George Tuvell

What are people saying about…. ? ?

If you ever wonder what people are saying or thinking, about any event anywhere in the world, just go to www.summize.com and search. It’s an instant feedback loop of what the world is thinking, via twitter. (summize is owned by twitter). I have used summize a few times in the past, but will probably use it more often going forward.

I was watching the Grammy Awards, and thought that Whitney Houston looked completely drunk or under the influence of something…she could hardly finish her lines. I jumped over to summize and did a search on “Whitney Houston” as she was speaking, and several people were already saying the same thing. “Whitney Houston looks hammered… she’s drunk, Whitney had an Anna Nicole moment. etc”

Whitney Houston isn’t the best example, but do a search on anything happening high profile enough and you’ll get a response from the world. Real-Time and unfiltered. Pretty cool.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Can Technology Save Us – Again?

I’m not a politician or an economist, but I think a lot and here’s a thought. I don’t see a technology on the radar that will pull us out of this recession. In the 70’s microchips were king, and helped boost our economy. Intel started this whole wave which led to Billions in revenue and tons of jobs. I’m an Intel shareholder BTW.

In the 80’s, the PC came at us full force and every business, and eventually consumer, NEEDED one. Tons of jobs and loads of $$$$$ generated for our economy.

In the 90’s – Welcome to the Internet era. Cash everywhere and more money and jobs to go around.

The bubble burst in 2000, life got hard, but even companies like Google were born (2001) Yes, Google was born during the big internet bust.

So, technology played a big role in boosting our economy over the past several decades. But what about now? What technology is priming the pump? I can’t point to one myself. I don’t think it’s social media, at least not in the near term.  I don’t believe Facebook is going to generate the kind of cash and opportunity we saw with semiconductors, PC’s, and Google in the next few yrs. I don’t think it’s online media either, like Hulu for example. Users will only shift their spending from cable companies to online products if it makes sense, and the jobs will shift according to demand as well. It’s not an incremental service. The same goes with the advertising industry, where spending is just shifting from print to online and mobile.

I think the answer has to be altertative energy/Green. Companies like GreenBox might have a shot, where people can intelligently manage the amount of energy they consume. This is radical change that can really have impact. Maybe it will be the auto industry, but big change there feels +10yrs away. I think this time around it will be the energy industry that will bring America back, not high-tech.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Do written agreements mean nothing when times are hard?

It’s amazing to me that people can say one thing to your face, then turn around and do the complete opposite behind your back. Why can’t people keep their word? I do! It’s not hard to be real, and I suggest more people try it.

Below is a letter from my tenants, who terminated the lease early and now want their deposit back, though it clearly states in the lease that the deposit and last month rent are forfeited for early termination.

34. All parties agree that termination of this Agreement prior to termination date will
constitute breach of the tenancy and all Security Deposits and one full month’s rent shall
be forfeited in favor of Landlord as liquidated damages. Tenant will be charged the cost
of restoring the property to rental condition and also advertising and rent loss incurred
until the new resident moves in. Your liability for rent loss is limited to thirty (30) days
after restoration is complete.

Reads pretty clearly to me. I am just AMAZED  that people (in personal life and business) can sign agreements saying “YES, I AGREE TO THESE TERMS,” yet when it is not in their favor they  say “NO, THAT’s NOT FAIR!!!”

Hard lessons learned by me, TAKE NOTES, always always cover your ass And sadly, don’t trust people

LETTER:

We had someone review the lease while we were dealing with the purchase of our new home. Its their opinion that we would stand a better than average chance, should we press the issue, of recovering our last months rent and security deposit given some poorly written and inconsistent language in our lease agreement as well as Ohio law that protects renters in these situations.

George, we entered our agreement amicably and hope to leave amicably as well. So I would propose to you that we would not press forward in exchange for you refunding our security deposit (less any reasonable expenses related to damage of which we believe there is none) plus half of our last months rent.

Please let me know your thoughts as its our desire to end things on a positive note.

Warren

Posted in Life | 2 Comments »

I am a rooster

Chinese New Yr is around the corner - I am a rooster.

The Rooster is a flamboyant personality, feisty and obstinate. He is quite the extrovert who loves to strut his stuff and is proud of who he is. Outwardly confident, the Rooster is also a trustworthy, hardworking individual. He’ll tell it like it is with no qualms or reservations.
Not sure if that is accurate description of me… hmmm

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Is the future of SEO in trouble?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basically means optimizing your site so that it appears on the first page of major search engines such as Google & Yahoo, when someone searches for your content.

It’s a big business, with SEO firms making several thousand per month per site to optimize them by making sure the right keywords are in place, content, links etc.. all the tricks of the trade to get your site #1 on google search.

That’s all great, but how does this work when Google now allows users to rank search results according to personal preferences? When logged into Google, which I am everyday, if you do a search you can rate up or down the results and it is stored for future searches. My prediction is this will become a common theme on all search sites, and that this is just the baby steps to personalized search results every time. There are also new products such as surf canyon which has decent reviews for personalized search.

So, my question to the SEO folks is how in the world can you guarantee high rankings when results become personalized? This is  going to hurt some of the sites that simply have good SEO but poor content, and help those sites with little or no SEO and good content.

At the end of the day it’s good for the users which is most important. I do think though that SEO firms are going to have to battle with some clients seeing less traffic and “poorer” results because of the human filter

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Picture speaking louder

I had an immediate “Whoa” reaction when I saw this image – had to post.

What a sign of the times.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Disruption – I love it.

It’s estimated that apple sold nearly 20 million iphones at the end of 08 .

Why is that amazing? A little perspective…

This rivals the total number of blackberry users, only Apple did it in 18 months on “1″ carrier, with only two generations of devices.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

LG’s new watch phone – any takers?

Other than the fact that you need to wear a bluetooth headset 24/7 to answer calls, and you can’t really browse the web too well, this is pretty cool!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

UIQ dead

I read today that UIQ is filing for bankruptcy.

I used this platform for many years on the P900, P910 by SonyEricsson.  It was the most advanced touch screen smartphone available at that time in my opinion. Maybe they were too early to market, or embedded on only extremely expensive devices like the P900 (I think it was ~$800 USD), or simply never got the adoption and wide OEM integration to take real market share. Whatever it was, it’s a shame to see them go under. There are however plenty of equal or better platforms in the market today anyway.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Net Neutrality debate

Net Neutrality allows everyone to compete on a level playing field and is the reason that the Internet is a force for economic innovation, civic participation and free speech. Without Net Neautrality telephone and cable companies can decide how fast certain content is delivered to you, what you do, where you go, and what you watch online.

The fear is that big companies can afford to pay network providers more money to have their content delivered faster, leaving smaller companies and others in the dust.

I believe in Net Neutrality, and that all content should be treated equally. Without it, the internet will become like traditional television to consumers, where large media and cable companies control when, what, and how it’s delivered. If users want faster content, it should be up to the consumer to purchase the “high speed” plan and pay the price. Others shouldn’t suffer in the process.

I do not have a problem with companies developing optimization algorithms, caching systems, and anything else they can think of for optimal delivery (this has been around for years i.e. bitcurrent), but they should not get preferential treatment from telcos by buying their interests.

Dear Mr. President-Elect, please enforce Net Neutrality.

Read more here and here.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

MidVentures –> is very hungry

Great to meet Geoff and the guys over at midventures yesterday. What was to be a drop in “say hello’ turned into hours of brainstorming and sketching on these really neat stick-it white boards (you can print on them too for u mkt wizards)

They are cooking up some good stuff…to be continued.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Another one bites the dust

I’m getting too many of these emails lately – pownce, stikkit, many startups shutting down. Sad part is several of these were cool ideas that unfortunately will never have lift off. Makes me angry.

Hello,

Values of n [http://valuesofn.com], the company behind Stikkit [http://stikkit.com], is closing its doors.

Stikkit will going offline at close of business (5pm Pacific Time) on Friday, December 19th, 2008.

Until then, the Stikkit service will be working as usual to allow you time to make the transition, find alternative services, and download any data you wish to take with you.

Here’s the full announcement: http://bit.ly/KoIT

It goes without saying that you _can_ take it with you: export your Stikkit content and import it into an alternate calendar, to-do list, contact management application — or just open it in your favorite text editor (Notepad, Word, et al) or web browser.

Export your stuff: http://stikkit.com/export

** Please be sure to export anything you’d like to keep _before_ Friday, December 19th. After that, the Stikkit web site will be offline and all user data will be permanently deleted. **

Thank you to everyone who has made Values of n and Stikkit possible. It has been an honor to work with you all.

Rael

Rael Dornfest
CEO, Values of n, Inc.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

iTunes remote control on the G1 – Gmote

If you want to use your G1 as a remote control for your itunes music download Gmote – it’s perfect! Takes 1 minute to setup. As good as the iPhone remote 

That was the coolest feature of my iphone… more proof of the power behind third party development Why pay 3x for an iphone?

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Apple will own my living room

I desperately need to get a media machine hooked up to my television to handle all of my music, video, photos, and anything else taking up GIGS of memory on my day-to-day computer. AppleTV was a poor product and I was upset because I thought that would be the solution.

But now, I still think Apple will dominate my living room.  I’m thinking about a MacMini (w/ wireless TimeCapsule for massive storage) hooked directly to TV with ability to record like DVR/TIVO, stream Netflix, store Digital DVD’s,  and Play and Sync Music. You can even get HD connection.

My music library alone consumes over 1/2 my hard drive on my laptop! I’ve thought about a Shuttle PC running Windows or Linux, but you just can’t beat Apple’s ease of integration + nice looks.

Thanks Carlos for passing along tip on eyeTV 3. This is my new year resolution

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

www.change.gov

www.change.gov, originally uploaded by David-Wayne.

I have to love Obama’s use of internet media (now officially mainstream media according to many). This is really is Change.

Change.gov
Weekly Youtube address
CTO for the White House

Maybe there’s also hope for net neutrality and control over what I believe will be ridiculous price spikes on bandwidth consumption – worse than the overage charges on cell minutes when we first got addicted talking on mobiles.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »