We Miss You, Paisano

Things are very busy at SarahLacy.com these days. No sooner was I back from London then I had to hustle to finish a long-overdo BusinessWeek column and do about three shoots at Yahoo in two days. This afternoon-- still not quite over the London jet lag and exhaustion-- Olivia and I are trekking up to Sonoma where I'll speak at a two-day event for women in advertising hosted by BusinessWeek. I plan on coming up with exactly what I'll say in the car, because I haven't had another moment to think about it. I hope I don't suck.

Saturday night and Sunday night I am checking into a hotel in SF and sequestering myself until I come out with a new chapter for the paperback version of "Once You're Lucky." I've finally finished the reporting and this is the only way it's getting done. My house is too distracting and it, too, is late. I'm stealing this idea from Philip Kaplan who says that's how he finally wrote his FuckedCompany.com book back in 2000-- only I don't plan to drink quite as much because the book actually needs to be coherent. Then, four more shoots at Yahoo early next week and on Thursday I take off for a week and a half in Mexico. First there's the Young Entrepreneurs Summit in Cancun, then I'm hopping to the other side of the country for a Mexican Thanksgiving with my and Mr. Lacy's families-- my first vacation the year. Of course, by then I'll owe BusinessWeek another column and Gotham edits on that chapter. Oh, and did I mention I also have a very important conference call today that may determine my near-future?

Whew. I found myself saying, "If I can just get through November..." yesterday and then realized I've been saying that about every month this year. Is it naive to hope 2009 will be calmer?

But as I try not to get car sick typing on the Yahoo shuttle down south this morning, I wanted to take a moment to shout out to my first guest blogger on SarahLacy.com, the one and only Paisano. His time here was short, only writing six posts, but many of them were hotly debated and linked to. I'd wanted him to do more, but he got a bit spooked by the backlash of one on Y Combinator that created a firestorm when Arrington linked to it. I tried to convince him this was a compliment and that bloggers should be creating controversy and point out that a good many commenters agreed with him. But as I know full well, it's one thing to say that to someone and another to actually be the person in the middle of said firestorm. So I accepted his resignation with a heavy heart and he went on to the bigger (but not better of course) Mashable, where he's been a sensation.

He was kind enough to give me a shout out in his post yesterday about his blogging anniversary and what he'd learned. Here's an excerpt:

"Around April sometime I was asked for the first time to guest blog for someone else’s blog. It wasn’t just anyone either. It was none other than Sarah Lacy! She was the hottest news from the SXSW ‘08 conference and I was looking forward to reading her upcoming book called “Once Lucky, Twice Shy: Web 2.0”. She and I became acquainted on MySpace and Twitter and she was interested in a tweet I made regarding her employer, Yahoo and the horrible job I thought they were doing with Delicious (a service I loved and still do). So I was flattered and wrote my very first guest post and it was so exciting! I loved being read by a much larger audience and getting intelligent feedback in the comments, sometimes tough medicine is good for you. I went on to write several more pieces so I owe Sarah a great deal of thanks for giving a rookie such a break and so many lessons."

We miss you, Pai! The guest blogger slot is here for you whenever you want to step back in front of the firing squad! ;) Even if you don't know the actual name of my book....

The Non-Tech Music Money Maker

[By Geoffrey Ellis]

Last night I saw the band Built to Spill at Slim's in SF. It was one of the first live shows I've gone to or been excited about in a while. I had seen BTS before and had grown a little weary of seeing them play a mix of songs I wanted to hear along side songs I liked but didn't want to hear as badly as others. So the reason I went to the show? Because they did what a number of bands have done to get fans back out to shows, they played their best album (which happens to be "Perfect From Now On") in order, from front to back. And it was phenomenal. I am not claiming to know anything about whether people are or aren't going to shows, or if sales for concerts are up or down, but I am seeing a lot of bands do this and it is really exciting.

Think about it, when a band has hundreds of songs to choose from and you go to a show, it's a crap shoot as to what you'll hear, but when they play a specific album? You are guaranteed those songs. And if the album is your favorite? Jackpot. I recently took Sarah to see Liz Phair play her album "Exile in Guyville" at the Fillmore. When she found out I got tickets for the show she was like, "yeah, Liz Phair, that's cool" (we'd seen her before and her new stuff is not Sarah's favorite) but when I told her she was playing Exile exclusively, Sarah nearly lost her mind. It was THE album for her at a pivotal time in her life, much like "Perfect From Now On" was for me. Everyone has an album that resonates with them. Imagine seeing that band do your favorite album all the way through. And imagine seeing them play all of your favorite songs before that band becomes washed up, sold out or just lost their creativity? Well, now's your chance.

The first time I heard of a band doing this was when Sonic Youth performed their epic album "Daydream Nation" in 2007. The idea was so cool to me. I'm sure bands have done it before, but it was a new concept for me. And, for a band of Sonic Youth's caliber, it would be easy for them to do even more records, like "Goo" or "Dirty" or even a greatest hits tour. In fact, Thurston Moore (of SY) is performing his album Psychic Hearts at the upcoming All Tomorrow's Parties festival in New York. A number of other bands are doing the same by performing their seminal works, Tortoise, Meat Puppets, Mission of Burma. It's a guaranteed moneymaker and will not only make fans happy, but it may even reinvigorate an appreciation that has been long suppressed.

I can imagine it going too far, but for now I am in love with the concept. As people stop buying full albums and concentrate on buying/downloading singles, are we the last generation that will have the opportunity to see concerts of our favorite full-length albums? I hope not. I do hope it keeps going on and on and more bands take the initiative to play their best works live. I am just hoping I will eventually get to see Pavement reunite and play Slanted and Enchanted or Stereolab play Emperor Tomato Ketchup or Smashing Pumpkins play Gish (again-I saw them in 1991), and the list goes on. It's the only thing that will get me to shows anymore. And it's made me love Built to Spill all over again, just like I did when Perfect From Now On was brand new.

What is your dream band/album show?

Muxtape RIP? Noooooooooooooooooooo

Another post by Geoffrey Ellis:

Looks like the RIAA has shut down the user generated audio streaming mixtape site Muxtape.com for the time being. A note on the front page of the site says:

"Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA."

And the August 18th Muxtape blogpost says: "No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned. Beta users of Muxtape For Bands: you are unaffected by this outage."

I can't find much other info on the muxtape situation other than my assumption that the RIAA can't find a way to play nicely with the new realities of music dissemination. I imagine it has to do with the fees
associated with streaming audio (the streaming cost of one song currently runs $0.0008). Anyone else have any info? Sad to see it go. Hopefully it will be back in it's same awesome state and not some sucky watered-down version.

American Startup: Demo Day Summer 2008

And now our weekly guest post from my Twitter friend Paisano. I've got mixed feelings about Y Combinator and haven't spent enough time with them to have a smart-enough take on what they do. That means I largely just don't cover them. So when I saw Paisano Twitter about how much he loved their startups, I asked him to weigh in on the latter-day incubator's recent demo day. Enjoy!:

Y Combinator is a seed stage investor with a network of entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists and others needed to start a company. Think of the Y Combinator as the American Idol for startups. They select companies to finance and consult twice a year. Instead of the winners getting a ticket to Hollywood, the companies that the judges from the Y Combinator pick get to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the summer or Mountain View, CA in the winter.  Instead of the winners getting a recording contract, the winning startups generally receive $5,000 plus an additional $5,000 per founder.

Although the comparison to American Idol is tongue in cheek, there are some unfortunate real similarities.

What's AOL Worth in a Web 2.0 World?

This week regular contributor and Twitter friend Paisano decided to give Yahoo/delicious a break and take on AOL. I asked him to do a post on why AOL was still valuable from a techie's point of view, given the talk of selling off parts and who would buy them, at what price. It turned out to be a pretty hard assignment! As always if you'd like to write a guest post for sarahlacy.com contact Olivia at Olivia at sarahlacy dot com. Enjoy!

In researching what AOL has to offer in today's web 2.0 climate, I was stunned to see how little they had to offer. It was baffling to see so few popular services from the once and mighty online kings. It leads one to ponder how relevant America Online is anymore. Let's examine closely what they provide America and the world these online, shall we?

Meet Olivia, aka the Answer to My Prayers

This is a very special guest post written by the newest addition to sarahlacy.com, Olivia Hine. Olivia is going to be a huge help organizing my life and the last 2/3 of the User Generated Book Tour, but she'll also be regularly blogging about her life and impressions coming to the Valley. It's helpful for all of us to have an outsider's point of view on our echo-chamber and with her background studying history and culture at University of Virginia, I know I can't wait to read her impressions! Protective mother hen that I am, I just ask Valleywag etc. to go easy on her! She's new here!

Well, hmmm…let's just say that 48 hours after my arrival, my mind is still completely boggled.

When Sarah offered me this opportunity about a month ago, my excitement was akin to spontaneously combusting into thousands of sparkles of sheer delight. I even asked her if it was too Disney to say that she had made all my dreams come true. (Did I really just admit that?) Now that the fairy dust has settled, and the romanticism of moving to my dream city of San Fran has become a reality, it is time to get down to business. And what a business it is!

For the past four years at school, I carved my niche in the History department, writing about 1920s flapper culture, American Indians, witchcraft, the Kama Sutra… all the usuals. Suffice to say, the Silicon Valley world of venture capitalism, internet start-ups and entrepreneurship was waaaaay on the opposite side of the spectrum and the country (even the cerebrum!) from what I became accustomed to.

Indeed, my only tech claim to fame is that I started attending one of the original Facebook–hosting colleges back in the fall of 2004. A popped-collared wannabe frat-star who moisturized and drank beer through a straw kindly let me know I would only be "cool" once I created a profile. He lasted about 2.5 seconds, but my relationship with Facebook flourished and led to an invested interest in social networking as a whole.

In a way, it is only fitting that I now direct my focus towards all the websites that helped derail that same focus during cram sessions and late night papers. I am a blog fiend and definitely comprehend the impact of Web 2.0 on 21st century pop culture. Yet my curiosity runs deeper. I want to understand the motivation and the innovation behind the scenes; the business gains, and the emotional losses. Thus, I am simply here to learn and gain the utmost insight into all facets of the tech world. And with Sarah guiding me through this experience, I am confident it will be quite the ride (...although Disneyland sure does have some good ones too. Maybe another tour stop in LA?)

[UPDATE: Olivia's new Twitter handle is @livandlove]

Delicious 2.0: Scrumptious or Sloppy Seconds?

Here's another guest post by my Twitter pal Paisano. They are always popular so we hope to get him on here weekly from now on. For his previous posts, hit the "guest post" tag. Got something to say? If you are interested in writing a guest post for sarahlacy.com email olivia at sarahlacy dot com.

Delicious 2.0: Scrumptious or Sloppy Seconds?

Finally, Yahoo has released delicious 2.0 after three long years of stagnate captivity. I've been quite vocal in my dissatisfaction with the way Yahoo has handled the once fantastic delicious ever since they acquired them in 2005. The frustration only intensified with several false announcements of an impending release. Well, it's a cold day you-know-where because delicious 2.0 has been unleashed! Here's an honest review.

Hey, You, Get Off Of My Cloud!

This is yet another guest post by my super popular contributor and Twitter friend, Paisano. This time I asked him to do a think piece on that over-used buzz word of tech buzzwords, THE CLOUD! Enjoy!

The rumblings you hear overhead isn't thunder but everyone scrambling to setup shop in the cloud these days. The consensus is that we want to run and store all of our stuff in one centralized location online, not in several different local destinations which is a headache and time consuming. Let's focus on the cloud computing strategies for three of the biggest angels on the web these days: Yahoo, Microsoft and Google.

Assuming Twitter Is Up, What Newbies Need to Know

Time for another guest post from my Twitter friend, Paisano, who looks disturbingly like my brother Peter and wrote the hotly contested Delicious post last month. My readers are half in the tech-early adopter group and half the general business person who wants to know more about the Web and the Valley. So with this post, I’m catering to readers who are just getting into Twitter and have basically thrown up their hands in utter confusion at the unending flow of new Twitter applications. For the last few months, people have asked me which apps are best and I honestly couldn’t answer because I’ve only used a few of them, so I asked Paisano to do it for me. We went for breadth instead of depth here, so ask him any follow up questions in the comments. And of course, leave your vote for best Twitter app. For more guest posts, hit the "guest post" category. To write one, drop me a line at sarah at sarahlacy dot com.

Twitter  has an astonishing amount of applications and services that allow you to do more than simply send 140-character messages. The list grows every day so it's nearly impossible to keep up with what's out there. Here's a breakdown of just some of the best twitter apps and services available today. They will be rated on a scale from 0 to 10, with 5 being average.

Miranda: Me, You and Everyone We Know Need to Be Twittering

This is a guest post by my husband, photographer and designer Geoffrey Ellis. For other guest posts, hit the "guest post" tag.

I mailed a handwritten letter to Miranda July the other day. She is a film maker, writer, artist who I have a fondness for. Something about her style is very cool to me. I can't remember the last time I wrote a letter and put it in the mail, and I have never written to a celebrity. Ever. But I needed to tell her something and couldn't find an email on her site. So, I got out my pen and paper and 15 minutes later, it was in the hands of the post office.

My letter was a short plea for Miranda to sign up for Twitter. Mainly because I think she would be really good at it. I love the way she writes in small bursts with short quotes. I would love to get a sub-140 character tweet from her in the vein of her "Dear Sophie, everything I have is yours. Except my boyfriend. Love, Miranda July". Wouldn't that be great? Miranda and Twitter would be as good a combination as peanut butter and chocolate.

I'm not just being selfish here. I think Twitter would help Miranda too.