THON raises more than $5.2 million for the kids

Another year, another awesome amount! Over the past weekend, Penn State students again hosted their Dance Marathon event and raised $5.2 million! Here's a link to a video of the end (when the total amount raised is announced) and yes, that is a packed Bryce Jordan Center

Some fun facts:

• Years in existence: 35
• Lifetime amount raised: over $46 million
  
• Students involved: 15,000
• Dancers: 700
  
• Where the money goes: The Four Diamonds Fund
• 2000 families helped since 1972
• ~90 new families helped each year

THON was a big part of my Penn State career (I danced three times: 2000-2002 & served on the Overall committee as Student Advisor: 2003).

Interested in donating? You can do so here.

Joost beta...rocks!

Last week I applied to be a beta tester for Joost. It is so refreshing that someone else besides Apple can design an interesting media experience. I'm looking forward to the day when they have real content (re: Penn State football, episodes of LOST & The Office, etc.) posted. In the meantime, I'll enjoy National Geographic content.

Jersey Boys: Go see it!

Cammy and I went to see Jersey Boys at the Curran Theater on Valentine's Day. It was great. Want some major points in your relationship? Take your girl to see it! Tickets here.

Layout changes

I decided to add my Google Reader shared items to my blog and I needed to update the template layout to do so. This coincided with my laptop losing its ability to connect to my wifi router. After rebooting, I lost access to my old template (I can't find it now if it does exist), so lost some of the 3rd party code...I'll slowly add it back when I have a chance.

One week until my trip to paradise! (with my mom!)

About 18 months ago, my mother called and asked if I would like to go on a trip with her. When I asked her to clarify, she mentioned that she *thinks* that she won a trip, but wasn't quite sure, but it seemed on the up-and-up. She received an official looking package that said that she had won a trip for two to a resort in Fiji and encouraged her to call ASAP to finalize the awarding of the prize. I asked her if it came from a place where she had entered a drawing or sweepstakes (one of her passions is entering as many online sweepstakes as possible...and she has been quite successful). Her response: yes. [I do remember grinning.]

Now...the trip is only a week away and I cannot wait to go! Sure it will be a bit odd to be with my mom at a traditional honeymoon destination and also sad to be away from my girlfriend for 9 days. But I could not pass the opportunity up.

She had won a trip for two to one of the world's most exclusive /secluded destinations in the world: Turtle Island, Fiji.

While my mother is receiving her daily massage, my days will be spent scuba-diving, hiking/jogging around the island, snorkeling and wining and dining each and every day/night. I just hope I come back having gained less than 5 pounds!

Mom...this is one of the best gifts I've ever received! Thanks so much for sharing it with me! When I return in March, I should have some nice photos/stories to share.

10-day weather forecast on Nadi (the capital of Fiji) vs 10-day weather forecast in Smethport (my hometown).

My Adsense earnings are not paying my rent...so sad

I am up to $4.54 in lifetime earnings! Only $95.46 more to go to receive my first check...which should happen in September of 2016, give or take a half a year. Rock on! I wonder how many sub-$100 amounts Google has sitting in its coffers? Anyone know?

Web 3.0 love is spreading!

O'Reilly's Brady Forrest is pimping the Web 3.0 shirt at last night's Ignite Seattle event. Thanks for spreading the Web 3.0 love Brady!

Wikipedia "occasional" word of the day: puppy breath

Since my last "occasional" word of the day post was of the animal genre, something at work made me continue on with the trend.

A colleague has a new puppy named Lucy and has brought it in the past couple of days. We noticed the ever present puppy breath when she opened her mouth and it caused me to wonder two things: where does it come from? and why does it go away?

Naturally, I knew where to turn. I present to you today's Wikipedia word of the day: puppy breath.

Alternatively, the scent could potentially arise from trace elements or vapors of the milk and digestive fluids emanating from the puppy's stomach up through its esophagus via the natural process of burping to relieve gaseous build-up.

Puppy breath tends to disappear abruptly at about six to ten weeks of age, when it is replaced by the typical "dog breath" of adult dogs.

Since Lucy is no longer in contact with her mother, it isn't from trace elements of the milk...it appears to be burp residue. Sadly...there is no Wikipedia link (not yet!) to dog breath, but "new car smell" is there. (Bonus day...two wikipedia links!)

How do you feel about puppy breath? (Count me: a fan!)

STIRR Founder's Mixer 2.2!

Wow...are we growing or what???

At next week's STIRR Founder's Mixer, Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystem's Chairman/Co-Founder will be speaking about challenges founders face.

This month's presenters (after this event, we'll have had 41 of them!):

• Attendio, Gerardo Capiel, CEO
• Collaborative Drug Discovery, Barry Bunin, President
• Confabb, Salim Ismail, Chairman
• JobCoin, Keith Schacht, CEO

Hope you can make it!

Apple's iPhone will flop

At the Jan 31 SV Web Builder event where I sat on a panel, one of my forecasts was that Apple's iPhone would flop. You can hear my reasons in this PR 2.0 podcast (fast forward to 3:08 left in the podcast for my interview). Anyone out there agree with me? Let's check back on Jan 31, 2008 to see how right I was!

10. $100 Laptop fails. 2.7 Billion cell phones vs. 850MM computers. Growth in mobile is 5Xs that of computers. The $100 laptop target market is the third world. Many in the 3rd world are illiterate (400MM in India)…but they can talk. The $50 cell phone IS the computing device of the future.
9. Reputation becomes important. In Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom, people live in a scarcity-free world. With no need for money, reputation is the currency of choice. Reputation rules on eBay. On Digg. On Google’s PageRank. The time is right to aggregate reputation…show the world how great you are. Rapleaf, the first player in reputation is positioned to do so.
8. OpenID is important. Over the weekend, I counted over 80 websites that I use with that have their own username/password combinations. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has to click on the “forget your password?” link. Only a few dozen sites use OpenID right now. This will change this year.
7. Twitter will be huge. How many of you are Twitter users? Twitter allows you to tell your network what you are doing in any format you choose (web, IM, email, SMS). Likewise, your network can receive this information as they so choose (or not at all). Great for the high school set, but the sweet spot will be for business that adopt this method of communication.
6. Mobile walled gardens continue. This one is so frustrating. I can’t believe that cell phone execs are so conservative.
5. Red Herring dies. The three most time-sensitive businesses are: the military, financial services and technology. Red Herring caters primarily to the latter two. Now…would you rather wait a week for a copy of Red Herring, or read a blogpost tonight on TechDirt or Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed? The magazine dies, the site and events business live on.
4. The Internet crashes. Another terrorist attack, the Larry Ellison/Paris Hilton affair, cold fusion is discovered. Something somewhere happens that causes everyone to stream video from various websites and the Net just can’t handle it.
3. Second Life withers away. Who here visits Second Life on a regular basis? Let’s walk through a scenario…I want to book travel to my friend’s wedding on Oahu in 6 weeks. Do I go onto Second Life and fly on over to the Expedia Island OR do I just go to Expedia.com? Today, Virtual World’s are great for hanging out with your guild…but not for selling IBM consulting services. Watch for Microsoft or Google to create a Virtual World on top of Virtual Earth or Google Earth.
2. A Presidential drop-outs out due to social media. Cellphones, User-generated content, reality TV. It is American culture and one presidential candidate will not survive
1. The iPhone flops. The iPhone. Beautiful isn’t. Everyone wants one. When can we get one? Steve says they’ll sell 10MM in the first year! Guess what? It will flop. Expensive, 2.5G, no removable storage, Cingular only, no developer community, doesn’t work in Japan & Korea, etc. They’ll sell a few MM, but nowhere near 10MM. (This forecast is voided if they open it up to outside developers, move to 3G, make the battery better, etc.)



[Update: Nathan made a good point. By flop, I mean less than 5 million will be sold in the first year...half of what Jobs suggested in the announcement.]

Hey KQED, I'm no longer a free rider!

Only 1 in 9 KQED listeners pledges money to allow the great content to continue on our airwaves. I've been a free rider ever since I arrived in the Bay Area in 2001. I changed that during last night's drive home. If you enjoy NPR as much as I do, please donate! Note that I will be receiving a tasting tour for two at Sterling Vineyards as a bonus gift!