his presentation could have clarified these points a little more. With Facebook licensing their platform, we already have a competiting product doing the same thing as OpenSocial - but right now, both are mainly creating a cloud for developers, not users. DataPortability.org, which Andrew brought up, is an effort to create a cloud for users. Right now companies like Google who have joined DP are talking about how to make that happen, but I don't think even DP has yet figured out 100% how to accomplish it in a production setting. Many of the technologies are there, but it'll take time to actually put everything in place.

Sorry for the long comment... interesting presentation. :)"

As big banks scramble to form rescue plans for bond insurers, a hedge fund manger is trying to send the ambulances away.

Bill Ackman, whose Pershing Square Capital Management has been betting on a collapse of the bond insurers for several years, has written to regulators, urging them not to support these efforts.

In a letter to Federal Reserve and Treasury officials obtained by Portfolio.com, Ackman criticizes the bank bailout efforts that have been prompted by regulators, saying that this strategy "appears to be aimed at propping up insolvent and falsely rated entities so that banks can defer judgment day to a time when they are better capitalized or their stock prices are higher."

The fear is that the bond insurers will not be able to meet their guarantees amid a wave of defaults. That could result in credit-rating downgrades or collapse, leaving the banks on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in losses on their holdings of collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.'s.

"While we understand that the banking industry counterparties to the bond insurers would prefer to avoid taking these C.D.O. risks back on balance sheetsparticularly at a time when their balance sheets are strained by subprime and other losses that have not been hedged, there are no such free lunches in the capital markets," Ackman writes in the February 5 letter.

Ackman says that banks and bond insurers should be forced to disclose their C.D.O. exposures in detail, and that federal regulators should work with state officials to ensure that bond insurers "preserve as much of their capital as possible for the benefit of policyholders and bank counterparties."

The Wall Street Journal reports that consortiums of banks are trying to find ways to unwind the credit-default swaps that they took out with the bond insurers as ways to guarantee the banks' C.D.O.'s.

Banks would receive stakes in the bond insurers, Financial Guaranty Insurance and Ambac Financial, in exchange, the Journal says.

Bankers are afraid that a collapse of bond insurers could have painful repercussions throughout global credit markets.

"It could be a tsunami-like event comparable to subprime," Josef Ackermann, the chief executive of Deutsch Bank, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

There are certain debates in new media that I've had so many times that I end every exchange thinking that I will never get embroiled in that particular turdfight again. The make money fast end of podcasting is one of those I've sworn off many times, just like someone who quits smoking over and over. I believe by reading through these posts and trying to refine my reflexive umbrage I've reached insights I haven't ever had, so what the hell. Let's let it rip. Please bear with me for a couple of paragraphs before I get to my insights.

First, let's cover the history of this flare up. At PNME 2007 my buddy Michael Geoghegan presented his talk Selling the Unique Value of Your Content: Determining What Your Show is Worth and Convey It To Advertisers, Sponsors and Investors. That's a mouthful, and is what Leesa Barnes refers to as the Podcasting is Dead talk. I like Leesa and was interviewed by her for her book but I agree with MWG that you can't get think his talk says that if you've actually listened to it. I listened to it the other day, and basically it says If you want to make a living podcasting, you have to do a lot of boring business things. That should come as no surprise to anyone who isn't a complete gold miner, but to create a successful podcasting business you have to do the same sorts of things you'd have to do to create a successful burrito cart - invest in infrastructure and get your act together.

Leesa also says things like And I've finally figured out the #1 reason why most people claim podcasting is dead and I must share this epiphany. That's pretty weak, to use most people claim I can't say I've ever heard or read a credible person making that claim. It is by inspection obviously false if podcasting is defined as shows being produced. There are more now than ever. If you mean cynical opportunists aren't able to cash out quickly without putting much in then sure. We have people like Mark Rizzn' Hopkins who posted his disillusion with ad networks, which prompted a response from Podcasting News and a counterthrust by Hopkins. This brought on responses by Dave Winer about how he thinks you shoudn't burden a podcast with paying your bills and Kent Nichols about how to make Ask a Ninja a business they had to do business stuff. OK, end recap.

As I followed the links and trackbacks in this argument, my low moment was in the Podcasting News article. I just felt very tired when I read this:

Podcasters Need To Take Responsibility For Making Their Podcasts Marketable

This was in response to Hopkins' statement:

I set about creating some concepts for a couple of podcasts for Mashable, which frankly is the easy part. I spoke to Pete about them, and he gave them tentative approval, provided I could find sponsorship for the podcast at the onset. I gave everyone a call in the business I could think of to find a suitable sponsor.

My take is not wildly dissimilar from Dave Winer's at this point. Much like Hugh Macleod's Sex and Cash Theory says, I think it is a terrible thing to make your art bear the burden of supporting you financially prematurely. Like Dave I think that both sides of this argument are wrong. The idea of podcasters making their podcasts marketable makes me puke in my mouth a little. I think that is the exact opposite of what podcasters need to do. It's certainly not what I have done in my show from the start where my lack of a definable topic, format or schedule defies marketability. However, it has for every single one of my almost 220 episodes been exactly what I wanted to do every time. I've made money in sponsorships/advertising, but I've actually made more money by selling t-shirts and CDs. Get creative kids, there is more than one way to shake nickels from this medium.

Here's where my title comes in. Traditional media may pretend to serve the audience but really the audience is the product and the customer is the advertisers. They sell their audience to the sponsors. If you enjoy their program it is a means to an end, a way to keep you around long enough to sell your ears and/or eyeballs. What I've always enjoyed about podcasting is that the cost of production and distribution is so low (from cheap to nothing) that it is feasible to actually serve the audience primarily. This is the stuff of my PNME talks (2005 and 2006), that there is no reason to not just go for it. You can make a show as targeted to a niche audience as you can without concern for marketability, choosing to serve the listeners rather than the sponsors. The irony is that if you do this well enough, you can actually find sponsorship but of a very specific kind. Podcasting News seems to be thinking of marketability of a general type, being sponsored by Old Navy or the US Navy. That is service to the sponsors. The Mac Geek Gab is an example of a show that is of service to the audience. They have a specific type of demographic of technically minded Mac users, and as a result they have sponsors like Bare Bones software, not the kind of company that would advertise on TV or radio. This is the way it should go in new media. Create your show and be of great service to your audience. If you serve it well enough with a good enough show, you might actually find sponsorship that way but if you don't put the audience first, that gets less likely.

Podcasting is a medium where the pitch is irrelevant. Just do the damn show and publish it. It costs little or nothing to do that, just a little of your time. If you aren't willing to commit the time to do it then why should anyone care enough to commit money to you? There is no better pitch than a well produced show with an existing audience. That's what tweaked me about Hopkins' posts, the way he treats this medium with the power dynamic of a Hollywood studio or radio syndicate. It seems like 2/3 of the people in new media are trying to rebuild the same hierarchies the other 1/3 are trying to tear down. Don't ask for permission, don't pitch anyone. Find your passion, speak your mind, produce your show. Cynical shit might fly but that ain't how the smart money bets. Don't quit your day job and force your show to pay your mortgage. Do what matters to you and don't think about the money until you have to. Take advantage of the strengths of podcasting and be agile. You can't out-compete big media on breadth but you can on depth. Go deep, serve your audience better than the radio or TV ever could. If you do it well enough, money will find you. If your only motivation is making money, you will do a worse show and probably make less anyway. Serve the audience and not the sponsors. Why? Because you can.

I received several questions in response to my post titled The Purpose of Numbers on a Y Axis and my followup post titled The Lack of Numbers of Y Axis Doesn't Disqualify You. One of the questions prompted a rant in my brain that often spills out of my mouth when I'm on the receiving end of an early stage pitch.

The question is: what kind of numbers would actually get your attention on a revenue chart for the first 12 months of business (or would income / cash flow be a better measure?) Before I answer the question, I want to add an explicit qualifier this answer applies to early stage software / Internet startups think a few people, an idea, and maybe a prototype.

The answer is none. I've seen around 4,387,215 financial models for startups. I've invested in over 100 companies. As far as I can remember, not a single revenue model was anywhere close to accurate in the first 24 months, other than the ones that said there would be $0 revenue.

Now I invest in software / Internet companies the vast majority of which don't make any money in the first year or two. But - the principle scales beyond year 1. I can't remember a company that I have been involved with that had an accurate view of its revenue dynamics until at least the third year. The vast majority of companies were well below their initial expectations (which isn't necessarily bad); a few demolished their expectations (on the upside.) In either case, the conclusion is the same: Your Revenue Forecast Is Wrong.

I'm not suggesting that the right answer to the question posed above is don't bother with a financial model. Rather, I'm suggesting that your financial model is going to be incorrect and a credible early stage investor is going to know that before you sit down with him. It's actually a good test if your potential investor immediately digs into your financial model before understanding how your actual business works it might be a good signal to you that he doesn't understand how a startup software company evolves.

As a result of my assertion that your revenue forecast is wrong, I'm less concerned about the absolute numbers and more interested in understanding how you think about them. I'm also very interested in how you see the expense side of the equation growing over time since that is the piece you ultimately have control over. However, I don't want to spend any time on this until I understand what you are trying to accomplish with the business and whether or not it is in an area that I believe I'd be interested in investing in. Especially because whatever you have forecast and are presenting to me will almost certainly be wrong, although not necessarily invalid.