Waxing Philosophic » Uncategorized

The Frankies…

Josh Guttman — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:01:39 +0000

The Frankies of Frankies Spuntino and, more recently, Cafe Pedlar fame share some words of wisdom for aspiring restaurateurs and foodie entrepreneurs.

Pitt Basketball is No. 1

Josh Guttman — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:27:39 +0000

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been rooting for University of Pittsburgh sports teams. My dad, grandmother, grandfather and scattered other relatives all attended Pitt and so it’s been natural for me to root for them, sometimes even ahead of my own alma-maters. So it’s particularly exciting for me that today, Pitt Basketball has attained the #1 ranking in college basketball for the first time in the school’s history. The team has attained the #2 ranking on at least three occasions, one of which came in 1986 before a mid-season game against Georgetown, a game in which I got to be ball-boy for the Pitt team, which included Charles Smith, Jerome Lane and Sean Miller. Sadly, as Pitt teams have done on a number of occasions, they lost that game in embarrassing fashion to a much better Georgetown squad. Recent Pitt teams during the Jamie Dixon era have been different though and last year, they rebounded from several devastating injuries and a sluggish regular season finish to win the Big East Tournament. They haven’t made a serious run in the NCAA Tournament yet, but this could be the year. Most of their starters are back and the team seems to be gelling.

At the beginning of last season, I had the opportunity to attend the Duke vs Pitt game at MSG, a dream of sorts. My alma-mater versus my family school. Interestingly enough, I found myself pulling for Pitt down the stretch, and when Levance Fields hit a game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer, I was thrilled. This year, I’ll get to see a few more Pitt games and the Big East Tournament looks like it may be one of the best ever, given the dominance of this year’s league. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Pitt may finally have all the ingredients to make a real run at a Final Four and National Championship.

Why Facebook has crossed the canyon, changed the way we communicate…and should buy Twitter

Josh Guttman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:49:33 +0000

Facebook has crossed the canyon. If the “chasm” is the leap from early adopters to mainstream, then the “canyon” is the leap from mainstream to mass commercial appeal. Facebook has taken that leap. In the past few months, my dad, uncle, aunt and the mother of a high school friend have all joined Facebook. Facebook has become, as I explained to a hold-out friend of mine last week, the most fun and efficient way to keep in touch with the people in your life. As recently as five years ago, I reserved most Sunday nights for catching up with people by telephone. That was the way I maintained friendships, particularly with people living in other cities, who I didn’t see face-to-face on a regular basis. I’d call them after dinner, speak for 20-30 mins, get an update on the past few weeks (or months in some cases) and then say goodbye, until the next time we called each other. Today, telephone conversations of this sort are passe. Why waste time on the telephone, a communication medium limited to audio, when we can peruse each others’ photo streams, see what events our friends have been attending, and most of all, from a single page, get a snapshot of their status’. The feature with which Facebook offers the summary view of our friends’ updates is called the News Feed. If we really care, we can review their historical status updates to get a more complete picture of how they’re doing. When’s the last time you received as complete of an answer to the question “How ya doin?” . Most industry wonks agree, the status update is Facebook’s single greatest achievement. It allows people to keep in touch with the absolute minimal amount of effort possible. It’s possible that Facebook makes it too easy, contributing to the loose ties effect that sociologists have been preaching, where our networks become less centered around a few close relationships and more around many looser ones. More than any other tool in my universe though, Facebook is having a significant impact on that shift in the social landscape. Their crowning achievement, the status update, is such a good invention that several companies have been formed around it, the most notable of which is Twitter.

Not surprisingly, Twitter’s growth trajectory has been similar to Facebook’s. Twitter virtually launched two years ago at SXSW in Austin, when it caught fire among a captive audience. Since then, it’s consumed the early adopter market and steadily made it’s way toward mainstream. In the past few months, several celebrities and consumer-focused orgs have caught on and grabbed ahold of Twitter accounts to communicate with their constituents. According to Compete.com, Twitter traffic measured by unique visitors is up 640% in the past year – though this figure doesn’t fully account for Twitter’s influence since a big chunk of their traffic flows through one of several messaging apps that feeds the platform. Like Facebook, Twitter is having it’s own effect on social behavior. I’ve recently noticed conversations taking place between groups and individuals that might be unlikely to converse otherwise. One example is GazaNews who has, not surprsingly, attracted a bunch of followers recently and engaged in some compelling back and forth. This is a good thing. Open dialogue and discourse between people that are geographically and/or ideologically far apart can only be healthy, and for a company as nascent as Twitter to be enabling this is a huge accomplishment. Twitter has essentially peeled off and borrowed a piece of Facebook by identifying and unleashing the full potential of this feature…not that there was anything Facebook could have done about it – it’s unlikely the status update could have been patented. Still, Facebook should buy Twitter to reclaim ownership of the feature and own the social media landscape that they’ve helped transform. It would re-establish them as owners of all things status update-related and give them another outlet for their ad sales activities. Better integration with Facebook would also expand Twitter’s influence exponentially, making it a far more powerful tool than it already is. The reality of Twitter is that it’s a feature that caught fire, but can probably only survive so long by itself. Facebook could likely acquire them for a reasonable price right now and quickly justify it by the further growth they can help fuel on the platform. It would also be a strong defensive move for them. If one of their competitors – in social networking, blogging or sharing – acquired Twitter, they’d essentially be stealing a piece of Facebook and I think that may come back to haunt them down the road.

Bittersweet election for opponents of Prop 8

Josh Guttman — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:34:48 +0000

In last week’s election in California, Proposition 8, a measure to reverse the right of same-sex couples to marry (a right that had been granted them by the State Supreme Court in May with a 4-to-3 vote), passed 52% to 48%. An interesting wrinkle here is that, according to exit polls, Black voters came out in favor of the proposition more than any other voting group, by a 70/30 split. In an election year when as many as 90% of Black voters supported Obama and the Democrats, a large majority of them also voted to take away a right that had been granted same-sex couples in their state. (In all fairness, Obama voiced opposition to Prop 8 as well, though that was widely considered to be a political move.) Many of the articles I’ve read on this topic point to churches and religious groups as key influencers on this vote that drove many to vote the way they did. No matter, it strikes me as odd that so many people care so much about the behavior of others. Has there ever been an initiative on a ballot that contained so much hatred? A vote in favor of Prop 8 is a vote that same sex couples SHOULD NOT have the right to marry, a right that had already been granted. The only rational reason I can think of for someone to feel this way stem from fundamental religious beliefs or severe homophobia. Though even in the case of the homophobic voter, I have a hard time envisioning why they would want to strip the rights from this group that scares them so. Keith Olberman gives a particularly poignant op-ed on this topic comparing it with slavery, during which rights were stripped from fellow human beings. In this case, we’re repeating the exact same injustices, except the rights are being stripped because of their behavior or lifestyle rather than the color of their skin. Is being gay legal? If so, then gay people deserve the same rights as everyone else. Exerting control over who has the right to marry and who doesn’t seems to me to be a gross merger of church and state and a bastardization of one of the fundamental principles on which this country was founded.

Hillary and Palin SNL skit

Josh Guttman — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:46:28 +0000

This skit has been widely circulated and viewed at this point, but its quickly been considered one of the best political impersonations in recent memory, which says a lot considering its fierce competition. I love the “take off your Tina Fey glasses” line in a nod to how good the impersonation actually is.

Apple does it again – iDo campaign on Houston/6th Ave

Josh Guttman — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:15:39 +0000

I spotted this ad at Houston and 6th Ave last week and, ever the romantic, had to snap a shot. An obvious and brilliant marketing extension of the “i” branding for which people know Apple. Plus, they made a couple very happy and won points in the mushy department with other New Yorkers.

Leaving Answers.com, heading to Black Rock City

Josh Guttman — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:04:59 +0000

I haven’t been blogging much the past two weeks, but that doesn’t mean there’s any lack of stuff happening. In fact, frequency of blog posts is often inversely correlated to activity in my life. This is something I hope to correct in the near future as blogging becomes more a part of my routine.

To summarize the past few weeks, I’ve decided to leave Answers.com after a truly enriching and educational year there. I’m in the midst of formally declaring my next move….kind of like a presidential candidate forming an exploration committee before he/she declares their candidacy. A former colleague and I have formed just such an exploration committee to research the viability of launching a business that we’re both excited about. I can’t reveal the details just yet, but there’s likely much more to come in this dept.

In the meantime, I’m blogging via cell phone from Reno on my way to Black Rock City for a week of Burning Man. There’s nothing quite like the renewing effects of Burning Man to end one chapter a your life and begin another. See you on the flipside.

A just penalty for Michael Vick

Josh Guttman — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:53:59 +0000

A friend and I were discussing the Michael Vick situation recently and came up with a solution that we think is more viable and just. Instead of sending him to jail in the peak of his career and earning potential, while his millions in investments sit earning interest, make him play. Make him play and fine him 100% of his earnings to go towards ASPCA. Also have him donate many hours of community service to ASPCA. This sentence would contribute millions of dollars to an organization that needs it and sets out to protect the very animals that Michael Vick abused. It certainly would be more helpful in correcting his wrongdoing than sending him to prison, squandering millions that could be put to a beneficial use. I hope the judge in the case considers a more creative sentence than the typical prison term, which does very little good in a situation like this.

Published in NY Daily News…

Josh Guttman — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:27:49 +0000

I never imagined that my Vespa purchase would bring me such quick fame, but alas…. Josh Max, auto correspondent at NY Daily News, published this article on Wednesday discussing the popularity of Vespa’s in the city and highlighted the aforementioned free parking promotion that Piaggio USA put together, Vespanomics. I’m featured in the last paragraph. Sadly (for NY Daily News), the article is nowhere to be found online.

Are frenzied VC investing and jittery markets reason for concern?

Josh Guttman — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:54:11 +0000

Over the past two weeks, I’ve seen several signs that we may be on the precipice of another bubble burst. TechCrunch reported earlier in the week that VC investing has reached it’s highest level since 2001 – $979 million was invested in Q2 alone, 52% more than Q2 last year. It’s true that the public equity markets, specifically the IPO market hasn’t exploded in the same way that it did in 2000, but I think that’s partially because other exit strategies have become more attractive and less risky for both VCs and entrepreneurs. At the same time, housing market/mortgage jitters are beginning to be felt in areas of the country. The MSCI US REIT INDEX was down four straight days this week, and is now 22% off its February all-time high. The S&P was down 5% this week, which included the biggest single-day drop for DJIA in 6 months. The NASDAQ was down 4.6%. It seems like the whole world has been speculating for several years about when the housing market bubble will pop. As for the technology market, could this all mean that we’re nearing the end of Web2.0 and entering the purgatorial stage before Web3.0 blossoms? If so, it may be time time to put that business plan on hold and start retooling for the next wave. In either case, I think the sharper up and down trends that we may be experiencing are indicative of the maniacal outlook which we Americans have adopted. It reminds me of a book - American Mania - that I read a few years ago. The “get rich quick” scenario - which motivates me - makes the “get poor quick” outcome a possibility. I just came up with that now, but I think it’s something worth considering over the weekend:)

Waxing Philosophic » Uncategorized

The Frankies…

Pitt Basketball is No. 1

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Why Facebook has crossed the canyon, changed the way we communicate…and should buy Twitter

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Bittersweet election for opponents of Prop 8

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Hillary and Palin SNL skit

Apple does it again – iDo campaign on Houston/6th Ave

Leaving Answers.com, heading to Black Rock City

A just penalty for Michael Vick

Published in NY Daily News…

Are frenzied VC investing and jittery markets reason for concern?