Second Screen, Third Screen, ...

It's pretty common practice these days to pull out a tablet or phone during big live events and watch on two screens. The industry has taken to calling this the second screen experience. Or social TV. It's an area our firm has a few bets in, most notably Twitter and GetGlue.

But last night during the debate, I found myself in need of more screens. I could have used something like this:

Trading desk
attribution link

I had the #debates feed on my personal Nexus 7. I had John Heilemann's twitter feed on my phone. I had Tumblr going on my laptop. And I had CNN on the family room Nexus 7. And I was actually watching the debate first and foremost.

The big surprise was how active Tumblr was. The memes were coming fast and furious during the debate. The binders full of women meme was active within minutes of that line emerging from Mitt's mouth. The debate tag was also a great one to follow on Tumblr last night.

Based on the tweets I was seeing flying by on Twitter last night, I am certain that I'm not the only one who watched the debates this way. Actually I am pretty certain that this is becoming more normal by the day.

It all makes me wonder if the current crop of social TV apps are missing a big aggregation opportunity. I suspect lots of good stuff was going on elsewhere last night (Facebook, Pinterest, Canvas, etc), but I just didn't have enough screens in my family room to be everywhere at the same time. Maybe we need an app for that.

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#mobile#Television#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Nick Grossman

    I kind of think the “binders full of women” remark isn’t really as bad as the internet is making it out to be. But the meme meat is super funny. http://bindersfullofwomen.t

    1. fredwilson

      i agree with you. i know what Mitt was trying to say. but the fact that he still uses binders is a bit strange. who uses binders any more?

      1. brian trautschold

        wait…you guys stopped using binders?

      2. takingpitches

        It’s old school.From my experience at a law firm, the instinct is still — when there is something to prep for — to get someone to make a binder for it.

        1. Robert Holtz

          LOL – “…get someone to make a binder for it.”By “someone” do you mean a “minion”?You get a minion to make you a binder, right?Minions are old school too. ;P

          1. takingpitches

            LOL.Yep — big law firms are the poster child for outdated, inefficient, and dumb hierarchies that Fred talks about.

      3. Nick Grossman

        Right. These three are the funniest in that regard. I hadn’t made the “joy book” connection which is actually hilarious.

      4. andyswan

        As a guy that still carries a small note-pad of actual paper, I’ll just show myself out. LOL

        1. Cam MacRae

          Right with you. Never leave home without a Clairfontaine roadbook (breast pocket sized) and a fountain pen of all things.

      5. Aaron Klein

        He was talking about staffing his administration in 2002.

      6. LE

        “the fact that he still uses binders is a bit strange. who uses binders any more?”I still use file folders and 3×5 cards. This is despite also having about $18,000 worth of high end scanning equipment purchased with the idea of scanning everything [1] and making it accessible anywhere. I find it highly efficient to keep track of everything that I am working on and put it into file folders. The system works for me. And I’m the last person that anyone can say does not use technology, and this is important, when appropriate.

      7. JimHirshfield

        the latest take is that this wasn’t Romney’s doing. Independent group prepared these binders before Romney was elected.

      8. thinkdisruptive

        10 years ago, when Romney became governor, binders were still quite common, and surprisingly, most schools still require kids to use them today. I think the internet world is a little oblivious to the paradigm that ordinary people live in. It’s not as funny as everyone is making it out to be, even in today’s context. Although, the memes/images are funny on their own, if out of context. And, the phrasing was a bit weird — but who among us hasn’t said something that we immediately realized was a bit awkward or funny sounding? Have we really got to the point where we expect perfection in all things? No wonder we can’t find acceptable candidates.

        1. LE

          It’s a sound bite so the media and people jump on it.The bigger anachronism is Biden’s behavior and demeanor as I’ve mentioned.I’m surprised more young people didn’t react to that. It’s the penultimate way to bully someone who thinks differently than you do instead of using words or to attempt to put someone in their place by laughing at what they say in a parental way. (Note @kidmercury:disqus use of LOL as the same.)Who is right and who is wrong doesn’t matter by the way. It’s just not appropriate behavior, period.

          1. thinkdisruptive

            Sadly, I think we’re used to Biden being a “don’t confuse me with the facts” buffoon. The dems seem to ignore his clownery and think it’s OK — it’s just Joe being Joe, and the repubs seem to dismiss everything he says. The few who are unbiased just say “what?”. It may be bullying, but it mostly only impacts him and his credibility.It also wasn’t appropriate behavior for the vice president to embrace Obama in the halls of the White House, and on national tv, after the healthcare bill was passed and say loudly into the open mike “this is a big f**king deal”. Yeah, we all say it. But we don’t shout it out at weddings, or in church, as a greeting to people we’ve just met, or in any formal setting where respect and decorum are called for. He demeans all of us.

          2. kidmercury

            i’m always up for an intellectual debate. i have facts galore! binders full of ’em! but, for those who lack the ability to have an intellectual debate, my only response is indeed lol, which i find to be most appropriate.i cite debt statistics. you say you like him because he’s a solid guy who was BFF with his dad. ergo, the only response i can offer is……lol

          3. LE

            “i cite debt statistics.”You can find all the statistics that you want to support whatever your point of view is. As anyone else can. Not that you’ve stated a preponderance of evidence here in any case.I rarely if ever cite facts and figures to support a point of view. Because they are so easily manipulated (either way). And a convenient tool of policy wonks. Details matter in why something happens and we rarely have all the details. I hate it even more when people compare us to another country (like in the health care debate). To me that’s a waste of time, generally.”he’s a solid guy who was BFF with his dad.”Ok then ask anyone investing in people, whether it be hiring someone or investing in someone how much they rely on gut feel and signals as far as who they are dealing with then. And see what they say. (Like Fred, with investments for example).That said I can certainly understand why some people are not able to connect with Romney. I wouldn’t say that I connect with him either and I can’t say I associate with any other tall white men particularly any mormons. But once I get beyond that I do like what I see. So lacking the ability to know whose facts and figures are correct, as well as that there are always reasons for why things happen that we don’t know about, I go with what I feel given my impressions.Remember Tom Delay? Back before he ran into his numerous legal problems I got a call from some organization representing him saying I was being named for some “leadership” award or something stupid like that. There was nothing of course that I had done to deserve that and I could tell even that the call was from a telemarketing type operations. I hung up. A few months later I was at a chinese restaurant and saw the same “leadership” award (or whatever it was) on the wall. The owner of the restaurant had gotten one. And it was signed by Tom Delay. It was obviously a scam. At that point, before Tom was ever in the spotlight for doing anything wrong I knew he was a crook. I had my data points. What he did to me was a signal and I went with my gut.You of course have your own feelings toward the candidates which you will go with.

          4. kidmercury

            i hired people for 3 years at a company i used to work for and looked at more than just intuition (a person who has great work ethic, positive energy, etc but lacks the necessary specialized skills is not someone i would be in favor of hiring, for instance). but since you mentioned it let’s use fred as an example. he operates from a thesis and i am almost certain he looks at facts (#of users, retention rate, revenue, etc) and more than just who the entrepreneur is BFF with. lolif you believe facts are entirely subjective or illusory, why not share some? after all, they’re so easy to find, right?

          5. LE

            “if you believe facts are entirely subjective or illusory, why not share some? “As I said “I rarely if ever cite facts and figures to support a point of view.” (Besides most of the audience has left!)”but lacks the necessary specialized skills is not someone i would be in favor of hiring, for instance”Sounds like Obama to me!Seriously though obviously there are many factors that are taken into account.

        2. JamesHRH

          too true – binders on my kids school supply list.

    2. Pete Griffiths

      I am not totally convinced. These kind of slips stem from an underlying attitude. Ask yourself if you could ever have used such a phrase. I am not suggesting that the attitude is indicative of stupidity but many women are sensitive to the fact that no matter how well meaning there is an element of him being a little out of touch, perhaps patronizing.

      1. Nick Grossman

        yeah I hear that

        1. JimHirshfield

          Truth is, he was wrong. This wasn’t his initiative. Huff Po and others have the facts. The lists of women candidates were compiled prior to Romney’s election. So, funny meme aside, Mitt’s misrepresenting this as his initiative.

      2. kidmercury

        i agree with you. regardless of the context of mitt’s actual statement, use of the phrase itself is revealing.

  2. markslater

    but what did you actually get out of that experience? Did you feel that you got a more holistic view of the debate? or was it too distracting to be able to give the actual remarks that were coming out of both candidates any deeper thought?are we better off for being an inch deep and a mile wide in terms of how we think about things in this day and age?

    1. fredwilson

      as i said in the reply above, the #debates hashtag has a lot of right wingers on it. and since i don’t see the world the way they do, it is really useful to see how someone with a different worldview is experiencing the debateas for the memes, well they are just good for laughs.

      1. Robert Holtz

        The reason the signal-to-noise ratio is so lousy with the #debates hash tag is because Faux News… I mean Fox Noise… I mean Fox News uses it actively in their broadcasts. It is actually entertaining to read some of those posts when you get the occasional hankering for hyperbole.

        1. kidmercury

          signal to noise ratio is always going to be out of whack on a public venue. i sometimes use facebook as a 2nd screen because it is with my friends.

      2. thinkdisruptive

        I experienced a lot of untruthful bluster from both sides. Why are both parties so unwilling to say what they really mean and stand behind it, without code words that are only meaningful to themselves? The subtle nuance with which Obama misrepresented what happened in Libya reminds me of “it depends what the meaning of is is”. Obama denies practically every fact of his record, from increases in debt to lost jobs to broken “absolute” promises, while Romney does the same for his time as governor, rather than explaining context and reasons why. Does everyone think the electorate is stupid? I guess we are if this is all we give ourselves to vote for.

        1. LE

          “Why are both parties so unwilling to say what they really mean”Allows people to hear what they want to hear by directing their attention on what they think you are saying. And find comfort in it. That’s harder to do if you are more precise. Also gives plausible deniability. .Notice how jam packed these debates are with a zillion different messages. That way people latch on to the issue that is important to them and exclude the rest (as long as not a negative). Same way we used to write yellow page ads. You don’t say “all types of plumbing” you list every single type of plumbing problem that someone might be looking to solve. And then the people latch on to the one item that they are looking for and think you are the answer to their plumbing problem.

          1. thinkdisruptive

            The assumption behind all of this is that we’re all stupid and don’t have b.s. detectors functioning (assuming you don’t know the truth to begin with). That doesn’t apply to anyone who is likely to vote and hasn’t yet made up their mind (the people they’re supposed to be trying to convince).The reason that a likely voter wouldn’t have already decided is that they don’t trust either side because of the b.s., they are hearing too many inconsistencies, and they can’t decide which issues or decision criteria are most important to them (because neither party represents their views). Most of the time, these prospective voters either fall into financially conservative/socially liberal, or single-issue driven buckets.If the only purpose of these debates is rhetorical flourish to inspire your own side or demotivate the other side, then it’s a big waste of time and money. What they actually do is make the undecideds even angrier about who they have to hold their nose to vote for. I guess I’m saying that the whole premise is false and insulting to the electorate. Choosing leadership and political advocates isn’t supposed to be about theatrics, and just so much bread and circus.

      3. kidmercury

        i agree it is useful watching right wingers. it is like watching humanity devolve in realtime. fascinating.

        1. jason wright

          it’s a dna fork

          1. kidmercury

            HAHAHAHA! even i gotta admit that’s a brutal diss! damn!!!

        2. thinkdisruptive

          Because all right wingers are cast from one mold, and all left wingers from the reverse version of it? Why is one a devolution and the other not?

          1. kidmercury

            left wingers are stupid too, right wingers are just easier to make fun of.

          2. Cam MacRae

            Always fascinating to me when Americans talk of the left and right with respect to federal politics; from my perspective here at the bottom of the world you’re talking about progressive and conservative factions of the right, having purged the left in the 50s and 60s.

          3. CJ

            This country is operated by money and has been since the early 1900s, growing steadily worse until the assassination of JFK put the figurative nail in the coffin. (NPI) It’s just clandestine enough that the majority find it hard to believe but obvious enough to be discoverable to anyone willing to look.

          4. CJ

            Because right-wingers thrive on the uneducated. The phrase, ‘elitist liberal’ was coined by right wingers to make fun of the educated. That’s devolution.

          5. thinkdisruptive

            This is as uneducated a remark as any that right wingers throw at the left.

          6. CJ

            Not at all. The right wing wants to teach creationism in school. They want to teach kids to ignore science to focus on theology as science. They denigrate those who took the time to educate themselves and exalt those who are unaware of their own ignorance. Their ranks are swollen with racists, hypocrites and demagogues. They support politicians who believe that a woman’s body can terminate pregnancy automatically in cases of rape. They have devolved. My statement is quite educated and bolstered by evidence.

          7. thinkdisruptive

            ibid.One stupid person is not representative of all, on the left or the right. Name calling isn’t going to solve the country’s problems.

          8. CJ

            Not name calling, that’s all fact. Very prominent right wing politicians fit the words that I just said, you can’t just dismiss them as not representative when they are brought in front of the camera anytime someone needs to speak out against the left. You can’t have it both ways.

          9. thinkdisruptive

            I don’t need to have it either way. If it isn’t obvious, I’m on neither side. But it’s precisely your style of name-calling and ad hominem attacks that ensures perpetual partisanship that does nothing to advance solutions for the country. The US has an incredibly biased media (again, on both sides), so does it surprise you that they trot out the worst examples to “represent” one side or the other?Let’s pick just one of your ridiculous list — Todd Akin. Within minutes of his clearly uneducated remarks about rape and mystical, magical properties of women’s bodies, he was being ostracized by the entire “right wing”, not to mention every person in the country with any common sense. The Republicans tried to force him to step down to let someone else run in his place, but the law prevents them from doing so. Again, hard to call someone representative of anything when no one agrees with him. But then on the other side, we have the equally ridiculous Anthony Weiner, texting his (frankly ugly) crotch shots to women everywhere. I suspect the left would run just as quickly from him if confronted with his silliness, yet despite not just stupid, but hypocritical and probably illegal behavior, he wasn’t even censured by his congressional peers. (Although, if I look at the pattern of JFK, Bill Clinton, and Anthony Weiner, I suspect you’d excuse me for concluding that all democrats hate, or at least disrespect, women.)If you want to label a side, you need to stick to their actual agreed views. If I was to paint all right wing haters as being unable to argue logically because of the way you represent yourself, I’d be just as wrong as you are.I have no objection to discussing political issues with you, but I’m not going to continue this line of discourse. Name calling and nonsense doesn’t belong in this space — we’re all better than that. Put some real issues on the table. Like how you propose to not only stop deficit spending, but to pay down our debt?

      4. pointsnfigures

        I am a libertarian, and keep a lot of left wingers in my stream to avoid being in an echo chamber. When I was trading, I’d get a pretty hard core opinion. I’d try to prick that balloon by listening to people with an opposite opinion. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. Fortunately, the market told me if I was right or not. We don’t really have that in politics. The market only settles once a cycle.

        1. CJ

          Libertarianism isn’t a mutually exclusive outlook with liberalism. In my opinion, Libertarianism is the evolution of Liberalism but to see it, both sides have to be willing to compromise.First Libertarians need to realize that you can’t just snap your fingers and make everyone productive and self-sufficient, this is where liberalism comes in. You have to stabilize the people so they don’t die from not having enough.Second you have to teach them to take care of themselves. It’s a lesson that’s been systemically lost. That’s where Liberatarianism comes in.Third, you teach them to care for others i.e. charity. That’s a combination of both philosophies but by instilling #2, you avoid #3 resulting in a repeat of #1.That’s my opinion anyway, but you can’t get there if you don’t first acknowledge that you can’t just wish our current problems away. You have to re-teach people to take care of themselves while not allowing them to die.

    2. kidmercury

      i agree, although it seems like people actually like that stuff.

    3. Rohan

      Well said, Mark. Upvoted. I feels intuitive to me that you would actually want to just one thing at a time so you make the most out of that.But that could just be my cerebral incapability to be multi task..

    4. Matt A. Myers

      I think the depth needs to come from places like fact-checking/checkers, that then has a feedback loop into the mainstream top-level real-time conversations going on. At least that’s a step in the right direction, however it will take follow on by citizens to interact with other misinformed or uneducated people – and in a way that has them being open to input, likely not possible with all, though you need to try to find out.

      1. fredwilson

        there’s a link to a story about that at the end of my post in related posts

        1. Matt A. Myers

          So there is. 🙂

    5. Dave Pinsen

      The debate itself was an inch deep. By definition, “undecided” voters tend to be low-information ones, and the debate was based on their questions.If you want to learn about issues in depth, you’re better off reading about them. Although there are a lot of hacks on both sides who will spin for their candidate no matter what, there are also some smart bloggers and pundits who are objective enough to criticize their candidates at times. Find them, and read their stuff if you want to drill down on the issues.I look at Twitter during a debate mainly to gauge how others are reacting to it.

      1. kidmercury

        #truth. these debates are almost for the ritual only, there is this new thing called the internet where you can get tons of legit info if you put the effort into it. i recommend folks check it out.

      2. thinkdisruptive

        The debate was an inch deep. But, it’s a serious mistake to assume that undecideds are “low information” (and a bit condescending). Often, they’re just the opposite. What they really lack is a candidate that represents their views. Where did we get the silly notion that the world bifurcates into crazy spending social liberals and fiscally-responsible, militaristic, religious zealot, right wingers? Even the majority of those who support one party or the other aren’t such simplistic caricatures.And, the debate was not based on undecideds’ questions. It was based on Candy Crowley’s filtering of those who were in the room, but it’s clear from the way most of the questions were worded that those posing them were not “undecided”. We’d have been better off with a random selection of people not trying to pose as undecideds. There would have been less bias and more openness about the perspective of the person asking the question.

        1. Dave Pinsen

          Most voters lack a candidate that represents all of their values. Elections aren’t about voting for a perfect candidate, but the best available.You make a good point that some of the soi disant undecideds may have had partisan agendas. In hindsight, it would have made more sense to hold last night’s debate in a swing state, where there might have been more actual undecideds.

          1. thinkdisruptive

            We’re not talking about a “candidate who represents all your values”. It’s not that easy. People don’t naturally divide the way the parties do.I actually believe that there is a majority middle who subscribe to not spending what you don’t have and not sticking their noses in other people’s business — it’s certainly the way that the vast middle of America lives. Unfortunately, neither party comes close to that point of view.Many that believe in social liberal values have voted against their financial values and supported democrats, yet today are having a great deal of difficulty putting that point of view ahead of the financial irresponsibility and spend-no-matter-what attitudes that democrats exhibit, and debt crisis that the last decade, but especially that the last 4 years have brought upon us. Were the republicans not so intent on shooting themselves in the feet, talking loudly about socially conservative values that most of the country does not hold, this election in particular would be a runaway.I think that instead of simply painting undecideds as uninformed and non-thinking, it would help all to understand why they’re having difficulty committing — it’s because they are well-informed, and take their vote seriously, especially the feeling that they have to vote against their conscience to do the right thing for the country (no matter which party they decide on). Not respecting that benefits neither side, and is insulting to those whose votes they’re trying to win.Holding a debate in a swing state doesn’t increase the number of undecideds you’ll find. They are everywhere. It is more likely to have the opposite effect — people desperately lying and doing whatever they can to be admitted to the audience for a chance to have their partisan questions added to the list. The only way to get a fair sample is to pick people randomly, and not try to get an audience full of mythical undecideds. If you listened, it was clear that very few of the questions on Tuesday came from people who hadn’t already made up their minds, and given Crowley’s attitude during the debate, it’s pretty clear what her biases are and that the question list was likely stacked in a particular direction as well.

          2. CJ

            And even here, the facts are stretched to their breaking point. Democrats believe in spending on the people of the country and the GOP believes in spending on wars and corporate welfare. In the end, the dollar amounts are pretty close, you just need to pick which demographic deserves the loot. I pick the people of this country rather than corporations as people.

          3. thinkdisruptive

            There is nothing left to spend. By anyone, for any reason. The national debt now equals almost 7 years worth of all tax revenues if we didn’t spend a penny on anything but debt reduction (and no interest payments either).In any scenario that continues any services (and the only obligations of the government are national defense, police and courts), we are looking at 30+ years to retire the debt with no social services (assume the social security safety net is gone).To retire the debt and continue to pay for social security with no other social spending, you are looking at the entire lifetime of my kids. If we don’t add another penny to the debt.But in the most conservative scenario currently on the table, we’re still adding $1.5T to the debt every year. That has to stop yesterday, or there is no more USA. Only Greece, and a world bank holding a knife to our throats.Why is that simple math so hard for everyone to understand?Or put another way, it’s like an individual with $150K of income with over $1M on their credit card. The preposterous notion that any bank would have left that person charge $1M on credit aside, they are now cut off, from here to eternity. No credit and no spending on anything but debt retirement for the rest of their life. No food. No shelter. No fun or games. Just debtor’s prison.That’s the US.

  3. takingpitches

    There is definitely a social layer embedded onto the world and in how we experience current events, news, entertainment, sports, etc.Television shows, sporting events, debates etc. spark unprecedented conversation.It makes the content more lively, more funny, more insightful than the television and newspaper real-time or post-hoc commentary.It gives us all an opportunity to be creators, to benefit from others’ insights, and we are a lot richer for it.

  4. brian trautschold

    it is more or less impossible to now watch nfl football in a room of my peers without a 1:1 ratio of people:internet connected devices… often slightly higher for the devices…there’s so much more space as we keep innovating pulling topics/ #’s/ geo info on events together whether it for screen watching or live attendance… will be really fun in the next few years

    1. takingpitches

      @MikePereira while watching the NFL is key!

  5. john ratcliffe-lee

    I took a different route. I put the phones and other screens down and listened intently, thought critically. It was a nice change of pace from the first & second times around – trying to follow a lot of quick shot commentary that doesn’t have much lasting value.

    1. fredwilson

      i can see the value of that. but its really useful to see folks that don’t view things the way you do. for example, there are a lot of right wingers in the #debates feed and its great to see how they are viewing the debate live in real time.

      1. john ratcliffe-lee

        Totally agree. That stuff will always be there tomorrow though. It’s exhaustive, just like you experienced, trying to keep up. Knowing I could tune-in to the second screen afterwards and still participate/enjoy the commentary was enough. What probably spurred this was DVR’ing the start of the debate b/c I wanted to finish the 30 for 30 on ESPN first in live time. So, I started watching on about a three minute delay. Didn’t want the live feeds to spoil what was coming up.

      2. LE

        Observing what others think in real time perhaps changes your perception of what is going on. That’s the reason sitcoms have laugh tracks. And why the audience in the debate is always warned to not applaud etc.http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

    2. markslater

      this is what i was asking above – do we really absorb stuff when its quick shot? i am saying we don’t.

      1. john ratcliffe-lee

        exactly. the stuff that we’re all talking about today will stick with us throughout the election or, at least, the rest of the week. rhetoric or policy claims aside, it was nice to focus on the interpersonal interactions in the town hall format.

  6. Pete Griffiths

    I think this kind of multi channel media consumption is becoming normal. I think we can deal with a lot of input bandwidth.

  7. andyswan

    Clinton is in negotiations to join the Romney team… binders full of women and a love of wind-jobs.

    1. fredwilson

      that could swing the election his way. Clinton is apparently more popular than either of the two candidates

      1. andyswan

        Hold your nose and vote, dammit!

      2. Robert Holtz

        I’d vote for him right now if we could.

      3. LE

        “Clinton is apparently more popular”People like his moronic, parental, laugh it off attitude. Same people that thought Biden’s chuckling was appropriate when he was debating Paul Ryan.By the way everybody should watch this 2 hour PBS special which details the early years of both Obama and Mitt:”The Choice 2012″http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag…Watch it and look at what a solid guy Mitt was and is. How seriously he took life even as a kid. His relationship with his father. Compare to Obama and the “choom gang” which apparently he didn’t stop after high school.

        1. Brandon

          Biden’s blatant lack of respect says it all.

        2. kidmercury

          lol….that people cannot see romney for being a flip flopping politician who will say whatever it takes to get elected is beyond me. this is more obvious than bush jr.

          1. LE

            “who will say whatever it takes to get elected”I suppose you suggest that all politicians be totally truthful and somehow they will satisfy every single american out there who votes and actually get elected with that strategy. Because everybody is smart, rational, and uses common sense and applies the appropriate amount of thought in choosing who they vote for. And we all want the same things because we are all the same.It’s a given that politicians are going to do what they do. That’s not the issue.

          2. kidmercury

            no, i dont think politicians should be totally truthful, and the rest of your comment is not what i’m getting at. you seem to like mitt romney because you think he is a “solid guy” because of some crap about how he was BFF with his dad or something. lol…..personally, for me, anyone who is a “solid guy” has integrity. this does not mean telling the truth always, but it does mean having a clear stance on political issues, discussing them openly and with a significant amount of honesty, and not avoiding issues, appealing to patriotism, or stuff like that.but to each their own. maybe romney will fix the economy! lol…….

          3. JamesHRH

            See comment below, but a lot of people think Mitt is a solid guy because he loves his family, has made a boatload of dough, does not have massive personal demons (women, booze, drugs) & has been a ‘winner’ at everything he has done (investing, Olympics, Gov of Mass).And they are right.Its a PoV issue.

          4. kidmercury

            as i mentioned in my comment to andy swan, i don’t deny that mitt is the consummate winner. when he took office as governor of MA, the state was #2 in the nation in terms of state debt per person. by the time he left, they were #1! a true winner!

          5. Wavelengths

            Does all of that suggest that he’s a bit of a unicorn? Not really in touch with the real-live experiences of the people he would govern?

          6. JamesHRH

            His Dad was Gov of MI & thought about running for President in the ’60’s. He ‘started a small business’ that required raising $100Ms in capital from investors that 99% of people could never get to see.How CAN he be really in touch with the people he would govern? Its a joke.But, come on…….Obama went to Columbia & Harvard. He CLEARLY took two years in college to think about what he was going to do with his life and came up with the answer ‘be the first black President’. He is only in touch with the people he would govern through his wife & grandparents (his parents were no where near the norm). He is an outlier, totally reserved, but with a pretty serious superiority complex underneath all that super smoothness (Enneagram 5, FWIW).And, come on even more: Bush 2’s dad WAS President, Clinton went to Harvard & Oxford, Bush 1 went to Yale & was a fighter pilot………I mean, really, no President is in touch with the populace.

          7. LE

            “real-live experiences of the people he would govern?”I guess I’m more in favor of a person in charge as more of a great clinician with perhaps poor bedside manners. That describes Romney in a sense which is why he seems to rub many the wrong way. Just because of the way he comes across. It doesn’t bother me that he is elite. I’m not interested in joe six pack running the country.When my daughter needed an important operation, my ex wife choose an ENT that she knew locally from her synagogue, that was a real nice guy, who really connected with people, had great bedside manner, very likable. As a doctor, let’s assume he was “ok”.I decided to research and find someone better. I turned up a guy at Penn that was a specialist in the particular problem, had written papers, and solely focused on this particular issue. It was a operation which if done wrong could have resulted in loss of hearing or facial paralysis.The doctor pulled off the operation brilliantly, then another one needed to do something that couldn’t be done in the first operation.When I met with him before the operation I was struck by how bad his bedside manners were. He was totally dismissive, slightly arrogant, perhaps a little asperger. But he was great at what he did.Now of course running a country is more complex then specializing in an area of medicine to the exclusion of everything else. And you do need to get along with people in order to convince them to your way of thinking.But the truth is the likability reasons for electing are way way way overblown. We’re not hiring someone that we want to spend time with. We’re hiring someone to do a job. Type of guy or gal “that we would want to have a beer with” does not matter.

          8. JamesHRH

            I am not sure that everyone sees that as a negative. Doing what needs to be done to achieve the goal.

        3. JamesHRH

          MItt’s issue is that he is success oriented, rather than philosophy oriented.Mark Cuban is essentially right: his core belief is “America needs me to swing a bunch of deals & work the numbers.’If you are an Enneagram person, he is a 3 – which is widely regarded as the personality type of American culture: define success, do what is required to achieve success, don’t cheat.That’s why he looks so flip floppy – the deals he needed to get done required him to say ‘black’ in 2005 & ‘white’ in 2010.It is also why he struggled to open up – see Jeter, Derek for a comparable approach (the more open you are the more chances you give yourself to offend people) – and why he seems so dumbstruck about why he is so hard to elect.Obama comes across as real (open) and strategically really smart (which he is). That will likely get him elected, even though his debate performance last night was B-, maybe a B.What the US really needs: Obama as President & Mitt as his Chief of Staff.

      4. JamesHRH

        CNN showed a pre-debate clip of Clinton walloping Bush 1 in a town hall – ‘when people lose their job in my state, I likely know them by name’.Empathy crushes credibility, in the public arena.

    2. jason wright

      the one party state model is finally taking shapewhere have I seen that before?

      1. kidmercury

        americans will tell themselves its bi-partisanship and good for democracy lol

    3. Matt A. Myers

      Is this a joke?

      1. Abdallah Al-Hakim

        I am certain it is 🙂 it is amazing how the womanizing label has stuck to Clinton despite his impressive work via the Clinton Global Initiative

  8. William Mougayar

    Scoble has several screens as a matter of normalcy. He was one large screen for each network he’s active on: Twitter, Facebook, Google+.  Monitoring social is becoming like monitoring the stock market, if your job depends on it.  

    1. Ahmet Kara

      Nice quote: “Monitoring social is becoming like monitoring the stock market, if your job depends on it.”

  9. takingpitches

    This just reminded me of the past year’s Oscars, which demonstrated for me why it’s also important for television and media to engage even more with social media.It is astounding how uninspired a show that the Academy puts on for the Oscars, including in the year that just past. It’s truly a snooze fest, that could have largely taken place unchanged decades ago, and reflects none of the dynamism and change of our networked, social economy today.That was strikingly reflected in the contrast between the staleness of what was on television and the brilliance and humor of what was on Twitter in the commentary about the Oscars at #Oscars. You would have had a far more entertaining night paying attention to the latter.It’s important for the industry to engage even more, because when the entertainment industry puts on a bad show, social media can save its bacon somewhat.

  10. Brandon Burns

    Yes, this is perfectly healthy behavior for the wealthy who can afford 5+ screens, with duplicates of the same device for different rooms of the home. With the median household income at $50k to cover 4 people, I’m not sure everyone has all these screens, or will anytime soon… but I’d like to see some numbers.

    1. LE

      Most of the people that I’ve casually observed exiting Walmarts and Best Buys with large plasma TV’s (so they can watch “the game”) don’t appear to be wealthy to me.

      1. Brandon Burns

        some quick digging = 90% of people have a TV, 70% have a TV + computer, 50% have TV + computer + smartphone. but i think we all already assumed 3 screens is the new normal. i’m just not sure it goes beyond that, though.will tablets be an additional screen, or a replacement screen? tablet sales are eclipsing laptop sales, so there’s evidence that people are swapping one screen for another, not adding new ones. but i can’t find anything conclusive.either way, even with 3 screens, fred’s aggregation point still stands; i’m just not sure his 5+ screen life is going to become the standard anytime soon.

        1. LE

          “tablet sales are eclipsing laptop sales”Tablets are a nice impulse buy. Almost a stocking stuffer. Like tools you might buy at Lowes that you don’t really need but are priced attractively enough to make you buy for the buzz you get. It remains to be seen whether they will continue the trend that you are referencing. I guess it all depends on the use cases and the way that rolls out.I’m reminded of all those 10” notebooks that I use to see at Starbucks. Another impulse buy. But that’s not a really big item anymore and it’s not because of tablets came along either although that is certainly what some feel. (Because it’s easy to make that correlation.) The tradeoff of screen size and smaller keyboard were negative enough to prevent people from wanting them, in spite of the price point. So I think they would have declined regardless of tablets coming along.

          1. Brandon Burns

            i can see that view. any data you’ve seen? i’m super curious now.

          2. LE

            No much data that I can find, but from the Journal of “can always find links to support my point” I offer this:http://www.smallbusinesscom…The problem with extracting $250 or even $100 for something like this is it’s an additional “thing”. And additional impulse things of little value are likely not to be replaced after the fun or nominal usage is over. Because people fell guilty about waste. Unless they are collecting (like shoes with women or power tools with men for example). The “less weight to carry” argument sounds great but not at the tradeoff of a small keyboard and limited computing power and screen size.It’s not entirely one or the other either.People still buy SUV’s with 4 wheel drive for the occasional days out of 365 that it snows (in places where it snows but not much). Spending extra money for an SUV (thousands) isn’t the same because you don’t need an additional “thing” you just tack it on the price of the thing you were going to buy anyway. Same reason why people would rather perhaps lug around a heavier laptop. For the occasional time they might need greater computing power.Bottom line is not that there weren’t people who could benefit from netbooks. But it was like a tipping point in reverse, accelerated by tablets.Here’s a link that supports my point (again, from the “Journal”):http://www.pcworld.com/arti… “The fast decline of the netbook has been the result of many factors,” IDC’s Daoud suggests. “First is mainstream consumers’ lack of interest in a product that features tiny screens and keyboards. I will offer one last dynamic. Social proof. I own many computers and to me buying another machine if it does something for me, well, I have no problem with that. I own two full powered MacBook pros for example in addition to many other computers. I use each for a specific purpose.But I don’t think that’s the way others always think. Some might feel it is wasteful to essentially have two laptops while they won’t feel the same way having a laptop and a tablet. For example many people buy vacation homes (that’s in the mainstream) but nowhere near as many people buy 2 cars, 1 for fun and 1 for work. Not many households have 2 washers and 2 dryers even though 2 washers and at least 1 dryer would be highly efficient use of time. So I think there is psychology as always in play here.Edit: “1 for fun and 1 for work.” – among the group of men/women that would love to have a sports car for the weekend that is and can afford it and could get their spouse on board.

          3. Brandon Burns

            “Journal of ‘”can always find links to support my point'” = brilliant. :o)

        2. kidmercury

          the device/human ratio is only going up. as for price they keep going down and the software businesses will increasingly subsidize them. i.e. amazon selling kindles at cost.what i’m most interested in though is businesses that incorporate tablets into their business processes. i went to bar in chicago — actually since you’re a chicagoan perhaps you know aviary? — and their whole wait staff was carrying around smartphones, given to them by the company, for the specific purpose of taking orders. a world in which their orders are automatically sent to the bartenders on their tablets is unlikely to be that far off if not already in my opinion.personally i have 2 laptops, a TV, a kindle, a smartphone. i’m going to get a tablet and expect in the years to come will get multiple tablets. this is partially because i’m a technophile, partially because i have the capital to do so, but primarily because the cost will be so cheap and the benefits so worth it. reading on a kindle saves me money when the books i buy for it are much less than what i used to pay.

          1. Brandon Burns

            aviary is probably the most advanced (culinary and experience wise) new bar in the world. i expect no less from mister achatz.i’m headed back to chicago in a couple weeks. want to try to meet some folks and see if i want to move back there.do you currently live there? have some stories to tell about tech + chicago?

          2. kidmercury

            in chicago and loving it! although i haven’t had a winter yet……i went to a built in chicago event last night. $16 ticket and free beer! but only newcastle, which i like, although bummed out i couldn’t get hoegarden. they had sandwiches too, but they were not very good. i regret having them.the incubators/accelerators and startup scene around here is growing. they cited some stat at the event last night about how there is a new startup every 48 hours in chicago, and how mayor rahm emanuel is telling students in universities around chicago to move to the city and join the tech scene. but to be honest, it’s not as good as the talent in nyc and nowhere near the level of san francisco/palo alto. personally i like it a lot better, though, mainly because its cheaper and people are friendlier.i don’t think san francisco and new york are worth it if you are self-funded — at least that is the conclusion i’ve come to. chicago is way cheaper and good enough; the cost savings are greater than the dropoff in talent. i’m also working on a local app now, and i feel as though the geography and population density of chicago is perfect in some ways for that — or at the very least it opens up the possibility of different approaches. plus as i’m sure you know the restaurant scene is here is on another level, so if you’re in that business chicago is probably a great place to be. there was a restaurant app that got featured last night that i think could do very well and i think chicago is a perfect place for it to start.

          3. Brandon Burns

            i’m growing addicted to the community in nyc. sometimes its all you have to get you by.however…the up and coming startup scene of chicago is appealing not only because of the attachment i have to my hometown, but for the opportunity to be a big fish in what today is a small pond, but that is almost guaranteed to grow into a very large ocean soon. imagine being tumblr in NYC in 2000-forever-ago.NEA just opened an office in chicago… I’m sure other major VCs are soon to follow: http://techcrunch.com/2012/…the biggest reason i’d make the move is the biggest thing holding me back — a more chilled out population. i just like chicago people more than new yorkers. they don’t stay in the office all night, don’t live to network, and abhor arrogant folks who do nothing but self-promote — but those behaviors are exactly what makes the startup pollen float around NYC, maintains hype, and creates possibilities.but then the thing that made me stop and think: some of the people designing things i admire most — scott thomas at the noun project, mig reyes at 37 signals, etc — they’re in chicago. quietly kicking ass building things, instead of loudly blowing air on the speaker circuit. that makes me like them even more.and, actually, when you think about it, threadless is one of the original ecommerce “startups” as we think of them today. 37 signals is one of the original SaSS services. orbitz in travel. careerbuilder in job services. groupon created a whole category. chicago isn’t just now “blowing” up with great companies and talent, it’s just now starting to organize and be loud about it. hopefully the city can do it in the chicago way and let the people on the coasts blow the hot air.

          4. pointsnfigures

            We are trying. I co-founded Hyde Park Angels in 2007 because there wasn’t an efficient way to raise capital. Then helped Northwestern and Notre Dame get off the ground. Notre Dame has their first angel meeting in November. We recently established a co-investment network (MCOIN) with protocols on deal sharing among all midwestern angel groups. Anyone can be a part of it if they sign our agreement. Next up, attracting more venture funds, and establishing more funds. We are also starting to work with local universities to attract talent. Number one employer of engineering grads at UIllinois is Google and Microsoft. If anyone wants to find out more, contact me and I will plug you in. Another outlet is BuiltinChicago.org. It will give you a flavor of what is starting to happen here. Like a good book, we have read through the inflection point of where the plot thickens, now we have to decide if it’s worth reading the rest of the story. With some effort, we can make it worth reading.

          5. Brandon Burns

            “If anyone wants to find out more, contact me and I will plug you in.”Would absolutely love to find out more. Believe it or not, I’m from Hyde Park, am a Northwestern Grad, and have family currently at U Chicago.Will shoot an email to the address linked in the “contact” section of your site.Boy, the world is so teeny tiny… thanks for reaching out!

          6. ShanaC

            There seem to be a number of U of C’ers on this site (I’m yet another one, and I know of at least one more 🙂 )Gah, I miss hyde park.

    2. fredwilson

      i know. that was the point of my post. we need a single app running on a single device.

      1. Brandon Burns

        If the “cable” companies would stop considering themselves such, and realize they’re “content distribution” companies, it would be done overnight. “TV” via Comcast TV, Comcast Web, Comcast Mobile… all one experience on an open platform where I can see my Tumblr, GetGlue, etc in a side panel. They could flip a switch and have this live practically tomorrow, and probably make MORE money (same price as now for 1 device, +4.99 / month for each additional) they just won’t.This is when I remember my father telling me that common sense isn’t so common…

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          NOT HAVE COMMON SENSE MAKE THEM LOTS MORE MONEY.

      2. Hu Man

        been thinking of something like this a while. i have it-all.com and itall.org. just need $500M or a kick in the a$$ to get started…

  11. Mancel

    I just open up several tabs on my web browser for different feeds. I figure that’s easier than running several gadgets at the same time. One thing that I wish social media commentators would improve on would be on the general mood or opinion of the public. So instead of telling us Mitt Romney’s name was tweeted 20,000+ times when he mentioned Binders full of Women, they tell us what the crowd as a whole was saying about him.

  12. kevinp

    i have found that if one wants to know how RW’ers feel about a subject…or the debate… just go to the source of who tells them WHAT TO THINK. (not many free thinkers in the rw) if you want to see just #foxnews #hannity or #limbaugh. that will tell you exactly what will be programmed into the brain pans of the dim great unwashed right wing. and what the trolls will be spewing to the tiwtter #’s where there are people who simply want to watch and comment.

    1. andyswan

      Oh is that why they were all talking about Big Bird last week? Oh….wait… LOL. Keep quickly dismissing and personally insulting those who disagree with you…. it suits you well.

      1. Aaron Klein

        +1

    2. Aaron Klein

      Yes, here’s a video of the great independent thinkers of the left. ;)http://www.youtube.com/watc…CC @andyswan:disqus

  13. Robert Holtz

    I’ve got friends who trade stocks for a living. They all have six screens on their workstations. It is so hilarious. Why not a single large display with panels?

    1. Richard

      Two reasons. 1)Fragmented market with lots of ISVs. (independent service providers). 2) Milliseconds matter.

      1. Robert Holtz

        I understand reason #1 but not reason #2. Having one display should shave OFF milliseconds over maintaining protocol with entirely separate displays.

    2. LE

      You can never be to rich, to thin, or have to many monitors.”hilarious”In any case you’ll note that the above display is curved. I don’t believe they make an LCD or plasma that is curved, at least not cost effectively, in the quantities that would be purchased in this market. This is like “raim” (it’s made up with cheap monitors). Those look like HP’s. They are worth about $100 to $125 per screen (plus whatever is driving it obviously). Nobody could put that product together at that price. And if one loses light output you just replace it with another cheap display. (LED’s loose over time).I use a 30″ Apple display and a 24″ apple. If I could fit another 30″ on my desk I would. The 30″ is in front, the 24″ is caddy corner. The angle is important. I put certain things on the caddy display that I monitor and other things right in front of me.

      1. Brandon

        “You can never be to rich, to thin, or have to many monitors.”Agreed, especially on the angles which is an excellent sticky point for multi-monitor setups. The only professionals I know that use a single large (27″+) display are graphic designers. Everyone at our group, including our programmers, has a minimum of two monitors. Trips or a quad setup is optimal with 24” LEDs. Check out Atdec display stands if you ever want a decent stand. Efficiency is king!

    3. andyswan

      The best trader I’ve ever known uses a single 14 inch laptop screen.

      1. JimHirshfield

        As it turns out, the best traders are algorithms. 0 screens.

        1. Ahmet Kara

          Most probably those algos have been created by traders PLUS coders which means 6 screens (certainly for the trader) PLUS (at least) 2 screens (for the coder) which equals a total of 8 screens 🙂 Oh, should we count the maintenance & order execution, etc personnel as well??

      2. kidmercury

        for 90% of traders i think the multi-screen is for the look, to impress someone somewhere. the traders i know who make money use at most 2 screens.

        1. Richard

          Screens are for order entry

          1. kidmercury

            lots of platforms have one click order from the chart. but if you’re trading with market orders on a tick chart or a small enough timeframe where that makes a difference, the odds are stacked incredibly against you. the algorithms and big banks have too much of an edge on super small timeframes, an extra monitor isn’t going to be enough to make a difference.

          2. Richard

            5% of fixed income trading via algorithms 15% FX30% options45% futures65% equitiesSo not quite.

          3. kidmercury

            i’m highly skeptical of those numbers. HFT accounts for 73% of all volume. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…more importantly, though, let’s go with your number and say it is 65% of ALL volume. what percentage of volume of trades entered and exited within 1 minute is HFT? if its 65% of ALL trading, it’s got to be near 100% of all super short-term trading.but even then, quantity and percentage are not the main issues. it could be 10%. what matters is who wins. whether it’s 10%, 65%, 73%, or something else, those players have a huge edge. they’ll win almost every time if you try to play a speed game with them (for the purposes of this conversation, i’ll define “speed game” as any game in which the fraction of a second you save by not having to click to a different screen to place your order [assuming you don’t have a platform that allows for one click ordering directly off the chart] saves you).

          4. Richard

            There is no question that hft skim off of retial traders in equity trading. Thought the question was ” is time to click important for any trading? Answers is no for equities, yes for derivatives.

          5. kidmercury

            HFT is everywhere. derivatives are a black hole, very opaque market. same for FX.

          6. Richard

            I agree, different issue though. You must have taken the same debate class as Obama and Romney.

          7. kidmercury

            lol you are implying manual clicking is advantageous in derivatives because there is less HFT in derivatives. although now you agree that HFT is everywhere, so it is unclear if there is any point to the uncited stats you originally listed.but anyway, if you believe having multiple monitors is a significant and meaningful speed advantage that can translate into profits, and if you believe that it is somehow superior to trading off the chart if you do want to play the speed game, go for it! be sure to let us know how it turns out. 🙂

          8. JamesHRH

            LOLRich – when I next come to NYC, I want to buy you a bevy.

  14. Abdallah Al-Hakim

    I was doing a similar thing last night. I was watching the debate on TV, had twitter #debate stream on the iPad and the Huffington Post twitter list of 100 twitter accounts to follow on my laptop. I also tried to follow the YouTube channel stream but didn’t find the comments very interesting. CNN had a facebook insights page with facebook comment plugin but it had little activity so I quickly lost interest. I definitely found that twitter was great for getting live and instantenous commentary, however, it increases the chances of an echo chamber because people seem to follow others who share similar opinions. I am more looking forward to what the commenting sections on blogs and news sites had to say because there is a higher chance of finding competing opinions within conversations.

  15. RichardF

    you don’t need a man cave set up Fred, you need a crisis room for your viewing.

  16. LE

    ” The binders full of women meme was active within minutes of that line”At 9:41 EDT someone registered “bindersfullofwomen.com”.Attached screen grab shows UTC (the info showing actual time registered is available to registrars administratively.)

    1. fredwilson

      the early bird gets the worm

      1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

        I just remembered the talk i had with father when i was 10 … I asked him … dad we say ‘early bird gets the worm’ and we also say ‘good thing comes to one who waits’he said if you want ‘good worm’ you ‘be early and wait’.Though i never have followed his advice of being early and wait … :-).

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      PARTIES NOW HAVE TEAMS OF PEOPLE HOVERING OVER REGISTRATION SCREENS TO GRAB ANY PHRASE FROM DEBATES.IT NOT LONG BEFORE THAT 24/7 JOB ALL YEAR ROUND.

      1. JamesHRH

        Love it – totally agree.

  17. Richard

    This is my practice too. The tweet content redundancy is a killer for me though. Twitter needs to apply some machine learning and provide a tool for users to limit repetition/redundancy.

    1. JamesHRH

      yessir.

  18. johndefi

    Being able to program and customize your own media flow on the TV screen would be valuable. The UI/UX would be the key to adoption. And having the ability to transfer/share a piece of media from the TV to a personal device would make TV media into a discovery platform.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      IT WILL HAPPEN.ON YOUTUBE.NOT TV.

      1. JamesHRH

        Red Bull streams volume an eye opener.

      2. johndefi

        Interesting. If that’s true we’re in for a helluva chess match between Google and cable giants. I have to assume cable is racing to figure out how to maintain control over content and not just delivery.

        1. Michael Elling

          Youtube, Android, KC Fiber. Google seems the one company willing to take on all the monopolies.

        2. ShanaC

          a long chess match too.

  19. William Mougayar

    The other part of the social web post-debate is the Commentsphere based on the blogs that were written just after last evening. This is fitting, because we quietly opened-up Engagio’s global search yesterday, and if you want to see more in-depth reactions from a variety of sources, have a look, or enter your own search: http://www.engag.io/search_

    1. JimHirshfield

      Got binders full of comments?

      1. kidmercury

        lol really enjoying how your personalizing the meme for our community here! 🙂

  20. Tom Labus

    At first I was doing multiple screens. But, once it looked like Obama was on his game I tuned the other streams out and went straight debate.I like the real time fact check by the mod over Libya. That’s the steam I want to see.

    1. JamesHRH

      It was hair splitting, not fact checking. They were both right.She handled it poorly, I thought.

      1. Dave W Baldwin

        Seems the stitching now is Obama told us it was terrorism from the start, Rice’s statements along with what was said in front of the bodies of the fallen never happened. IMHO, the opposition needs to stop the “cover up” accusation and get down to what it really is- incompetence.

        1. Dave W Baldwin

          Sorry I can’t change stitching to story due to disquis

  21. kidmercury

    cant believe you guys all watched the debates. what’s the point? i attended a startup event in chicago, watched yanks vs tigers, and drank some wine. 2 screens while watching the yanks/tigers, although 2nd screen was for work.

    1. JimHirshfield

      Sweet. I dig your binders full of fun.

    2. Mark Gannon

      Me too. It was great to see the Tigers win.

      1. kidmercury

        def rooting for the tigers. well, more so rooting for the yankees to lose, but in this series that makes me a tigers fan. verlander is always a blast to watch.

    3. leigh

      I was writing a presentation so watched the debate through comments of my network in Twitter and Facebook

    4. Carl Rahn Griffith

      Makes sense. And – somehow – the world kept on spinning…

    5. pointsnfigures

      See anything good?

      1. kidmercury

        just sent you an email. there were 5 startups that presented, three i thought were interesting — renatalutions.com, tablesavvy.com, and unbrandeddesigns.com. there were some other interesting ideas i saw, like a guy who is working on a process that helps customers and businesses manage bottlenecks during rush hour. tablesavvy is in an ultra-competitive space, but i personally thought they had the right focus — helping restaurants sell their excess capacity in real-time. rentalutions gives property owners the tools they need to develop rental income streams; they do have this model where they are trying to charge the tenant, not so sure about that. unbrandeddesigns is basically the etsy/threadless model applied to furniture.

        1. pointsnfigures

          Cool. I talked to the rentalutions guys a while ago. Lots of activity in this space. See you around the neighborhood soon.

    6. ShanaC

      i prefer politainment to entertainment

  22. kirklove

    Interestingly I had the exact opposite reaction in my post today –> kirklove.net

    1. JamesHRH

      There is a saying: ‘To gain knowledge, add one thing a day to your life. To gain wisdom, remove one thing a day.’.I am with you partner.Although, I think you need to add in the first half of your life and then subtract in the second.

      1. kirklove

        Wow, that’s a fantastic quote, thanks.

    2. fredwilson

      i just clicked over and read it. i prefer lots of information coming at me. it helps me think more clearly. but i recognize that for others it has the opposite effect.

      1. JamesHRH

        Personality type a big factor there, for sure.However, when you are done thinking, the wisdom quote holds true, no (simple outcome with most things taken out)?

      2. kirklove

        Good point. I should have said, singular works for me.

      3. ShanaC

        i love the information coming at me, but it really doesn’t help me think about who to vote for at all

    3. Henry Yates

      I could not agree more, however, I would not want to rule real time out of my life. For me an hour lost following a random trail of thoughts, posts and humour can be refreshing as long as i realise it is leisure and not work!

      1. kirklove

        Me either. And agree. Real-time (Twitter, Tumblr, etc) have a place for sure. I use them every day. Just advocating doing one thing at a time. At least that’s what works best for me.

    4. Carl Rahn Griffith

      Ditto.

    5. Hu Man

      wish i could see it 😉

      1. kirklove

        Touche. Contemplating archiving/deep linking for this reason, though conflicts with my experiment. #HeadScratcher…

  23. Trevor Doerksen

    TV is a high quality, highly produced, almost always curated, aggregated experience. We rely on editors, journalists, hosts, writers, directors and producers to create this experience. Given new screens and ability to sync to between TV and smartphones and tablets, there is no reason to limit our imagination to a single screen or to a TV screen with Twitter feed. Second screens and beyond will also be high quality, highly produced, almost always curated and aggregated experiences. Why? Because these experiences will be more personalized, more social, and better measured than TV alone. They will also be more entertaining and informing than TV alone.I absolutely agree, that the one thing they are not likely to be is unaggregated. This just does not align to current TV viewing experiences.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      SO TWITTER BECOME AS INTERESTING AS TV WHEN IT GET MORE CURATION AND BETTER PLOT?

      1. Trevor Doerksen

        LOL. As interesting as TV? Twitter and GetGlue audiences are at best 1% of the TV audience. Not sure they grow without becoming more interesting. A plot would help. Curation would help.

  24. JamesHRH

    I hate the idea of people interrupting a really terrific media experience.I also think it is a huge, real trend that will become the norm.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      INTERRUPTION IS FUTURE OF HUMANITY.

      1. JamesHRH

        I read a terrific Esquire piece that is at least 6 or 7 years old. It told the story of an A List / ‘opens a movie’ star who did not carry a phone, have email, anything. All he had was a landline & voice mail. The piece ends with the voicemail box being full.It was the fulfilment of a prediction I read in this book – http://www.amazon.com/500-Y… – the only futurism work I have ever read and respected.The prediction (made pre 2000): eventually, being able to be offline will be a status symbol.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          YES.IN FUTURE, ONLY RICH CAN AFFORD PEACE AND QUIET.

        2. ShanaC

          You’re already starting to see that, from what I am hearing bookings at national parks are up.

      2. ShanaC

        Not so sure – too much interruption is exhausting.

  25. jonathan hegranes

    is this an app request from a cool-to-have or nice-to-have perspective, or do you think there is a business in that?i ask because i’m usually skeptical of curation or aggregation services, who will always be at the whim of the content owner… the one exception may be linkedin, which i think is going about this in a very interesting way.

    1. Trevor Doerksen

      TV is a curation or aggregation service. The one that drives this whole conversation. That business model is holding up. Is there reason to believe it won’t continue? Honest question.

      1. jonathan hegranes

        i think it will take a while, but TV is certainly being disrupted… it’s competing for time against other screens (as discussed in this post), but more importantly means of distribution are changing.e.g. i use the HBO app to watch ‘boardwalk empire’. people go to hulu to watch SNL. more and more people are going directly to the source — whether it’s cbs.com or comedy central — to watch their favorite content.the economics will don’t quite make sense for ESPN and the like to ditch their lucrative TV deals, but those days are coming.

        1. JamesHRH

          Its not the TV content Fred is looking to aggregate.Its the social media streams that interlock with a particular piece of TV content that should be aggregated (hashtags, comments, etc.)

          1. jonathan hegranes

            I know… Just asking if there’s a business to be had in aggregation, regardless of content.

          2. JamesHRH

            not yet. Fred the User is the DEW Line compared to Fred the Investor.

          3. deancollins

            Aggregation for tv comments is a mistake…..its going to be no better than Facebooks “comments” algorithm.Lastly Get Glue is “weak” as a reward for effort…..look elsewhere for your answers.

    2. ShanaC

      how do you think linkedin will shape curation?

      1. jonathan hegranes

        first thing is using ‘big data’ (and linkedin has a lot of it) to provide very individual curation to each user.second is actually enabling discussion on linkedin.com. while they still generate a lot of traffic for the content owner, more and more of the interaction and discovery is taking place on linkedin.com.overall, i think it’s part of their strategy of making linkedin.com a must daily visit… at least for myself, it’s working.

  26. jason wright

    listen to the debate on the radio and use the tv screen for streaming feeds

  27. LE

    “binders”Attached brought to you by the same person who is responsible for college rankings.(The other “zuck” owns both the ny daily news and US news and world report.)

  28. leigh

    Social TV attempts are pretty weak right now. No one is figuring out as far as i can tell what would add or create value — instead they seem to be applying traditional media approaches to a second screen experience taking the worst from DVDs and putting them into those apps.Can’t wait until someone truly takes the model and flips it on it’s head and totally disrupts it. I have no idea what that means yet, but I’m totally sure it’s going to happen and then we will all go — duh — of course!

    1. Carl Rahn Griffith

      We seem to mistake this smorgasbord of real-time/social news and analysis as being meaningful and our participating somehow empowers change and means we are involved in that change. It means nothing of the sort and I am sure it suits ‘the suits’ that we believe this is democracy2.0 – nothing is different – we are just bystanders, voyeurs, and victims – in a slightly different way. Panacea for the masses, redux.

    2. ShanaC

      well the assumption is the story is one the tv screen, not elsewhere. To flip the model would be rethinking the storytelling process

  29. Joaquín R. Kierce

    I found myself on twitter and broadcasting what I saw on facebook to my more “traditional” friends.I discovered @politifacts through a RT of a RT which I think is awesome

  30. Carl Rahn Griffith

    Like algobots replaced traders who became swamped trying to assimilate and correlate several real-time screens of data, graphs, news, opinions and trends, so our personal algobots are becoming our curators and assimilators, distilling and decanting to us what they think is relevant.It’s little wonder contemporary/innovative philosophy is screwed.“… started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn’t seen, were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life-decisions. And they were … less intelligent than goldfish.” ~ William Gibson, Zero History.

    1. ShanaC

      nah, I don’t think philosophy is screwed any time yet.

      1. Carl Rahn Griffith

        Classical isn’t screwed, agreed. Overlooked all too often, yes. That’s why it lasts. Quality will always out. But, I don’t see much of it about in a contemporary thinking sense, that is – about as close as we seem to get is pseudo-profound bullsh*t at TEDx 😉

  31. Prokofy

    We don’t have a TV. So we had a laptop propped up with one of the mainstream news sites (ABC wasn’t loading so I think it was NBC), and then I also had Youtube/politics loaded on my desktop, and then I had Twitter going in the other window, and also Google to look up things like the Rose Garden speech on Benghazi in yet another window. I also had my cell phone that is sending Facebook updates to the screen — but that was definitely in the background as I don’t like arguing with friends on Facebook, such as they are, about politics, because friends of friends are the absolute nastiest people in the metaverse I have found.Youtube/politics had the feature of a running twitter stream with its own hashtag, which is a bit annoying as it takes up space and you have to add #debates yourself, but the advantage is that it gave a running ticker of everyone’s thoughts who were tweeting while watching Youtube. Youtube isn’t exactly the New York Review of Books. There’s a lot of what are snottily called by the left now “low information voters” there. But you do learn interesting things by watching these more ordinary people who aren’t the geeks on the main platforms dominating everything i.e. Facebook on TechCrunch or Reddit.You discover, for example, that there are blacks who are supporting Romney. Imagine, a fact never reported anywhere. You find those soccer moms or Wal-mart coupon clippers who far from being undecided are in fact supporting Romney and vigorously informed on all the answers to the “fact-checkers”. I tweeted something about how Ledbetter was only a lawsuit to seek equality, not the same thing as an ERA, and I had a bunch of Wal-mart moms in the south with Tea Party insignia immediately reweeting me. There’s the ubiquitous left that is part of ubiquitous computing, and you see how much they merely retweet and cut and paste and don’t think for themselves– and they imagine the people in the flyover states are stupid. The way in which the left clung to their silly binders’ meme — like their lame Big Bird meme — even as the right was earnestly debating the real politics of the US in Libya was very telling.Anyway, Youtube/politics hung, too, frustratingly, although I don’t think it had as much traffic as in the first debate. I had to try to get CNN working, and with the raw feed cameras for both candidates it was confusing. At one point I got tired of all the screens and went to lay down, secure in the knowledge that I could get an instant set of clips of the whole thing somewhere, as it happened, it was CNN that had them first.I got back fortunately to watch live the scene where Romney and Obama, each armed with their opp research, duked it out over Benghazi and Candy Crawford revealed her hand as biased media by stumping for Obama, then lurched around trying to defend Romney to balance herself.Then I spent an hour looking at every site from Mother Jones to Breitbart to see what they were all saying to see who had “won” — and of course, some media were trying to force popularity of #Romneywinning and #Obamawinning like they were all Charlie Sheen.I don’t know if I am really better informed today watching debates in the new media set-up than I was in 1976 when Prof. Marshall McLuhan gave us an interesting assignment at the Centre for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto.We had to split into two groups — one half would listen to the Carter-Ford debates on the radio, and the other on TV, and then we would meet back the next day in the living room of the old mansion facing Queen’s Park where the Centre was located to discuss who we felt had won. I opted for radio, as again, we didn’t have a TV. I thought Ford had won because Carter’s southern accent, the further north you got, seemed to work against him. But my friend who saw the debate on TV, and an ad for Carter sitting back on his porch in a rocking chair as if he were down home folks found him appealing, and found Ford bureaucratic. In any event, we were witnessing how the media is the message and — it still is, even as the screens multiply.

  32. John Revay

    “I am certain that I’m not the only one who watched the debates this way. Actually I am pretty certain that this is becoming more normal by the day.”WOW – great post.I found myself sitting down to watch the debate – in our living room – large screen TV ( I flipped between, FOX, MSNBC & CNN – I was trying to get fair and balanced).As I sat to watch…I thought to myself – I needed to log on to twitter and see the stream of comments – it seemed like Twitter kept up fairly well – it seemed like my updates would come in batches.One of the tweets had a link to a tumblr w/ the binder full of women.I also had my phone out and was texting my college roommate.It was a very interactive session.

  33. Mit Majithia

    I used Yahoo’s Into_Now app which was actually pretty decent. They had a curated twitter as well as all the debate related tweets, real time polling as well as a discussion thread and some other features.

  34. Cam MacRae

    This weeks episode of Gruen Planet talks a little about your multiscreen thesis with respect to advertising and the new Target campaign. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gr… 35 minutes of TV well worth watching for advertising wonks.

  35. John Revay

    Just heard on MSNBC/Morning Joe that the NEWSWEEK pub is no longer going to print the magazine – it will only be available in electronic form.http://mediadecoder.blogs.n

  36. andyswan

    LOL I hear ya…. kind of “rolodexy”. Now…. I was just handed a binder yesterday containing print-outs of the API calls from 11 social networks that I’m referencing this morning. So…I guess I’m “old school”….In any event, whatever Romney does seems to work wherever he does it. The guy wins a lot, as evidenced by his evil bank account 🙂

  37. LE

    While I don’t have a need for binders, I can definitely see the use.You can’t compare the experience of skimming through something in a book type format to something on a pad like device. (Which is not to say that Mitt’s use of a binder couldn’t be done a better way. I”m just reacting to the blanket rejection as a luddite the idea of using a binder.)Try to determine at Amazon whether you want to buy a particular book by doing “look inside” (even assume all pages are inside which they aren’t). Compare that to a physical book store where you open the book and randomly select pages and get a feel for the material. To me there is no comparison to getting a gut impression for whether you want to purchase or not.

  38. JamesHRH

    exactly – there is an argument that the tactile interaction of pen & paper encourages sensory activity & idea.

  39. andyswan

    The woman in charge of Homeland Security doesn’t use email. At all.People have different ways of operating. Romney’s seems to work wherever he goes.Binder full of women is SNL material though…. I’m thinking Romney meets Spitzer….

  40. Aaron Klein

    Ha. Let’s remember Romney was talking about staffing his administration in 2002. Facebook didn’t even exist.I was also at a school board meeting that got out just in time. We still use the binders! I’m the only trustee who doesn’t have the agenda fedexed and I bring my own iPad.

  41. William Mougayar

    🙂 Not the same thing. We have millions of comments from thousands of sites, 5 million users, 14 networks, etc…

  42. Aaron Klein

    Oh sure, reviewing resumes of potential appointees on a three-inch BlackBerry screen would have been totally more productive than a binder. You guys are cute with your memes. You keep talking about Big Bird and Binders, and we’ll keep talking about the President’s record. 😉

  43. Aaron Klein

    Dude, I put a smiley at the end of my comment! I am the definition of “light.” 🙂

  44. LE

    Don’t you remember those binders in “Falcon and the Snowman” where they kept track of all types of shit?So cool.Trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watc…3:05 of this video:http://www.youtube.com/watc…Agree with you, binders are a pain to carry and to bad there is an entire generation that hasn’t been pinched by the rings. I preferred the slant-d myself.

  45. falicon

    I think the big, long term, difference is more on intent than size or reach (gawk.it will eventually be installed across millions of blogs — we are already at millions of indexed comments as well).The intent of gawk.it is purely to help people find the right quality conversations and help quality conversations find the right people….all that aside, excited to hear you’ve got search out as I know your team has been working hard on it throughout the past few months. I look forward to hearing how users like it and seeing how it improves the engagio experience as a whole.

  46. William Mougayar

    We had that functionality ready in June, but we spent most of the summer re-tooling for MongoDB and ElasticSearch so we can consume millions of new comments per day and scale from there. This is only the first shoe…more to come.

  47. kidmercury

    romney is def a winner. when he took office as governor of MA, they were #2 in the country relative to other states in terms of most debt per resident. when he left office, they took the top spot! now, can he replicate that on the national level? US debt/gdp is over 100%, but japan is over 220% (and counting). romney will have his work cut out for him, but i wouldn’t dismiss his chances here…..he’s a real winner!

  48. William Mougayar

    Yup.

  49. JamesHRH

    David Frum said the issue with Romney’s response was that it came from the PoV of an employer – get me a binder of women to hire.It de-personalized, de-empathied & checklisted his approach.Cold. Not wrong, really, just cold.

  50. fredwilson

    yup

  51. JamesHRH

    It is stunning how awkward these two are on their feet.