I've recently heard that FON, the wifi community, after losing more key staff has retrenched and is hunkering down for a "nuclear winter". The slimmed down FON, has cut it's burn down from $1m/month to closer to $200k/month and will focus on key markets including Japan, France and the UK. Despite the gloom it's heartening to see the deal I did with Stephen Stokols who was at the time VP Business Development and has since gone on to online dating greatness with WooMe continue to succeed - and now includes over 150,000 hotspots which makes it by far the largest wifi network in the UK.

Skype 4.0 rocks! It feels like it's been a long time in coming and seems to want to take over the whole screen but the new functionality and particularly bringing video to the fore is great. Skype missed out on the social networking opportunity during the go-go times - leveraging the buddy list and building a more comprehensive profile might have created Facebook before anyone knew what social networking was. And whilst networking has now been done the opportunity to create great experiences and conversations around entertainment be that music, video, photos or other media and sharing that with your friends still is a prize worth striving for. I really was hoping that it would be an integral part of this release making Skype an entertainment destination rather than handy communications tool and as history shows if Skype doesn't do it somebody else will. Even so you can't argue with a company that has over 300 million registered users and $400 million in revenues that was launched less than 5 years ago...

Looking at what is happening at Yahoo reminds me a lot of what happened to Arthur Andersen post Enron. Even though I had left AA by then I had a lot of friends caught up in the ensuing confusion. Similarly over the years I've gotten to know a lot of really strong Yahoos and its sad to witness the meltdown of thsi internet pioneer but I think Henry Blodget has it down: it's time for Yang to give his troops the Robert De Niro are you with me speech (click here)and gather a tight commando unit around him and cut loose the maybes before he completely loses control of the company he helped to create.

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday or the US Presential pimary elections in a number of states in the US. It's an exciting time to be in the US - after so many years of bungling and imperialistic foreign policy there is a palpable sense of change in the air especially here in California.

This video by willi.i.am, who I've enjoyed seeing play live a few times, says it all: www.dipdive.com

I hope this gets seen both domestically in the US and internationally and helps demonstrate that change is coming and that new media is integral to it.

Whilst everyone seems to be losing their heads over Microsoft's "unfriendly" offer for Yahoo! it makes we wonder what this holds for the entrepreneurs and start ups in Silicon Valley and I'm torn:

(1)on the one hand Yahoo! has been a profilic acquirer of great start ups like flickr and dialpad and a microsoft-google hegemony means one less buyer, less M&A activity and lower valuations

(2)whilst Microsoft and Yahoo spend months if not years navel gazing and trying to work out how to co-exist (witness the turmoil at Skype and eBay) it gives focussed and passionate start ups the head space to create valuable businesses

Overall I'm inclined to think that overall this is a good thing for experienced and focussed entrepreneurs and start ups who have the resiliance and vision to build strong stand alone businesses as opposed to "pump and dump" artistes who were hoping to flip their companies quickly.

One of the the reasons I joined Jaman was the idea that films are essentially a way for people to share their story. This has happened in families, tribes and groups since forever but the convergence of inexpensive video and the internet means this story telling can now reach and impact people on a much larger scale.

That's why I'm proud that Jaman is supporting the Arab film maker Jehane Noujaim's vision about Pangea Day. Sharing these stories I think can make a difference - and if we share our stories perhaps we'll be able to appreciate the diversity and all understand each other a little better.

Enjoy the amazing trailer here on Jaman: www.jaman.com/a/video/0pVPIRmhMJTM

So one of my New Years resolutions will be to blog more often to share what's going on here in San Francisco with friends and family back home in Europe...and having made the resolution I thought there's no time like the present!

Yesterday we had our Xmas holiday reception at Jaman. I was interviewed by Wendy Tenaka of Forbes about holiday parties and it struck me how different parties are here in the Bay area from back home. Here parties tend to be "nice" and low key and our party was no different. The music was barely audible and people ate great seafood and drank fine wines. Nobody was got drunk (good thing since you can only really drive to get here), no embarrasing stories and it was all over by 9pm. Compared to a European party where people revel the whole night long, dance, get drunk, hook up with someone completely inappropriate or jump into a jacuzzi parties here tend to be more buttoned up and civilised.

Do Americans lose the ability to be outrageous, really have a good time and party after they graduate and leave their dorm rooms? My conclusion was that we do it better in Europe - much better. Parties, especially well earned company parties should be about letting your hair down, laughing till your sides hurt, sharing gossip and creating those shared moments in history that create those enduring team bonds...and if you can't walk never mind drive home afterwards that's a bonus!

Hey!
You´ve probably arrived at this page because we have a meeting scheduled or we met recently and you decided to do a search to get a bit more information about me :)

So in the interest of full disclosure and to make it a bit easier for you I decided to put together some background, thoughts and fast facts here.

Should you have any questions - drop by and say hi, call or send me an email. Jaman is keeping me busy right now - so please bear with me if I don´t get back to you right away.

Cheers,
Faisal