Books Step Behind the Curtain of Tech's Leading Companies

Nearly three years ago, I made myself a public promise to stop buying books, CDs, DVDs, or basically any form of media that took up any space. (See: Physical Media Has To Go. I'm Digital Only From Here.) With media stores on practically every platform, whether you prefer Apple's, Google's or Amazon's, and streaming entertainment available from Spotify, Netflix and the aforementioned three, you can get just about anything you want straight to your computer, phone or tablet. So my all digital diet hasn't slowed me down a bit.

The end of 2013 brought us an unusual array of tales on technology going behind the public faces of some of technology's biggest names, including Apple, Google, Amazon and the newest $30 billion kid on the block, Twitter. So I spent a good amount of the holiday break taking in stories, with their own various embellishments, covering the challenges of building a mobile operating system at Google and Apple, the executive tug of war and pivot of Twitter, the focus on design in Jony Ive's laboratory, and how Amazon has craftily executed on its plan to become the single store for everything under the sun.

Taking in the tales of Silicon Valley companies is something I'll likely never get bored of, even if I'm covering the news as a blogger, living the news as an employee, or enjoying the benefits as an end user. So to get all four of these books at about the same time is an embarrassment of riches.

As I've read each of the books on Google Play, I've tried to be a good Web citizen and provide a rating and a short review. If we're connected on Google+ and you look at the book on Play, you'll probably see my take. If you aren't, or we haven't synched yet, here's a quick run through of what I thought on each title. Each title links to Google Play, where you can pick it up too.

Hatching Twitter (Author: Nick Bilton)

Review: "Many characters needed to make a mere 140. Politics over tech, and very public... similar to many startups that aren't quite under the microscope."

Expanding: As someone who's covered Twitter as a blogger for some time and used the service extensively for five years, I had hoped for more insight into how the Twitter team took on technology scaling challenges, worked through product decisions and managed the fast-growing community. Bilton focused primarily on the office drama at the highest levels, and the day to day challenges seem to happen practically invisibly. Also, as noted in my review, as a veteran of some challenging political environments in startups, the executive turnover is not unique to Twitter, but it's unusual for it to become so public, or for the company to survive even with the infighting.

Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products (Author: Leander Kahney)

Review: "Good story. Very one sided. Jony is an exceptional mind working on high quality and highly desired products. The author recaps the highlights and approaches the subject as if Apple is infallible and perfect, which get tiresome. Jony is made out to be a deity. The truth is already incredible. The fable is not needed."

Expanding: Jony Ive and Apple make incredible products. The iPod and iPhone and iMac are great examples of that. I liked Jony's origin story and how he was forged in the UK before making his way to Cupertino. What I liked less was the over the top, breathless deification of Jony that went well beyond what I felt ws necessary. It was so sugary, one had to put the book down every few minutes until you could get enough strength to start again. That's no slight to Jony or Apple, of course.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (Author: Brad Stone)

Review: "The best book on tech in 2013 An intriguing dissection and chronicling of a truly modern company's rise to market dominance."

Expanding: The story of Amazon was by far my favorite of this group. What's striking is the drive behind Jeff Bezos and team to take on incredible challenges, and just get it done. Amazon, through perseverance and ingenuity, skated through the hardest times in the Web 1.0 crash, and came out a world leader, starting new businesses and categories at a pace and scale hard to fathom. If you had to read just one of these four, I'd pick this one.

Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution (Author: Fred Vogelstein)

Review: "Good stories and current! Only a few obvious inaccuracies, but well intended."

Expanding: This was a fun one, as someone who prefers Android to iOS, but has been a heavy user of both. As someone who knows some more color to much of the stories, I found some of the author's summaries and shortcuts to simply be wrong. I was mostly willing to forgive that, considering the book was entertaining and insightful. I only hope the parts that I liked were true. As a Googler, it actually gave me more knowledge about individuals on the team and their own efforts that I didn't have before, so I appreciated that.

If you're like me, and you live and breathe technology and the Silicon Valley, these four books are a great way to go beyond the day to day headlines and clickbait you see on the "news of the minute" sites. If you are an entrepreneur or even just an office drone like the rest of us, you could learn something, be it the why, or the how, but you can't say any of these books left you more lacking for knowledge at the end than when you started. So check 'em out - digitally.

Disclosures: Yes, I work at Google. Google makes Android and Google Play, and could be a partner or competitor to Amazon, Apple, Twitter, Spotify or Netflix, depending on which product or feature you're thinking about.

Now Commerce: Trying to Solve Demand for Instant Gratification

Over the last two decades, the world of retail has transformed from one led by big box retailers who courted shoppers through coupons and print advertorials or splashy television ads, to one where online commerce takes an increasing share of information gathering and eventually, purchasing behavior. Names like Blockbuster and Circuit City will soon be as quaint as Woolworth, Mervyn's and Gemco - symbolizing a generation of stores that didn't adapt quickly enough to take on more nimble competition, who won on scale and speed.

With Christmas 2013 now behind us, the headlines are not just of yes, more shoppers flocking online, mixed in with uncertainty over just how many people were impacted by Target's massive card hacking, but of a completely unexpected surge in last minute buying that doomed shipments by UPS and FedEx, the alpha and omega of delivery systems, connecting the virtual world world with the physical world. But it's clear what's happening. As an increasingly connected Internet populace abstracts the physical world of commerce to an online shopfront, so too vanishes the perception of physical limitations - such as distance, time, and weight.

We are progressing toward a world of "now commerce", where we can order it now, and expect the results practically instantly. The end of 2013 shows we're getting closer, but the system's not yet quite ready for the pressure, even if consumers are.

Simply put: Nobody expected everyone to wait until the very last minute to order Christmas gifts, but everyone did. As UPS told BusinessWeek: "We had our peak projections, and the volume has passed our projections." So all the models failed.

Web giants like Amazon and eBay learned over their young existence to do whatever possible to keep their sites up and keep transactions flowing. Slow load times, inaccurate shopping carts and price mismatches can sap users' patience and reduce trust. So they've prepared for massive amounts of scale - leading to Amazon's supporting upward of 426 transactions a second at peak time, without crashing. But it becomes even more challenging to prepare a physical delivery system like UPS or FedEx for scale of 2 to 3 or 10 times expectations, which is where the system broke, and barring big changes, we should expect this again.

2013 Brought Google Shopping Express to the Bay Area

(image /via +Google Shopping Express)

Take a look at two notable bits of news from two big players in 2013 - the first being Google Shopping Express (disclosure: I work at Google) and the second being Jeff Bezos' announcement of shipment by drones. The promise of both? Even faster fulfillment to customers. In Google's case, they've partnered with retailers in the San Francisco Bay Area to ship under the Google Shopping Express brand, and deliver in specified time windows, just like Safeway.com or traditional meal delivery. Amazon's promise is to take its already fast Prime shipping down from a few days to possibly a few hours. Now, instead of wondering what day you could get something, you just have to know which hour.

Four-plus hours from order to delivery at my door.

Like many others this Christmas season, I put e-commerce to the test with a last-minute order - looking to cross some items off my shopping list, having them come at the last possible moment, to avoid discovery and reduce clutter in my home. So with the knowledge that Google Shopping Express had a noon cutoff on Christmas Eve to deliver that day, I placed an order just after 11, and selected a time window for delivery between 1 and 5 pm that afternoon. As you can see from the screenshot in my email, the gifts were delivered just over four hours later, to my door - not only saving me a trip to the store, but providing near instant gratification.

Often, one's vision of the tech future is colored by the Star Trek computer - one which responds to voice commands, and can produce physical objects by request. It's been said Google is obsessed with building the Star Trek computer, and innovation like the world of 3D printing makes this vision of virtual to physical conversion seem more possible. But before we get that, we're already seeing a generation of people who expect things to happen instantly. One can instantly turn on Netflix or iTunes or YouTube and see practically any piece of video ever made. One can turn to Spotify or Google Music and get any song on demand and play it on any device, practically anywhere, assuming you have enough bandwidth. We expect it immediately, and growl if buffering makes it imperfect.

So you can see this coming, can't you? The consumers are expecting instant gratification. We're getting incredible service when it comes to entertainment. We can order practically anything virtually and delivery windows are tightening. We know what we want, and we want it now.

Disclosures: I work at Google, which runs Google Shopping Express and in various ways competes with Amazon. Google also owns YouTube and in various ways competes with Netflix. My house is an Amazon Prime household and our kids watch way too much Netflix.

Spotify In the US: Of Course It'll be Great and Affordable

Spotify's long drawn-out arrival in the United States has been rumored and rerumored over the last two years, drawing fatigue from those both eager to get their hands on the service and those covering the space, some of whom have compared the nascent cloud-based music service to the much-delayed Duke Nukem Forever. In the meantime, US-based services like Rdio have emerged as real competition, alongside music lockers from Amazon and Google, and Apple's iCloud, which dropped last month with a feature set that was somewhat underwhelming to those who had epxected Spotify-like features from Cupertino.

In recent months, more news has trickled out from Spotify in terms of their expanding their US office in New York, and capturing deals with the dinosaur US labels, who haven't shown their innovation or eagerness to adopt their sales strategies in recent years, both cozying up to Apple and then cowering in response to their every move. Yesterday, Spotify in a fairly understated way said yes, their launch in the US was imminent, though no date was given, and now you see people speculating on pricing.

After initially having free access to Spotify starting in late 2009, I converted to a true paid for premium plan early this year, at $9.99 a month, bringing Spotify's huge music library to my desktop and all my mobile devices - made even better with solid integration to my Sonos S5 wireless speakers throughout the house. I do not expect that when Spotify officially launches that I'm going to see any kind of price hike, and I am adamant that this is the best deal going. Theoretically speaking, although I prefer lower prices of course, I would probably pay upwards of $30 a month to get Spotify access, just for the feature set they have today.

Due to the delays around Spotify and much ongoing hype, some from here, those who have been on the outside looking in might be tired of the promise and continue their skepticism until they can download the app and gain access to the service - but what was once a pipe dream looks like its coming very soon and at a great price. So if you're tired of hearing about it, you don't look like you have to wait much longer. It's the #1 reason I almost completely stopped using iTunes.

Google IO Chromebooks To Reach Attendees In August

In May, to cheers, Google's Sundar Pichai announced that all attendees of the company's developer conference would be the recipients of free Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks, one of the two launch OEM partners, alongside Acer. Unlike other giveaways at the event, and unlike Oprah's traditional "look under the chair" showmanship, the devices were not immediately available, but would be coming soon. General availability was highlighted as June 15th. Now, as many of us have started to see via email notifications from Amazon, the promised Chromebooks won't be making it to eager recipients until early to mid August.

Last week, I got a note from Amazon with two codes - one for the free notebook and one for free shipping. But availability of product was in question as it is displayed as sold out on the merchant's site. Last night, I finally got a note with a delivery date of "August 03 2011 - August 10 2011". Checking with other attendees, they too heard either that date or even a bit later.

For those who don't already have a CR-48 lying around, as I do, and need to get their hands on a Chromebook ahead of August, BestBuy.com and Amazon might have some for purchase. Either way, once they arrive, it's an interesting reset on what you've come to expect from a laptop. I've rapidly grown accustomed to always on Internet and battery life that goes all day with my Chromebook. My fellow Google IO attendees will need to wait another month to see the same.

While Amazon Chokes on Lady Gaga, Spotify Flows

While Amazon is struggling to keep up with demand for their near-free $.99 sale of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" album, frustrating many people, it's interesting to note that Spotify, the on-demand streaming music service based in Sweden, has had the full album, plus an additional set of tracks, available for free to Premium users for some time, and there are no issues in getting to the music, just another great example of why US customers who don't yet have access to the site, are missing out, and why heavy-handed tug of wars with the music labels involving Google, Apple and Amazon are keeping the best tech away from users, thanks to record executives hoping to keep their inflexible business models from being eaten alive.

With today's headlines focused on Amazon's 'exclusive' offer, and the resulting server meltdown, it's worth noting that Spotify users actually gained access to the same set of music back on Wednesday, May 18th. In fact, the album is aged enough in Spotify's eyes to no longer be included in their "Brand New Albums" section, replaced by even fresher tracks.

While access to the service here in the U.S. is still limited to those with explicit access, it continues to the best streaming library in the world, this just being the latest example. Don't love Lady Gaga? You don't have to listen, but at least on Spotify you can.

The Amazon offering provides 14 tracks plus a digital booklet for $.99. Peter Kafka notes Apple's iTunes offers the 22 song special edition for $15.99 and the standard album for $11.99. Spotify subscribers paying $9.99 a month (as I am) get it for an additional $0.

Review: Google Music Beta On Android and the Web

While Apple's iTunes player and associated family of digital devices (namely iPods) is the ten ton gorilla in the digital music space today, competitors are setting up to poke holes in Cupertino's current position, with the on demand socially-oriented music streamers like Spotify and Rdio on one side, and the music lockers like Amazon and Google Music on the other, while Apple is largely expected to counter with its own cloud-based offering in the not too distant future. The music industry being what it is, a near monopoly run by people a little tired of having their businesses eviscerated by smart geeks with software for the last decade plus, no one service has been able to get everything it wants all at once. Spotify's US entrance has been slowed repeatedly, while Google and Amazon stopped short of signing all the labels, launching their service as solo silos, with later deals expected to fill holes. It's a crowded field with much riding on who gets access to what music and in what form.

On that backdrop, Google Music opened up in beta as part of Google I/O last week, not delivering the seemingly infinite music library I've enjoyed from Spotify over the last 18 months or so, but instead, giving a music player in the cloud on any modern browser - pushing me to find my non-DRM music files and transfer them into the cloud for later playing. Not limited just to Chrome, the service plays well with Safari and Firefox on the Mac, and an accompanying Android app accesses the same library - providing you access to your tunes from just about anywhere - convenient once you've achieved the task, but still feeling like homework when you first get started.

Music Manager Gets Me Started with Google Music

As noted Sunday, my main media Mac (an older generation MacBook Pro) has the lion's share of my music, with the MacBook Air having a few hundred songs only - all my activity having leaned to Spotify for the last two years. Nonetheless, I downloaded the Music Manager from Google, told it where to find my music, and for several hours this evening, the application uploaded my MP3 files to my Google Music locker, leveraging my iTunes metadata to correctly assign song details, including artist, genre, and even how many times the songs were played.

The Music Manager Uploads My Tracks to the Cloud

The Result Is All My Artists and Albums On the Web

As Google Music can only post non-DRM tunes, of the 500 or so songs I have, just under 150 were found to be available without Apple's lossless formatting. Music Manager installed itself as a control panel on my Mac and uploaded tracks two at a time to the cloud in the background. I have to imagine that with larger libraries numbering thousands or tens of thousands of songs, this process will no doubt take days or weeks, so if you can use a non-production computer, or can set the job to take place overnight, you're probably better off.

If the Songs Have DRM, They're Not Going Anywhere

You Can Sort Songs By Genre, Artist, Name or Album

In this regards, for traditional iTunes users, Apple may have a leg up in its proposed cloud strategy, pointing to your previous iTunes purchases as being "owned" by you, while you're responsible for uploading or flagging the others from your own collection. The process of uploading seems cumbersome, but should only have to be done a single time. Alternatively, it'd have been great to check my own database of music against a central database owned by Google, who could simply "unlock" tracks or albums for me, skipping the actual data transfer process. But with no deals done, the music locker is simply an empty bin for me to fill, even if the metadata assigned to some of my songs is incorrect.

My Albums On the Galaxy Tab 10 Android App

As my songs started to populate Google Music online, the same familiar user interface most of us know from programs like iTunes, WinAmp and others is displayed, listing the song names, times, artist, albums and play count. Instead of a five star Apple-like rating, you can thumbs up or down individual tracks, but other attributes are the same - including the ubiquitous shuffle feature, and "Instant Mixes" which parallel Apple's "Smart Playlists" feature.

Seeing My Deadmau5 Songs On the Android Google Music App

Playing songs is straight forward in the browser or on the Android app. Click the track you like, and as with iTunes, you can use your keyboard to control most playback - using arrow keys to go forward or back, and hitting the spacebar to pause the song. Other aspects of the service are also similar, including editing track data, although you can't batch edit songs, and as the service is from Google, an Instant Search-like field is available at all times, so if you want to find an artist, song or album, start typing and that from your library will surface.

Searching on the Google Music App In Android

On the Android side, I tested the Google Music app on the new Honeycomb-enabled Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 that all Google IO attendees (press included) received last week. As the system recognized my account was tied to my own library, all songs posted to Google Music in the cloud were available on the device - with no downloads needed. On both Web and tablet, the music quality is very good, and i wouldn't expect otherwise.

Playing a Track On Android On the Galaxy Tab in Google Music

After nearly two years' experience on Spotify, the sheer nature of the cloud music is not dramatic, but getting the opportunity to convert my iTunes library from something that is currently locked down to spinning disk on a single computer and a few iPods to something I can access anywhere is no doubt going to be liberating - just like it will be when Apple finally brings their own cloud option, or when I tag my own library within Spotify to auto-add the songs I've purchased elsewhere.

From my talks with people close to the cloud music wars, the dollars and aggression being tossed about between players is intense, in a powerful cascade of one-upmanship from one player to another. Right now, it doesn't appear that Google has paid the top dollar needed to put all the labels in their court and out of Apple's hand, and Spotify is the little guy compared to a major league tug of war between Google, Apple and Amazon. Until this all gets sorted, Spotify remains the best option for me to get music I don't already own, and Google Music is an increasingly convenient option for the music I already do. For my Android-centric world that hasn't messed with iTunes much lately, it's good to know I can welcome back my old albums in my life again.

Google Music can be found in beta at http://music.google.com and the accompanying app can be found on the Android Market here.

Sparkbuy Launches Personalized Gadget Recommendations

With the 2010 Holiday shopping season officially kicking off today in what's commonly referred to as Cyber Monday, Sparkbuy is hoping to give consumers a boost in finding personalized consumer electronics gear, based on a deep database that started with thousands of laptops and plans to expand to TVs, mobile devices and more soon. The goal? Leveraging the big trend of personalization and recommendations per individual and applying it to shopping, beyond that found from popular sites like Amazon.com.

Sparkbuy promises customizable results based on users' specific needs, a large database of independent research, and unbiased product information, unswayed by vendor interests or store margins.

My Top Laptop Priorities on Sparkbuy

Users looking to find the best laptop for them can specific their top priorities, ordered by individual preference, including items such as "long battery", "inexpensive", "big hard drive", "high resolution", etc. For those of us Macolytes, selecting "It's a Mac" and making it a top priority gives us the best from Cupertino, hiding Asus, Dell and the rest from our view, less we end up on Windows.

Sparkbuy Recommended I go for a 13" MacBook Pro

If I Got Out of Mac Land, Sparkbuy Recommends ASUS

CEO Dan Shapiro compares Sparkbuy to popular travel search engine Kayak, and relayed his experience of buying an airplane ticket as giving him "the 'aha' moment" that pushed him to start building the site.

The talk is big, assuming the site fulfills its promise, with a deep product database and curtailing the offerings to what users are searching for. At launch, limited to only laptops, the current offering is an intriguing tease - especially for those of us just fine with our current laptop and not looking to upgrade.

If you want a boost in finding the best laptop for you, and think the database will come in handy for future products, you can get in with the code LOUIS-VIP at www.sparkbuy.com to register.

Catalogs.com Launches A Flippin' iPad App for Shopping

The iPad has been an unquestioned hit since its unveiling and debut this Spring. Our home alone has a pair, which are seemingly constantly monopolized by my two year old twins, who have made it their primary entertainment device. With millions of the devices sold, application developers are creating new and innovative ways to browse content, play games, and, with some effort, get work done. But the device isn't exactly known as a commerce engine - something Catalogs.com is looking to change with the company's new iPad app, officially announced today after approval by iTunes over the weekend.

Much like Apple's iBooks app introduced the idea of flipping pages right to left as you progressed through a story, Flipboard and other developers have tapped into the same concept to make the iPad experience immersive and personal. Catalogs.com has done the same thing, bringing the old world of print catalogs to a new medium.

The application, at launch, comes prepackaged with 30 catalogs from retailers like MacConnection, Petco, Foot Locker and the Home Depot. Instead of grabbing the catalog from the mailbox, all you now have to do is click on the cover and flip from page to page.

Browsing the Catalogs.com iPad App and Adding Items

If you like an item, click it, and add it to your wish list, just like you would from Amazon.com. The wish list can contain items from different catalogs as well, in one place, just like Amazon can share a wish list between multiple departments in the store. And when you are ready to order, click "Details/Buy Now" to complete the process.

Catalogs.com has partnerships with more than 600 merchants in its main Web site listings, and is starting off with a few dozen offerings optimized for the iPad experience. Instead of getting new catalogs each week or month, cluttering your mail, the app updates automatically with the latest offerings and prices.

My WishList on the Catalogs.com iPad App from Multiple Merchants

For casual shoppers who are enjoying their iPads, the new app is extremely convenient. You can see initial feedback from TechCrunch (Shopping Site Brings Print Catalogs To The iPad) and BetaNews (Catalogs.com gets the Flipboard treatment with new iPad app) as well. The app can be found at http://bit.ly/ipadcatalogs.

Disclosure: Catalogs.com is a client of Paladin Advisors Group, for which I am a co-founder.

Life Online: Fraud, Security, Trust, Passwords and Paranoia

Occam's Razor has an intriguing two parter, penned over the last week, about how deceitful people are mining Facebook for your personal data, taking advantage of open networking and random connections to possibly use what they discover, via your open door policy, in nefarious ways. The gist of the articles? Be extremely careful who you connect to, and say no to strangers. (See: Friending Strangers On Fakebook and its follow-up: The Cindy In Your Town)

This approach, as smart as it sounds after reading both pieces, runs contrary to one of the more widely held positions in social media, that the friend connection around the corner could be the one you most want to know. Take Thomas Power's comments on limited networks being 'flawed' as a great example of someone who believes in making as many connections as possible on all networks. Many of us do this. That's one reason why there are autofollow scripts for Twitter, and why many people complain about Facebook only allowing 5,000 friends, when it's unlikely you care about their every coming and going.

I've long taken an extremely trusting approach to the Web. I chose to accept all friend connections in Facebook quite a while ago because I don't want to dictate where people want to find my stuff. If they are more comfortable in Facebook or Twitter or Google Buzz or anywhere else, that data should be there. I've taken to using Foursquare for location, and I share many of my purchases via Blippy. I even have made real photos of my own kids as part of my presence online. There are few secrets.

Some might think this approach stupid - an inevitable march toward a mistake waiting to happen that puts my data, my money or my family in jeopardy. Finally, late this summer, something did happen, but not for the above reasons - try as I might to link them.

The first sign something was wrong was when I received an e-mail from Amazon.com that shut my account outright. You might remember my post on the issue: "To Protect Me, Amazon Has Decided to Kill Me". I had hoped it was a red herring, an oddity that was not to be repeated. But it was just the beginning of a data tug of war that made me somewhat nervous, but mostly frustrated.

At first, only Amazon was impacted, but the very next day, I got another odd order, from Zappos, saying a set of steak knives I had ordered was on its way. I canceled it immediately, and thought that maybe Amazon and Zappos' shared corporate control indicated a database surprise. They told me this was not the case. Then, as I was on the phone with Zappos, discussing the issue, I got an e-mail from TurboTax, saying I had requested the User ID associated with my e-mail.

Nice Try Getting Back Into My E-mail, Jerk

That's a big no. Of course not. So I sighed in defeat, and immediately started changing my passwords everywhere I could think of - starting with TurboTax, a mere 2 minutes later. Like most people, I have a small set of passwords I use for most accounts. I had been careful enough to change it up for the most financially impactful sites, but my most commonly used password hadn't been changed since I first started using it in college - back in 1996.

A few hours later, I got a note from Apple saying too many attempts had been made to answer my security questions on my e-mail account, and therefore, the password could not be changed. This told me that for some time, the hacker had access to my e-mail account, and had correctly guessed my password worked on other sites (like Amazon). When I changed it, I had effectively locked them out. But there was one place I hadn't looked yet, an obvious place... a commerce site directly linked to my Apple account.

I logged into the Apple Store (with my new password) and saw the joker had successfully ordered a Mac laptop and a Canon camera, both shipped overnight by FedEx, using my account. The total damage was just over $2,000. The thief had used my first and last name, and my cell phone number, but not any of my credit cards. In fact, the shipments were even sent to Sunnyvale, the same city where I live, but obviously not to me.

I Hope The Thief Enjoys His Laptop

After setting a fraud alert on my credit cards, I checked all activity on said cards practically every few hours for weeks, and saw no change. My credit score didn't get impacted, and I never heard from the thief again. I called Apple to have them check into a MobileMe breach, and they put a watch on my account. I reported the issue to the FBI's hotline, only to get a form letter saying they probably wouldn't follow up. Even a call to the local Sunnyvale police came up empty, when they said the defrauded merchant had to be a Sunnyvale shop to get any help.

As you can guess, this was completely frustrating. I still have no idea how my e-mail address was compromised, or how the thief got hold of my commonly-used password, which they then leveraged to get into other accounts. The good news is that my identity wasn't truly coopted, and no charges ever hit me directly. But it certainly put some mud on my otherwise clean view of the world.

So think about how we are sharing and possibly oversharing? Our social updates from mobile phones can now track our location down within a few feet. Is that not valuable to people who want to know where we live and where we go? Do we need to give people an extra boost to find data that doesn't belong to them? I believe strongly in trusting people and getting my data on the Web, and am happy to know that none of my use of these networks set the would-be disaster in motion. But Occam's Razor is onto something as well. Are we doomed if we are careful and doomed if we are not?

I don't mind the lesson on keeping my passwords hard to crack and change them often, but should I raise my paranoia meter thanks to this experience?

To Protect Me, Amazon Has Decided to Kill Me

For the amount of transparency I put online, combined with my preference to purchase things online wherever possible, I have to count myself lucky that nothing nefarious has ever happened to my data. I have never seen false orders on my behalf, been a victim of identity theft, had to cancel accounts and change passwords everywhere, cut up credit cards, or reverse charges due to anything related to my Web use, so far as I can recall. It's possible that winning streak came to an end this last week, thanks to a flag from Amazon, saying that my account had been suspended immediately, due to suspected fraudulent activity. Rather than take their good advice, I am instead hoping I can prove all is well, and the mistake lies with them. Foolhardy, I know, but worth a shot.

I have e-mail receipts of activity from shopping with Amazon.com spanning for more than a decade. Even though I don't use the site as much as I used to, no longer buying books (as I once did regularly) or CDs (long since replaced by iTunes, Spotify and others), the idea of the account getting zapped, and needing to start over with all-new personalization and buying history, seems odd. I am something of an Internet account packrat, and I like the consistency. And even if it seems naive, I still doubt somebody got enough data to make an order on my behalf - as no other account, anywhere, shows one micron of suspicion.

The odd behavior with Amazon started at the end of last month, I bet. When I moved across town, I changed the address associated with my VISA card. Later, I went to Amazon and changed it there as well, including on my Amazon Wish List, which I typically look at a mere once a year, just before Holidays.

A week later, on August 5th, I got an odd e-mail, which was so text-heavy and non-interesting I almost dismissed it as a phishing scam. Entitled "Account Closure: Please Read", the e-mail explained:

"After careful review of your account, we believe it may have been accessed and used by a third-party to place order(s) without your permission. It seems that someone obtained your personal account and/or financial information elsewhere, and used it on Amazon.com to access your account.

We have closed your Amazon.com account effective immediately because of this possible unauthorized account activity. If this recent account activity (HP Pavilion dv6-3010us 15.6-Inch Laptop) was authorized by you, please reply to this message as soon as possible and we will reactivate your account."

Anybody who knows me knows there is no way I would by an HP laptop. Not for me, not for a friend, not for anyone I actually cared about. So it's obvious something is amiss. After checking the message's details and ascertaining it really had come from Amazon.com, I tried to login to my account, and couldn't get through. It really had been closed after all!

Morbidly curious, I checked activity on the credit card associated with the account, and found nothing weird. Similarly, no other account had a hair of concern associated. Every notification from Blippy could be traced to myself or my wife, and Chase, ETrade and Wells Fargo all came back clean. This only reinforced my thought Amazon goofed somewhere. So I reached out this week to follow up, and there's still a ways to go to finding out the truth.

Amazon makes it hard to reach anybody by phone on their site. Clearly with their scale, they want to avoid inbound calls, if possible. To get there, you have to hit Help, find the Contact Us button, and "Sign In to Contact Us". Of course, I couldn't sign in. Duh. So I clicked to skip sign in and found another set of questions to fill out to describe my story. Again, thwarted by tech, I could only put about 100 characters of description to explain. Try that. It's harder than it sounds.

Needless to say, I made it through and the young woman on the line couldn't solve my issue. There's simply no account assigned the e-mail address any more. After a decade's time purchasing on Amazon with the same ID and having them know me as well as they do, I'm locked out.

I completely understand their wanting to protect me as a customer, and stop problems before they start, but something is amiss. If my credit card data were truly compromised, would I not see spending somewhere else? What do you think? Should I convince Amazon they screwed up and get my account on, or should I start canceling and changing passwords everywhere? Either way, whether it is their fault or not, I don't think I will be shopping at Amazon very often going forward. It's a result of unintended consequences.

It's Time for A Digital Used Book Store on the iPad

While many of us may be wrestling with defining the role Apple's new iPad will play in our digital ecosystem, in a world of smartphones, fully-powered laptops, netbooks and single-use devices (like Kindles), there's no question it is a very good platform for reading, especially due to the availability of the iBooks application and the many titles available on Apple's iTunes Store.

On Thursday, April 8th, at the iPhone OS 4 event, Apple announced more than 600,000 iBook titles were purchased following the iPad's debut, and it's likely that number is now approaching or has just passed 1 million. But unlike music files, which are often listened to over and over again, books are rarely read more than once, and, at least in the offline world, there has always been a side business of selling and purchasing used books, or passing older titles to family members. In the digital world, however, this is not an option at all, and it's high time this changed.

My mother and I share an interest in Stephen King books. I can't say who was addicted to the world's best horror writer first, she or me, but it has practically become second nature to pass along our books when completed. But she has "early adopter syndrome" when it comes to his work, while I tend to wait until the paperback version arrives. If she doesn't wait, as was the case with King's recent Under the Dome, weighing in at more than 1,200 pages, the massive tome can find its way into my bookshelf, where it sits and taunts me with the width of two complete local Yellow Pages. Just imagine trying to cram that particular book as reading material on the plane, and even the price, $33, seems to be out of control. But Apple offers the same book, in digital edition, for half the price, $16, for the iPad.

The Four Books in My iBooks Library, to Start

But, as with all of Apple's digital purchases through iTunes, there is no option to share beyond just me. I can send the iBook or iTunes album as a gift for its full price, or I can send money or gift cards, but it's just not the same. If I am done with an iBook, I should be able to designate a recipient and send it to them, relinquishing my own rights to the iBook, and enabling Apple to charge the recipient a reduced price for their acquiring a "used" book. After all, I am just going to delete the iBook anyway, or let it continue to sit, unused, gathering digital dust on my hard drive, once I am done.

Apple's much-discussed Digital Rights Management (DRM) could be used to ensure that when I pass along the iBook, that it is erased from my machine, exactly as they do with rented iTunes movies that have crossed the imposed 30-day limit for viewing. And the receiver of said used iBook would always have the option to refuse the gift, declining without giving Apple another dime.

Is there risk to this proposal? Of course. There's always the potential that user groups could be made online for digital cheapskates to beg for used versions of iBooks instead of paying full price. But these are the same people who likely purchase used books from Amazon, or might be willing to pay a few dollars instead of getting the book free offline.

Apple has already had to do battle with countless record company executives, book and magazine publishers, and film studios to bring their content into the iTunes Store. After a slow start, the iTunes Store can be counted on to find practically any artist or title - with some exceptions, of course. The media industry's position, thus far, has been less innovative, and more in favor of preserving their old ways, hoping that Apple's iPad and iTunes ecosystem can help drive them premium prices. But premium prices don't work for all, and the way we have been consuming and sharing media for decades offline should be replicated here. I don't want to fill up my bookshelf with these monstrous books just to get the opportunity to hand them off down the road. I want to use what I think is the most versatile platform for reading books (and doing much more), but still have the option to share the content forward when I am done.

So, Apple... you just might have the best hardware device for books today. You have the most discussed and possibly most successful digital devices on the market today. You have an incredible number of titles available through iTunes. It's time to open up new opportunities for revenue for you and your partners, and give greater flexibility to your customers. I would absolutely be more than pleased to share with my friends some of the books I have been reading, once I am done. Find a way for me to do so.

Editor's Note: Jeremy Toeman of LIVEdigitally had a similar idea last year, related to the Kindle: Where’s the Kindle Used eBook Store?

TwitPay.me - Twitter Payments in 140 Characters or Less

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

I recently returned from a new event called "Launchup" here in Utah, where several startups were enabled to pitch their business in front of an audience, get critiqued, and share with the world an idea. After the presentations, the audience was given the opportunity to each pitch their own products, each with just 30 seconds to share their idea. I was amazed to find that with just 30 seconds one product in particular, TwitPay.me really stood out, with little to no explanation necessary.

TwitPay.me reads simplicity across the board. The product, which aims to allow you to easily send payments to your friends on Twitter, accomplishes that with no need to sign up, and doesn't even need your credit card to make that happen. The service uses Amazon Payment Services to send and receive payments, which means all you need is an Amazon account. So basically anyone who has ever purchased something on Amazon is already set up to use this.

I was reminded of the product when its co-founder, >Jeremy Raines (@jraines, from Park City, Utah), sent me $1.40 via a Tweet, "@jesse twitpay $1.40 to check out http://twitpay.me :-)". I do have to admit it's one of the coolest (and most simple) pitches I have ever received! I went to http://twitpay.me, gave them my Twitter username, they then sent me a pin number via DM which claimed my Twitter account - no login or authorization at all necessary! Inside my account, I just had to associate my Amazon Payments account (a total of 3 clicks) with TwitPay, and I had the money I was promised.

To send a payment to anyone, no account is necessary (until you want to actually pay the person). Simply send the words "@username twitpay $dollar_amount for reason", username being your Twitter screen name, $dollar_amount being the actual amount to send to the user, and reason being the reason for why you are sending the money. I tried this myself sending Louis Gray my 2 cents with "@louisgray twitpay $.02 for your love of bacon". He just needs to log into TwitPay and approve the payment through Amazon now to receive his $.02.

The Potential

About a year ago I worked with Phil Burns and several others to start a service such as this. The potential was screaming at us - with Social Networks and cell phones, we now had the potential to completely get rid of cash in peoples' pockets. The idea never really took off for us, but I'm glad to see others embracing it.

Up until now there has been nothing really to replace the cash, the small amounts of money, which we keep in our pockets for those moments we only need to pay small amounts of money. Imagine going to a vending machine and being able to Tweet a particular Twitter account listed on the vending machine with your payment. Imagine making a bet with a friend and being able to Tweet them their winnings. Or what if you could "Tweet" your waitress their Tip?

TwitPay may have just seriously challenged services such as Paypal's business models with this innovative new way to send payments. The service is plain, simple, 140 characters or less, Social, and requires no account to use. Social Payments have yet to be breached, but I believe TwitPay.me may have just breached it with the ideal Twitter payment environment. Are we at the beginning of the end for the need of actual cash in our pockets?

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

The Clash of Editorial Recommendations and Community Suggestions

On Saturday, Charlene Li discussed how social networks are to be "like air", integrated into all the Web sites we visit. She painted a future whereby your friends and who you are as an individual would dictate the content and delivery of your Web experience. Just how to make that Web experience social, but in the right way, is a dilemma services are encountering, including executives at Pandora, Strands and Blip.TV, who talked at length today at the SXSW Interactive conference about how much power the community, and recommendations, should weigh on their products' experience. They also debated whether editorial recommendations had a place, and could be trusted.

When an application or service becomes social, the recommendations one gains from the community and your fellow friends hold significant weight. On Amazon, you might be told to purchase a book or DVD. On Pandora, you might start hearing music from a new artist. And Blip.tv? Well, they're still looking for the right solution, before they start tossing out videos of dogs on skateboards, due simply to popularity, as CEO Mike Hudack said today.

When done well, algorithmically generated recommendations can promote user action, including purchases, which then in turn makes it tempting to integrate social recommendations in practically every element of the eCommerce engine, the panelists agreed.

"Amazon is the quintessential recommender of the influential purchase," said Alex Hillman of Independents Hall. "If I am logged in and it knows what I bought before, it starts recommending things. I do trust it, and it is surprisingly accurate."

But Trevor Legwinski, who runs Marketing and Business Development for Strands, cautioned against showing too many options throughout a service.

"On the eCommerce side of things, (we are challenged) with how we increase our revenue, and what could provide a better consumer experience. But from an eCommerce perspective, if you give them (users) too many options, they will leave the site," he said.

Sites like Amazon.com, Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm and many others rely on the wisdom of crowds to try and figure out your own interests. And sites of all types have been asking you for more and more information for decades, harkening back to some of the most invasive registration regiments out there, around Web dating sites. And even if you put "a crapload" of data in, as Hillman called it, you probably should just save the time and go out on a date instead.

But these products are each working on finding the right mix of input from the community, and that of those hired by the company. Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora, called it blending expert influence with community filtering.

"Collaborative filtering comes from purchase behavior and community behavior," Conrad said. "But it does have a self-reinforcing characteristic to it. If you tell it people that buy Nine Inch Nails also buy Ministry, it is reinforcing and it is hard to break out of that pattern, and it is even harder with the long tail where there is not enough data to build recommendations, so you have to build systems around factual information around the product."

One of the more visible recent developments in the world of recommendations came from Twitter, who seemingly hand-selected a small number of people to be recommended accounts. The move, which has seen total followers to these accounts skyrocket as the service dramatically grew in visibility, has had many influential users questioning the practice, and others begging to be included.

Today's panel questioned if the uproar was justifiable, considering there was no science behind the recommended list. And while they questioned if those selected offered new users a representative view of the microblogging service, the concept of an "editorial recommendation" was not dismissed outright - even while some panelists had avoided editorial selection in their own products.

"We don't publish top ten lists," said Conrad. "There is no way to find out what songs get the most thumbs up. We never say there are interesting bands to check out, as it's about you, not us. It's about what you think is cool."

Comments around the Twitter signup process generally recommended the service would be better served to ask for more questions up front, and try to leverage their search engine to show experts on topics the new users claimed interest in.

"Twitter could solve that problem if you could pull up other Twitterers who match those terms," Hillman said.

The panel concluded in agreement that the human experience, and recommendations from machines that start with human input were considered "the richest", and it was agreed that the human element would never "go away", but that engines needed to continue to improve to offer a smoother experience for services that relied on the wisdom of others.

"Any time you have a problem with a multiplicity of potential solutions, you have an opportunity as a developer for a recommendation solution to bring an answer to that problem," said Conrad. "Anywhere you have lots of potential solutions, you can narrow it down to one solution that is an answer."

Web Two Dot Oh DotCom Dot Cloud Colon Slash Slash

This afternoon I had the opportunity to attend a session presented by TechCrunch, hosted by Steve Gillmor, around cloud computing, featuring some of the Valley's thought leaders, from many of the biggest names in all of tech, ranging from Salesforce.com to Rackspace, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Sun, Ning, FriendFeed, Facebook, Amazon.com and a small handful of startups. Each of the participants discussed how their product leveraged the cloud, what it was about this new approach to harvesting data storage and computing that made their products execute the way they do, and how they approached new problems of bandwidth, capacity, licensing, security and scale.

The event, essentially a two parter, with early-stage start-ups presenting for five minutes apiece in front of an expert panel for the first half, and a roundtable of technology elite for the second half, saw a healthy dosage of skepticism mixed in with what was largely a genuine desire for these companies to try and deliver higher-quality services for their users by taking advantage of new protocols.

With everybody saying the word "cloud" to represent customer data or computing being stored independently of local physical disk or blade servers, the word itself grew to be mocked. One 'expert' said cloud was the new "dotcom". Another compared the cloud to rabbits as they kept multiplying, and a third called the cloud "Kool-Aid". With the move of terminology over the last decade from "Dotcom" to "Web 2.0" to "Cloud", you can see why people would be necessarily wary of jumping on the newest movement with two feet.

All names aside, there is as much fact as there was fad in the cloud. The cloud's benefits are clear as data can be stored independent of physical disks, and doesn't require dedicated storage and server administration. Code developers want anytime access to infinite bandwidth and storage, and consumers want instant response times. As the panel debated the genesis of enterprise apps absorbing consumer application features, it was clear that each was facing challenges impossible just a decade ago, and the cloud's availability changed everything.

Paul Buchheit of FriendFeed referred to the Internet as just one big computer, and said that instead of shipping software in a big cardboard box with floppies to introduce version 3.0, you could just ship new code three times a day. Mike Schroepfer of Facebook talked about how his team could handle 1 billion status messages of 100 characters each on a different level of storage than the 1 billion images, each a few megabytes apiece. And Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com won the prize for the best quote of the day, saying, "As an industry, we are always overestimating what we can do in a year and underestimating what we can do in a decade."

Benioff's quote is no doubt true. The next engineering team I meet that hits the initial proposed date with all the requested features is the first one I will meet. But a decade ago, we wouldn't have expected to stream full-length feature films without buffering, or do many of the things we do online, always having been limited by location, bandwidth, memory, storage, or even operating systems. Now, the operating system is even less a part of the discussion. While the panel was held at Microsoft's Silicon Valley office, practically all presentations were done on Apple Macintosh, and featured FireFox, not Internet Explorer. Now, consumers and businesspeople expect to get all their applications and data from anywhere on any device. It was enough that Benioff even left his laptop behind on a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in favor of his BlackBerry Bold.

It is happening. Not too long ago, yet another meme went around the Web on what the Internet looked like in 1996 - a blink of an eye when you think about it. In 1996, I was hosting a personal home page, using WebStar, on my Apple Macintosh Performa 631 CD, with all of 8 megabytes of RAM. Now, my blog is hosted on the cloud. The images themselves are on the cloud. My participation in social networks like Facebook and FriendFeed... is done on the cloud. And I'm taking my iPhone everywhere. I used to despise the term cloud, and used to rail against it with my colleagues at 3Cube back in 1998 to 2000, but it looks like I lost that battle. Good thing all of us as consumers are winning.

Scoble Starts His FriendFeed/Twitter Monetization Strategy

Uber-blogger Robert Scoble came under criticism in late December when TechCrunch's Michael Arrington said he had neglected his blog, in factor of spending time on FriendFeed and Twitter. Arrington said It’s Time For A Friendfeed Intervention, saying he was contributing to the popularity of those services but getting nothing for himself, adding, "How much of that value does Robert receive? Zilch." Well, thanks to a tip from one of Robert's Twitter friends, it looks like he is trying to capitalize on his popularity on these new services, through embedded Amazon affiliate links.

Whether it is a one-time experiment or a sign of things to come, tonight Robert sent a note to his now 25,000 FriendFeed followers, and nearly 50,000 followers on Twitter, saying: Want a news tip? Amazon Kindle is sold out. Hint here:, and adding on FriendFeed:

"I just bought a version 1.0 machine. It's sold out. Will they make more? I doubt it. So, why are they still accepting orders? I just bought one and will let you know what shows up. I'm hearing that new version comes in next few months."

After that introduction, he gave a personalized affiliate link, which would give him a percentage of the sales made during the session of any of his followers. (See the FriendFeed thread here)


Note the Scobleizer tag in the destination URL...
As simple as that sounds, the power of Amazon affiliate links on the Web can often be underestimated. John Gruber of Daring Fireball made nearly $6,000 in just over a week by encouraging his blog visitors to buy Mac OS X 10.5 from his affiliate link instead of directly from Apple.


Scoble is caught "red handed" without disclosure...
Robert probably won't make $6,000 from this experiment tonight. Assuming he also gets 7.5% referrals from Amazon, It would take $80,000 worth of orders to get him a similar return - meaning 223 of his more than 50,000 followers would have to buy the $359 Amazon Kindle for him to reach that mark. But if he continued to drop Amazon links into his FriendFeed and Twitter stream, it could be some good spending money over time.

Of note, when Gruber asked for users to visit his affiliate page, he was very clear about what he would get from such a purchase. Tonight, I noticed and asked Robert myself if this was his "FriendFeed revenue strategy". His answer? "You caught me red handed!" I don't mind him trying out the idea, and think it's an interesting approach, but I would have preferred disclosure.

---

Update: As anticipated, this topic is being discussed on FriendFeed on my feed as well as that of Robert, who says I missed some important points. Also see: Free Rides Can't Last Forever from Dennis McDonald and Network World's Paul McNamara: Blogger Catches Scobleizer With His Hand in Amazon's Kindle Jar.

You Can Never Have Enough Bandwidth. Ever.

On most days, I don't consider myself a real bandwidth hog. Most of my online activity consists of e-mail, Web browsing and the occasional YouTube video. I'll use FTP to upload and download files to my Web site or the server at the office, but nothing too intensive. Practically the most-intense things I'll do would be uploading videos to YouTube or sending photos to SmugMug or Flickr. I can practically guarantee that Comcast doesn't blink an eye at my activity. But on the rare occasion I hit a wall on bandwidth, and see slowdowns, it reminds me I don't have infinite throughput - just like I don't have infinite storage capacity. (See: Terabytes and Terabytes of Data At Home. Petabytes Next.)

Tonight, as we were winding down from Christmas and putting the twins to bed, my wife and I realized we finally had some time to relax. After a holiday rush and full days, we surprisingly haven't had too many hours to take in entertainment. So I checked in on the TiVo, and headed back to Amazon Unbox to give the service another chance. We found one movie and set it up for download.

Not done, I hit "Input" on the TV, and checked the Apple TV, finding two films to download. One started to download immediately, and the other was queued up.

Meanwhile, the TiVo light glowed red to record a program at 8. The blue light signalling a download from Amazon stayed lit. As no program was done, I checked and found a Law and Order episode on one TiVo which I could transfer from the bedroom unit to the living room unit. We're watching that now as the films download.

If that wasn't enough, I opened up my laptop and... shock and surprise... none of my Web sites are loading. But that won't stop Apple's Time Machine from doing its regular backup to my Time Capsule in the other room.

So, in tally, my bandwidth is being hogged by:

• 1 movie download from TiVo/Amazon
• 1 standard definition television show download via TiVo
• 1 high definition movie download on Apple TV
• 1 standard definition TV show transfer between TiVos
• Backup from my laptop to Apple's Time Capsule

Even if I have top of the line broadband access here at home, it's no surprise we saw failures on the Web and inaccessible e-mail, as I had flooded my available pipe. Even though I'm not a P2P or BitTorrent junkie, I can still find a ceiling.

So, is the fault mine for hitting the "order" button too many times on the TV? Should I buy once at a time, in order, to do a favor to the cable company, or should I push the limits and always expect more?

Amazon Wish Lists of the Geeks and Bloggers In Time for Holidays

A year ago tonight, I suggested you get in the Holiday spirit and buy your favorite bloggers a gift, by leveraging their public Amazon Wish Lists. With Amazon being available to practically anyone, and featuring just about every item imaginable, making a list for Santa is as easy as logging into your Web browser and clicking on a few items. Given this simplicity, most techies have set up Wish Lists, and if you are in a giving mood, you can make them very happy. After all, it's said the holiday season is about giving, less so than receiving, so you have plenty of opportunities, as in 2008, I've expanded the list dramatically, including not just household name bloggers, but the techies behind some of our favorite Web applications, and the other authors you've seen help expand the variety of posts on the site.

Even with the economy being the way it is, I'm sure you can surprise somebody out there with a little gift. Here are links to what some of the folks you bump into online are looking for this year... making your life even easier if they are on your Secret Santa list.

Extended LouisGray.com Team

Jesse Stay
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/WNBKSU3QBQDU

Mona Nomura
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1B8YQ6W4G49P2

Mike Fruchter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2C5ZLMRNIWN9U

Phil Glockner
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/UAGSHVNASL6A

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2AXSD66HI5B6H

Louis Gray
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/EKZRTLJHNU0J

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FriendFeeders Team

Benjamin Golub
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1M3OQP65W3ZFT

Kevin Fox
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3TW1KTDL34HF

Jim Norris
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/T06J8C6DDEGK

Bret Taylor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3KXKC92WS4YX8

---

Bloggers and Techies

Sarah Perez
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/P0KITW5NMHF5

Chris Brogan
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/6PHBWNG0I2UJ

Dave Winer
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3ON5W8HBTKUOI

Jeremy Zawodny
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1D3RJBYU20BUO

Thomas Hawk
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/10JQ2ZLBC7BKC

Tamar Weinberg
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/51G7V3OP86XX

Chris Pirillo
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/F2I2ETQ5R8D5

Richard MacManus
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3LI846YJ96U9N

Ev Williams
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/7634IJ077JFG

Jason Calacanis
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1I6E8YKYR4CL

Steven Hodson
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1ZTYU47XAU7JW

Mark Krynsky
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/33Y6I6RY7D9

Jeff Is a Geek
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/12T5PDOC7PHSR

Om Malik
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3QPR0J8LCT8V0

Kevin Rose
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2R1PCX711B152

Guy Kawasaki
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/AWQWT4EGI7UA

Mark Zuckerberg
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/30Y1B5VS1GJEC

Loic Le Meur
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/14XS0CL5ZS7M7

Maryam Scoble
(An end-run if you want to buy something for Robert. Add his to the order.)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3PIXX1OOCBZ3G

MG Siegler
https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3D2KB45B0OSF0

Jason Kaneshiro
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/112JMCWQXYA7E

Corvida Raven
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/126YCSFSMYOD4

This list is by no means fully inclusive, so have some fun with it. Find names I missed and post them in the comments or send me a request if you think you should be included! Have a great holiday and go shop!