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Update

I'm a bit late with this post, but I wanted to thank the organizers of Eday for the opportunity to speak in Amsterdam a few weeks back. I had a great time and even managed to squeeze in a few days of vacation in Tuscany afterwards (my first vacation in a few years).

Also, this is a reminder that I'm speaking tonight at the Building and Launching a Consumer Company session of the IBD Network. I hope to see you there.

Upcoming Speaking Events

The rest of the year is shaping up to be busy, conference wise. Here is a somewhat complete listing of where I'll be over the next couple of months:

• I'll be at Web 2.0 this Friday, on the Prosumer Media panel.
• On October 12th, I'll be giving the keynote at the Emerce Eday conference in Amsterdam.
• On November 1st, I'll be on a panel titled Building and Launching a Consumer Company talking about one of my favorite subjects: how it's gotten very cheap to start and launch Internet companies.
• On November 15th, I'll be on a panel titled Blogging for Fun and Profit at Webmaster World in Las Vegas.
• On December 6th, I'll be on the Tracking/Listening to the online world panel at Les Blogs conference in Paris.

I'm grateful for the opportunities to speak. If you're at one of these conferences, please come up and say hello.

[Updated]: Added the Webmaster World panel.

We The Bloggers....

[Cross Posted to the Bloglines blog and the Ask Jeeves blog]:

Blogs have given individuals of any and every background the ability to freely speak their minds and share information with anyone who chooses to read it, at any time they wish to do so. Bloglines was created for people as a window to access this world of dynamic content and a way to participate in its creation. We believe blogs have helped enable an open exchange of information that has never before been possible. As some of you may have heard, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is reviewing its regulations concerning political speech on the Internet, including blog activity. Bloglines is committed to the continuation of open exchanges of information and opinions throughout the blogosphere and the Internet in general. Today, the Committee on House Administration is having a hearing on this issue. In the spirit of these beliefs, I have provided the Committee with the following statement. We encourage you to express your opinion on this matter in any forum you choose.

-Mark Fletcher and the Bloglines team

Statement by Mark Fletcher Founder, Vice President and General Manager of Bloglines Concerning Regulation of Political Speech on the Internet Before the Committee on House Administration U.S. House of Representatives September 22, 2005 Chairman Ney and Members of the Committee:      On behalf of Bloglines and our users, I am pleased to provide the following statement concerning regulation of political speech on the Internet. Bloglines, founded in 2003, is a free online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. The company is a property of Ask Jeeves, Inc., a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, and is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.      We believe it’s critical for us to speak out on behalf of individual bloggers who, while empowered by the Internet, have a limited capacity to carry messages to Congress. We commend you and the Committee for convening this hearing and focusing needed attention on this issue.      We urge Congress and the FEC to ensure that the Internet, particularly blog activity, remains free from campaign finance regulation. While regulation of campaign financing plays an important role in maintaining public confidence in our political system, we believe the significant public policy interests in encouraging the Internet as a forum for free or low-cost speech and open information exchange should stand paramount.      Linking to campaign websites, quoting from or republishing campaign materials and even providing a link for donations to a candidate, if done without compensation, should not result in a blog being deemed to have made a contribution to a campaign or trigger reporting requirements.      Blogs permit the expression of and access to a diversity of political opinions and other information on a scale never before seen. This speech must remain free and not be discouraged by burdensome regulation. As such, it should be explicit that the activities of bloggers are covered by the press exemption of Sections 100.73 and 100.132.      Should the FEC fail to provide this critical protection to Internet activity, or if courts determine the Commission lacks statutory authority, we urge Congress to promptly move legislation to achieve the goal. Thank you for this opportunity to share our comments on this important issue. *                   *                  *

Insert Rant Here

Things have been quiet around here, and I apologize. In no particular order:

• I was on two panels at the SES San Jose conference last week, which was fun. If you ever have the chance to test Gary Price's knowledge of obscure '80's pop-culture trivia, I highly recommend it. The man is an encyclopedia both of amazing breadth and depth.
• I did in fact go flying in a Stearman, and I have the pictures to prove it. Except, umm, they're still on my phone. But they do exist. Flying an open cockpit bi-plane that's almost twice as old as I am is one of the more fun things you can do without going to jail.
• I work with really smart people. The Bloglines team is really great and I don't say that often enough.
• I was going to blog something about how tags are bad, evil horrible bad, and highlight the failure of existing search technology, but I couldn't muster the energy. High level message: tags suck and are unnecessary except in cases where no other textual data exists (like photos, audio or video). Discuss amongst yourselves.

Markspotting

I'll be at the Always On conference this Thursday, July 21, on the Open or Closed Web panel, moderated by that shrinking wallflower Marc Canter. I'll be arguing for a Closed Web. Of course, I am kidding with those last two statements. As I am continually reminded, sarcasm doesn't translate well to the written page.

On August 8th, I'll be on the Vox Populi: Understanding the role of consumer-generated content panel of the SES San Jose conference.

Most likely unrelated to the above two events, this Saturday I'll be trying my hand at flying a 1945 Boeing PT18 Stearman, which is an open-cockpit WWII era bi-plane. While I do not have the leather cap and goggles, I do have a scarf and jacket, so I'll be at least somewhat dressed for the occasion. I can't wait!

It's a Great Time to Be An Entrepreneur

Echoing many of the things I've been saying, Joe Kraus has a great piece on how cheap it is to start a web company. I can provide a couple of additional data points. I started ONElist with $5K. That lasted from January 1998 to June 1998 (it was cheap even back then to launch a start-up). I then raised $50K from a friend and that carried us through the rest of 1998, at which point we had 1M users and raised VC. I started Bloglines with $50K. That lasted the first year.

You don't pay salaries at these levels of funding. Everyone works for stock. The main costs end up being hardware and hosting (and possibly development if you outsource some stuff to eLance or another service). I took different approaches to hardware with ONElist and Bloglines. WIth ONElist, I rented machines from Digital Nation. With Bloglines, I purchased the machines and hosted them at a local co-lo. The advantages of renting machines are that you have a lower up front cost and you don't need as much sysadmin experience, because they will handle a bunch of the work for you. The advantages of purchasing are that it's cheaper in the long term and you're not limited in your hardware selection. Now that I have experience with both approaches, in general I'd probably go with renting. Renting saves a lot of effort (configuring and racking machines is work), and costs less in the beginning. This lets you get your start-up out the door more quickly and cheaply. And that's a good thing.

AlwaysOn Open Media 100

I'm flattered to be included in the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 in the Toolsmiths category. Thanks to everyone involved!