All sorts of change afoot….

<![CDATA[A quiet couple weeks have preceded this posting as I digest and plan based on the satisfying experiences of recent days. First, after 18 months I've given up the news blogging at Red Herring, as there is simply too much to consume my mind with business-related issues to write the arbitrary three commentary pieces a week about an item of the day’s news. I may be continuing to write about the startup life over there.
Persuadio is doing quite well and we’ll have some important news soon—a lot of folks think we’re just about visualizing links, but that’s the demo we put together and it’s what we can do before you see the data in a map that is winning our first customers. The challenge of thinking through the practical application of social network analysis to media, professional services and the enterprise is some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done. There’s a great team growing around Persuadio.
My ongoing involvement with Audible, too, is tremendously interesting. We’re going to have a concerted blogging program in place soon to really talk with the market, to help developers take full advantage of the ten-year record of growth at Audible and its pioneering role in downloadable audio (sorry, Dave, you didn’t invent the category, just applied RSS to a portion of the Audible offering, which includes some really nifty subscriber services that enable every type of business, from free distribution to paid-access, which is what the media industry needs for a diverse approach to distributing audio). Audible is going to continue to do great things and it is an honor to be involved; you’ll be hearing things like my old program “Adventures in Technology” and much else.
The thing is, to get focused my business partner, Todd Parsons (who co-founded Persuadio), and I have decided to shut down InnovationWORLD, our three-year-old foreign direct investment research business; with the reduced commitment to Red Herring, I’ve actually had more time to concentrate than at any time in several years. This will let me get my head fully engaged with the strangely related problem of social networks and media development, both at Persuadio and Audible. It’s going to be a busy summer.
Look for a lot more writing here and elsewhere, not to mention a raft of business activity involving your humble correspondent.

Listening to:

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again from the album “Blonde On Blonde” by Bob Dylan]]>