Gawker: valleywag, bubble 1.0

Not everyone from the dotcom era suffered...

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:08:13 EDT

Not everyone from the dotcom era suffered through the bust. The former CEO of Disney-bought search engine Infoseek now spends all his time sculpting, painting, and playing tennis. [San Jose Mercury News]

Goodbye mouse, hello goat: A 90s news report on rural-life tech execs

Nick Douglas — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:28:27 EDT

Oh that crazy busy world of the 90s! Photojournalist Barton Bishoff YouTubed this classic news feature about "high-tech execs" from the first dot-com boom who live in rural homes out of cell range, with (OMG!) just one phone line. Best line by the commentator: "Goodbye mouse, hello goat."

High Tech/Low Tech [YouTube]

Loose Wires: Have you seen my license plate?

Nick Douglas — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 20:21:26 EDT

"Sorry I haven't posted on my blog..." [the f blog via Boing Boing]
"Delivering eyeballs to advertisers," 27-year-old founders, excitement about search engine optimization, middleman status, and stretched comparisons to MySpace and YouTube — which is your favorite sign that New York Times subject Oversee.net is a Bubble 1.0 company trapped in Bubble 2.0? [NY Times]
Have you seen a California license plate reading "Web Geek"? Can you return it to this driver? [Backup Brain]
In the midst of Silicon Valley's stock option backdating scandal, remember how legal backdating works. [Fortune]
Leah Culver, she of the ad-supported MacBook Pro, coded the Benniferizer. Sure, you could use it to hook up your lovey-dovey's name (Leah assures me she doesn't see what's entered), or you could play dot-com matchmaker. Sun + Apple = Supple. [Benniferizer]
Professional trendwatcher watchers find that the wisdom of the few can outweigh the wisdom of the crowds, which means the last five years have just been leading us back to respect for experts. [Washington Post]
Sun CEO Jon Schwartz says he's too badass for Moore's Law. [CRN]

Mister Macaca hid tech stock options

Nick Douglas — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 11:24:24 EDT

Senator George Allen, whose "I'm not that racist" campaign really didn't need this new information right now, failed to tell Congress about the tech stock options that he earned from three companies from 1998 to 2001.

Allen and his lawyer claim they didn't know of the need to report options from Xybernaut, Commonwealth Biotechnologies, and Com-Net Ericsson — since they were all earned during the tech bubble, the stocks quickly dropped far below the options price. Says Allen: "I actually got no money out of Xybernaut. I got paid in stock options which were worthless."

This really shouldn't hurt Allen's campaign — "George Allen: Racist, Confederate Flag wearer, dot-com dupe" doesn't have a sting to it.

AP: Allen failed to report stock options [Associated Press]

TechCrunch speaker spent $51 million in first bubble

Nick Douglas — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 13:41:28 EDT

TechCrunch, the popular tech blog and clearinghouse for dot-com news, today runs a 24-minute documentary on Web 2.0. TechCrunch publisher Michael Arrington says Scott Milener had the idea. Milener, the CEO of a search startup called Browster, also speaks in the video.

"So Web two-oh is not a bubble," says Milener. "Web one-oh clearly was, I think we've learned from that."

Milener "learned from that" by spending $51 million of capital as the senior director of business development at eVoice. According to Philip Kaplan's book F'd Companies, eVoice ran a web-based voicemail service. When eVoice started charging, customers fled, and eVoice shut down in 2001 (then sold everything to AOL).

So should anyone trust a dot-com opportunist like Milener with his own company? Sure, as long as it's an itty bitty one, right?

Web 2.0: The 24 Minute Documentary [TechCrunch]