Things That I’ve Learned

• Blair waldorf is the new Acid Burn: mess with the best, die like the rest #

(12:30:45) Blake Stuchin: wanna get a quick lunch?
(12:31:42) Justin Pattner: dude
(12:31:56) Justin Pattner: i keep on doing this and we haven’t gotten lunch together in a long time, but i can’t
(12:32:10) Blake Stuchin: no worries
(12:32:15) Blake Stuchin: wanna go to africa and climb kili instead?
(12:32:18) Blake Stuchin: we can get lunch there
(12:32:35) Justin Pattner: haha
(12:32:40) Justin Pattner: i think so brotha

• America will miss you two, daisy and heather #

• Owie #

• beautiful outside, thinking about walking home after work #
• facebook: your chat is lovely, now please open up the apis. you are not aol and this is not 1997. #

Recently I’ve noticed that I have friends on Facebook who have become fans of not only music groups, movies, and even companies, but also specific nations. Apple devotees are one thing, but do we really need nation-based fanboys? This behavior smells to me like another example of Stuff White People Like.

What does it even mean to become a “Fan of Israel?” Do you go to all its events? Do you read the newsletters? Do you tell people that you were into it even before it got big?

What about people who are fans of Israel but not fans of America? Will Dick Cheney send his secret police to raid those kids? Or what about people who are fans of Lee Greenwood but not fans of America? The America group should get an M&A team and do a buyout of the Greenwood group. Same interests, now with streamlined management. Hellooooo synergy.

Facebook is silly; I heart Facebook.

“I looked for a woman who could bail me out of a third-world jail,” Jeff Bezos said on Tuesday night at a chat held at Stern. “Because I can’t stand to be around people who aren’t resourceful.”

This delightful insight into the mind of the Amazon founder was one of the many that Jeff Bezos shared during his chat with a few hundred Stern students and alums on Tuesday night. Bezos covered an array of mostly Amazon.com-focused topics. Here are a few points that were on particular interest to me:

• On organic growth: Bezos talked about the need to be patient in growing business units like electronics, which was initially introduced in 1999 and has only recently become one of the strongest performing units at Amazon.
• On measurement: Bezos kept mum on individual sales figures by media, noting that Amazon’s policy is to release figures only by business unit. They keep books, music, and movies all in one unit, which is the clearest the company’s largest revenue producer, but I’m quite interested to see how those three groups have performed individually over the last 10 years, and particularly over the last 5. CD sales, as Bezos mentioned, are dying, and movies will eventually get there, too. I think, however, that it’s going to take several more years of technological improvements both with video compression and with bandwidth availability in order for consumers to embrace the concept with the same zeal that they have embraced mp3.
• On failure: Bezos cited the failure of A9, the search engine whose existence I remember only because it had sweet mapping software, as a great learning experience and as an example of the company’s staying consistent with their promise to try bold new ideas. His best line: “Companies are rarely criticized for the things they fail to try; but they’re often criticized for the things they try that fail.”
• On the future: Bezos gushed about Kindle, the e-book reader that has generated getting great reviews and nearly made me want to get one, despite my continued resistance to e-books. Consistent with his approach to everything else with Amazon, he described the years of research his team poured into coming up with a device that would embrace the potential of cloud computing for data, while not losing any of the appeal of a medium - printed books - that has stood the test of 500 years of use. Anytime a design has resisted change for 500 years, he suggested, it’s probably a pretty good design.

For more coverage of the event, check out the excellent post at FutureThinkTank. They’re professionals, I just talk about what I’m learning.

It’s coming kiddies… I saw these ads on the side of a bodega on my way to work this morning. Hollywood Reporter has some details on it. And while I doubt anyone around here is giving them a second thought, I’d love to know where else in the country the CW is running this campaign. You know you love me.

• hearing jeff bezos speak at stern today #
• i don’t care what you say to convince me otherwise. if you are under the age of 30 and not on facebook, you are a caveman. #

(09:25:36) Keshav Lall: im dominating softball
(09:25:37) Keshav Lall: 2 games
(09:25:43) Keshav Lall: and im 18-18 in the field
(09:25:48) Keshav Lall: 5-8 at the plate
(09:25:56) Blake Stuchin: you keep track of your fielding statistics!?!
(09:26:01) Keshav Lall: usually no
(09:26:04) Blake Stuchin: hahaha
(09:26:06) Keshav Lall: but this year soooooo many balls have been hit to me