Gripes and Grins

Grin: Threadbox acquired by MySpace

A colleague sent me this link a few minutes ago.  It seems Threadbox was acquired by MySpace.  Per my earlier post, I'm a huge fan of this service and looking forward to seeing what MySpace does with the technology and the team.  A huge congrats to Michael and Ben.

Grin: Three new ideas in media discovery that you need to follow

I'm back from my annual bout with blog fade.  Several startups have asked me to blog on their product ideas, and I'm sharing three ideas that you need to be following -- KoiTunes, Threadbox and Zoodles.  

Zoodles is close to my heart.  Early child development and education has been a part of my identity for the last two years thanks to the popularity of SmartyCard.  Last summer I met with Zoodles founder Mark Williamson, whom I'd met three years ago when he was heading product marketing at Dash -- a networked GPS that was acquired by RIM.  Zoodles was in an early stage of development when I first saw it last summer, but I was in love with the idea of Zoodles and hopeful that Mark could put together a round of financing and execute well. About a month ago, Gina Aumiller let me know that Zoodles had closed financing, and I had the distinct pleasure of looking at Zoodles again. 

Zoodles is important because it's tackling the idea of co-browsing while focusing on early childhood development and education.  If discovery is the new black in Silicon Valley, Zoodles is the equivalent of the "it" designer in youth fashion. 

From my post in SmartyCard, I watched users skew younger and younger, and the issue of how to design for co-browsing loomed large on the horizon for the last two years.  Zoodles doesn't shy from the browser -- a simple AIR client install, and you're off and running. 

In Zoodles, you have a very clean registration, and a very simplistic GUI that beckons the parent and child to click and explore.  Children see the boxes and the mix of content gets them excited.  Parents still control the session, but after a few simple mouse clicks, children start to understand the arrows and they begin to explore.  And, the right content is already there.  It's a great first effort.  I'd love to see parents drag and drop content into their feed, sharing content they feel appropriate and crowd-sourcing more great independent productions for kids.  But, I don't want to overlook what Zoodles has already done because creating something so simple is very difficult.  Check out the screens below for example art, but make sure you get over to Zoodles.com if you have a child ages 2-4. 

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Threadbox is very emotional for me as well.  While I'm very hopeful that my good friends Michael Cerda and Ben Dean will "win" with their attempt to re-imagine email, the emotions I'm feeling right now are more about pain and remorse more than anything else.  In May, I adopted a corporate deployment of Gmail and I've been breaking office furniture ever since. 

You might know that I played a big role in rethinking email at Stata Labs (acquired by Yahoo!), the company that launched "the Google of email" even before Gmail.  So, to watch Google put out such an inferior product with such crappy conversation rendering drives me absolutely insane.  I HATE gmail, about as much as I LOVE Threadbox -- which is to say a lot. 

I started using Threadbox (then CC: Betty) last fall in Alpha, but I was able to use Threadbox at work last March and April during the open beta.  With some 100M power emailers in the known universe, people are universally lost in their email -- they can't find things because integrated search is weak in webmail products.  But, in the last 15 years, a new Internet discovery metaphor has emerged to compete with search-- human association is the new dominant discovery mode thanks to every social network invented (yeah, I'm including eBay). 

What I love about Threadbox is that the default views are threads -- email threads -- and clicking on a person/contact lets me see all of our conversations, private or public.  Threadbox is perfect for me because when I'm digging through thousands of opened and unopened emails, I'm looking for a specific email from a specific person, I'm not just browsing emails.  That's what busy people do -- they dig through email with a purpose, a sense of urgency, and, for me at least, Threadbox is the natural UI for today's power emailer.  For an example of Threadbox organization, see the screenshot of threads between me and Threadbox founder Michael Cerda.

 

Music has been close to my heart forever.  Be it discovering rare wax, chatting up A&R guys at SF music venues or listening to new music podcasters like CC Chapman and Julien Smith, I'm always interested in finding out what other people are listening to.  More importantly, I'm always interested in knowing what three other people are listening to -- those people are Richard Brewer Hay, Matt Marenghi and Tom Damico (founder of KoiTunes).  I've basically figured out that all other "friends" with recommendations aren't really for me.  There are a few folks with good musical taste overlap, like Chris Hanaka and Laurence Scot (of The Famous), but with all my connections to the music industry, I really need a musical filter that just tunes into what Matt, Tom and Richard are sampling and buying. 

I worked with Tom at WebTV years ago.  Tom was the BD head in charge of integrating search into the first Web and TV shared experience to find commercial success.  Somehow, it's appropriate that ten years later, Tom is still focused on media discovery.  Only now, Tom is fully leveraging the twitter channel for microblogging of music recommendations-- one of the most popular subjects in the "twitterverse".  

You need to sign up for Koitunes second beta now.  I used Koitunes earlier this Spring, and Tom's brief beta revealed enough promise and generated enough excitement to impress during some Seattle area startup events.  Koitunes was like tuning into a Pandora or LaLa that my friends were tuning for me.  I could even listen to their recommendations through Pandora or LaLa, which expedited buying, which is nice.  The GUI was a work in progress, but I think Koitunes has massive potential -- especially when extending to services like NetFlix, GameFly or even Amazon. 

The basic point of all of these startups is that discovery and human recommendations are important again. With all of the world's content suddenly accessible, opinions and influence are paramount.  Search sucks again.  Search companies are great at indexing and advertising, but they're losing ground to social nets in media discovery.  Apps have been democratized via iTunes and Facebook, so big market opportunities are interesting to me right now.  I can't think of bigger opportunities than email, music and education, so pay attention to Threadbox, Koitunes and Zoodles.

Grin: Mocking Glee

The media industry is a self-propelling, derivative-based industry. Therefore, nothing succeeds like making fun of success. Glee is the bane of man's existence right now. It's a musical television series focused on teens in Ohio.  Yeah, I know, it's like the producers were high and playing madlibs when they wrote the treatment.  Glee is proof that even the jackasses that produced "Cop Rock" can have a second act. 

When she can wrestle away the remote, Glee is the uber-annoying alternative to reality TV franchises in my house.  I don't want to throw away more cut-rate snark on this series, but maybe I'll throw a few brain-dead insults in Glee's general direction.  The cast of Glee is a waste of blood.  There.  That's all you're going to get from me. 

For mankind, the only upside to Glee's success is the mocking of Glee via the Interwebs.  Enjoy, men.  Enjoy.

http://www.babelgum.com/5001744/glee-60-seconds.html

Edit note: Sorry for the link, embed broke.

Grin: Happy Birthday Wichita Rutherford and the legend of Van Heffer

Happy birthday Wichita. 

Several years ago, I was working on a startup that was aggregating new-and-popular podcast producers into a network of shows.  The job was interesting, and the personalities were bizzare.  The earliest pioneers in podcasting came from mainstream media and the fringe of otherwise-impossible-to-characterize media.  After several months of operations, wherein most of the pioneers were signed or alienated, I thought I understood what motivated artists on the fringe of celebrity to produce content.  I'd been working with Madge Weinstein, Dawn & Drew, Human Numan and the infamous "poopcaster", Chris Rockwell, who was the first podcaster to hate the medium, get thrown-off and reinstated to iTunes.  Just when I'd thought I'd seen it all, Chris "Ferf" McIntyre, the founder of Podcast Alley, gave me the phone number for Wichita Rutherford, a "blue grass legend" that managed to get interviews with the biggest recording artists in country and blue grass, as well as an assortment of NASCAR racers.  I listened to his shows, and then I placed some calls.

Over the next month, I enjoyed some of the weirdest phone conversations of my life. All of my assumptions about the known human psyche were systematically annihilated in a series of phone calls.  I would hang up the phone after calls and laugh, cry and then stare off into space.  Sometimes a talk with Ferf would bring me around, sometimes not. I couldn't say for sure if Wichita was for real or an amazing method actor, but I couldn't stop talking to this guy... totally bizarre conversations. 

And, then this video surfaced.

PodShow never did work with Wichita Rutherford, but I have never stopped being a fan of Wichita Rutherford and the legend of Van Heffer.  Bluegrass covers of Ozzie by an Elvis impersonator is perhaps the funniest idea ever considered.  And, after I watched the video, I believed firmly that he and his troupe would one day be on Comedy Central, as much as the title of the video posted to YouTube implies.  

There's one particular line from the "turd wrangler" scene in the video that sticks out for me. 

"When the going got creepy, you called Wichita."  So true, so true.

Why TV Elsewhere is so much more interesting

The point of this post and the clip is not to say that Americans are dumb.  I mean, that would be a little cliche right?  Well, this over-priveleged-asshole is drooling over English TV again after finding this clip on smirking chimp. Why? Because the content is so rich and focused.  Seriously, when I was traveling to the UK a lot in 06 and 07, this is the kind of TV that I would watch in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep. 

Forget the super-stimulating business and political content in the clip. I recognize that not everyone graduated PoliSci and went to work in high-tech or business for that matter. Forget the awesomeness of a clip where UK bankers are referring to Goldman Sachs as "scum". Think about TV as a medium for creativity, entertainment and innovation. Think of Endemol -- the Dutch/British lab that creates reality TV franchises frequently imported by dim-witted Hollywood execs. Think of the amazing UK television series creating commercial successes (the office) and influencing whole generations of American productions (The Young Ones). TV in the UK reminds me of what could be here in the US, but is not, because TV (the business of TV) is racing to the bottom rung of intelligence (along with the brand marketers supporting bad programming).

So, last night, as I watched a bit of the biggest loser, I wretched a little bit at Jillian's tired act and the awkward product placements. And, honestly, this show deserves my support for the good that it might do in inspiring obese Americans to get healthy...but the execution is just so poor that it is getting really hard to watch. How bad is American TV if I have 800 Comcast digital channels, including 50 HD channels, and TV can only hold my attention for an hour on Thursday night (NBC) and Sunday Night (A&E)? Literally, TV was so bad last night that I couldn't stay awake.

As I crawled into bed and reached for a book, my wife looked up at Jay Leno and said, "really, Jay has Ewen McGregor on and he is asking about accents and fried Mars bars?". Yeah, really. TV is that bad. I'm going out tonight.

New blog, more drivel

I'm setting up a new shop.  Previous blogs at AO (bloomba guy) and PodShow (podpimp) went awry.  I took a bunch of heat for my posts on the Yahoo! acquisition of Stata Labs.  And, I think I'm done with the whole PodPimp schill identity provided by Adam Curry, et al.  Also, I'm done ghost writing for other execs.  I'll keep my shit right here for the time being.

I'm going to blog about product and marketing snafus -- something more punitive than what goes on at Media Guerilla.  I'll also share some nuggets on startup life, maybe I'll drop a few more names than what gets posted at Cerdafied. 

Here is my first punching bag: Starbucks. 

I'm an addict to caffeine. My coffee maker at home costs more than most people's cars.  FYI, I'm embarrassed about that -- not proud at all.  I've done some rough math and figured out that I spend some $3,000 a year in coffee shops.  Cafe Nero and the dollar-to-pound exchange is seriously inflating these figures, but I think you get the point.  I've tried every imaginable "Harbucks" drink and every imaginable permutation of "special request" for a drink. 99.99% of the time, the well-oiled machine that is Starbucks and their "partners" and baristas spits out my hit of caffeine with the cold efficiency of a Ray Bradburry short story.  I used to think that you couldn't mess with these guys.  I used to think Schultz and his generals could even improve upon the most precise legions, like the US Army.  That is until I discovered the drink combo that grinds any and every Starbucks to a halt....Ladies and gentlemen, here is Starbucks' Achilles heal, an order combo that is destined to unravel the juggernaut that is Starbucks (not really). 

"I'll have two vente iced coffees, one sweetened with room, one un-sweetened with soy milk". 

Say it slowly if you want to.  But make sure to have the camera running.  The quiet mayhem that ensues  is hilarious.  I've tried this in no less than 30 Starbucks locations across the US.  The order usually results in a huddle, followed by a managerial consultation, and finally a request to restate the order.  Restating the order multiple times is almost always required.  In one particular Starbucks in Palo Alto, I've had to restate the order six times.  Try it.  Regardless of your taste for the beverages, the confusion, the hand wringing, the shear exasperation is delightful. 

If you want a bonus delight, go ahead and ask the manager why this order is so hard to fulfill.  The explanations range from, "unsweetened iced coffee is technically an 'americano'..." to "Unsweetened with soy is usually served without ice". At any rate, the explanation usually trails off.  If you feel especially prickish, ask for the explanation to be repeated.  I did that once.  The poor cashier looked like she was about to cry -- total frustration and helplessness.  I felt bad, but only for a second. 

Let me know if you find any other mayhem-inducing order combinations at Starbucks or any other International blight, er, uh retail chain.   

You can always CallMe.