A VC - Latest Comments in Cloud Based Messaging

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

alinuxguru — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:53:47 -0000

Go ahead. Tell the world about it. No one is going to find your missive when they search for it on google.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

hypermark — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:51:18 -0000

Thanks, Fred. To your point on (not) running the table, wholeheartedly agreed. Google just needs a seat at the "adults table" to continue to realize their ambitions, and given their position as the carrot holder on indexing content (i.e., their search leverage), they are in a natural position to negotiate a library of commons type of license structure so that an open platform like wave can take root. That is not incongruent with twitter, facebook, yahoo, et al having their own proprietary branches off of this information and messaging bus, and of course, lots of startups adding values in presentation, aggregation, filtration, analytics, etc.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:51:13 -0000

I love what you say about what happens when messages become "cloudified". You said it way better than I did

That said, I don't see google running the table here. I think there's a lot of opportunity out there for startups

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

hypermark — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:04:02 -0000

Fred,

The Message is becoming the medium. Google Wave provides a lasting snapshot of the “IT.” Why? Because regardless of whether they nail it or not, the concept is out there, and it fits within a multi-device, multi-view and multi-directional mobile broadband universe. It seems inevitable and the environment variables are finally right.

When messages are cloud-ified, they gain persistency, federation and derivation attributes. They become liberated from a single instance or a single client application (like email), which opens the door to all sorts of interesting applications.

Three quick thoughts. One, Google is positioned to emerge as the (shared) Library of the Commons via Wave or its offspring. News, Pictures, Videos, Feeds, Mail, Documents. What do they lack? Music, Books?

Two, Google has to win this business, and I think that they will. If they are going to organize the world’s information, this is the way to do it.

Three, Google should take what they have done with shortcuts in Gmails, and expand it to their other products so you have a palette that you can call upon in a context-aware fashion (i.e., what can be called in Maps may be different than Gmail or News for that matter).

Btw, here is a post I wrote that provides an overlay example of where Wave types of applications could be headed:

Envisioning the Social Map-lication: http://bit.ly/16E2I2

Check it out if interested.

Cheers,

Mark

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:46:26 -0000

Pls do. I think I love gears

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

Gregg Smith — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:50:58 -0000

Installation issues on Win XP. Mostly due to my old laptop and Windows.

I tried it again to investigate the issue so I could reply. I had to edit the registry and it appears to be working now. Ahh windows.

I'll try it with Google Reader and let you know if it works.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

nycstartupfiend — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:54:39 -0000

My outlook used to soft crash (slow down but not lock me out) on a somewhat regular basis (once to twice a week). Ever since I installed Office 2007 SP2 a few weeks ago, it has been totally stable and meaningfully faster. I hope it lasts. That being said, I've also thrown a lot of hardware (RAID0 and 8GB of RAM in particular) at it and that seems to be a variable.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

ShanaC — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:17:57 -0000

I think it is a bigger issue than that- I think someone could totally hit them by doing a propreitary service to one industry (and one industry only) in the clouds.

That has the look and feel of something more traditional.

with a lot of the benefits of what google offers.

Google would take a major hit if it were the right industry and the industry was dealing with mission critical issues..

(actually I can think of an industry- but you would have to email me about it)

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:55:17 -0000

You make some good points prokofy

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

Prokofy — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:10:54 -0000

Unless, of course, they install a global technocommunist regime, then there are no more markets.

I do admire your touching faith in the fragile concept of "markets" Fred, it's our only hope!

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

Prokofy — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:09:35 -0000

You yourself only take calls from your wife and kids *shrugs*. You don't REALLY want EVERYTHING connected, Fred. Disconnection is good, too!

Look at our hero Robert Scoble, who publishes his cell phone number on his blog if you would like to see a paragon of connectivity!

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:55:11 -0000

Phew

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

tylerhannan — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:28:33 -0000

An odd woe...I've used disqus on my blog for the minor amount of comments it receives at present...and have been a huge fan. I decided to use the follow feature (for the first time) and it would appear that it was an authentication error. Somewhat surprisingly I was presented with the "something went wrong" screen but it was constrained by the embed region of the comment which made the error quite difficult to read without in page scrolling.

Regardless, seems pleasant now, will just copy/paste comment prior to click the "post" button.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sun, 31 May 2009 09:16:05 -0000

Hmm. I should try that. I didn't realize that gears supports other google apps in offline mode

What problems have you had with gears?

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

Carl Rahn Griffith — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:17:06 -0000

what's interesting is that this reflects the move away from a silo mentality - this transition creates many problems for people who are trained in the corporate/political silo way of working which was/is painfully negative and thankfully increasingly unacceptable nowadays.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

Gregg Smith — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:08:32 -0000

Regarding an offline twitter...can you pull your twitter RSS feed into Google Reader and use Gears to read offline? I would try but I've given up getting Gears installed properly on my laptop.

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:52:13 -0000

I said that about conversation threading for the past three years as the reason why I'd never go to gmail

I've gotten used to it now and can deal with it

If I could turn it off, I would

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:35:10 -0000

Windows is absolutely awful. I stopped using it a few years ago and would never go back

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:34:16 -0000

We've been on hosted exchange for something like five or six years. But that didn't help me because I still had to use either outlook or entourage and when they crashed on me weeekly, it was a huge hit to my productivity

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:32:08 -0000

This is exactly how I'm doing it with one exception. I use blackberry instead of iphone

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:31:07 -0000

Yup. We are going to do that

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:30:17 -0000

Me too!

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:30:16 -0000

That's a valid point of view. But its not mine

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:29:08 -0000

I'm not worried about google becoming too powerful. Once they do, like microsoft did, the market will turn on them

Re: Cloud Based Messaging

fredwilson — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:28:21 -0000

Well I suppose that's true. But if google breaches my trust, I'll tell the world about it. And then they will be fucked. So I don't think they are going to do that. Maybe a roque employee might. But honestly I'm not sending around state secrets.