Gates presented Windows Home Server, a high capacity storage server that automatically backs up your PCs mobile devices and even your Xbox. Available the 2nd half of 2007, it also provides remote access, so you can get to your stuff no matter where in the world you are.
I can see the techy-households Adopting something like this, but I sure don’t expect mom to get one (no offense, mom).
On-the-fly notes…
“We are living the digital lifestyle, but we are missing connectivity between the various devices we use.”
Vista, Vista, Vista!
Office, Office, Office!
Services, services, services! (Especially Windows Live.)
…and a demo.
“Vista is not about searching. It’s about finding.”
Media Center — Sports Lounge (in partnership with Fox Sports). Other on-demand partnerships have been announced.
Image Gallery — Includes a very cool DVD maker. Group Shot lets you create the picture you wish you took. And… full-motion desktop backgrounds.
More notes to follow…
The ballroom here at the Venetian is buzzing as the press, VIPs and riff-raff like myself wait for Bill Gate’s keynote in a few minutes. I don’t really expect any earthshattering announcements from Mr. Bill, but I will keep you posted.
It’s not unusual to find torrents for popular TV shows, usually within an hour of their broadcast. But in this case, a group known as AsiaTeam has uploaded Episodes 1-4 from 24’s upcoming sixth season a full week before it airs. According to TorrentFreak, they got their hands on a special Season 6 premiere DVD that will ship January 16th. It contains the first four hours of this season and a preview of episode five.
The rumor is circulating that the “leak” may really be a cleverly designed marketing ploy to generate buzz and free publicity. If so, well done, Fox. Mission accomplished. And a quick search at mininova.org confirmed that torrents for the four episodes are indeed available.
Read a great article in the Wall Street Journal today where two venture capitalists face-off on whether the whole Web 2.0 thing is a bubble about to burst or a healthy boom. According to VentureOne, VCs sank $455 million into Web 2.0 companies in the first nine months of 2006 — three times the amount from the same period last year.
The question is, are these companies a good investment. Is the Web 2.0 phenomena a bubble or a boom? Todd Dagres of Spark Capital and David Hornik of August Capital face-off on the issue, with some interesting analysis (I won’t regurgitate the article here, go read it for yourself).
Dagres made a provocative statement: “…the combined cash flow of Spot Runner, LinkedIn and Facebook is less that that of one Costco store.” Hornik counters that the margins of those companies is probably much better than that Costco store, but Dagres’ makes his point. If Web 2.0 companies can’t deliver more than eyeballs — if they can’t deliver the cash — then it’s all just a bubble waiting to burst.
I agree that the barriers to entry are low. Hell, anyone with some decent AJAX coding skills and a clever idea can cobble something together on a bare-bones budget. And sure, most of those sites (like the billions of dormant blogs) will fade away and no one will miss them.
But what’s really being questioned here is not the Web 2.0 phenomena, but the potential of those companies that have taken venture capital. And frankly, most of those companies have potential.
Sure, there’s a number of MySpace wannabes and YouTube clones that will eventually fail, but the ones with strong market support (audience share), a sustainable business model, and solid leadership will do well. Just as any business with those qualities will generally do well.
So far, the VCs have resisted the urge to buy into the hype machine like they did during the Web 1.0 bubble. The market has been stingy to some firms that really understand the community and user-driven strategies of the Web 2.0 (like Yahoo). We’re not faced with the runaway mess of VCs urgent to give money away lest they miss the boat (the name was Titanic).
Personally, I’m not to bothered by the whole thing. Good websites, providing good services or products and delivering value in a package that provides an opporunity to provide a good return will do well.
Remember, the cream always rises to the top.Â
Google has published their year-end zeitgeist — a collection of stats that describe what the world thought was worth searching for. It’s always interesting, and often surprising, to see things from a global perspective.
Not surprisingly, myspace ranked pretty high on the list — number two overall. I was surprise to see bebo, a myspace competitor ranked number one!
Also interesting are the sports stats. Not surprisingly, the World Cup was far-and-away the top searched sporting event. The World Series is barely a blip on the radar.
Sadly, the top search within Google News was for Paris Hilton.
In a couple weeks, I’ll be heading to Las Vegas for the 40th annual Consumer Electronics Show. It’s an enormous convention — so big that only a city like Vegas could really handle the crowd. I’ll be checking out the latest technology for BigBlueBall.com. Last year we got some inside info on Google Talk upgrades, tons of info on VoIP products and generally had a blast gawking at all of the electronic eye candy. It’s really an amazing.
My plan is to arrive Sunday afternoon, January 7th for Bill Gates keynote at the Venetian, spend the evening enjoying everything that Las Vegas is all about, hit the convention floors all day Monday and drive back home that night. Maybe we’ll even do a BBB podcast!
If you are interested in joining me on this whirlwind tour, let me know before December 29th. After the 29th the free exhibit hall registration jumps up to $200!
