Movie Recommendations, Vol. 5

Here are some films and PBS programs, we have enjoyed over the last six months:

• Forty Shades of Blue
• Thank You For Smoking (Brilliant Comedy!)
• Solo Con Tu Pareja (a classic from the makers of Y Tu Mama Tambien)
• Michael Palin: Sahara (what a great travel documentary)
  
• Status Anxiety
  
• Death in Gaza
  
• Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 5
  
• The Talent Given Us
  
• Legacy
  
• Waging A Living
  
• Don't Move (I love Sergio Castellitto!)
• The Last Kiss (Italian gem)
  
• Lonesome Jim
  
• Sexo Com Amor (awesome comedy from Chile)
  
• Russian Dolls (the much awaited sequel to L'Auberge Espagnole)
  
• Paper Dolls (Filipino drag queens in Israel, some with day jobs caring for elderly Orthodox Jews, in a conservative suburb of Tel Aviv!)
• Omar and Pete
  
• American Gun
  
• Capitol Crimes (Bill Moyers' documentary on the Abramoff affair)
  
• Film Geek
  
• Iraq for Sale
  
• The King (starring Gael Garcia Bernal and William Hurt)
  
• The Fire Next Time
  
• Changing Times (starring Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve)
  
• Take My Eyes (A beautiful Spanish drama)
  
• Con Man
  
• Blue Vinyl (a cult hit in the Green Building industry)
  
• A Tout De Suite
  

Previous Movie Recommendations can be found here:

• Vol. 4
  
• Vol. 3
  
• Vol. 2
• Vol. 1

Craigslist and The Street

Great post from the NY Times. I guess The Street is not familiar with the Triple Bottom Line:

Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, caused lots of head-scratching Thursday as he tried to explain to a bunch of Wall Street types why his company is not interested in “monetizing” his ridiculously popular Web operation. Appearing at the UBS global media conference in New York, Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates — and not so much to make money.

Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a “a culture clash of near-epic proportions.” She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn’t, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). “That definitely is not part of the equation,” he said, according to MediaPost. “It’s not part of the goal.”

“I think a lot of people are catching their breath right now,” Mr. Schachter said in response.

The Tech Trader Daily blog ponders this question: “If YouTube was worth $1.65 billion, who knows what Craigslist would be worth if Jim and [site founder] Craig Newmark ever considred becoming — what’s the word? — capitalists.”

Craigslist charges money for job listings, but only in seven of the cities it serves ($75 in San Francisco; $35 in the others). And it charges for apartment listings in New York ($10 a pop). But that is just to pay expenses.

Mr. Schachter still did not seem to understand. How about running AdSense ads from Google? Craigslist has considered that, Mr. Buckmaster said. They even crunched the numbers, which were “quite staggering.” But users haven’t expressed an interest in seeing ads, so it is not going to happen.

Following the meeting, Mr. Schachter wrote a research note, flagged by Tech Trader Daily, which suggests that he still doesn’t quite get the concept of serving customers first, and worrying about revenues later, if at all (and nevermind profits). Craigslist, the analyst wrote, “does not fully monetize its traffic or services.”

Mr. Buckmaster said the company is doubling in size every year, as measured by page views and listings.

Larry Dignan, writing on Between the Lines blog at ZDNet, called Mr. Buckmaster “delightfully communist,” and described the audience as “confused capitalists wondering how a company can exist without the urge to maximize profits.”

4-Star Video

The SF Bay Guardian on the passing away of David Ayoob, the founding owner of our neighborhood video store:

The death of David Ayoob didn't get a lot of headlines. He wasn't famous in that way; he never ran for office or made speeches. But everyone on Cortland Avenue knew him, and when he died suddenly of a heart attack at 53, Bernal Heights — and the city — lost a great citizen.

Ayoob ran 4-Star Video, and he was the essence of a good small businessperson. He was active in the community and friendly to everyone and treated his employees well. (When he opened a second shop on Potrero Hill, he made two former employees partners in the business and let them run the new outlet.) His shop felt like the neighborhood — full of a diverse collection of people, with plenty of kids and dogs running around. Everyone was welcome.

As one post on a Bernal listserv put it, "With David it was never just about running a business. Bernal was his family. He was a larger-than-life character. The fabric of the neighborhood is weaker, a bit less comforting, and a lot less colorful without him." Sup. Tom Ammiano added, "He had such a wonderful heart, so generous." We'll all miss him.

The AMS on PageRanks

The American Mathematical Society has a detailed article on Page Ranks.

The Job Market for India's College Graduates

Very similar to what is happening in China:

... But the chance to learn such skills is still a prerogative reserved, for the most part, for the modern equivalent of India’s upper castes — the few thousand students who graduate each year from academies like the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology. Their alumni, mostly engineers, walk the hallways of Wall Street and Silicon Valley and are stewards for some of the largest companies.

In the shadow of those marquee institutions, most of the 11 million students in India’s 18,000 colleges and universities receive starkly inferior training, heavy on obedience and light on useful job skills.

Students, executives and educators say this two-tier education system is locking millions of people into the bottom berths of the economy, depriving the country of talent and students of the chance to improve their lot. For those who succeed, what counts is the right skills.

... India is that rare country where it seems to get harder to find a job the more educated you are. In the 2001 census, college graduates had higher unemployment — 17 percent — than middle or high school graduates.

But as graduates complain about a lack of jobs, companies across India see a lack of skilled applicants. The contradiction is explained, experts say, by the poor quality of undergraduate education. India’s thousands of colleges are swallowing millions of new students every year, only to turn out degree holders whom no one wants to hire.

A study published by the software trade group last year concluded that only 10 percent of graduates with nonspecialized degrees were considered employable by leading companies, compared with 25 percent of engineers.

A YouTube For Data

Swivel launches next week.

Companion Blog

I have started a companion blog, devoted to market analysis in support of Green Industries. I hope to update that blog weekly, and this blog will be updated whenever I come across interesting articles.