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You should know by now that I’m a huge nerd. One of my prouder nerdy accomplishments was developing the MLS Elo ratings. Since posting those ratings and the pdf file that explains how I formulated everything I’ve received a couple e-mails a month from people asking for advice on how to do something similar or just thanking me for the work I’ve done.

There’s nothing cooler than getting emails like this from people. So if you’re building something, put it out there for people to see. The response you get may surprise you.

The Portland Timbers just put out a 3D design of what PGE Park will look like after the renovations to make it soccer-specific. It’s pretty awesome as you can see below.

That’s not the only awesome part though. They’ve also partnered with io-media to create a really cool application where you can see the view of the field from every seat. And here’s the best part, they put a little easter egg on the scoreboard for Timbers fans at the expense of their biggest rivals, the Seattle Sounders.

It’s little things like this that make me smile when I’m busting away at code all day.

In the past few days I’ve come across two good blog posts about the makeup of a team in a startup company.

The first is Hackers and Hustlers from the Learn to Duck blog by Micah Baldwin. This advice is for the earliest of early stage companies and lays out the two people you need; a Hacker and a Hustler, obviously. I had heard people talk about this same idea before as “you need someone to make the product and someone to sell the product” but I really like Hacker and Hustler a lot more.

A Hacker is more than a code monkey, who can quickly build software and find interesting ways to hack together code. That’s a developer. That’s someone who is definitely an important part of a startup, but not critical to its success. A Hacker is someone who looks the problem, and solves it in a unique and special way.

A Hustler on the other hand is a relationship builder. Someone who can build direct relationships with their customers. They aren’t really promoters, although they do a lot of promotion. They aren’t salespeople, although they do a lot of selling. They are passion people. They have the ability to articulate their passion clearly and in a way that gets other people equally passionate.

There’s a lot more good stuff in that post, so check it out.

The second is The Power of “In Person” – Why Distributed Teams are Less Effective by Mark Suster at Both Sides of the Table. He lists 7 traits he looks for in a startup team that make him believe they have a strong chance of success. The overarching theme being that, despite all of the great conferencing tools out there today, working together in the same space leads to “a certain magic” that helps companies succeed.

1. CEO, VP Products and CTO must all be in the physical location.  If they’re not I won’t fund.  Because the formation of a business is so dependent on “product / market fit” these are the critical roles for me.  Also, founders who pitch me when they themselves live in separate locations don’t get very far with me.  I’ve heard the line a million times, “one of us will move after we’re funded.”  I know, I know.  But if your business is super important to you then have the hard discussion up front and one of you should consider moving.

Bonus third post! Lance tackles this first trait a little further with Three Peas In A Pod over at Force of Good.

I like talking about Hulu for some reason. Maybe it’s because I use the service so much, maybe it’s because I feel like I understand the mind of the average tv watcher, I don’t know.

There was a pretty interesting article on TechDirt last week about why Hulu may be too nice for their own good. The basic gist of the article is that because they are owned by the content creators they are not able to innovate in a way that makes them a viable alternative.

If Hulu were a truly independent business, the main focus of that business would be to flat-out disrupt the monopoly cable TV business. That’s a huge opportunity. But, of course, Hulu’s owners don’t want that, because they’re in this neat symbiotic relationship with the cable companies

It’s a very interesting problem and one I certainly agree isn’t solved yet. Unfortunately I’m starting to realize that we’re further away from it than I originally thought.

Start with an amazing Tim Howard outlet throw, add in a great Landon Donovan run, a layoff to a streaking Jozy Altidore, low driven cross to Clint Dempsey, a stellar save by the Algerian keeper (who was their best player all day), and then top it all off with Landon crashing in for the rebound and slotting away the goal to move the US on to the next round of the World Cup.

This was incredible, one of the top sports moments of my life. The US outplaying Algeria for 90 minutes, coming so close so many times, then having that dread set in that we wouldn’t be able to make it out of the group stages. All of it washed away in a brilliant counterattack marked by outstanding efforts from everyone involved.

I don’t think that this will propel the US to a World Cup in any way, but I have to believe that the tension of the match, the fight in the players, the passion of the crowds, and the euphoria of the win will help show a few borderline fans why the rest of the world loves this sport so much.

As for the $140k part, here’s the explanation from the MLS Insider blog.

If Donovan didn’t score the goal, the players would each walk away with $101,925.65. But because of the goal by Donovan, and if the players do not advance further, they each get $241,490.86….A DIFFERENCE OF $139,565.21!!! Somebody better buy the man a steak!!!

For comparison’s sake, here are the yearly salaries of the four MLS players on the US roster (full list available here)
Jonathan Bornstein – $100,000
Edson Buddle – $178,448
Landon Donovan – $2,050,000
Robbie Findley – $73,566

Outside of Landon (who has officially banished the Landycakes nickname with his performance this World Cup) that’s a pretty stellar raise for everyone, especially Robbie Findley who just quadrupled his yearly earn. Good for all of you guys, you deserved it.

As for the reaction around the country, here are some videos that I will never get tired of watching:

Portland, OR

Seattle, WA

Baton Rouge, LA

Lincoln, NE

Kansas City, MO

New York, NY

Las Vegas, NV

San Diego, CA

Anyone else from other cities who has some, let me know in the comments and I’ll put ‘em up! I can’t get enough of this.

There was an eye-opening post on the arstechnica forum yesterday (greatest first post ever?) that compares the internal power of a 2000 iMac computer with the new iPhone 4 set to be released this Thursday. I’m no regular over there, but this comparison has been spreading across this nerd-o-sphere pretty quickly since then.

2000
iMac
Operating System – Mac OS 9.0.4
Processor – 500 MHz PowerPC G3 CPU, 128MB Memory
Graphics – ATI Rage 128 Pro, 8MB of memory (8 million triangles)
Screen – 786K pixels
Data Transfer Speeds – 1.3-12.5 MB/s (DVD-ROM-1/100 Ethernet)
Storage – 30GB Hard Drive
Dimensions – 15.0 x 15.0 x 17.1 inches
Weight – 34.7 pounds

2010
iPhone 4
Operating System – iOS 4.0
Processor – 1 Ghz ARM A4 CPU, 512MB Memory
Graphics – PowerVR SGX 535, uses system memory (28 million triangles)
Screen – 614K pixels
Data Transfer Speeds – .04-20MB/s (3G-WiFi)
Storage – 32GB Flash Drive
Dimensions – 4.5 x 2.31 x .31 inches
Weight – 4.8 ounces

A great 20 minute talk from Fred Wilson about 10 ways to be your own boss.

I would also recommend checking out the comments of when he posted this on his blog. Fred’s comments section is one of the best places to see smart people gather and share their opinions.

Two books, short reviews this time.

First, ESPN The Company. This book was written by Dr. Anthony Smith who worked for a number of years as a consultant for ESPN. He lays out the fascinating history of how the company was started in rural Connecticut and how the network was able to develop and sustain the competitive advantages that make it the most profitable cable channel. It was exactly the type of thing I was hoping for when I said I wanted to read more non-fiction that was about creators rather than just business strategy. Only this time, instead of a profile on a person it was a profile on the whole company.

My favorite story about the company involves how it got started broadcasting NASCAR. At the time producers were calling around to every team they could find a number for and trying to get highlight packages or game tapes from them to show. Unlike the ESPN we’re used to, back in those days they would fill up 24 hours of programming with things like tractor pulls or regional bowling tournaments. They got the idea to do flag-to-flag broadcasts of auto races because, according to Steve Bornstein, ESPN’s President at the time, three and half hours of coverage for a 500 mile race was “a hell of a lot easier than coming up with three different one-hour programs.”

That was the kind of risk-taking and forward-thinking that helped grow ESPN into a force so powerful it rebrands the ABC network for sports broadcasts. The number of people who saw the benefits of satellite broadcasting was very small, but those pioneers, people like Ted Turner at TBS, Charles Dolan at HBO, and Bill Rasmussen of HBO, were able to have a huge impact on how we watch TV today. I wondered while reading it who the pioneers are going to be that finally get over-the-internet broadcasting right. Those people will be the next batch of media moguls.

The second book got me was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and just about back on track with my 20% fiction requirement. I know this seems ridiculous, but I had never actually read Huck Finn. I’d read portions of it, was familiar with the idea, but had never read the entire story.

There is, of course, the famous quote from Ernest Hemingway on Huck Finn:

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It’s the best book we’ve had … There was nothing before …

But the version I read also has a great introduction by George Saunders. He spends about 25 pages lauding Twain and his book and there was one passage comparing Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer that I thought was incredible for its simplicity and accuracy. For your benefit, and because I couldn’t find that exact version of the book to link to so you could buy it, I’ve copied it out below.

Tom and Huck, of course, correspond to different parts of their creator. Tom, perhaps, to that part of Twain that longed for acceptance from the Snooty East, and Superior Europe, and distrusted the Huck part – so crude, wild, backwoodsy, and unschooled. Literary characters can come only from their creator’s psyche, but in this case – maybe because Twain’s psyche was such a specimen psyche, and because he had such unfettered access to it – his personal binary was also a critical national one: Huck and Tom represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn’t do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don’t come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.

I hope he doesn’t mine me copying this, but in reading passages like this I know that I’ll never be able to put words together like that.

StarStreet Sports is the latest company to throw their hat into the “stock market for sports” ring. Brad Feld has a post up with a little information on this TechStars company and a piece they did for CNN recently. Between my love of sports and background of gambling to pay my way through undergrad there is obviously some interest here. In fact, I’ve written about the idea of finding new ways to monetize sports fans a couple times.

My favorite part of the Feld post isn’t really the content, it’s the comments. The StarStreet founder shows up to answer some of the standard concerns that I think anyone who follows this niche would have after watching ProTrade and OneSeason fail.

First concern: How do you convince people to invest when there is no hard asset behind it?
This is a huge issue and one that none of the earlier companies solved. You can’t have tangible value behind the “stock” because the team isn’t actually selling shares of itself. You can’t have contracts that pay out after certain events, a la Intrade, because that falls in to the dreaded gambling category (Intrade is based in Ireland, which is how they do it).

Now, I assume that StarStreet would argue that there is tangible value through the payout they give at retirement. When a player retires, their current sell price would be paid out to all shareholders, and that would act as the main point of value creation. That’s a very interesting wrinkle and something that is a HUGE improvement over OneSeason’s continued trading on retired players.

There is apparently more about their pricing strategy, which goes beyond the simple supply-and-demand strategy, explained on their website. Unfortunately that page seems to be down at the moment so I can’t see exactly what the difference is outside of the fact that it’s a zero-sum pricing mechanism.

Second concern: What do you do when the leagues team up against you?
The professional sports leagues in America hate being associated with gambling, or at least have to pretend like do. The NFL and NCAA came out strongly against Deleware’s new law last year where they used an old loophole to legalize “sports lotteries” on these two sports. Other leagues didn’t say anything, but they also were not affected by the legislation. Because Deleware did not have basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, etc gambling before the 1992 gambling bill those sports were not eligible for the grandfather clause.

If the leagues see a service like this as gambling they are likely to force the removal of any and all use of team and athlete names, which makes the site seem much less professional and obviously unsanctioned. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this is one reason why they started their beta with the World Cup. People can’t really regulate the use of country names.

Still, while these are just two of the many issues that will make a venture like this difficult, the StarStreet founder seems pretty convinced that what he’s doing can work, and that’s one of the big first steps. There’s no doubt that we have a lot of rabid sports fans in this country, but the question still remains: are they willing to put their money where their mouth is?

It took 9 books, but I finally got back around to reading a second fiction book. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien (a pen name for Brian O’Nolan) came to me on two fronts: first was the fact that it was featured on Lost, and second was a recommendation by Keith McGreggor during the weekly Atlanta startup breakfast when everyone was talking about the Lost finale.

I haven’t read a lot of Irish literature. No James Joyce, no Oscar Wilde, very little Samuel Beckett, etc. Mostly because, let’s be honest, that stuff is VERY hard to read. It’s weird to describe the difficulty because the words all makes sense, it’s just that they treat the novel like a test you have to pass. You can mostly blame Joyce, he took it to another level of confusing and O’Nolan builds on that foundation.

The story centers on an unnamed protagonist who is searching for a black box. He and his partner killed a rich old man many years ago and he is looking for the money so they can split their spoils. During his journey he comes across the ghost of the old man, the leader of the one-legged men, a pair of policemen obsessed with bicycles, and an underground lair where time stands still. All of this is surrounded by the constant talk of a fictional philosopher De Selby, who the narrator is obsessed with and who basically rejects all physical laws of nature.

It’s a very satirical novel. I’m probably not a good enough reader to get the most out of the jokes since I had to spend so much time going back over passages, but it’s got some good chuckles. It also has some great plot points that very clearly made an impact on the writers of Lost. Lostpedia does a tremendous job summarizing all of the similarities, but there are a few that I picked up on, such as the similarities with Jacob’s cabin, the truth of the box, and the interchange between the narrator and the third policeman near the end that is very similar to Jack and his dad’s talk during the Lost series finale.

If you are well versed in tough literature or willing to put up the fight to get through this book (it’s not a quick easy read) and you like Lost it’s probably for you. I won’t say that it’ll solve Lost for anyone, but it may help give you an extra little idea where the creators were coming from.

Buy The Third Policeman