Melody Akhtari

Thank you for making technology beautiful, and for inspiring so many. RIP Mr. Jobs.

Being Human is the New Black (For Brands, Anyway)

9 months ago Short URL

Redbox is the next player to increase the price of their DVD rentals. Granted, it’s only experimental and it’s only a few cents, but I still get my kicks from watching physical media become more expensive and less desirable relative to digital streaming.

First the AP, now Oxford. I’ve never been so outraged! Regardless, they’ll never take away my most coveted — albeit underused — em dash.

After spending a couple years here in Berkeley, I’ve come to realize how uniquely quirky this town really is. On any given day here, you may stumble upon a group of fasting protestors in a tree, watch a conspiracy theorist give a passionate monologue in Sproul Plaza, or unexpectedly catch a whiff of what vaguely smells like skunk, but you suspect is something else. In the same vicinity, you’ll also find former presidents scheduled to speak at Zellerbach Hall, and students creating art and starting businesses.

Berkeley’s charming personality can be summed up in one word: curious. It sits right in the middle of genius and madness. And that’s just how we like it.

With that said, my new blog Oh, Berkeley gives a quick glimpse into all the little things you see in this town that make you smile, sigh, and say “Oh, Berkeley.” Follow along, and feel free to submit an entry! There’s always something wonderful to share about our happy little town.

A lot of us can’t make it to SXSW this year (because we actually have to work… har de harr!), but we can still experience the event through the surrogates effort put forth by Austin-based ad agency, GSD&M. Sounds like a pretty cool campaign, and I’m actually quite interested to see what their presence will be like at SXSW this year.

Now, if you’re looking for the opposite experience, follow the #notatSXSW hashtag to see what lame things those of us who aren’t in Austin are doing. Take me, for instance: I’ll be studying a finance chapter entitled “Capital Markets & The Pricing of Risk,” vacuuming my apartment, and maybe getting some pho afterwards. Paaaaaaaarty!

Our brothers and sisters in Japan need us to come together during this devastating time. Please text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 for tsunami and earthquake relief, or go here to donate more.

UPDATE: Canadians can text REDCROSS to 30333 to do the same.

So incredibly proud of Kyle & crew for getting a combined 50,000+ views on YouTube and Vimeo for their beautiful documentary. The film was shot for non-profit Project Concern in Lusaka last August, nearing the end of Zambian winter. They came back with unbelievable stories and a whole new outlook on life. Watch the film above and you’ll see why.

Congrats to Kik for joining the ranks of some amazing portfolio companies at Union Square, Spark, and RRE!

I’ve noticed that in the past year I’ve drastically changed my messaging behavior; with applications like Kik and GroupMe, the mobile messaging experience is finally becoming sophisticated. Personally, I use Kik to message my brother in Toronto, who - with the time difference and both of our mad schedules - can see my messages at his leisure, and I’ll know when he’s read it. How intuitive is that? And GroupMe so elegantly solves the “are we all on the same page?” conundrum in group planning. Aside from the addition of MMS, there have been no improvements in the traditional SMS experience for years; I wouldn’t be surprised if the carriers have something to do with this lack of innovation. Leave it to the little guys to stir the pot.

Big ups to Kik for the step forward. And be sure check out the latest update for GroupMe if you haven’t already.

bijan:

I’m delighted to announce that we have just invested in Kik along with Union Square Ventures and RRE. My colleague Andrew Parker led this investment for us and wrote down some thoughts behind this investment. Fred also has a post up as well.

I wrote a few things about “SMS 2.0” and mobile messaging of late. I’ve become fascinated about what comes after SMS for private 1:1 use and for private groups as well.

I don’t think SMS is the answer. It’s not reliable and it’s missing things that I want to see like status of a message (with Kik you can easily see if when your message is sent, delivered and read. I love that).

There are apps that bring more sophisticated messaging to iPhone and Android, like Skype for example.

But Skype was created in the days of desktops and Skype was born as a P2P client. You can see desktop behavior even when you use their mobile app. Here’s a recent screen shot i took of my Skype buddy list from my iphone.

As you can see most of my Skype friends are “offline”. The most notable thing is from my friend Nabeel where he writes “out of office, send me an email” as his skype status update. Yikes.

Mobile experiences don’t resemble the desktop at all. The first day I met Kik’s founder, Ted Livingston, he emphasized how different mobile is and how there is no such thing as offline vs online. With mobile you are connected. Period.

With that instinct, Ted and his team have created a fast and beautiful messaging app. You can use Kik for private 1:1 messages. And a new version was updated today in the app store is now even faster and brings new capabilities like photo sharing and groups. All in a very simple and clean user experience.

I started out as a user and I’m now happy to also be an investor!

tisfa:

The SGNL team was at CES and Sony invited them to get an exclusive look at the latest gear announced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. In this episode, Melody got a hands-on look at the newest line up of VAIO computers including the new Sony VAIO® L Series Touch HD PC/TV featuring a 24-inch (diagonal) Full HD multi-touch screen enabling intuitive touch access to the internet, TV, Blu-ray Disc™ movies and more.

(Source: gorillaproject)

Melody Akhtari

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Being Human is the New Black (For Brands, Anyway)

Redbox Follows Netflix's Lead, Raises DVD Prices

Oxford Styleguide advocates dropping serial comma.

Introducing: Oh, Berkeley

Can't make it to SXSW? Send a surrogate!

Kik lands $8 million round, series A