Visualization! Design and the Elastic Mind
Came across this interesting exhibition at the MoMa in NY! The on-line site is cool - I imagine the actual exhibition is too. In addition, came across some very cool visualizations developed by IBM at many eyes. It is fascinating to see how visualization of data impacts the level and speed of comprehension.

pic: exhibition catalogue

LTE: Competition for WiMax
Saw this article on GigaOm on LTE (Long-Term Evolution) - 4G for wireless. While WiMax has generated a lot of buzz, LTE is gaining significant momentum. Several large global carries across the globe are testing it. A couple of highlights:

• It supports 100 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up (WOW!)
  
• Both CDMA and GSM standards converge in one - the device manufacturers love this as they can focus on a single technology. Verizon has already decided to dump CDMA for LTE (article). However, WiMax threatens to send us back to two standards.

EMC expands Services in the Cloud
The infoworld article describes all the components of EMC Cloud Computing strategy.

EMC Fortress is the brand name which EMC SaaS offerings will be marketed under - the framework powers security, access management, billing services and so on for those SaaS offerings.

The offerings include:

• Mozy Enterprise (backup solution)
  
• PI (Personal Information) control product that EMC just bought

The article has positive things to say about Nirvanix, a cloud storage service optimized for media.

Use doubleTwist to free your media
Came across an article describing doubleTwist. It is a Windows desktop that allows you to move your media between devices and share it with friends. I will surely be trying this!

The most interesting part is that this is developed by a Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon), who at the age of 15 in 1999, helped crack the encryption codes that prevent the viewing of DVDs on computers. He was charged but eventually acquitted.

C-Net article

Clouds are bursting and it is raining Servers
Rackspace is getting into the game with Mosso. Looks interesting. Here is a GigoOm article on the topic. The interesting part is that they host the Microsoft platform: IIS, .NET and MSSQL. Another company mentioned in the article: Joyent.

I am very bullish about hosting our infrastructure in the cloud. The recent Amazon S3 failure highlights the need for risk mitigation: load balancing across two providers? - just like we buy network bandwidth in a data center. I hope someone is thinking about this!

Dark Clouds
Amazon S3 had a major failure (Nick Carr, GigaOM)
Nick Carr is predicting that EMC is jumping into the game of Storage in the cloud.

Something is up at Microsoft!
The blogosphere is abuzz with an upcoming announcement from Microsoft on Feb 27th.

• Scobleizer (seems to have real insight that he cannot disclose)
  
• TechCrunch (mostly a re-hash of the above article)
• iStartedSomething (lots of guesswork and retractions)
  

I usually do not subscribe to rumors, but this one seems to have some legs!

Craigslist has competition: Kijiji
Saw this article on techcrunch. I had not heard of this eBay site before. Clearly eBay is serious about this space (they also own 25% of craigslist).

Fast Company: The Media is Social
It must be a bubble - Fast Company and Industry Standard are raising their head again :-) For some time during the last bubble, I read the two magazines (and Red Herring) on a regular basis.

According to Fast Company, they are going to shake things up again by adding social features to their site.

Starting today, we become the first major media website to tackle the following problem: Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself?

We think so. If done right. That's what we've been thinking about and working on at FastCompany.com for more than a year now.

Read the full article!

Guy Kawasaki's Alltop
Interesting way to launch a new site: article on web strategist. Another blog post on the topic. Reader comments are interesting!

Update: another link, and a quote:

.. Our market is people who don’t know what NetVibes and iGoogle or My Yahoo are ...

Technology development has become simple enough for an interesting idea to be launched in just a few hours. What will the future be like?

"White Label" Social Networking Sites
A few days ago, I had listed 3 platforms (Flix, Ning and KickApps) that allow you to build your own social networks. Well, the market is very crowded. Here is blog post from Jeremiah Owyang that has a much more comprehensive list.

Low startup costs have filled every corner of the social web software with hundreds of players. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I guess a large volume of small amounts will be lost!

Books by the Drink
Just read an interesting article in WSJ about the test program from Random House to electronically sell a book (Made to Stick) by the chapter. Each chapter sells for $2.99 and is delivered on Adobe Digital Editions. I will try this.

I do feel that with recent advances (Kindle from Amazon) a lot of people will start reading electronic versions of books. It is hard to replicate the experience of reading a book on paper but, for some books, eBooks will be the right solution.

Market Research Wiki
Came across this article on EContent about ReserachBuy.com. I found the associated research wiki the most interesting. I would not trust the information to make big bets but it is a great place for interesting high-level information.

Getjar: Cool site for mobile applications
Just saw this article on GigaOm. It is a destination site for mobile application developers. Here is how it works:

• You develop an app at post it at Getjar
• The community downloads and tests - gives feedback
• You enhance your software and post it on Getjar for free downloads

Accel just invested 6Mil in this company!

Location Based Advertising
Interesting article on GigaOm. We have been waiting for this for a long time with not much uptake. However, agree with Om that this might finally happen. In addition to most of the points made in the article, I feel that the uptick in Smartphone sales with an internet connection is a key driver for this market.

Here is an article in NY Times describing a CBS program.

Article in the Post reporting strong focus on the topic from Google at Davos. This is why Google is bidding for spectrum.

One of my 2007 CES posts with some companies I had seen in this space.

Also, a local company, Acuity, that I plan to check out.

Build a private Social Network
Saw a nice article on TechCrunch describing the rise of Flux (I like their logo) as a Ning and KickApps competitor. Plan to try and use one of the three to build a network for the Washington Area CTO Roundtable. Another tool I am hoping to try is Freewebs.

Interesting Infrastructure Company: Liquid Computing
My friend Alan pointed me to this impressive concept of putting together a server from components in real-time.

Here Comes another Bubble :-)