LinkedIn, the social networking site for business professionals, has raised $12.8M in venture capital, according to VC pavement pounder Venturebeat .  If you use LinkedIn with any frequency, you're probably accustomed to getting updates and notifications when your peers and colleagues have updated their profiles, taken a new job, changed their current positions inside the company, etc. So, you wonder, how do they make any money off that?  Certainly sponsorships and job listings help pay the bills, but Marketwatch reported in December... [More]

Tags:  social_networking

You've got questions, Yahoo's got answers. Yahoo!'s senior VP and GM and dictator of Yahoo's recent Panamian project Steve Mitgang spoke here at the SEMDirector conference this AM, explaining that Yahoo! Answers had definitely answered the question as to whether or not it ruled the online Q&A roost (Google conceded defeat and left the online Q&A party a few weeks ago). As it turns out, Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton is listening.  According to Bokardo.com , the former First Lady posed a question on Yahoo Answers... [More]

Tags:  golf yahoo google social_computing

I arrived here in Torrey Pines on Wednesday PM and checked in at the Hilton La Jolla and politely asked the nice lady behind the desk where the Buick Invitational golf tournament was being played.  She pointed over my shoulder.  Duh, it was directly behind the hotel. Ah, the place's I'd rather be indeed. After check-in, I walked outside on my first-floor balcony and saw players walking down the Torrey Pines South Course, and figured it would be a good time to stretch my jet-lagging legs.  I approached one of the volunteers and... [More]

Tags:  second_life golf davos

Speaking of legends, I just saw a blog post from USA Today's Kevin Maney announcing the fact that Irving Wladawksy-Berger was retiring from IBM.  I can finally tell a story I've been personally embargoing until a day like this.  But before I do, let me just say this: Were in not for the guidance of Irving and his compadre, John Patrick, I don't think there would have been an IBM "e-business," and wecertainly would not have witnessed the collective embrace of theInternet that changed the face of our company and created such... [More]

Tags:  lou_gerstner ibm_history irving_wladawksy-berger

Wow, now that was pretty cool. Lotus' special guest at the opening keynote, which you can now watch the replay of here , was Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong ...the first human to set foot on the moon. I'm a big fan of space...some have even called me a space cadet...and Armstrong's speech was both witty and relevant.  Lotus GM Mike Rodin also spoke about rendering the Office obsolete.  Yeah, yeah, the joke was a little obvious, but it was still funny.  He also spoke about using Lotus tools to help work from anywhere and... [More]

Tags:  golf space search lotusphere2007 web2.0

Fortune's David Kirkpatrick is now on the record about why Second Life ain't no game. It includes a great quote from our own Irving-Wladawksy Berger: "Virtual worlds are where video and VCRs were in the early 1980s, or where the Web was in in 1993." Yeah, Irving, but minus the gopher and FTP.  And the Betamax.  : ) Back in Orlando, Redmonk's Steve O'Grady starts to break down the key Lotusphere 2007 announcements in some detail, including more details and perspective on Lotus Connections and Quickr . Meanwhile, consider the following... [More]

Tags:  lotusphere2007 social_software web2.0 second_life

First, free stuff. CNN is offering up its online video tool, CNN Pipeline, for free today.  Smart, considering tonight the president delivers his State of the Union address.  Get your free bits here . Second, if you're travelling by air to the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or the Caribbean, whether you be a U.S. citizen or visitor, it's time to start carrying that passport.  If you're travelling by land and/or sea, you won't need your passport until 2008.  Speaking of CNN, they've got the details on these new regs here.... [More]

Tags:  social_computing web2.0 lotus second_life lotusphere2007

Details are up about the Lotus Connections social software technology. Lotus Connections has five Web 2.0-based components, including "Activities," "Communities," "Dogear (social bookmarking)," "Profiles," and "Blogs." The press release does a good job of articulating the value of the new product, so I won't belabor it here.  Just know that I believe the key word in all this was in the sub-head: " Integrated."  As in Integrated Tagging, Blogging, and Professional Networking Tools." Too many of these technologies for too long have been... [More]

Tags:  lotusphere2007 lotus social_software web2.0

Before I write another word, I want to first send my condolences to all my colleagues in and around Boston, Massachusetts. I know many of them are down in Orlando already shifting Lotusphere into high gear (more on that in a moment).  Getting ready for the Lotusphere kickoff in Florida, many might have missed the kickoff and subsequent nail-biting AFC championship football game being played in Indianapolis.  I'm going to spare you New England fans all the drivel about how it was Peyton Manning's time, and just say that period, end of... [More]

Tags:  web2.0 lotusphere2007 british_premier_league nfl soccer

Thank Heavens for small favors, the Austin ice has melted away just in time for the wicked good football that's gonna be on this weekend, all weekend long. The Saints go marching into frickin' cold Chicago to take on Da Bears on their home frozen turf, while the Patriots travel to Indianapolis for the Manning/Brady showdown.  Meanwhile, across the pond, the British Premier League sees two classic matchups:  League-leading Manchester United (57 pts) pays a visit to Arsenal (42 pts) to avenge their 1-0 defeat to the Gunners earlier this... [More]

Tags:  rss british_premier_league football soccer web2.0

Reuters is reporting this morning that the number of people reading Internet blogs on the top 10 U.S. newspaper sites more than tripled in December for a year ago, and that they accounted for a larger percentage of overall traffic to those sites. Specifically, they cite that unique visitors to blogs sites affiliated with the largest Internet newspapers rose to 3.8M from 1.2 the year before, according to Nielsen/NetRating stats. Surprise surprise, I'm not real surprised by this news, and I think it's quite indicative of the acceptance of... [More]

Tags:  lotusphere2007 blogging media

Looking out at my Austin icicles today, it struck me that this two-and-a-half-day ice storm must have had a relatively significant negative economic impact on the Austin economy.  So I was curious if there's anything a business can do to hedge against such weather. Somebody at CNBC apparently was thinking the same when they ran a feature on WeatherBill.com WeatherBill bills itself as a company that sells "weather contracts" to eligible buyers.  WeatherBill contracts "can be used to protect [your] business from adverse weather... [More]

Tags:  weather online_markets innovation

If you haven't gotten your new Second Life avatar all spiffied up yet with some new digital threads, you got "noob" written all over you. Whatever you do, don't go to virtual Amsterdam. You know that saying about if you don't know who the sucker in the room is it's probably you? That would be you the virtual Second Life noob in virtual Amsterdam. Make sure you order mayonnaise with those virtual fries. You can not stand out at least that much. No, you gotta get yourself at least a little 2L haute couture going on. And forget about all... [More]

Tags:  second_life digital_media virtual_worlds

How about those Golden Globe awards? I'd like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for honoring Texas-native Forest Whitaker for "Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama," for his performance in "The Last King of Scotland." Very cool. I haven't seen that flick yet (it's on my increasingly long "movies to see" list) but I've been admiring Whitarker's work for years, most recently in "The Shield" and "E.R." and he's just a wicked good actor. As to Tom Hanks' paen to the oeuvre and career of Warren Beatty, Hanks was only outclassed... [More]

Tags:  apple golden_globes digitollywood entertainment

Wow. Soccer moms everywhere, beware! Former England football captain David Beckham is coming over to play in les ces Etats-Unis! Apparently, the European star decided to leave Real Madrid and set out for these U.S. shores to play some good ol' American football...err, soccer...with the Los Angeles Galaxy. I don't even want to speculate what the Galaxy are paying him! But Madrid's loss is most assuredly our gain. For American soccer fans, this is the equivalent of someone like Michael Jordan suddenly up and defecting from the Chicago Bulls to a... [More]

Tags:  david_beckham apple cisco iphone

Being the technogeek that I am, I have a WinTV card hooked into my now-ancient (circa 2001) IBM NetVista PC, which is also hooked up to this newfangled Google Cube USB radio device I got as a tchotchke at a recent Google-in-a-Box seminar here in Austin. I use the NetVista as a glorified computer-ish TV set so that I can monitor breaking news from CNBC (have I ever mentioned I'm also a newsgeek?) I bring all this up because this week I've been closely monitoring both CNBC and CNN this week to get a read on their breaking CES and Macworld... [More]

Tags:  macworld convergence ces

It's pretty clear judging from all the coverage coming out of MacWorld yesterday that the new Apple iPhone is going to save the planet...or darn close. I'm as big an Apple fan as the next guy (I'm blogging on a first gen MacBook), and after watching Jobs' keynote replay earlier today and watching some liveblogging on Macrumors, the new iPhone is definitely wicked cool (especially the patented "Multitouch" capability). However, being a longtime early adopter who has been burned on any number of first gen devices, I believe I will safely wait... [More]

Tags:  apple innovation

I was still trying to put Tony Romo's dropped hold for the field goal that would have taken the Dallas Cowboys forward from NFL Wild Card Saturday's playoff round, when I awoke today to find that the only dead birds coming out of this weekend could be found here in downtown Austin. The Austin-American Statesman blog led with this story about the city closing Cesar Chavez to 11th Street overnight (and, apparently, now on up to the Texas Capitol) because of a dozen dead birds having been found in the downtown Austin area. I tell ya, it's a little... [More]

Tags:  apple macworld dead_birds austin ces2007

I have just returned -- mostly in one piece -- from my white-less Christmas and a celebratory Feliz Ano Nuevo in San Miguel de Allende , Mexico (about 12 hours by bus from Nuevo Laredo on the Texas/Mexico border), where I spent some quality -- and mostly -- unconnected time. The last and only other time I visited San Miguel was back in December 1993. As I walked the streets of historical San Miguel, unleashed from my digital umbilical cord, I had some time to reflect on how much had happened and changed over the past 13 years, and also to... [More]

Tags:  internet_history innovation

T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even my mouse. The stockings were hung by the ThinkPad with care, In hopes that Virtual Santa soon would be there. The children were nestled, all snug in their beds While visions of MySpace danced in their heads. And mama with her Razr, me my Treo tap tap, We'd shut down our browsers for a long winter's nap. When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I fired up Google Maps, to see what was the matter. Away to my Windows, I flew with a crash, Tore... [More]

Tags:  happy_holidays

Google recently released its most searched terms of 2006, and C:NET has their run down here. "Bebo," "Paris Hilton," "MySpace," "World Cup," and a few select others were near the top of the list, and not necessarily in that order. Yahoo's top 10 peaked with "Britney Spears" at number one, followed shortly by "WWE" -- that would be, "World Wrestling Entertainment." Yes, it is the likely beginning of the end of civilization as we know it, but what are you going to do? Meanwhile, back at the Web 2.0 ranch, Richard McManus of Read/Write/Web has... [More]

Tags:  bebo web2.0 search predictions paris_hilton

I was really happy about being named Time's "Person of the Year." Andy Warhol promised me my fifteen minutes of fame a long time ago, but I was starting to give up on the notion. In case you hadn't heard, over the weekend Time named "You" as its 2006 "Person of the Year." Which, of course, includes me. As Time wrote in its "POTY" piece, this whole people-as-publisher Web Two Point Oh thang is all "about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about... [More]

Tags:  innovation second_life virtual_worlds web2.0

TGIF. What a crazy week. Between Clay Shirky taking the bloom off the budding Second Life rose, and Yahoo and IBM announcing a free enterprise search tool, and Jib Jab releasing their newest episode whose-title-will-go-unnamed-in-this-upstanding-IBM-blog-like-thing -- suffice it to say, it's a humorous look back that was (mostly...as Keith Olbermann pointed out last night, there's still 5% [and 10 shopping days left]) 2006 -- well, I'm just a tad bit breathless. First, Shirky's post on "Valleywag," entitled "A story too good to check," had a... [More]

Tags:  shortcuts second_life happy_holidays podcast google

One of IBM's emerging Web 2.0 technology solutions appeared on the Doppler radar screen late last week at AccuWeather, Inc. AccuWeather will be using our new QEDWiki enterprise mashup maker to empower employees and customers alike to create widgets and other do-it-yourself applications -- in essence, allowing them to create their own customized weather forecasts. Such reports could include current everything from forecasts for over 2.7 million locations worldwide to real-time Local Storm Reports, as well as Doppler Radar with StormTimer... [More]

Tags:  innovation weather_forecasting web2.0

Once again, everyone's in Paris mais moi...c'est la vie! Specifically, they're off to Le Web 3 , the third Les Blogs conference. I suspect the first night partay is kicking off about now, but watch out for that Web 2.0 bubbly -- it can go to your head and fast. Although my corporeal sense will not be in attendance, I'll be following the action from afar, particularly now that reports indicate Internet advertising is growing at a much faster clip in the United Kingdom than here in these United States. Wherefore goes the Web communications... [More]

Tags:  europe web2.0 leweb social_computing

I don't know if it's because all the stars are in alignment or what, but there seems to be a whole lot of space-related news that has harmonically converged here on planet Earth over the past several days. First, there was the announcement that the U.S. will be returning to the moon sometime in the next 15 or so years, with the idea of setting up a permanent outpost, a sort of Martian base camp that will help us prepare for someday catapulting some willing souls for the year and a half ride to Mars. (I hereby officially volunteer for the first... [More]

Tags:  astronomy space_exploration marvin_the_martian

Monday morning's are for spinning. Head spinning, that is. I was surfing the Internets early this am, basking in the glow of my Dallas Cowboys victory over the New York Giants yesterday afternoon (How about that new Dallas kicker?!), and couldn't help but be overwhelmed by all the digital media and marketing news. First, on the search front, Baidu.Com, China's top search company, announced it will be taking on Google and Yahoo, with plans to enter the Japanese market (which is several times larger than China's search market). Closer to home,... [More]

Tags:  marketing digital_media

Lotus Notes/Domino blogger extraordinaire Alan Lepofksy is in Paris (be sure to check out his excellent nighttime photos of the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower), and I'm not (come to think of it, another cadre of current and former IBM friends o' mine are in Paris as well. What gives?! Everyone's off to Paris but moi? You all better behave yourselves, and you know who you are!) And yes, I'm going to say it here: Happy Birthday, Lisa (and no, I won't reveal what birthday year it is. My momma raised me better than that.) Well, c'est la vie,... [More]

Tags:  web_metrics digital_media

I am so over this "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" thing. C'mon, do we have to trivialize something as important to our national psychology and economic vitality as holiday shopping is and reduce them to mere broadcast TV package slogans? And if so, what about the rest of the days of the week? They're probably feeling a little bit left out about now. How about "Titillating Tuesday?" "Whackamole Wednesday?" "Trashy Thursday?" Regardless of how you refer to them, the early reports are in from Nielsen/Net Ratings' Holiday eShopping Index, an... [More]

Tags:  holiday_shopping t.m.x._elmo