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A New VC Model? — Web 2.0 may not be a bubble yet but there are intriguing, if not troubling, signs that the inmates want to take over the prison. Dave Winer's call to remove VCs from the formula has some merit but it assumes investors in a publicly-traded venture company will have faith …
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VC 2.0 part 2 — First rule: Don't write blog entries so late at night as they end up being cryptic. Sorry 'bout that, Mark. — Here's some additional information on this whole VC disruption thing from my perspective. — I've been doing the VC thing for about 5 years which makes me a complete novice/nobody.

Exploding the conference business — Too many conferences suck. They're too expensive. They are filled with boring panels. They are all about speeches and not about conversation and argument and learning and meeting. They don't capture the expertise of the crowd.

Venture capital didn't create the bubble — Dave Winer is a smart guy, and when it comes to Web 2.0 he's been smart a lot longer than I have — but when it comes to investing and the stock market and venture capital, I think he might be a little out of his depth.

The "ventures" we need... I just read Dave Winer's essay on the future of the venture capital industry. — Ditto. Great insight. One thing before I start thinking, I always thought it was bizarre that entrepreneurs couldn't get funded when they needed it (when the economy sucked …
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Smalltalk Tidbits …

Small ideas, big companies — Turns out in the past hour I've met strategists from eBay, Yahoo, Amazon. They are here to see the small ideas. Some of them are pretty cool. — Here's my favorites of what I saw at the Entrepreneur 27 event that just concluded at Stanford University. — Flagr.
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New Startups and Web 2.0 Products Debut at E27 Technology Symposium
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Entrepreneur27

Patently Absurd — It's the kind of story even a careful newspaper reader might overlook. Tucked at the bottom of an inside page of The Wall Street Journal was a four-paragraph item beneath the innocuous headline: "Pager Maker Gets Patent for E-Mail Delivery."

How to Outwit the World's Internet Censors — When Google announced last week that it would censor its new search service in China, the company became, to many, the latest component in that country's sophisticated system of information control. — With strategies ranging …
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IFTF's Future Now

There's a Popular New Code for Deals: RSS — FOR many people, e-mail newsletters are fast becoming the Internet equivalent of the Sunday paper: compendiums of useful information, often left unread in lieu of life's other tasks. E-mail alerts on travel deals, in particular …

When Terry Met Jerry, Yahoo! — WHEN Yahoo Inc. announced nearly five years ago that Terry S. Semel, then a former leader of the Warner Brothers motion picture studio, would become its chairman and chief executive, the reaction both outside and within Yahoo was not exactly one of wild encouragement.

Dear Google — I'm disappointed in what you did. You, of all companies, should have set the example of 'how to be independent and neutral'. I never thought you would give in to the claims of governments to hide information. What is there left now to be trusted if even search is being manipulated?

Not Just Another Column About Blogging — What newspaper history says about newspaper future. — Six months ago, I stumbled upon a brilliant 16,241-word paper about press consolidation, and it didn't occur to me until this week, while attending yet another blogger conference, how to spin it into a column.

Mash Pit Dallas — What — Mash Pit is an informal all-day hackfest for collaborating on solving human problems with open APIs, open source and web-based technology. — Where — INFOMART 1950 Stemmons Freeway, Suite 2013 (for directions or information call 214.764.1437 or 214.914.9791).

Microsoft acquiring Seadragon Software — Microsoft is acquiring Seadragon Software, a Seattle-based company developing technologies that could be used across several of the software giant's businesses, including Web search, cellphone services, mapping and digital-photo programs.