Terry Jones

I don’t mean to appear cold-hearted. I have a heart. Really. But news of a shakeup at Powerset given release delays doesn’t come as a surprise at all.

What is surprising is to read that Powerset has “been hampered by limited resources.” Oh puhleease. Since when has $12.5M (minimum) in funding qualified as having limited resources?

Delays in getting hold of the Xerox NLP API caused fundamental problems? I used that API (ten years ago, admittedly) and, sorry to say, it’s not the key to unlocking the natural language understanding puzzle. But it was widely trumpeted as the key to Powerset knocking off Google. The mysterious all-powerful NLP API from the mysterious all-fumbling Xerox PARC finally lands in the hands of a commercial company poised to Make Good! Powerset had snatched the NLP crown jewels out from under Google’s nose!

It wouldn’t surprise me if PARC were glad to get rid of the rusty old thing. “Psssst, buddy. You over there… wanna buy an antique NLP API owned by former royalty? S’good fer what ails ya.”

OK, I’m being a bit sarcastic and silly. I guess I just have limited patience for these projects and especially for the breathless hype that surrounds them.

I’ve often wondered about Powerset (and Metaweb) hitting the wall. Lots of hype, pressure, and funding. Lots of people. High burn rate. And revenue coming from…… where exactly? And that’s not to mention the blow to our confidence that Powerset were really onto something deep when they let a genius programmer drink and get away from his handlers at a dotcom-style bash.

I’d say the real reason Powerset are “hampered” is the fact that they’re trying to solve something that’s practically impossible.

If you look at it that way, then I suppose having only $12.5M to achieve the impossible really is a case of having limited resources.

Stay tuned. There’s a long, nasty and heartless blog posting locked up inside me about people and companies that chase words like “understanding”, “meaning” and “intelligence”.

First of all, let me just say that Jason Calacanis is a genius.

Having said that, I most humbly submit that his posting today on Facebook’s WORST two features is a little off in one regard.

I also hate the way Facebook tries to pull me into its world when they could so easily just deliver my message in email. But I don’t think they’re doing it for the page views.

I think they’re doing it because they want to take over the world.

Once there were PCs. Then came the mass migration towards online apps that run in one’s browser. Microsoft got that one right, though they were a little early in calling it (culling it?), and then ironically were present at the conception and birth of what really kicked it into high gear, XMLHttpRequest. But that’s another story.

So what’s next? Or, what would Facebook like to be next? Well, the obvious next step in the progression: mass migration to a particular platform running inside your browser. It just makes sense.

Except it doesn’t.

But that’s what I think Facebook will be going after. They want us all in there. That’s where we should be sending and receiving messages, IMs, poking each other, and, of course, throwing expensive virtual food. Why not twitter in Facebook? Why not Tabblo in Facebook? Why not watch videos inside of Facebook? Why not everything in Facebook?

There’s no way it can work, but I bet that’s what they’re going after – to as great an extent as possible. A bundle of cash will make for some nice acquisitions, as would an IPO. And everything they buy is going to wind up inside Facebook.

I’ll save my reasons for why it can’t work for another posting.

I love Barcelona. I love living in Barcelona. There are many reasons. One of them is that stuff like the following happens on a regular basis.

At 8pm tonight I could hear music outside that was louder than the music on my stereo. So I turned off my music and went out on my balcony (did I mention the wonderful Barcelona climate yet?). Down in the street an impromptu concert had struck up. I’ve seen many of them, and I love them. They’re loud and raw and energetic, and the sound and feeling in the narrow streets is just fantastic.

I went back to work, leaving the balcony door open. Neighbors were out listening and looking. After ten minutes I decided to go down and film a little for you, gentle reader (etc). So here you go, Bésame mucho, as played by a French 20-piece brass band in the street about 50 meters from my front door. I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to live here, why you would want to live in a place where this sort of thing doesn’t happen. I’ve been here nearly 12 years, and I don’t think I take this stuff for granted at all. I love it.

Apologies for the shaking video, there were probably a couple of hundred people there and I had one arm up in the air to do the filming.