colortone

FWIW: Leo's actual comments are a bit more interesting than this Engadget story, full transcript and video below.

Ethan HP Corporate Communications

http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Data-Central/HP-CEO-L%C3%A9o-Ap...

"I happen to believe that webOS is a uniquely outstanding operating system. So there's no reason to believe that the only hardware that can run it is HP's," Leo said. "By the way, they don't have to be 'hardware makers' in the classical IT sense. There are many people who make all kinds of control devices, why wouldn't they want to use webOS for that? Appliance makers can use webOS to create connectivity between their appliances and the Web."

"There are all kinds of other people who want to make whatever device or piece of hardware they make connected to the Internet," he continued. "And therefore, we'd like to make webOS available to these people, as we are going to make webOS available to enterprises, or indeed to SMB's who want to create whatever kind of environment within their own firewall."

"So from that perspective, yes, webOS will be more than just running inside or on top of a particular piece of hardware that HP will make."

funny that none of the comments here or on the post talk about how the FTC is going to regulate disclosure of this income verrrrrry soon

That's really interesting, thanks for writing. Any other thoughts? Are you doing a startup now?

The overall positive sentiment towards [semi-traditional] ad-based business models in this conversation is very alarming.

The game isn't "improving advertising"; it's "reinventing communication between buyers and sellers".

Those two things are way different.

Think about it this way: the less we all focus on making ads better, the more polluted the mediascape becomes, shrinking the pie for everyone ...instead of growing it.

(that last insight via @umairh)

In my experience, the mom blogs are probably the most active (and interesting) part of the blogosphere.

I think this whole gender is wildly underserved, but especially mothers with kids 18 and under...there's huge money to be made building services/communites around these specific needs. BlogHer, etc, is good but just the tip of the iceberg.

http://broadstuff.com/archives/1330-En-gendering-the-next-gr...

Another similar demo is teachers. Trying to "reinvent education" is great but the the meantime millions of teachers and millions more students are underserved and struggling.

Thanks, but it's not my company. I found it via this blog post: cussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/12/how_to_be_a_21st_century_capit.html

'Cuz it's worth looking at!

It's a "scoop", man! ;-)

Narziss... looks good, I put it on my list. It's going to be a good while before I get back into classic fiction though ;-)

You might like Eco's "The Name of the Rose" since you seem to be into really good fiction set in Medieval Europe ;-)

I read Mann's "Doctor Faustus" and it was SO rich...every sentence needs to be read 2x to be internalized. 2400 pages of Mann sounds insane!

;-)

(thanks for the tip, I'll try and peep the preface at least)

I read non-fiction related to business strategy, sociology, economics, and technology constantly. In fact I went down the the LA public library and picked up 10 stellar titles just this weekend, I highly recommend all of these:

- Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software [MIT] - Prisoner's Dilemma [William Poundstone] - Thinking Strategically [Nalebuff] - Co-opetition [Nalebuff] - Cluetrain Manifesto [Searls] - Open Sources 2.0 [O'Reilly] - Innovator's Dilemma [Christensen] - Net Worth [Hagel] - Democratizing Innovation [von Hippel] - Fooled by Randomness [Taleb]

Other books I always keep around are "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" (a history of DJ's and electronic music), The Singularity is Near, and some Calvin and Hobbes ;-)

All the reading is most definitely worth it, if you don't feel that way you're not reading the right stuff.

The best book I've ever read is probably Anna Karenina (Magarshack translation, not the Oprah version, which is ironically much drier). Other very influential books on me include The Wealth of Networks, Shaping Things, and Free Culture. In fact, all 3 of those were given to me at different times in my life by the smartest person I know (a family friend of my parents)

Maybe the key to the non-fiction reading is having an agenda. I always feel like I'm downloading knowledge that is going to help me make bank and/or help people so that keeps me riveted (beyond the intellectual stimulation, which I'm a total whore for, too ;-)

exactly

instead of "entitlement" they should said "acting like a 23 year old"

;-)

The point that they're making is that we should all expand our perspective on what constitutes possible (or even "reasonably likely") outcomes from this. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but I'm not sure if your statement about finding ways to "eke by" includes eating beans in your apartment for 5 years or trying to survive getting drafted and serving in the China-Taiwan war.

Not just "getting store credit".

Anyways, that's how I'm reading it. Definitely thought provoking. Taleb's piece on Edge.org last month is insanely detailed for anyone looking for more:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html

Self-driven edification is a religious experience for me, yeah.

Read up on game theory, network econ, information econ, financial analysis, and modern art criticism...it's totally spiritual!

Unfortunately, to get real value out of his writing you have to do your own homework.

Put another way: show us some data, models, or research that he's wrong.

Put another way: assume he's right about everything. What are the implications for your business?

etc

HTH

Depends on the nature of the "strategic partnership", but the stuff that I'm trying to push is really more directed at existing businesses, not startups. Many companies have partnerships with VC firms or their own VC fund or internal "labs" that invest real money in complements. Ultimately, much of the early-stage VC game seems to be about investing in complements for existing businesses and then selling the complement to that business once the risk has been reduced to a reasonable level.

So to clarify, I'm trying to say two things: 1. when designing a business model, don't think in terms of selling advertising (i.e. selling out your users), think in terms of "creating value for someone with discretionary budget to send your way"

2. most companies, especially their marketing departments, should be more active in investing in complementary infosoftwaretech.

Killer article

This is a must read for all software startups...we gotta get away from thinking about "what kind of advertisers would buy on our service" and start thinking about serving as a direct complement to those advertisers' core business, and then doing deals around sponsorship/investment.

My $0.02

Killer article, thanks for posting...