Cit Media

The news so far from the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference is Bill Gate’s unintentionally hilarious comment in last night’s show-opening interview, in which he said: “Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete.”

Who knew?

Ballmer and Gates teased the next version of Windows, showing some multitouch features that have appeared on Apple’s iPhone. Interesting, but people asked, “Is that all?” Best coverage is from Wired News.

For a number of reasons I’m now using a Blackberry Curve as my main phone. But its email system is beyond dreadful for anyone who’s not locked into a Windows-Outlook-Exchange environment.

Mainly, the Blackberry IMAP connection is pathetic, a kludge that is almost worse than nothing. It doesn’t understand folders. It doesn’t reflect answered messages on the server. All this is because Blackberry pretty much makes you go through its own servers to use email, and because its maker is only seriously interested in working with Exchange.

So I’m looking for an acceptable IMAP mail client for the Blackberry OS, one that connects directly via the Internet to my personal mail server and others. I don’t need fancy, just usable — and I’ll be delighted to pay good money for it.

Send me an email if you know of anything useful.

Been socked with the flu, and only now starting to feel human again. Postings will resume but not right away.

So the boxes are mostly unpacked, I have a new driver’s license and keys to the new office. About time to get back in the blogging saddle.

A new disclosure: I’ve invested in Seesmic, a Web video company that in my view has the potential to take conversational online video to a new level. The company’s founder, Loic LeMeur, is a friend and a top European Internet entrepreneur.

He has 10 rules for startup success, which I’m reprinting below:

1. Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
2. Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
4. Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
5. Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
6. Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
7. Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
9. Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
10. Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

Great stuff, and I hope my new students will take it to heart.

The email problems during the past few days have been resolved, with no loss of messages.

I’m in Arizona, unpacking boxes. Postings will remain light for the next few days as I get settled.

As an old friend once said of humanity on this best of all American holidays:

We need more pilgrims and fewer turkeys.

Was a bit under the weather this week, but back to normal… Thanks to folks who inquired about the absence of blog posts.

I’ve had a great time in Santiago, Chile, where I’ve visited with journalists and students for the past three days. El Mercurio did an interview, and a talk this morning at TVN, the major public TV network, will run tonight — but I’ll be on a plane home.

I was honored to appear at the TVN gathering with Jorge Domínguez Larraín, founder and CEO Diarios Ciudadanos Chile, publisher of El Morrocotudo, one of the country’s pathbreaking citizen journalism outlets, and several other related online news sites. “Our network has 43,000 unique visitors per day, nearly 3,500 people writing every month and over 50 employees in 7 different regions of the country,” he says.

Here’s a report on the site about today’s event.

Other than all the great folks, and visits to some of the city’s major attractions, a highlight was the amazing Chilean food (and the nation’s wines, which the rest of the world is only just discovering). Fish, naturally, is a big deal in the menu. Then again, given the proximity to Argentina, so is beef.

I ate reineta, a local fish, at one of the city’s excellent restaurants. Another fine memory, and another reason I expect to be back here someday.

I’ve arrived in Santiago, Chile, for several days of talks and workshops at Universidad Mayor, a local university, and TVN, a television network. It’s a busy schedule but should be fascinating.

In a brief walk around the center of the city with some local residents, we stopped at the presidential palace. It is a site that resonates history, including what Americans probably know best about Chile’s recent political happenings: the 1973 military coup that brought down an elected (though deeply troubled) government and put into power a brutal regime.

The president of Chile, Salvador Allende, died in this palace, probably by his own hand. For 17 long years thereafter, Chile was ruled by Augusto Pinochet, the army chief who led the coup.

Chile is South America’s most developed nation, in part because Pinochet liberalized trade in the 1980s, forcing companies to learn to compete in world markets. But it’s at least arguable that the dictator’s harsh rule slowed this vibrant people’s economic rise more than he helped it — and nothing justifies the horrors he and his regime forced on their people.

The press was a state lackey during the Pinochet years. It is free today. And a new generation of Internet journalists is rising to enhance and challenge the traditional media. I hope some of them will be among the students I meet here; they, as everywhere else, are the hope for our future, in whatever land we call home.

We’re still not clear what happened, but the site may have been under some kind of attack. Happily, we’re back up, at least for now.