So the tech world was a-buzz with two things yesterday. One, GMail FINALLY added IMAP support, making Gmail USEFUL on the iPhone. God bless. More on that as I find quirks, both positive and negative.

The other bit of news that had everyone reeling in their Aerons was the valuation of Facebook at $15billion, based on a 1.6% stake purchased by everyone’s favorite evil overlord, Microsoft, for a staggering $240million.

I admittedly haven’t read everything on the topic, but I do know this: reactions are, and will continue to be, sensational. Considering the facts, I think my buddy Ben Metcalfe laid reality out quite nicely:

Facebook, not the market, decided the $15bn

Ben goes on to tell a story about some property investors building a shopping mall who overbought residential property because the value of the land, in it’s entirety, was much larger to them on the whole.

Furthermore, I think Ben made the key point in his seesmicast: value is defined whens someone is willing to pay for it.

The $15b figure is 100% extrapolated, and nothing more, from another indicating figure (that may or may not have any basis to be extrapolated from).

Here’s the way I see it: I was a pretty active comic collector as a kid (surprise surprise). I recall buying a copy of Wizard each month, and getting excited as certain editions of some of my more collectible books were increasing in value. What I learned then, and is 100% true here as well, is that the ACTUAL value of those comic books, as they sat on my shelf next to the latest edition of Wizard, was the ACTUAL value of the paper that they were printed on. Until someone was willing to pay the value listed in Wizard (or any other value, higher or lower), the number in the pricing guide meant absolutely zilch (it may as well have been an arbitrary figure rather than dollars).

Perhaps thats a better way, a less SENSATIONAL way, of valuating things. Think about how wine is rated…a point system. That point system CAN translate into dollars…but it doesn’t have to (and in many times, it’s inverse). As soon as valuations start coming from the company instead of the market…well…nevermind. I dont want to cry wolf.

Tags: gmail, imap, facebook, microsoft, valuation, point system, ben metcalfe, comics

Thanks to Jeremy at B5 Media for putting together an extra day of event programming at the Blog World Expo and New Media Expo and inviting me to come and present!

Jake McKee and I will be bringing some of our experience with community building and identifying ways to create valuable conversations to a pro-blogger audience, and I’m REALLY excited to get up there with Jake as well as be in Vegas for a conference that is smattered with some of my favorite people.

I know quite a few friends who will be attending the expo so I’m looking forward to all kinds of fun while we’re in Vegas. There’s still time to register (today is last day for discount tickets, though).

If you’re going, thinking about going, drop me a note in the comments so we can plan to meet up!

Tags: vegas, blogworldexpo, b5 media, jeremy wright, jake mckee, conference, public speaking

Originally Uploaded by ducttapeavenger

First off, you should know about a blog that was started during BlogPhiladelphia. Literally, in the 30 minutes of me running an open grid session, a blog was created from scratch (domain purchase to live) as a response to Scott McNulty’s “Group Blogging” session. You can keep an eye on it’s evolution at PhillyGeeks.net. The most recent post by Viddler’s Colin Devroe, has elicited the following response from me. It’s sort of to Colin, sort of to myself, and sort of to you, the reader. Some of it requires reading his post first, which I suggest doing. In the end, I’ll likely end up taking it elsewhere, since this is effectively a brain dump.

So I apologize for any confusing direction of a message, or the language used. This is direct from my brain to your screen.

Here goes.

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…

for me, a year of change, of growth, of excitement, of learning, and most of all, of dreaming up the year to come.

my guiding thought to enter 2007, by (fellow jew) steve jobs at stanford’s 2005 commencement address:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

I didn’t get here by shutting up. I got here by making as much noise as was appropriate, and then a little bit more.

bring it on.

Tags: new years 2007