Orkut, the new social networking built by a Google engineer, went back online today, so I went back onto Orkut. Within minutes, I found myself almost feverishly searching for friends to add who were already there. I took the list from my Ryze page and started looking for all the people I actually talk to… Continue Reading

A Yahoo news wire story reports that AOL’s earnings call revealed that it’s lost another 399,000 subscribers on dial-up and that revenue declined 7%, but it still had an operating profit of $109 million, up from a loss of $ billion a year ago and expects ad sales to (finally) go up. I’m tempted to… Continue Reading

Forbes asked Guy Kawasaki what one might expect from a VC investor. Kawasaki offers down to earth advice in line with what I hear from my start-up friends. Some highights: “As long as things are going well, a venture capitalist will leave you alone. Understand a venture capitalist’s life: He’s on as many as ten… Continue Reading

Stuart Henshall’s got a good point: “Orkut bridges the gap between Ryze (too open) and Linkedin (too closed) without the “everything is for sale” on Tribe.”

Rich Skrenta says that Topix has added RSS feeds to all their structured data searches. He writes “We have a feed for every ZIP code in the US, a feed for every public company, a feed for every sports team, a feed for every movie star, band and musician…and more.” He also says, “I told… Continue Reading

Thanks to Gothamist, I got to take a break from the proposal I am writing and experience Danny Gregory’s artwork. Gregory, a blogger, and the author of Everyday Matters, a book about his wife’s tragic subway accident, and his family’s passage through that situation, has been publishing work in various magazines, newspapers, and web sites/blogs… Continue Reading

Wondering what seafood is best to eat? This new national pocket guide to sustainable seafood– created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium–will set you straight. According to a recent press release, “The guide, modeled on the aquarium’s West Coast pocket guide first issued in 1999, will reach 2 million people by Earth Day 2004, including 770,000… Continue Reading

The Manhattan Users Guide (MUG) has been a great resource for NYC since the days it was Quarked-up, printed, and distributed to in-the-know subscribers(who then photocopied it and passed it on.) For the past couple of years it’s been a (free) email newsletter and web site. Today, it’s got some playful data: Earthquakes The two… Continue Reading

What happens when you eat fast food 3X a day for 30 days? Morgan Spurlock tried it and turned the results into a short film called Super Size Me which describes his 25 lb weight gain, soaring cholesterol, moodiness, depression and fast food addiction–and got raves at Sundance.

Just finished Southern Exposure and After the War, two novels by Alice Adams. These two linked novels–written several years apart–stand together as a tremendous work of American literature, right alongside Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety. I’ve enjoyed Adams for many years, but seen her really as a social diarist/comedy of manners type of writer–very Jane… Continue Reading