Following hot in the footsteps of Robert Scoble and Tara Hunt, Om Malik has apparently jumped into the entrepreneurial world. According to Valleywag, Om is going to focus on growing the GigaOm empire. It takes a lot of courage to be an entrepreneur when you have a paycheck coming in every week but given GigaOm's popularity and the strength of Om's personal brand, it's a pretty good vehicle to take a shot at becoming rich and famous (although I'd argue Om is already famous). Om's decision makes my post about Scoble's move to PodTech.net look pretty prescient because it's another sign the rockstars of the blogosphere are looking to capitalize on their popularity. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of dot-com bubble II when reporters/bloggers decide to stop watching the action, and start playing in the game (I did it during dot-com bubble I to join a start-up)....or maybe it's just the beginning of something really exciting. Good luck, Om!
Update: Om, who is gracious enough to concede Valleywag scooped his news, has a post explaining his reasons for going out on his own. It includes a paragraph that should resonate with all newspapers reporters as the Web becomes the way to consume information.
   Om has raised some money from True Ventures, and will continue to write a monthly column for Business 2.0.

In theory, I'm a wordsmith with a good grasp of the English language. Yet, I have no clue what it means when a technology executive talks about taking a "holistic" approach to something - a phrase that came up a couple times today at the Canadian  Telecom Summit. According to the Merrian-Webster online dictionary, holistic is defined as: "related to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts". If that's the case, why don't executives talk about integrated services or a service with plenty of features?

Any bets on what Jeff Citron will talk about today during his keynote speech at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto? Will he make a mea culpa given Vonage shares have tumbled 25% since the IPO last month? Or will he make a "the world is still great, Vonage is still great, VoIP is still great," sales pitch/speech? Apparently, Vonage still has another week before he can reallly start to talk openly again so expect Citron to be in sales-mode today. Still, it would be interesting to find his take on why the stock has performed so badly and whether its performance will have any impact on the company's ability attract new customers. By the way, Citron's stake in Vonage is still worth about $500-million, which gives him a six-fold return on his original investment. At the very least, you have to give him credit for hitting another entrepreneurial jackpot. His earlier successes include Island ECN, which was sold to the Instinet Group for $503-million, and Datek, which became one of the largest online brokerage houses before it was acquired by Ameritrade for $1.3-billion. The guy has a knack for recognizing opportunities where technology is going to have a disruptive affect.
Update: Citron's keynote lasted all of 15 minutes and didn't feature a Q&A as the quiet period lasts until June 19. It was 900 seconds little glitz or substance. Perhaps the only thing of interest was a new USB fob that turns any computer into a Vonage phone.