(you might want to skip the first 5 minutes)

His top personal tip: when starting up on business, read like a madman but be selective about it. If a book seems bad, drop it, got to the next. But read a ton. Marketing, branding, positioning, win loss, you name it.

Here are some of the books he mentioned:

• Jack: Straight from the Gut
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
• Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets
• Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

Sorry you’re not part of Adobe anymore Josh but good luck on your next project!

It’s been one month since MAX 2009 has ended and it’s about time to write my view on the whole event. Three major themes seemed obvious to me: Flash everywhere, Internet video distribution and analytics.

Flash

Flash everywhere: a new, faster, more agile, less hog-ish Flash is coming. And it will run on all smartphones (except the iPhone), on netbooks, it’s going to be great. It’s a much needed improvement for Flash, after all the criticism it has drawn. You can say that all the Flash haters are just trolls looking to please the mighty Steve and his minions but in the end such a raging storm must have its reasons and a CPU stuck at 100% is surely one of them.

So if a faster and nimbler Flash will be out there then it’s great news for the developers. You basically write the core only once and then deploy with minimal effort everywhere. Right. I think we’ve heard that before, but none the less, it’s a step in the right direction. At least we’ll all see those YouTube videos.

Video

Another major topic was the internet video distribution and there were some great demos by the Flash Media Server team, by Akamai and by MLB.tv (Major League Baseball). Video distribution at 3 Mbps, very high quality, 4 streams in parallel (take that picture in picture), 20 angles per live event, seamless switching between bitrates when network congestions appear, mobile streaming…should I go on? Unfortunately this is very much US and UK only with the rest of the world still playing catch-up as far as I know. We’re still waiting for hulu over here in Europe and for epix (read about it) as well.

Analytics

The final theme was around analytics. The Adobe Omniture deal was a big part of it as well as the big Omniture booth. But in the end, I got the feeling that there’s an overwhelming amount of data out there (20 angles for one event, mobile distribution etc) and that you can’t keep track of it anymore. So you need to start analysing and segmenting and seeing which of all the tools you have actually makes more money for you. We’re still at the beginning and I feel we’re not getting the complete picture by far, but we’re slowy getting there.

Exciting times, I’m telling you. I for one am looking forward to be amazed.

Romanian (and European) people pirate stuff. music. movies. tv shows. I guess it’s safer now since the Pirate Party is in the European parliament. What’s more, I don’t think remorse is something that comes up very often in people’s mind and it’s a normal reaction when it’s so easy to download the latest Green Day album. Two clicks / two minutes and you’re there.

Which brings me to my topic: it’s so damn EASY to pirate the latest Green Day album and it’s so damn HARD to get it otherwise. If you live in Romania that is. I actually tried: Itunes? Not available. Amazon? Not available. They’ll ship you the CD if you want to though…

It’s not even a question of choice anymore. Are you telling me that instead of 2 clicks I need to get dressed, find a nanny, drive my car through the Bucharest traffic to get to the nearest CD shop to get the album? What’s ironic is that they probably don’t even have it yet…

Don’t they know that the world is not the same as 10 years ago and that the old business models are not working anymore? There aren’t 5000 miles between Bucharest and NY anymore. Instead, there’s an affordable 10 Mbits link between us.

So here’s what you should give me if you want my money. First of all, a super easy way to legally download the latest Green Day album for a fair price (Sadly I believe we have conflicting views of what fair means…). Come on, how hard can it be?
Secondly, I want previews. Find a way to let me listen to the album 3 times / 1 week before I decide if I want to buy it or not. It really pays in the long run, trust me. Then, I want to be able to permanently own the album once I pay for it. If I lose all my drives or if I’m at work and I have a craving for an album bought 10 years ago, I should be able to use your site and download it or listen to it from there. That’s right, I also want streaming. Throw in some video clips (downloadable to my iPod), lyrics, artwork, wallpapers and I’ll come running. And NO DRM.

Now that we got the music part covered, let’s think about TV shows / movies a bit. It’s unlikely I’ll pay for these though since I only plan to watch them once (yes, I’m one of those people). For the US there’s hulu.com which is close to perfection as far as these things go: you can watch TV shows for free, with limited ad interruptions and the interface is really slick. You also have recommendations, profiles, queues, notifications when a new episode has appeared. In a word, GREAT. Make it available in Romania. NOW.

But wait, let’s make it better. Make it possible so that I can download (yes, download) the episodes to my PC / Ipod as well. Stick the commercials in there and make them impossible to skip, I don’t mind. For this kind of service I’ll even throw in my gender, age, sexual preferences and how much I make annually so that you would know to serve me the Renault ad and not the BMW one just to make you happy. Whatever works for you, I don’t mind if I’m getting my share in return.

The bottom line is: stop protecting your assets by pretending there are borders. Because you know what? There are no borders. And people are actually nice and they don’t really want to pirate. But make it easy on them, give them a CHOICE for once. And then take that choice and make it so compelling that they won’t be able to stop checking your site for more. We’ll all sleep better at night.

But enough about me. What would make you, dear reader, stop pirating and start paying?

In fine am inteles ce inseamna Twitter si trebuie sa recunosc ca este un serviciu genial.

Ca sa ajung la concluzia asta am luat-o de la inceputuri. Se da o problema: cum ajungi sa filtrezi cantitatea uriasa de informatie care iti este aruncata in fata zi de zi pe internet?

Primul pas probabil ca il faci atunci cand iti selectezi site-urile preferate. bbcnews, check. slashdot, check. wired.com, check. You get the idea.

Dar nu e de ajuns. Pentru ca site-urile astea au un numar limitat de redactori si probabil o cantitate limitata de continut. Informatia e e strict legata de nisa in care se afla site-ul. Can I haz more, personlizd dis time?

Sure, have some blogs. Stiu ca generalizez dar cand te abonezi la un blog de fapt te abonezi la ideile si parerile unei persoane. Este foarte diferit de un site cu 10 redactori si este o schimbare fundamentala. Ai nevoie in continuare de continutul “mare” (in genul jurnalismului de la nytimes.com) dar acum ai in plus si o filtrare realizata de o persoana care inseamna ceva pentru tine. It’s personal.

Singurul defect al blogurilor este faptul ca reflecta doar idei, pareri, ganduri. Nu reflecta realitatea instanta, transmiterea simpla a unui mesaj. Si aici intervine frumusetea unui serviciu gen Twitter. Este la fel de personal ca un blog dar transmitand cu totul alt gen de informatie. Este informatia la prima mana, proaspata, directa. Si prin faptul ca poti sa iti construiesti un canal personalizat dupa gustul tau, priceless.

Zi de zi folosesc toate aceste trei canale de informatie si fiecare din ele e esential. Intrebarea este: cum de nu mi-am dat seama ca imi lipsea Twitter-ul pana acum?

Horia (you can follow my updates on twitter.com/horiag)

p.s. be sure to read Google Next Victim Of Creative Destruction? on Silicon Alley Insider for more Twitter madness.