I’m really pleased that Google has taken an aggressive position in fighting back against the Jarg search patent. The Jarg patent is another absurd one and Google is on now on the receiving end of the same kind of patent troll (which – ironically – is being promulgated by a major university) action that has haunted Microsoft for a decade. At some point I hope the folks at Google get motivated to really change the game here, like they have with so many things. Google is one company that is well organized to dig up endless prior art to invalidate bogus software patents. This has to become an organizational mission, not just the domain on the Google legal group.

I’m having such a great time watching and working with the TechStars companies. As we get ready to launch the application process for TechStars 2008, it’s really gratifying to see how the 2007 class is growing up. Today I noticed two blog posts from co-founders of TechStars companies that made me smile. Jon Fox (Intense Debate) – wrote a post titled Decisiveness and Matt Galligan (SocialThing) – wrote a post titled The Hype Machine and Admitting When You’re Wrong.

If you are a venture capitalist and you haven’t heard about FAS 157 (also known as Fair Value Accounting), I recommend you ask your accounting firm’s audit partner about it. Today. Until recently, most VC firms used a straightforward and consistent method to valuing their portfolio companies. No more – now we have to conform to FAS 157 to get a clean GAAP opinion from our auditors. Since our LP agreements require a GAAP opinion, FAS 157 here we come.

One of my favorite things about blogging is that it lets you (if you have the courage) think out loud. As a blogger, you get to try out a bunch of ideas in public. As a blog reader, you get to see how other people think. We’ve been working with Kevin Menzie and his gang at Slice of Lime for a long time (since it was just Kevin and Jeff.) We’ve even got a small investment in them. They’ve got some of the best ideas and insights of anyone I’ve worked with on the web design front. I’ve encouraged Kevin to blog more aggressively about what he’s thinking and how they come up with their ideas.

If you live in Boulder, you know that this is the epicenter of the natural foods and all things good for you revolution. We all love our natural, sugar free, gluten free, no animals killed or harmed in any way deodorant, but we know it doesn’t work for shit. Todd Vernon – CEO of Lijit – has come up with a killer Idea in the Natural Food Space. Since he’s got his hands full with Lijit, he just wants someone to do it. The entire idea is up on his blog – the following picture is the teaser.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Nick Bradbury at NewsGator the past few years. Nick created one of my all time favorite pieces of software – FeedDemon – which I use ever day as my RSS feed reader for Windows. Nick wrote a great thought piece titled Why Use a Desktop RSS Reader? It’s a nice follow up to the announcement yesterday that all of NewsGator’s client RSS readers are now free – including FeedDemon.

When Greg Reinacker – NewsGator’s founder and CTO – first talked to me about NewsGator, he told me that he wanted to create software to enable everyone on the planet to read RSS feeds, anywhere, anytime, on any device. Since I didn’t know what an RSS feed was when he first told me this in 2004, I wasn’t sure what to think of this. We hung out together for a while and I quickly got sucked into his vision.

Yes – more Feld Job board. I just finished up a board meeting in San Francisco for a new company that I’ve invested in (they are launching next week – you’ll hear more on Monday.) We’re looking for two rock star software product managers. The company is releasing products at a torrid pace (multiple times a month) and is iterating rapidly as it builds an aggressive leadership position in its segment. Yeah – I know – all happy talk – but it’s wild and amazing stuff.

Now that one of our favorite IRS regs – Mr. 409a – has been around for a while, it’s still causing plenty of confusion, wasted time, energy, and money. The final regulations – issued in April – are to become effective on January 1, 2008. However, one 9/10/07, the IRS announced that they were extended the compliance deadline a year – it’s now 12/31/08 instead of 12/31/07. Thanks Uncle Sam – that’s nice.