Immigration Limbo

Image via Wikipedia"I will prepare and perhaps my time will come."
- Abraham Lincoln

I think I am about six, seven months from my green card. Too bad they have not started work on immigration overhaul in DC yet, or they might have heard a mouthful from me already.

I can't incorporate a company. The last time I raised 100,000 dollars - for my last startup - I put the money into a bank account run by someone else on the team, an American citizen. That was not my first choice.

I have figured if I can raise some money now, I can always get someone else to do the incorporating and arrange for them to get me as the first hire at 99.9% ownership. That would be a $10,000 value for them for the simple act of incorporating.

This is such a fucked up situation to be in. This is not about not having a good idea, this is not about not having the smarts, this is not about not being able to build a team, this is not about traction or product-market fit, this is about stupid paperwork. This is a shame.

Domo: The Pandora of People?

Only the other day I said for me I wanted a FoodSpotting for people. FoodSpotting says it is the Pandora for food. And looks like I have come across an app that is the Pandora for people. But I'd not call it the FoodSpotting for people. I have a feeling that will have to be a Hashable feature. Domo's dipping into Facebook is cool, but it should also allow for the kind of people you end up meeting. An ideal app would let you meet people and rate them. That might start a few fights, at least some hurt feelings, but nothing that a tight privacy setting can not solve.

Towards A Secure Twitter Experience

Hack Of A Job

Discussions In Google Docs

This is Google "getting" social.

Netflix And Original Programming

Image via Wikipedia

GigaOm: For Netflix, a Risky Bet on Original Programming: Netflix is reportedly in talks to score its first original programming, bidding against cable networks like HBO for the rights to a new project called House of Cards that would star Kevin Spacey and be directed by David Fincher. ..... ected, that still put the price tag for a single series at about half the amount that Netflix has been paying for entire libraries of long-tail content ...... Instead of relying on premium cable networks like Starz and Epix to stream their on-demand content, or waiting years for popular titles to fall out of the pay TV window, Netflix bet big on a deal with indie studio Relativity Media that would give it exclusive access to the indie studio’s movies. It looks like that bet will pay off, as The Fighter, with Academy Award winners Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, will soon appear exclusively on Netflix, rather than going to one of the cable networks....... The overwhelming sentiment in Hollywood seems to be that Netflix will get the scraps that no one else wants. “What used to be called ‘reruns’ on television is now called Netflix,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago. Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes has been equally dismissive in the past, saying that he believes Netflix will be a place for low-value content that networks and studios can’t syndicate anywhere else...... One of the arguments that cable networks and distributors like to make about the effect that Netflix — and online video in general — has on the broader TV ecosystem is that by disrupting current business models, Netflix is essentially destroying the engine through which high-quality content is created. ..... could be good news for the future of what we think of as “TV programming.”

Netflix always needed to be about original programming. Netflix needed to be about indie movies. Netflix needed to release movies. As in, you make a movie, and you release it on Netflix. Like Apple has the iPhone app store, Netflix needs to become that place where you place your movies once you make them. If people watch your movies, you make money.

The idea of having to beg old movie houses to run their old movies has been weird. First of all, they don't seem to get the technology. Should be the case that business models chase technologies, but instead we have technologies on a lookout for business models.
Image via CrunchBase
Better late than ever. I am so glad Netflix is getting into original programming. This is the way it always needed to be.