Valley Girl Archive

800 or So DC Techies Later...

...And I am officially exhausted!! more photos and blogging about my time in DC to come. For now, breakfast with my husband in New York. I think I remember him...

Meantime check out my latest Valley Girl column!

Poor Valley Girl!

In a busy day for tech news-- with CNET getting bought, Carl Ichan is causing more troubles for Yahoo, and OF COURSE my book coming out officially-- I hope someone will check out my latest Valley Girl column on BusinessWeek about Israel's startup scene. As you know, if you read this blog, I spent a week in Israel in April and was a frustrating and enlightening experience. Sounds contradictory? Than it was an Israeli experience.

This was an incredibly hard column to write, because Israel is such a complex and contradictory place. At the heart of the column are a few questions for the tiny but very entrepreneurial country, which I think is at a bit of a crossroads: Will Israel always be Silicon Valley's farm team or emerge as a tech hub independent of the Valley? Should it aspire to that? Can Israeli entrepreneurs make great Web entrepreneurs?

Take a look! Give my column some love!

Valley-Ho!

If there's one theme that I've thought about, talked about and written about the most over my career covering tech and finance it's the debate of whether you need to relocate to Silicon Valley to be successful. In my case, there's no doubt I've had a better career just by covering business in the Valley, so it's hard for me to believe anyone who wants to profit from the startup ecosystem wouldn't be more successful here. Over the years, I've read a lot of weak treatises that say Valley isn't all that great, ultimately coming off either bitter or just naive, but here is a pretty nice piece arguing against Valley relocation. Although, I'm still not convinced.

Lazy Saturday Poll: Am I a Geek or Not?

I never know. Sarah Meyers says I am. (See comment #95) I'd like to be. Because that's like the "cool crowd" in SF. But I'm really a business reporter who covers tech, not a TechTV alum or gadgety queen. And as a hostile commenter on my blog pointed out to me earlier, I shouldn't even count as a "girl in tech." I guess I'm a girl "near" tech? (Hear that Adriana? Apparently, you can't invite me to events any more.)

If I'm an "early adopter" it's mainly because I cover this stuff, as much as I love my TiVo, iPod, Facebook, Twitter etc. (Of course, you could argue I cover it, because I love it...) But in the grand scheme of early adopters, I don't really rank that high. (Ahem, this blog is a month old, not five years old.)  Whenever TechCrunch, Wired, et all do lists of "geek girls" I'm never on them. (Which I actually kinda like, so that's not a hint.)

Another data point: I seem to be the only person in San Francisco NOT at Maker Faire today, which Scoble calls his "favorite geek event of the year." Instead, I did pilates, had brunch with a close friend and spent too much money at Costco. At least we bought a few Xbox games...since I may soon be working for the evil empire.

So, if you've been reading this or following me on Twitter, you've gotten to know me a little. What do you think: Geek or no geek? For what it's worth my husband said, "Not really." Then he read this post and said, "Eh, maybe."

[PHOTO: Me working on my book on my ratty couch I bought over *years* with my first $21,000-a-year reporter job out of college. Yes, that is Mr. Vinnie in the far left with his sister Miss Winnie. Those names alone should make me some kind of geek...

Photo credit: Geoffrey Ellis]

Meebo Comes Down with Wall Street Fever Too

No no, they aren't going public. But they have gone the east coast institutional money round along with Ning, Slide, Glam and others, according to TechCrunch. Per my Businessweek column and video on TT, we can now put Meebo in the category of "Not For Sale." Digg is one of the only ones on my list who hasn't yet raised what I'm calling a "recession round."

I've never really gotten where the business is in Meebo, but I know a lot of people love the service and I've always liked the founders a great deal on a personal level. They are savvy entrepreneurs. I hope the cash infusion helps them figure out the business model so bored students on library computers everywhere can continue to IM one another.

Girls in Tech (Yes, They Exist)

Last night, I was on a really big panel (felt like half the size of the audience!) for a Girls in Tech event. No men were allowed, so you are on your honor to stop reading this now if you have a y-chromosome.

Twitter Raises $20 M? That's News, Why?

Twitter has raised between $15 m and $20 m according to Cnet. Twitter's next round of cash has been a subject of much blogging and speculation and scrambling around trying to get the scoop. I haven't been doing any of that, frankly. Because "scoops" are only interesting when they're surprising and Twitter raising a fat round of venture capital is in no way surprising.

Four reasons follow on the jump.

Online Dating Sucks (Or I Love it when I’m Right!)

My second ever Valley Girl column was about how dead online dating is as an industry. I patted myself on the back over my lead for weeks, Burt Helm got mad at me for quoting him, and Owen Thomas said I was cruel for mocking the tools of the loveless while I enjoy a “hunky” photographer husband. My father-in-law (armed with Google alerts) was thrilled to see his son was considered “hunky” by gay bloggers everywhere.

But a lot of people said I was wrong about online dating. Well, I wasn’t. The top five dating sites have lost 7% market share in the last year as niches are about the only thing working. And guess what? Niches don’t make big publicly traded companies. The very savvy Mark Brooks breaks it down for you as a guest contributor on TechCrunch.

Boo ya, Valley Girl haters!

Valley Girl on London

my latest BusinessWeek column on London. check it out y'all!