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Venture capitalists muse on new blog

Compiled by Times technology staff

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The blog (www.nwventurevoice.com) was initiated by Martin Tobias, a venture partner at Bellevue-based Ignition Partners, and Kirkland-based OVP Venture Partners.

The site is modeled after the valley's VentureBlog, at www.ventureblog.com, down to the taglines.

VentureBlog calls itself "A random walk down Sand Hill Road," which recalls Burton Malkiel's classic book about the stock market, "A Random Walk Down Wall Street."

NW Venture Voice's tag is: "Northwest Venture Capitalist muse about our business, companies, interests, trends and any other random thing that hits us."

Tobias, who calls himself "sort of the editor in chief," has got to be a busy blogger.

Recently he was seen posting at VentureBlog on what he thought made a successful business. Then, there's Ignition's blog at www.geekfishing.net, and there's his personal blog at www.martinandalex.com.

Broadening market The number of broadband subscribers worldwide is expected to reach 325 million by 2008. Source: Yankee Group

Last week, NW Venture Voice mused about Tobias' friend Hans Wildens at Industry Ventures. Wildens had just completed the purchase of Bellevue-based InfoSpace's corporate venture-capital portfolio, he wrote.

Tobias, who started Seattle-based Loudeye, doesn't appear to be slowing down, though he says he'd like more VCs to participate in this new venture. "Want EVERYONE in the NW to post. There are a couple posts in the works," he wrote in an e-mail.

Attracting

more than one

AttractOne, an online dating site launched two weeks ago, offers what it considers a new way for people to meet on the Web.

The Bellevue company's members talk in real-time video and audio, in either a private chat or in a room with up to 16 people.

Because all of the participants are sitting in front of cameras, the idea is that a 45-year-old man in his bathrobe can't disguise himself as a hot, 22-year-old cheerleader.

"We want women (and presumably men) to feel safer," said Richard Braun, AttractOne's 24-year old chief executive and president. "They don't feel safe with online dating because of false profiles."

The company, which has nine employees, started a year ago and charges $26 a month for the service.

Booked in seconds

Recently making it into Guinness World Records is the Cisco Systems CRS-1 router, the first networking technology Guinness recognizes, according to Computerworld.

Now along with the tallest snowman, the longest continuous clapping session and other record-breaking events, the article says the router has the highest capacity at a total throughput of 92 trillion bits per second.

"The reason we like this one is purely because of the numbers involved. The statistics about what this piece of hardware can do were really mind-blowing," said David Hawksett, an editor at Guinness World Records.

The Cisco router is capable of downloading the entire printed collection of the U.S. Library of Congress in 4.6 seconds. That would take a dial-up modem 82 years, the article said.

Jealous of Cisco's record?

No problem. Hawksett said they don't have nearly enough business records.

"Please bombard us," he said.

Download, a column of news bits, observations and miscellany, is gathered by The Seattle Times technology staff. We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or biztech@seattletimes.com.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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