Rafe's Blog

Is this the next iPod?

You try to take the wife out for dinner on a weekday, to get away from work for just a few hours. And what happens? A news scoop drops in your lap, and there you are, thinking, I have to blog this. Right now.  So here's the scoop: The next iPod. The one Apple is teasing the press about. The iPod Macro. Spotted in the wild on display at a neighborhood hardware store in San Francisco. How they got the prototype, I have no idea. [More photos.]

The perfect question?

I am a believer in the power of online communities. But I'm bugged that most of them are islands. They don't connect to each other. And it's more than inconvenience -- it's getting in the way of business. Here's why: Right now, online content companies share a lot of content, and a lot of business revolves around that. They all have communities, too, but they can't share them, for a variety of reasons. I sat across from Marc Canter at Kevin Werbach's pre-pre-Supernova party the other night and I asked him this question: "How will communities connect?" Mark was the right guy to ask. His post on this topic talks about initiatives (his and others') that are attacking this problem.

Carded

One indication that Bubble 2.0 is getting out of hand: I was walking down the dark Atherton street to Michael Arrington's house for the latest TechCrunch meetup/party, and a guy approached me from across the street. Before I could tell who it was -- practically before I could see him, actually -- he said, "Rafe Needleman! How are you? Here's my card!" It was the fastest greeting-to-card transition I have ever experienced. It was either really presumptuous or really smart, because once inside Michael's house, it was pandemonium. Which is, of course, the other indication that we're deep into Bubble 2.0.

I will say, though, that it's a sweet and rather innocent little bubble. There's money, sure, but not too much. And everybody is doing these clever and very personal startups. And they're sharing ideas, and mashing up others' work with their own. And going to crowded parties and having a good time. As long as the venture guys don't over-react and start over-funding these startups, this could work out nicely.

Rant of the day: Allergic to peanuts.

I hate packing peanuts. Almost every time I order something online, it comes in a box filled with either Styrofoam, or much less frequently, cornstarch packing peanuts. I have boxes of packing peanuts in my garage. I can't put them in my recycling bins for pickup with newspapers and the like. And I don't want to put them in the ordinary trash, since they're man-made materials and should be recycled. So they pile up.

My city's garbage company says,

Styrofoam peanuts can be recycled at most shipping/mail houses (ie: UPS and Mail Boxes, etc.). Call to see if you can drop them off for reuse. There are no local places to recycle to-go containers or large pieces of Styrofoam; however, some local art organizations may reuse large pieces for art projects.

Thanks. Big help. Why don't you just pick them up?

Also, a memo to online stores that use Styrofoam: just quit it! Go with the air bags that Amazon and a few other companies use. Once these have served their purpose, you poke a hole in them, they collapse into next to nothing, and they can be thrown in the recycling bin.