I am astonished at how poor journalism continues on. I'm referring to the BusinessWeek article on Steve Harmon that Silicon Beat linked to. The editor obviously didnāt do her homework. I have worked with Steve Harmon, and he is one of the nicest and most down to earth people you will ever know. Iām embarrassed for the quality journalists at the Mercury and BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek article paints Steve as a monster, which is far from the truth. Perhaps, Silicon Beat, should take the time to talk with Steve instead of being lazy and linking to an article thatās 4 years old and was written without a fact check and by a journalist with an agenda.

L,

We just contacted Steve Harmon to go over the BW facts. He took our call, but declined to comment on the record, saying the things that happened back then are in the past, and he wants to move on. He said he'd done a lot of good for investors, having started covering the Internet in 1994, and that the BW piece was the only negative piece on him. He called it misleading. He could not, though, provide any concrete examples of facts that were wrong in the BW piece, saying only that his reports did have disclaimers about his interests at the time. We've asked for copies, and will post if we ever get them.

"It is a great time for real entrepreneurs to seek venture capital to build truly innovative and leading companies. The standard has always been building profitable, durable companies, something that Zero Gravity 2.0 emphasizes now more than ever." -- Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valley's leading venture capital investors, endorsing Steve Harmon's book published in 2001, after the tech bubble burst.

Harmon has been in the web space for a decade, before the bubble and after. Before I go let me share a story...in 2001 as one of his subscribers he recommended several security stocks after the 9/11 tragedy. This was a time when nobody thought technology stocks were worth owning at all. Particularly, Invision did very well and General Electric eventually purchased the firm.

I totally agree with the author - LiveDeal is a bit too little, too late in this market. The management lacks the credibility needed to make it in this highly competitive space. One thing I don't get is, if Steve is such a hot shot, how come he has failed to raise any $ so far - again, this has to do with lack of management credibility, poor market timing, and lack of a winning/differentiated service/product to offer. All I can conclude from all this is that this is headed no far fast...