Stuart Gannes's blog

Interesting discussion taking place at the site WorldChanging.com over the pros and cons of the global distribution of artesan products. Check out http://www.worldchanging.com/ and be sure to read the comments.

This from today's technology section of the NY Times

In Hollywood, young screenwriters have "elevator pitches" always at the ready - pithy descriptions of their screenplays, intended to capture the imagination of passing movie executives. You know: "It's 'Titanic' on a spaceship." "It's a female 'Harry Potter.' " "It's 'Raising Arizona' meets 'Leaving Las Vegas.' "

Here's a nice letter from Josh Reeves, who visited us from Zazzle.

I want to apologize for my tardy note but I want to thank you for inviting me to speak to the fellows a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed the chance to share my thoughts about Zazzle with the class and also have a great conversation about user-generated content, empowering users and building community online. It is a very exciting company to be working at and I feel that there is a ton of potential in messaging artists all over the world that they can now be compensated for their creation and also control the presentation and use of their art. This is one part of Zazzle’s ultimate vision but it is the part that gets me most excited because it is really all about removing the barriers to entry (no cost to design or publish products) and creating new avenues of using the web that leverages it’s foundation as a fundamentally social ecosystem.  

Here's a fascinating story about a user-generated on-line Swahilii dictionary developed at Yale University. What a great idea.

 http://www.courant.com/hc-swahili.artnov20,0,3635313.story?track=mostemailedlink

Free lunches do exist. It's just that they're pretty rare. So when you are offered one, you take it.

Here's a terrific blog entry by Ethan Zuckerman of the Harvard Berkman Center on the MIT $100 laptop project. Zuckerman reviews the hardware specs and the distribution and support elements of MIT's plan. Includes interesting comments from Harvard's Colin MaClay, whom came to our barbeque at the start of the year.