We spent this weekend in Cape Cod w/ Frannie's family -- her family has been renting the same small cottage by the beach in Truro for 35 years or so, and we spend a lot of time out there in the summer. This year, our old friend Tati introduced perhaps the greatest beach innovation ever. The Waboba. For those who have yet to experience it, a Waboba is a ball that bounces on water. The ball is made of gel, and is wrapped in wetsuit-like material.It's amazing -- so fun in so many ways. We played in a small tidepool, close together. We played in the ocean, skipping the ball, long distance, up, over and across the waves. It seems silly to write a blog post about a beach ball, but this is really something special. Just check out a Youtube search for Waboba to see how people are using it (and how many people are filming it). We had the Waboba Extreme, which sets you back $8.99 . If you're spending time in the water this summer, I highly recommend doing it w/ a Waboba.
I haven't been following the story of the Digg acquisition too closely, and have no perspective on the economics of it, but it does seem kind of awesome in a way. In that, the acquirers of the various parts of digg seem to have each gotten something uniquely valuable (to them) and likely have the potential to do something cool with it. From the TechCrunch story:
According to a familiar source, the Washington Post ended up paying $12 million for the Digg team. Around the same time, career social network LinkedIn paid between $3.75 million and $4 million for around 15 different Digg patents including the patent on “click a button to vote up a story”. Betaworks picked up all the remaining assets today, including the domain, code, data and all the traffic for between $500k and $725k
betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg. Digg is one of the great internet brands, and it has meant a great deal to millions of users over the years. It was a pioneer in community-driven news. We are turning Digg back into a startup. Low budget, small team, fast cycles. How? We have spent the last 18 months building News.me as a mobile-first social news experience. The News.me team will take Digg back to its essence: the best place to find, read and share the stories the internet is talking about. Right now. We are going to build Digg for 2012. More to come…
From an outsider's perspective and without really knowing anything about this deal, it seems kind of perfect. The Washington Post acquires a team who really knows something about being creative with news -- if that works right, then they'll have a shot a solving the Innovator's Dilemma and building something new and disruptive inside their world. LinkedIn, now a for real Big Boy Company, gets to bolster its patent portfolio like all the big boys do. And Betaworks gets to reinvigorate a classic, once-awesome brand, while at the same time, handing their new product,
For the past few months, it seems like I can't read the news without coming across another horrifying story of sexual abuse within "esteemed" institutions. Today marks the release of the "Freeh Report" -- the independent analysis of what happened at Penn State with Jerry Sandusky. The Washington Post is live blogging the report's release here, and the long and short is that it's a scathing critique of Penn State's institutional protectionism at the expense of the welfare of children who suffered decades of abuse. Last month, the NY TImes Magazine ran a cover story on a similar, decades-long history of abuse at one of NYC's elite prep schools, Horace Mann. Similarly, over the past year, it's come to light that a similar story of decades-long abuse by an esteemed football coach, covered up and enabled by the school's administration, took place at Brooklyn's Poly Prep. The messed up thing is that as you start reading stories of institutional abuse like this, the threads lead to more and more and more similar stories. Reading these stories lead me to discover the similarly epic and disturbing
We spent this weekend in Cape Cod w/ Frannie's family -- her family has been renting the same small cottage by the beach in Truro for 35 years or so, and we spend a lot of time out there in the summer. This year, our old friend Tati introduced perhaps the greatest beach innovation ever. The Waboba. For those who have yet to experience it, a Waboba is a ball that bounces on water. The ball is made of gel, and is wrapped in wetsuit-like material.It's amazing -- so fun in so many ways. We played in a small tidepool, close together. We played in the ocean, skipping the ball, long distance, up, over and across the waves. It seems silly to write a blog post about a beach ball, but this is really something special. Just check out a Youtube search for Waboba to see how people are using it (and how many people are filming it). We had the Waboba Extreme, which sets you back $8.99 . If you're spending time in the water this summer, I highly recommend doing it w/ a Waboba.
I haven't been following the story of the Digg acquisition too closely, and have no perspective on the economics of it, but it does seem kind of awesome in a way. In that, the acquirers of the various parts of digg seem to have each gotten something uniquely valuable (to them) and likely have the potential to do something cool with it. From the TechCrunch story:
According to a familiar source, the Washington Post ended up paying $12 million for the Digg team. Around the same time, career social network LinkedIn paid between $3.75 million and $4 million for around 15 different Digg patents including the patent on “click a button to vote up a story”. Betaworks picked up all the remaining assets today, including the domain, code, data and all the traffic for between $500k and $725k
betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg. Digg is one of the great internet brands, and it has meant a great deal to millions of users over the years. It was a pioneer in community-driven news. We are turning Digg back into a startup. Low budget, small team, fast cycles. How? We have spent the last 18 months building News.me as a mobile-first social news experience. The News.me team will take Digg back to its essence: the best place to find, read and share the stories the internet is talking about. Right now. We are going to build Digg for 2012. More to come…
From an outsider's perspective and without really knowing anything about this deal, it seems kind of perfect. The Washington Post acquires a team who really knows something about being creative with news -- if that works right, then they'll have a shot a solving the Innovator's Dilemma and building something new and disruptive inside their world. LinkedIn, now a for real Big Boy Company, gets to bolster its patent portfolio like all the big boys do. And Betaworks gets to reinvigorate a classic, once-awesome brand, while at the same time, handing their new product,
For the past few months, it seems like I can't read the news without coming across another horrifying story of sexual abuse within "esteemed" institutions. Today marks the release of the "Freeh Report" -- the independent analysis of what happened at Penn State with Jerry Sandusky. The Washington Post is live blogging the report's release here, and the long and short is that it's a scathing critique of Penn State's institutional protectionism at the expense of the welfare of children who suffered decades of abuse. Last month, the NY TImes Magazine ran a cover story on a similar, decades-long history of abuse at one of NYC's elite prep schools, Horace Mann. Similarly, over the past year, it's come to light that a similar story of decades-long abuse by an esteemed football coach, covered up and enabled by the school's administration, took place at Brooklyn's Poly Prep. The messed up thing is that as you start reading stories of institutional abuse like this, the threads lead to more and more and more similar stories. Reading these stories lead me to discover the similarly epic and disturbing
The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman
Investing @ USV. Student of cities and the internet.
The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman
Investing @ USV. Student of cities and the internet.
-- which has been awesome for the product so far. So, who knows if this is a good thing, or was a good deal for any of the parties involved. But it does feel like a win on a number of levels.
. It is horrifying to read all of these stories. In every case, vulnerable children (because of their age, ambitions, or personal challenges -- all of Sandusky's victims were from the foster care system), are not only abused physically, but are totally head-fucked, as they're drawn into a complex morass of complicity, confusion, and shame. And to see the constant, relentless pattern of institutions prioritizing their own outward appearances over addressing these criminal and tortuous situations is just so so shameful and sad.
-- which has been awesome for the product so far. So, who knows if this is a good thing, or was a good deal for any of the parties involved. But it does feel like a win on a number of levels.
. It is horrifying to read all of these stories. In every case, vulnerable children (because of their age, ambitions, or personal challenges -- all of Sandusky's victims were from the foster care system), are not only abused physically, but are totally head-fucked, as they're drawn into a complex morass of complicity, confusion, and shame. And to see the constant, relentless pattern of institutions prioritizing their own outward appearances over addressing these criminal and tortuous situations is just so so shameful and sad.
