The first dude who did this was Sand Hill fratboy Tim Draper, who penned the lyrics to "Riskmaster," and its Cyrillic sequel "Another Riskmaster." Then, at the Stirr holiday mixer last year, a group of VCs going by the name The Uprounds debuted the atrocious "Jingle Bells, YouTube Sells". At search startup Powerset's party celebrating their series A funding, Foundation Capital partner Charles Moldow crafted a self-serving "Ode to Powerset."

The latest entrant is Bessemer Ventures partner David Cowan, who last night recited a limerick celebrating the closing of Bessemer-backed enterprise email startup Postini to Google. Here's Cowan's poem:

There once was a founder named Scott Who invented a messaging bot That filtered out spam — be it virus or scam — Now we never get spam (not a lot).

John, who led us with class,
Thought a quick IPO would be crass.
But Cowan kept cryin'
To Quentin and Ryan
Which gave John a pain in the ass.

For spam and archive retrieval
Google came, and caused upheaval!
Are we now Googlini,
Postoogle, Gostini?
All they told us is just: Don't Be Evil.

(Image by toothpastefordinner.com)

• A guide to Unix becomes the new summer beach read for a topless sunbather in Greece. [NSFW: Flickr]
• A journalist overheard explaining how to pad an article: "But one thing is clear: I have three more paragraphs to fill." "It remains to be seen whether I can meet wordcount."
• Yahoo's photo sharing site Flickr, it turns out, made a simple way to import pics from other services. But co-founder Stewart Butterfield says that management decided to can it 'cause it was too "lame, and mean, and competitive in a bad way." Good thing you got bought, wimp. [Flickr forums]
• Web 2.0 cynic Eran Globen thrills at marketer Seth Godin's ability to sell Google themselves. "You guys have built something for the ages," Seth told Googlers in New York — in 2006 — about decisions made by different people in 1999. All marketers are liars, indeed. [Hellonline]
• Dear Macromedia founder Marc Canter: If you promise not to write free verse and call it a limerick, I'll promise not to make a Flash animation and call it an interface. [Marc's Voice]

Twas the year before Google, and all through the web
A click was worth nothing, not even a cent.
The groundwork was laid, the market a bear
In hopes that a savior soon would be there.

The VC's embarrassed, all hung their heads
Still waiting for WebVan so the could be fed.
And me with my links and Larry with his math
Felt smart at Stanford; a prestigous path.

When out on the campus there arose such a chatter
Our idea was Gold, making money didn't matter.
Away to Sandhill we flew like a flash,
Hoping some sap would give us some cash.

The six letters on the homepage sure had a glow
Innocent and Friendly, not evil...you know?
When what to my wandering eyes should appear
But ads and ads and money, no fear!

Then came an old man so calm and so quick
We were much to young to manage this ship
More rapid than MySpace the users they came
And they clicked and they clicked...boy it was insane!

Hamsters and Drugs and Paris Hilton
Golf and Wine and Subserviant chickens
Click the top, click the sides, just click them all
Wall Street is waiting our options can't fall.

And in the quiet period before the stock was a buy
We chatted with Playboy, cause we're cool guys
So all over the papers the bad news it flew
But I kept my cool, and Larry did too.

And then like magic I heard on the Tube
Cramer go crazy for GOOG GOOG GOOG GOOG.
Before I could sell or turn around
Bill and Steve were staring us down.

They were armed with chairs and spoke loud and clear
"You're trying to be rockstars your doom is near."
So we drew up a plan and hired a crew
Cause MSN sucks, what else could we do?

Then we brought on Marissa to fend of the press
She's a nerd like us but terrible at chess
Her pretty blonde hair would distract them all
While we counted our billions for the earnings call

The stage has been set for the grandest of battles
We even built a fort outside of Seattle
Vista we hear, is what the attack will be called
I assume it will launch by the time I go bald!

Your constant delays inspire us to work
Making free stuff for all, to drive you berserk
Remember each time your finger hits the mouse
Your clicks are just dollars for our bigger house!