Vator TV’s Bambi Francisco interviews Steve Carpenter, who provides financial insight about the “high-profile yet opaque private company sector.”

In this interview, Steve predicts that personalized music site Pandora, will likely double its revenue to $125 million this year, “due to its popularity on the iPhone and its ability to extract more money from advertisers, thanks to its skyrocketing subscriber base.” And, he also shares with us why Google might be interested.

Howard Greenstein chats with Jeff Jarvis in a video taken at the Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) below. As Howard notes on the Supernova Hub blog (Jeff will also speak at the Supernova Forum in Philly at the end of the month), when they talked about the Supernova theme of Peristroika, Jarvis noted “The Internet changes the structures we see, and as Susan Crawford said at the PDF hack around things. But there still is a power structure that can have an impact on us.”

Jeff, who is working on a book about “Publicness” recently published a post on his own blog called: “Myth of the Opinionless Man,” where he challenges closed and non-transparent government.

Jeff explains what he means at a high level before he further outlines what he hopes to achieve in Publicness and how this connects to the cases of ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal and ousted Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel.

Writes Jeff: “No, the opinionless man is an institutional myth, a fiction maintained by news organizations, political organizations, governments, businesses, churches, and armies. The opinionless man is meant to be an empty vessel to do the bidding of these hierarchies. But opinions and openness about them subvert hierarchies. Or to translate that to modern times, via the Cluetrain Manifesto, links subvert hierarchies. This is the age of links. So hierarchies: beware. One opinion leaks out of the opinionless man and it is shared and linked and spread instantly. The institutions treat this revelation as a shock and scandal — as a threat — and they eject the opinionated men.” More on his blog and in the video below.

Thanks Howard and Jeff for the share.

North Carolina-basedGroove 8 (formerly Audioform) performed at San Francisco’s Fillmore Jazz Festival this weekend. Jazz, Funk and Rock are in harmony. Have a listen:

People dance in the streets at the San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Festival this weekend.

56 games after the opening match on June 11th between host South Africa and Mexico there was finally an off-day at the 2010 World Cup. Two days, in fact, before play resumed today with Holland’s comeback win against Cup favorite Brazil and the upcoming match between Uruguay and Ghana.

After all the vuvuzela-ing, the officiating catastrophes and the disappointments of perennial big names England, France and Italy it still is the case that all but one of the group winners advanced to the final eight (the U.S. being the only exception), and that five of FIFA’s seven top-ranked teams were still in the competition, so order has more or less prevailed.

It would have been even more so had third-ranked Portugal not had the misfortune of playing Spain in the Round of 16, and perhaps the greater misfortune of having their galactic star Cristiano Ronaldo in a tournament-long ego preen and pout.

Happily, Africa still has a representative in Ghana, but it is still the South Americans who are dominant, with four of their five teams in the final eight and an opportunity to advance all of them to the semifinals before Brazil’s stunner.

It’s been six days since the United States bowed out to Ghana in a disappointing loss, sufficient mourning time to perhaps enjoy one last scene of happiness, a video of the penalty kick goal by Landon Donovan which tied the match in the second half.

Alas, that was the only score by the team. This time there were no officiating excuses, just enough mistakes on defense and failures on offense and no last-minute heroics to keep them in the hunt.

If you’ve watched the other teams in the Round of 16 play, you can tell – even if like me you only know a little about soccer – that the United States has a long way to go in the dribble-and-pass game which all the great teams can play, whatever their strengths may be. They’re also more resistant on defense and have at least one great goal-scorer up front, which the United States does not.

But perhaps that isn’t so clear. Apparently a poll taken after the Algerian victory found that 90% of Americans expected the U.S. team to win the tournament. This wouldn’t have happened if the rest of the teams were forced to play with two left boots.

Combine this poor vision with the response to the loss against Ghana – the anguish was so profound that it took two entire minutes for people to start talking about the Giants, in contrast to the liquid orgies of rage and despair in the English pubs the next day, after evisceration by the Germans. It’s likely this week’s love affair was about something other than soccer.

For the most part the fan interest was a fling, an excuse to demonstrate national pride. After a decade of boggy military incursions, the Katrina-BP bookend disasters in the Gulf and the recent financial collapse and shakedown it felt good to have a reason to chant “USA” and show some American muscle without feeling defensive or having to kill anyone to do it.

The fan interest also resulted from some highly unusual late-game heroics. It’s as if the United States lived up to its dual images of the Hollywood ending and the cavalry rescue, but the truth is that tournaments are won by teams which patiently build leads and hold on to them.

Or in some cases, play 120 minutes for a tie, which was the strategy employed by both Paraguay and Japan the other day. Witnessing this match was like watching an anaconda digest a feral pig on the Discovery Channel, without the benefit of time lapse photography. FIFA should destroy every tape and pull down all online video of this one. Even the soccer die-hards were in agony. A second ball rolled onto the pitch near the end of the regular time but nobody took the hint.

At one point in the stupefying delirium of overtime a mirage appeared of a split-screen TV, with the match on the left and on the right an episode of “24.” Both of them in real-time, on one side you are begging for some time compression and on the right your adrenals are suffering because of it.

Now that the show is over perhaps FIFA can hire Jack Bauer as a roving field agent, reinforcing FIFA’s utter control of the sport by having Bauer shoot a member of the team he determines is not taking enough risks. An American action movie version of a red card. That will manufacture interest in the U.S.

Successful soccer’s premium on defensive play makes it hard to imagine the professional game taking hold here. It will be too dull for fans accustomed to other sports, and the economics of no in-play commercials might work for a World Cup but wouldn’t for a season full of average-caliber contests.

There were certainly many households in America where young boys watched Landon Donovan or Clint Dempsey and turned to Mom and said, “He’s cool, I want to play soccer.” Mom, relieved that the child is choosing something other than American football with its aggression and injuries, will ensure it happens.

But in order to vault beyond the second-level powers American soccer needs to extend the talent pool from the suburbs to the cities as well as take advantage of the increasing Latino population. Combine that with development in the European leagues after high school and it’s not hard to imagine the United States being a consistently elite team in 12 years or so, even if the country doesn’t care so much in between World Cup tournaments.

Anyway, one suspects the rest of the world has mixed feelings about the United States becoming a soccer power. American money will change the game and in some ways it feels as though the World Cup doesn’t really start until the U.S. leaves, sort of like the loud rich neighbor who takes over the party but goes home early because he doesn’t get it or have many friends.

Did anyone
else notice in the videos of Ghanian celebrations in the U.S. that there
were inevitably young white kids, protester-types somehow looking
privileged and
malnourished at the same time, cheering as if it were another way to
denounce American imperialism and corporate dominion? They couldn’t
afford the trip to Davos or the Toronto G20 so slumming a World Cup loss
would have to do.

Moments to remember:

– A bird perched contentedly on the Algerian net during the England game, certain not to be disturbed by a shot on goal.

– Donovan’s marine landing rush at the Slovenian goaltender, practically backing him into the net with the alternative of having his head taken off by the shot.

– Sepp Blatter being forced to come out of the FIFA tower to say something other than “Let them eat hand balls.”

– Coach Maradona having more touches than half the Nigerian side in Argentina’s first match. Letting go is hard.

– South Africa’s tournament-opening goal, a beautiful scorcher. Like the promise of early morning, there hadn’t yet been any officiating disasters, national meltdowns or 0-0 soporifics.

– Denmark’s Jon Dahl Tomasson looking positively embarrassed after he needed a rebound on a penalty kick to end his international scoring drought.

– U.S. goalie Tim Howard leaping for a ball — at the other end of the pitch. Desperate for the tying goal against Ghana he ran the full length of the field to create a man advantage. The replay showing both goalies jumping for the ball was amazing.

– The camera pan of the Portugese side heartily singing the national anthem before the first match, arms round each other, with the shot ending on Ronaldo at the end, self-contained, silent, head down. A nation of one.

Fortune’s Adam Lashinksy interviews Virgin America CEO David Cush, who discusses the innovative tools the carrier uses to expand its routes and please its customers.

Below, Virgin America vs. big U.S. carriers. In a second interview with David Cush, he says that in going up against U.S. airlines, they are competing on price, flights and routes. They’re not yet making money yet, but he says they hope to make a profit this year. The initial plan called for profitability in year three and it looks like they’re on target.

Jeff Klein at The New York Times Soccer Blog has gathered a wonderful
video collection of 17
celebrations around the country (many of them here in California).
Most of them are either after Landon Donovan’s stoppage time goal or
post-match, but this one from San Diego actually starts a few seconds
before the goal so it captures the false start after Dempsey’s kick into
the goalkeeper, an intake of breath, then the explosion. It’s just what
it felt like at Nickies in the Lower Haight and one imagines all over
the country.

This intense interest in the World Cup is more about national pride
than a new-found love of soccer. Hopefully interest in the game will
continue to grow for kids and their parents, because of all the team
sports it’s the one that will produce the highest degree of physical
fitness, which according to statistics we desperately need to provide
for our young.

It’s even easy to imagine highly competitive high school soccer in
more parts of the country but the economics and the low scoring will
prevent the game from catching on at the professional spectator level.
However, the United States international team could continue to improve
dramatically as more and more kids go to play in the European leagues
after they leave school.

Whatever
happens later, for now it sure is great to get up at 5:30 in the
morning and to go find a pub to share this team with others. It’s also
fantastic to play well in the world’s game. Take a look at the bottom of
the NYT blog’s game play-by-play.
It was a joy to read all the well-wishing comments from around the
world.

It feels, too, that this team which plays a foreign game has an
iconic American hero. Donovan is slight, without much swagger to him. He
spends most of his time running, and his rush up the field on the
winning goal was breathtaking. But he is most compelling when he stands
still.

When Donovan is poised before the ball at a corner kick or a free
kick he has an air of quiet certainty, alertness and complete
self-possession. His confidence and attention radiate to his teammates
and to all of us.

There’s a little Tom Hanks in these photos, but when he is surveying
the pitch before kicking the ball into play it is more like Gregory
Peck, as if Atticus Finch were a coach whose job is to integrate a high
school team in the 1960s American South.

He tells us with his eyes
that he’s going to get it done. A hero makes people say “That’s what I
want to be like.” Donovan inspires that.

A reasonably thorough inspection of soccer pubs and restaurants in San Francisco and Berkeley over the past ten days reveals that while there may be more people supporting the English and Mexican soccer teams in the Bay Area there is nobody having as much fun as the Brazilians.

On Sunday the Brazilian World Cup team once again gave its fans a reason to dance (as if they need an excuse) with a 3-1 trouncing of Cote d’Ivoire. Of the several places in the Bay Area which are hosts for Brazilian fans this time we chose Martin Macks on Haight St. in San Francisco. You might ask yourself how an Irish pub has become a place to samba….

So we have Thierry Henry and FIFA to thank. What a way to convert the Irish mourning and outrage at being cheated out of the World Cup into something positive that we all get to share. In addition, the pub burned down less than two years ago so we’re lucky it’s here at all. This is a review shortly after it re-opened.

On this perfect San Francisco Sunday the seats were gone 30 minutes before the match and most of the standing room taken by the national anthem, as you can see.

The kitchen and floor staff did an excellent job of getting food and drink to the mob, no easy task. There were plenty of TV screens, flags everywhere, and even a samba band at halftime and after the match. There is nothing like a room full of happy people doing the samba to make you want to move and to remind you to make sure that at least part of life be a party.

Brazil’s next match is Friday against Portugal, the match soccer fans have been waiting for since the first round groupings were announced. Brazil is ranked first in the world and Portugal is third – it’s unusual for two highly-ranked teams to be in the same group so expect a great match. Play hooky.

The top shelf of the bar at El Farolito Soccer Club is lined with trophies won by the team over the past 20 years or so. They must be nailed to the wood because that’s they only way they didn’t come crashing to the ground during Mexico’s dominating 2-0 victory over France Thursday in both countries’ second World Cup match.

There were whistles and horns and flags and songs and a couple of television crews. It was so loud
you couldn’t even hear the vuvuzelas.

To our left was an 86-year-old Nicaraugan with a firm handshake and a bottomless glass of vodka.  He was looking for bets at the bar and was probably the only person rooting for France. I asked him why and he said that he’d lived in the U.S. since 1945, raised a family here. The United States is his team and that if everyone wants to support Mexico they should go back home. He also said that he’d been paying his bar tabs for 30 years by betting against Mexico. But he didn’t collect today.

To our right was an elegant 50-ish Guatemalan who looked like she was playing hooky from her job at the school library. In fact, everyone was playing hooky (or out of work) which added to the fun.

The announcers in Spanish also contributed to the atmosphere. ESPN made a great choice by using English announcers rather than Americans for their broadcasts but they are usually somewhat subdued. This guy, on the other hand, went 45 minutes without punctuation, sounding like a cross between an auction and a horse race.

With the taqueria shuttling burritos from next door it was a perfect day, the most fun of the tournament so far. 

Capturing goals in real-time at a bar is next to impossible, unless it’s a penalty kick. Here is the goal that gave Mexico an insurmountable 2-0 lead. 

Matt Marshall addresses 200 people who show up for a DEMO meet-up at Sunnyvale’s Plug & Play Center in Silicon Valley. He encourages entrepreneurs, engineers, product visionaries and investors to network, brainstorm and help each other out so we can make great things happen together.

He also talks about DEMO’s move to Silicon Valley, the first time in the history of DEMO they will host an event locally rather than a resort, which has been typical of the style of their events for the past 19 years. More details on products, people and announcements as we get closer to the event.