One of my favorite sporting events each year is the ATP Tennis Masters in Mason, Ohio.  The vast majority of the world’s best players are there because, while it’s in some unknown city in Ohio, it is one of the “majors”  and is one of each year’s required events.  The rankings are always a who’s who of the top 50 or so tennis players in the world.  But that’s not why it is a great event.

It is such a special event because it is so relaxed and because it is so different than any of the other professional sporting events that I have been to (professional football, baseball, etc.).  It is rather hard to explain, so I will provide an example instead:  The first year I went to the tournament, I bought tickets for my consulting firm to entertain our clients.  During one of the first daytime matches, I was walking around the center court stadium (no doubt, on my way to get another gin and lemonade — a great summer drink); when a guy with two big bags of tennis racquets bumped into me.  I was a little aggravated; but he said “excuse me” and then walked down a ramp into the stadium.  I was going the same way, walked along beside him, commented on his racquets or something, and found my way to my seat.  The people around me were astounded that I had been talking to the gentleman.  I, being way too cool to admit that I didn’t know who he was; smiled, nodded, and promptly changed the subject.

It turns out that I had walked in with Pete Sampras, perhaps the greatest tennis player who has ever picked up a racquet.  But unlike other professional athletes, he wasn’t accompanied by 17 State Troopers, 11 personal assistants, 7 Caddies, etc.  He even carried his own equipment.  And, most unusual of all, he was polite — kind even — to some guy from up in the stands.

So now you are thinking why the trip, fascinating though it may be, down memory lane?  Because I was thinking about Twitter this morning.  Twitter reminds me a great deal of the ATP Tennis Masters.  Where else can some guy from up in the stands out in Cincinnati (i.e. me) carry on conversations with people like Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Stowe Boyd, Christine Lu, Tara Hunt, Erin Kotecki, and a host of other ‘top 50′ people?

A couple of the folks that Twitter allows me to chat with were already known to me and were, in a business sense, heroes of mine — Kawasaki and Scoble for example.  But I’ve also ‘met’, learned to respect, and quite frankly learned a great deal from people like Christine, Tara, and Erin.  It seems to me that the power of social networks — the part that is rarely spoken about but is the most important and and powerful — is the ease with with you can connect and converse with anyone.  Sure, you can do business deals — Stowe Boyd only accepts consulting gigs through Twitter — or advertise your new website — alltop.com by Guy Kawasaki was built by ideas and help from the Twitterverse according to Guy.  But, much more importantly, you can actually connect with real people, discuss real issues or ideas, and become much better for having done so.

So to all those who have conversed with me via Twitter, a heart-felt thank you.  I look forward to learning even more from each of you.  And for those of you who are not using Twitter, FriendFeed, Brightkite, or one of the other social media sites, you are truly missing out.  Not just on deals or information, but on connections you would have never, ever been able to form.

So, what are you waiting for?  Why are you still up in the stands in some place like Cincinnati?  Visit one of the sites and start connecting right now!

Holy shit, for once, even I am at a loss for words:

I wanted to use a “Plan 9 From Outer Space” reference in the title but thought I was the only one who is a big enough SciFi geek to get the joke, so I didn’t.  Anyway, Kevin Maney, from Portfolio.com, has put together a great post that captures the essence of the ‘Microsoft way’ (in my opinion) - i.e. steal a technology and try to drive the inventor out of business.  But since I seem to have be perceived as somewhat less than positive about Redmond’s version of The Hole in the Wall Gang, I’ll let Mr. Maney speak for me:

“From way over in Indonesia, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates let it be known that Microsoft never needed to buy Yahoo to make headway in search and advertising. It just kind of wanted to.

“We have always felt we could do very well on our own and now that’s the path we are focused on,” Gates told AP in Jakarta on Friday. “The standard strategy for us is to just hire great engineers and surprise people at how well we can compete, even with a company that’s got a strong lead.”

Actually, that may be the first bit of sense out of Microsoft since the Yahoo thing first emerged. That is exactly what Microsoft is good at: identifying market leaders in interesting new tech markets, then systematically destroying them. In fact, Microsoft is probably better at it than maybe any company in history. Netscape, Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, Real Networks … there’s a long list of companies that invented something that Microsoft then copied and took down. And Windows, of course, was a copy of what Apple and Xerox were doing. Now Microsoft’s Zune is taking aim at the iPod.

Microsoft is at its best when it does this. It spends billions of dollars a year on Microsoft Research, but has yet to invent an entirely new business. (Microsoft did once get out in front of a tech development, creating travel site Expedia early on. So surprised was Microsoft that it did this, the company soon thereafter spun out Expedia — perhaps so Expedia would not contaminate the Microsoft culture with actual market innovation.)

The thing is, though — search so far is looking like Microsoft’s Waterloo. Yeah, it’s won every big battle so far, but Microsoft has spent vast amounts of time and money trying to crack search — and so far has failed. Can it beat Google at Google’s own game? That seems unlikely. Can it outwit Google and create an innovative new version of search that Google never thought of? That would be very un-Microsoftian.”

So…now what?  Let us not forget the software version of a black hole that is sucking the souls out of its users that is Vista nor the after thought, me-too cloud computing architecture of Mesh.  Things aren’t looking good for Microsoft in the long term.  Sure, they’re still going to be around but they become less and less relevent on an almost daily basis.  I would say that it makes you feel all warm inside, but that would be less than positive, wouldn’t it?

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.  Really brilliant stuff from MadAtoms: Despite all the math counting her out, Hillary Clinton fervently remains in the race to become the Democratic nominee for president in 2008. She has become the Democratic Party’s psycho ex-girlfriend, and she’s not going away without a restraining order.

Click here for the rest of the story.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) is reporting an interesting rumor.  Apparently, a little birdy told them that the .Mac service is going to undergo a complete revamp that will coincide with the iPhone 2.0 launch - which should happen on or about 15 June at WWDC 08.

According to TUAW, .Mac could provide the following upgrades as soon as next month:

•    Full over-the-air syncing including calendars, contacts and email
•    .Mac syncing on Windows

I agree that Apple has to do something - it can’t allow the user experience of iPhone 2.0 with Exchange to be better than the iPhone 2.0 with .Mac experience, right?

Seems spending $99 per year for my .Mac email address just got a whole lot easier to do.

This is for all my fellow Marketing folks.  Sound like anything your employer or clients have said recently?

Dilbert rocks!

Google invested $500 million in Clearwire today.  They obviously want access to the Clearwire-Sprint WiMax network.  Clearwire is to be merged with Xohm. Sprint will own 51% of the firm, with ex-Clearwire shareholders owning 27%, and a consortium of Comcast, Time Warner, Intel, Google, and Bright House owning the balance. The new firm will be retain the “Clearwire” brand.

Google is very clear about why it invested in Clearwire—to ensure that the resulting broadband network is as open as possible and accepts Android handsets and devices.Google may also be the default search engine on devices connected to the network.

What’s up at LinkedIn, the business social networking web site?  It seems their recent Board of Directors meeting went way over the scheduled time and various valuations have been floated in the $1 billion dollar range.

So, is LinkedIn for sale?

Microsoft has withdrawn its offer for Yahoo.  Click here to read the email sent to all Microsoft employees from Steve Ballmer today.  I don’t know if the offer or the withdrawal of the offer is the best thing for Yahoo.  But I am confused about one part of Ballmer’s email.  He references ‘changing the game’ and ‘innovation’ - not two things that Microsoft has been known for.  But the piece that I am confused about is his comment about leading in the online services and advertising business.  Is this further evidence that Microsoft is moving from the server-based software model and trying to be a player in the SaaS/Cloud Computing model and compete with Google Adwords?

Microsoft’s deadline for Yahoo to enter takeover talks has come and gone.  While Microsoft’s board has authorized an increased offer of as much as $32 to $33 per share - well over the current $29.12 offer.  I’m confused about how this deal is supposed to come together.

The acquisition of a company with such a different culture than your own begs an interesting question.  How many of the Yahoo employees will actually stay and become Microsoft folks?  Microsoft recognizes this as a problem and has, according to a shareholder lawsuit, set aside approximately $1.5 billion for employee retention.  Given that Yahoo’s workforce stands at approximately 13,200, that comes out to an average of more than $113,000 per employee just to get them to stay for a predetermined period of time.  If you have to spend that amount of money to make people stay and work for you, doesn’t that speak volumes about the reasons that Microsoft needs to acquire an innovative company with a lively and interesting culture in the first place?

I just don’t see this ending well for Microsoft.  As some of the CNET News readers have posted in the News.com TalkBack forums, Microsoft is going to “spend tons of money for an empty ship that no longer works”.  I understand the need for Microsoft to begin to morph into an ad seller - much like Google.  But I doubt that Microsoft can actually pull it off with the Yahoo team - Yahoo is having trouble by itself.  Couple that with the overwhelming attitude of mediocrity that permeates all things Microsoft, and this deals seems dead from the start.

Perhaps they should focus on an Operating System that people would actually buy or enhancements to Windows XP - which several recently polled companies expect to be using through 2012.  I realize Ballmer and company are smarter than I am but it seems like this is a good opportunity to refocus the firm on its core business, rejuvenate a flagging brand, and leave Yahoo alone.