Let me just say that I love twitter. I LOVE it, and I seriously don't get why some people are not down with tweeting. First of all, twitter is da bomb. Yes da bomb, like that play in NFL Blitz that EVERYONE used to run. (Good times) So why does it seem like maybe four of my friends are on twitter? Look, I get it. It can seem weird, juvenile, or maybe even daunting. I saw it as a burden to be constantly funny. I mean that's what I was thinking before I decided to jump in. Believe me, tweeting takes practice. You'll probably start off with the "I'm going to eat an apple now." or "taking a sip of some vita water." It's cool. I'll let it slide. You're a noobie. But after a while, you get the hang of it, and start to appreciate all it has to offer.

Things I've learned from Twitter: via Trending Topics

1. #lilmamais creating buzz for her new show w/ kanye called "so you think you can make things awkward"

2. if #SouljaBoyIsGod then I wanna go straight to hell!

3. there are certain #textthatgetnoreply like "ay girl. Remember when I said I aint got no herpes? Psyche, I does got some herpes!"

It’s that time of year again…no not Thanksgiving…well, yes, but also….(drum roll) the Facebook fbFund competition! The competition is an opportunity for new entrepreneurs to receive funding for applications they have created. It may seem hard, but the purpose of this competition is to bring new depth to the incredibly deep pool of apps that already exist on Facebook. The 2nd round of the competition is going on right now between 25 apps that have been selected out of a group of over 600. The top 5 of these remaining apps that get the most votes by Nov. 30 will receive over $225,000 in funding.

I was browsing through the apps in this year’s competition -- which range from apps where you can "give thanks" or create digital wedding books to those letting you browse wine lists or compare prices. One of the stand-outs this year is an application called Daikon. This app was made by Stanford students (surprise, surprise), and is in fact the only Stanford-submitted app in the competition (this surprised me, given all the application hype going on last year on campus). The basic idea behind Daikon is that it lets you build your own application without any coding or programming knowledge whatsoever. Think DreamWeaver but for Facebook. Yes, you can get your friends to add the app after you make it, and yes, you can publish it in the Facebook app directory so strangers can add it too.

In terms of functionality, the apps you create with Daikon can do a wide range of things: from selling t-shirts to promoting an event for a student group to even making a Hannah Montana fan club. What's cool is that you can actually make useful stuff that helps in daily life (yes, Hannah Montana is important). The app interface is good, but I did have difficulty figuring out how to actually get my finished app published on Facebook. Fortunately the developers included a step-by-step wizard to help you when you get to this part. Overall I liked this app a lot, and would love to see it become a permanent fixture of FB. My advice to the makers –- add more widgets and templates to let people create more types of apps. I give Daikon a rating of 8 out of 10.

You non-engineering majors should check it out here (just kidding engineers -- you can check it out too)
And vote for it in this year’s competition

Here's the promo:

Daikon from Yuri Yamaguchi on Vimeo.

Two-hundred and sixty five Stanford students gathered today at the Women's Community Center on campus for a "MEGAPHONEBANK MARATHON to Defeat Prop 8", according to a representative from the Stanford Student Coalition for Marriage Equality (SCME). This makes the effort the single largest phone bank organized this year in California to Oppose CA Proposition 8.

Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to eliminate the right for same-sex couples to marry, has been a key focus for activism, campaigning, and education this political season. Stanford's White Plaza has been a host to a number of Student rallies, from an early October rally featuring Candace Gingrich to rallies which brought in speakers and celebrities from all over California.

In related news, a Stanford Computer Science student launched an iPhone-based (mobile) Guide to California Propositions [in Plain English].

This iPhone-based guide is intended to help voters quickly read about California Propositions as they face long lines to vote come Election Day, and can be found at http://rspace.stanford.edu/. Users can quickly browse the California propositions, read short summaries of each proposition, and follow web links to find out more information about each ballot measure.

For more information on California Propositions, please see the California 2008 ballot measures on Ballotpedia.org, and rock the vote!

I've always disliked Apple for very specific reasons: its insistence on closed and propriety systems and its general hipsterish I'm-so-much-cooler-than-you-simply-because-of-my-computer's-branding attitude being among the top reasons.

But, I could never deny, nor would I ever try, that they have not pushed the envelope as far as technology goes. The company has found a way to consistently be at the forefront of innovation (that something may be known as Steve Jobs). But in that way, I respect Apple. They make gorgeous products (even if they're prettifying and borrowing heavily from BSD) and they get people to buy them.

But these ads cross the line.

Massive server failures over at YouTube, it seems. I recorded this screenshot and tweeted a quick blast at 5:24pm PST and I was the not the first (that distinction seems to go to omegamb). I was the twelfth.

Dunno what's up, but this obviously will cut into my time watching some of my all-time favorite vids like Afro Ninja, Fat kid gets owned, Aladdin in Compton, Dave Chappelle and grape drink, or the classic Can I Have Your Number?

NOTE: When I tried to report the error via the provided link, I got the following page after submitting the info.

UPDATE: 5:40pm PST-- false alarm, YouTube's back up...PHEW! Now I can go back and watch those videos instead.

adapted from ICanHasCheezBurger

My good friend Anuraag had some excellent observations about Google Chrome which he shared with me via gChat while I was in jury duty today (don't get me started). Since I have gotten home and found time to play with Chrome, I wanted to share with you our (combined) opinions on the new browser.

The bottom line: it's worth your time. Here is some of what I took away from our conversation after revisiting my chat history in GMail, in no particular order.

1) Pro: Chrome is light (memory), fast (speed) and clean (UI).

It is in this way the quintessential Google product (like GMail when it first launched way back in 2004). It was well-engineered, with efficiency and simplicity in mind. Just start it up and you'll see what I mean.

2) Con: there is very little customization (so far).

With the above-mentioned simplicity comes with what is for an end-user, a lack of sophistication. (Chrome under the hood, might I add, appears to be anything but "simple" as it has a brand-new JavaScript engine and a novel memory allocation system which allows each tab to be treated as an individual process-- and let's you see them in a Chrome task manager). This is only the beta release so I expect much more from future releases. In fact, this is hardly a "con," since even where there is room to improve, we see the seeds for growth-- such as tight Google Gears integration. However, so far as customization goes, the bigger problem is the lack of Firefox-y about:config fun or toolbar personalization. Again, I'm confident that will change in the future but at this point ("launch early and iterate"), that's a disappointment.

3) Pro: Omnibox, "Speed Dial," download manager are good.

The Omnibox behaves similarly to Firefox 3's "Awesome Bar," looking through your browsing history and bookmarks to suggest as you type; Chrome also does Google search through this bar. The default start page, which looks something like Opera's Speed Dial (which you can mimic in the 'Fox with this add-on) is intelligent, useful and good-looking. The download manager by default is large enough to read descriptions easily on one line.

4) Con: Ugly icon.

Anuraag thought the icon was ugly. I agree. I don't get what exactly it is...a compass...a robot eye...a stylized Noogler hat with propeller...?

5) Pro (and this is a biggie for me): Chrome is respectful.

Much has been wondered about Google's distribution for Chrome. Sure, Google doesn't need to do much to get the blogosphere in a tizzy about its release of any product (let alone a web browser) but some have suggested that Google may use the Google homepage to promote Chrome, or package it with updates to Google Toolbar or some such thing a la Safari and iTunes. I hope not. And the way Google has acted so far with regards to the product has been respectful. When asked to import preferences from other browsers or whether to add desktop shortcuts, Chrome was respectful and made it easy for me to deselect any or all of it. It didn't step on anyone's toes to make itself the default browser on my machine, it delicately-- even graciously-- asked me at each step what I wanted to do with it, and when. Even upon starting up, Chrome asked me if I wanted to leave Google as the default search engine. Search! The one thing you'd think Google can get away with pushing hardest with the least resistance, is search with its 60% market share.

The ultimate question is, of course, how many people will use it. How many people, perhaps not over the next few months, but over the next 2 or 4 or 6 quarters will switch from IE or Safari (or even Firefox) for day-to-day browsing?

Right now, Chrome is Windows-only but Googlers are "actively working" on Mac and (more importantly, at least for me) a Linux version. I'll expect them soon. There are many arguments that can (and have been) made about Chrome as it pertains to Google's advertising arm-- where I worked this summer-- but for a moment, I just wanted to comment on the pure fun of playing around with and getting to know a piece of software which, without a doubt, will become verryyy important to an increasing number of consumers in the near future.

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Alyssa Rapp is the Founder and CEO of Bottlenotes, an online wine retail business that helps individuals discover and learn about wine. Alyssa started the company while at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she headed the school's 500-person wine club. In this interview, Alyssa gives key insights on starting and running a hybrid online retail business, talks about her personal and entrepreneurial story for Bottlenotes, and gives leads to the most amazing wine regions in the world. Her goal for Bottlenotes, she says, is to create the "Pandora of wine".

Alyssa earned a B.A. in Political Science and the History of Art from Yale University in 2000 and an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2005. In between her first and second years in business school, she spearheaded the sales and marketing efforts at RO Imports, an importer of boutique New Zealand wines in New York.

Thanks to Julio, iinnovate emeritus, and Roger for contributing to this interview.

- Min Liu of iinnovate

ASES SUMMIT 2008
APRIL 6-12, 2008
"Fostering a Global Entrepreneurial Community"
asessummit.stanford.edu | ases.stanford.edu

* Keynote and Speaker Events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC *

Scott D. Cook
Founder, Intuit, Inc.
Monday, April 7, 2008
5:15-6:30PM | Building 320, Room 105, Stanford University
Link to map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=01-320

Daniel Walker Former
Chief Talent Officer, Apple, Inc.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
6:00-7:15PM | Building 420, Room 041, Stanford University
Link to map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=01-420

Munjal Shah, CEO, Like.com Inc.
Vineet Buch, Principal, BRV
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
1:00-2:15PM | CIS-X Auditorium, Stanford University
Link to map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=01-370

Adeo Ressi
Founding Member, TheFunded.com
Thursday, April 10, 2008
6:00-7:30PM | Building 370, Room 370, Stanford University
Link to map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=01-370

Joel Peterson
Lead Director, jetBlue Airways
Friday, April 11, 2008
5:00-6:45PM | Building 550, Room 550A, Stanford University
Link to map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=02-550

ASES SUMMIT 2008 Stanford Directors: Christian Tabing, '09; In Ho Lee, '09; and Wen Qi Chin, '09.

Hasso Plattner is the founder of SAP AG, the German enterprise software giant.

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I had an opportunity to catch up with Hasso Plattner at Stanford’s d.school which he helped to start (its official name is the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford) and we talked about the experience of starting SAP and maintaining the company innovative edge as it grew to tens of thousands of employees worldwide.

Hasso has some interesting stories on employee engagement (soccer matches!) and on leaving IBM to start SAP. He also talks about what he’d do if he were starting another company today, thoughts on software as a service, and advice to those that have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Remember to join the iinnovate fan page on Facebook, and if you are interested in startup jobs and internships please e-mail Julio (Julio [at] iinnovatecast [dot] com).

Thanks for listening!

JULIO of iinnovate

I have two computers. One is a Vaio and the other is an older Dell. The Vaio is bigger, has a larger screen and is the computer I generally consider more of a workhorse. As such, it is the one I leave parked on my desk in Granada, taking it perhaps on a run to Late Nite or when working in the lounge. The Dell, an Inspiron 600m, is a tad thinner, lighter and more mobile. It's no Tablet PC or MacBook Air (though I'm thankful it's not the latter) but I use the Dell when I'm around campus in class or-- as I am right now-- in Old Union.

I bring this up because the only problem with my setup is that I do not always have all my files with me. Sure, I often use Google Docs or Zoho, two free online office suites, but when I forget to upload a particular file there, I'm out of luck. And I do have a flash drive, but it's simply not convenient to have different versions of my History 150B essay on my flash drive and then a slightly older version on my hard drive of a computer I was working on. You can see how this gets annoying and at some point, also counterproductive for my work.

I have found a solution. I started working as an intern at a four-year-old Palo Alto startup called Sharpcast and their product (currently in closed beta) is the best product out there to help me. I spoke with the powers that be at Sharpcast and so today I have a treat for you all.

It is my pleasure to offer you, dear reader, an exclusive preview beta of Sharpcast's newest product, SugarSync, which is set to debut in March. I will walk you through the features of SugarSync and if you're interested, at the end you can score a free beta at the end of this post.

On Friday, software giant Microsoft offered $44.6 billion dollars to buy enough stock to take control of Yahoo! in an effort to better compete with internet giant Google.

This makes me uneasy.

A Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo would remove a major player in the internet landscape, merging it into the ever spreading software company. This is just plain bad for us--the consumers. We benefit from Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo competing for our attention. As one company innovates, it pushes the others to adapt. And we get better services. Microsoft taking out Yahoo would lead one less reason for Microsoft and Google to develop better technology for its customers. We lose.

And why is Microsoft even trying to compete with Google? Microsoft is a software company at heart, not an advertising company like Google. They aren’t in direct competition. Microsoft’s recent foray into web search and advertising services can be considered as a hobby...at best. They can boast control of about 7% of the internet search market share. Google holds 65%. Microsoft should instead focus on what they do best--software.

Microsoft has had huge successes with its Windows operating system and its Office suite. They should stick to them. Microsoft keeps distracting itself with so many of these projects, resulting in a noticeable decline in quality in the rest of Microsoft’s products. Microsoft’s latest Windows Vista operating system, its main revenue source, is a blatant example. As Vista fails to satisfy customers due to its poor quality, Apple’s OS X and even Linux gain market share, chipping away at Microsoft’s iron grip on the operating system industry.

Microsoft acquiring Yahoo would not only create an increasingly monopolistic internet, but it would cause a thinly stretched Microsoft to deliver increasingly sub-par software to its customers. Microsoft acquiring Yahoo would not be bad new for Google, it would be bad news for us--the customers.

In November, Facebook rolled out its new tightly targeted advertising platform, to much fanfare, fanfare and fanfare.

Yay, many said, now advertisers can target exactly whom they want to reach and Facebook will leverage all the data points they have on users like me to decide which ads I see.

Which leads me to believe that they have something of an opinion on me. You know, if they serve up ads on my homepage about saving kittens from trees then they recognize how I'm a kind-hearted individual, etc.

But that's not what they think of me, clearly.

For the record, I'm not one of these people whose Facebook interests include "boozing it up," so it's not as simple as pulling keywords from my profile page. And I haven't added the BeerMe, Booze Mail or How Much Can You Drink? applications. So they're not using my App adoption data. Is it just demographics: male and in college = in need of DUI help? Um, I'm not even 21.

Is it just me or are other people noticing some weird ads on their Facebook pages? I'm not talking about outside Application canvas pages or anything (where the Developers would decide what you see). I'm talking about your homepage, profile page, friends or networks page, etc. I had other ads pitch things like trading foreign currency, "Top Paid Internships," among others.

John Morgridge is a Silicon Valley legend who led Cisco Systems through its rise from start-up to networking technology giant.

John Morgridge was the 34th employee at Cisco Systems when he joined as President and CEO in 1988. Morgridge joined the company despite its notoriously toxic culture and revenue of only $5 million annually. By the time Morgridge concluded his tenure as CEO in 1995, he had grown sales to over $1 billion and 2,250 employees worldwide.

Holiday time is rapidly approaching, so I wanted to take a moment to suggest three possible gifts, each falling into its own price range (from $0 to $999) but each being techie in its own way. Ready? Let's start at the top, with the most expensive of the gifts...

23andMe: A new Bay Area company, 23andMe is one of the first commercial genomic companies out there. For a mere $999, 23andMe will collect a sample of your saliva and provide you with your genotype information. What is that, and why should you care? Well, if Mom's always wanted to be able to blame Dad for your flat feet, you can give her the ammo. I first heard about 23andMe in a sophomore IntroSem with Prof. Russ Altman in the Med School. 23andMe's Linda Avey came and presented to us about the company in its infancy.

Kindle: Kindle is Amazon.com's new e-book reader, which retails for $399. In attempting to revive the e-book, Kindle has received only mixed reviews in the blogosphere (such as this one on TechCrunch). Among my biggest complaints is the fact that you have to pay for subscriptions that you ordinarily wouldn't have to-- like blogs for example. Still, if you're interested in the e-book realm, Kindle is the best iteration out there.

I promised you gift ideas (from the techie world) from $0 to $999 so here is your free one: Ubuntu. I'll admit this is not a new Bay Area start-up or a hot item from an online retailer, but I recently myself started running Ubuntu on an aging Dell Inspiron 600m. Ubuntu is the most popular flavor of Linux, a type of OS which gracefully walks the line between Mac OS and Windows. It also has all the customize-ability of, say, Firefox, but across your entire OS. There are many many great things to say about Ubuntu, all of which I won't get into here, but let me say that for your free gift, you can't get any better.

I have recently been consumed by a new addiction on Facebook: Scrabulous. The game uses the Facebook platform in a great way because, as the creators point out on the app homepage, users don't have to be online at the same time to play. It's got a lot of users (almost 400k active users, according to Facebook) and it is even popular among Facebook employees (Facebook blog). I don't want to do what seems to be the whole requisite tech thing and start reviewing Facebook apps, but this particular one has been making some waves (subscription, or access to Stanford log-in/computing, required)-- particularly because it's clearly just the game Scrabble. Which belongs to Hasbro.

Anyways, I play Scrabulous all the time. I love it. In fact, I love it so much that I feel it's perfectly suited for a limerick:

There is this new game on the Platform,
Everyone seems to play-- it's the norm;
It is really quite fabulous,
And oh so much fun...
That wonderful, wonderful game called Scrabulous!

Now that's out the way and I've used my expansive (voluminous, perhaps?) vocabulary to show you why I'm clearly so good at Scrabulous, let me move on to a problem. I'm not talking about a bug in the code or any UI complaints. I took a screenshot of my problem below:

Can't see my problem? I'll zoom in a bit:

Still can't tell what I'm talking about? Here, I'll even caption it for you:

Crappy Scrabble Move Rewards Big

"Za" is the most bogus of all words. In fact, that's because it isn't a word. How is it that "Zen" is not a word in Scrabble (one of the most disputed Scrabble words out there) but "Za," not even a common sound, is a 36-point play?

My friend, Darius, is cheating I'm sure, that's all.

Vinod Khosla is the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, formerly a partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, and partner at Khosla Ventures.

In this interview Matt and Julio caught up with legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur and “venture assistant” Vinod Khosla. Vinod was a co-founder of Sun Microsystems along with Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Bill Joy.

After leaving Sun, Vinod made the shift to Sand Hill Road as a venture capitalist at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers until forming his own firm, Khosla Ventures, in 2004.

Today, Vinod is well-known for his investments in clean technology. Join us in this interview as Vinod shares early stories from Sun, his views on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, and his outlook on clean tech investing.

Check out the video of the full interview below:

Thanks for listening!

- Julio and Matt of iinnovate.

What would the Internet begin to look like if net neutrality became a thing of the past? Although somewhat of a parody, this mockup isn't that far off the mark:

Source: Josiah Roe

If I get out of the Silicon Valley facebook-Google-mobile world and take a peek at the tech space outside, I can safely say that yes, it is looking pretty good.

Tyler G. Hicks-Wright, with his M.S. in Computer Science and d.schooling (Firefox-eBay toolbar, Global Giving Champions) under his belt, has returned to NYC and joined forces with Fog Creek Software (run by Joel of Joel on Software) to develop some useful and usable applications.

He and his team have developed Copilot, a safe and lightweight remote assistance service that allows you to help a less tech-savvy friend or family member with their computer.

If you recall those frustrating conversations with your mom about accessing a file from the computer sitting at home, i.e. "okay, so do you see a box with a blue border open? yes, oh, yes I see it. what does it say? it says [...] ...okay, click on that.... Yea, you might want to give Copilot a spin.

They're also giving away free Copilot passes to anyone with a .EDU email address. Alum addresses are fine, too.

Marissa Mayer is a key figure at Google and has much influence in the design, development, and usability of Google products we use every day, such as search and Gmail.

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When we asked what she thinks about each morning, Marissa said, "I think about the people here [at Google] and how great they are... The people here inspire me to such a level."

Marissa plays a pivotal role in the development and launch of key Google products and serves as a key advisor to many of Google's new talents. As the 20th hire (and the first female hire), she has and continues to set deep footprints in products such as Gmail and Google Desktop. Her demonstrated passion for consumer products and her engagement with the people she works with have made her one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley. She has been written about in multiple publications, including Newsweek, Fortune, and Fast Company.

In this interview, Marissa talks about Google's vision for search, ads, and apps, and personal experiences and lessons. Also find out how she identifies a great product during her "office hours", which Google application spawned AdSense (a core multi-billion dollar business), and which San Francisco bakery she co-owns.

Many thanks to the Googlers who contributed to this interview. We will have the video version of this interview up shortly.

- Min Liu and Julio of iinnovate

Normally I wouldn’t write about my own startup on the Stanford blog. But I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how fast and powerful just one blog was in spreading the word about Homeslyce, now servicing students starting college.

As you can see from the graph on the right, the number of unique users and page views shot up exponentially in just three days.

So I thought I’d write and share some things I saw and learned with my entrepreneurial home.

Brad Stone, a reporter for The New York Times, has uncovered the identity of The Fake Steve Jobs: it's Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine.

“I’m stunned that it’s taken this long,” said Mr. Lyons, 46, when a reporter interrupted his vacation in Maine on Sunday to ask him about Fake Steve. “I have not been that good at keeping it a secret. I’ve been sort of waiting for this call for months.”

Back in character, Fake Steve Jobs had some unkind words for Brad Stone:

If anyone can think of a cool way to use the name "Brad Stone" (all or part) as a verb, let me know. Maybe this:

brad, v.i.:

1. To bust a fellow filthy hack without mercy and spoil the fun for everyone, in a quest for personal aggrandizement.
2. To urinate in a pool.

Even better, I thought, was the punch-in-the-gut he reserved for bloggers: "One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag. I really, really enjoyed seeing those guys keep guessing wrong. For six months Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth put their big brains together and couldn't come up with the answer. Guy from the Times did it in a week. So much for the trope about smarty-pants bloggers disrupting old media. Brilliant."

Fake Steve, or rather Daniel Lyons, will be releasing a book in October entitled, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody, and soon his blog will be moved to Forbes.com. Anyone who has followed Fake Steve's writings, however, will wonder whether or not he can be so... shall we say... honest in the future about his thoughts on Apple and Silicon Valley. Will he have to tone it down, or will Forbes embrace the character in full?

With his name and that of his magazine at stake, Daniel Lyons will probably have to be more cautious about what he says. But that's unfortunate, because the snarkiness and ridicule was guilty pleasure, even when bloggers like us or the "freetards" of the open source movement are the targets. It was... irresponsible, I guess you could say, and correspondingly so refreshing.

BTW: Now that we know who he is, let's invite Mr. Lyons to campus. Word.

A couple months ago, iinnovate, a Stanford-based podcast on innovation and entrepreneurship, had the opportunity to interview Sam Altman '07, co-founder and CEO of loopt. loopt is a mobile "social mapping", or friend-finding, service which allows you to connect to your friends in real time over your cell phone.

This week, loopt launched its service with Sprint, its first major US carrier. This gives loopt a 56-million user base, and equally important, the ability to change the way individuals interact with their phones. It certainly isn't about talking anymore! The loopt team understands that there is a lot be done in the social and mobile space and is working hard to get its service onto other tier-1 carriers.

"The most common mobile question in the world is 'Where are you?' and we're excited that loopt will be able to answer that question for Sprint customers who choose to participate," said Sam. "The way we communicate on the mobile phone is about to change forever, as loopt on Sprint puts an end to missed connections and facilitates real-world interactions."

Sam and the other three co-founders started loopt after spending three months in 2005 at the Summer Founders Program by Y Combinator, a startup incubator.

For more, see loopt's blog and the press release.

Here's a republished article from 1982, about the author getting his first computer:

"Computers cause another, more insidious problem, by forever distorting your sense of time. When I first saw the system in the back room at Optek, I was so dazzled by the instantaneous deletion of sentences and movement of paragraphs that I thought I could never want anything more. When the scientists at Optek warned me about certain bottlenecks, I had to stifle my laughter. In particular, they warned me that I might grow impatient with tape recorders as a way to store data. You have to understand, they told me, it can take five or ten minutes to load a long draft into the computer from tapes, whereas a disk drive (which would add a thousand dollars to the cost) could do the job in seconds. Typical vulgarians of the machine age, I told myself. How could they imagine that I would object to five or ten minutes, when I had been spared Darlene?

Three weeks later, I was griping constantly about the tapes and scanning the pages of Byte magazine, looking for a good deal on a disk drive. Ten minutes was intolerable when everything else happened in a flash..."

It's a pretty funny thing to read in retrospect, especially the part quoted above, seeing as the emphasis is always faster, faster, faster.

So for my job, I had to drive back from SFO yesterday in a Chrysler Aspen, which you can see on the right. It's an awful car, representative of the poor ideas of Detroit these days. It bounces like a mechanical bull, turns like an elephant around a dime, accelerates suddenly and flightily like a little girl from a bee; it is a poor car. It has some superficial luxury but is totally unworthy of whatever was paid for it.

Point being is that the problems the American auto industry are having is partially a part of the labor problems and costs therein (the conventional reason for Detroit's failures), but mostly because the cars made there are crappy engineering-wise. Clearly what probably happened is that Chrysler thought, "Well, it's an SUV and luxurious, so whatever." Whatever pretty much happened. That's the attitude that led to Ford leasing its hybrid technology.

People who know me know I'm a Mac addict. I have been since my parents brought home our first Performa 6200 when I was in 5th grade. Tonight, I bought an iPhone.

Like everyone has said, it's fabulous. I haven't unboxed mine yet (it's almost bed time), but my fifteen minutes in the Chicago Apple Store with the device was enough to give me a solid first impression. There are a lot of things I didn't like about it: the camera doesn't let you take video, the web browser doesn't do Flash or even let you log into some sites (like this one... so I couldn't bring you a "live from the Apple Store" entry like I had hoped to). Also, the interface still has a few minor, but somewhat annoying glitches to work out, like the magnifying glass being off the screen occasionally, making it unhelpful in those situations.

However, it is, like everyone has said, a technical marvel. I loved browsing the Internet on it (via WiFi), despite the lack of support for some sites. Photos and iPod features were a blast to use--although, because the iPhone is a touchscreen, taking self-portraits was difficult (I couldn't see the button I was supposed to press while the back of the phone was facing me). I even placed a call to my mother. Holy Moses.

One thing I was unexpectedly impressed by was the keyboard. I never used the "one-finger" method to do the typing. It seemed too cumbersome from the beginning. I started right off the bat with my two thumbs, and was blown away by how easy it was to adapt. Rather than the five days the old fogies first to review the device claimed it took to get used to the keyboard, I was typing with no errors and both thumbs after only about five minutes of practice. During that five-minute learning curve when I was making a lot of errors, however, iPhone was able to predict what I had wanted to type anyway and so there were, in fact, no bumps along that road. Awesome.

I waltzed in the North Michigan Avenue Apple Store (Chicago) at 10PM this evening, avoiding the terribly long line that had formed when the iPhone was released nationwide at 6PM. The store was pretty empty except for, well, everywhere there was an iPhone on display. I found one hiding in the corner, tried it out, and then bought one of my very own. Even though everyone and their mother was in line to buy the iPhone, the Apple Store was still very well-stocked.

Apple's videos of the device in action are very impressive -- if you haven't watched them already. But to really experience it, you've got to try it out for yourself. Until you get to the Apple Store, the gazillion iPhone stories should tide you over. AppleInsider has high-quality unboxing photos and details from the iPhone user guide. They've also already taken an iPhone apart, revealing "better than expected" construction. Macworld has an article about an editor's activation disaster. Engadget looks at how far we've come, Gizmodo claims scientific evidence that iPhone phone quality is the "best ever," and PC Magazine, which was not lucky enough to receive a unit before they went on sale, says the iPhone is "even more impressive" than expected.

Finally, have a peak at Google Hot Trends. At the time of this blogging, 17 of the top 50 Google Hot Trends for today have the word "iphone" in them. That's more than a third.

Update: I have now commenced the iWait. I tried to activate my new iPhone late last night, went to bed, and now it's almost noon Saturday and AT&T is still telling me it "may be up to 24 hours; before I can make calls or use any of the features of my iPhone. Apparently, the company is completely incompetent and didn't predict so many iPhone users would be activating at once. However, upon calling Sprint to inquire about how much my early cancellation fee would be, I was reminded of just how incompetent that company is. I waited on hold for over 20 minutes and then tried for over five minutes to get the rep to understand that I wanted to *leave* Sprint, not *upgrade to more minutes*. I swear, it's enforced stupidity with these folks. It didn't help that my phone kept cutting out. Anyway, I'll let you know when I'm able to make my first call. Oy vey. Until then, I'll just pet my pretty iBrick.

Second Update: Okay, now the title of this entry is a misnomer. The iPhone itself is nothing short of fabulous... but activating it is... something quite different. I was on the phone between Apple and AT&T all day today trying to figure out why my iPhone would not activate, including a total of three hours of "You are very important to us. Please continue to hold. Your call will be answered in the order it was received." The conclusion after everything is said and done: I have to get a new sim card for my iPhone tomorrow because AT&T failed to activate my phone correctly. Or something. So 48 hours after buying my iPhone, I have yet to place a call. Sigh.

Of course, I'm not alone. Engadget, a popular tech blog, ran a poll of its users today and found that a total of 50% of iPhone buyers have had activation problems, with 38% of respondents saying they had yet to be resolved. The other 50% said they had no problems activating their phones. My conclusion: AT&T is functionally retarded, although their press people are claiming that iPhone activations are down to 8 minutes now. Let's hope so.

Third Update: My iPhone works, and I'm enamored again. Thank God. All it took was another sim card, and the headaches are over. A word to the wise: if you're transferring a number from another carrier, read this first.

Just wanted to let everyone know that one of our very own bloggers, Marie Jo, will be webcasting live streaming video from the Commencement ceremony RIGHT HERE. So, if you want to catch it as it happens -- from the Wacky Walk to Dana Giulio or whoever he is -- come visit us (bright and early) on Sunday at 9:00AM and perhaps during other portions of Commencement Weekend -- at blog.stanford.edu.

From MJ:

"uStream is interactive so your parents/friends can call 310-433-0523 to tell me to find you, and you will be streamed live! Tell all your friends. Go Stanford '07!"

...behind Tresidder, just outside the Treehouse. On a picnic table. Wearing his trademark black mock-turtleneck and jeans. The first thing I thought when I saw him: "Wow, he's got to be burning up in that outfit." What is it, 89 degrees outside? (That is, indeed, what my Dashboard widget says.)

Actually, my first thought when I saw him was, "Oh my God!! It's the iWitch!!"

My second thought was, "Damn, I wish he was my commencement speaker. Wouldn't that just have been the perfect counterpoint to Bill Gates' incredible commencement speech at Harvard?" It's better than that Dana Giulio person or whoever is speaking this year." Ah, well. I did get a chance to watch Jobs' commencement speech at the ceremony here in 2005... so I guess I can claim him as my own.

I haven't been out in the world for a few weeks due to finals and papers and such. But I just now saw that last week, Newsweek declared the Bush Administration officially dead:

Read Fareed Zakaria's fantastic piece on how we can restore America's place in the world. Really, if you haven't read it, go click on the link and read it. It'll make you sad, but also hopefully it will make you feel like we can do better.

...and then tune in to the next Democratic debate to help determine who will get to clean up Bush's mess. This one's unique because it is co-sponsored by YouTube and CNN, meaning that all of the questions asked will come from YouTube user video submissions. The New York Times has the latest on why this could be huge. I would say it might be entertaining, but I can't picture CNN letting anything truly unpredictable happen. We shall see.

Here:

"To listen to the raves, Fred's Coffee Shop serves a mean weekend breakfast. The omelets at this little joint just a skip across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco are said to be "fluffy beyond belief," the bacon "thicker" and "tastier" than at anyplace else, and the French toast -- oh, the French toast, cooked up soft and then deep-fried and slathered in sugar -- will help you find Jesus. Fred's, according to reviews posted on the popular local-ratings site Yelp, makes the best breakfast in Sausalito. Thirty-eight reviewers give it an average score of 4.5 stars -- a number that really stuck in my craw as I gulped down limp slabs of two-star French toast, sipped at one-star coffee, and took in the ordinary two-star ambience."

This post, by Salon.com's Farhad Manjoo, is a really interesting rumination on user reviews on Amazon.com, etc. I've long since taken user reviews with a grain of salt after the John Lott incident

That being said, I think user reviews and blogs really encompass the true value of the internet. Obviously Google's aggregation of information is tremendously useful, but what user reviews and blogs do is synthesize and analyze said information. Our problem, these days, is not how much information we have, but what we do with it.

Arrington started TechCrunch in 2005 to profile the latest and greatest in internet technology and startup companies.

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Nir and Owen talked to Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, when he visited the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Today his blog is the place on the web where you’re you’ll likely get the early news on major company shakeups, product announcements, and emerging ideas.

Since 2005 the TechCrunch network of content sites has expanded dramatically. Arrington’s empire covers 9 different sites, including a podcast called TalkCrunch, a product review site titled CrunchGear as well as several foreign sites.

Arrington was selected as one of the 50 most important people on the web by PC magazine. TechCrunch recently held it’s annual party “TechCrunch 7”, but the TechCrunch 20 is still open for fans. The conference, which is discussed during the podcast will take place during September 17-18 in San Francisco.

- Owen Tripp and Nir Eyal

Everyone, I presume, is familiar with Facebook's new "apps."

For example, Graffiti, written by two Stanford undergrads, Joachim and Alex, ingeniously allows you to write on your friends' wall more creatively (i.e. without text).

While many apps seem to have been written by individuals (no official numbers from Facebook), a number are also from companies. One of my favorites, for pure amusement factor, is the Red Bull Roshambull (Roshambo, or Rocks-Paper-Scissors).

It's amazing. I get distracted from my work (always a plus), and they get their name thrown around and traffic on their site.

I mean, look at the Alexa graph of the otherwise unsavory url www.redbullroshambull.com (which redirects to the Facebook app's about page):

Regardless of their exponentially-growing curve, challenge me and let's see who's got what it takes!

The Web has been abuzz with Google's new Street View function which pairs up with its Google Maps feature to show you what it is like to be on a street whose address you enter. So, you can look up your favorite bakery in SF, find the street, zoom in from satellite above and now, look right at its awning and that succulent chocolate cake in the window.

What I have just described is the innocuous use of this feature.

People have instead been looking for the craziest, funniest, strangest images they could find which were catalogued by the Google team, which covered miles and miles of streets around New York, San Francisco and other big cities.

Some claim to have found E.T.

But perhaps most unnerving to Stanford students are the images of our own campus. The Wired Magazine blog sought out submissions for the "best inadvertent" shots people could find.

This photo looks like it was taken right outside of Twain, between Stern and Wilbur.

Just by "walking" down Escondido Road you can find this photo of two girls sunbathing in front of Manzanita.

While I think the technology is cool (they use an 11-lens camera, the Dodeca 2360), I can see why privacy wonks are worried. If I were one of those girls, I probably wouldn't be too happy that anyone with an internet connection could see me in my bathing suit when all I wanted to do was get some sun on a lazy afternoon. And what recourse do they have? Call up Google and kindly ask that a new picture of the lawn in front of Kimball be taken?

It's taken me two days to watch all of the interview segments, but in the end: Wow. You would think there might be some hostility between the two men, legends of Microsoft and Apple, respectively. Humorously enough, the only thing that Bill Gates seemed peeved about in all their thirty-year history together, was the new "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" ad campaign. In reference to 'PC guy,' Gates quipped, "His mother loves him."

See CNet for a good, brief summary of the interaction. The All Things Digital website, of course, also has the full set of video segments.

Here's a recap video:

Max Levchin was co-founder and CTO of Paypal and is currently founder and CEO of Slide and Chairman of Yelp.

In this interview Max shares some stories from the early days at PayPal, and provides his views on entrepreneurship. Definitely note his thoughts on Paypal alums.

All technical blogs are abuzz with the news. As Microsoft is putting it, "Surface Computing has arrived". You can find a complete demo with some incredible videos here.

It might seem like a big coffee table with a fancy top, but its in fact a powerful computer equipped with dozens of sensors and cameras monitoring the surface and running a schmoozed up version of Windows Vista. The project was secretly under development since 2001 under the code name "Milan". Its priced in the $5000 to $10,000 range for now and is being targeted at the Hotel industry and other large corporate customers.

This short little video conveys a great deal of information in a very short time span (4.5 minutes). It discusses how the internet and web 2.0 is changing the way we interact and the way content can be displayed. Very informative, innovative and at times profound. Take a look.

As everyone on this campus has no doubt noticed by now, Google.com looks a bit different as of yesterday. At a three-hour press conference webcast live, Google announced that it was taking "critical first steps toward a universal search model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online." This means that we'll be seeing more cross-product integration within Google's bread-and-butter search results, so that when searching for "an inconvenient truth," you'll get the movie trailer right in the search results where you can watch it without leaving the results page. Similarly, blog search results, news stories, maps, and other pieces of Google technology will be integrated fluidly into the search results, as Google deems necessary.

It is definitely an improvement to have Google serve up related content, like video or news, even though users haven't explicitly asked for it, and to integrate it into the results, rather than impose it always at the top, as it used to be with the Google "OneBox." It is also exciting to think about what could be next, if these are only the "critical first steps."

However, a few of their design choices seem counterintuitive. Already, people are complaining about the decision to move the vertical search options on the Google homepage to the top, away from the search box, like it used to be. The constant extra mousing required is simply a strain on users.

Also puzzling is that the vertical search options bar at the top is duplicated in search results pages below the search box. Apparently, this is to emphasize those product categories with significant results in addition to the general results, but the emphasis is a killer for users' trains of thought. If you search for "Justin Timberlake" and decide you want to see News results for him, you have to choose between two News links, which wastes time (as user testing should have revealed).

Carly Fiorina is the former CEO of HP and former executive at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. No stranger to controversy, Carly discusses some of the key decisions and learnings in her career and personal life, trends in technology and innovation, and her plans for the future.

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Min Li Chan '06 and Min Liu '06 catch up with the resilient Carly Fiorina at her alma mater, Stanford University, as she shares her thoughts on what matters to her and why in the technology sector, her high-profile time at HP, and her autobiography, Tough Choices.

Carly studied medieval history and philosophy at Stanford, spent almost 20 years in AT&T and Lucent Technologies, and assumed CEO and Chairman of the Board for Hewlett-Packard from 1999-2005. She was named one of the most powerful people in business by Fortune and Forbes.

After a meteoric and controversial career, Carly reflects on what was done right, what technology promises, the importance of innovation, people, and a customer-driven focus, as well as making mistakes and correcting course in this day and age.

- Min Li Chan and Min Liu

Sam Altman '07 is the 22-year old co-founder of Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application that allows users to see where their friends are. Sam gives us a peek into the fascinating and incubative world of a Silicon Valley startup that's gaining a lot of momentum.

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"Oh yea, it's enlightening" said Sam when reflecting on the process of creating Loopt. Loopt arose from a need to find where your friends are over the cellphone. The most common question asked in a conversation is, "Where are you?" Loopt addresses this and seeks to develop a cool mobile and online service that helps you connect with your friends.

In this interview, we talked to Sam in the Loopt Palo Alto office about how he and the Loopt co-founders developed the service, what's ticking in the mobile industry, how to not get a case of vitamin deficiency, and why working for a startup might be one of the most exciting propositions out there. He was recently named one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs in Technology by Businessweek.

- Min and JULIO.

Last week, Stanford Law School professor and Net activist Lawrence Lessig (who also founded Creative Commons and Stanford's Center for Internet and Society) wrote an open letter to the chairs of the Republican National Convention (RNC) and Democratic National Convention (DNC), asking that video footage from party presidential debates able to be "shared, re-used, and freely blogged about without the uploader of the video being deemed a lawbreaker."

Lessig, along with 75 other Internet VIPs such as Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Ariana Huffington of The Huffington Post, is now joined by big-timers from both sides of the Red-Blue divide.

Republican bloggers like Matt Margolis, who operates "Blogs for Bush" have sent letters to the chair of their National Convention. Recently, presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Barack Obama, too, have shown their support for free distribution of debate content.

Scandal was born after MSNBC's live internet stream of the Democratic presidential debates last week. MSNBC claimed that no footage could be distributed on the Internet and that no one was allowed to use excerpts after May 26, 2007, and could not archive them, either. Outrage in the online community sparked Lessig's letter, and now has taken a prominent role in discussion of the debates.

As Obama points out in his letter to DNC Chair Howard Dean, open video access engages youth (I, for one, watched the debates online) and promotes a political dialogue in the form of bloggers, et al.

Firefox is a clear choice for many students and tech aficionados thanks to personalized browsers, security, and the overall notion of fighting against the Man!

When the Stanford d.school and Firefox joined forces to spread Firefox for the Spring 2006 class, CIA: Creating Infectious Action, the synergy and results were incredible. Rockstar students, guided by rockstar teaching coaches, created some of the best Firefox extensions and marketing campaigns to date (check out this sex and religion combo: Firefoxies and Faith Browser).

Thanks in part to this success, the d.school launched CIA 2.0: CIA-KGB (ARRR!). And guess what, Firefox is back, and better than ever!

Students this quarter are once again doing some really cool stuff. For example, Madalina Seghete and Tyler Griffin Hicks-Wright's project, My Friendly Fox, seeks to improve the eBay shopping experience by customizing the browser with an eBay toolbar and an ad blocking feature. Moreover, they added oomph to the little fox that could... by adding another fox! Say hello to foxkeh.

At the d.school, the design process is highly looked upon. These students are working long and hard, and smart, to help users understand the benefits of a better browser.

According to the American Institute of Architects, our very own Global Ecology Research Center is one of the top 10 "green" buildings in the nation. The article states:

"Global Ecology Research Center, Stanford, California, by EHDD Architects, a low-energy laboratory and office building that cut carbon emissions associated with building operation by 72 percent."

You can read about the other choices here.

Building image from the Stanford Report

As we mull over a possible federal shield law and in the wake of the jailing of Josh Wolf (who is now free after 226 days), the question of whether a “blogger” or a “citizen journalist” is actually a Journalist -- with a capital "J" -- has taken front and center.

I asked that question (via email) to Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He succinctly responded, “Yes. A blogger is a journalist if they are doing journalism.”

The answer is an interesting one in the context of defining a journalist either through statute or case law. Many have qualms about the very prospect of inviting the government to define who is or isn’t a journalist. To them, the act is a form of licensing and an affront to the First Amendment.

However, Bankston’s answer shifts the focus from who is a journalist, to what is journalism.

According to Stanford Journalism Professor Ted Glasser, defining what is journalism is the lesser of the two evils.

In a decision with repercussions for the burgeoning number of Facebook-ing and MySpace-ing teens, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled this week that high school students' free speech is protected by both the U.S. and Indiana State Constitution, even if the students' words are expletive-ridden or against school policy.

This court decision has huge ramifications for student expression on the Web, including us bloggers. The case focuses around a student only referred to as A.B. in court papers who was originally sentenced to 9 months of probation on six counts of harassment stemming from comments she made on MySpace highly critical of the school principal, Shawn Gobert. Juvenile court went so far as to declare her to be "a delinquent child."

The comments were posted to the supposed profile of Gobert, a page actually created by a classmate of A.B.'s, something she knew when posting her comments. She said she was even "pretty sure" which student created the online effigy. In light of this, the Court of Appeals held that A.B.'s virtual diatribe was in fact a form of "political speech," and thus protected under the Bill of Rights.

Today, Google Maps released a new tool called My Maps. It allows you to create and share personalized, annotated maps. You can mark your favorite places, as well as draw lines or shapes to highlight paths or specialized areas. There is a great HTML function that allows you to add your own text, photos, and even videos to points on your maps.

While mashups are nothing new, this is the first time this function has been truly accessible to Google's non-techie users. As usual, Google (aka Stanford) developers have designed an interface that makes it really easy to get started. I created a map for My Workouts as part of my Couch-to-5K Running Plan in less than ten minutes. It's only week one of my training, but I can tell this is going to be a great tool to help me track my progress.

Craig Newmark is the founder of Craigslist, the much-admired poster child for possibilities within a culture of trust and fairness on the Internet. Craigslist connects people with things that they need, as well as people with people.

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iinnovate's Owen Tripp sits with Craigslist's Craig Newmark to chat about Craigslist's humble beginnings as a "hobby" that eventually turned into a company--and how it continues to stay true to its original mission as a community service. Craig is named as one of 26 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs by Inc.com, crediting him for "putting the free in free markets."

In an interview with Wired Magazine, Craig notes that Craigslist's corporate mantra, if any, is to "give people a break." In a recent discussion, ScribeMedia.org points out that, "Craigslist still has the power to confound old line-media moguls and possibly change the face of 'glo-calism'--local reach spread globally."

Craig affirms these notions in his conversation with iinnovate about Craigslist, the Craigslist Foundation, as well as incremental steps and funny anecdotes along the way, while observing that "people are overwhelmingly good and trustworthy. People are okay, and that's true wherever you're from."

- OT, MLC & MW

From the iinnovate blog

Need another excuse to play Play Station 3 this week instead of cramming for that 8:30 a.m. final?

Last week, Sony announced that their hit entertainment system will support connection to Folding@Home, a Stanford project which utilizes the concept of distributed computing to understand protein folding, misfolding and diseases related to those actions.

While harnessing a machine's computing power was previously only available on PCs, the researchers can now pool the resources of the PS3 gaming machine, which reportedly "has a Cell/B.E. processor roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a personal computer."

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, talks about Google’s industry and competitors, about leading innovation, and gives career advice. [video also available].

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"All of the things that happen in your 20's are just the beginning of a professional career. With every ending is a new set of beginnings. It's important to understand that you want to be positioned for the very best ones. Now is the time, especially as a young person, to get those learnings. Not just about business but about life. All of the of things that you have to have to have a personal business compass."

More from the iinnovate blog.

Speaking to a crowd of about 100 students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business today, Microsoft CEO and Stanford GSB drop-out Steve Ballmer questioned Google's ability to accomplish its stated goal of doubling the company to 20,000 employees over a one-year period. "They are trying to double in a year," he said. "That's insane in my opinion."

Ballmer also called Google a "one-trick pony" that is right now "milking" its success in search and advertising. Everything else Google does is either filling in the space around search or is just a "cute" side project (see video clip).

He also questioned Google's management philosophy, saying "A random collection of people trying to do their own thing -- that doesn't create value, in my opinion," referring to Google's policy of letting its engineers devote 20% of their time to pet projects (for more on Google culture, check out the EdCorner).

The GSB has not yet posted news of Ballmer's speech to its news website, so information related to it is limited to reporting by CNET and CBS News, both of which chose to focus on his remarks concerning Google. The speech was over an hour.

Julio Vasconcellos and Matt Wyndowe, second year Stanford Graduate School of Business students, recently had the privilege of interviewing Silicon Valley legend, Andy Grove. From the iinnovate blog:

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Andy Grove is an iconic figure in technology and management worldwide. A Silicon Valley legend, he joined as one of the first employees at Intel and led the company to where it is today.

Andy Grove has lived the American dream, escaping his native Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution and arriving penniless in America. Andy became the 4th employee at Intel and eventually its CEO in 1987, a position he occupied until 1997, remaining in the Chairman post until 2004. Andy’s leadership earned him honors including Time Magazine’s Man of the Year (1997).

In this interview Andy talks about key strategic decisions at Intel, about Microsoft’s ability to change, his managerial style, and career advice. There's also video of a key moment where Andy discusses his opinion of Microsoft.

Chris Larsen is the co-founder and CEO of Prosper.com, an online person-to-person lending marketplace that has excited quite a few in the world of finance, business, and technology, notably the New York Times, SF Chronicle, and Businessweek.

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Chris Larsen is the co-founder and CEO of Prosper.com, an online person-to-person lending marketplace that brings together traditionally inspired dynamics of lending between friends, family, and individuals, with the benefits and rigors of modern-day credit systems.

Prior to Prosper, Chris co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of E-LOAN, which closed over $27 billion in consumer loans, and was consistently ranked as one of the nation's most trusted consumer brands. E-LOAN took radically pro-consumer actions such as being the first company to provide consumers with access to their credit scores, and played a critical role in the passage of the consumer financial privacy protection laws. Chris led E-LOAN through a successful IPO in 1999, and oversaw the company's acquisition by Puerto Rican bank Popular, Inc. in 2005.

In this podcast, Chris chats with Julio and Min Li about Prosper's innovative vision, its unique challenges as an eBay platform for money (check out Prosper's cool tools for academics and researchers for performing case studies on its model), and the fine balance between the countervailing forces of transparency and privacy in the world of Web 2.0.

Chris holds an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University and a B.S. degree from San Francisco State University, where he was named the 2004 Alumnus of the Year.

- Min Li

--
Note from Min Liu*:
For more interesting interviews by Stanford business school students and recent grads, check out iinnovate.

*yes, there's a Min Li and a Min Liu ;)

First was the command line. Then was the GUI. Next up may be the 3-D multi-touch user interface, some of which is already making it out into the real world, for example in the iPhone. The latest innovations in interface design are meant to make computers look and work more like we and the physical world do, so that the interface recedes into the background, leaving us, simply, with our content. With interfaces like the one demonstrated here by NYU's Jeff Han, the old point-and-click model becomes just one of many new touch gestures possible in the multi-touch, ten-finger world in which we live. Check it out:

For more on multi-touch and other cool interface projects, try here and here (video). Of course, Stanford is in on the fun, too. Check out the iRoom, for example, or just check out our HCI website.