Cool new forum hosting/service: Lefora

I just visited the offices of Lefora, free forum hosting, who is making cool new forum software that goes in interesting new directions that I haven’t seen forum software or services do yet. Stuff like embeddable YouTube videos with just copying the URL. And I +love+ the color theme selector they have.
You’ll see that in the video demo I just filmed with Vinnie Lauria, VP of product.

Will the Scobles wait in line for 3G iPhone?

New 3G iPhone is coming this summer, it seems. Will Patrick and I wait in line overnight again like we did last year?
No.

Commenting on the news

OK, over the past few hours I’ve gone crazy with Google Reader’s shared note feature. You can see how I’m using it on my shared items feed, which has a cool new ninja design (another new feature shipped yesterday).
It’s interesting, but leaves me wanting a LOT more.
For instance, if you share an item, add a note, I can’t pass those notes along to my readers. I can on FriendFeed, though.

Google Reader’s new “share note” feature: the video review

I love the idea of Google Reader’s new “share note” feature, but find it lacking in implementation — watch along in this video review.
What’s really wrong with it?
1. It’s breaking on my machines. No way to cancel note that I can see, and UI is not coming up. I’m sure that’s a temporary problem, so let’s discount that.

YHOO/MSFT/GOOG: the market speaks

Ballmer and Microsoft are the losers. Yahoo and Google win. See the chart from the day when Microsoft announced it was trying to buy Yahoo.
Now do you understand why Bloomberg says that there’s new pressure on Ballmer?

Hanging out in Ansel Adams’ tub

Now you’ve seen everything.
Today we were at Ansel Adams’ house and this is me getting a seat in the sink where he made so many of the world’s most favorite images.
I did some videos over on Qik, too, with our “professional” videos of Ansel Adams’ son and home and business coming soon to FastCompany.tv.

The First FriendFeed Event: MSFT and YHOO

Did Microsoft MVPs influence Ballmer against Yahoo?

Remember the recent MVP Summit? Where Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, asked them questions about Yahoo and seemed surprised by the answers? Reddit had a lot of reaction about that. Reddit is where many early adopters hang out. It sure seemed like Ballmer was surprised by the feedback he got.
Did that start the process that led to Ballmer pulling out his offer to purchase Yahoo?

FriendFeed follows Microsoft pullout of Yahoo deal

Over on FriendFeed I’m following some of the better discussions of the Microsoft pullout of the Yahoo deal. Far different than what you’ll read about on TechMeme.

How will Yahoo heal after Microsoft walked away?

Yahoo is a bleeding animal. Left lying, gasping for its breath, after a larger animal (Microsoft) struck and then walked away after it proved too difficult to eat. (That was just announced a few minutes ago).
How will Yahoo heal?
Some daunting challenges: