Peeps,

Inspired by Mike Arrington’s (my partner on TechCrunch50) fifth annual
list, ‘tech products I love and use every day,’ I thought I would
liberate his format and list the ‘Tech Products @jason loves and uses
every day.” Mike’s post here: http://bit.ly/8U09Gn

SIDEBAR/DISCLOSURE: As of the start of 2010, I’ve set a five year goal
for myself: be the most sought-after, and value-added, angel investor
in the world. It’s a lofty goal and it’s going to create a massive
amount of conflict for me as an pundit, but you know what they say:
“no conflict, no interest.” As you look down this list of top
products, please be aware of the fact that I’m probably trying to
invest in ALL OF THEM. It would stand to reason that, if I love a
product enough to put it on this list, I would love it enough to
invest in it. My strategy for becoming the most sought-after angel
investor on the planet is five-fold:

1. Produce media that is helpful to entrepreneurs (like this email
list, This Week in Startups, etc).
2. Host conferences that help startups grow: like TechCrunch50 (coming
in September!) and the Open Angel Forum (www.openangelforum.com).
3. Support the hell out of the companies I do invest in as much as
possible so they tell other CEO/founders “Jason is the greatest, hold
a $25,000 angel slot for him”
4. Can’t disclose–competitive advantage.
5. Can’t disclose–competitive advantage.

Now, on to my list of the “my favorite technologies I use every day for 2009!”
========================================

1. Chartbeat: Chartbeat is Google Analytics on crack. This real-time
analytics tool shows me exactly who is on Mahalo, what pages they’re
looking at and where they came from. This allows me to focus our
editorial efforts based on popular stories on a given day or a new
trend. For example, two days before New Year’s Eve, one of our how to
articles, “How to Make Jell-O Shots,” started trending on Chartbeat.
We doubled down on that page and made it even better–in real time. I
almost don’t want to tell you about this product because I’m so in
love with it and consider it one of Mahalo’s secret weapons. I’ve
recently joined their board of advisers and I’ve been begging my pal
John Borthwick of BetaWorks to let me be the first investor in this
brilliant product coming out of his brilliant incubator (the same on
that brought you Bit.ly and Summize–purchased by Twitter).
http://www.chartbeat.com

2. Security Spy & Remote Patrol: Security Spy is a $300-400 software
product that allows you to connect dozens of IP-based cameras to your
home network. I’ve put six cameras in my home and I’m adding another
four this week. In Month One, I’ve become a combination of the
over-protective father and Scarface, sitting in my loft office with a
big screen TV displaying video cameras from around the compound. The
iPhone application, Remote Patrol, lets me pull up the same security
cameras over AT&T’s (horrible) 3G network. At $10, this software gives
my wife and I the ability, for example, to zoom in on our daughter and
watch her sleep while we are out watching “Avatar” or at a New Year’s
Ever dinner with friends. We are the envy of our social set because,
while other folks show photos of their kids, we can pull up live video
of our daughter on our crib cam. It cost me under $5,000 to install a
10-camera system which just two or three years ago would have cost me
$50,000 to $100,000. I know because I’ve priced these things out, and
many of my Brentwood neighbors have shown off their proprietary
systems, which cost 20x our open source commodity hardware systems,
and have less features. Epic WIN!
http://www.bensoftware.com/ss/
http://web.me.com/robb18/Remote_Patrol/Remote_Patrol.html

3. Sonos with Rhapsody: Sonos is a home sound system that allows you
to place a wireless speaker or amplifier in each room of you house.
These system connect to each other over wifi, creating a multi-room
sound system for about $400 a room. I now have 11 sound “zones” in my
house which I can control with my iPhone, iTouch, computer or the
overpriced but delightful Sonos proprietary remote. The system allows
you to integrate Pandora, thousands of categorized radio stations,
Napster, iTunes, Sirius and my favorite, Rhapsody. For $15 a month,
Rhapsody allows me to pull up every Frank Sinatra song ever recorded,
hip-hop stations from Seoul or Paris, WFAN from NYC or my Rilo Kiley
station on Pandora. At Christmas, I was blowing out Christmas music in
the driveway, backyard, living room, kitchen and other zones. Once
again, I was the envy of the entire neighborhood, and isn’t that what
technology is all about: making people insanely jealous at how blown
out your gear is? http://gdgt.com/sonos/zoneplayer/s5/

4. Tesla Roadster: For over a year now, I’ve had the privilege of
driving the world’s only in-production electric car and it is the most
delightful and exciting driving experience of my life. RANT: For over
a year, I haven’t visited a gas station and have been able to give the
finger to the bastards in the Middle East who believe that women and
gays are about as valuable as dogs, and that the freedoms we enjoy in
the United States are the root causes of all evil. If Obama had any
leadership ability, as opposed to his consensus-building nonsense, he
would have taken the billions we’re going to spend in Afghanistan and
simply spent that money on electric car and solar subsidies in
America. We have to stop wasting our money building schools and
bridges for backwards societies that don’t appreciate them and start
spending that money on energy independence. There is no reason we
couldn’t put solar panels on every rooftop in America, and electric
cars in every driveway, instead of spending money fighting enemies
that don’t want the freedom we’re promoting. Sorry about the rant, but
I’m really frustrated that Obama, who I voted for, is such a
disappointment. He was supposed to bring some innovation to politics
and his policies feel no different than the failed strategies of
Cheney/Bush (in that order). If I was president, I would cut our
losses in the Middle East and stop sending any money there, instead
investing it in nuclear, solar, wind and EVs. This is such an obvious
solution to everyone except the idiots we put in power. Shame on all
of us. END RANT
http://www.teslamotors.com

5. GoWalla/FourSquare: I’m so in love with location based services
like Gowalla and FourSquare that I tried to invest in both companies,
and was actually able to make a tiny angel investment in GoWalla.
These two services are amazing, and I could write and entire article
on why they are so important. In fact, I will do that! For now, why
don’t you go ahead and sign up for both and tell me what you think!
http://www.gowalla.com

6. Posterous: Every day, I try and share a dozen thoughts, photos or
videos, as well as sneak in three or four how to articles or buzzy
stories from Mahalo, and Posterous is my go to application for this. I
simply take a video or photo of Taurus and Fondue, for example, and
email it to post@posterous.com. That video will then be posted to
Calacanis.com, my Twitter account, Facebook, Flickr and a half dozen
other services. One email, 10 posts. You gotta love it! I’m absolutely
in love with this company, and I even interviewed one of the founders
on This Week in Startups:
http://thisweekinstartups.com/2009/09/twist-episode-14-with-garry-tan/

7. BlackBerry: I’m still addicted after all these years. My fifth or
sixth curve is still 99.999% rock solid for the most important
application in my life, email. I love you RIM, and I always will.
Really. Don’t pay attention to #8 below.

8. iPhone 3G/Android: I’ve got a jump-ball, love and hate relationship
with these two phones. They are my backup phones to my Blackberry, and
while I do all my email and 90% of my twittering on my Blackberry
Curve, I do 90% of my web surfing on these two phones and their larger
screens. 50% of the time, I have three phones with me, and 100% of the
time, I have at least two. I’ve got OCD when it comes to connectivity,
and given my day job and side projects, the cost of having three
phones is MUCH less than the cost of being out of touch. In 2010, I’m
going to try and make a decision which one of these phones wins and
it’s not going to be easy. Steve Jobs had the lead, but Google’s
Android is much more open and snappy than an iPhone. I’m loving
watching Google and Apple fight it out…My money is on Google in the
long-term, but most handicappers put this game at even money. The real
winner is the consumer, as Google’s free and open strategy is going to
put Steve Jobs’ “my way is best, consumer feedback be damned”
philosophy to the test.

9. Flip MINO HD: About $200 to have HD video in your glove
compartment, purse or laptop bag. Buy them three or four at a time and
give them to everyone in your family. Nothing is easier to use and
provides as much long-term value per dollar as this product. The best
Christmas gift you can give to your parents and siblings–period.
http://gdgt.com/pure-digital/flip/minohd/2nd-gen/

10. Audible: Ohhhhhhhh….. Audible. Mmmmmmm….. Audible, I love
Audible. I get two credits a month and fill my iPhone with audio
books. Spending hours a day on a computer makes my eyes too strained,
on average, to read. However, putting on my noise canceling headphones
and listening to books like “Shadow Divers,” “The Road” and “The
Post-American World” while running or playing poker is my guilty
pleasure. Have I read that book? Of course I have, you take me for an
illiterate? I “read” two or three books a month (wink wink!).
Seriously, feed your brain with Audible goodness. Disclosure: for
three years I’ve been talking about Audible on This Week in Tech.
After three years of my making love to the brand, the fine folks at
Audible decided to sponsor This Week in Startups for a couple of
months last year. Too kind of them, but I wanted to point out that
they have sponsored my media recently.

11. Mozy: Mozy online back up is a wonderful off-site backup system
that provides unlimited service for $15 a month for five computers.
I’m taking the absurd number of videos from my Security Spy camera and
backing them up to Mozy. This will result in Mozy backing up a
terabyte of information for $200 a year for me. That’s absurd. I love
this company and service.

12. Amazon & Amazon Prime: Amazon is one of the ten greatest companies
ever built. Jeff Bezos is, perhaps, the entrepreneur I admire
most–certainly in my top three. However, at the end of the day, it’s
Amazon’s perfect service and user experience that I love most. Amazon
Prime, which basically gets you products super-fast without worrying
about shipping, is a MUST for anyone who orders from Amazon more than
five to ten times a year. I buy everything from Amazon (or Zappos, now
part of Amazon), with rare exception–even when they are NOT the best
price (which is about 20% of the time). Why? I like shopping with
them. The experience is flawless, and few things in life are flawless.
Oh yeah, Amazon owns #10 on this list as well: Audible. Two flawless
services, and more evidence that Jeff Bezos might be the best
entrepreneur of our generation. (Sorry Steve Jobs and Bill Gates!).

13. Samsung BluRay with Netflix On Demand: Watching movies at home has
never been so good. Netflix On Demand is flawless and with the
exception of not enough high-def options it’s basically a “game over”
solution for on demand. Netflix is about to become to movies what
Sonos+Rhapsody is to music for me. We now watch more Netflix on Demand
than Netflix in the mail. Enough said.

14. Samsung 55″ LED TV: This TV is so real that most folks who look at
it say “that looks like real life, not a movie.” LED technology is so
clear it makes LCDs and Plasma’s look like tube TVs. Well, maybe not
that bad, but close. Combined with a BluRay player and surround sound
there is little reason for me to visit a theater for anything but the
top movies. Also, the TV is about one inch thick and lift as a
feather. I have folks put the width of the TV between their eyes and
look at me on the other side of it to show how thin it is. You can
literally fit the TV between your two eyes and move it with two
fingers.
http://gdgt.com/samsung/un55b8000/

15. Tricaster: The Tricaster by Newtek is a complete digital studio in
a box. This amazing device allows me, and Leo Laporte, to create
multicamera shoots without spending $100,000 building a studio and
having a half dozen engineers on call for a show. Instead you drop
$10,000 on this box and have one editor man the Tricaster and you’re
done. Leo has used the Tricaster to create a $2M a year podcasting
business with a half dozen employees and This Week in Startups is
making over $250,000 a year in advertising after only a couple of
months. The podcasting/video show revolution is powered by Tricaster.
I love this product.
http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/

More:

a) Service that I’m playing with that might make the 2010 list: Canon
7D, Blippy.com,  Backupify, Drobo.
b) Services that would have been on my pervious lists, had I done
them, but are too obvious to put on this list: Twitter, GMAIL, Macbook
Air, Plantronics DSP 400 Headset.
c) The 10 worst services/technology moves of 2009: I wrote about seven
of these before I realized I could get another email newsletter out of
them. More to come.

What are your “Top Tech Products for 2009?”

Please post your answers at Mahalo Answers: http://bit.ly/toptech2009

I will compile a list of your top products and why and send a followup
to you guys.

all the best,

Jason McCabe Calacanis
CEO, Mahalo.com
jason@mahalo.com
310-456-4900 mobile

To unsubscribe reply with unsubscribe in the subject line or visit
www.tinyurl.com/jasonslist
To signup if this was forwarded to you: www.bit.ly/jasonslist

=======================
Some plugs:

1. My 2009 angel investments: www.gdgt.com, www.challengepost.com,
www.gowalla.com.
2. Open Angel Forum, January 14th Los Angeles: www.openangelforum.com
3. TechCrunch50, 4th year! September, 2010: www.techcrunch50.com
4. My twitter: www.twitter.com/jason
5. My blog: www.calacanis.com
6. My day job: www.Mahalo.com, a knowledge engine. 15M unique visitors
in December!
7. We’re hiring 12 developers at Mahalo in 2010. Interested? email
Mark Jeffrey: mark at mahalo.com.
8. Will be playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event again in
2010 thanks to my peeps at Full Tilt Poker!
9. My podcast: This Week in Startups, www.thisweekinstartups.com
10. I exec produce: Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show,
www.kevinpollakschatshow.com — it rocks.

=======================

If you’re reading this message you read to the bottom of the email
newsletter. That’s it, there is nothing more to read. No more plugs,
no more insights and no more rants. It’s time to get back to work!

Interesting discussion going on over at ConundrumLand: http://bit.ly/53YBi

We’re looking for another video editor to work on This Week in Startups & Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show

Details below… this is an amazing “breaking in” type of position. You’ll get to be in the studio and watch interviews with internet celebrities and *real* celebrities.

email: job-qxy3u-1392598514@craigslist.org

Looking for a hard-working and drive editor/production assistant for our Santa Monica video podcasting studio. We specialize in multi-camera live web shows, broadcast to an international audience. Shows that we produce include “This Week in Startups” and “Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show” and “This Week in YouTube”.

Responsibilities include:
–Edit and encode weekly video podcasts
–Upload and distribute podcasts online
–Keep studio organized
–Set up studio for shoots
–Supervise shoots in studio
–Operate production equipment, including: lights, cameras, Newtek TriCaster, mics, audio mixer, etc

Qualifications:
–Basic knowledge of studio equipment and operations (don’t need to be an expert – we’ll train you in almost everything you need to know)
–Experience with Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, or other editing programs
–Experience editing programs with chroma-keying
–Must be motivated and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done

Plus’ include:
–Knowledge/experience with Apple Motion
–Graphic design experience
–Knowledge of HTML

Pay is $500/week plus free breakfast, lunch and fresh fruit every day!

• Location: Santa Monica, CA
• Compensation: 500/week + free breakfast/lunch/snacks
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

From my email newsletter September 1st 2008. Reposting.  You can signup for Jason’s List here: http://bit.ly/11w4BK

September 1st 2008.

Last week, I camped out at Sequoia Capital on Sand Hill Road and did rehearsals with most of the 50 companies that are presenting–in fact, launching–new products at the TechCrunch50 event next week. These 50 represent the top 5% of the companies that applied to our demo-style event. Truth be told, the top 150 companies were all qualified to be on stage–if only we could have a five day event with two tracks.

These are the best of the best, and most of them came into “first rehearsal” with a demo that I would rate a seven out of ten. (Yes, I’ve come up with a rating system for these presentations, but that’s another email).

Actor Ashton Kutcher did his rehearsal last week, and I have to say it was kind of ironic to be sitting there giving presenting advice to someone who’s been in, and created, a large number of movies and TV shows. As an actor, Ashton obviously has the ability to draw you in, but presenting a product in this format is a very, very specific skill. He picked it up quickly.

After coaching hundreds of folks over the past two years, I’ve developed 18 solid rules. You can see the first 10 rules over at TechCrunch, which reprinted the previous email with permission here. These extra eight are very detailed and speak to some deeper techniques for capturing people’s attention and transferring your enthusiasm for your product to them.

These eighteen rules are just a framework, and are based on demoing at a conference. However, the rules can apply, to various degrees, to presenting your product to investors, partners and potential employees.

11. Show Don’t Tell
——————————-
This is the most important rule of demoing right after “get into the product as soon as possible.” Once you’re inside the product demo, you’ve got folks engaged. Next, you have to *keep* them engaged. When you’re speaking about your product, are you saying things like “With Mahalo you can find spam free, well-organized search results with related content”? Or are you saying, “Here is a spam-free search result. Notice how the sections are organized and we have the top most important Fast Facts on the side.”

In many demonstrations over the past week, presenters told me what the product did instead of showing me. Other times, they told me what it did, then told me a second time as they showed me. This is really, really annoying and wasteful. Your script should never sound like this:

–> “With YouTube, you can upload videos, tag them and share them with your friends.”
–> “Here we are uploading a video, tagging it and sharing it with our friends.”
–> “We just uploaded a video, tagged it and we shared it with friends.”

If you have limited time–and that is the case 99% of the time–I suggest just showing the product doing its thing.

If you have unlimited time, perhaps it’s ok to say what you’re going to do or recap what you’ve done. However, many of the features of these products are simple (i.e. tagging, syndication, etc) and it’s wasteful to explain to folks “we can tag your video,” “we’re tagging a video,” then “we’ve tagged a video.”

It’s like kissing a cute girl and saying “I’m going to kiss you,” “I’m kissing you” and “I just kissed you.”

Just kiss the girl, and if you did a good job, you’ll know by looking in her eyes.

(Awwww… youth is wasted on the young!)

12. Use inclusive words, live in the present
——————————-
When you’re demoing your product, it’s best to use inclusive words like “we” and “our,” as opposed to “you” and “your,” and it’s best to use active words. Let’s look at two short scripts for a mock demo of YouTube, shall we?

Try saying these out loud, and imagine you’re one of the 500 people in the audience.

Script A: “You”
–> “With YouTube, you can upload a video in five different formats.”
–> “Now you can tag your video and you can put it on your blog.”

Script B: “We”
–> “With YouTube, we can upload a video in five different formats.”
–> “Now we can tag our video and we can put it on our blog.”

As you can see, the “we” one feels more like a team effort and it draws the audience in. Now, for extra points, let’s change this from what “we” could do to something more active.

Script C: “We can”
–> “With YouTube, we can upload a video in five different formats.”
–> “Now we can tag our video and we can put it on our blog.”

Script D: “We are”
–> “We’re on YouTube.com, and we’re uploading a video, as you can see–we can do this in five different formats.”
–> “Now we’re tagging the video with “bulldog” and “cute overload,” and finally we’re on Calacanis.com posting the video. Bingo! We’re done!”

Active words engage your audience. Inclusive words draw them in. Your job is to engage the audience.

13. One driver, one navigator
——————————-
The best model for presenting your product is to have one person speaking while another person is demoing the product. There are a number of reasons for this, but the metaphor of a road trip should give you an idea of why. On a road trip, it’s best for one person to take ownership of watching the road while another person screws around with the GPS or maps. As everyone knows, screwing around with the GPS while driving can have disastrous results, and a navigator who tries to drive tends to be really annoying.

Whoever is the best speaker of your pair should speak and the other one should drive. If you’re equally qualified, then flip a coin, but never, ever switch roles in the middle of the presentation. It causes a major disconnect with the audience and you run the unnecessary risk of technical issues. It’s a waste of time, and everyone will think–correctly or not–that the reason you’re doing it is because the two of you are in some ego struggle to get equal face-time.

It’s best for the audience to connect with ONE person and to get into a groove with that one person’s voice. Imagine if David Letterman stopped his monologue half way through and had another comedian take over. Get it? Got it? Good!

Navigator: Your goals are to make sure a) that whatever the speaker is saying is reflected on the screen, b) that the screen is moving crisply and cleanly and c) that if a technical error occurs, you route around it without distracting your speaker.

Speaker: Your job is to a) clearly describe what you’re doing with active, inclusive language and b) engage the audience.

14. How to handle technical issues
——————————-
If you run into a technical problem, have a couple of anecdotes ready to go. For example, if you were Kevin Rose demoing Digg and the browser crashed, you could stop and tell the story about servers getting shut down by massive traffic and the digg mirrors that are setup by users to solve this problem. Here’s a script of how to handle a technical error:

“While Jason restarts his browser, let me tell you how we help sites handle the ‘Digg effect’ of 10,000 people rushing into their site in 60 seconds.” Then, monitor the driver, who should give a silent thumbs up when you’re ready to go.

Here’s what you should not do: panic and/or start babbling. The worst thing you can do is say: “Oh, ummmm…. our browser crashed. This is a new machine, I swear this wasn’t an issue before. Oh, no, ummm…. we practiced this ten times… uhhh… I can get this to work, really…”

If the machine crashes, take a deep breath and fix the problem while your driver falls into anecdote mode. If your presentation is FUBAR (fracked up beyond repair), than apologize and let folks know you’ll be a back in a moment. Here’s a simple way to say it: “It seems we’ve experienced a little problem. Why don’t we regroup for a few minutes while you guys take a quick break?” Or :”It seems we’ve experienced a little problem. Why don’t we let the next speaker present while we regroup? Thanks for your understanding!”

15. The Setup
——————————-
The first 30 seconds of your presentation is critical. There are a couple of ways to start your presentation that will work. Which one you select should be based on what’s the most effective at engaging your audience.

–> Method One: Get personal
Many of the best products ever built were done so out of the frustration of their creators. Cisco was built by two professors who were frustrated that their two networks couldn’t connect, so they set out to build hardware to “network networks.” YouTube was created because the founders couldn’t find a way to easily upload and share their videos.

A fantastic way to start your presentation is to share how you came up with the idea. For example, let’s take the fictional example of photo sharing site. I’ve include notes under each line for what the driver would be doing in brackets.

“Last year, I went on vacation in China and took over 1,000 digital photos… like this one of me eating fried bugs!”
[Scroll through five photos of China--including a really goofy one of me eating fried bugs that's sure to get a laugh!]

“Like everyone, I wanted to share them with my friends, but emailing them was cumbersome.”
[Show Yahoo Mail screenshot, including 17 attachments]

“I couldn’t easily describe or organize the photos in an email message, and I couldn’t host them in their original size, because it crashed my email client. Plus, the recipients would probably have problems downloading them.”
[Show Yahoo Mail giving a timeout error, then switch to a GMAIL email with broken images]

“So, I created Flickr, a free, web-based photo sharing site.”
[Show Flickr Homepage]

–> Method Two: Show the problem
A second effective way to start your presentation is to show the problem first. In the example of surfing the web while on the go, Steve Jobs might say something like this:

Steve Jobs: “You know, when I’m on the run and I want to get some information on the web, I’m left with one of two choices: Open up my laptop and fire up my browser–which takes four minutes…”
[Driver: Shows photo of Steve Jobs at an airport Starbucks balancing a laptop while dragging a roller.]

“… or I can take out my phone or Blackberry, squint and try to fill out forms so I can switch my flight times… but that winds up taking more time than opening my laptop!”
[Driver: Show JetBlue website loading broken on tiny screen, forms not working.]

“That’s why the iPhone has a screen which is 225% larger than a normal phone, has a real browser that works called Safari and still fits in the palm of your hand. It’s not too big, it’s not too small–it’s just right!”
[Driver: Steve effortlessly navigates LAX to JFK flight search on iPhone while in line at Starbucks!]

“Now I just need to order my soy latte!” (huge laugh!)
[Driver: Show Steve Jobs ordering from counter while holding iPhone in his hands.]

–> Method Three: Get right into the product
This method is great for sexy products. If you’ve got something that just looks amazing, you might want to consider just starting. For example, if you’re Kevin Rose showing off one of the Digg visualization tools, you should just throw it on the screen, let folks try and figure out the hotness and then explain what they are looking at.

–> Method Four: The Showman
This is the most dangerous, and advanced, technique in presenting. I don’t recommend it unless you’ve got a killer product, you’re entertaining as hell and you can straight-up drop it.

Greg Clayman, the futurist co-founder of UPOC, shocked everyone with this amazing video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2N-uCjQu10

You’re probably not Greg Clayman, so stick to Methods One to Three for five or ten years, and if your flow is tight, then think about upgrading to number Four. Or, if you’re a risk taker, go for it… just be prepared to fall flat on your face and be ok with it.

16. Horrible ways to start your presentation:
——————————-
a) Talk about your bio and your business accomplishments. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)
b) Talk about the market size. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)
c) Give an overview of the competitive landscape. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)

17. Describe your product five times
——————————-
Folks are going to come up with moniker for your service if you don’t, so I suggest challenging yourself to come up with a 10-word description of your product, then a six-word description and finally a three- or four-word description.

The best example of slogans come from the political arena:

“Stay the course”
“The buck stops here”
“Change you can trust”
“No new taxes”
“Ross for Boss”
“It’s the economy, stupid”
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Try and find a slogan for your company and repeat it a couple of times in your presentation:

“human powered search”
“the easiest way to share video online”
“the most powerful photo sharing service ever”
“answers, not search results”

Continuous partial attention is the mode most folks will be in during your presentation. They’re going to give you 60% of their attention while checking their Blackberry, looking around the room and thinking about their own plans to rule the universe. Knowing this, chances are they will only hear your catch phrase once or twice if you say it three times.

That’s why you say it 3-5 times.

18. Change up your style (i.e. shift your tone)
——————————-
There are many tones you can use in your talk, and it’s best to change them up. One tone, a mono-tone, is the worst. Folks hear you in that tone for more than 60 seconds and they zone out. Something else in their attention bank takes over. Here are some styles:

Excited: “This has never been done!”
Puzzled: “Has this ever been done?”
Low questioning: “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
Excited questioning: “Have you ever seen anything like this!?!”
Cavalier: “I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want Google knowing what i searched for last night!” (wink, wink!)

This is an advanced technique, and it might take years to flow naturally, but it’s worth starting now. One suggestion is to record yourself and pick out the natural transition in your talk and shift tone during them.

If you made it all the way to the bottom you’re one of the more intelligent members of the list–and probably very good looking as well. As such, please considering forwarding this email to the ten most interesting people you know saying “Jason’s a really cool cat, you should subscribe to his list.”

Have any suggestions for topics I should cover? Tweet them with @jasoncalacanis at the start, or email me at jason@calacanis.com.

See you all at the TechCrunch50.com conference in San Francisco on September 8-10th. More here: www.techcruch50.com.

Yahoo committed seppuku today.

The once proud warrior of the internet space laid down its sword,  knelt at the feet of Microsoft and gutted itself today. There was no honor in this death, it was one brought by the shame of losing to  Google and a lack of faith in one’s ability to compete in the space they created. To be clear, Yahoo didn’t need to do this deal,  Microsoft did. Ultimately Yahoo will look back at this moment as the second–and perhaps fatal–mistake in their epic history.

Search is the most important business of the 21st century and owning a  commanding lead in second place is not insignificant. At one time Yahoo was the number one search engine and portal. However, they  didn’t see the value in search and decided to syndicate that piece of their business to a small company called Google. For a couple of years  we all experienced Google in Yahoo’s wrapper. Our only indication of who made this wonderful tool was a tiny “Powered by Google” logo on the top right of the page.

We noticed and we learned. The thought leaders went directly to Google  and dragged everyone but the laggards (Yahoo’s current 20% market
share) with us. Yahoo accelerated the ascent of the master. Had Yahoo  not given their search franchise over to Google back then, there is a good chance that the race for the most important business of the 21st  century would be a dead heat. Certainly it would be closer.

Today, with their Microsoft deal, Yahoo again undervalues their search asset. Again, they will be “Powered by…” and again they will destroy their brand and its value.

All that being said, Microsoft’s obsession with taking Yahoo’s second  place position and adding it to their 3rd place position is not an indication that it’s time to sell. Far from it. When Microsoft is  interested in a space it is a clear sign that you should be investing in it–not selling it.

Microsoft’s deep dive into a graphical user interface on an operating  system, Windows, was a clear sign to Steve Jobs that his bet was correct. Steve doubled and tripled down and that is why Apple is  Apple. Microsoft’s deep dive into word processors and spreadsheets was the clear sign to WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 that this was a space worth fighting for.

Microsoft’s massive investment into video games, mobile operating  systems and search are clear indications that Sony’s Playstation, Google’s Andriod, the iPhone, Google and Yahoo are very important companies.

Nintendo didn’t give up when Microsoft came into the video game  space–they innovated. Now the Wii outsells the mighty XBOX 50 million to 30 million. That is how you fight Microsoft: you innovate. Steve Jobs knows this, Nintendo knows this, and Oracle knows this. Yahoo, apparently, did not get the 40-year-old memo.

Aggression and innovation wins. Period.

To say it clearly: Microsoft does not enter a market unless it’s  important, huge and on the way to becoming even bigger. Microsoft is the buy sign, not the sell sign. The people at Microsoft are brilliant and not to be underestimated–history has shown this to be true.

The Right Move
==============
The proper move when someone wants something you own badly is to  invest more in it. “Oh, you like my house and you’re willing to pay double what I paid for it? Did I mention I just redid the kitchen, bought the lot next door and put in a newHVAC system?” How much is it worth to you now? That’s gangster CEO-level poker playing. You raise and raise while you develop your hand and increase its value.

If I was the CEO of Yahoo I would have bought Powerset and five other  innovative search-related startups in the past three years, taken bold steps to innovate in search design and spent $100m in marketing the service.

Oh wait, that’s exactly what Microsoft did! Zing! Pow!

What did Yahoo do instead? While playing tough guy with Microsoft’s  war chest of money, debating $31 or $33 a share, they took their eyes off the prize and stopped innovating. The founders ofFlickr and  Delicious left, Yahoo’s once promising think tank was shut down, the products didn’t advance and all the cool kids left. What a disaster.

While Rome was burning in Sunnyvale what did Microsoft do? The opposite: they invested in search, hired the cool kids and gave Yahoo, their shareholders and the public one very clear message: Yahoo is dying on the vine, incompetent and we’re solving the problem. You can sell to us or get run over by us. What did Yahoo do? They took a page out ofTimeWarner/AOL’s handbook and brought in someone who had never worked in the consumer internet before to clean up the mess.

[ Note: I've never met Carol Bartz so I can't speak to her abilities. Clearly she is a very competent deal maker and operator. However, she's not in the league of the growing "product genius" Google cabal of Larry, Sergey,Marissa, Chad and Salar. ]

Yahoo’s shareholders should be in full revolt right now, but the truth  is the shareholders of Yahoo lost faith long ago. From the Yahoo  shareholders I’ve talked to over the last couple of years–and I’ve met the big institutional ones who own large chunks of it–they want to get the best possible price out of Microsoft and move on. They were  tired of the war and thought gutting the pig and selling the pork was better than building a farm. Well, maybe that isn’t the best analogy in the world, but I think you get my point: cut it up and ship it out. We’re done here.

Round Three
==============
And so ends the second chapter of search and begins the third.

Chapter one was inception up until the launch of Google.

Chapter two was Google’s rise and Yahoo’s death.

Chapter three will be the two-horse race of Microsoft and Google, with the inevitable emergence of a third and fourth player.

That’s the silver lining for startups in all of this. As Google and Microsoft lock into a dog fight for revenue and market share, leaving the Yahoo carcass on the side of the road, the bevy of crafty startups will get their chance to take the third, fourth and fifth positions in this very important race.

The lesson for all startups–and BDC’s (big dumb companies)–is that innovation is all you have. Once you stop innovating you lose your talent and you lose the race. Never. Stop. Innovating. Never. Never. Never.

Man I love this game.

Question: Who got the best of this deal and why? (replies are considered ok for reposting unless you say “not for republication” or “ok to republish, just don’t attribute to me”).

all the best,

Jason@Mahalo.com

http://www.twitter.com/jasoncalacanis
http://www.calacanis.com

Note 1: To unsubscribe hit reply and put unsubscribe in the subject line.

Note 2: Sorry for the delay in getting you a newsletter. I’ve had some major life events go down recently and I’ve been suffering from massive writers block. Perhaps today will open the flood gates up again.

Note 3: If you haven’t  tuned in to This Week in Startups it is going well, we’ve done almost ten episodes. www.thisweekinstartups.com

Note 4: Thanks to C.K. Sample for the last minute edit.

The top questions of the day from Mahalo Answers: 

1. What’s the strangest weirdest thing you found in your home that you didn’t know was there?
   
2. What are the great health benefits of coffee? 
3. What is the most significant historical event in May?
4. Why do bad smells or burnt smells (garbage, burnt popcorn, vomit) cause headaches?

http://d869g1fflgodk.cloudfront.net/bunnyphuphu/reflection_by_sXeTina.png 

bnnyphuphu asks 

“Which actor holds the record for most celluloid deaths?” 

http://www.mahalo.com/answers/movies/what-actor-holds-the-record-for-most-celluloid-deaths

Join us LIVE Friday, May 1st at 1pm (PDT) for the first episode of This Week in Startups with guest Brian Alvey. You can watch here on the site where we will be broadcasting live via Ustream.

Alvey is the CEO and founder of the content management and hosting system Crowd Fusion, the company behind the blogs Obsessable and Super Eco. He’s also the Chairman of comic publisher ComicMix. Together, he and Jason Calacanis co-founded the Weblogs, Inc. blogging network in 2003. Alvey can be found on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo and his own blog, BrianAlvey.com. His wife also blogs at BloggingNiki.com.

Special thanks to sponsors DNA Mail and UStream.

Looks like tesla is going to get the DOE loan!

Huge news!!!

[French Version] [German Version]

Tesla to be Profitable by Mid Year

Although extraordinarily difficult to close, the $40M financing round completed in December was twice the amount Tesla needed to reach profitability.  Moving forward two months later, we remain on track with our cost reductions and production ramp, so it appears highly likely that Tesla will meet the goal promised to those investors of becoming profitable by mid year. 

The main reason for this confidence is that Tesla is already in the fortunate position of being sold out until early November, something few automakers can claim, and will soon be sold out of all 2009 production.  While we have had some cancellations due to buyers experiencing personal financial difficulties, new orders continue to flow in every week from the United States and Europe. We have now produced over 200 Roadsters for customers and there are more than 1,000 customers still awaiting delivery.

Due to our order backlog, it seems that owning a Roadster can be a good investment.  Last September, as the financial and real estate markets began crashing, a Roadster was sold at the Sonoma Paradiso in California wine country for $160,000, well above the current list price of $109,000.  Many Roadster owners who have taken delivery of their cars have already decided to purchase a second Roadster or Roadster Sport because they like the first one so much. 

The continued strong demand is driven by the fact that the Tesla Roadster has no direct competitors in the marketplace.  It is faster than almost any sports car on the market (our Roadster beat a Porsche GT3 on the Top Gear test track) and yet uses less energy and has a smaller carbon footprint than a Toyota Prius, even if you assume the worst possible case where all electricity comes from coal. 

I expect sales demand to strengthen further as this awareness grows.  After all, what’s the point of driving another exotic sports car when it is slower than a Tesla and damages the environment?  Already, the Tesla Roadster is the car of choice among the technology, business and Hollywood A lists – this year’s Academy Awards will be a lineup of Teslas – and we have never had to give a discount to anyone.

Many customers also appreciate the fact that profit from their purchase goes towards helping Tesla develop more affordable, mass market electric cars. The same cannot be said for those who buy gas-guzzling sports cars from other automakers.

And owners aren’t the only ones impressed with the Roadster. Road & Track was the first auto enthusiast magazine to perform third-party, instrumented testing on the Roadster; they were “pleased to see its extravagant claims confirmed.” The Washington Post’s Warren Brown gushed, “Wheeeeeee! If this is the future of the automobile, I want it.” Dan Neil of the Los Angeles Times had perhaps the most colorful description we’ve ever seen to describe the Roadster’s scorching acceleration: “God has grabbed me by the jockstrap and fired me off his thumb, rubber band-style. Wow.” And we’ve also had a torrent of positive reviews in Europe, where deliveries begin this summer – including a Le Monde story with our favorite headline: “Le chic électrique.”

Unveiling the Model S and DOE funding!

On March 26th, at the Tesla design studio located within the SpaceX rocket factory, we will unveil a street-drivable prototype of the Model S four door sedan.  Our objective with the Model S was to create one of the most functional, intuitive and beautiful vehicles on the road.  Tesla Roadster customers and select VIPs invited to the event will have an opportunity to judge for themselves firsthand whether we have succeeded. 

Regarding funding, I am excited to report that the Department of Energy informed Tesla last week that they may disburse funds from our $350M Model S loan application within four to five months.  The Obama administration has thankfully made it a top priority to move quickly on the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program, as this will both generate high quality jobs in the near term and lay the groundwork for a better environment in the future. 

This will keep us on track for production to start in 2011.  As a gesture of gratitude for their early support, Roadster owners will receive a $10,000 discount off the price of the Model S Signature series and automatically be first in line for the sedan. 

Daimler Partnership

We announced last month at the Detroit auto show that we have been working with Daimler (maker of Mercedes) for over a year to create an electric version of the Smart car. Daimler has contracted with Tesla to build the battery packs and chargers for an initial run of 1,000 cars.  Pending the results of that test fleet, the relationship could expand to tens of thousands of cars per year.

This is a very significant endorsement of both Tesla’s technology and our financial strength by one of the world’s most respected automotive companies.  Daimler would not feel comfortable depending on us for this program if they felt that either our technology was easily replicated or that we were in financial danger.

Daimler was the first company to commercialize the internal combustion engine and has become a benchmark for automotive quality and reliability.  It is an honor that they chose to work with Tesla after a thorough investigation of other options. The deal is likely to be the first in a series of strategic partnerships between Tesla and other auto manufacturers to engineer and produce electric cars. 

My goal for Tesla from the beginning was to do whatever we can to help end the world’s addiction to oil.  We’ll do that by making cars directly, helping other automakers develop cars, and serving as an example to the rest of the industry.  Although the Roadster is still the only highway capable production electric car for sale in the United States, it was very encouraging to see that the central theme of the Detroit auto show this year was electric transportation.

New Tesla Sales & Service Centers to Open

We have reached agreement on Tesla store leases in Chicago and London’s Knightsbridge district, and we are close to finalizing locations in Manhattan, Miami, Seattle and Munich. All six facilities will open this year, and in the following months we’ll provide details about individual store opening parties. These new stores will offer prospective customers the chance to see and drive the Roadster in person – and they underscore Tesla’s commitment to looking at the auto industry with fresh eyes. Unlike traditional franchise dealerships, Tesla owns its stores and controls the customer experience. We think you’ll agree that our stores are a refreshing change from the way most people have bought cars for the last 50 years.

Roadster Sport

Tesla is now taking orders for the Roadster Sport, an even higher performance car that does 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds. It comes with a hand-wound stator and increased winding density for lower resistance and higher peak torque.  The tires are upgraded to Yokohama Ultra High Performance and the suspension features adjustable dampers and anti-roll bars tuned to the driver’s preference – allowing for both softer and firmer rides than the standard Roadster.  Deliveries are expected to begin in late June.
 

Upgraded Roadster Interior and Other Options

Tesla will soon offer an Executive Leather Interior that raises the level of luxury in the Roadster’s cabin. We are also offering a Clear Carbon Fiber Exterior Package to add an additional level of sportiness and highlight the lightweight material that makes up the Roadster’s body. Currently, the only exterior clear carbon fiber touch on the base model is the roll bar cover – but many customers and fans have asked if we could reveal more of this exotic, braided material. These packages will be available starting in June.

Prototype with executive leather interior.

Battery Replacement Program

One of the top questions customers ask about the Roadster is, “How long will the battery last and what will it cost to replace?” Tesla engineers have determined that a Tesla battery pack should last approximately seven years or over 100,000 miles under normal use.

Customers may pay $12,000, €10,000 or £9,000 up front and in return receive a replacement battery pack after seven years.  Customers will also have the option of replacing the pack earlier at a premium or later for a partial refund.  With the low production volume of the Tesla Roadster, the current replacement price of the pack is almost three times that number.  The main reason for the relatively low cost up front — and why this is a smart purchase — is that we are arbitraging the relative cost of capital between Tesla and our typical customer. 

Extended Warranty to Double Standard Period

Many customers have also asked to purchase an extended warranty. We now offer a doubling of the standard warranty, which means an additional 3 years and 36,000 miles or 60,000 kilometers, for $5,000, €4,000 or £3,800.  This covers everything on the car except the battery pack. Should the motor, power electronics, HVAC or any other major system need to be replaced, this will be money well spent, and it provides peace of mind to many customers. 

Thanks for your support!
 
Elon Musk
CEO & Product Architect

This was an email to my private list which you can signup for at
http://www.tinyurl.com/jasonslist

Location: Mahalo HQ, Santa Monica
Date/Time: January, 28th 2009 2:15pm
Subscribers: 12,001
Listen To This While Reading: Love Theme from Blade Runner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9KAqhbIZ7o
Forward To: Everyone
======================================

I’ve been thinking about empathy and the Internet non-stop for the past week. If you, the jury, will give me some room to operate, I think I’ve got a couple of important, if imperfect, points to share. It might take me some time to get there; two or three thousand words to be exact.

This past week, I camped out at the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of a documentary film about my friend Josh Harris titled “We Live in Public.” It’s a cautionary tale about the dehumanizing effects of technology, a somber topic that we all need to consider in the age ofFacebook, blogging, linkbaiting, and, sadly, the MySpace and JustinTV suicides.

On Saturday night, I sat between director Ondi Timoner and Josh Harris while the film was given the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. Winning at Sundance is the highest honor in documentary filmmaking according to most–even more so than the Oscar. It was one of the most epic and cathartic moments to which I’ve ever been witness. After ten years of work,Ondi had been given the ultimate recognition and after a lifetime of, well, living, Josh had his story told.

It was heavy.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself… Perhaps we should start at the beginning: Early 2001, New York City.

The Breakdown
————————
Back in the late ’90s, one of my best friends was a guy named Josh Harris. He formed a company called Jupiter Communications which wrote all those crazy research reports in the Web 1.0 days that said Internet advertising, broadband and e-commerce would shoot to the moon like a rocket over the first decade of the Internet. And they were right.

Josh had a front row seat to the Internet Revolution writing those reports, and he made around $80 million when Jupiter went public. He lost it just as quickly when he started experimenting with technology.

One day, he came to my office and couldn’t look me in the eye.

It was one of those horrible, ugly New York City winter days. The ones where it’s not cold enough for the dirty snow to completely melt from the pounding sleet, making the walk to get a cup of coffee feel like theIditarod . Josh rocked back and forth in a chair and repeated a couple of random phrases to me: “The jig’s up, can’t do it, jig’s up, can’t do it–gotta get off the grid.”

I tried to comfort him. I explained that he used to be one of my favorite people to break bread with, that he had inspired me to try and do great things, and that I’d learned more from his outlandish failures than I ever did from my modest successes. However, he had become boring and obsessed with his press clippings. “Did you see Vanity Fair? We’re in the Post tomorrow!,” he would tell me toward the end. I’d ask what the press was for, and the answer placed him directly between Andy and Paris on the unknown-but-famous-anyway spectrum: “For being me!”

Later that slushy day, Josh took a couple of bags and the last of his dwindling fortune to his newly acquired apple farm in upstate New York. He had literally–two beats, please–bought the farm.

The Background
————————
Josh had spent the last couple of months working on two art projects examining what happens when you put yourself under non-stop Internet surveillance.

One was called Quiet and one was called “We Live in Public.” The first, Quiet, was an art project that was famous in New York City’s downtown circles around the turning of the millennium. Josh had a couple dozen folks in a bunker for 30 days living in “pods” (bunks) that included cameras watching their every move. He tried to get me to move into the “hotel,” but I knew it wasn’t a good idea when I saw the people running around naked on psychoactive drugs, firingsubmachine guns. That’s not an exaggeration–that was happening in the basement of this Tribeca building.

You’ll see all this footage if you see the movie. It was madness.

Quiet was shut down by Giuliani’s nightclub task force as a millennial cult 18 months before 9/11–the milestone by which most New Yorkers, including myself, mark our lives. For me, everything in my memory is eitherpre- or post-9/11. Quiet, Silicon Alley Reporter and my adolescence are all pre-9/11. Adulthood, gravitas and the fallout from the undiagnosed PTSD are all post-9/11. (But that’s for another medium, perhaps one with covers as opposed to headers).

In the second experiment, “We Live in Public,” Josh put a couple dozen cameras all over his loft and recorded the inevitable breakdown of his life with the love of his life, Tanya. It was after “We Live in Public” that Josh came to see me, a character witness to his nervous breakdown, before heading to the farm.

People in the chat rooms for “We Live in Public” were vicious to Josh and his then-girlfriend Tanya. They lost their empathy for the people living under video surveillance, and what had started as a fun time playing with technology turned into a nightmare. The audience tortured the subjects in the box–Milgram would have been proud.

It took Josh five years to recover from the “We Live in Public” experiment. I’m wondering how long it will take the rest of us to hit rock bottom and recover.

Godwin’s Law Meets Harris’ Law
————————
Josh’s experiments in 2000, during which he and his cohorts became obsessed with their view counts, parallels today’s blogging, social media and YouTube “arms race.” In his experiment, the technology robbed the subjects–and their audience–of every last ounce of empathy.

Digital communications is a wonderful thing–at least at the start. Everyone participating in digital communities is eventually introduced to Godwin’s Law: At some point, a participant, or more typically his or her thinking, will be compared to the Nazis.  But that’s only part of the breakdown.  Eventually, you see the effect of what I’ll call Harris’ Law: At some point, all humanity in an online community is lost, and the goal becomes to inflict as much psychological suffering as possible on another person.

Harris’ Law took effect last year when Abraham Biggs killed himself in front of a live webcam audience on life-streaming service JustinTV. The audience’s role? They encouraged him to do it.

Harris’ law took effect in October of 2006, when Lori Drew, a grown woman, created a fake alias on MySpace (“Josh Evans”) in order to psychologically torture 14-year-old Megan Meier. Drew started a online love affair with Megan as “Evans” before pulling the rug out and viciously turning on her victim. This “cyber-bullying,” as the press likes to call it, resulted in Megan killing herself.

Harris’ Law took effect in October of last year when Choi Jin-sil killed herself, reportedly over the fallout from Internet rumors. The bullying in Korea has become so intense that you’re now required to use your Social Security Number to sign up for a social network. This lack of anonymity is one of the most enlightened things I’ve heard of from one of the most advanced–if not the most advanced–Internet communities in the world.

Ownership of one’s behavior? Who knew?!?!?

I’m sure some of the wacky Internet contingents will flame me for saying that anonymity is a bad thing, but the fact is that anonymous environments create the environments in which Godwin’s and Harris’ Laws apply. What’s the point of starting these communities if they eventually end in pain and suffering? Anonymity is overrated in my book. (Whistle-blowers are an exception, and last time I checked, anyone can anonymously drop an envelope in a mailbox, so it’s not like the Internet needs to be there for that).

Internet Asperger’s Syndrome (IAS)
————————
I’ve come to recognize a new disorder, the underlying cause of Harris’ Law. This disease affects people when their communication moves to digital, and the emotional cues of face-to-face interaction–including tone, facial expression and the so called “blush response”–are lost (More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FxwHfoWdS8 ).

In this syndrome, the afflicted stops seeing the humanity in other people. They view individuals as objects, not individuals. The focus on repetitive behaviors–checking email, blogging, twittering and retiring andys–combines with an inability to feel empathy and connect with people.

Now, I’m not using this new term to make light of Asperger’s Syndrome. Far from it, I jsut can’t deny the fact that the evolution of people’s behavior online eventually parallels Asperger’s. I feel I’m within my rights as pundit to reconstitute the idea of Asperger’s to explain my own experiences and thoughts. Although I’ll understand it if you, as someone affected in some way by Asperger’s, claim your right to flame me for “hijacking” the disease. Such is the life of linguists in the age of sound-bites over debate, and skimming over reading.

If you do choose to flame me, I’d ask that you attempt to throttle back your IAS and see me not as an email-producing object, but rather as a 38-year-old searching for answers at the mid-way point in his life, when his collective experience equals his remaining time to experience life. That’s really who I am–just another kid on verge of being old who spends a lot of time thinking about the half-way mark. Be gentle with me.

Back to the point: In IAS, screen names and avatars shift from representing people to representing characters in a video game. Our 2600’s and 64’s have trained us to pound these characters into submission in order to level up. We look at bloggers, people on Twitter andpodcasters not as individuals, but as challenges–in some cases, “bosses”–that we must crush to make it to the next phase.

The dual nature of Asperger’s, from my understanding, is that it makes the individual focused on very specific behaviors–obsessively so in many cases–while decreasing their capacity for basic empathy and communication. It’s almost as if you trade off intensity in one area for common decency and communications in another area–not that the person has a choice.

Well, trading off people’s feelings for page views and Twitter followers sounds familiar to me.

What’s the Damage (Partner)?
————————
One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because the dozen negative comments under every blog post I wrote started wearing me down. I’d write for an hour and the immediate reward was four people, under 12 different accounts, slamming me. Some were people I had fired, others were mentally unstable folks but, in many cases, they were normal people suffering fromIAS.

As you know, I moved to this email newsletter to get away from the IAS factor on blogs. It worked for the first four months, but last month, someone flamed me, calling me an idiot and my missive “garbage.” It was the first time any one of the 12,000 or so people on the list ever flamed me.

Now, I consider myself a fairly thick-skinned, tough person, but I realized that I had not emailed you in a month, and that it was probably because of that short email. The 12k suffered due to a three sentence flame by just one person, probably suffering fromIAS.

I’ve had a couple of folks introduce themselves to me in the past couple of years and say something to the effect of “Oh, I wrote this horrible thing about you but I didn’t really mean it. I really respect your work.” They are normally very uncomfortable when this happens. Sometimes, they are even shaking and stuttering. I typically pretend I don’t know what they’re talking about and tell them it doesn’t matter–a complete lie. Typically, I know exactly what they said, because you remember when folks say something nasty. I’ve come to the conclusion that all I can do is forgive them and move on.

The switch, from an initial lack of empathy to cowering in shame from their own behavior, is telling.  It proves to me that otherwise normal folks will lose their empathy online, only to regain it the instant they face the “object” (aka real person) of their scorn.

What’s at stake?
————————
We’re all canaries in the coal mines now, like Josh Harris was back in the ’90s. We’re harvesting our lives and putting them online. We’re addicted to gaining followers and friends (or email subscribers, as the case may be), and reading comments we get in return. As we look for validation and our daily 15 minutes of fame, we do so at the cost of our humanity.

Today, we’re destroying each other with words, but teaching ourselves to objectify individuals and to identify with aggressors will result in more than psychological violence. This behavior will find its way into the real world, like it did when Wayne Forrester murdered his wife Emma over a change in herFacebook status, from married to single.

It’s only a matter of time, sadly, until this loss of empathy will hit the real world. We’re training ourselves to destroy other people, and there’s a generation growing up with this in their DNA.  They don’t remember a world when communications were primarily in the real world.

The threats we’ve seen against women online are a warning sign of what’s to come–we’re all going to face this aggressive behavior and we’re all going to withdraw from these communication services.

I’m 100% convinced that the trend in 2010 and forward will be people trying to remove their virtual presence on sites like Flickr, YouTube and Facebook. Already, I’ve noticed people are moving their settings to private–perhaps something they should have done from the start.

What a shame, because there is so much gained from sharing.

Rafe Loses His Empathy
————————
No one is immune to IAS, I’ve learned. Just yesterday, one of my old friends, Rafe Needleman, got suckered into the blogging trap of trying to get page views. He printed a story entitled “How to be the most hated person on the Internet: Five role models.” [Here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10150167-2.html ]

Yes, you guessed it, he included me in the piece. My crime? As he describes it, I’ve “taken to acting like a new-money rock star, publicly buying flashy cars, strutting around the conference he produced with Arrington with his two mascot bulldogs, calling his Twitter followers the ‘Jason Nation,’ and then telling bloggers he’s too good for the medium, opting to write instead to a private e-mail list. His weapons of choice: arrogance and money.”

Wow, thanks, pal!

First off, I bought the Tesla because it’s better for the planet. Oh, heck… Who am I kidding: I bought it because it’s really sexy and fast–and good for the planet. Probably in that order. Guilty as charged! Also, I show it to everyone, Twitter about it constantly and I could care less if people have a problem with the fact that it’s expensive. So what? Who cares? It’s just a car, and it’s drool-worthy because of the technology, not the price tag.

Also, if you’re going to hate on me because Taurus and Fondue are the most lovable dogs in history of dogdom, well, I think that’s kind of low.

Since the time of Rafe writing his piece, I’ve been involved in a very long thread with the other members of the “most hated” list, including Mike Arrington and DaveWiner. Rafe regretted doing the piece. However, I’m not surprised he did it.

Rafe has a goal: To get more traffic for the withering CNET brand. We are just objects to solve this problem. Rafe dehumanized his friends in order to make them objects that get him to the next level.

It’s classic IAS.

We’re Donkey Kong to him. These big, sad gorillas that he needs to take down to get to the next level. It’s all a game, but the hurt feelings can be real. Rafe now has to go to bed for the next couple of nights knowing that he’s taken someone who is his friend–namely, me–and thrown him under the bus. For the next couple of years, folks will reference that I’m “the most hated guy on theinternet” when, in fact, my life is filled with love and joy.

Next time I see Rafe in person, he is going to do the whole nervous, coy “I really didn’t mean it, you know I respect what you’ve done” thing and I’ll say “Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter.”

Didn’t you ask for this?
————————–
The classic argument when someone “famous” gets beat up is to say “Didn’t you ask for this?” Well, actually, no. The reason I got into blogging was not to be famous or to get attention. It was simply to have an intelligent discussion with people I respected. The people I thought were interesting were debating stuff in the blog format, so I was drawn to it.

Now, the entire blogosphere has collapsed on itself to the point at which a respectable journalist like Rafe is so desperate to get to the top of Techmeme, he has to rip his friends apart. Not to single Rafe out; this is occurring daily. People find the 20 people at the top of the hill and rip them apart, hoping to move up themselves.

Steve Jobs has had his personal life ripped apart by otherwise normal journalists who are obsessed with invading his privacy, under the guise that he should bear his soul to us. It feels to me like these Jobs-obsessed bloggers and so-called journalists won’t be happy until they can just stream Jobs’ next doctor visit.

Oh, the humanity of it. It’s really disgraceful.

Wrapping up
————————
Thanks to the 17 people out of 12,000 who made it this far. I know this has been a rambling email and it could have been constructed better.

In summary, how we treat each other does matter. It matters because, without empathy, our lives are shallow, self-centered and meaningless.

The Internet and technology are turning on us, just like the story in “We Live in Public.”

Right now, I’ve got over ten thousand of you to share my thoughts with, until such time as you decide to crush and beat me down by hitting the respond key to this email and flaming me. If you do that, I’ll have to retreat again, but I’m not sure what’s left except the real world. Are we going to destroy ourselves to the point at which we unplug the Internet? Are we going to have to create private areas for discourse and lose the “Open Web” gestalt?

These are just some ideas I’m putting out there for you to consider. If you like, hit the reply key and share some thoughts with me.

Did I mention, I love you all? Each and every one one of you, including the guy who flamed me last time.

best regards,

Jason McCabe Calacanis

PS1: Mike Arrington was spit on in Germany this week, and had death threats last month. He’s now taking a month off from blogging.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/01/arrington-takes.html

PS2: Some press regarding “We Live in Public”

http://www.mahalo.com/We_Live_in_Public_Reviews

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939428.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&nid=2562

PS3: Today I started “empathy day” on Twitter. The concept is simple: say something nice to someone and put #empathyday at the end. You can do this on Facebook or your blog if you like as well.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=empathyday

Just got this update from Tesla…. don't think it's on the web yet and was sent only to owners.

Big news: battery pack expected to last seven year only $12k to replace if you order now.

best j

from Elon Musk to date Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:37 PM subject Company Update and New Options Unveiled! mailed-by Images from this sender are always displayed. Don't display from now on.

hide details 4:37 PM (21 minutes ago)

Reply

As mentioned in a prior update, we delivered our 100th Roadster last month.  Since then, we have delivered over 60 more cars to customers and will continue delivering cars at a rate of 15 per week (excluding holidays), rising to 30 per week in the spring.  By the end of 2009, we will have delivered over 1,300 Roadsters in the United States and Europe.

Tesla is in the fortunate position of being sold out through October this year and we continue to add new sales each month, despite the negative economic climate.  As a result, we expect to turn the corner on profitability by the middle of 2009, shortly after we reach our target of 30 per week production rate for the Roadster.

Due to our order backlog, it seems that owning a Roadster can be a smart investment.  In November, well after the markets crashed, a Roadster was sold at the Happy Hearts Fund auction in New York City for $160,000.  The first buyer then donated the car back to the charity and they resold it that same night for $150,000.  Many Roadster owners that have taken delivery of their cars have already decided to purchase a second Roadster or Roadster Sport because they like the first one so much.  And the Roadster has become the car to own for environmentally conscious celebrities, business leaders, and even royals.

An important factor for many in the buying decision is that by purchasing a Tesla Roadster, they are not simply obtaining the only eco-friendly sports car in the world, they are also helping pay for development of lower cost, mass electric market cars.  The same obviously cannot be said if someone were to buy a gasoline sports car from other makers of super cars.  As I said in my first blog posting about Tesla several years ago, our goal is to make electric cars that anyone can afford.  The Model S, which will be unveiled in a few months, is a big step in that direction with a starting price to consumers of $49,900 (after subtracting the $7,500 federal tax credit).

Taking that a step further, I was happy to announce this week that Tesla is working with in partnership with Daimler (maker of Mercedes) to create an electric version of the Smart car.  The initial agreement is for 1,000 cars and if that proves to be successful it could expand to tens of thousands of cars.  We are honored that Daimler chose Tesla after a detailed investigation of their options. 

This announcement follows over a year of development and is planned to be the first of a few key partnerships with other auto manufacturers to engineer and produce electric cars.  By no means are we trying to keep a lock on the technology – we will do whatever is needed to accelerate the electric car revolution and help end the world’s addiction to oil.

***

Optional Features

We have been hard at work making the Roadster the best that it can be.  Since launch, we have been collecting feedback on additional features and services that our customers would like.  We are now able to announce and explain a series of additions to the options list that specifically address areas where customers have asked for more choices.

The Tesla Roadster has been receiving positive reviews (most recently from Road & Track).  And to stay ahead of the competition we will continue to develop all aspects of the car.  From the powertrain down to fasteners, we have looked at ways to improve the base car and offer optional features that have been requested by many customers.  Here are a few of the highlights:

Roadster Sport
This was announced in a separate release so I won’t go into much detail, but the highlight of this selection is a motor with 40 additional horsepower and a handling package with crisper response and higher limits. The Roadster Sport has 15 percent more peak power and delivers 0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds. The handling components in this package will also be available separately.  If you are interested in upgrading your not yet delivered Roadster to Sport please contact the Sales team for details. 

US: +1 (650)-413-6300

Roadster Sport with optional clear-coat carbon fiber hardtop.

Battery Replacement
One of the top questions that we are asked about the Roadster, and indeed is asked of any electric car is, “How long will the battery last and what will it cost to replace?”  Our calculations and test data indicate that a Tesla battery should last approximately seven years, depending on driving and storage conditions.  The cost to replace a Roadster battery pack today is approximately $30,000, although it will certainly decrease with time (adjusted for inflation) as Tesla and our cell suppliers continue to find innovative ways to reduce cost.

With this in mind we have created a battery replacement program that allows a customer to pay up front and in return receive both a significant discount and certainty about the cost.  The price of this replacement is $12,000 and is available to all Tesla customers, including those that have already taken delivery of their car.  I am going to buy one for my Roadster and I suggest that you do the same for yours.  A present value price of $12,000 is a good deal for anyone earning under 10% per year in their long term investments.

By the way, I should note that the Model S and Smart EV battery packs will be considerably cheaper due to much greater economies of scale and next generation design efficiencies.

Upgraded Interiors
We have been developing an Executive Leather Interior that is going to raise the level of luxury in the cabin.  You may have seen an early example of this in photos.  We are also now working on a clear carbon fiber and leather combination that will take the quality of the interior to new levels.  Both of these packages will be available starting in May, and we can retrofit cars that are already built if you would like either of these options.

Prototype with executive leather interior.

Extended Warranty
Many of you have asked for the option to purchase an extended warranty, and now you may do so.  We are offering an extended warranty that will cover an additional 2 years or 24,000 miles on your Roadster.  The price of the warranty is $5,000 and will cover everything on the car except the battery for material defect and workmanship issues.  Should you encounter an unexpected catastrophic failure in one of the powertrain components (including the Power Electronics, Motor, and Transaxle), this will be money well spent. 

Clear Carbon Exterior Package
The carbon fiber body is one of the many unique features of the Roadster.  The Clear Carbon Fiber Exterior Package adds an additional level of sportiness to the exterior appearance of the Roadster and really highlights the lightweight, exotic material that makes up the Roadster’s body. If you like the clear carbon fiber roll bar cover that is on the base Roadster, then you will love this option. 

Roadster with optional clear-coat carbon fiber accents.

Many of the new options are available immediately – even for Roadsters being built this month.  A Tesla representative will be calling 2008 model year customers over the next couple of weeks to explain some of the new options in greater detail and answer your questions.  Once we have spoken with all 2008 customers we will begin contacting next model year customers to discuss available options.  The Owners Area will reflect the changes to the options matrix in approximately one week.

Following is the new complete options list for the Roadster (some items not available immediately):

Standard Features
You may have noticed when reviewing the optional features that we have removed a couple of items from the list of standard features.  Allow me to explain these changes.

Wheels
We have selected a new wheel to be the base wheel of the Tesla Roadster.  You can see this new wheel in the image of the Roadster below.  The original “Tesla wheel” is still available as an option and can be ordered with a silver or black finish.

 
Roadster with new base wheels.

Charging
The 120V Mobile Connector (MC120) will now be the base connector that comes with the car.  This connector allows you to recharge a Roadster six to seven miles every hour, however the average daily miles driven for most customers is only about thirty, so you’ll only be charging to “top off.”  A few customers have already been using the MC120 as their only method of charging and it has worked quite well.  It also works well for charging at weekend destinations. 

If you would like faster charging you may purchase a 240V Mobile Connector (MC240) capable of drawing up to 30 amps.  At this voltage and amperage level the Roadster will charge in approximately 8 hours.

The fastest option via the onboard charger – the High Power Connector — operates at up to 70 amps, which translates to a charge time of about 3.5 hours.  This system is designed to be installed in a residence or place of business and is the ideal method for charging a Roadster.

Going beyond that, we are working on a long term solution that allows for a 45 minute super charge via an offboard charger connected to high voltage commercial power lines.  This would be ideal for long distance travel between cities, as you could drive a few hundred miles and then stop for a meal while your car recharges.  We have the charger working in our labs right now and hope to deploy a few test articles along major highways later this year. 

As you can see, we have been making a lot of progress on the optional equipment front.  We have been making similar improvements to durability, usability, and the overall ownership experience of a Tesla Roadster.  Many more improvements are still in the works, so you should expect to see continuing progress as time passes — both on cars already on the road and cars not yet built.

We look forward to an exciting 2009 with you as we continue to invest in the future.

Elon Musk
CEO & Product Architect