Random Musings

at the virtual goods summit today - looks like its going to be an interesting conference - good crowd of attendees. also, i am impressed with the number of women at this conference - way higher than the norm at tech conferences.  wonder why? are women in tech all in virtual worlds?

first panel up today: Branded and User-Generated Virtual Goods

* Brian Balfour, Viximo
* Lee Clancy, IMVU
* Amy Jo Kim, Shufflebrain
* Sean Ryan, Meez
* Moderator: Margaret Wallace, Rebel Monkey

funniest thing to come out of this panel was a comment by sean ryan of meez.  apparently, the women in meez wanted their avatars to look more like they do in real life.  however, the default body type was thin. they received alot of feedback for more fuller figures and changed the options to included more plus sizes.  they still get comments that the plus size isn’t plus enough.  but for men, these issues do not really arise - the most common body type for men is “Buff”.   hilarious

interesting financial fact: imvu is an english only, US based product, but about 40% of their revenue is international.  perhaps the era of focusing only on US visitors is over?

overall sense of the panel is that branded goods are not in high demand as people think. users do not really want the premium branded items yet. and if you are creating a promotional item, it should be free.

Yesterday, we welcomed Sue So as Of Counsel to our law firm, Fortis General Counsel. Sue was previously Senior Legal Director at Yahoo!, Inc. and specializes in IP transactions.  I am very excited to have Sue join our team - she really knows her stuff and is a great asset to the team.  You can read more about her here.

Welcome Sue!

Also, on a related side note, I am going to try to start writing some posts about things start-ups should be aware of when working with law firms (how to pick the right attorney, how to control costs, what an attorney can do for you and what they cannot). So keep an eye out for that.

random food post:

this past weekend, we joined some friends in doing a fundraiser for obama. this was one of our two contributions to the fundraiser:)

First, congrats to Chester and Chang and the entire TNC/Textcube team!

Secondly, congrats to Google Korea for making such a smart buy.

Chang announced the acquisition of TNC by Google Korea today on his blog. When I was in Seoul in March, both Chester and Chang demoed their product for me and all I kept saying was, “Wow, this is better than Wordpress!” which is the blogging platform I use here on this blog.  I even wrote up a short piece about it here and told by buddy Om to check it out.

I am not sure if Google will roll it out internationally, but I can say it is a first-rate platform that can hold its own against Moveable Type and Wordpress.   Also, I think this bodes very well for the Korean startup market.  In many ways, innovation in the Korean start-up market has been stifled because of the lack of good exit opportunities and the dominance of Naver and Daum.  This move by Google will not only attract the attention of other international tech and media companies to the innovative work in Korea, but it will hopefully encourage a new generation of entreprenuerial coders in Korea who thusfar think that working at Naver is the best thing for their careers.

Congrats guys!

i spent labor day weekend and the last weekend of my twenties at the beautifully remote lost trail lodge outside of truckee, california. the lost trail lodge is a truly interesting place. it was pretty empty when we were there, although i have heard that winter is their busy season which is amazing since that is the time of year when you cannot drive to the lodge. in the winter, you literally have to hike in 4 miles, with all your gear and food, at +6000 ft altitude - tough work, which explains why the winter crowd tends to be serious backcountry folks.

amazing kitchen, all the comforts of home, clean and great bathrooms. its off the grid, so its entirely powered by on-site solar panels and a generator during the winter. water comes from a well and tastes so pure. there are two babbling brooks on each side of the property, so you can sit and listen to them babbling. numerous hiking trails lead off from the site. plenty of mountain biking trails and two horses, plus stables for more. o, and did i mention, no internet service and only intermittent cell service depending on which way the wind was blowing.

the location is perfect. close enough to donner lake and truckee to get there pretty quickly once you make it off the long dirt, rocky road to the lodge

and here is the kicker - on the dirt road to the cabin, there are 3 major bouldering places with about 40 route! (split rock, shadow rock)

it was a perfectly peaceful weekend and i highly recommend it to anyone wanting to unplug for a bit.