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I've been thinking about charitable donations and the recession. As difficult though it may be to raise money for a good investment opportunity like Asyncast -- but to be told that because of harsh external financial realities affecting the whole world right now we should tread water until early- or mid-2009 -- what must it be like for entities asking for help in feeding the poor and helping the homeless?

Back in the '50s, Stanislaw Lem wrote a science fiction classic novel, Eden, in which a whole society conformed to arbitrary State-imposed rules via a methodology he named Procrustics, in a nod to Procrustes and his famous bed. I read that novel's precepts as complementary to George Orwell's ideas from his novel, 1984. 

 We are getting great feedback on our 7-second ad format. Unlike longer ads that consumers diligently skip, the 7-second ad focuses attention and allows a branding impression to stick.

Typically the venture community look for startups where their investment can be multiplied 10x or more in an IPO. Recession fears aside, the big problem for startups right now is that investors do not see any reasonable prospects for any IPO events until 2010. That leaves their money stranded in play at startups longer than originally planned. The consequences have been playing out across Silicon Valley this past month:

The folks over at the RAC Foundation in the UK found that texting while driving slowed reaction times in 17 to 24 year olds by a mind boggling 35%. As a point of comparison, the coverage over at the BBC added that previous studies found that reaction times for people who had taken cannabis slowed down by 21%. To add insult to injury, 48% of drivers between 18 and 24 do use SMS.

We launched at DEMOfall08 in San Diego, and we were well-received! Hard not to feel good about all the media attention and having VCs approach us -- instead of the other way around, for a change. But there was one glitch, and it was a Big One.

The main event at DEMO is a presentation that is fixed at six minutes in length. It cannot be longer. They turn off the lights and the microphone goes dead at 6:01. All of us who present have to make optimal use of every moment.