Mark Pincus Blog

Jewish Memorial Chain Mail

This story was aired on Sunday, Dec. 17 (7PM ET/PT on CBS) on "60 MINUTES" about a long-secret German archive that houses a treasure trove of information on 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust. The archive, located in the German town of Bad Arolsen, is massive (there are 16 miles of shelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and until recently, was off-limits to the public. But after the German government agreed earlier this year to open the archives, CBS News' Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewish survivors who were able to see their own Holocaust records. It's an incredibly moving piece, all the more poignant in the wake of this week's meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran. We're trying to get word out about the story to people who have a special interest in this subject.

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It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russia peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be "a myth," it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!

Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.

Please send this e-mail to 10 people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.

Please don't just delete it. It will only take you a minute to pass this along - Thanks!

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support.com is back!

my old company supportsoft is launching a new consumer service under the name support.com. in a bit of sweet irony, the company is considering changing its name back to support.com. this would be great as i still wear the t-shirts and carry the coffee mugs.

it appears they are already intelligently marketing other comanies' services while developing their own at support.com.

i have a lot of thoughts and reactions to this move.

first, i think the name support.com was awesome when i paid a watermellon farmer in iowa $1 million back in 1999. it's been a wasting asset so i'm happy to see it actually used.

second, i think that supportsoft today represents one of the biggest, best funded startups in the world. the company has $120 million in cash and was orphaned by the vc's (accel and mobius) years ago when they distributed their stock and jumped off the board. unfortunately, there isnt a board member left with any real stake in the company. (btw, i'm impressed with the new ceo, josh pickus, whom i met with one time.)

so third, i *love* the idea that josh is going for it. the company has amazing technology but tech support software is a mature segment that cannot support big companies. going for the branded consumer relationship is smart and represents a viable way to grow big.

and finally, i people will again know what i'm talking about when i say i founded support.com! 

Jupiter Media is a Buy (JUPM)

i started buying jupm a month ago around $6.22 per share. it quickly went to $8 and now back down to $6.67 (up .23 today). if you dont own it and want exposure to the net advertising oppty at a low ebitda multiple this is a good buy.

i like jupm because it is one of the few public net companies that is small enough to get acquired by an IAC or other large player looking for growth.  and at less than 6x this year's projected $40m in ebitda, it's cheap enough that i dont mind holding it either. one caveat is that a large part of its current cashflow comes from a digital stock photo business. alan meckler owns roughly 30% of the company which is good in that a proven entrepreneur is driving this (with recently announced acquisitions), but a potential negative that he may not be interested in selling either.

democrats were actually lamer than republicans tonight!

after listening to bush and the democratic rebut, i'm amazed that the democrats are so stupid. they lead off saying how they dont want to be partisan and then of course do just that. they launch into a ridiculous talk about how the real problem is the disparity between rich and poor and how american jobs are going offshore. it seems that every time the dems get a majority they assume its a mandate from the working class people to go after the rich and protect jobs. the dems appropriately refer back to teddy roosevelt and andrew jackson which seems to be the era these guys still live in too. they bluster about how similar today is to the time of robber barons.

why cant the democrats get a clue. rahm emanuel is no genius. the only reason they're in office is because people hate the republicans so much. hate does not a mandate make.

they're a bunch of silly panzies. they whine about how mismanaged the war has been and then mutter some vagueness about how we should be moving to end the war; but of course fail to offer one concrete idea or take any firm stand.

this country needs leadership desperately. i'm confident that if one ever showed up and somehow survived our totally corrupt electoral system, the real people would welcome him or her. 

Nintendo WII is expanding video game mkt

I've noticed in the pasdt month that nintendo has created some new addicts in my sister and a good friend's wife and all of their kids. This is clearly a case of the UI catching up with the humans. They like that they can break a sweat and its easy so they're not intimidated. Interesting.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Web2.0 is alive at sundance

Both the web 2.0 and community/social networking panels are sold out. Seems that hollywood has a general perception that the real money is made on the net and now every propoerty wants to figure how to get thqt myspace facebook juice into their stuff.

The films themselves still seem pretty devoid of net culture other than occasional onscreen mentions of blogs. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Sundance notes: chicago 10 great!

Chicago 10 is an innovative new doc covering the 68 dem convention and trials of the chicagod 8 (abby hoffman, tom hayden, ...)

Its amazingly topical today as was clooney's film 'thank you and goodnight'. The only difference from today's war is the lack of protest.

Coolest is hearing hoffman's many seriously funny outburts and on stage speaches. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Wired on 'How Yahoo Blew it'

wired has posted a terrific story on why yahoo failed over the last three years. their conclusion, terry semel was too much deal guy and too little visionary. yahoo passed on opportunities to buy google early (they estimate $5 billion was the take out price) and then later youtube and facebook. semel himself is even quoted as saying nobody knows what these companies are really worth. seems to me the company would have fared better with a tim koogle, making bold bets, than an media manager and deal maker. 

as a shareholder, i dont count yahoo out. i think they can still go buy the biggest traffic net properties and leverage their ad sales channel to drive high rpm's across multiple properties. i do believe yahoo needs to give up on search (some estimate a $5b accretion in their market cap if they move to google) and be the best at creating and selling net display media.

can anyone track all these startups?

reading venturebeat any given day i am struck by how many new startups are getting funded and big. it is very reminiscent of 1999 in that i remember tuning out then too as it was too overwhelming to track them all.

we have reached the point that it would be useful for someone to create a site that tracks all these companies in a more visual mapping way. i'd like to see 'music' or 'web 2.0' tools and be able to zoom in on activity.

Wondering who held onto YHOO?

with yahoo hitting $29.30 today i'm curious who held on and who jumped ship. i know that fred wilson and howard lindzon got out at $23 or $24 with howard predicting it would continue to $20 where he'd get back in. i doubled up based on the premise that i love the macro story of internet advertising and dont care whether the company is being managed well. i'm a macro investor and invest based on tectonic shifts. i've never understood momentum investing and dont have the kind of information flow or research capability to be ahead of the market on fundamentals and catalysts.