STIRR Alumni in the News!

Congrats to the following STIRR Alumni for making some noise this month!

(STIRR 1.8) has received $1 million in funding


(STIRR 2.3) is profiled in a NY Times story, "Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching"


(STIRR 1.1) is profiled in a Forbes story, "The Ebay of Loans"


(STIRR 2.1) is profiled in a Forbes story, "Send in the Clouds"

How fast if your finger?

Over on Gizmodo, I saw this post that looks at reaction time. I was 0.219 seconds on all three trials (male/athelete/non-gamer/not tired). I am bookmarking the test so that I can re-test myself after a couple of glasses of wine. How fast are you?

Why Cisco is buying WebEx

I heard about this on the morning news and then read Arrington's take on it. This was my comment there:

Simple: Cisco is buying a channel for its TelePresence system. It is all about hardware and displays.

I later clarified more:

Sorry…it’s all about Cisco harware and their HD TelePresence displays. Once you’ve used their TelePresence system you’ll understand. It is like using broadband for the first time…once you’ve tasted speed, you don’t want to go back to dial-up.

We will soon all have HD displays in our living rooms. Cisco already owns a good chunk of the set-top market with their acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta. Throw a camera in that and voila…a home-basedTelePresence system (a few years away yes…as the home broadband speeds are not yet up to snuff).

The WebEx acquisition simply gives Cisco more sales inroads into companies that desire a better experience.

[Update: Cool! BusinessWeek's blog, "The Tech Beat", has listed my TelePresence channel strategy idea as a possible reason.]

STIRR Sydney 2 is on March 29th

The Aussies are back at it! On March 29th, they'll have their second STIRR event in Sydney. Will you be down under at the end of the month? If so, head on over to Ivory. Presenters lined up (so far) include: Omnidrive & Rave About It. Good luck to organizers Martin Wells & Mick Liubinskus.

STIRR Founders Mixer 2.3 (Palo Alto, CA)

The next STIRR Mixer has been announced for March 21st at Illusions in Palo Alto.

Presenters this time include:

• Buxfer, Ashwin Bharambe, Chairman
  
• Criteo, Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, CEO
• Metaweb, Jamie Taylor, Minister of Information
• Wrike, Andrew Filev, Founder

We may add one or two more before next week. Hope to see you there!

Thanks to SUN & their Startup Essentials Program for being our sponsor!

Not too shabby for a year of work

I ran www.stirr.net through this little wizard and voila...

My Site is worth
$47,689

How much is your site worth?

Korea...you are so far ahead of us!

In a couple of weeks, a researcher from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Innovation will be dropping by IFTF for a visit. When I went to their site, my eyes were drawn to the center of the screen, "Introduction Moving picture". I went to click and then did a double take...a 350Meg download. I sighed and canceled the download while a colleague said, "in Korea, that would take about 15 seconds to download to a cell phone."

If anyone with patience decides to download it...please let me know what it is! Thanks!

The Future of Education

Wow...dive into the Fischbowl blog and you'll find many interesting things, such as:

• the past
• the present
• the future
  

Apple still has cool ads!

I still think that the iPhone will flop in 2007, but while watching House tonight, the iPhone "Hello" ad sure did impress me.

Sean Ness 2007 Tech Forecasts

Back on Jan 31, I was on a panel for Silicon Valley Web Builder and provided some 2007 forecasts (see below). How do you think I'll do? We'll see how I do by the end of the year!

10. The $100 Laptop is a non-starter
9. Reputation (RapLeaf) becomes a valuable online currency
8. OpenID is embraced by a "big player"
7. Twitter mushrooms as its commercial uses are adopted

6. Mobile walled gardens persist

5. Red Herring enters the magazine Dead Pool

4. A news story causes the Internet to crash

3. Second Life peaks and slowly dies off

2. A presidential candidate drops out of the race early due to a scandal hyped within the Web2.0 community.

1. The iPhone flops

Here's a PR 2.0 interview of me talking about item #1. (Fast forward to 3:07 left to see me.)

[#10 - Nov 26 update - WSJ calls the OLPC a failure]

[#8 - Feb 6 Update - Microsoft will support OpenID]

[#7 - June 7 Update - Techdirt explains how to make twitter useful for business]

[#6 - April 18 Update - Orange and Vodafone cripple Nokia's flagship [N95]]

[#5 - June 7 Update - Um, can you figure out how to subscribe from their site?]
[#3 - June 7 Update - Sure looks like they have peaked to me!]

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).