Tim Bray has published a piece AdSense For Feeds, Say What? that summarizes my own experience.

Upon learning about the availability of AdSense for Feeds ("AFF"), I was keen to try it out. So I went to the registration page, and started reading the Terms and Conditions (yes, I try and read these things).

Whilst I was happy to give a shot to estimate the number of subscribers of my RSS feeds, the "T&C" language related to  "Responsibility for Feed Users" felt downright creepy:

[...] You agree you will be responsible and liable for any and all use of the AFF Ads by any feed user and will indemnify Google for any lawsuit or proceeding (a) relating to or arising from any feed user’s use of AFF; (b) relating to or arising from Your failure to ensure any feed user’s compliance with the terms of the amended Agreement; and/or (c) brought by a … Read more »

Jeff "BuzzMachine" Jarvis has just announced in his post "Onward" that he had left his job at Advance.net to do *a lot* of new things, "all related to changing news and to citizens’ media".

So what will Jeff (who I know from his board involvement at Moreover Technologies) do in his new incarnation, as Buzzmachine LLC ? Check this out:

Work on content development About.com, working with Martin Nisenholtz at The New York Times Company Act as editor in chief of a new (stealth) news start-up Work with the new City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism as the school launches Hanging out my consulting shingle to take on a few good projects Write a book And of course, blog, blog, blog, and blog.

Most of these tasks would be close to full time for most of us, but the man is not like… most of us. So best of luck Jeff, and see you around.

… Read more »

The law firm Fenwick & West compiles every quarter the financing terms received by Bay Area technology companies. I just found out that this report I used to receive by email from Bill Schreiber (a corporate partner I have been working with for a few years) was available on the web.This is a very useful indicator as to the evolution of typical terms recently offered by VCs. Key terms of a venture financing are: average round size, pre-money, type of liquidation preference (seniority, multiple, participating,…), dividends, provisions, etc. For a clear definition of all these terms, I recommend checking Brad Feld’s excellent series on financing terms, or the short version from Fenwick. Whilst the report does not give absolute terms (what is the typical pre-money for a Series A), it tells you about price evolutions over the past few quarters.

What were the key trends in Q1’05 ?

The quarter showed an increase in the number … Read more »

Mary Hodder has a go at the panel format when attending Les Blogs last week: Panels are Dead.

For me that is. 

I’m sitting here at a conference that I flew all the way to Paris for.. for two days, and damned if it isn’t full of panels, broadcast mode all the way, telling the audience how it is. And well.. it’s so freaking undynamic. Because it’s not a discussion. These are bloggers. They know a lot. They know what it is. These 300 people make media every day on their blogs and yet, panels are here giving us time to email the office, our cats or the mailman about a critical lost postcard.

This audience is creative, bright, thoughtful and our brains are being numbed to death by one-way talk about how blogs are about losing legacy control and we’re all taking it back. Somewhere there is a tragi-comedy in here. It’s time for a … Read more »