From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road

Happy Thanksgiving

Now is the time to find something you are thankful for.

Especially now, when the whole world seems to be falling apart.

Stocks are down.

Economy is bad.

Terrorists are still on the loose.

Bankers are still on the loose. Still often wrong. Still never in doubt.

Limited partners want return of capital instead of return on capital.

Nothing seems easy, no breaks.

But you find something to be truly thankful for, you know it is something nobody can take away from you.

And that is important.

Find it and remember it.

Happy thanksgiving.

GM Puts Bailout Banner Ads on Yahoo

Yesterday, I saw a GM banner somewhere on Yahoo finance that said how good and necessary the Auto Industry Bailout would be for America.  I wish I thought to hit PrntScrn so I could show you the ad.

But do you all see how ridiculous this is?

GM has a problem selling cars, so it uses its marketing spend not to sell more cars but the convince people of the bailout.

Does that behavior, simply show why they got into trouble in the first place?

Web 2.0 Summit Day One

The Web 2.0 Summit started today.  If there was one word to describe the overall atmosphere and mood is that it was 'muted.'  Despite the new president, the mood lacked the spark and feeling of being part of something big.  It was definitely there two years ago.  That was then, this is now.  We'll see how the rest of it goes.

I heard one good stat.  Even though the iPhone is only 5% of the smartphone market, it represents 74% of the mobile web traffic.  That's an eye-popping number.  Once again proof that if you design something well, like the UI of the web surfing experience, people will use it.  Welcome to the design era of technology.  AT&T must be very happy with its deal and the data revenues its getting as a result.

Also, Mary Meeker gave her state of the internet presentation.  Lots of good data in there.  Whou would think that Skype is about to become the world's largest carrier?  You can get it here.