<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Orchid Thief meets Karaoke!
Review: I f you love adventure this is the book for you. Steve Fishman has the ability to turn a conversation at a cocktail party into a high wire act of observation. His meeting with Russell Simmons as well as his encounter with his missile selling dry cleaner are hilarious and deeply revealing about the nature of the business culture in this country. I've long been a fan of Mr. Fishman's writing in NY magazine and this book confirms his status as one of the leading reporters on our time.
Rating:
Summary: It made me sing along!
Review: I loved this book. Steve Fishman offers the reader two great stories in one: his own sometimes hysterical, sometimes bittersweet story of trying to become an internet entrepreneur and all the characters he meets along the way; and the story, the history, really, of American business ethic and practices - from Ben Franklin's principles through the dotcom dreamers and schemers.
Fishman has a wry sense of humor and you will laugh out loud at his encounters with all those who participate in the e-business romp, from his dry cleaner who also sells missiles online, to his colorful partners, to the distractible Israeli commando in pink bathrobe and wooly slippers.
It's no secret or surprise that journalist Fishman fails at business; but, lucky for us, he took lots of notes and turned the experience into a great read!
Rating:
Summary: grabs you and makes you beg for more
Review: I was in a friends house yesterday and picked up his copy of kareoke nation. It took me thirty minutes to put it down and we missed our lunch reservation but it was worth it. I can't wait till my copy comes and I can go back to reading it. Definately a must for people who are interested in wit, modern culture, and a whimsical look at fortunes folly.
Rating:
Summary: grabs you and makes you beg for more
Review: I was in a friends house yesterday and picked up his copy of kareoke nation. It took me thirty minutes to put it down and we missed our lunch reservation but it was worth it. I can't wait till my copy comes and I can go back to reading it. Definately a must for people who are interested in wit, modern culture, and a whimsical look at fortunes folly.
Rating:
Summary: Karaoke Nation Hits a High Note
Review: Karaoke Nation is a colorful and refreshing read. I enjoyed every paragraph of this 'business meets author turned entreprenuer' tale. Having been involved in the internet boom and bust personally, I enjoyed hearing this author's singing version of the twists and turns, the promises, the glamour, the meetings and intensity and that took place in NYs Silicon Alley during the modern gold rush. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read and start / stay in business. A bonus for karaoke fans!
Rating:
Summary: Karaoke Nation Hits a High Note
Review: Karaoke Nation is a colorful and refreshing read. I enjoyed every paragraph of this 'business meets author turned entreprenuer' tale. Having been involved in the internet boom and bust personally, I enjoyed hearing this author's singing version of the twists and turns, the promises, the glamour, the meetings and intensity and that took place in NYs Silicon Alley during the modern gold rush. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read and start / stay in business. A bonus for karaoke fans!
Rating:
Summary: Steve's Excellent Adventure
Review: Steve Fishman's "Karaoke Nation" is an underrated and relatively undiscovered gem. It covers Fishman's attempted transition from journalist to entrepreneur, intermingled with essay-like takes by Fishman on business today. Those pieces feature some trenchant (and funny) observations on the likes of Fast Company, Tom (the spitter) Peters, The Brand Called You and other late-90s business phenomena.
Where the book really excels is in Fishman's recounting of his attempts to breathe life into Karaoke Nation concept. What I love is his recounting of the interactions between himself and advisors/partners-to-be Steve Reynolds (aptly called "Consigliere" thoughout the book by Fishman), web guru Peter Clemente and Oddcast CEO Adi Sideman. It's really fabulous writing. Hopefully, these three are happy with the way they've been depicted. I think Fishman has drawn each of them in a very positive light.
Other high points include meetings with hip hop entrepreneurs Russell Simmons and Chuck D. Fishman has a real ear and eye for what his readers want to hear out of those interactions.
I do take exception to the comment by another reviewer saying "of course the business failed." Not true. What did happen is that the entire Internet craze got pulled out from under Fishman and his circle (they tried to bring this live in the 1999 - 2000 timeframe). And, Fishman does have a completed product he can point to...see karaoke.oddcast.com for a licensed version of the technology. You can actually go there and record a karaoked version of 'The Tide Is High' and a small number of other tunes. It's pretty slick technology. Fishman got his vision into a product. He can hold his head pretty high.
Rating: 
Summary: E-business fluffery meets it match
Review: The most redeeming factor about "Karaoke Nation" is that the concept, which reads like something Bill & Ted would have thought up, fails so miserably. Instead of another IPO story, what we get is a nonevent that proves that even during the nutty Internet boom VC's could occasionally be trusted to filter out unworthy projects. Fishman, who spends almost a quarter of the book glorifying the 70's granola-flaky ideals that defined his sense of self at Brown University, makes a connection that the weird turned pro sometime during the 90's and things like research, development and execution just didn't matter to business anymore - all it took was an Idea, and Passion. Unfortunately, Fishman has trouble even on these two counts. The Idea, after throwing away some amusingly low-caliber concepts like a "Hi-Five" dummy arm for lonely sports enthusiasts (don't ask) stumbles out of a bar with a vague concept having something to do with Karaoke (duh) and the Internet (because there's no manufacturing involved, so it sounds easy.) Through his journalistic connections, he ends up partnering with a couple folks who have enough experience to at least fake their way through their Power Point presentations and hype things up to some interesting audiences along the way. The Passion part proves to be hard as well, partly because Fishman's exercising some truly new mental muscles here, and partly because it becomes increasingly obvious that he's the weak link in the chain. Ultimately, being the "Idea Man" isn't enough to keep his partners from deserting him, and Edison's "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration" success ratio holds true. The downer for me is that Fishman should have read Tracey Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine" before writing this book. As I mentioned, while 25% of the book is spent glorifying the marvels of EST, he totally missed out on the fact that the foosball-in-the-office sleep-on-the-floor cult of New Technology office life didn't spring from this; it evolved out of mid-1970's microcomputer engineering culture run amok. Fishman has nothing but disdain for programmers, tech workers, and anybody who actually has to develop things; he is, after all, an Idea Man and seems them as the logical extension of 1950's Organization Man. Even when OddCast provides Karaoke Nation's only saving grace in hacking up a quick demo, Fishman seems ungrateful; the fact that his shred of a non-idea ends up being bought out by his tech partner for a pittance seems poetic justice indeed. And just in case you're wondering, the Million Dollars didn't happen, although Fishman did mange to find find a little bit of Glamour and Fulfillment along the way.
<< 1 >>
| 
