If they are going to give you money, and you’re going to take it, you should know something about each other. After all, if you’re taking money from them you’re practically married… from a financial perspective anyway.

So I never understood the model of a venture investor sprinkling a little money over a wide series of investments.I know it was/is a trendy model, but I don’t get it.

The entrepreneur can’t reasonably expect to benefit from the investors’ close attention and contacts, as the investor is too tapped out giving a little love to their many companies.

And the venture investor doesn’t benefit from getting to know their companies and therefore doing their utmost to helping them succeed.

And especially… the LP doesn’t get a sense there is a lot of diligence or expertise in the investment process. Anyone can sprinkle money blindly and hope for the best, so why pay management fees and prayed-for carried interest?

Anyways, these are the questions that vexed me. I’m glad I’m not alone.

The 3 key limitations of spray and pray seed investors | VentureBeat.

While this is chump change to RBC overall (just the PR and community goodwill makes the $10M worth it), it is a great moment for the impact investing market as a whole with such a big player coming in.

It wasn’t clear if this money will be for equity or debt, but my guess is that it is probably for equity.

Equity is sexier but for a whole lot of reasons debt can be more useful, not the least of which because it helps social organizations build financial discipline and a credit history, which is key to helping them become sustainable over the long term.

Also, debt removes the need to be looking for an exit and therefore gives the organization a bit more breathing space to grow and carry out their mission without the preoccupation of trying to return capital to investors.

RBC creates impact fund

“The big thing that has changed… is that just about every media company has an HTML5 player out or on their roadmap,” thePlatform CEO Ian Blaine told me in a phone interview. “I can’t think of a single company that hasn’t adopted HTML5 as part of its mix.”

thePlatform introduces one HTML5 player to rule them all — Online Video News.

If only…

Looks like the additional liquidity provided by the ECB is doing the trick but this is only a temporary reprieve, all the underlying debt problems remain.

Also, look at the bond buyers. Other reports highlight that Italian and Spanish bond buyers are domestic banks and not international investors. So while confidence hasn’t returned to Europe, fully dealing with the underlying the problem has been successfully postponed to the future.

Euro, stocks up ahead of Italian debt sale

• Cross platform access
• Centralized messaging/notifications

These are right in the Web app sweet spot because when you’re dealing with a Web app you’re dealing with an app that is tied to you, not your device/platform.

So as you (or your family) moves from one device to another, all your activities, notifications and permissions are centralized on a single app that is hosted on a ubiquitous platform, the Web.

Mozilla’s apps initiative is a good example: we’re building technology designed to open up the app marketplace, making it easier for anyone create, share, use, modify and sell apps using standard web technology. If we succeed, we have a chance to move beyond a world controlled by a few app vendors to one that’s much more like an open bazaar. And, we also get a world of apps based on the same standards and ‘view source ethos’ that the web was built on in the first place. This will be a radical shift.

My job is to work with developers of all sorts and get them to list on the Marketplace. It is a lot of fun but way hectic.

A lot of developers from the very biggest to the one-off guys and gals in their basements are coming to realize the benefits of building web apps.

Standards based, write once-run anywhere, leverage existing web initiatives… and oh yeah, Mozilla will distribute them to hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

What’s not to love?

PS: If you’re a developer and you want more info, contact me.

Happy New Year Mozilla. I’m excited! « commonspace.

xkcd: Tones.

• Ask your mother-in-law to leave your house.
• Purchase tickets for a musical or entertainment event.
• Settle disputes between you and your partner.
• Pick up your dog at the airport.

What do we pay these people for????

Canadians abroad ply their embassies with weird questions – GlobalPost.

That is why I count myself among the cautiously intrigued about a potential Windows tablet. There really is the potential for something interesting here.

Why Windows 8 Tablets Might Surprise Everyone | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Sure, you may think I’m biased because I’m related to the producer. But to the best of my knowledge we’re not at all related to Scott Feinberg and check out what he says:

People who pine for quality films built around female characters and directed by female directors: where were you for this one? Canadian filmmaker Larysa Kondracki‘s first-rate political-drama premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where I first saw and loved it;

THR Awards Expert Scott Feinberg’s Top 10 Films of 2011 – Hollywood Reporter.