Having returned to his own company, Michael Dell has seen his namesake PC maker fall behind Hewlett-Packard and stagnate on Wall Street. So far, he hasn’t done much to duplicate fellow company-founder Steve Jobs’s stunning second act with Apple. Forbes, in its profile, seems to be hoping he will, but Dell’s own words show why it’s unlikely:

Let’s suppose you had a business you could grow from $30 billion to $60 billion by focusing only on one thing. Then you do that, until you can’t do it anymore.

Dell is speaking of the company’s direct-sales model, which bypasses retail stores — a model Dell built but is now tearing apart. Instead, Dell is now chasing strategies he formerly derided or already failed at: retail sales, cool marketing, high-end hardware, and consumer electronics. Not only do these strategies not match Dell’s strengths, but they just highlight how he doesn’t measure up to Jobs.

Source:Valleywag

Founder Ben Lerer tells us Thrillist will announce a Las Vegas version of its email guide to restaurants, bars and culture tomorrow. ‘Cause you were so worried you’d find nothing to do on your next Sin City business trip, right? Mock the idea if you like (and we do), but you’ve got to admire former AOL Time Warner COO Bob Pittman’s choice in Web investments. Thrillist does nothing but grow. Subscribers are up 500 percent to nearly 300,000 so far this year.

An email list might seem too 1999 for geeks more apt to find a new nightspot via Yelp or Twitter. But even though most of Silicon Valley has written off email for good, delivering its content over the ubiquitous technology seems to work for Thrillist. As Lerer notes, because readers have to sign up for Thrillist, “advertisers value impressions we deliver much differently.” By differently, he means more.

We like Lerer — so much so that we’re going to help him move into the 21st century. Any number of services allow you to convert email subscriptions into RSS feeds. Valleywag has signed up for Thrillist SF at one such website, Mail2RSS.org. The feed is here.

(Photo by kyle simourd)

Source:Valleywag

Walt Disney’s monument to international culture and technology, Epcot, was stunningly advanced when it opened in 1982, but many of its original attractions became horribly dated over the last quarter-century. Particularly its centerpiece, Spaceship Earth. The ride within the iconic, giant silver golf ball documents the advances of human communications and technology. Recent renovations have brought Spaceship Earth into the Internet age, but when it emerged that the ride would include only one Steve toiling away in a garage to create the historic first Apple computer, controversy ensued. Which Steve?

Many jumped to the conclusion Steve Jobs was using his position as the largest individual shareholder in Disney to rewrite history on his own behalf. Was Jobs attempting to erase Steve Wozniak from the origins of Apple? In fact, Disney has achieved a frugal balance through imagineering.

The ride reveals the iconic scene of Valley folklore by positioning a solo “Steve” with his back to the audience. The life-sized diorama allows each viewer to imagine his or her own founder’s myth. The Steve Jobs idolators (and tourists who have no idea who Woz is) can believe the marketing genius is soldering transistors. (Sure, and elephants can fly!) Woznatics can console themselves that they know better. (The dummy’s dress, posture, and heavier growth of facial hair aren’t the giveaway — it’s the pizza boxes.)

It also means Disney was able to renovate on the cheap — “Steve” doesn’t have to look like any real person. For all we know, he’s a recycled Pirate of the Caribbean. (Photo by lifthill)

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has more details on the upcoming wedding of Google founder Larry Page and his girlfriend Lucy Southworth. The Chronicle confirms that it will be happening the weekend of December 8, but they can’t seem to find the location. As we told you earlier this month, it’s taking place on Necker Island, the Caribbean hideaway owned by Virgin billionaire Richard Branson. Branson, naturally, is expected to attend the event, along with San Francisco god-mayor Gavin Newsom and “many current and former Google employees” (Perhaps ex-girlfriend Marissa Mayer?). One person, though, is skipping the bash.

That’s former U.S. Vice President and current Google “senior advisor” Al Gore, who has a previous engagement in Oslo, Norway that weekend — he’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. (”Larry Page allowed that, on the list of excuses, that was acceptable,” Gore told the Chronicle.) Gore is hoping to attend via videoconferencing, destroying any pretense of this being a high-society soirée –Necker’s going to be Nerd Island for the weekend.

Source:Valleywag

The slight case of sniffles and coughs making the rounds in SF has been dubbed the Woz Cold. Urban legend has it that Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak appeared to introduce Fake Steve blogger Dan Lyons on the Peninsula a week ago despite a nagging head and/or chest cold, depending on who you ask. Woz shook hands and buddied up for photos at the event. Now we’re all snuffling and Apple’s stock is … oh wait, it’s back near 170. Never mind.

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Dan Lyons, the faux Apple CEO blogger, is introduced by the real Steve Wozniak. Check Woz’s manic but funny patter about Kathy Griffin, Fake Steve, and Apple.

Paul Boutin, Valleywag’s very special correspondent, may act all tough in his fancy sunglasses and his Beemer. But let me tell you some things you don’t know about Boutin: Those are girl sunglasses. And he rents that Beemer by the hour from Zipcar. Yeah, real fancy, Boutin. Worst of all, get this guy next to His Steveness, and he starts giggling like a schoolgirl. And we’re not talking real Steve Jobs. We’re not talking Fake Steve Jobs. We’re talking Steve friggin’ Wozniak. Bokay? I asked Boutin to explain this disgraceful display, captured last night at a book-tour appearance where Woz introduced Fake Stevester Dan Lyons, but Boutin just messaged back “woz pic grt on bbry tlk l8r!” (Photo by Brendan McKenna)

So I’m here at Keplers, the bookstore in Menlo Park, with a bunch of Stevetards waiting for Dan Lyons, the faux Apple CEO who pens The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs and the new book Options, a parody memoir of Steve Jobs. Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has taken the podium, and is speaking a mile a minute, referencing his on-again, off-again romance with comedienne Kathy Griffin. And then he spins into a weird numerological digression. I’m starting to think this guy is actually kind of nuts. And then Wozniak presents him with a genuine Apple turtleneck. It’s only getting weirder from here, I fear.

“This is the highlight of my life — the birth of my children, and meeting Woz,” says Lyons, like some pathetic starstruck fanboy. This is the man who called me “Bigglesworth“? I’m wondering who the real pussycat is.

Lyons starts by explaining how he got the “Secret Diary” moniker from the British magazine Private Eye. The whole idea, he explains, was just to learn more about blogging and figure out how tools like Blogger works. The blog spiraled from there.

“I don’t know anything about Steve Jobs,” Lyons says. “This is as close as I’ve ever gotten,” he adds, pointing to Wozniak. He recounts how he closed down the blog, and a reader actually reposted his archive, which prompted Lyons to continue.

Lyons then makes a gaffe: “I’ve written a lot of books, which are still available on Amazon.com.” The owner of Keplers coughs and glares at him. “Sorry. In a brick-and-mortar store, you never say the ‘A’ word.”

Options, the parody Steve Jobs novel, has totally surprised those of us who expected a throwaway. It’s 248 mostly hilarious pages, with a tight story line and a protagonist who evolves credibly. You can read my enthusiastic review in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, where it’s the business book of the week. But more important is this teaser email from Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, where author Dan Lyons will appear Thursday evening.

Date: Oct 30, 2007 5:06 PM
Subject: Kepler’s
To: fakestevejobs
I will be hosting you at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park CA. this
Thursday. I just wanted you to know I have someone special from Apple
Computer coming to introduce you, and his name is Steve as well.

Omigosh! Oh wait. This is going to be Steve Wozniak, right? Still. We’ll be there.

Yahoo is distributing its Nissan Live Sets, a Web hi-def Web show that mimics a live concert viewing experience, on MTV’s high definition channel. Despite the popularity of Web shows like Prom Queen and LonelyGirl15, studios are so busy trying to get onto the Internet that they don’t pull content from it. As the Motley Fool points out, this is good news for Yahoo Music. Recent reports of Yahoo’s financial doom put its music service on the guillotine. Perhaps some MTV eyeballs will spare it from the block.

Source:Valleywag
Even with the controversial price cut and an impending European launch, the Apple’s iPhone is so passé. Why? The entire Valley (or almost everyone) is convinced search giant Google is about to enter the telecom business in a big way. They just have no idea what way: A software platform? Their own handsets? A significant wireless services revolution using the wireless spectrum soon to be auctioned? No one seems to be sure, but — just as everyone was confident Apple could deliver a better, consumer-focused handset — they’re also sure that Google will do something that will overturn the existing mobile apple cart. And do so in a way that others can capitalize for themselves unlike Apple who prefers to keep profits to themselves. And while some hope to see an unlikely battle between partners Apple and Google, what they really hope to see is one of these giants break down the walled gardens controlled by the telecom carriers.

Source:Valleywag

To the tune of Weird Al Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy,” Steve Wozniak is pimping his 2005 Nissan 350Z Anniversary Edition at Hotswap.com. The Apple co-founder thinks America is losing its engineering and technological competitiveness, so he wants to donate the proceeds to UC Berkeley’s Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The lucky buyer gets the pick up the car at Woz’s pad and join him for lunch (and hopefully a Segway ride). He’ll even provide his autograph (hopefully on the car, not lunch) and talk to you. But his generosity doesn’t stop there — he’s created a parody of a Datsun 280Z commercial he starred in back when his hair was a healthy brown and he was half as wide. Unfortunately, Hotswap is rather protective of their embed code, so you’ll have to jump over there to see Woz in his Segway riding glory. For comparisons sake, take a gander at the 280Z commercial.

They see me roll on my Segway. I know in my heart they think I’m white and nerdy.

Ladies and gentlemen, rev up your RVs, pack your SUVs full, gas up your private jets, and start making your way to Black Rock City, the site in Nevada for Burning Man, the annual art festival and orgy of self-indulgence. The most hardcore of “burners,” as attendees call themselves, will start making their way there this weekend. And while you’re on the road, guzzling gasoline, make sure to feel really, really guilty about all the carbon you’re spewing into the atmosphere. By organizers’ own estimates, Burning Man puts 27,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. This year, of course, they hope to minimize the impact with a “Green Man.” Nonsense.

This chart from CoolingMan, a project to reduce emissions at the festival, tells the story. You’d think that Burning Man’s multiple fire-themed art projects, including the climactic burning of the eponymous Man, a giant wooden statue, would be major contributors. But you’d be wrong.

To be sure, the generators used to power huge sound systems and other electricity-using projects and the burning of wooden structures on the site generate other pollutants besides carbon dioxide, and ought to be questioned. But the main impact of Burning Man is how people get there.

More than 90 percent of Burning Man’s CO2 comes from travel to and from the hard-to-reach site. So the obvious thing to do to reduce Burning Man’s impact is to cancel the festival altogether. Stay home, burn your art sculptures on a local beach, and play your music on stereos plugged into the more efficient local grid. Burning Man creator Larry Harvey constantly talks about how he’d like to see regional “burns” develop, and true greens would take him at his word and abandon the big burn in the desert.

Oh, but what about the “carbon offsets” participants and organizers plan to buy? Offsets — supposedly exchangeable certificates giving the buyer credit for a reduction, undertaken elsewhere, in carbon emissions — are the perfect vehicle for allaying liberal guilt about climate change, but they’re of questionable value in actually reducing CO2 output. And offsetting, even if it works, is a stand-still strategy; reducing carbon emissions, not offsetting them, should be the goal. (Full disclosure: Valleywag is contributing to global warming by sending a reporter and a photographer to Burning Man.)

The only truly green Burning Man is a Burning Man that doesn’t take place. Which, of course, will never happen; Silicon Valley’s cubicle army desperately needs its week of release in the desert. They just shouldn’t pretend that their party is good for the planet.

Source:Valleywag

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Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s “Countdown,” looks at the Wikipedia Scanner episode, in which a website made it vastly easier to trace edits made to the online encyclopedia back to the organizations that made them. He notes that two News Corp.-owned media properties — the Times of London and Fox News — reported on the scandal without noting their own, er, contributions to Wikipedia. Fair enough. But, then again, did Olbermann note any edits made by his colleagues at NBC?

Source:Valleywag
Apple co-founder and three-time divorcee Steve “The Woz” Wozniak is reportedly dating Hollywood D-lister and comedienne Kathy Griffin. [Contactmusic.com]