blog.ulfw.com

After the big bomb has been dropped, here is part 2 of the story. Where am I heading?
I have always been interested in social networks, having signed up for a Facebook account right when they came out (and when they were restricted to just Harvard, Stanford and a few other universities) and used MySpace and LinkedIn for years. So I concentrated my search on social networking and video companies (a second big area of future growth in my opinion). Having gotten multiple offers, I finally decided to go with… MySpace.

For me, it basically were three reasons that drew me to them:
- I genuinely liked all the MySpace folks I met throughout my interviews, from the SVP of Engineering to Products and many in between. Thanks for inviting me to your pizza Friday, guys!
- MySpace is a massively used product, in scale with Google, Yahoo or Facebook.
- The opportunity is just awesome. I am fortunate enough to be on the intersection of Social Networking and Mobile, THE future area of growth for social platforms.

So I am happy to announce that starting August 4th, I’ll be joining MySpace as their new Product Management Director for Mobile!

MySpace is coming up with a lot of new products and features, for example last week a new homepage design launched:

Here is a look at the current MySpace mobile website (m.myspace.com):

This is MySpace’s current building with Fox Interactive Media in Beverly Hills 90210:

Apparently a parking nightmare is awaiting me there.

Starting in June 2009, we’ll be moving to a new campus in Playa Del Rey though, as Techcrunch already reported recently:

All FIM companies in Southern California will move to the new facility starting from June to December 2009. The site will house over 300,000 square feet of commercial space and is part of a development called Horizon at Playa Vista (a rendering of the development is above). The area is quickly becoming LA’s media hub, with EA, Rubin Postaer and others now with offices in the area.

Today Effie and Lawrence organized a little going-away meeting/party in our Building’s microkitchen. Effie baked an awesome chocolate cake that looked like an iPhone with the sneezing Panda video on it while Lawrence set the whole thing up and took a video or two as well.
Creative as Googlers are, we organized a little round of Four Square to keep us occupied:

Effie’s super awesome cake:

A funny Saturday Night Live skit I found on hulu:

Setup your MySpace page at the Learning Annex

I’m liking the recent speed upgrades from Comcast in my apartment. I hope I’ll find something similar at my new place. They only started this after AT&T started running out their Fibre-to-the-curb U-Verse service in my area. Best example on how competition can be a good thing.

Yes, I did it. I gave notice yesterday. 07/07/08 will be my last day at Google. While I know, 08/08/08 would have a nice ring to it too, I figured it’s as good a time as any.
Now - I won’t use this space to rant or praise Google. There were good times and bad times. I made lots of friends. I met some amazing people. I met some pretty unimpressive people. I guess - after all - Google is just like life everywhere.

It was time for me to move on though and I am excited about the changes ahead in my life. More updates on that to come later, but for now let me just say - a move not only to a new company, a new role, a new job level - but also - to a new location is coming up next month. I’ll be moving down to LA!

Watch out for more info coming in future blog posts.

Without comments…

Yay! My new car finally made it to me, after a long 10 week wait and eager anticipation while it crossed the Atlantic and the Panama Canal.
Of course I had to snap a few early pics yesterday in a gorgeous location - the Stanford Oval.

So it was colored balloons day at Google and I couldn’t resist having my iPhone-picture taken.
Et voila - here it goes:

I wish everyone a great long weekend!

Okay okay - so first I loved the Air when it came out at Macworld this January.
Then, rationality kicked in and I cancelled my order - realizing that it’s just not enough ‘machine’ for what I do.
So what happened now?
Well, the biggest drawback I saw with the Air was it’s disk space. 80GBs just can’t fit all the data I have. No way. Hm - well, at least that used to be the case.
When a recent backup-attempt-gone-horribly-wrong actually deleted most of my data (instead of appending updates I made), I was left with just my pictures and text documents. Videos, 30GB of music, lots of other files - all gone.

So - horray. No 80GB is suddenly enough again!

Truthfully though, I am happy I got the machine. I was seriously considering getting a black Macbook instead as it is 50% faster, can have 6x the storage capacity and twice the RAM. But at the end of the day the GORGEOUS LED display and the way the Air is constructed won me over. It truly is an outstanding machine that can only be enjoyed when seen and used in person.

Anyways, here are the must-have unpacking pics. This is the smallest box I ever had the privilege of unwrapping a computer from.

Now if THAT doesn’t make you want to use public transportation, then I don’t know.
Something to look forward to, in times of rising fuel prices. Here is a small collection of train riding experiences from around the globe:

Trains in China

Trains in Tokyo

Trains in India

Trains in Bangladesh

Trains in Melbourne

Trains in London

Trains in New York City

and of course, let’s not forget the awesomeness of Thai transportation reported earlier.