Don

Who knew? I certainly didn’t know Bruce was in the movie Slap Shot, one of my all time favorites. I will check it out next weekend and look for #7 around the net.

I am taking the rest of the long weekend off as yesterday wasn’t a lot of fun. It is time to think; time to relax  with my family; time to settle estate matters for my dad here in Florida; time to  regain some perspective; and give some thanks for lots to be grateful for this year. Talk to you all next Monday.

I shook Earl "The Pearl" Monroe’s hand last night at the Wizards game. I won

May I ask that when you comment on my blog, that the comments are in reaction to the specific blog post.

Right now, our great base of Caps fans are commenting on and in most every post. So I talk about Nanking and a memorial service for an author and we get comments such as "…Sad to hear but what will you do about xxx on the Caps". Or I mention I am giving a keynote speech and will see my son and we get "…Congrats. Now if you would only do this for the Caps". Also, if you send me an email; post something on our website; post something on newspaper blogs; and then you send me the same comment on my blog, I probably wont be posting it as I have heard you in many forums already and I appreciate it. I won

I spoke with Gilbert Arenas in the parking lot after the game last night. We talked about the blogosphere; about Google crawlers; about pointing to and from each other’s blog; about print media and about video players. I explained widgets to him too.

 My last conversation with him was about multi-user games; Major League Gaming as a company and its growth prospects; and building community on the web. He can really play. He is a great guy who gives back to the community and he should now be called Gilbert Arenas 2.0. Wow – does he get new media marketing!

Thank you. I needed a good laugh today and I just got one. Let’s do a big wiki – or Twitter – on changing lines on the fly from the wisdom of crowds. It is really so Web 2.0. I love it. Thanks for the funny post.

I can

In Web 1.0, young companies could plan on a potential exit event by conducting an IPO or by getting acquired under a long forgotten tax code methodology called a “pooling of interest”.

In Web 1.0, young companies could plan on a potential exit event by conducting an IPO or by getting acquired under a long forgotten tax code methodology called a "pooling of interest". Today, the IPO market is not welcoming to small cap companies that are growing but are unprofitable so acquisitions become the efficient method of exit. However, without the tax free pooling of interest methodology, acquiring companies essentially have to pay for acquisitions out of earnings. With the earnings pressure that all companies seem to have – other than Google and Microsoft – it has made the pool of companies that can acquire and consolidate small companies smaller and smaller. AOL has made some very smart acquisitions of late. I would expect Facebook will eventually acquire some companies and I also bet a financial player will develop what is called a "rollup strategy" and try to build out a network along the lines of what Barry Diller did in television by creating the FOX Network. However, the pool of companies that can buy Web 2.0 start-ups I believe is actually shrinking. This will bear watching as so much venture capital has poured into web 2.0 companies all with expectations of 40 percent annual returns or better. Something will have to give.

Here is a very in-depth analysis of the Academy’s short list. You can see the great competition of high quality films involved in this year’s analysis by Academy voters.