Ignite is a “Fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, global” evening of “high-energy 5-minute talks by people who have an idea.” Specifically, as the presenter you get exactly 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. No running over. No slide remote control.

The theme of the evening was “Lean Startup” a set of principles (clearly communicated by Eric Ries) of building startups in a more efficient manner.

I presented the 5-step process of building Petabytes on a Budget. It was a blast and I highly recommend Ignite events and the Ignite format to anyone wanting to communicate an idea. As they tell you when you prep, a TV commercial tells an entire story in 30 seconds; if you’re crisp you can communicate a lot of ideas in five minutes.

Here is the presentation:

And here are the slides on SlideShare:

Thank you to O’Reilly for starting the Ignite concept and facilitating the community, Sarah Milstein for organizing the entire event, Tony Stubblebine for MC’ing, pariSoma for providing a great space, and DreamSimplicity for providing the video.

It’s no secret that providing online backup for all of the data on peoples’ computers takes a lot of hard drives. To be specific, four tons of drives show up every week to our datacenter to backup our customers’ school papers, birthday videos and baby photos… So many freaken baby photos.

After a week of long brainstorming sessions and a recycle bin full of Red Bull cans, we still hadn’t had the amazing light bulb moment.

Then I read on Twitter a Wayne Gretzky tweet:

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is,
a great player plays where the puck is going to be”

That was it! The big realization: A quote like that is too good to risk being lost!

Backblaze will no longer backup a customer’s computer; instead we will backup their Twitter account! The idea immediately clicked with the whole team. Brian Wilson, CTO, said “I don’t use Twitter, but if I did, I would totally be bummed if my tweets were no longer available for posterity.”

And with a day of engineering work, we introduce our new path: TwitBlaze

Tim Nufire, VP of Engineering, had to develop a new, patented, artificial intelligence-based compression algorithm to save on storage space, enabling tweets to be compressed by 64%:

Original: “What is going on in my building? It sounds like a crazy dentist downstairs?”
Compressed: “Crzy dentst dwnstrs – wtf?”

Instead of the last 5 years of all tweets fitting into 1/3rd of a Backblaze Storage Pod, we can now fit all tweets onto a USB stick.

In addition, we had to throttle our large customers who tweet more than 100 messages a month – only their consonants will be backed up. This allows us to keep our costs down for all users by discouraging the messaging hogs.

We are proud to offer 5 different plans to meet your needs and increase confusion:

1. Basic for $5/month: backs up to 200 messages
2. Gold for $7/month: backs up to 400 messages, vowels are un-throttled
3. Platinum for $12/month: backs up 900 messages, and your followers’ tweets
4. Unobtainium for $49/month: backs up 20,000 messages, your followers, and Ashton Kutcher’s tweets
5. Adamantium for $99/month: backs up 100,000 messages including friends, followers, and celebrities. Restores are free via FedEx to you on a 3.5 inch floppy disk.

We are looking forward to providing this new service!
(Well, that, and not breaking our backs carrying all those tons of hard drives.)

FailCon takes place on Monday and if you haven’t signed up yet, I highly recommend you sign up now. (Use the code “20backblaze” to get 20% off your FailCon admission.)

You can attend a conference every day in Silicon Valley. Many would be interesting, entertaining, and provide an opportunity to network. But FailCon is different.

FailCon is all about learning from each others’ mistakes in order to achieve success.

Last year, Backblaze demo’ed at FailCon ’09 and when possible I would sneak away from our demo area to listen to the speakers. Most were candid in sharing what didn’t work, what they learned, and how to do it better. I wish I could have been there to listen to every speaker.

This year, FailCon ’10 has a great lineup of speakers with leaders from Twitter, Foursquare, FriendFeed, Zappos, and many others. On the “Navigating the Exit” panel I’ll also share what we learned from almost getting acquired.

If you are, or intend to be, a founder or leader in a startup, come to this event. And if you want to meet there, email me at or tweet me.

For the third year in a row, Om Malik and team put on a fantastic event about cloud computing last week. The GigaOm Structure 2010 event was bursting at the seams as people filled the main room to capacity (with a recurring plea by MC Joe Weiman asking people to try and find seats before the fire marshall drags them away for blocking the doors and aisles.)

The schedule included a main room with two days of panels and three breakout sessions during each of the breaks and lunches. Far too much information was shared to be conveyed in a blog post, and you can watch the full videos online, but I will summarize some of the takeaways I gleaned. Also, here is a link to people’s Tweets using the hashtag #structureconf using Searchtastic since search.twitter.com only goes back about a week.

Cloud is Here
For those of us in the space, this seems like a comment from yesteryear. But this year, the cloud has leapt from the believers to the masses. Discussions about “What is the cloud?” or “Isn’t the cloud just a return to the mainframe?” were nearly non-existent. Instead, the discussions were “How do we move our applications into the cloud?”, “How do we manage a blend of using the cloud and internal systems?”, “How do we scale our cloud?”, etc.

Even the federal government has become a huge proponent of cloud computing with Federal CIO Vivek Kundra making it one of his primary initiatives. Vivek started Apps.gov (a cloud computing resource for federal government agencies) and even Treasury.gov and Recovery.gov are built on cloud services.

Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon Web Services said, “Talk becomes action – because people have understood that it will be a competitive disadvantage not to take advantage of the cloud.”
Continue reading…

GigaOm, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch have gotten together again to put on the Academy Awards of the tech industry – the Crunchies. Backblaze is honored to have been named a finalist in the category: Best Technology Achievement of 2009.

Not sure if you have heard of the other finalists…one is a little startup called Google and the other some company named Microsoft.

Voting for the Crunchies ends this Wednesday Jan 6, 2010 at midnight and we would love to have your vote. (It takes just a click to vote – no personal info or sign-ups.)

How did we get selected to be a finalist?
Nominations from you and selection by the Crunchies Committee.

What is the technology achievement?
A combination of the unlimited, unthrottled, backup-all-data online backup service itself and the uber-inexpensive cloud storage hardware design we gave away.

So, what now?
Vote for us! We promise to still be your friend after we’re famous.

What do Google providing search, Coca-Cola operating its systems to track inventory, and Backblaze backing up your data have in common? The computers that handle all of this live in data centers. And those data centers use power – lots of it.

In the U.S. alone there are over 20,000 data centers – each of which houses thousands or tens of thousands of servers. Combined, these data centers make up 3% of all U.S. energy consumption (not just electricity) – more than the entire domestic air fleet.

So when I went to an event on Wednesday called:
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE DATA CENTER:
CLOUD, COLOCATION, & DATA CENTER REAL ESTATE
it should be no surprise that the focus was on power, power, power.

And lest you think this is people getting wrapped up in the green movement or just jumping on a marketing trend – let me dissuade you. Datacenters in the U.S. spend $23 billion a year on electricity according to KC Mares of MegaWatt Consulting. In fact, electricity can often cost over 50% of the purchase price of a server over it’s lifetime. Minor improvements can have massive implications not only on global warming but also company bottom lines.

KC provided a fascinating overview of innovations and experiments that operators of data centers and the companies building out large server deployments are pursuing. Some examples:

* VFDs – variable frequency drives to adjust the speed of blower fans that adjust to need rather than spinning at a constant rate.
* Natural cooling – using outside air and fans rather than air-conditioning to keep data centers cool; it turns out most servers are perfectly happy running at temperatures much higher than what data centers attempt to keep them at.
* Shorter cooling regions – having air flow almost directly around a server in the process of cooling it rather than through the entire building; shorter distances mean less air friction and less energy spent moving it around.
* Eliminating UPS systems – getting rid of the backup power systems and assuming servers will go down…and having backup servers or data centers instead.
* Using 480 volts – higher voltage means lower amperage and thus less heat loss and higher efficiency. More of today’s server systems are capable of handling this voltage.
* Higher efficiency power supplies – switching to 90% efficient power supplies on servers rather than using 70% or 80% ones; these are more expensive upfront but can still pay off fairly quickly.

A number of these items pay for themselves in a couple months and then generate savings ongoing from then on. KC has a variety of information on his site and blog.

Are you in San Francisco for Salesforce’s Dreamforce event?

3 days, 15,000 people, booming sounds booths, light shows, and lots of clouds – both the real and virtual type. Salesforce provides you plenty of guidance about what to do at Dreamforce.

But what should you do when you are outside of Dreamforce?

You could go to the standard nearby corporate locations: Chevy’s, the W Hotel bar, Thirsty Bear, or Starbucks. But…the Backblaze team lives here and we like a little variety. So, shhhh…we’ll share with you a few of our favorite spots that are walking distance from Dreamforce, but provide a little local color.

Samovar – Directly above Moscone center, in the upper terrace on Yerba Buena Gardens but ironically REALLY hard to find. Quite possibly the best tea in San Francisco. Their Chai is mindblowing.

Metreon Farmers Market – Yes, it is an indoor farmer’s market. Great spot for a quick eat during the busy conference. Our favorites include the gyros, indian wraps …and of course, red velvet mini cupcakes. Also, as an appetizer, definitely try some of the afghani bread; if you stand at their booth long enough, you might not need lunch. (Metreon building – entrance at the corner of Mission St and 4th St.)

Pazzia – Great local Italian place. Italian style pizzas served by Italians. Go ahead, practice your Italian on the waiters and waitresses… They love it! (337 3rd St between Folsom and Harrison)

Epicenter – Good coffee, good sandwiches, free wifi. A Backblaze favorite. (764 Harrison St between 3rd and 4th)

Blue Bottle Coffee – These guys are serious about a cup of coffee. Everything they do, from selecting the beans, to assembling the blends, to roasting is painstakingly detailed. Then, each cup is brewed at the time you order it, one at a time. Once you have Blue Bottle, you won’t want anything else. (66 Mint Street at Mission St.)

Butler & Chef – This lovely French bistro has the best croque monsieur and crepes in the city. Great spot for a breakfast meeting. (155A South Park St near 3rd St and Bryant St in South Park.)

farmerbrown’s little skillet – The closest you will get to southern cooking in San Francisco. Needless to say, whenever you are presented a menu with waffles and fried chicken, what could go wrong? (360 Ritch, between Brannan St and Townsend St.)

BrainWash – Get your laundry done while sipping a nice coffee. Or if you have brought enough clothes for the week, just enjoy the soothing sounds and smells of laundry machines and clean clothes. (A bit of a walk. 1122 Folsom between 7th St and 8th St.)

What about for a drink in the evening?

B Bar – The $1 oysters during happy hour are fantastic… and as long as the weather is sunny and warm, the outdoor patio rocks. (Directly above Moscone center, near Samovar, in the upper terrace on Yerba Buena Gardens but ironically REALLY hard to find.)

Mr. Smiths – A hipster bar in a dive bar area. Happy hour goes till 8pm. (34 7th St between Market St and Mission St.)

111 Minna – An art gallery with a drinking problem. (Surprisingly located at 111 Minna St, just off 2nd St between Mission St and Howard St.)

Chieftain – Relax with a Guinness at this Irish pub that’s just a block away from Dreamforce. (198 5th St at Howard St.)

Bourbon and Branch – San Francisco’s very own speakeasy. You don’t need a reservation at the library, but you might need the password. (Locals know it’s, “Books” … Ssshhh, don’t tell anyone.)

And just for fun, you can stop by Central Computer – the place we started out buying hard drives by the pallet to fill our Backblaze Storage Pods so we could help backup all those sales laptops (837 Howard Street between 4th St and 5th St.)

TechCrunch is holding its next roundtable on Feb 27th asking the question, Who’s Cloud Is It Anyway? Assembling 275 people together, TechCrunch intends to discuss whether clouds will be closed warring platforms or open, interconnected systems.

Other questions I believe should be discussed include:
* What is the appropriate level for a cloud to exist at? (providing raw computing power? API-level applications? complete services?)
* Build vs. Buy – when should organizations build their own clouds?
* Should consumers and businesses aim to consolidate into a single cloud or distribute their reliance among clouds?

I’m looking forward to a fascinating discussion. Sign up for the event, email me if you would like to meet there, and follow Backblaze on Twitter for event updates.