Looking to capitalize on the Apple halo effect, three former company executives, including co-founder Steve Wozniak, took their new company, Acquicor Technology, public yesterday in an IPO raising $150 million. The money they raised is purely based on their reputation, as Acquicor Technology, is officially designated as a "blank-check" company (no, really, it's in their filings), meaning they don't do anything yet and can do whatever they want with investor money. Wozniak seems to have a knack for using his name to raise money before having an established operation

Woz starts a SPAC. We'll have to see who they buy, $150M is a pretty significant and specific SPAC value.

Techdirt: Woz Raises $150 Million For, Well, Nobody Knows

Restaurant owners understand the power of the press -- and go to extreme efforts to ensure that influential customers have a wonderful experience. This isn't rocket science -- it's good business!

Why is it that online businesses don't do the same? They should! One of the first things we did after we launched Half.com was create a VIP list, containing the email addresses of all influential reporters, competitors, potential acquirers, analysts, and investors. (Bloggers didn't exist back then - but they would qualify as well). We then had our system alert us whenever a VIP created an account, purchased an item or listed one for sale. When a VIP purchased a CD we'd have someone from our customer service group telephone the seller to confirm that it shipped promptly. When a VIP listed an item for sale, we'd monitor it to see if it sold. And if a (hypothetical) reporter listed a (hypothetical) book for sake, and it didn't sell quickly, a relative of a (hypothetical) Half.com employee in Oklahoma might (hypothetically) purchase the item...Resulting in a (hypothetical) story in the New York Times.

Redeye VC: VIP Treatment

And now, I believe, we have now entered into the era of “LE”. While some might argue that flickr's success has made "kr" is the Official Suffix of Web 2.0, I disagree. After Google’s phenomenal success, there’s beenLe_2 an influx of companies wanting some "le" magic. Google itself launched Froogle. Now we have Kaboodle, Kanoodle, Azoogle, Oodle, Ookle(s), Rabble, Dabble, Zazzle, Taggle, Quimble, and Krugle*.

So, here’s my thought – some web hacker should build an "le" crawler to search the whois database for all available "le" domain names. This way we can determine when all of the “le” domain names are taken – giving us Web 2.0 investors some advance knowledge of when the music will stop

Redeye VC:

What should entrepreneurs do? The simplest answer is to use aconvertible debt structure. This avoids pricing the company too high or too low and also does not create unforeseen deal structure issues. The money converts into the professional round when raised.

Everyone loses when earlier rounds are mispriced. Venture capitalists lose the opportunity to invest in quality companies. Entrepreneurs end up running their business hand to mouth as they get trapped raising one $500k round after another.

VC Confidential: The Angelitis Blues

So, Andrei, where do we go from here?
My paper on the taxonomy of Web search talks about three generations of web search. I believe that we are now entering an entirely new phase. I call this next phase “search without a box”. Search today is confined to putting in something and getting something back, a pull model. The next stage is for information to come in a context without actively searching, a push model. My favorite example is GPS. Instead of looking up your way on a paper map, you are in your car, and your GPS navigator gives you directions, shows gas stations near you, and so on. A year or two from now perhaps it will show you where those gas stations are, but only when you are low on gas. So you get information on an “as needed, when needed” basis without explicitly asking for it. In the same vein, we will move from information retrieval to information supply.

Exactly. This is not about removing control, but about elimination of repeating obvious steps. This is the direction most AI technologies head, and Information Retrieval is part of it.

When building technologies, we often get the interfaces wrong. Because it is an iterative process; we can't skip the steps until we've worked them out. My browser now has a search bar, because it turns out that the majority of my interface with the web is through search. My browser now has tabs, because that's a more effective way for me to surf (before I used to open windows by the dozen). In the future, that may not be the case; flock is making interesting noise about the way a blogging friendly browser should operate. And the general search tool may be less relevant as well. When I'm working on code, the reference pages I look at should be more accessible. Debugging -- give me more information. And give me a small distraction tool; maybe tied into the period of my debugging cycle.

I appreciated that my old cell phone gave me the option of exposing my E911 required GPS information to the mobile web browser; but too little used it. Advertisers have gotten very aggressive about using IP based locality information... so should the good services. Memestreams should work differently when I am in my office than at home, and maybe I shouldn't have to tell it to. When I am working at work, or just killing time. Etc. Firefox knows, or could.

Yahoo! Search blog: A chat with Andrei Broder (Part II)

But there’s a bubble that the web community isn’t talking about. Let’s call it the Entrepreneur Bubble. The Web 2.0 Entrepreneur Bubble is the flip side of the Web 2.0 Investment Bubble.

Absolutely true. Everyone reads a site like Signal v Noise and looks at what is being done... reads a site like Tech Crunch, sees the opportunities... and figures they can do it. How many people do you know who want/plan/are trying to build a small Web Apps company?

What I appreciate about Memestreams is that it is prior to this bubble, incumbant for a hot field and isn't cashing it. What frustrates me about Memestreams is that it is prior to this bubble, has better solutions to the hot field, and isn't cashing in.

EarlyStageVC: The Web 2.0 Entrepreneur Bubble

Most people think the way deals work inside a VC firm is that the opportunity comes into our firm, we meet with the team, we talk about it, we do some research (due diligence), we have some more meetings, we do some more research, and then we make a decision, and either invest or pass on the opportunity. And that is true for many, possibly even most of the opportunities that come into our firm.

But there is another approach and I like to call it hanging around the rim. We like to source our opportunities directly which means we go out and find the most interesting companies working in the markets we find interesting. And about half the opportunities we consider are sourced directly by us.

"Hanging around the rim". Nice.

A VC: VC Clich� of the Week

At the core of Trac lies an integrated wiki and issue/bug database. Using wiki markup, all objects managed by Trac can directly link to other issues/bug reports, code changesets, documentation and files.

Around the core lies other modules, providing additional features and tools to make software development more streamlined and effective. Our goal is to help programmers focus on the important stuff: Developing software.

Edgewall Software: Trac

The value behind the consumption of microchunked user-generated data/content is that it ultimately allows people to use it how they want it, where the want it, and when the want it. Shouldn’t the reverse be the same for how the data/content is produced in the first place? Consumers want to produce content how they want to, where they want to, and when they want to. And it doesn’t seem to be that that’s necessarily on the Edge.

This is a great start for the mixed graph debate.

There are those who feel that all data should be held at the edges -- that memestreams would be better if only these posts were going to my own controlled domain. Maybe this is principly driven by content creator types being the innovators (as discussed in the comments to this blog) -- I blog, my friends blog, so eventually everyone will blog. Or, by analog, I have my own domain for email, you have your own, why would anyone want an @hotmail/@gmail/@yahoo, etc address? For a webpage? Obviously, they do.

They do because they don't like replicating labor, or because they don't have the technical sophistication. I no longer run a local webmail service, because everyone can just use one of the GAMY alternatives. My mom will only have a blog when I set one up for her, and then what she does with it will be dependent on what plugins I show her. If she gets into selling things, it will be on Amazon and eBay, not tags+microformat+EdgeIO (until there are slick plugins and an obvious marketplace).

But why does it have to be one way (walled garden) or the other (edge)? The real opportunity lies in the middle. The next MySpace will be something similar to MySpace, not lots of little blogs and a technorati -- because teens don't care as long as their peers are convenient. Blogging on livejournal, memestreams or blogging on a privately hosted wordpress instance should be equivallent in the eyes of aggregation.

Genuine VC: On The Edge About The Edge

Amazon Web Service is launching a new web service tonight called S3 - which stands for “Simple Storage Service”. It is a storage service backend for developers that offers “a highly scalable, reliable, and low-latency data storage infrastructure at very low costs”.

They’ve built the back end for the number one requested company that I wrote about late last year - reliable and cheap online storage. I’ve been watching this space very closely, even profiling a number of new entrants, and I have to say that S3 changes the game entirely. Move over Google Drive, Amazon just stole your thunder (for now).

Holy.... wow, this changes a lot of things for me.

TechCrunch » Amazon: Grid Storage Web Service Launches