Movie of the Day: 300

"300 is a 2007 epic film adapted from the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller about the Battle of Thermopylae. The historical fantasy is directed by Zack Snyder with Frank Miller attached as an executive producer and consultant. 300 stars Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro and David Wenham. The film is slated for a March 9, 2007 release."
Source: Wikipedia

Official site:
300themovie.warnerbros.com

Trailers:
300 - Apple

Blogs:
300 - Cinematical
300 - Advertising/Design Goodness

Books:
The Greek and Persian Wars 500–323 BC - Osprey Publishing
The Spartan Army - Osprey Publishing
The Persian Army 560–330 BC - Osprey Publishing

Company of the Week: Oracle Corporation

"Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) is one of the major companies developing database management systems (DBMS), tools for database development, middle-tier software (Fusion Middleware), enterprise resource planning software (ERP), customer relationship management software (CRM) and supply chain planning (SCM) software. Oracle was founded in 1977, and has offices in more than 145 countries around the world. As of 2005, it employs over 50,000 worldwide.

Lawrence J. Ellison (Larry Ellison) has served as Oracle's CEO for several years. Ellison served as the Chairman of the Board until his replacement by Jeffrey O. Henley in 2004. Ellison retains his role as CEO. Forbes magazine once judged Ellison the richest man in the world."
Source: Wikipedia

Corporate site:
oracle.com

News & Blogs:
Oracle - Topix.net
Oracle News Aggregator

Blogs:
OraBlogs
Oracle - CNET News
Oracle Watch - eWEEK

Finance:
ORCL - SeekingAlpha

Audio:
ORCL - EarningsCast
Oracle OpenWorld, Ellison’s distro, AMD/Dell, IBM/Amazon and more.. - Between the Lines/ZDNet.com

Photos:
Oracle - Flickr

Resource of the Day: OpenLearn - The Open University (OU)

Keywords: Open University


"Welcome to The Open University's OpenLearn website - free and open educational resources for learners and educators around the world.

You are in the LearningSpace where Open University learning materials are freely available for you to study in your own time, away from any formal teaching environment.

Visit the LabSpace to share and reuse educational resources. Download some learning materials, adapt to your needs: translate, shorten, extend, add examples... and then of course, place it back for others to benefit!"
Source: OpenLearn - The Open University (OU)
[via IT in the press]

News & Blogs:
Open University - Topix.net

See also:
Idea of the Day: Education 2.0 - The World 2 Come

Blog/Video of the Day: WallStrip

Keywords: Wall Street, pop culture

Wallstrip.com
Link

Wall Street + pop culture = WallStrip

See also:
Video of the Day - The World 2 Come

Company of the Week: Dow Jones & Company

"Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ) is an American publishing and financial information firm.

The company was founded in 1882 by three reporters: Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. Like The New York Times and the Washington Post, the company is publicly traded but privately controlled. The company is led by the Bancroft family.

Its flagship publication, The Wall Street Journal, is a daily newspaper covering U.S. and international business and financial news and issues."
Source: Wikipedia

Corporate site:
dowjones.com

Research:
Dow Jones - Ketupa
Dow Jones - Columbia Journalism Review

News & Blogs:
Dow Jones - Topix.net

Blogs:
WSJ-DJ - PaidContent.org

Finance:
DJ - SeekingAlpha

Insight:
The 50 Content Companies that Matter: Factiva - Content Matters

Audio of the Day: VV Show #39 - Guy Kawasaki

Keywords: Guy Kawasaki

"If technology entrepreneurs have a guru, it surely must be Guy Kawasaki. For about two decades, Guy’s been advising entrepreneurs in one way or another. First as an evangelist for Apple, he courted software entrepreneurs and developers to write code for the Macintosh. Guy later tried his own hand at entrepreneurship, and eventually returned to Cupertino as an Apple Fellow. In the late 90’s, Guy jumped ship from Apple again to launch Garage Technology Ventures. Garage went through several incarnations before turning into the venture capital fund that it is today. Guy spreads his vision of entrepreneurship though books including The Art of the Start, speaking engagements, investing and blogging. Now you can hear his story."
Source: Venture Voice

Blogs:
Signal Without Noise--by Guy Kawasaki

Photos:
Guy Kawasaki - Flickr

News & Blogs:
Guy Kawasaki - Topix.net

See also:
Audio of the Day - The World 2 Come

Company of the Week: Salesforce.com

"Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) is an on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution vendor.

The company was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff. In June 2004, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Salesforce.com is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with regional headquarters in Dublin (covering Europe, Middle East, and Africa), Singapore (covering Asia Pacific less Japan), and Tokyo (covering Japan). Other major offices are in Toronto, New York, London, and Sydney."
Source: Wikipedia

Corporate site:
salesforce.com

News & Blogs:
Salesforce.com - Topix.net

Blogs:
The Official Salesforce Blog
SalesForceWatch.com
CRM - SeekingAlpha
CRM - BloggingStocks

Finance:
CRM - Google Finance
CRM - Yahoo Finance

Audio:
CRM - EarningsCast

Video:
Salesforce - Google Video
Salesforce - YouTube

Photos:
Salesforce - Flickr

Book of the Week: Osprey Publishing - Military History Books

"Osprey Publishing is a British publishing company which specialises in publishing books of a military nature. They publish a line of popular series of small books illustrated with plates of uniforms, military aircrafts, tanks and so on."
Source: Wikipedia
[via amazon.com]

Official site:
ospreypublishing.com

See also:
Thracians - Wikipedia

Bookmarks:
http://del.icio.us/Monten/books
http://del.icio.us/Monten/history
http://del.icio.us/Monten/war
http://del.icio.us/Monten/military

Event of the Week: Office 2.0 Conference

Keywords: Office 2.0

What is Office 2.0?
"Imagine a computer that never crashes, or gets infected by a virus. Imagine a computer onto which you never have to install any application. Imagine a computer that follows you wherever you go, be it at school, at work, abroad, or back home. This computer does not exist today, but it will in the future, and this future might be much closer than you think."
Source: Office 2.0 2006 Conference

News & Blogs:
Office 2.0 Conference - Topix.net

Insight:
What I learned at the Office 2.0 Conference - IT|Redux
Two Views of Office 2.0 - Moonwatcher
Office 2.0 Conference report - part 2 - Business Two Zero

Audio:
Office 2.0 Podcast Jam
Between the Lines - ZDNet.com

Photos:
Office 2.0 - Flickr

Blog of the Day: Janus Friis

Keywords: Janus Friis

Janus Friis
"I blog because I can…

I have been wanting to for a long time. Meanwhile my life — like most entrepreneurs’ — has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Well, it still is, but now blogging is part of the ride.

I see blogging as a chance to speak my part directly without interpretation from anyone. But mainly I want a personal platform where I can share my experience, some views, sounds and a few visual bits."
Source: Janus Friis
[via Techcrunch]

Idea of the Day: Education 2.0

Keywords: education, learning, e-learning, eLearning 2.0

How about education on demand? Who could build the Education 2.0 platform? Google or a federation of startups? Academic education doesn't work well. It's boring, it's antiquated, it should be fixed. There is a huge market all over the world.

Wikipedia + blogs + Facebook (social networks) + podcasting + videocasting (YouTube) + Flickr + mobile (cell) phones + gaming + IM + VoIP = Education 2.0

"Rather than spending 4 years of your life taking a bunch of courses that may or may not really matter in your life once you graduate, you can choose your education on an 'as needed basis,' based on your unique interests and talents."
http://ben.casnocha.com/2006/09/college_admissi_1.html

Who is interested in this idea?

Blogs:
edublogs
Office 2.0 Conference--Education Angle? - Steve Hargadon
Education 2.0: Knowledge on demand - liz revision
"Education 2.0" - No touch pod
Education 2.0 - Transnets/Le Monde

Audio:
What Should College Teach? - Open Source

See also:
Audio of the Day: Stanford on iTunes - The World 2 Come
Resource of the Day: MIT Sloan School of Management - The World 2 Come
Video of the Day: UC Berkeley on Google Video - The World 2 Come
Video of the Day: Our Lives, Our Facebooks - The World 2 Come
Audio of the Day: The Education Podcast Network - The World 2 Come

Quote of the Day

Cameron Reilly:
"Forget about owning the next GooTube. Forget about being a millionaire for a second. Find something you love to do and you are passionate about and you believe in. Hopefully it will also be something that can impact positively on people’s lives. Then go do it."
Source: G'day World - TPN

(Disclosure: I'm a big fan of Cameron Reilly and The Podcast Network.)

Communication and Team Building Tools

Keywords: team building

There are some communication and team building possibilities every organization and corporation should think about:
- internal blogging
- internal podcasting/videocasting
- Skype/IM
- Second Life/games/simulations
- internal social networking
- social bookmarks
- photo sharing services like Flickr

Company of the Week: Sun Microsystems

"Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) is a vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded in 1982. It is headquartered in Santa Clara, California (part of Silicon Valley), on the former west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center.

Sun is known as the developer of innovative technologies such as the Java platform and NFS, and as a champion of open systems in general and UNIX in particular; it has recently emerged as one of the leading proponents of open source software. Its products include computer servers and workstations based on its own SPARC and AMD's Opteron processors, storage systems, and a suite of software products including the Solaris Operating System, developer tools, Web infrastructure software, and identity management applications. Sun's manufacturing facilities are located in Hillsboro, Oregon and Linlithgow, Scotland."
Source: Wikipedia

Corporate site:
sun.com

News:
Sun Microsystems - Topix.net

Blogs:
Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog
blogs.sun.com
Sun Microsystems - CNET News

Finance:
SUNW - SeekingAlpha

Audio:
SUNW - EarningsCast
Sun Microsystems - Podtech.net

Bookmarks:
http://del.icio.us/Monten/Sun

Blogging, B5 Media and VCs

Keywords: Jeremy Wright

b5media takes $2m in VC funding
"b5media, one of the larger blog networks, has accepted $2m or so in VC funding from Brightspark Ventures and J.L. Albright Venture Partners."
Source: The Blog Herald

My rant:
$2 million for what? Rick, what do you invest in? Technology, content, talent? What is B5 media good at? Am I the only one that doesn't get this deal? What's the USP (unique selling proposition)? Most blogging networks could be described as boring and lame... Lots of copycats... Where is the innovation? Nothing new after Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis. Anyway, Jeremy is a smart guy and I hope he could create something new.

I believe the future belongs to aggregators like Seeking Alpha.
http://seekingalpha.com/

prominent bloggers + useful features (transcripts) = good content

Something Jeremy could be interested in:
The European blogosphere
http://www.eu.socialtext.net/loicwiki/index.cgi?the_european_blogosphere


Rick Segal:
"Dimitar,

Correct. Talent, Technology, Content, Vision, and Ideas. Those are the things we invest in.

It is early days and, again, correct, we have lots of boring/lame stuff out there. Jeremy and crew are smart and creating something new is the hallmark of a great start up and (hopefully) a great start up investment."


Jeremy Wright:
"And Dimitar, thanks for the link - local content and local bloggers is something we are very, very interested in.

In terms of 'new', I'd rather let our actions do the talking. So feel free to check back in a few months, or drop me a line - I'm always interested in chatting strategy with smart people :)"
Source: The Post Money Value

Corporate site:
b5media.com

Blogs:
The b5media recap - The Blog Herald
b5media VC Roundup - Technology, Blogging and New Media
b5media: building global neighborhoods - Naked Conversations
The bubble is coming back - The Paradigm Shift

Interview:
Interview with Jeremy Wright, CEO, b5media - CenterNetworks

Audio:
The Profession of Blogging - IT Conversations
Aaron Brazell & WordCamp 2006, Part 1 - The Blog Herald
Aaron Brazell & WordCamp 2006, Part 2 - The Blog Herald
GDAY WORLD!!! #148 about Reeltime and blog architecture - TPN
Interview with Duncan Riley - The Blog Herald

Video:
Mad Mojitos at the Ritz: talking tech with CEOs from B5 Media and SmugMug - ScobleShow/Podtech.net

Images:
Jeremy Wright - Flickr

Lesson of the Day: Factors in the Roman Legion's Success

Image: locations of Roman legions - Wikipedia


* The Romans were able to copy and adapt the weapons and methods of their opponents more effectively. Examples include weapons like the gladius and warship design.

* Roman organization was more flexible than those of many opponents. Over time, the legions effectively handled challenges ranging from cavalry, to guerrillas, to siege warfare.

* Roman discipline, organization and systemization sustained combat effectiveness over a longer period. These elements appear throughout the legion in training, logistics, field fortification etc.

* The Romans were more persistent and more willing to absorb and replace losses over time than their opponents. Wars with Carthage, the Parthians and barbarian forces illustrate this.

* Roman leadership was mixed, but over time it was often effective in securing Roman military success.

* The influence of Roman military and civic culture, as embodied particularly in the heavy infantry legion, gave the Roman military consistent motivation and cohesion.
Source: Wikipedia

See also:
Book of the Week: "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon - The World 2 Come