NextBlitz

Nutraloaf

According to this article, a prisoner in a Vermont jail, charged in a school murder of two people, had been assaulting guards and decorating his cell with his excrement.  The staff changed his meal to a combination of foods - "nutraloaf" - spinach, bread, beans, etc. mixed into a meatloaf type concoction.  It requires no utensils so the prisoner loses access to tools to store and fling his crap.  It is a full nutritious meal but horrible enough tasting that it encourages the prisoner to behave better.  

The man started a class action lawsuit that will go to the Vermont Supreme Court today, essentially stating horrible tasting food is a punishment, and that he should have had a formal disciplinary hearing before being subject to such punishment. 

Do you and I have a right to tax-payer funded, nutritious, good tasting food?  How many people at your local soup kitchen would take a free serving of nutraloaf every now and then, no matter how bad it tastes?  Already in jail on murder charges, he needs another hearing to determine if his guard-assaulting, crap-flinging behavior justifies the staff feeding him awful tasting food until he changes his behavior?

I see cases like this where the debate is whether the prisoner's rights are being violated.  I usually disagree, but I at least see the legal ground that they are standing on.  This one seems like a good example of the type of mentality and process that makes it harder for prison staff to do their job, easier for prisoners to feel quite at home in jail (and we see by the repeat crime rate that it is not an effective deterrent), and wastes taxpayer dollars in many ways. 

I know when we're talking about rights it is a scary, potentially slippery slope, but there is a cliff on the other side too.   Not saying there are easy answers, but I'd love to hear McCain, Clinton, or Obama talk about these type of issues at less than a 100K foot view.   

March Madness 2008

March Madness is here already.  I'm not sure where the rest of the season went, and saw very few games but I can't avoid looking at the bracket and throwing up some guesses.  Full disclaimer: if my picks are wrong as usual, you'll never hear about them again.  If they are correct, or even close, I'll be sure to link back to them often in future posts.

East: Louisville to upset UNC.  UNC is probably the best team in the country.  But a tough Louisville defense, an off night from the UNC perimeter players, and a little Pitino magic sends the Cardinals to the Final Four.

West: Duke and UCONN would normally be on the can't count them out list.  And Calhoun and K are that good.  But their teams don't seem to be this year.  So have to go with UCLA.

South: Memphis comes out of the South, beating Texas in an overtime thriller.

Midwest: Everyone is picking Kansas.  So I'll go contrarian, and actually I think this could be the bracket to completely fall apart.  Clemson survives.

Final Four: UCLA over Memphis.  Clemson over Louisville. 

2008 champions: UCLA Bruins.

Obama on race, unity, change

Brilliant speech.  I had it playing in the background on my laptop so I got a decent feel for the power of it, even if I can't claim to have heard every word.  Yes, the cynic in me doesn't like that it was not delivered until Barack politically had to deliver it.  But when was the last time we heard something even close to that from a Presidential candidate?

Bear Stearns comes crashing down

This morning's financial headlines are chilling, led by Bear Stearns being bailed out from what otherwise would likely have been a nasty bankruptcy by JPMorgan Chase and the Fed for $236M in JPMorgan Chase stock; about 1% of what Bear Sterns was valued at earlier this month.  And really the valuation is far less than that because the Federal Reserve is guaranteeing $30B of Bear Stearns assets, essentially taking $30B of risk out of the equation for JPMorgan Chase.  And this after all that the Fed has been doing to bail out the investment banks and financial institutions, including a $200B package just last week. 

In other news, oil is over $110, gold is over $1000, the dollar continues to weaken, and the Fed continues to cut interest rates.  Ouch.

It will be a big week for the US stock market.  How much of this was already built in?  Is Bear Stearns an anomaly, an extreme case because they were appararently the most aggressive in mortgage-backed securities?  I suppose one short-term indicator will be the performance of similar businesses today in the market. 

I'm not any type of financial analyst, but this morning was the first time in a long time that I scanned the financial headlines and cringed.  Let's hope this is all much more a reflection of what has been happening than the outlook for what will happen.    

Amazon S3 outage - over

S3 outage over, and we moved back so all LocalReplay photos now available.  So just over four hours with some partial availability on each end.  SLA is 99.9 with partial credits depending on how far below 99.9, so, with this outage alone, Amazon will be on the hook (I believe for the first time since they implemented the SLA, at least on a global basis) this month.

Amazon S3 outage

Amazon S3 is currently down, and has been down since about 6am Eastern.  USA only according to their forums (they also have a farm in Europe, but apparently no failover or replication between them).  LocalReplay photos are on S3, but we do have an internal backup which we have moved to.  We keep the past 5 months or so on the "hot" backup, so photos prior to mid-September will not be available until S3 is back up.

We've been using S3 since the start, and reliability has been very good.  In fact, this may be the first extended outage on S3 itself (we also use EC2 which has had periodic issues, but has still been overall very reliable).

search on Google, shop on Amazon

I Google much more than I Amazon, so it took me until this Christmas to realize that Amazon now owns shopping like Google owns search, and this post on Skrentablog just put the analogy together for me. 

I was looking for very specific sports memorabilia and started with some Google searches.  Not to find the items, but to find the merchants most likely to carry the items.  Few Googles later had nice triangulated list of a few very specific sports memorabilia merchants that would be by far the most likely suspects.  Disappointing results however.  Amazon next.  Results?  A Wal-Mart quantity, Lexus quality list of matches, quickly identified and later easily parsed with all the niceties of Amazon.  It was like looking at three top jewelery stores for a certain type of necklace, not finding any good ones, then finding 30 of them at Sears.  Of course, long-tail items like this has been integral in Amazon's success, but I didn't know it had extended this far off the bookshelf, into just about every retail realm.

Full disclosure: the recent market downturn caused my trade trigger to fire, but I'll soon be  a (small) shareholder again!

2008 Presidential Election

I did a quick analysis after Super Tuesday (numbers are approximations):

Goal was to see how each candidate did in their home state (state where last held office), figuring that people in the candidate's state know the candidate better than anyone.   

I looked at percentage of vote (vs. field candidate running against), and also looked at percentage of overall state population - using the second number as a proxy for how motivated the candidate got his or her state citizens to get out and vote. 

There are other factors in the second metric of course - the state's voting process, Democrats vs Republicans, % of overall registered voters, how much candidate campaigned/advertised at home, etc.  My thoughts after looking at the numbers:

I was very impressed by the numbers in green.  Barack Obama with almost 10% of total population in Illinois jumps out.  Hillary Clinton with 5% in NY - a tough, cynical, smart state that she only recently adopted as her own surprised me.  Both states are historically Democrat states, but those seem like impressive numbers.  I wish I knew what overall percentages past Democrat candidates did in similar situations (two strong candidates) in their home state.  Add it to the late night Google list...

On the other hand, I'm surprised John McCain did relatively poorly in Arizona, a state that he's represented for four terms.  Any insight as to why?

For me, these numbers left me still without a strong favorite.  Even with the AZ numbers, McCain has been very impressive - I usually find myself favoring him, even though don't agree with some of his positions.  Hillary had been my least favorite of the big 3, but the NY numbers are very impressive to me - they certainly know her better than I do, and although I'm far from an expert I thought Obama would do better in NY than he did - is there more to Hillary than I know?  Even if there is...a Bush or Clinton in the White House for the better part of three decades in a Democracy of 300M people?  Obama?  Still an unknown to me - like the small amount about him that I do know - is he ready for what could be a very challenging four years on both the domestic and international fronts?  His relative lack of political experience has both positives and negatives in my mind. 

Johan Santana, New York Mets?

It was like a fire alarm going off about an hour ago, but oh soooo much better sounding.  At least according to innummerable IMs, texts, and emails, and most importantly USA Today, it appears Johan Santana will be a Met next year.  The best pitcher in the world pitching in the National League in a pitcher's park with a championship caliber lineup to put some runs on the board.  Christmas in January and one that really should continue well into next October.  Let's hope this thing gets wrapped up with an official bow very shortly, an orange and blue one.

the new world order?

Parag Khanna writes in The New York Times Magazine how the world is shifting to three fairly equal centers of power: China, Europe, and the US.  I'm generally skeptical of our ability to predict the future based on the past, but Parag's post is more than that and very interesting. One part that caught my eye (my bold):

"When Tata of India is vying to buy Jaguar, you know the landscape of power has changed...Second-world states won’t be subdued: in the age of network power, they won’t settle for being mere export markets. Rather, they are the places where the Big Three must invest heavily and to which they must relocate productive assets to maintain influence."

First of all, Tata (via one-time India state owned VSNL) bought Teleglobe (once part of state-controlled Bell Canada) which merged with ITXC Corp (the USA pioneer for worldwide VoIP networks that helped foster the forces that shaped deregulation in places like India to begin with).  I worked for ITXC then Teleglobe then VSNL so saw first hand how ITXC helped link the new world, and then was integrated into the new world order (not in a bad way, ITXC's technology now powers one of the world's largest voice networks).

And I think Khanna's  "age of network power" line refers to what Friedman and others have been saying as well.  Try to imagine the last 300 years without oceans, with software integrated supply chains, and with most of the world having access to mobile broadband Internet connections.  That's where we are headed.  I don't know what that means, but scenarios like Khanna describes from a geopolitical perspective are interesting to consider.

creative capitalism

"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well" was the theme of Bill Gates' presentation at the World Economic Forum today (more here in the WSJ). 

It is a topic I think about often, but usually conclude that capitalism, even "creative capitalism" is not the answer to the social problems that Gates is concerned with.  Capitalism optimizes capital.  It doesn't necessarily optimize distribution of capital.

However, I just thought about it a different way: does capitalism optimize long-term capital? 

The time parameters that bound the optimization equations (aka decisions) of capitalism are generally relatively short-term, because our forecasting ability is usually not good enough to try to optimize for the long-term, and sometimes we (individuals, businesses, etc.) have no choice but to optimize for the short-term (due to short-term capital and cash flow needs etc.).  Fortunately, often the aggregate of the short-term decisions is also near optimal for long-term results as well, because the efficiency of capitalism drives us to constantly recalibrate.

However, that assumes a somewhat steady-state model.  A gradual evolution type model.  What about severe, chaotic events?  A punctuated equilibrium model.  Terror, war, worldwide plagues.  Of course capital imbalances are not the only factors behind these types of events, but has the world gotten to the point where modern day capitalism accentuates the imbalances of capital to the point where the probabilities of these terrible events is significantly greater? 

If so, then the short-term type optimization equations that drive pure capitalism may not optimize long-term capital, and that means that "creative capitalism" may be a part of the answer.  Said another way, capitalism is not part of the answer unless increasing capital at the poorest extremity also means increasing overall long-term capital.  Note: not saying we don't need to address social issues if it is not economically optimal, just saying creative capitalism can't be the solution unless the optimization goals of capitalism are not compromised. 

Of course, even if we conclude creative capitalism is a part of the answer (needs far more thought and modeling), the issue becomes how to impose long-term capital optimization into the well-oiled cogs of capitalism without breaking the machine.  Food for thought.

P.S. couldn't help it and Googled around a bit and found this interesting post from Dave McClure at Master of 500 Hats that proposes creating asset classes to in effect introduce these long-term variables into the equations (if I understand his post correctly).  I don't see exactly how that would work right now, but it is very interesting and definitely worth reading.

Salisbury snow

Ben and Bailey are enjoying every centimeter of a rare Salisbury, NC snow.  In the few years we've been here, it seems like we've only gotten a dusting or two per year, but fortunately they usually arrive during the night, giving Ben a chance to get up early and enjoy it before it melts.  Ben has always been a snow bird, even up north in the real snow when he was young, and this year Bailey was on his heels out the door, and doggedly tried to keep up with him, struggling in Ben's (still too big for her) snow wear hand-me-downs, and mittens that would fall off with every handful of snow.

Cash for clicks - the new media model or a stopping point?

A (relatively) old idea for a new year as Gawker Media will pay bonuses to its writers based on hits (announced on Valleywag, a Gawker media blog). 

While I think the old media model is breaking down as Nick Denton (Gawker's overlord, as depicted by Valleywag on the left) suggests, is the real transition to a straight revenue share between writers and the publisher, rather to this (interim?) step? Valleywag describes a system in which there is essentially some middle steps to make earnings a function of ad revenue, but do we need all the middle steps? Are the middle steps in the best interest of writer, publisher, and reader?

Some advantages of a straight revenue share:

1. A straight revenue share is the most direct and transparent business process.  This should always be the goal from a business perspective, although it is not always achievable.

2. Ad revenue, while mainly driven by hits, is also dependent on the content that is driving the hits, so a revenue share would be less prone to encourage writers from practices that may be good for hits, but not for ad sales, e.g., in Scott Karp's words: "The downsides of this approach are obvious — the incentive rewards content that is salacious, titillating, slanderous, nasty, etc. — anything that appeals to the base interests of a mass audience. It rewards gaming of social news sites..."

3. Hits, while the best current metric, is not a great metric going forwards.  Articles read in RSS-type feeds will only increase over time.  Ditto articles that are read somewhere else other than the central location (as articles become displayed on sites in which they are the most relevant, which is not always the original, central location).

A disadvantage:

1. Headaches that the publisher may not desire: determining the initial revenue share for each writer; recalibrating over time; being more transparent on revenue generated.

A wildcard:

1. How will the relative leverage of publisher vs content creator (writer in this case) change over time? The writers gains leverage as it becomes easier for them to directly monetize their own content.  The publisher gains leverage as the amount of content out there becomes so huge that the value of the brand and marketing of the publisher in bringing eyeballs to the writer increases.

It is easier right now to do the hits based incentives, and easier usually prevails for good reason.  Longer-term though I think pay per hit is a stopping point in the transition to straight revenue shares.

2007

I've ignored NextBlitz way too much in the second half of 2007 as LocalReplay has dominated my time.  I'm not even sure if I'll have time to sneak in an obligatory 2007 review or 2008 prediction type post later today, so for now I will substitute with a link to some of the top 2007 local sports photos uploaded to LocalReplay.  If this is the last NextBlitz post of the year, then best of wishes for everyone in 2008, especially to our small in number but large in every other respect group of people that have stuck with NextBlitz through the thin posting for too much of 2007.

Mitchell Report

1. It is not just the responsibility of MLB, it is the responsibility of the players.  Like it or not, fair or not fair, being a role model to millions of kids is implicitly part of their job description (that doesn't mean they have to be perfect role models, but does mean that they need to be accountable for actions that impact millions of people).

2. The NFL gets a free pass because they've had steroid testing in place longer than MLB.  They shouldn't.  Arguably, the NFL policy is just as weak as the MLB's current policy, missing a greater percentage of players that are users than MLB does, and imposing weak penalties.  When NFL players are caught, it is swept under the rug by the NFL and their media, almost to an astonishing degree.  Shaun  Merriman was the highlighted NFL player in my son's most recent SI for Kids magazine for example.  Any Barry Bonds sightings?

3. Given that over a year and (millions?) of dollars went into a report that would have been a failure for Mitchell and Congress if it didn't find much, it does not appear that they found much.  Can't claim I've read it, but scanning the media accounts that are slamming MLB today, they are not pointing to much.  Not much hard evidence, not too many names that hadn't been rumored previously, and a low overall percentage of all-star type players that you can point to as example of steroid improved careers.  Almost certain it is a lesser percentage than the NFL without researching it, and the NFL didn't undergo a Mitchell Report.  Yes, MLB has a steroid problem that has to be addressed.  No, the Mitchell Report didn't tell us much more than we already knew, considering all that went into it.

4. Selig wants a tougher policy (now he does anyways).  He'll use this as leverage with the Player's Union, and get something out of it.  That's good.  The tougher the policy, the better for everyone, including the players. 

no, we don't need a division one college football playoff system

Update: The riddle below was premature as it assumed LSU would not leap Georgia, but they did, so the riddle now defaults to the standard yearly BCS selection riddle.

Riddle: how can you finish second place in your division, not even make your conference championship game, and then skip right to playing in a national championship game that you'll probably win? 

You get as many guesses as you want but can't ask the BCS or Georgia. 

how magical is the blue circle going to be?

Google announced that "My Location" is now available on many smart phones.  Start the mobile Google Maps version and enter "0" to get your location circled on a Google map on your mobile device.

Didn't work for me tonight ("location temporarily unavailable"), but, unless I'm missing something, Google's release implies the mobile carriers are constantly passing Google the user location data from their towers (triangulation data rather than GPS data).  If so, that's a HUGE implication.  Font size 56-type HUGE.  Google is touting this as a way to find out where you are, but there are many applications that Google could support in the future  now that it seems like they are getting the data from the mobile carriers to at least triangulate user location. 

The easy example that comes to mind is one that I've been thinking about for a long time - the pizza scenario.  I'm traveling in some city and Google combines their 411 service, this location info, and my personal preferences to connect me with the location of my favorite pizza chain that is open and within walking distance.  Not there?  Auto-connect me to my second favorite pizza chain that does meet my parameters.  Still no matches to my preferences, or I haven't entered my preferences?  Connect me with the local pizza chain that is bidding the highest for my "search query".  AdWords for local mobile search.  Huge.   

This has the potential to be the beginning of the future of local search, an area that is ripe for companies like Google to do what Google did to computer browser based search not too many years ago.  Huge. 

And, as huge as local search is, it may be the tip of the iceberg.  With a bit of cooperation from me, Google could basically know automatically where I am 24*7, the best way to pass me information or communication requests, the best way to respond to my info or communication requests, and the best way to intermediate the data flow between me and the rest of the world (all of which are based mainly on where I am, what I am doing, and the capabilities of my online communications device...all of which are very obtainable in a mainly automated manner, especially as items like online calendars standardize and become completely interoperable...and that's without even considering potential data from Google Open Social compatible social networks because then this post gets way too long and more far-fetched).

Google only announced the first paragraph of this rambling blog post, but they did title their announcement "New magical blue circle on your map".  Because they intend to do all of these things and many, many more with that little circle, and make it part of the Google magic?

Disclaimer: it is getting late and I've had a very long past few days.  If I missed something in the Google announcment or in my excited rambling, please let me know.

Verizon's walled garden opening up?

When you've invested billions of dollars into a network, partnerships, systems, processes, and people to support a walled garden, how long does it take to open up the garden, and what does the garden look like after the fact?  Verizon appears ready to find out, or they are at least ready to start the PR parade.

I share some of Om's cynicism, but regardless of Verizon's motives and intentions, Verizon seems to realize at least to some degree that Internet pervasiveness has brought us to an inflection point in just about every industry/product segment in which walled gardens keep more people out than they keep in. 

A good litmus test to see how Verizon is going to approach this?  Let's see which comes first:

1. Articles about the millions of dollars of deep packet inspection and payload-based billing systems that Verizon is going to incorporate in order to "manage" their soon to be "open" network.

2. Articles about third-party mobile devices that interop with Verizon's network, using CDMA for voice when necessary, and using unrestricted IP to place VoIP calls using third-party solutions when more appropriate. 

Meebo test

Meebo, famous for their web-page embedded multi-client (AIM, Yahoo!, etc.) interoperable IM product, also has what appears to be a cool meeting room or chat type product.  Basically the same technology but presented differently.  Probably been around forever but first time I've seen it.  It appears you can instantly create these rooms, even with a video window to show and discuss different videos on, and embed them on any site (as a Flash object) that will let you.  So, this is a quick test as one interesting application would be blog post specific chat rooms, especially if they are truly dynamic and people can enter in video snippets to discuss:

(Update: I took out the code for the Meebo chatroom, but it worked very nicely)

Android

An Android rather than a Gphone?  Yes, Google's "phone" is actually an announcement of an alliance to build an open mobile operating system.  The OS is Android and the alliance is the Open Handset Alliance. 

Can't drool over its features and functionality like an iPhone, but Android promises to become exactly what many of us were hoping Apple was going to announce before they announced the iPhone.  As Marshall at Read Write Web wrote, for all the "wow" everyone was hoping for from a GPhone, this is probably a much smarter move.  I'd go a step further - it is definitely, definitely a much, much smarter move.  We didn't  need another great phone - we need a widely supported and available open mobile OS that supports voice amongst other applications - and Android could be it. 

great college football season won't end with a championship

Appalachian State started the year of the upset with their landmark win over Michigan, and teams like Stanford remind us each week that anything can happen in college football.  Actually, that's not true, the BCS system means we need to add a critical caveat to "anything"...anything other than a division one national championship game can happen in college football.

John Feinstein - one of the best sports writers in the country - described the BCS debacle very well in The Washington Post earlier this week, and describes a solid solution. 

Google AdWords

We just launched LocalReplay.com a few months ago and are just now experimenting with Google AdWords.  AdWords are the ads that show to your right when you Google something (interesting, surprisingly had to explain that to quite a few people over last couple weeks, more on that later). 

First impression: what a cash cow for Google.  We bought a keyword in a certain market for .10 (meaning we pay Google .10 for each click we get on that ad).  Got some views and some clicks on our ad.  Next day the minimum was up to .20.  Within the week, the minimum was up over $1.00.  10x in one week just from one additional advertiser (us) in one market?  Still need to test some more, but sure seems like it (no other new advertisers showing up; order and frequency of original group hasn't changed).  I have a small amount of Google stock, and am always impressed by their numbers, but experiencing it first-hand really makes those numbers ring true.

Second impression: what a cash calf for Google.  Discussing this with people that are not in related businesses, many asked what AdWords were, and few understood how they worked.  Most of these people work in businesses that advertise elsewhere, primarily old media, e.g. paper Yellow Pages.  So this is actually a cash calf - still many years to grow despite their current ridiculous numbers - how long before all of those people understand AdWords the same way they understand the Yellow Pages today?  And it is easy even for a layman to envision many other ways for Google to use AdWords, which means they have innumerable options that they are analyzing.

Third impression: this isn't an immediate need for us, but we're eventually going to need to automate our AdWord buying.  Not to mention other similar products.  Other than "outsourcing" our advertising campaigns to an SEM company (not going to happen anytime soon; we're a three-person start-up), are there solutions that automate the buying process across the different products/services/platforms  (Google, Yahoo!, etc.)?  One strategy, one budget, (x) marketing campaigns on (y) different products.  More on this later.

Washington Post revenue share with external blogs

In this blog post from Editors Weblog. Jean Yves Chainon describes several examples of the mix between the newspaper and blog worlds, and does a nice job outlining some of the potential ramifications. 

The most interesting example cited:  The Washington Post added a sponsored blog roll, sells ads on the linked blogs, and then splits the ad revenue with the bloggers.  That's the first time that I've seen a newspaper act as an aggregation point and distributor of local ads for local blogs.  Part of the transition of a newspaper to a community hub.  The transition that surviving newspapers will make now or not survive. 

So the Washington Post delivers more news to their readers, almost certainly bringing in some experts on niche topics that improve the breadth and depth of the Post's local news coverage, while at the same time becoming a middle man between bloggers and advertisers.  Very, very nice.

In this blog post from Editors Weblog. Jean Yves Chainon describes several examples of the mix between the newspaper and blog worlds, and does a nice job outlining some of the potential ramifications. 

The most interesting example cited:  The Washington Post added a sponsored blog roll, sells ads on the linked blogs, and then splits the ad revenue with the bloggers.  That's the first time that I've seen a newspaper act as an aggregation point and distributor of local ads for local blogs.  Part of the transition of a newspaper to a community hub.  The transition that surviving newspapers will make now or not survive. 

So the Washington Post delivers more news to their readers, almost certainly bringing in some experts on niche topics that improve the breadth and depth of the Post's local news coverage, while at the same time becoming a middle man between bloggers and advertisers.  Very, very nice.

Amazon S3 SLA

Amazon S3 is a great service that enables companies to store data on Amazon infrastructure and access it via a web services interface.  You get the benefit of only paying for the storage capacity that is actually used/accessed, and the ability to very quickly scale up without storage for the Internet. 

The primary drawbacks are you don't have the control that you do if you own the infrastructure, the ability to tweak performance, and you need to trust Amazon's reliability.  Amazon partially addressed the reliability question by announding an SLA for their S3 product yesterday.  The SLA itself is decent and will give some companies more confidence in using S3.  In our case, we didn't need the SLA - it was cheap and easy to test and we were satisfied enough with our testing to launch LocalReplay on it in June.  Reliability has been terrific in the months since then.  However, it is still good to see the SLA.

 

What else would we like to see?  A persistent storage model, more control over where our data physically goes (so we can deploy an architecture in which backups are not susceptible to the same events that might cause a failure of primaries), and some options for better performance (speed).

We are believers in using cloud computing and cloud storage for most applications.  It is far more efficient for most applications and in the long run the greater efficiency will mean that the providers can continue to make it more reliable and continue to improve performance.  At least, the providers that are doing this the right way, and Amazon is certainly one of them.

HealthVault - hopefully step one

Healthcare, like education and government, is an immense area that has been relatively untouched by the Internet and the capabilities of today's software.  Too much bureaucracy, red tape, politics, and a lack of change agents.  But it looks like that will change soon.  Microsoft is rolling out a personal health record solution (HealthVault), and Google and Cisco are apparently not far behind, according to this Steve Lohr article in The New York Times.

I cringe when I see studies on drugs, treatments, diseases, nutrition, etc. that cite results from a few hundred not-random-at-all people, or a test group of rodents.  Meanwhile we are accumulating years of real data on billions of individuals that is mostly unused.  Not just data from sick individuals or people with certain genetic combinations - the groups that contribute the vast amount of data that we do have - but also the healthy individuals with the same genetic combinations or variables that today we assume *must* cause the issue in the other population.

Microsoft doesn't solve this.  Nor Google or Cisco.  But this is potentially a step in the right direction, and the first steps are always the hardest to take.  Next steps?  The data needs to be archived in a non-proprietary manner, so that any web service can grab it, and any system can query it.  All data needs to be archived, even the data that we think is not relevant today.  Of course HealthVault doesn't exactly sound like an open system, but easy to see why Microsoft chose that name.  Let's just hope it is only step one and the vault will be open to all.  I can electronically get plenty of data about your PC without knowing it is your PC; it doesn't have to be any different for health care records.

web evolution

Jason Calcanis posted the official definition of web 3.0 last night.  At least that's how his blog post was titled.  The post itself was light, the title probably tongue in cheek.  But it provoked some good discussion - a sign of today's world when an interesting few word title usually creates more buzz than a long, well-written blog post. 

Even if we are to define web 3.0 at this point, and we're implying that it is a true paradigm change, then let's please not just add one to a label (see Cisco Telepresence instead of videoconferencing 3.0). 

The title did catch my eye and I clicked the first blog linked in the Techmeme group and found a gem from Redeye VC, The Implicit Web.  The implicit web discussion is a long one, but Redeye VC does a great job with a few examples of painting the picture with a few concise strokes.  Here's one:

If a user joins Facebook today and wants to complete their personal profile, they get presented with several boxes to fill out. However, via the Implicit Web, a user should be able to tell Facebook to:

• check Apple (or Rhapsody or iLike) for their Favorite Music
• check Tivo (or Comcast) for their favorite TV shows
• check Netflix (or Flixster) for their favorite Movies, and to
• check Amazon (or Half.com) for their favorite Books.

Why should users be forced to re-create data that already exists? Talk about a waste of time.

I think the web is still an infant, but have little doubt that the implicit/semantic web is going to be the next important step.  Programmatically mining, aggregating, interpreting, and correlating the data that we build on the web each day, and then abstracting it for us so we can provide minimal but critical inputs that enable the data to be utilized to our advantage, and enable the interpretation and correlation algorithms to continually improve.

1.0 games

A weekend of wins in Florida, a bit of breathing room, and the Phillies losing yesterday so that last night's Mets loss didn't cut into the lead should have allowed the Mets to regroup and come out tonight and blast the Nationals.  Not so.  A 9-6 Nationals win with the bullpen again throwing batting practice, and Wags again doing his best Benitez impression.  Coupled with a Phillies win and the Mets lead is down to one game.  Four games to go in the regular season, all at Shea.  Four games to go in the entire season if this keeps up.  But I still think the Mets will be playing in October and we know the postseason can bring out the best in a team, even a team that goes in struggling.  Ya gotta believe.

1.5 games

So I just peeked at the MLB scoreboard with some trepidation.  I try not to do it until I'm done with my work for the night, because it is distracting when it displays scores that I don't like to see.  And lately I haven't been confident.  Sure enough, there were the lowly Marlins coming from down three runs in the ninth to tie the Mets and beat them in extra innings.  And the resurgent Phillies gaining another game by beating the Nationals, cutting the Mets lead to 1.5 games.  1.5 games!

I still believe in this Mets team, but this September swoon is starting to look like a train wreck.  Meanwhile, the team from the city with the second place complex, Philadelphia, is looking like a legitmate first place team. 

The Phillies knocked the Mets off the tracks with a four game sweep in late August, and then dealt another blow after it looked like the Mets had started to regain their winning ways, sweeping the Mets again in three games this past weekend.  After the August sweep, the Mets showed the heart that I know this team has, sweeping the nemesis Braves in Atlanta, while the Phillies dropped consecutive series after the Mets sweep.  But after this latest sweep, the Mets have stayed in the gutter.  Errors.  Lack of clutch hits.  Poor pitching.  More errors.  And then tonight. 

It doesn't look good.  It looks downright awful.  That happens for stretches in baseball.  But it has to stop now.  In the words of Tug McGraw, ya gotta believe.

 

 

9/11/07

Mountaineers and Metropolitans

An incredible Labor Day weekend of sports for all fans as MLB entered the final month of the season in style and college football kicked off with several notable upsets.  Especially, if you are a fan of the underdog, a Met's fan, and like seeing Notre Dame and Michigan lose:

Division 1-AA Appalachian State beats #5 Michigan, at the Big House in Ann Arbor.  Yes, Division 1-AA.  Not even a mid-major like Boise State, but a minor league team.  Makes you think about last year's BCS fiasco - Boise State.  No chance to play for a championship even though they went undefeated.  Why?  Well, Boise State mostly beat 1-A mid-major college football teams - not traditonal powerhouses like Michigan and Notre Dame - if Boise played those teams they surely would not have been undefeated. Because we know mid-majors and 1-AA teams can't compete with the big boys.   Speaking of Notre Dame, the Irish got hammered by Georgia Tech, and ND has a tough schedule ahead of them.  ND could have a losing record this year.  Of course, they'll still be served up another bowl game to lose on a silver BCS platter. 

My Mets looked like they might be entering a dark Labor Day weekend.  Swept by the Phillies in a 4-game series, NL East division lead down to two games, and the Braves on deck for the weekend.  The Braves team had owned the Mets all season, even when the Mets were playing well, and needed the wins even more than the Mets as the Braves are chasing both the Mets and Phillies.  Naturally the Mets go down to Atlanta and sweep the Braves.  And then finish off the Labor Day weekend with a win today.  Not just any win, but a Pedro Martinez win in his first MLB appearance since shoulder surgery last year.  Still a long way to go, but if Pedro can round into form in a few September starts, and El Duque can stay healthy, then Shea will be the place to be this October.