Derek Jeter and the Real Time Web

There I was sitting in my office in Herzliya Israel this morning. Somebody told me that Michael Arrington posted and interesting link on Facebook so I went to check my News Feed first thing when I arrived. As I logged in I saw that 2 minutes earlier my good friend and ePinions (shopping.com) founder Nirav Tolia updated that he was sitting next to Derek Jeter and other of my beloved Yankees in the lobby of the St. Regis in San Francisco. In realtime, from my desk in Israel I asked him to go over and get my kids an autograph. See below for full conversation. Incredible use of the real time web!

PS: Nirav Updates me that the fearless @sarahleary (who is a Red Sox fan) actually asked Jete for the autograph. Thanks Sarah!

Stanley Fisher is Doing an Incredible Job Managing the Shekel/Dollar Exchange Rate

My headline above says it all. Governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, who directed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's PhD thesis, is showing the world that central bank governors have a thing or two to learn from the silver-haired Fisher. 

He has handled this crisis with both a steady hand and a wily strategy, in which he has kept speculative traders guessing.  As I have written many times before, among the biggest risks to Israel's economy is the Shekel/Dollar exchange rate. I do not believe it is an objective problem. It is, however, a planning problem. When most businesses are budgeting for an exchange rate of 4:1 and the dollar weakens to much below that, both employment and exports are hurt in this export-dependent  economy.

As the market keeps pushing the dollar down, Fisher has 

propped it up through steady currency purchases. That gave confidence to exporters and businesses. When the shekel started rallying, Fisher announced that he would make some intermittent large purchases of dollars to prop up the dollar. Just that announcement sent the shekel down against the dollar and caused some speculators to panic. Today, Fisher announced that he would stop the daily purchases of $100MM dollars. In about one second, the Shekel rose against the dollar over 2%. 

Fisher is keeping the speculators guessing so that they do not exaggerate the fall and ris

e in the exchange rate. At the end of the day, Fisher clearly understands that the market forces will prevail in the end. He is getting Israeli businesses used to a weaker dollar in stages so they can plan appropriately and delivering a stern message to currency speculators that they bet heavily on the shekel/dollar trade at their own risk. 

Really Interesting Presentation on iPhone Penetration

The below presentation is unbelievable (Hat Tip Jan Schultink). Truth is, we have seen the power of Apple at Tunewiki, (Benchmark company) who saw 3+X growth in 30 days from the moment it launched on the Appstore.  This is pretty useful to keep in mind as the FCC investigates AAPL.

As I look at this market unfold, I cannot help but wonder if this will be a redux of the PC market where Apple innovated and led as long as the systems were vertically integrated (remember the great Apple II and the early Macintosh) but then were soundly beaten when the industry moved to open systems (if that is what Microsoft's Windows Monopoly can be called). So far, cell phones or Mobile Internet Devices (remeber WinTel?) are in the early stages of market development so vertical integration of the hardware, software and applications (read Appstore) is a winning strategy. It will be interesting to see what happens as this market begins to mature, hardware standardization sets in and more manufacturers get up to speed on the handset game and an "windows-like" OS emerges for the cell phone.

I am sure this is what Google is betting on with Android.

Kleiner Perkins iFund Presentation at iPhoneDevCamp 3

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Mazal Tov - New FaceBook Times

With much gratitude to השם, Yaffa and I (actually, Yaffa did all the work) gave birth to a baby girl on Shabbat morning at 8:50AM. Mother and daughter are doing well, thank God. 

All peanut gallery comments on the blog's name or suggestions for a new name are welcome in the comments section. The blog is now officially on a short paternity leave. Most of you left them on the post the last time I had a baby.

As a sign of the times, the last time we had a baby i posted first to the blog. This time, to twitter and Facebook (pictures there)

In any form, may we all share many simchas and happy occasions