Recent Activity

• 

  Want to bite someone? Yeah me too.. (Outsourcing work, Insourcing Frustration)

  I know another dude that recently had trouble with outsourcing: Kristopher Tate (founder Zooomr )

  Checkout his videoblog  

  Posted 19 Apr 07

• 

  Google's Acquisitions Chief Looking for `Crazy' Ideas

  Google Inc. looks for ideas that are
  ``really crazy'' when sizing up potential purchases, the Internet
  company's top dealmaker said.
  

  ``We look at everything very carefully,'' Salman Ullah,
  Google's director of corporate development, said yesterday in a
  speech at a meeting of the Los Angeles Venture Association. ``The
  really crazy ones do really well.''

  
  

  Google, owner of the most-popular Internet search engine,
  has about 15 people working on acquisitions that meet with dozens
  of companies a week, Ullah said. Mountain View, California-based
  Google responds to every e-mail pitching a company, while phone
  calls have a 10 percent response rate, he said.

  
  

  The search engine, which had more than $11 billion in cash
  at the end of the fourth quarter, last year bought video-sharing
  site YouTube Inc. and DMarc Broadcasting Inc. to move into the
  market for radio advertising. Google also bought smaller startups
  including online software company JotSpot Inc.

  
  

  ``The crazy ones mean they ignore the usual restraints of
  investment levels required or design parameters or `Gee I need
  more servers than anyone ever thought was possible','' Ullah
  said. ``When you free yourselves from these constraints, you
  create crazy, cool things.''

  
  

  Google wants companies that can build revenue streams from
  their users, instead of buying firms with a lot of users that
  don't bring in much in sales, Ullah said.

  
  

  ``We don't do traffic for traffic's sake,'' he said. ``It
  has to be highly monetizable.''

  
  

  In the past Google has also used a technique called Monte
  Carlo analysis to size up a deal, where computer algorithms are
  used to answer questions.

  
  

  Shares of Google rose $2.86 to $467.39 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq
  Stock Market trading. They have climbed 1.5 percent this year.

  Posted 12 Apr 07

• 

  How do you feed yourself during startup?

  Digg costed about US$1000

  Posted 26 Mar 07

• 

  Networking

  Hardcore networkers have ecstasy.

  Posted 24 Mar 07