The Seed Capital for Startups Blog

Google's New Public Twitter Booths

The New Google Public Twitter Booths Rock

To be honest, I laughed when I first read about Google's public Twitter booths. It all seemed so silly at the time. Then everything changed today. While walking to a nearby store I felt a powerful need to Tweet about a crack in the pavement that looked a bit like the face of someone I had known back in high school. Well, you can just imagine my horror when I then realized that my phone was back in the car over a block away. My spirits immediately sagged over the dissapointment of not being able to share this experience with my Facebook friends.

Then like an oasis in the desert, it appeared. It was one of the new-fangled public Twitter booths being donated by Google to communities as a public service.

Currently, there's a charge of $.25 per Twitter but Sergey promised that this vital service should be absolutely free by 2017. Luckily I always carry a a big bag of change with me.

(Click to embiggen)

Within minutes I was on my happy way knowing that I had enriched people's lives with this latest share.

As they say, sharing is caring.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again: 1998 Returns!

An article over at the NYT brought back some happy memories:

Silicon Valley Start-Ups Awash in Dollars, Again

Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.

Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.

Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.

With each passing day it looks as if Facebook will become the next Blue Mountain.com.  If the name doesn't ring a bell, it was a small profitless dotcom with plenty-of-eyeballs acquired by a desperate Excite@Home for $780 million in October 1999 only to be dumped a short while later for less than 40 million.

Good times, good times!

Most people never ever learn.

Tell them our final offer is five kazillion dollars and not a penny more!

19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency

19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor
Washington, D.C., November 5, 2008

In a dramatic development that has come as a surprise to pundits and the public alike, a youthful technician with Diebold, Inc. has emerged as the unlikely winner of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The president-elect, 19 year old Billy Pustule of Green, Ohio, reached via SMS at the garage apartment by his mother's house in which he currently resides, said he was "real psyched about being the president" and "had big plans for the inauguration party".

Read the rest of the article here.

The amazing aspect to the Diebold machine is that no one really seems to care.

Solar Rechargers for Your Gadgets

Solar Powered Chargers for Personal Devices

It's been a while since I've seen anything really impressive in terms of personal gadgets for the road warrior entrepreneur or salesman. If you are like me with a small stack of gadgets such as cell phone, PDA, MP3, CD player, gaming device and digital camera, these small solar-powered chargers come in handy if a battery starts to run out of juice.

You can get more info on these new solar chargers here.