You are currently looking at posts published on this site in October, 2009.
This is Stephen Clark's website. It is coming to you live from New Jersey USA. This is essentially a digital outlet for him to share his thoughts, perspective and interests. It is also where he talks a bit too much about his beloved Boston Red Sox. This site looks best in Firefox. If you are not using it, you are missing out.
Business Culture Entertainment Food House Internet Life Media Movies Music News Photography Politics Pop Culture Society Sports Technology Travel Uncategorized
If you’ve ever played baseball, you know how using a brand new, slick baseball can be an adventure unless you “rub it down” and take the shine off. A time honored pre-game ritual in the majors is to rub new baseballs down with mud. Here’s a great article from CNN about where baseball’s ‘magic mud’ comes from and the story behind the tradition:
On August 16, 1920, Ray Chapman, a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, was crowding the plate in the top of the fifth inning when he was struck in the head by an underhand curve ball from New York Yankees pitcher Carl Mays. Days later, Chapman became the first and only player killed by a pitch in Major League history.
“From that point forward the umpires were looking for a way to get a better grip for the pitcher on a new baseball,” Bintliff says. “They tried tobacco juice, shoe polish, dirt from the infield and all of those things scarred or damaged the leather.”
Lena Blackburne, a manager for the Philadelphia Athletics, had an idea. He cured and aged mud from a fishing hole near his home and took it back to the Athletics clubhouse.
To paraphrase Pink Floyd. It appears Tim Armstrong is on his way to turning AOL into a content producing machine. That is a big shift from where AOL used to be however it is just the next step in their evolution. The first step was when they bought Advertising.com, the second step was when they acquired Weblogs, Inc. and all their assets. And now, it would not surprise me if they complete the transformation by turning themselves into a prolific content producing machine where their independent blogs such as TMZ and engadget.com become more profitable and prolific than the “mother ship” AOL itself.
I think people are finally waking up to the fact that there is great value in content on the Web and that asset needs to be cultivated and protected. Those that will be able to produce content, accelerate its distribution, and extract value at every turn, will be the most successful in the next evolution of the Web. To me, AOL is a fascinating case study and one that bears watching.
Another one bites the dust. Yahoo is closing down GeoCities tomorrow. GeoCities, like Tripod, was one of the first “build your own website” services on the Internet back in the day. They were such a high flying site they were sold to Yahoo for $3.65 Billion! Alas, what both of these services failed to see back then was that if they just built something like Blogger, they would have made themselves relevant for a far longer time. Instead, they had millions of sites with animated gifs, and really ugly tables. The irony of it all is that 10-15 years later, MySpace became one of the more popular sites on the Internet by doing little more than offering the same type of services as GeoCities and Tripod.
Good night, GeoCities. It was great while it lasted.
Two brothers in England have spent the past 9 years building the world’s biggest train set, including 6 miles of track and about $13 Million US dollars. That’s a good use of time and money.
I recently cranked through reading The Accidental Billionaires, the unauthorized story of the early days of Facebook which details how Mark Zuckerberg started it in his dorm room, and how he ran over some “wanna be” Web entrepreneurs along the way. The book was written based on interviews, second hand accounts, email records and just piecing stories together. All in all, it was a pretty interesting book and it did a good job of connecting all the dots to weave the story of FB’s evolution.
So now, I’m completely fascinated with the history and evolution of Facebook and its growth trajectory. Its so interesting to research how it got to where it is today, and to learn more about the big players in its story – Sean Parker, Eduardo Saverin, the Winklevoss twins, and others. Obviously, the big challenge that FB has now is how can transition itself to a viable and profitable business and how it can sustain its relevance after the initial “newness” of the service wears down. What will be everyone’s “boredom” factor before people start to post fewer updates, and look for new platforms and options to connect with people.
From a business perspective, FB has been challenged to figure out its true business model so far. Recently, their COO Sheryl Sandberg sat down with John Battelle at the Web 2.0 summit and declaired that Facebook was cash-flow positive and they will address an IPO sometime later on. But cash flow positive does not necessarily mean profitable…yet. I do think there is a ton of upside if FB is able to leverage the data that it has from all of its users and really turn that into marketing opportunities. The challenge will be to do that in a way that does not impinge on the vision of the site and the clean user experience that has made it so popular. I think they have the opportunity to turn themselves into a marketing and promotional machine similar to Google and other organizations that are effective in capturing user data and information. I have a feeling that FB may turn into a Harvard Business Review case study, either for its business success or failure, and wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony.
This week IFC is running Monty Python: Almost the Truth, The Lawyers Cut, the “definitive” documentary on Monty Python as they celebrate their 40th anniversary this year. If you have not set your DVR, please do so as the first two episodes have been very interesting and entertaining. They interview the members of Monty Python who provide some great perspective on their thoughts and mindsets when they were creating their famous skits. Last nights was great because they went through some of the favorite skits from the Python troupe as well as some famous (and not famous) comedians and writers. Some of the skits that were called out include:
And many, many others. If you are any sort of comedy and Monty Python fan, this is a must watch.
Some new footage was of Babe Ruth was recently discovered in a home movie collection from a family in New Hampshire.
The latest Babe Ruth film, unseen publicly until now, is part of a 90-second clip shot from the first-base stands at Yankee Stadium. There is no sound. But there are sweeping views of the park. And there is Ruth, obvious by his shape and waddle.Here’s hoping this discovery will place a curse on the Yankees this post seeason. :)
