Richard Giles Blog

We had dinner with the BloggerCon crowd last night. It was great fun and we got to chat some amazing people, like Buzz Bruggeman.

This morning we’re sitting in the second day of BloggerCon, and Clay and I have established that it’s much more relaxing than SuperNova. Different purpose, and of course a different people, and much more conversations. The later making it a heap more useful so far.

Don’t get me wrong, SuperNova was great for networking, and there are just some unreal people there, but the sessions focused more on the corporate space, and the new web has accelerated beyond them. BloggerCon people are all in the slip stream, creating it in fact, so they don’t have to rehash what we all know.

The current session is a little empty, but I guess that’s to be expected. It is only just past 9am on a Saturday morning.

I leave for the US tomorrow morning, on a damn early flight, and then after just over 24 hours of travel I arrive in San Francisco for Supernova.

The great news is that Graeme and I are ready to start to let people in on a few more details of our startup. We’re not quite ready for full disclosure–we’re keeping those secret for another few weeks/months–but we’re happy to start discussing the process.

Right now we have an alpha ready for a little testing. We’re also speaking to some people about an advisory board role or two. Hence the trip to the US.

So, if you’re interested in what I’m up to, or the actions of a startup then you can find the details at our startups blog: Web2Thing.

Yes, the name is slightly tongue in cheek, and when we’re ready will announce the actual name of the service.

If you’re planning on attending Supernova or Gnomedex, then flick me an email. Perhaps we can meet and chat about a web 2 thing.

Scoble has given several reasons why he chose to leave Microsoft, his family and happiness. Two of the best reasons to pursue a new career.

When I think back to why I left Sun, for several opportunities that are all about the new industry he’s entering, it was for exactly the same reasons. I wanted to spend more time with my family, and enjoy the work I was doing 100%.

For me that meant pursuing my own business, having a crack at a startup. I knew that if I sat in the corporate world for the rest of my life I’d regret not trying an idea of two I have.

It also gave me more time to pursue a hobby I’d discovered. Recording a The Gadget Show and G’Day World are a blast. I get to chat with some amazing people around the world, and Cam and I get to banter several times a week about the stuff we love.

This hobby, as Cam I’m sure will agree, has become something of a passion, and anyone who has dabbled in it will know, it’s big stuff. By the end of last year there had been about 30 million iPods sold since its launch, growing five times faster than the year before. If that’s not enough, in the first quarter of 2006, a total of 226.7 million mobile phones were shipped. Most have the ability to play audio files like MP3s. So, Scoble is entering a small market that is set for a boom: nanomedia, as Cam calls it.

For all those reasons I really get why Scoble is making his move. A very wise choice.

Clay, of Minti fame, suggested the other day that I attend Supernova and Gnomedex in a couple of weeks. It wasn’t a simple decision, because I’m in the middle of bootstrapping a startup with Presence Labs, and every dime counts.

However, the opportunity to network with a bunch of people and hang out with Clay won out, and I’ve almost finalized my travel plans.

So, if you’ll be in San Francisco or Seattle around the two events, flick me an email and we can meet to have a beer or coffee.

Wow. Om Malik links to Silicon Valley Watcher who has leaked news that Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft to join PodTech. I’d have waited until Scoble posted about the news himself, but Chris Pirillo has confirmed it, and he’s a very reliable source.

This is just huge news, for Microsoft, Podtech, and of course Scoble. I’m very much looking forward to hearing his reasons for the move.

Regardless, congratulations and good luck with the move Scoble!

Update: Scoble has confirmed the rumours, and corrected a few people on the way.

A few days ago I reinstalled Flock because I was having major issues with Firefox, and I wanted to see how far it had come (I heard on TalkCrunch that it had improved).

Today it auto-installed the latest release 0.7.0.16.2 which they’re ramping up in order to move to beta in the next few weeks.

If you’re seeing this, it means that the blog post tool within the browser actually works for me in this release.

Last month Duncan and I interviewed Markus Frind from Plenty of Fish for the 2web Crew podcast.

At the time it got a lot of attention because some people didn’t believe the Adsense revenue he claimed (see ShoeMoney’s thoughts here).

Since then he’s put a little effort into clarifying it, and yesterday he posted a photograph of a Google cheque for two months of pay to his new blog.

The total: $901,733 Candian dollars.

That’s $5.4 million if he sustains that over a year.

I’ve been an optimist about the Internet’s move to encompass/subvert/overtake television for several years, however, I think it’s happening a little quicker than even I expected.

The final barrier is a simple user interface for access on a standard television set. You know, press a button on the remote, select a channel/source/stream/videocast and sit back and watch. I’ve been waiting for Microsoft to announce a service via Xbox Live.

Yesterday TiVo skipped the queue and announced the TiVoCast service.

“Television is still the preferred platform for watching video. The TiVoCast service captures mainstream and specialty-based content on the Web, delivering programming that is not otherwise available through the TV today and providing a wide variety of choice that will be of interest to all segments of the TV audience,” said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s Vice President and General Manager, Programming. “The TiVoCast service provides niche networks and broadband content suppliers, for which the economics of television distribution might not make sense, a way to connect with audiences in the living room via their favorite medium for watching video, TV and TiVo.”

Given the move by ABC, NBC, BBC, CBS, et. al. to trial the distribution of some of their shows online, it seems logical that within the next couple of years that most content will be sent via the Internet, not just via the current broadcast model.

I should at this point mention my suggestion to Eddie McGuire I made in February.

My third suggestion would be to partner with a set top box manufacturer. Build a simple device that sits in people’s lounge rooms that aggregates multiple sources–digital broadcasts and Internet media–and you’ll begin to capture a community.

Maybe they should look to bring TiVo to our shores.

My favorite part of TiVo’s announcement is the inclusion of RocketBoom. I think that’s a massive endorsement of podcasting and videocasting.

Next up, TPN on your television set!

Cam (Kemo Sabe) pointed out on his blog yesterday, that we’re both presenting at Ark Group’s Strategic Corporate Communication conference in September.

Other than the fact that the actual presentations themselves will be interesting and fun, it’s possible that it’ll be the first time Cam and I will have met face-to-face. So I’m really looking forward to it.

If you register by July 28 the early bird price is about

Friday was my wife’s birthday. She’s the athletic type always up for a challenge. So I surprised her with a Bungee Jump. Of course it wouldn’t be right had I not given it a go myself, so here’s my contribution to the YouTube pile.

Just incase you missed the perfect swan dive, here is a screen grab at Flickr.

You can see Kilee’s jump here, and her apprehension here.