When You Want to Kill Your VC

Claude Ruibal, CEO of my portfolio company World Champtionship Sports Network has a good tip for all you entrepreneurs out there who want to kill your VC: request a private meeting at your house, insist your VC go on a “fun little mountain bike ride” and then take him (or her) on a death defying 18 mile ride from sea level to the top of the Santa Monica Mountains. Cardiac arrest certain to be accomplished along the way.

Yes, Claude did try this out on me, under the false pretense of “helping me train” for the triathlon he is forcing me to race in. He nearly succeeded, but, miraculously, I survived his murderous plot.

Picture, with very forced smile, below…

At Forbes MEET Conference

Arrived in LA yesterday and will be spending today at the Forbes MEET Conference in Beverly Hills.

As I expect to be spending much more time in the hallways than in the actual sessions don’t look here for a summary of the event. Staci over at paidContent is doing a nice job of that.

But if you are here come find me!

Chris Pirillo Interviews Greg Spiridellis

Here is a really fun Chris Pirillo podcast with Greg Spiridellis on the history of JibJab, Goog-Tube, turning down a Hollywood movie deal and the promise of digital media.

Behind the Scenes with JibJab’s Great Sketch Experiment

So how is it that JibJab ended up snagging legendary director John Landis?

Since he won’t admit it himself, I will: as it turns out my partner Jon Flint had a budding career before venture capital (sometime back in the paleozoic era…) in the entertainment business, and actually worked with Landis on two of Landis’s very earliest works. And, one of the things that excited Jon about JibJab was the opportunity to bring professional and semi-professional content into their programming.

So Jon connected Landis with Greg and Evan, one thing led to another and next thing you know, Landis ended up partnering with JibJab on the Great Sketch Experiment.

It’s fun stuff, go check it out!

JibJab’s Great Sketch Experiment

Polaris portfolio company JibJab today launched The Great Sketch Experiment. Greg and Evan teamed with John Landis, director of the legendary hits Blues Brothers, Animal House and Trading Places, who directed sketches with six leading comedy troupes. Go to www.jibjab.com to view the sketches and vote for your favoriet. And, tune into the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight to see Landis and the JibJab guys.

Media 2.Uh-Oh!

I can’t tell you that I have a clue who this guy Andy Kessler is, but he has written a really good piece called “Media 2.Uh-oh.” I definitely recommend it.

Once again, hat-tip to my fellow Heavy board member Avram Miller, who on a near-daily basis is a veritable treasure trove of interesting tidbits.

The Web Traffic Measurement Mess

BusinessWeek has a good piece on the Web Traffic Measurement quagmire.  Meebo certainly isn’t the first company to face this.

If any of you out there has figured all this out, please let me know.

My personal take is that the measurement services deliberately obfuscate things in order to shake web companies down for business. Without naming names, I’ve recently seen some emails from one such provider making this disturbingly evident.

Who’s Next in Web M&A?

Among other things, the Goo-Tube deal has generated lots of speculation over what other web giga-deals are looming out there.

Yesterday, GigaOm noted that his pal Mark Evans was prognosticating on this very question.

And, lo and behold, Mark has 3 Polaris companies on his list (Weatherbug, Heavy and Automattic).

Not sure what to make of this (nothing, probably), but it at least got my attention…

YouTube sees “Heavy” Competition in October

So, yesterday I posted about the YouTube-MySpace competition heating up. Which it is.
But, apparently, I missed another YouTube rivalry from within my own portfolio!

According to the multinational media publisher VNU :

… YouTube had to fend off strong competition in the video traffic space from Heavy.com during the week ending 8 October.

Website traffic analysis firm Hitwise reported that Heavy.com, the largest independent broadband network in the US, is the second largest entertainment video site on the web with a 17 per cent market share

This compares with YouTube’s 35 per cent market share for the same week in October.

Heavy.com outranked MySpace, Google Video and Metacafe for video traffic based on visits.

I’ll try not to sandbag my own portfolio companies in the future! I’ve actually gotten ahold of the Hitwise data, and will post once I figure out how to…

At the W on Lex

Am in NYC today, camping out at the W Hotel on Lexington Ave.

If you happen to be in the area stop on by! (I’m the bald guy in the corner of the restaurant with the laptop opened up…)