Peter Winer

Video Breakouts

Video Breakouts went live yesterday.  Check it out.  This is what I did after the ski season ended.

I developed software that finds, selects and monitors all the hottest videos on the most popular Web sites.  It's fun for finding out what the world's watching right now.  Also you can be the first on your block to find and share the latest new videos.

On the serious side, it's all driven by an business-worthy analytics engine that reveals valuable phenomena and trends in Internet video.  Call or email me if you want to know more about it.

Summer Travel

School is out and summer travel has started.  Emma and my Mom just got back from a sail on a tall ship off the coast of Southern California.  Lots of swimming, snorkeling, swabbing the deck and cleaning the loos.  Avast ye hearties!

Resuming

Six months since the last post.  When I’m going full-throttle, there’s no time for this blog.  Work and life’s responsibilities consume all available time.

My gig at Visible Measures ended in mid-February.  Enough said.  Right after that, Alice twisted my arm – not very hard – and we rented a ski house in Kirkwood, CA.

And that’s where I’ve been all this time.  I spent 36 days on the snow this winter – my best ski winter in 25 years and second-best ever.  I feel like I’m starting to know Kirkwood reasonably well.  Suffice to say it goes beyond the runs on the map.  My personal favorites were hiking The Wave and dropping in North of Larry’s Lip.

Too bad the season is over.  Never can get enough.  It was a great season for Alice and the children as well.  Emma got better.  Sophie mastered snowboarding.  Harry really got skiing for the first time and he can now ski the easier blacks.

Where I am Right Now

Fifty-five percent of all new cell phones are GPS-enabled.  If you have one of these phones, ask yourself: Do you want your friends, family and colleagues to know where you are right now?  Privacy Lost: These Phones Can Find You asks that question and more.

Reminds me of something that happened more than once at university.  I was biking to class and I bumped into my girlfriend and one of her friends.  My girlfriend asked me why I was biking in from that side of town.  Her friend just kept walking saying "you don't want to know", or something like that.  A GPS-enabled phone with Social Mapping could severely hinder that type of behavior.  Or maybe encourage it.  Good or bad?

Generally I'd like to use Social Mapping services like Loopt and iPling to find my friends - some of the time.  Would I like my friends to map me? Probably not so much.

Google and Yahoo Maps: Feature Requests

Look at the Caples Lake satellite view in the previous post.  If you look closely, you can see that the Kirkwood ski runs in the lower left corner have some snow on them.  Also, there is a snowy area in the center of the icture.

The snow is probably from an early winter storm.  True, the snowy bits make the picture more interesting, but it wasn't like that yesterday when we were there.  In mid-August after a very light snow season, there was no snow at all, even on Kirkwood's summits.

Caples Lake, Kirkwood CA

Alice and I are enjoying the weekend at Kirkwood, hiking, hanging out and visiting friends.  Since Kirkwood is primarily a skiing resort, summer weekends are very quiet and uncrowded.  The air is cool, the skies completely clear and the scenery is spectacular.  This afternoon, we hiked the shore of Caples Lake and attempted to reach Emigrant Lake.  It got too late so we turned back and headed for the Kirkwood Inn.  The map above shows our hike and where we took pictures.  The white lines are the ski runs at Kirkwood.  They weren't snow-covered today.  This satellite shot must have been from a snowy winter.  Click the picture to see my geocoded pictures from the hike.

Mr Met: Hall of Fame Mascot

Thank you to Ian Hsu for sending this pointer: Mr. Met has been nominated to the Mascot Hall of Fame this year.  I just cast my vote for Mr. Met and you can vote as well. 

I'm not sure there's anything I can add to this.  I admit it's quite silly.  Let's go Mets!

"What I Like..." Widgets

I like K2 skis

Today, Apple launched three iTunes widgets that let users list their recent purchases, display their music reviews, or show their favorite artists. Apple is following the lead of other widgets such as iLike that allow users to share music recommendations.

More broadly, there are many widgets and Facebook applications that allow users to show what they like. It sort of makes sense since the social networking sites are centered on who you like. Listing what you like is natural.

756

Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s career home record yesterday. It’s one of the most important and visible records in all of sport.

The home crowd here in San Francisco went wild. Too bad the cheering elsewhere has been so muted. Barry Bonds is the best baseball player of our time. He just reached an epic milestone, capping off a career of great milestones. Why can’t we all just enjoy it without restraint? Enjoy it without the caveats.

I know. Barry Bonds is a jerk. But the world is full of jerks. It’s hard to be a nice guy and fight your way to the top in a very competitive world. Look at our industry. Is Steve Jobs a nice guy? How about Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidt or Rupert Murdoch? I once heard Charles Barkley make a profound point on this topic. Barkley said kids shouldn’t think he is a nice guy or think of him as a role model. They should look up to their parents and see them as role models. If Barry Bonds needs to be arrogant to get into his game, so be it. The homers still count. The record still fell. Let’s all celebrate.

What about the steroid allegations? I believe Barry Bonds is innocent until proven guilty.

When I was 10, the New York Mets won the World Series. I was 15 when Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth. Both times we all went wild in Flushing. This time an epic record fell and there’s lots of grumbling.

Hey, it’s summer. It’s baseball. Let’s all have some fun. If not for us, then for all the kids around us.

Exit Determina, Hello Visible Measures

My long-term client Determina has been acquired.  I'm not allowed to disclose the acquirer or the terms of the deal, but I can say that it's a good outcome for all of us on the Determina team.  The Determina technology will be well-supported and available to a much broader base of customers going forward.  I was offered a position at the new company, but I declined.  I'm more interested in consumer-focused, user-facing products.  Working in a security group within a platform company didn't seem like a good match with that goal.

Going forward, I'm happy to announce my new engagement with Visible Measures Corporation (VMC).  VMC develops products and services that uncover how audiences engage with Internet-delivered video applications. I'm looking forward to working with Kyle Mashima who I've known and respected for a long time. Chris Meisl, my best friend and collaborator is also on board at VMC.