Thanks to my Russian-American friend Ivan for finding and passing on this bee-related music video from the popular Russian band Ivan Kupala.
If you want to know what Ryan's like...he's kind of like the break-dancing bee with the top hat that appears at about 2:20 in the video ;-)
Had the opportunity to take a break from the computer this evening and take my 4-year old daughter to a high school football game. The game didn't turn out so great for the Hawks, but there was a minor celebrity siting at the game. Drew Stanton--the former Farmington Hills Harrison High School and Michigan State University standout and current Detroit Lions quarterback--came to the game...and sat right in front of me.
I must admit that I didn't even recognize him, but finally figured out who he was after a steady stream of autograph seekers clued me in. I will say that Drew was a real gentleman. He brought his own Sharpie, and signed t-shirts, sweatshirts, programs, hats, and posed for pictures with sheepish boys and giggly girls for the entire game. The only kid that he refused (justifiably in my opinion ;-) was a kid wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt.
So I guess all big-time athletes aren't jerks...
Techcrunch posted an interesting article this morning on Facebook's acquisition of Parakey. Apparently, everything wasn't hunky-dory with that deal; some of the Parakey investors felt betrayed when the company was acquired by Facebook because the management team received a very generous compensation offer while they received only a 2x ROI. Consequently, these investors--one of which is Sequoia--are wary of making investments in companies that are targeting their apps exclusively on the Facebook platform. Why? They are worried that Facebook will snap up the most valuable of these companies like they did Parakey, leaving the investors out out in the cold.
I think there is a lesson to be learned here for startups. When you build an application for a proprietary platform, you greatly narrow the number of possible acquirers down the road. For example, if you build a successful force.com application, there is only one company in the world, Saleforce.com, that would ever consider acquiring you. And Salesforce.com will only acquire you if they believe that they cannot build your application for less than it takes to buy you. So your strategy should always include a multi-platform deployment approach (and, according to the Techcrunch article, you should be prepared to share that vision with potential investors).
The good news for social network apps is that it appears (again, according to Techcrunch) that Google is hatching a new plan to "out-open" Facebook. Google's open platform will be a natural secondary target for social apps, and could, over time, become the dominant player.
As we say here at DevHive...
...open is better than closed...
DevHive was at Entrepalooza today, an entrepreneur-focused event put on by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. The event was first-class; the content was top-notch, and the networking was excellent. It was very well-attended by entrepreneurs, investors, and talented students. We had a table at the Career Fair, and I had the opportunity to meet a bunch of really talented people...it's great to have a top 5 b-school in your backyard.
Best presentation, in my opinion, goes to Kevin O'Connor (founder & former CEO of Doubleclick and others). You can view the presentation here [DISCLAIMER: the sound is not that great...]
The DevHive blog is now live. We called the blog 'Swarm Development' because the primary focus of this blog will be on DevHive software development. The webware revolution has already begun, and we are pioneering a new model for development--Swarm Development--in which individuals are financially rewarded for the contributions they make to a collective project.
If you're a reader, we'd love to hear from you and get your opinion...feel free to jump into the conversation.
