Main Dish:

- Apple has been opening "mini" retail outlets, I saw one at Stanford shopping center yesteday (the pic in this article is the Stanford store). They are definitely mini. Not sure what next, perhaps hot dog carts selling iPods?

- this is interesting, music sales (as in CDs) represents 2% of WalMart's total revenues, but sales through WalMart represent 20% of the total sales in the music industry... who do you think holds the power in that relationship?

- Carnival of the Capitalists anniversary edition. This is still one of the most interesting blog projects out there even though it's really just another manifestation of social bookmarking.

- Chris Shipley has a good post on the limitations of technology for local issues. The Measure Q issue she writes about (I'm a YES on Q guy myself) is a very local issue and the fact remains that the internet is the last place I'd look for information on the measure, or to support/oppose it. But like Chris, I've gotten half a dozen pieces of mail for and against the measure, and seen the countless lawn signs going either way on it. As a side note, the most interesting thing that Google revealed about Measure Q is that the Berkeley ballot has also has a Measure Q... for legalizing prostitution.

- Mark Leslie of El Dorado Ventures has an interesting column in AlwaysOn about what he calls the Sales Learning Curve (SLC) and it's implications for direct selling organizations. Worth the read.

- I sent in my absentee ballot today. If you live in California, today is the LAST DAY TO REGISTER SO GO DO IT.
* Dubya gets my vote, for many of the reasons that Tim outlines
* Bill Jones for the Senate (even though he probably doesn't have a chance)
* Tom Lantos in my Congressional district (that guy has got a pair, even though he's a Democrat)

- Ed has a good post about why venture deals rely on momentum to get done. I can't even recall how many times I have the conversation with an entreprenuer that begins with "you know, this thing is starting to get stale, you gonna get a term sheet signed or what?", all the while knowing that my enthusiasm has waned considerably in the period-of-dicking-around (PODA).

- Yahoo! is getting into consumer electronics with an LCD offering?

- Gravity not such a sure thing after all. Crikey, what house of cards is going to tumble next... perhaps light beer is not light at all?

- will mobile phones kill the iPod? I can't predict with certainty, but the arrival of Virgin Mobile in the portable music business certainly adds weight to the speculation.

- new Windows Mobile Smartphone from Samsung that is sexy plexy. Definitely the first one with a form factor that I would buy.

- using Wikis as an app container to call web services through. Let's just say that I am *VERY* intrigued by this concept.

- I've been meaning to post this for a long time, it's an article about how streaming data (RFID) is creating a bunch of exciting new opportunities for analytics applications, along with the mining of metadata. This is the underlying assumption behind our investment in T3Ci

Comments

[Chris Shipley]

So I have to ask: WHICH Measure Q do you support - Berkeley's or Redwood City's? Surely you can't be for environmentally-irresponsible, massively disruptive development? ;-)

[jeff]

Hah! I agree, legalizing prostitution WOULD be environmentally irresponsible and massively disruptive!

Nice seeing you at Vortex, and you'll be pleased to know that I just registered for Demo.

[Dave Chase]

Mark Leslie's Sales Learning Curve framework is mentioned above. My firm, Altus Alliance, hosted an event that Mark spoke at focused on the Sales Learning Curve. We posted his presentation and whitepaper for those interested. Typical of the feedback we received on Mark's presentation was from a serial entrepreneur who's the CEO of a very successful anti-spam firm -- "I thought that the talk was nothing short of excellent. Often those things are lame-o and I will tell you that this was top 1%. Thanks again for including us. Do you have the deck? We would love to see it." Here it is -- http://altusalliance.com/ceoInfo.html