A classic “mobile app” company has a CEO or busdev person plugged into the carriers, a marketing person that knows about getting “on deck”, and a tech team facile in BREW and Symbian.

Now, with the iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre, those specialties are becoming less relevant.  These new platforms are more open and Web-based.  There are platform-specific elements, but existing HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Canvas development skills translate over just fine.

Also, many apps need access from both desktop and mobile screens.  Point an iPhone to any top Web site and you see functionality formatted and tuned for mobile users.  Even game developers (a key category on mobile) will want desktop Web access for player rankings, game info, new game content, gamer forums, etc.

The result of this convergence is that we’ll see fewer pure-play “mobile” companies, and more “just” app companies developing across desktop, mobile, and living room screens.  Old-line mobile companies will find their proprietary skills and relationships less relevant as things open up and become Web-based.

I’m wondering if in-flight Internet is going to lower demand for redeye flights, since you can get a “working day in the air”.

With the recession, inbound requests for “networking” have gone up quite a bit.  (If I’ve been hard to reach, I apologize:  networking time demands currently exceed supply).

I frequently get pings from senior folks, some hoping to find an opportunity at an early stage startup.  In many cases, the qualifying question is:  how long can you afford to work with no salary? Here’s why that’s key.

For many software technology projects, the initial costs are all salaries (especially these days).  More and more, entrepreneurs are scrapping it out and coming to the first investors with a prototype or beta, in some cases with initial market uptake.  By the time of first funding, the key roles are usually already covered by that founding team, especially for product or technology positions.  (Sales/marketing positions are one exception:  that leadership may come on board later, as the company grows).

In other words, senior folks looking for paid positions at early stage startups may find the train’s already left for key roles.

As we give up land-lines for cell phones, there’s still one useful purpose for the plain-old telephone:  providing a number for the entire “household”.

There are a bunch of cases where a household number is needed:  giving an emergency contact number for school/camp/etc., having a contact to give the power company/cable company/bank, etc.  And even mundane cases as having a number your kid’s friends can call, before they have cell phones of their own.

Google Voice is close to providing this, but seems more focused on the individual than the household.  I want a simple menu tree (“Press 1 for Andy, 2 for Kellie, etc.” that routes incoming calls to individual cell phones, inboxes, etc.  I want to transfer calls between cell phones, just like I transfer a call at home by having my daughter pick up the phone.

AND, this should be part of my cell phone provider’s “family plan” (I’d pay extra for it).  They could make it stupid-easy by porting existing analog lines when people sign up.

Why not?

Recent discussions about bailouts and regulations have got me thinking.

Corporations enable capitalism.  The main feature is limited liability, which limits owner’s losses to their original investment and employee’s to losing their jobs.  In other words, if a corporation has obligations it can’t fulfill, the owners (stockholders) and employees aren’t on the hook.  This feature lets investors risk capital without worrying about losing their homes.

Moreover, this liability limitation is unbounded — if a corporation racks up $1 or $100 trillion of obligations, a bankruptcy cleans it up and everyone walks away.  Unfortunately, as we’re learning, US and world economy does not have an infinite capacity to absorb losses.  When corporations amass obligations so large and far-reaching (e.g. AIG, LTCM, etc.), we can’t (collectively) afford to let them fail.

Now, we’re debating regulations to prevent this from happening again.  Regulation has a number of problems, including the ability of free markets finding a way to route around, inventing ever complex financial structures, and making money in unregulated ways.  Regulation may prevent this crisis from happening again, but won’t prevent the next one.

There is an entirely different way to address this, by targeting the root problem.  What if some personal liability phased in for cases of huge, “off the charts” liability?  In other words, if your corporation amasses obligations so large that bankruptcy would materially affect the US economy, you might not be able to keep your houses and bonuses.

I guarantee that a threat of the smallest personal liability will cause a whole lot of self-regulation.  The art would be to do it in a way that it only applies to the extreme 0.01% of cases, and untended consequences (e.g. the problems with Sarbox) are minimized.  It may be possible to make this work.

It’s a slightly crazy idea, but not entirely crazy.

With the proliferation of public computers (e.g. libraries, hotel business center, etc.), we need a browser with a lockable “public computer” mode, unlockable only by the computer administrator.

In this mode, no passwords are stored, and auto-complete for form fields is turned off (or quickly expired).  Any open windows would close automatically after some period of inactivity, and the browsing history is quickly expired.

Also, the browser would send this mode information in all Web requests (in an HTTP header), so apps could modify their behavior accordingly.  For example, a Web app might NOT offer the option to “stay logged in” when using a public computer, and/or might aggressively time out an inactive session.

I’m sure someone’s thought about this — is this a new idea?

The venture capital business is in the middle of a shakeout.

For too long, venture’s been over-funded and over-staffed with homogeneity:  the same kinds of partners, operating with the same fund model, looking at the same investments, in the same markets.  It took an economic meltdown for LPs to finally realize they were putting money into an asset class that wasn’t generating a return commensurate with the risk.

Because of the typical 10-year agreement terms in venture partnerships, everything happens in slow-motion.  But there’s some early evidence things are breaking up:

• Venture firms cutting back on partners, or moving some partners to “venture” partners
• Top-tier partnerships having a hard time raising new funds (and coming in below target), and 2nd-3rd tier partnerships having an impossible time
• LPs missing capital calls (a very big deal)

Partnerships getting hit the hardest:  those without some recent distributions (some are rumored to have nothing in the past 7-9 years!), those with no previous funds beating T-bill IRRs (or even showing a positive return), and those with heavy university endowment LPs (which have gotten slammed).

I don’t wish ill-will on any of my venture friends, but I think this is good for everyone in the long run:  we’re flushing out a broken, over-capitalized, me-too industry.  Hopefully we’ll see some innovative fund models, looking at new markets, and funding companies in new ways.

Why do we need Twitter and Facebook?  (esp. after Facebook’s redesign, making it much more Twitter-like)

One reason:  tweets are 100% public, Facebook status updates are (generally) not.

As such, the collective tweet-stream is a great source of near-real-time information.  Lately, I find myself searching more than tweeting, mostly to find current info or if others are sharing my current problem (e.g. “EC2 down”).  When I do tweet, I’m tweeting more to a search result audience (e.g. “lots of spam getting throug gmail”) than to my immediate friends.  But I’m not sure this is typical behavior.

Twitter really wants to be a feature on Facebook.  I think they (Facebook) could pull this off if they came up with a manageable way to deal with privacy scopes:  100% public, semi-private, etc.