Friday, March 19, 2010

Facebook And Twitter Suck When It Comes To Searching Their Own Sites


(This was left as a comment to a blog post by Mashable's Adam Ostrow.)

What I want to be able to search on Facebook is all the updates on my wall, and my friends' walls. An update is the Facebook equivalent of the tweet. The update is the building block. Each update has its unique URL as it should. Why can't I look up individual updates, however far back in time?

That is the same gripe I have with Twitter. Why can't I locate all my past tweets? Let alone that of everyone else. They misunderstand real time. Real time is not just now. Real time also is real time as it happened two years ago. All tweets old and new are relevant.

Both Facebook and Twitter have been trying my patience on this one.


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Thursday, March 18, 2010

AnyClip.com: Second Thoughts

Image representing AnyClip as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase

The AnyClip Launch PressLift

I am having second thoughts about AnyClip, but not in the traditional meaning of the phrase. I blogged about AnyClip not long back (AnyClip Is Live Now), and already I have enough new thoughts - a second train of thoughts - about the site that I feel like a new blog post is warranted.

You can't ask for traffic, and then get it, and then complain you have too much traffic. The "fail whale" might be part of doing business also for AnyClip, but the longer the site is on the better. Take care of the server issues best you can. That is basic. Expect traffic. Fulfill the basic promises made.

Add more movies. 2,000 movies are a good starting point. But God knows more than 2,000 movies have been made. Feed the monster, I mean the database.

The embed feature is a powerul one. Every blog and site that is embedding AnyClip video clips is giving AnyClip much needed Google juice. Those are one way inbound links. They matter. And so the embed feature has to "simply work," Google's phrase about their forthcoming Chrome OS.

Social media matters, but of course. There are studies showing Facebook has overtaken Google itself as the most visited site in America. If I find a clip on AnyClip that I like and want to share, I should be able to share easy. Over time there has to be a sense of community at the site itself. As to how you go about it, there are a few different ways. The Disqus integration is a very good idea. A lot of people link their Disqus profiles to their blogs and Twitter accounts. That gives you the option to get to know them better. That builds community.

New movies get made. They put out trailers before they put out movies. AnyClip is like saying no movie ever made has to go stale. The best movies have a timeless quality to them. If you are going to watch four minutes of a movie that you end up liking, you might as well rent or buy the movie. AnyClip's SceneSearch tool is a major discovery engine.

The Netflix, and Amazon integrations on AnyClip are a great first move. I wonder if it would be possible to have those integrations to also be part of the embedded clips. So someone watches a clip at my blog, and they get to go straight to Amazon to buy the movie without having to first go to the AnyClip page.

The summary statement would be, the fundamentals are already in place, just go ahead and deliver on your basic promises. Scale with gusto.          



My Comment At TechCrunch

The movie studios are going to have to come around, and come around fast. AnyClip's promise is no movie ever made has to go stale. Otherwise movies go stale. AnyClip for the movie studios is like being able to run trailers of all their movies all the time. And once you grab someone's attention, that is one step closer to them buying or renting that movie. It makes absolutely no sense for the movie studios to drag their feet on this one.

This reminds me of Nepal, the dual citizenship issue, and FDI, Foreign Direct Investment. Issuing dual citizenship to the Non Resident Nepalis is the single best thing Nepal could do to bring in FDI to the country, and FDI is the single best thing that could happen for Nepal's economic growth, but the morons will not do it. The politicians in Nepal have been dragging their feet on the dual citizenship issue for years now. Ignorance can hurt self interest. Defies logic, but happens all the time.

AnyClip is in the movie studios' self interest.

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Broader Broadband


Fred Wilson: The National Broadband Plan

My comment to Fred's post that I left at his blog: Of all the blog posts I ever read at this blog, and I have read my share, this post really stands out for me. This topic gets me like nothing else in computing.

"....another 500mhz of hiqh quality spectrum to be used for "terrestrial broadband services" over the next decade...."

This is miserly. This is not going to cut it. TV needs to take second place to broadband. This is not some tertiary concern. This is the number one - Numero Uno - thing America needs to do to become a post-industrial, information age economy. The government just needs to get out of the way. The government selling that spectrum space to a handful of old companies is the government getting in the way. The American people need to revolt like they revolted against the British.

The nastiest part of that phrase is "over a decade. This has to happen in 2010, not in 2020. The jobs are needed now, "look around."

Broad Broadband
Silicon Valley Vs. New York City
Fred Wilson's Insight

John Chambers: Why America Needs A National Broadband Plan
betanews: FCC: Wireless Spectrum 10X More Valuable For Wireless Broadband Than For TV
Steve Cheney: Why Google Broadband Finally Makes Sense
CNet: TV Broadcasters Prepare For Spectrum Battle


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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Bollywood Needs To Conquer


New York Times: Bollywood Soars Toward Hollywood: Indian cinema has an annual estimated audience of over three billion worldwide. South Asians are avid consumers, as are viewers in countries as varied as Germany, Malaysia and South Korea.
Pictured above, Amitabh Bachchan, the most recognized face on the planet.

Indian cinema went global long before Indian technology did. It is only a matter of time before Indian cinema cracks open the US market as well. It will be less a feeling of conquest, and more of globalization, of cross-pollination. It is a good idea for Hollywood to go to India, and for Bollywood to come to America.

Pictured below, me during my high school days and after, imitating Amitabh's hairstyle.

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Monday, March 15, 2010

AnyClip Is Live Now

Sex scene from A Boy and His Dog

I just received an email: AnyClip.com is now live. Nate (@innonate) and his team must be proud. A lot of people know Nate as the guy who runs the NY Tech MeetUp. But he is at heart an entrepreneur with one foot clearly in the venture capital world. The NY Tech MeetUp podium just helps him dig deep into those two worlds. What I personally find most appealing about him is his strong belief that New York City can make it on the tech map of the world. (The State Of New York Technology) It also helps that we are both hard core Barack people. (Reshma For Congress)

I enjoy movies. I like watching clips from here and there. This site looks custom made for someone like me. I hope they keep adding movies to their database.

I have been pushing for Morgan Grice to be part of the AnyClip team. I think she has watched every movie made in the past 50 years, and she was Editorial Chair of The Harvard Crimson. She is not a coder, but AnyClip has plenty of those. I doubt she is outmatched in movie passion by anyone currently on the AnyClip team.

The site is in beta. It will go through a few iterations. A welcome jack up in traffic is going to create obvious server issues, for one.

One strong point AnyClip has is this is not a startup hoping to monetize at some future date. It is already closely integrated with Netflix and Amazon. It is a good idea to have a business model from day one.

Nate, my man, you are going places.


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