<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>AllThingsD &#187; Drop.io</title>
	<atom:link href="http://allthingsd.com/tag/dropio/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://allthingsd.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 26 May 2012 14:31:31 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2</generator>
<atom:link rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com"/><image>
		  <url>http://allthingsd.com/theme/images/logo-rss.jpg</url>
		  <title>All Things Digital</title>
		  <link>http://allthingsd.com/</link>
		  <width>144</width>
		  <height>22</height>
	</image>		<item>
		<title>&quot;They Failed&quot;: VC Fred Wilson Gets BoomTown&#039;s First Annual Someone-Had-to-Say-It Award</title>
		<link>http://allthingsd.com/20101129/they-failed-vc-fred-wilson-gets-boomtowns-first-annual-someone-had-to-say-it-award/</link>
		<comments>http://allthingsd.com/20101129/they-failed-vc-fred-wilson-gets-boomtowns-first-annual-someone-had-to-say-it-award/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:37:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kara Swisher</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[A VC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BoomTown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chasing Returns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drop.io]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fred Wilson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hot Potato]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[innovation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Shaffer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kara Swisher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pivot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sam Lessin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Silicon Valley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Slide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Start-up]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[success]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[venture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37495</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[BoomTown has always enjoyed--although I have not always agreed with--the ruminations of Fred Wilson in his must-read blog, A VC.

Today, the New York venture investor--heard of Foursquare or Twitter?--penned one that was flatly on point, simply titled"Chasing Returns" about a potential crisis in start-up funding.

It's a meme Silicon Valley might want to pay mind to.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2010/11/lolcat-failure.jpeg"><img src="http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2010/11/lolcat-failure-275x206.jpg" alt="" title="lolcat-failure" width="275" height="206" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-37726" /></a></p>
<p>BoomTown has always enjoyed&#8211;although I have not always agreed with&#8211;the ruminations of Fred Wilson in his must-read blog, A VC.</p>
<p>Today, the New York venture investor&#8211;heard of Foursquare, Twitter?&#8211;penned one that was flatly on point, simply titled <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/chasing-returns.html">&#8220;Chasing Returns&#8221;</a> about a potential crisis in start-up funding.</p>
<p>It was all due to a new class of investors too focused on chasing returns, noted Wilson, &#8220;and some of them do not understand what they are investing in.&#8221;</p>
<p><em>Rut-roh.</em></p>
<p>Perhaps dumb moneybags are not the greatest worry of our time&#8211;but dumber justifications of questionable success certainly should be, which Wilson also called out recently in an article in the <a href="http://www.observer.com/2010/dont-blow-it-new-york-techs-top-investors-have-bubble-trouble-brain">New York Observer</a> about the bubbly start-up scene there.</p>
<p>Said Wilson:</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not all going great. You know, companies are failing. A couple of high-flying entrepreneurs came crashing to the ground recently. Justin Shaffer of Hot Potato and Sam Lessin of Drop.io&#8211;both of those companies essentially failed. Both of them ended up &#8216;selling&#8217; their businesses to Facebook, but those were really just&#8211;Facebook wanted to hire those people, and they wrapped it up in a &#8216;sale.&#8217; But those companies were unsuccessful. They failed. So there is failure out there&#8211;like, right in front of us. We can see it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Many quickly cried foul after Wilson&#8217;s remarks, but many more secretly shook their heads in agreement at the reality distortion field around entrepreneurs.</p>
<p>This has happened a lot lately in Silicon Valley, of course&#8211;as evidenced by a series of just-in-time saves of once high-flying start-ups (Slide being bought by Google comes to mind) sold as wins.</p>
<p>Indeed, painting failure as another form of success is one of the favorite and endearing canards of tech, showing an ability to bounce back from any negative and pivot into a new direction.</p>
<p>But most pivoting, as Loren Feldman of 1938 Media recently pointed out, is just another word for covering up misdirection.</p>
<p>Perhaps misdirection&#8211;as it should be in any world that thrives on innovation and entrepreneurial instincts&#8211;is all well and good, but it is only that way as long as it is identified as such when it occurs.</p>
<p>So, good for Wilson for truth-in-labeling when it comes to start-ups, investing and chasing returns these days.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://allthingsd.com/20101129/they-failed-vc-fred-wilson-gets-boomtowns-first-annual-someone-had-to-say-it-award/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Dear Web 2.0: You Might Want to Stop Believin&#039;</title>
		<link>http://allthingsd.com/20081009/dear-web-20-you-might-want-to-stop-believin/</link>
		<comments>http://allthingsd.com/20081009/dear-web-20-you-might-want-to-stop-believin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:14:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kara Swisher</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blip.tv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BoomTown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bubble]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cyprus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dave Morin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Don't Stop Believin']]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drop.io]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jessica Vascellaro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Journey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kara Swisher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Karma]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mike Hudack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ron Conway]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sam Lessin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sequoia Capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Silicon Valley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Wall Street Journal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vimeo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web 1.0]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web 2.0]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=5062</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[All in good fun, right?

I am sure this will be the dumb-as-a-box-of-hammers reasoning this group of Web 2.0 folks gives for this odd video effort, doing a lip-synch romp on their group vacation in Cyprus to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," and then posting it for all to see on Vimeo.

It is titled: "Twenty world Internet citizens met in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in October of 2008 for a week of reflections on life, love, and the Internet."

Um, kids, here's a reflection: While you swim in that pricey infinity pool in your luxury villa, Silicon Valley is tanking all over the place. You might want to check your email and see if Sequoia Capital or Ron Conway has cost-cutted you out of a job!]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>All in good fun, <em>right</em>?</p>
<p>I am sure this will be the dumb-as-a-box-of-hammers reasoning this group of Web 2.0 folks gives for this odd video effort, doing a lip-synch romp on their group vacation in Cyprus to Journey&#8217;s &#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believin&#8217;,&#8221; and then <a href="http://vimeo.com/1920191?pg=embed&#038;sec=1920191">posting it for all to see on Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>It is titled: &#8220;20 world Internet citizens met in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in October of 2008 for a week of reflections on life, love, and the Internet.&#8221;</p>
<p>Um, kids, here&#8217;s a reflection: While you swim in that pricey infinity pool in your luxury villa, Silicon Valley is tanking all over the place. You might want to check your email and see if <a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081009/irony-alert-bubble-making-venture-capitalists-start-popping-them/">Sequoia Capital or Ron Conway has cost-cutted you out of a job!</a></p>
<p>Oh, sorry, BoomTown&#8217;s karma is so negative, isn&#8217;t I?</p>
<p>But the video gave me flashbacks to heedless-partying-until-the-bomb-fell attitude before the popping of the Web 1.0 bubble. It obviously still burns.</p>
<p>The group rollicking includes Blip.tv&#8217;s Mike Hudack, Facebook&#8217;s Dave Morin, Drop.io&#8217;s Sam Lessin and&#8211;<em>well, um, eek, bad idea, awkward!</em>&#8211;tech reporter Jessica Vascellaro of The Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>Here is the video:</p>
<p>UPDATE: Apparently, the makers of the video have made it private on Vimeo and blocked it on YouTube, likely due to the reaction to it, <a href="http://valleywag.com/5062424/its-the-end-of-web-20-as-we-know-it">but you can see it here</a>.</p>
<p><object width="380" height="313"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1S77ENcDhVg&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1S77ENcDhVg&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="380" height="313"></embed></object></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://allthingsd.com/20081009/dear-web-20-you-might-want-to-stop-believin/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

