“ In 2001, this is not a joke, we were in a meeting with Bill (Gates) and a bunch of the rest of the senior staff, and we said, we made a decision to take the modem out of Xbox. Bill said to us, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. So we had a three-week email debate, and had to go back and have a meeting and convince Bill that taking the modem out was the right thing.”
Soon to Be: "Women: 0%"
I can’t believe anyone would think this would lead to sustainable business:
On Friday afternoon, about 20 bars around San Francisco are set to have special “facial detection” cameras turned on as part of a new smartphone app by Chicago-based startup SceneTap.
The cameras, which are mounted above the door of their client bars, scan patrons’ faces as they enter and exit the bar. The company’s software then immediately determines whether the person is male or female, and counts how many of each are in the bar, divides that by the known capacity of the bar, and then outputs something like: “Crowd: >90% full | Women: 58% | Men: 42%.”
Thankfully I don’t see any good bars on their participation list. (Via Ars Technica)
“ Funny enough, I started my first meetings on the Blade Runner sequel last week. We have a very good take on it. And we’ll definitely be featuring a female protagonist.”
Hampton Fancher to write.
Ignore the IPO noise for a moment: the criticisms, the estimates of earnings, and other buzz. These pale in comparison to Facebook’s largest achievement, which is worth putting into context.
Facebook has organized roughly 1 in 7 people on earth, or 900 million people.
They’ve built a design and interaction system used across the world by a massive amount of cultures. Mandarin, with its 1.1 billion speakers, is the only language or medium with more native participants than Facebook. Other companies certainly fill out this club: Ikea, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, and Apple come to mind. But none of these live so closely to their participants, acting and reacting with them.
You may be over Facebook, but Facebook’s cultural impact has yet to peak. Facebook itself is a tremendous feat of design and engineering, no matter what network is on top in 5 years.
With every Kickstarter, your initial purchase is a story and club membership. Eventually you get the thing you thought you bought.
Networks like Facebook and Tumblr have helped drive demand for stories. With more opportunities to tell stories, we need more fodder. Kickstart sells us these. The watches, iPod docks, comics, and games are secondary.
Everyone who sells anything should take heed. Even NASA.
Buffet’s Media Moves
Buffet is sitting out the Facebook IPO:
“The idea that something coming out … that’s being offered with significant commissions, all kinds of publicity, the seller electing the time to sell, is going to be the best single investment that I can make in the world among thousands of choices is mathematically impossible.”
But Berkshire Hathaway just bought 63 newspapers for $142 million, their second newspaper deal in 6 months.
“In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper,” Mr. Buffett said in a statement. “The many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway” Mr. Buffett had hinted of future newspaper deals at his company’s annual shareholders convention this month, telling investors, “We may buy more.”
As for challenges and changes:
“I don’t know of any business plan that has sustained itself that charges in one version and offers the same version free to people,” he said.
This isn’t presented to slam Facebook, as Buffet’s comments regard the system of IPOs more than Facebook as a company. Rather, Buffet’s moves are important as he’s clearly operating with a horizon in mind that’s further out than most in media.
“ Real estate agent Jeff Appenrodt said a client of his recently was among 51 bidders on a three-bedroom, one-bath Edwardian-style home built in 1903 that was showing its age. The client, a tech entrepreneur, made an all-cash offer 50% over the $849,000 asking price — and got thumped. The house sold for $1.4 million to a rival bidder.”
“ Because of this population distribution, the half of the U.S. living in the largest nine states is represented by 18 Senators. The other half of the country living in the other 41 states has 82 Senators, more than four times as many.”
“ As opposed to Obama’s years of public tiptoeing around the idea that gay people are deserving of marriage equality, Jigga comes from a world where “faggot” is still said as if it’s any other word. Jay’s no stranger to it, either. In 1999’s “Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator 99),” he says, “Faggots wanna talk to Po-Po’s, smoke em like cocoa.” Meanwhile, in a response to Nas’ implication that Jay himself is gay, Jay shot back in “Takeover” with, “You’s the fag model for Karl Kani Esco ads.” He’s referenced Buju Banton’s murder music and has repeatedly used the “no homo” stand-in “pause.”
Rich Juzwiak explains why Jay-Z’s support for gay marriage is so important.
Here’s what Jay-Z said:
It’s no different than discriminating against blacks. It’s discrimination plain and simple…I think [announcing support of gay marriage is] the right thing to do, so whether it costs [Obama] votes or not — again, it’s not about votes. It’s about people. It’s the right thing to do as a human being.
Huge. (Via Gawker)
