Silicon Valley: The Next Decade (Part 3)

The Money and How It Is Applied Of course, the models discussed are predicated upon the fact that the patrons and salonniers had money and were willing to spend it on fostering a community of artists and intellectuals without directly benefiting from such an “investment.”

Silicon Valley: The Next Decade (Part 2)

How Do You Foster Renaissance Thinking? Each period of renaissance from history saw great congregations of talented people from multiple disciplines in certain cities or regions. Two prominent examples are Florence under the Medicis and Elizabethan England. Artists, writers, scientists, and philosophers were in the same place, working close to each other and exchanging ideas

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Deal Radar 2009: Sheet Music Plus

I have talked at length about the potential for Web 3.0. Today, we will look at a company that is doing well as a web 1.0 company, but can take its business a great deal further if it applied web 3.0 principles. SheetMusicPlus.com, located in Emeryville, CA, is the world’s largest online retailer of sheet

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Deal Radar 2008: Pandora

Pandora Media, based in Oakland, California, is an Internet radio web site. Founded by Tim Westergren in 2000, it was formerly known as Savage Beast Technologies. Pandora uses the Music Genome Project, a collection of songs that have been analyzed by trained musicians.

Deal Radar 2008: hi5 Going Strong

Last week we took a look at Xanga and today we will take a look at hi5, another popular social networking site. hi5 has an Alexa traffic rank of 8. hi5 is more popular globally than it is in the US. It is the number one site in Peru, Dominic Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Portugal,

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Deal Radar 2008: Xanga Losing Steam?

Xanga is a free Web-based service that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, videoblogs, audioblogs, and social networking profiles and is popular around the globe. It is packed with features and is one of the easiest ways to get a blog up and running. It also has a real community feel to it. Xanga Setup Wizard has made

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Deal Radar 2008: Piczo Picture Perfect

Piczo allows teenagers worldwide to creatively express themselves, build personal communities, and share ideas and experiences with their friends in a safe online environment. Piczo recently introduced Piczo Zone. It allows users to decorate their profile pages in much the same way as teenagers decorate their rooms – with posters, music, etc. Piczo Zone has

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Viacom – Discovering its Mojo

We did a lengthy review of Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA-B) vertical strategy in the Fall. Meanwhile, revenues were up 24% in 3Q07 to $3.27 billion. Adjusted net earnings grew 20% to $437 million and diluted EPS were $0.65, a 27% increase over 3Q06. The solid performance was due to the DreamWorks-Paramount blockbuster Transformers. Earlier this month,

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