In this talk from FOWA London (http://bit.ly/fowa-london-09) Kevin shares the secrets to digg.com and wefollow.com explosive user growth. He covers nine unique strategies that turn passive users into passionate advocates.

You’ll learn:

1. How to encourage users to tweet about your app

2. The concept of “The Circle of Life” in web apps and how it affects you

3. Growing your userbase: What worked and what didn’t for digg, WeFollow and Pownce

4. And more …

This video of Steve Jobs back in 1984 showing off the Macintosh computer sent chills down my spine, it elicits so much nostalgia to look back at one of the greatest technology icons of our time:

I’ve been fascinated by the idea of computing in the cloud for at least half a decade, especially ever since Amazon popularized the idea of “Software as a Service” back in 2002.  I realize that these concepts aren’t new (computing in the cloud that is), and in fact when I was an undergrad in college I remember searching something called “Bearcat” for books in our university library.  Bearcat was a dumb terminal that was driven by a server sitting in a different building on the university campus, in fact as far back as the 60′s these concepts were envisioned.  Amazon played a key kick starting role, but Google is also now pushing App Engine in the space, as well as Microsoft with their latest platform called Azure.

You’ll soon get overwhelmed by the large number of options.  Recently in a Bernstein Report titled: The Long View: Netbooks, Wireless and Cloud Computing–Client Software’s Imperfect Storm, there is a diagram that I found extremely helpful in mapping this ever evolving landscape and putting it into perspective.

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While browsing my feeds tonight I came across a post titled “Forget Web 2.0, Worry about Web 2.5 new Kevin Rose video!” it looked interesting so I decided to watch and I have to say, I found the video to be both informative and inspirational.

In this video clip Kevin cites a post by Paul Graham titled “Why to start a startup in a bad economy“.  I remember seeing this post a couple of days ago and didn’t have a chance to read it (though now I will for sure).  It’s always great to hear encouraging words from someone with a background like that of Kevin Rose.

There’s been numerous times in the past that I’ve thought about starting the “next big thing”, but honestly questions such as, do I try to get VC?  What about hardware and bandwidth? and software developement expertise kept creeping into mind, I always thought, do I try to do this on my own, that is to say, without the help of VC’s or angel investors.  Watching this video I feel that Kevin sincerely thinks that being “scrappy” and bringing a good product/or service to the attention of the “big guys” like TechCrunch is really the smartest move anyone can make, and keep your day job, take baby steps to obtain your goals.

Anyway, I think this video really is something that anyone thinking about starting a web company should watch, even if the only thing you take away is inspiration.

I’ve embedded the video below, but you should also visit Kevin’s blog too, as he always has great content.

Thanks Kevin!

Why to start a new startup in a bad economywww.kevinrose.com

Browsing through some old feeds tonight I noticed a post on www.gartner.com about a “hype cycle” for emerging technologies of 2008.  I find this graph to be an interesting and informative way to summarize “where” technology stands in 2008.

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Gartner hype cycle for 2008

A couple weeks ago the small city I live in finally got a redbox kiosk.  This morning I finally got around to using the service to rent two DVD’s, “21″ and “Jumper”.  I just picked them from the kiosk this morning, and so far the service is super easy and convenient.  Each DVD costs $1.00+tax as apposed to the video store which is now charging over $4.00+tax.  I checked the redbox website and new titles are added every Tuesday (though not sure about time of day).

In any case, if redbox can sustain it will certainly put a damper on the sales of local video stores.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Netflix offer its own kiosk down the road, in fact I would become a Netflix subscriber again at the drop of a hat if they offered something like this.

Now redbox needs to add Blu-ray titles sometime in the near future.

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Yesterday (unless your living under a very large object) you probably couldn’t get away from the news that Apple released the 3G Iphone at all their Apple and AT&T stores.

I’m not buying a 3G Iphone, in fact I’m looking for a 1st gen model, I’ve heard a lot about 2.0 firmware update and it seems that the firmware is actually one of the most compelling new parts of this model, yes I know I wont have access to a 3G network… blah blah blah… but I don’t want it!

Apparently there were also issues getting the phone to activate in stores yesterday… so I’ve heard that some people were told to activate through Itunes (which is how it should have been to begin with).

I just came across this video at wired.com which just about sums up the day those people standing in line must have had…

This morning I noticed an article about how Comcast is using Twitter to gauge customer satisfaction, so I decided to post a message from my Twitter account that said:

9:21 AM: Comcast is using Twitter as a means of listening to their customers… uh oh… now they’ll never truly know how angry their customers are!

Soon after I posted this message I got a reply from a Comcast representative that said:

10:03 AM: We would not want anyone to be angry. I can always help.

Sure seems like it’s working!  Good for Comcast, it seems like it’s a pretty effective use of Twitter assuming it stays up!

I just came across this video tour in which CNET News.com’s Neha Tiwari reports on the massive data warehouse of Equinix.  Equinix serves companies like AT&T, MCI, Verizon, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google.  It blows my mind that there are over 200 networks in one of these data warehouses.

Equinix is sophisticated in what it offers, so much so that many large banks trust mission critical systems to these data centers.  The security aspects are not taken lightly, Margie Backaus the chief business officer of Equinix says, there are 5 levels of biometrics just to get into the data warehouse.  The data warehouse in this video is approximately 160,000 square feet and uses 10 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power a small community, according to Margie.  If the power ever goes out on one of these data centers there are diesel generators to keep all the servers powered up until electricity is restored, Margie claims that Equinix can maintain 10 megawatts of load for two whole days on generated diesel power.

The video below is taken from the C|NET tour of Equinix.