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December 31, 2007

2007: My Year in Photos:

Some of my favorite photos from 2007:

Robert Plant - December 10, 2007 at the O2 Arena in London

January 2007 in Munich, Germany

Times Square, March 2007

Sunset - Miami, April 2007

Sunrise - Miami, April 2007

The Hamptons, July 2007

Sunrise - Miami, July 2007

Miami, September 2007

Sunset - Tel Aviv, October 2007

Sunset - Tel Aviv, October 2007

Miami, December 2007

Miami, December 2007

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.


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Posted by jeff at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

Event: Social Media Breakfast Jan 10th in NYC

On January 10th I am hosting a social media breakfast (complete with real-time social tagging) in NYC.

Readers of my blog are invited to join us.

For more details, please visit the event on Facebook

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Posted by jeff at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

December 30, 2007

A Chris Brogan Moment from 2007: Having Fun with a Guitar in Stockholm

Christopher Penn captured Chris Brogan having fun with a guitar during PodCamp Europe.

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Jeff Pulver’s Suggested Facebook Friends Code of Conduct (v 1.2)

(the following is an update to a blog post I started back in October)

These days I am a full-time resident of Facebook. Since joining earlier this year, at the moment I have 4,267 “friends” on Facebook. And while I have not met everyone, I have had personal contact with many of them thanks to the conferences and events I have produced and attended over the years. Included in this list are also people who read my blog and with whom I’m also a friend on twitter.

As I have spent time in Facebook, I have been working on an ever evolving approach I try to follow with respect to how I interact and communicate with my friends on Facebook.

In 2007, “Friending” has become a verb. And no, I do not accept every friend invitation I receive.

And as I enter 2008, I fully expect to be making a transition from mostly meeting new people on Facebook to using Facebook to keep track of the people whom I’ve already met.

I am not in any way suggesting that the Emily Post of Facebook would endorse any of my words, nor am I suggesting anyone else follow my suggestions. But if you are new to Facebook and you are wondering how someone approaches their Facebook friendships, the following is how Jeff Pulver is currently approaching his.

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Jeff Pulver's Suggested Facebook Friends Code of Conduct: (v 1.2)

- New friends are welcome. Please don't be shy.

- Please only friend me if you are a person. Companies need not apply.

- When friending, please share our common connection if there is one.
(I understand that sometimes I am an email contact and when you group friend people it is not always possible to indicate anything. I have the same issues when adding friends from my own contact databases.)

- Please feel free to send a message, Voicemail and/or Video message at any time.

- Once you friend me, please reach out and say hello every once in awhile. I enjoy the interaction and being part of the conversation. Please invest time and create a conversation even if it is small talk.

- Please do not include me in “Chain messages” unless you know that I know everyone else who is on the message chain. While I appreciate being contacted, I prefer personal and direction interaction.

- Poking is ok. And if I poked you it was meant as a quick way of saying hi.

- Please take a look at the photos I upload and tag them when you can. And feel free to comment.

- Please don’t be offended if I don’t choose to join your group or cause or event when invited or when I leave your Facebook group.

- Since I don't bite. Please don't bite. Friends protect friends from Vampires and Werewolves.

- If you want me to try out YOUR application, please send me a message and tell me about it and tell me why YOU like it. Please don’t just click on my name and send me an invitation to use an application.

- As a friend, please make an effort to communicate with me at least once a month, when possible. Try to maintain a running dialog.

- And if you are looking for my wall, you won’t find one. At least for now. I disabled my wall because some of my “friends” were using it as an advertising platform.

Please feel free to add your own suggestions/corrections to this list

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So how do YOU approach friends on Facebook? What is YOUR Facebook Friends Code of Conduct?

Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.


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Posted by jeff at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)

December 29, 2007

What does it mean to be a “Top VoIP Blogger in 2007?”

I do appreciate being on David Hakala’s list of the “Top VoIP Bloggers of 2007.” But I have to wonder what criteria he applied in order to come up with his list.

Back in 2004 I introduced the first “Top VoIP Bloggers” list when I listed my choices in 2004. I did the same thing in 2005. And some of the people who made it to David’s list in 2007 were also on my lists in 2004 and 2005. People like: Andy Abramson, Alec Saunders, Tom Evslin to name a few.

When building my own lists in 2004 and 2005, while I tried to be as objective as possible, in the end these kinds of lists are always subjective and I decided not to publish a formal list in 2006. However, the RSS feeds listed on pulverati are a list of people whom I read from time-to-time during 2006.

For my 2007 list, I would start with the people on my lists from 2004 and 2005 who are still active bloggers today, add the handful of people (like Luca Filigheddu and Pat Phelan) who joined the ranks of being a VoIP blogger during the past couple of years and then add bloggers whose opinion I respect about: social media, Internet TV, social communications and the continued evolution of the Internet.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

December 28, 2007

The Social Media “Vacation”

from Answers.com:

“vacation

va•ca•tion (vā-kā'shən, və-)

n.

1. A period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation, especially one with pay granted to an employee.
2.
a. A holiday.
b. A fixed period of holidays, especially one during which a school, court, or business suspends activities.
3. Archaic. The act or an instance of vacating “

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Back when I was in school I remember sometimes going away with my family for winter break. While I was spending time with my family, I never had any direct contact with my friends back home. For the possible exception when I might have spoken with a friend on the Ham Radio that I brought with me on vacation. But generally speaking, I was “off the grid”, and not in daily contact with anyone from school.

Fast forward to Winter Break 2007 and for my kids who are in the 8th grade, everything seems different now.

Since leaving New York my kids have been in daily contact with many of their friends who are part of their social networks on Facebook and AIM.

Thanks to Facebook, vacation photos are being shared on an almost real-time basis, status messages and wall posts reflect daily (sometimes hourly) events and my kids have yet to experience the feeling of being “disconnected” except when we are outside of WiFi and/or cell phone coverage areas.

I’m not sure how “vacation” will be defined in the future, but at the moment, while my kids are way from home, they are not away from their friends and have not disconnected from their daily online routines. And my kids are not alone. I’m guilty too. While I’m also in theory “on vacation”, I continue to spend a lot of my time consumed by not only social media but about ideas I have which I hope to help turn into new products and/or services in 2008.

In the future, I wonder if the words defining “vacation” will be redefined.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Three Quick (QIK) Predictions for 2008:

Yesterday morning during our social media breakfast, Florian Seroussi took out his Nokia N95 and gave us a demonstration of QIK. The video interview Florian broadcast live yesterday is shared below:

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Frozen Peas Public Service Announcement:

A new public service announcement (PSA) by Jeffrey Sass in support of the Frozen Pea Fund - "We will not appease Cancer." Filmed at a recent social media breakfast in Miami.

"A recent Social Media Breakfast in Miami showed that Social Networking Addiction is not always a bad thing... visit www.frozenpeafund.com" - Jeffrey Sass

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Posted by jeff at 06:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

December 27, 2007

One Foggy Morning in Miami

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(Taken the morning of December 26, 2007)

Yesterday morning I woke up, looked outside, and the words from the Counting Crows song Round Here came alive. "Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog, where no one notices the contrast of white on white..."

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Posted by jeff at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

December 26, 2007

Event: Social Media Breakfast Dec 27th in Miami

Tomorrow morning I am hosting a breakfast for friends at the Rascal House in Miami.

For more details, please visit the event in Facebook

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Posted by jeff at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

The Global Nature of Internet Communication

We all know that the Internet is a global medium that spans geographic boundaries. Yet countries around the global have taken vastly different approaches to regulating Internet communications which in some cases may prevent consumers from taking advantage of its benefits.

That is why I want to highlight two key developments that may help accelerate positive policies around the globe:

New Coalition Formed to Educate European Policymakers About Forward Thinking Polices to Enable Internet Communication

First, the VON Coalition has launched a new VON Coalition Europe to do in Europe what it has done so well in the U.S. – help to advance policies that enable consumers and businesses to enjoy the full promise and potential of Internet communications. This group is embarking on an effort to educate European policymakers about forward-thinking policies and believe that with the right public policies, Internet-enabled communications, such as VoIP, can increase competition, provide a platform for innovation, drive broadband deployment, and enable economic growth.

The recent release of formal Proposals by the European Commission to amend the existing regulatory framework for communications marks the start of a wide ranging review by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament. As we enter this era of rapid and potentially far reaching regulatory change, industry leaders have come together under one roof to create an authoritative voice for the Internet-enabled communications industry. The Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Europe will help to educate, inform and promote responsible government policies that enable innovation and the many benefits that Internet voice innovations can deliver.

I commend them for taking this step. Its especially important because some European regulators have mistakenly suggested rules for web based VoIP services that aren’t replacements for home telephone services. While there is a growing recognition that VoIP services that are marketed and sold as a replacement for a home phone services should have to meet some basic social obligations, I am troubled that some are considering applying tradition telephone rules to services that aren’t home phone replacements.

For example, the European Regulatory Group (ERG) – made up of European member state regulators -- recently published its Common Position with regard to VoIP. The final draft views a wide range of Internet communication as traditional “telephony service” and suggests the application of traditional telephone rules to the Internet – including services that link web sites to the PSTN.

What does all this mean? Well it could affect this very blog. For example, if I include a click to communicate link on this blog (like this: Click here to call the VON Coalition) then my blog (even though it is on server in the U.S.) could suddenly have to abide by a whole range of different (and perhaps conflicting) European legacy telephone rules -- from providing emergency access to ensuring quality of service. I am proud that this blog has a broad global readership, but I don’t always know who is reading this blog, in which countries you are accessing it, nor who may be clicking on the link above. Furthermore, if I had to comply with 27 sets of potentially conflicting rules from the 27 countries that make up the European Union just to include such a link on my blog, it surely will make me think twice before making these innovative services available even here in the U.S. It’s exactly these reasons that on a global Internet we need to think through this future before reflexively applying old rules to innovative services just because they have the potential to make a call.

And that leads me to an important second development:

VON Coalition Calls on Trading Partners to Stop Blocking Consumer Access to VoIP

While some countries could inadvertently squelch services by applying legacy rules, other countries are just outright blocking consumer access to Internet voice communication. So the VON Coalition in the U.S. has filed papers with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) charging several trading partners with creating market barriers and prohibitions that are stifling Internet based communication technologies like VoIP. The VON Coalition asks USTR to help open markets to these new technologies. (see http://www.von.org/usr_files/Intl%20--%20USTR%201377%202007%2012-21-07%20final.pdf)

Some countries see VoIP’s potential and have embraced it to unleash new consumer and business benefits never before possible. But as broadband penetration continues to escalate around the globe, a few countries and companies have taken steps to erect barriers that limit consumers and businesses from taking advantage of the full promise and potential of Internet based services like VoIP.

Several countries have kept high entry barriers for traditional voice services and extended these barriers to Internet based voice services. In other cases, ambiguities about VoIP service classification have allowed incumbent phone companies to unilaterally block or restricted the ability of any entity, foreign or domestic, to supply VoIP services over their broadband network. In some cases the limitations on licenses over a borderless communication medium or access to and the cost of telephone number fees have proven to be a significant barrier to market entry, as is the ability to interconnect to the legacy PSTN network.

For example:

India, who has become the world’s back office by utilizing VoIP (who hasn’t called up a help desk and ended up talking with someone from India), nonetheless regulators there prevent VoIP services from connecting to the Indian phone network.

China has created strict licensing criteria that will delay its ability to take advantage of the power and potential of Internet communication for years to come. (think great digital wall of China)

Kuwait regulators have harassed, raided, physical assaulted, and arrested those involved in Internet voice including providers, employees, and users. (NOTE: If you are reading this blog from Kuwait, don’t click on the link I provided above that can initiate a call for your own protection.)

United Arab Emirates is now blocking access to a variety of VoIP services and earlier this year compared it to something as harmful as access to pornography.

Armenian regulators have also allowed VoIP blocking. As a result, earlier this year hundreds of people rallied in the streets of Yerevan in protest against a ruling allowing the monopoly telephone company ArmenTel to restrict or even block altogether competitors’ access to VoIP.

Saudi Arabian monopoly provider Saudi Telecoms continues to use IP tracking technology to block VoIP calls.

That is why the VON Coalition has called on the USTR and these countries to help unleash a positive future and stop blocking consumer access to VoIP. Last year, as a result of a similar VON Coalition challenge, the US government called on these other countries to open up their markets to VoIP and there were some positive steps forward.

By lowering these barriers and prohibitions, VoIP-led innovation has immense potential to extend the power of Internet communications to new corners. Consumers throughout the world will be able to use VoIP to do things never thought possible, businesses may increase efficiency and productivity and transform the way they operate, and broadband enabled communications can help economies to become engines for innovation and the creation of higher-paying Information Age jobs.

These are great efforts, and I’m glad there are people out there fighting for these things.


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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.


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Posted by jeff at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (44)

December 25, 2007

Happy Holidays 2007!

"A Day at the Beach"

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Best Wishes for the 2007 Holiday Season!

Posted by jeff at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

December 24, 2007

Facebook is not killing blogs; Facebook is changing the way some of us approach writing our Blogs.

I enjoyed reading the “Is Facebook killing blogs?” post Jon Arnold wrote as a follow up to my recent “Where Have all the Comments Gone?” post. As we explore our own evolving social graphs and try to understand the growing responsibilities for managing our own social networks, one impact I never anticipated was the one Facebook would have on the way I approach blogging and the ways which my friends (all 4,226 of them) can interact with me, at will, about any given subject, at anytime of the night or day.

Every once in a while I will take a blog entry from this blog and will post it as a note on Facebook. I don’t believe every blog entry of mine should automatically appear as a Facebook note, so I don’t have anything setup to automatically do this.

Generally speaking, once I post a note, the conversation comes alive and the community of people known as “my friends” will jump in and take the conversation to various directions. Yes, the same thing sometimes happens here, but I have discovered posting a note in Facebook has a much longer lasting effect. For example, at the moment there are 35 comments (and counting) contributed to my note about: Will Business Cards still be used in 2015? and 42 comments contributed to: Facebook Feature Request: Invisibility. And these are just two of the conversations which are still continuing, days after the original note was posted.

So while I don’t think Facebook is “killing blogs”, it is having an impact on the way some of us use our blog as platforms to share our messages and engage and interact with our respective communities.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)

Want to Start a Conversation? Post a Note on Facebook

These days if I want to start a conversation on about just about any topic, all I need to do is to post a note on Facebook. Please feel free to drop by and join the conversations taking place in my notes.

Posting a note on Facebook offers an immediate opportunity to be seen and to be heard and to be felt by the community known as “your friends.” But be forewarned. Only post a note on Facebook if you are prepared to stay engaged and continue to contribute to the conversation you started.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (145)

My “Television Reborn” session from LeWeb3:

With: Robert Scoble (PodTech), Nir Ofir (BlogTV), Cyrille de Lasteyrie "Vin-Vin" (Seesmic) and someone from French TV1

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December 23, 2007

Watch my Led Zeppelin Videos on Magnify.Net

Magnify.net is the new home for the Led Zeppelin video footage that I shot during their reunion concert on December 10th at London's O2 Arena. Please drop by my channel to watch the videos.

And today it seems Steve Rosenbaum put me in the spotlight on Magnify.net. If you are passionate about a subject area, by all means go over to Magnify.net and start a video channel. It really is that easy to get started.

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Posted by jeff at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

December 22, 2007

Will Business Cards still be used in 2015?

I’m wondering how much longer in the course of doing business we will continue to exchange business cards as a ritual practice.

I am already starting to experience instances where someone friends me on Facebook after a business meeting instead of exchanging a business card with me. But I do recognize I am an early adopter to social trends and my actions may not reflect the norm for some time to come.

For many of us, our first business card is something we remember, something we share with family and friends and something that we have been proud of one time or another in our lives. But in 2008, how useful is a business card as compared to in 1984?

Earlier today I was doing my annual cleaning of my computer bag and I rediscovered hundreds of business cards which I accumulated during the course of this year. And it seems that once I exchange a business card with someone, their card eventually makes it from my pocket or wallet into my computer bag. And once the card is in my bag, it enters my own personal business card twilight zone and while the card never gets thrown out, it also usually never gets looked at again (until I clean my bag.) And this isn’t meant with any disrespect to the people whom I exchanged business cards with, rather, this is more of a sense of my own reality and how I’ve approached the exchanging of business cards over the years.

One of the rituals of being a ham radio operator is to exchange something known as “QSL Cards” with a person who you spoke to. The QSL card is proof that a conversation took place at a certain time and place between two people. When I exchange business cards with someone, this is a parallel to exchanging QSL cards except the information shared is different. But in the event I want to speak with the ham radio operator again, all I need to do is look up their callsign in a ham radio database and I can generally reconnect with that person. The same can’t be said about the business cards I have collected over the years.

Since business cards contain static information the chances are great that some part of the contact details of a friend is going to change during the next 12-18 months and their business cards do not update themselves automatically. And knowing this I keep on asking myself, “Why are we still exchanging business cards when we can just facebook friend each other?” (yes, I’ve heard of Plaxo, I once thought I would scan all of the business cards I had and create a contact database for future use, but I’m just too lazy to do it.)

At Fall 2007 VON I brought a new business card to exchange with people I met. My first “social media aware” business card was designed with the help of my friend Chris Brogan. My new card offers my twitter ID, Facebook name, Blog URL, a pointer to pulver.tv , my email address and my cell phone number. Nowhere would you find a physical address listed.( I figured whoever needed my physical address would message me on facebook and ask me for it.)

I wonder how much longer we will exchange business cards at meetings? Will we just Bluetooth our details to each other after we meet? Will the day eventually come where we are all connected together by a common social graph so we just need to know each other’s names and what we look like and we will connect each other after meetings? If so, does this happen before 2015?

Until that day happens, I will try to remember to write on the back of each card I receive where I met the person so that in the event I did want to contact them again, I would be able to share the context.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (110)

December 21, 2007

Next stop: Miami.

Later this morning I will be heading to Miami where I will be staying through the end of the year. I’m looking forward to sharing a sunrise or two while I’m away.

And if you will be visiting the Ft. Lauderdale / Miami area next week and looking for something to do, please drop me a note. We may have enough people to pull together a social media breakfast on Dec 27th or Dec 28th.


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Posted by jeff at 06:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

December 20, 2007

“Where Have all the Comments Gone?”

One of the side effects of my friends becoming active in Facebook has been the loss of their voice here on my blog. And while some friends still drop by from time-to-time to catch up with what is on my mind and what I have been up to, generally speaking, a number of my friends are more apt to comment on a “Note” I post on Facebook rather than make the effort to visit my blog and comment on a blog post. And while I never expected to see every blog post receive a comment, I could usually count on seeing “bunches” of comments posted here every once in a while. But that phenomenon seems to have shifted over to Facebook in sync with the time my friends are now spending in Facebook.

So it feels if I’m looking for an engaged audience to comment about something on my mind, I am most likely better off posting a note on Facebook than making another entry in my blog. On Facebook, when I post a Note, it signals the start of a group conversation.

One thing I do find interesting is while the traffic on my blog exposes all my cumulative content to a growing worldwide audience, at any given moment, the 4200 “friends” of mine on Facebook collectively appear to be more engaged to join the conversation, and they make the effort needed to be heard more often than the random stranger who visits my blog.

Just looking at a couple of blog posts from this week, yesterday’s blog post concerning my predictions for 2008 so far received no comments, and the same content posted as a note on Facebook received 12. My post earlier this week requesting a new Invisibility feature be added on Facebook yielded 4 comments on my blog and the same content posted as a note has 34 comments and that conversation is continuing.

The issue here isn’t simply the importing of a blog post into Facebook. That solution exists and is easy to implement. Turns out I don’t want to take every blog post of mine and turn it into a Facebook Note. But what I would like to do is find a way to enable the conversation to take place across multiple social networks, and seamlessly share each of the comments as part of a threaded conversation.

And it isn’t as if the entire conversation is shifting to Facebook, but it does feel as if something has shifted. I’m wondering how many other bloggers who also have embraced Facebook are experiencing something similar. I would like to know. Please drop me a line or share your experiences in the comments below.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (53)

December 19, 2007

Coffee Talk with Jeff Pulver – Jeff’s Predictions for 2008

It seems to be that time of year again; the time for people to share their predictions for the year ahead. Below are my predictions for 2008 from my foggy crystal ball:

1) Lobbyists and Policymakers in the US will continue to try to apply legacy rules and regulations on Internet based applications, be it voice, television or radio.

2) The FCC will attempt to extend its definition of indecency laws to the Internet, Cable and Satellite networks prior to the 2008 Election.

3) Broadband penetration will continue to snowball in the US, but not at a pace fast enough to raise America's mediocre global standing in broadband penetration.

4) As filmmakers start to feel comfortable with the concept of going "direct to the Net", 2008 will be the year when this starts to become the norm, rather than the exception.

5) If the writer’s strike is not resolved by February, look for the major networks to start importing successful TV series from abroad and presenting them as “new” for the remainder of the 2008 television season.

6) During 2008 there will be a Federal Inquiry regarding the state of Social Networks.

7) By the end of 2008, most Enterprises will have or will be working on their social media strategy.

8) There will be at least one major acquisition in the billion-dollar-plus price range, matching or exceeding Google’s purchase price to acquire YouTube. Major media and Internet companies will announce blended, transformational internet based communications plays.

9) Facebook will join together with Newscorp, Google and others to influence public policy in Washington, D.C.

10) Users will also recognize the value of the Internet as a better means to access content than traditional broadcast and cable delivery systems, thereby greatly reducing the impact of the 2009 DTV mandate.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (124)

December 18, 2007

Watch Jeff Pulver's Year-End Wrap up on pulverTV - Wednesday Dec 19th at 2PM / 2000 CET

On my next show I will be taking a look back at 2007 and will be sharing some predictions for 2008.

And I also plan to also spend some time reviewing last week's Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert during the show.

So please drop by pulverTV - Wednesday December 19th at 2PM EST / 11AM PST / 2000 CET.

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Posted by jeff at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Facebook Feature Request: Invisibility

Yossi Vardi recently commented he would join Facebook if he had the ability to be invisible. And after thinking about this, I realized that invisibility is a killer feature that could bring another wave of people into Facebook and could also help protect our kids against predators on social networks.

The way I imagine invisibility might work would be if I choose to be invisible, I would show up on my friends friend list when a friend looked at their friends list, but when a friend of a friend looked at the same friends list, my name would not appear. Invisibility is something that could help some people deal with the social awkwardness created by social networks.

It would be great to be able to optionally apply invisibility both globally and locally so that if I choose, I could identify specific friends whose lists I want to appear to be invisible and still appear on the friend lists of others.

I especially like this feature as a way to protect my kids from people whom they don’t want to be visible to. In the case of my kids, this would be everyone they are not actual friends with since my kids have decided to only friend people whom they actually have met and have a personal relationship with. And for their own protection, I wouldn’t mind having my kids appear invisible when a stranger is scanning the friend lists of one of their friends.

And when specifying the levels of invisibility, it would be great if someone could set themselves to only be visible to people on their same network. And in the case of kids in middle school, maybe only appear to other kids in other middle schools and/or in the same relative age bracket. Or empower users with the ability to apply some other rules which make sense to their respective parents.

Invisibility is a feature I would like to see Facebook implement in 2008.

What new features would YOU like to see Facebook add?

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 06:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (50)

December 17, 2007

Facebook Comes Alive: Reflections from a Social Media Evening

During my recent trip to Tel Aviv, I co-hosted a “Social Media Evening” together with Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger and Yossi Vardi at the Tel Aviv Sheraton.

Imagine walking into a room and seated in front of you were 143 of your friends from Facebook who came to an informal gathering to discuss the current state of social media. Looking into the crowd you quickly recognize the people that you actually know and then there are the people you are seeing for the first time in person, but whose faces you have gotten to know during the past few months. Overall the room reflected a connected randomness with a structure I had not experienced before. So for me, this was a surreal experience, sort of a “friends of Jeff Pulver on Facebook Town Hall meeting.”

Part of the randomness came from the fact that I didn’t actually invite anyone to the informal gathering. Instead, I decided to engage in a social experiment, one where I simply created a Facebook event and provided the details. Initially, just a date and time and then a week later a location. And along the way the magic of Facebook took over and people who discovered the event took it upon themselves to invite friends to it. By the time the event commenced, 268 people confirmed their attendance. The night of the gathering was a rainy and stormy night in Tel Aviv. Given the local weather conditions, I was impressed that more than 50% of the people who signed up, showed up.

The only person in the room who wasn’t on Facebook was Yossi Vardi. Yossi explained he would consider joining Facebook, but only after Facebook added the ability to be invisible. A feature which if Facebook were to add, I believe would attract another wave of people into Facebook and a feature which might help provide a layer of protection for all our kids who are already on Facebook.


People in the photos include: Zvika Netter, Tal Chalozin, Nimrod Lehavi, Gilad Zirkel, Lotem Hayun, Tal Muskal, Tal Perry, Niv Calderon, Sanghyun Ahn, Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger, Gilad Carni, Jeff Pulver, Kfir Pravda, Hagai Jacobson, Ron Shoshani, Orli Yakuel, Guy David, Israel Blechman, Ziva Orian, Michal Geva, Yariv Nachshon, Yael Shany, Eitan Burcat, Liz Butchins, Amir Dror, Nadav Young, Shachar Tal, Zohar Steinberg, Ron Ben-Haim, Ayelet Yagil, Hagai Pipko, Yaron Carni, Guy Rutenberg, Raphael Menachem, Gil Dibner, Yael Givon, Gil Rimon, Marc Fischman, Israel Drori, Batia Mach Shepherd, Yosi Taguri, yossi vardi, Dudu Noy, Nadav Bruchiel, Amit Aharoni, dudu noy, Merav May, Rami Amit, Ronen Eyal, Tatiana Ouaknine, Gal Mor, Yuval Tal, Klieger Roy, Ruti Polachek, Tzahi Sofer, Guy Tomer, Gil Hirsch, Nissim Bar Siman Tov, Doron Tamir, Moran Tal, Eyal Peleg, Roy Man, Lior Lifshitz and Chris Anderson

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Watch my Led Zeppelin Concert Review: Today on pulverTV at 2PM ET/ 2000 CET

Today on the Jeff Pulver show on pulverTV I will be giving my first hand account of last week’s historic Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert that took place in the O2 Arena in London.

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December 16, 2007

My Visit to IDC Herzliya:

Back on December 6th, I visited IDC Herzliya and was given a tour of the facilities by Dr. Noam Lemelshtrich-Latar. While at IDC I also had an opportunity to give a guest lecture to the students of Professor Doron Friedman. As someone who is passionate about the Internet as well as with both Radio and TV broadcasting, I could not help but be impressed with both the people and the facilities at IDC Herzliya and the on-going and amazing work of Dr. Lemelshtrich-Latar.

During my guest lecture I spoke about: social media, voip, social tagging, Facebook, twitter, social communications and the importance of finding the things in life you are most passionate about. I also spoke about my three favorite words: “Fear, Greed and Disruption” and how I have managed to make a living since 1996 by understanding these three words.

My visit to IDC Herzliya was one of the highlights of my recent trip to Israel and I look forward to returning to IDC Herzliya in 2008. More photos from my visit can be found in my facebook photo album.


Adam Segal, Denny Figler, Shachar Haring, Daniel G, Shay Koll, Johana Levy, Stephanie Bollag, Eran Naot Neuberger

Jacobo Montvelisky, Sarah Moshel, Johana Levy, Stephanie Bollag, Eran Naot Neuberger

Doron Friedman

Shelly Weingarten, Simon Kriminal Zebede, Daniella Hoffman

Marcia Fischer, Linda Macarz, Julia Quelin, Natalie Auslaender, Emilie Freifeld, Shai Itzhaki, Limor Zalait

Adam Segal, Denny Figler, Daniel G, Robert Eksner, Eran Naot Neuberger, Stephanie Bollag, Daniella Hoffman, Jacobo Montvelisky

Linda Macarz, Natalie Auslaender, Alexis Einhorn, Josh Greenberg, Sagi Brodt

Dr. Noam Lemelshtrich-Latar

Shay Koll and ? ?

Daniella Hoffman

Simon Kriminal Zebede

Julia Quelin and Emilie Freifeld

Sagi Brodt

Shira Granot, Roni Duani, Lea Grin
Shira Granot, Roni Duani, Lea Grin

Jonathan Klinger, Shlomit Gur
Idan Fargeon, Ravid Shavit, Hezi Taniani
Yael Levitsky, Idan Fargeon, Hezi Taniani, Ravid Shavit

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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December 15, 2007

Time Waits for No One

Don't Wait!
Make it Happen.
Make it Happen...now!

(A reminder to myself and everyone else waiting to do something)

Posted by jeff at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (39)

December 14, 2007

Images from LeWeb3 - Fouth Edition:

Below are some of the images I captured during my visit to LeWeb3 - Fourth Edition:

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14-Dec-07: Social Media Friday Links:

Nick Hodge: The Immersive Conversation
Ann Handley: A New Social Networking Rehab PSA
Des Walsh: The Week Jeremiah Rocked Twitter
Robert Scobel: It's Your Business
Jeremiah Owyang: Some Conversations have shifted to Twitter
MTV News: Four Takes on the Led Zeppelin Reunion

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December 13, 2007

Trying Again: Jeff Pulver’s Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert Documentary

This video was made from my pictures and video I took using my Sony DSC-T200 camera. There are no special effects and I used Windows Movie Maker to put the pieces together. I first started working on this video Tuesday night in Paris and I presented it at my "Small Screen Goes Big Time: TV Evolved" session at LeWeb3.

On my flight from Paris to New York earlier today I slightly re-edited the documentary based on comments received at LeWeb3. The background noise on the voice over during the credits is the noise heard from inside of flight CO 57.

These days ANYONE with a small camera and a dream can make their own movies, documentaries and Internet TV shows. There are times when all you need is some passion. With passion anything becomes possible.

In this video you are introduced to some of the people I referred to in my blog post about the Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert…the faces of the people standing around me. including an American from Iraq, a couple from Chicago, a man from Birmingham, a person from Australia and a person whose parents didn’t let them go to see Led Zeppelin in 1977 at Madison Square Garden when they were 12 years old. And these people were nothing but smiles and in total awe by the time the concert ended.

December 10th 2007 was an amazing night for music. And an opportunity for one generation to get together with another and share the music which influenced the others lives. Hope you enjoy this video documentary.

Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert Set List:

- Good Times Bad Times
- Ramble On
- Black Dog
- In My Time of Dying
- For your Life
- Trampled Under Foot
- Nobody's Fault But Mine
- No Quarter
- Since I've Been Loving You
- Dazed and Confused
- Stairway to Heaven
- The Song Remains the Same
- Misty Mountain Hop
- Kashmir
- Whole Lotta Love
- Rock and Roll

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: , , , , Jeff Pulver


Posted by jeff at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (39)

Next Stop: New York

After spending time during the past 10 days in: Tel Aviv, London and Paris, I am looking forward to returning to the States later today. And along the way I do hope to catch up with both my email and the blog posts I would have liked to have written while I was away.

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December 12, 2007

Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert Recap. By: Jeff Pulver

This is a video made from my pictures and video I took using my Sony DSC-T200 camera. There are no special effects and I used Windows Movie Maker to put the pieces together. I made this video last night to present at my "Small Screen Goes Big Time: TV Evolved" session taking place later today at LeWeb3.

These days ANYONE with a small camera and a dream can make their own movies, documentaries and Internet TV shows. There are times when all you need is some passion.

In this video you are introduced to some of the people I referred to in my last blog post…the faces of the people standing around me. including an American from Iraq, a couple from Chicago, a man from Birmingham, a person from Australia and a person whose parents didn’t let them go to see Led Zeppelin in 1977 at Madison Square Garden when they were 12 years old.

December 10th 2007 was an amazing night for music. And an opportunity for one generation to get together with another and share the music which influenced the others lives. Hope you enjoy this video documentary.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: , , , , Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 02:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (54)

December 11, 2007

Led Zeppelin Reunites in honor of Ahmet Ertegun and ROCKS the WORLD!

I have a strong passion for music. In fact, music is my life. And friends of mine know how much I like Rock and Roll. For myself and for many of the friends I grew up with, Led Zepplin is on the soundtrack of our childhoods and of our lives. Last night at the O2 Arena in London was an amazing night for music. And an experience I hope to never to forget. What started out as surreal when I was able to walk around backstage before the concert and literally “hang out” with the artists, managers, and just about everyone associated with the event, to the time I walked into the O2 for soundcheck, and then to the time I decided to give up my seat in exchange to stand in the front line with the people who had General Admission, nothing prepared me for the amazing night of music that I experienced.

Last night’s show brought together people from 50 countries. Standing around me was an American from Iraq, a couple from Chicago, a man from Birmingham, a person from Australia and a person whose parents didn’t let them go to see Led Zepp in 1977 at Madison Square Garden when they were 12 years old. There seem one thing we all had in common…a love for Rock and Roll and the music and the memories Led Zeppelin gave to all of us.

Long Live Rock and Roll!

The photos and video that I took were shot using my new Sony DSC-T200. I’m working on a video recap of the show that I hope to post in the next day or so. In the meanwhile, some of the photos I took last night are below:

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: , , , Jeff Pulver


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December 10, 2007

Next stop: London’s O2 Arena. Long Live ROCK!

This morning I’m heading to London to attend the Led Zeppelin reunion concert at London's O2 arena. I am looking forward to an amazing night of music.

You can find my concert updates later today on both twitter and on Facebook in my Status messages.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: , , , Jeff Pulver


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The Day I had 18 Meetings at the Tel Aviv Hilton:

These days, whenever I visit Tel Aviv, I try to set aside at least one day to formally catch up with my friends involved in the Israeli Hi-Tech industry. The meetings generally last a half hour and they generally include a 10-15 minute pitch and then a 5-10 minute follow on discussion. One day I hope to include some of these meetings on the Jeff Pulver show on pulverTV.

Yesterday I managed to have 18 meetings with friends from the Israeli Hi-Tech industry, which included meetings with both industry veterans as well as a number of would-be startups. My first meeting started shortly after sunrise and the final meeting lasted until a few hours past sunset. About 12 1/2 hours of straight meetings.

Sunrise
Sunset

Ami Giniger

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December 09, 2007

A Seesmic Sunrise in Tel Aviv:

A sunrise video I just took on the morning of my last full day in Tel Aviv for a little while. Looks like the start of a beautiful day in the hi-tech startup capital of the world, Tel Aviv.

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December 08, 2007

Tel Aviv Sunset

DSC_0462-1.JPG

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Conversations from the Edge: Tel Aviv is the Hi-Tech Startup Capital of the World

I am not aware of any other city anywhere in the world where one can smell entrepreneurship in the air. Each time I visit Tel Aviv I continue to be amazed by: the people I meet; the ideas I hear about; the innovation which is happening; and by the positive “can do” energy in the air. The people I know who are involved with startups in Israel are living the 24/7 lifestyle of working non-stop. Just about anything and everything is possible.

If someone is looking to find their next “Life Major”, if there is a chance it is going to be in Hi-Tech, I highly recommend adding Tel Aviv as one of the cities to visit during their journey.

While the primary focus of my current trip to Israel has been to support the efforts of FWD International in establishing their R&D Center, I have also been spending some of my time meeting with people involved in early-early stage startups. At last count, tomorrow I will be spending most of my day meeting with 16 or so new startups in a non-stop stream of back-to-back meetings.

And as each trip comes to a close, I can not help but look forward to the next chance I will have to come back and visit and catch up with my friends who collectively have become my source of inspiration for the work that I do. These are some of the people who have helped establish Tel Aviv as the Hi-Tech Startup Capital of the World.

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December 07, 2007

Le Next week: LeWeb3 and Led Zepplin

I’ve been looking forward to attending Le Web3 ever since I was invited to be a speaker a number of months ago. At LeWeb3 I am hosting their “Television Reborn” session which will include: Benjamin Bejbaum - Daily Motion, Nir Ofir - BlogTV, Robert Scoble – PodTech and I will be speaking in their “The small screen goes big time - television evolved” session.

On Monday will be heading to Paris from Tel Aviv and once I’m in Paris, I’m considering routing a quick roundtrip visit to London prior to going to LeWeb3. As things worked out, there is a special musical gathering taking place in London which was recently rescheduled to place on Monday night. And by some coincidence, I was invited to attend the event by a friend who knows my passion for music in general, and my appreciation of Led Zepplin. If I actually end up going to this concert, my plan is to cover the concert on twitter and in Facebook by sharing status updates.

And in any event, I am look forward to catching up with friends who will be in Paris next week at LeWeb3.

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December 06, 2007

My Social Media Thursday in Tel Aviv:

This afternoon I am visiting IDC Herzliya where I will be giving a guest lecture to the students of Doron Friedman.

This will followed by a panel discussion at IDC Herzliya about semi-pro video which is part of The New Media Round Table Series. A number of friends will be part of the round table discussion including Kfir Pravda, Nir Ofir and Jacob Ner-David.

And this evening I will be co-hosting an informal gathering of people interested in social media together with Tom Evslin and Daniel Bernigner.

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December 05, 2007

Tel Aviv / Social Media Blur:

I arrived in Tel Aviv late Monday afternoon and I have enjoyed the time I have spent with both Tom Evslin and Daniel Berninger as we are looking to hire for a few great developers to add to the FWD International team.

Since I’ve been here, while I have tried my best to avoid feeling jetlagged, I have managed to fall back into the blur that I usually experience only during my VON Conferences. The price I end up paying for spending a majority of my time in a series of back-to-back meetings from the early morning into the evening is that I have once again fallen behind in both my traditional email and in my daily communication on my preferred social media platforms: (twitter, Facebook and seesmic).

For those of you waiting to get a poke-back, a reply to your email and/or your twitter message, I am trying to catch up. At the moment if you need to reach me you can feel free to send SMS to +972 54 7 001 002 and/or send me a message in Facebook.

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December 04, 2007

Bryan Person / Monster Blog - Social Tagging: The Evolution of Face-to-Face Networking

Bryan Person / Monster Blog - Social Tagging: The Evolution of Face-to-Face Networking

"If you’ve done any sort of professional networking -- and shame on you if you haven’t! -- then you know that online social networking and reaching out by phone aren’t nearly as effective as meeting or reconnecting with someone in person.

I was reminded of this lesson again last week when I attended a breakfast hosted by entrepreneur Jeff Pulver. Jeff recently began organizing real-time social networking events, where online social media’s practice of tagging and Facebook Wall postings are transferred to the physical setting -- something Jeff calls “social tagging.” Participants are asked to tag themselves and others using name badges and Post-it notes as a way of starting conversations (I was tagged as a “proud dad” and “podcast guy”) and getting to know each other.

Social tagging ensures you always have something to talk about a networking event. Imagine approaching someone who’s already been tagged as a “six-fingered bandit” or “shopaholic.” You’re being handed a hit-you-over-the-head entrée into a discussion with a perfect stranger -- what an opportunity! Don’t waste it."

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December 03, 2007

Orange Israel: The FIRST Wireless Telecom Operator anywhere in the World to provide Open API’s for its Services

I recently had the pleasure to meet with the Innovations team at Orange Israel, together with their CEO, David Avner. I walked away from the meeting both amazed and impressed. While there are now other wireless networks (like Verizon Wireless) making announcements about their “openness”, Orange Israel is truly the first “open” wireless telecom company in the world as Orange Israel is providing developers with API’s for its services. Orange Israel made the strategic decision to open their “Walled Garden” in order to create new business opportunities for 3rd party content providers and I applaud their decision.

During our meeting we spoke about how difficult it could be at times for startups with mobile applications to get their applications launched across a variety of mobile operators. Typical issues include:

- The complexity of the solutions of the new services
- Long and painful development life cycle
- Maintaining separate access definitions for each provider
- Long integration process with internal systems
- Maintaining mobile technical knowledge at each provider’s technical team

Thanks to the work of the Orange Innovations team, Orange Israel is able launch new and unique services before all other operators using minimal effort and is constructing an optimized ecosystem for building profits with minimal investment.

A year ago they soft launched with 4 main services:
- Send / Receive SMS/MMS messages
- Billing subscribers
- Subscriber details query
- Subscriber offerings activation

And then this past January, Orange Israel had their formal launch at a developer conference held at Orange’s premises where they introduced orangesynergy as the official website for developers interested in building applications for the Orange Israel network.

At the last time I checked, they have 51 services provided by 19 content providers. And this list just continues to grow each month.

Because of their open policy, Orange Israel has been able to develop a win/win/win situation, where the subscribers, content providers and Orange enjoy many new and quickly developed services. The opening of their core network services enabled the development of new advanced services by third parties. And I’m told the whole process strengthened Orange’s ability to profit from services while differencing technology wise Orange from its competitors.

I believe Orange Israel offers a model for other wireless providers around the world to follow. I look at Orange Israel’s opening of it’s network as significant for mobile applications as Facebook’s opening of it’s platform with the APIs which transformed Facebook from a social networking application to a social networking operating system.

Orange Israel had the vision to open up its “walled gardens.” Their active embracement of their party developers is a vision which all mobile applications developers should take note of and other wireless carriers should strongly consider adopting.

I was impressed with the way Orange Israel simplified the process for the creation and deployment of new services on their own network and developed a way to embrace the innovative services being developed by mobile developers from around the world.

If you are associated with a mobile startup from Israel or anywhere else in the world, you should consider joining Orange Israel’s Synergy Program. From my perspective, there is only upside in participating.


Jeff Pulver and David Avner

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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December 02, 2007

Embracing your “Life Major”

Once you know what it is that your Life Major is, the harder part for many of us is actually stopping whatever it was we were doing, switching gears, and following a new career path.

The first time someone embraces their “Life Major” it may represent one of the biggest leaps they will make during the course of their professional lives and a leap that many of us end up taking because it felt like the right thing to do, something we had to do. And while this may seem like a courageous move, in reality there is some kind of safety net since if living the dream doesn’t work out, one might consider going back to whatever they were doing before being inspired to switch professions.

From my own experience, I can say that adopting a new life major, at least the first one, isn’t something that someone just does. Usually they have to be pushed by some other action to make their move. And usually it is a life event that happens which propels a person forward.

While I have changed “Life Majors” multiple times since graduating from University, I don’t know where I would be today if I wasn’t fired from my day job back in July, 1996. It turns out that VoIP saved my life. Especially since I was working in the World Trade Center, in Tower One and I was working for Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, the same company that lost 700 employees on September 11th. I had the kind of job that I could have seen I might have still had five years later.

It was back in July 1996 after being fired from my day job as a VP of Information Technology at Cantor Fitzgerald, I choose for my new Life Major: Producing conferences which focus on the evolution and future of Internet Telephony. I first came up with the idea after attending an event about Internet Telephony in London in April 1996 and I realized the people producing the event knew nothing about the people, the culture or the technology surrounding Internet Telephony. All they knew was how to produce an event. So by the middle of June I was already planning my first conference which was scheduled to take place September 10-11, 1996. Prior to getting fired, I was working on the conference more as a hobby than as a job.

When I was fired, reality hit me. I didn’t have any savings. I had a young family and a mortgage and a burn rate to deal with. The best thing my parents did for me when I got fired was nothing at all. While this must have been a hard decision for my parents to make, the struggle which ensued gave me the opportunity to become the person I am today. A person who was different that the Jeff Pulver working at Cantor Fitzgerald. So in my chase, changing “Life Majors” gave me a chance to grow and to refocus and to find myself and my own voice in an industry that was just getting started.

So far during my career I have changed “Life Majors” a number of times. And for the most part I have no regrets. If anything I’ve very grateful for the opportunities which have presented themselves over the years. And these days I’m gotten to the point where I work on multiple projects in parallel and I look to give myself a chance to change “life majors” whenever it is most appropriate to do so.

So what about you? I’d like to from people who changed “Life Majors” and how they would advise others.

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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by jeff at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (57)

December 01, 2007

Reminder: Deadline to apply for Israel Web Tour 2008 is December 3rd

If you are involved with an Israeli startup, you should consider applying to be considered to be a part of the 2008 Israel Web Tour competition and road show which is being organized by the California Israel Chamber of Commerce.

The Tour will kick off on February 4th, 2008 when fifteen chosen CEO’s from Israel's most exciting startups will arrive in Silicon Valley for a week of activities. The companies will meet with investors, strategic partners, customers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders in a mix of private one-on-one meetings, roundtable discussions and ad-hoc networking events. The highlight of the week will be a public showcase on Wednesday, February 5th where each start-up will present their business to the industry and press. The Tour will end with a closing night party in San Francisco on Thursday February 7th.

The CICC is now soliciting applications for participating companies. If you want to participate in this year's Israel Web Tour, submit an application to CICC by Monday, December 3rd at 5:00 PM PST. Conference organizers & Steering Committee will select 15 companies to participate in the tour.

For more information, visit www.israelwebtour.com or contact info@israelwebtour.com.


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Posted by jeff at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (42)

Next stop Tel Aviv: Our startup is looking for a few Great Developers

Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger and I are spending next week in Israel as we are looking to hire a few GREAT people to join the Research and Development team our new startup, FWD International.

To date, FWD International has been funded by: Tom Evslin, Yossi Vardi and myself. Daniel Berninger is CEO, Tom is our acting CTO and I'm Chairman. Our plan to base our R&D activities in Israel.

If you happen to know someone who has deep knowledge, understanding and experience developing IP Communication applications, with specific experience with: Presence, IM and VoIP and a passion for social media, please contact me to setup a possible meeting during our trip.

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Posted by jeff at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (120)