Greetings from Tokyo. The response to Stealth Start-Ups Suck has been fantastic so far, both pro and con. Thanks to everyone who’s been commenting on it. You can track people talking about it through this link for Bloglines citations. I didn’t mean to specifically pick on 24 Hour Laundry and I didn’t realize others had already been doing so. I don’t know them and I’m sure they’re nice and smart people. The CNET article about them was just the trigger that got me to write that piece. Actually, a meeting ealier in the week with a friend who has his own stealth start-up really got the ball rolling. I implored them to publically launch their service and I hope they do soon.

There’s been a small rash (ouch, you should see a doctor about that…rimshot) of press coverage about the new stealth web start-up 24 Hour Laundry. Who knows what they do, but whatever it is, they’re doing it wrong. Here’s the thing, stealth mode for a web start-up is the kiss of death.

Stealth mode is when a company is operating in secret for some length of time before launching their product or service. In many industries, creating a new product or service takes significant time and effort. During this time, being in stealth mode may make a lot of sense. But creating a new web service is not rocket science and does not take a lot of time or money. My rule of thumb is that it should take no more than 3 months to go from conception to launch of a new web service. And that’s being generous. I’m speaking from experience here. I developed the first version of ONElist over a period of 3 months, and that was while working a full-time job. I developed the first version of Bloglines in 3 months. By myself. It can be done. And I suck at it! Just ask all the engineers who have had to deal with my code.

Is it me, or is every single conference scheduled for the week of June 20? Here’s what’s up:

• I’ll be on a panel at the CNET Japan Innovation Conference on Monday, June 20 in Tokyo.
• Also on Monday is the Whole New Internet workshop of SuperNova in San Francisco. Daniel Read will be presenting in my stead.
• On Wednesday is the RSS Feeds and Podcasting session of WebmasterWorld in New Orleans. Garrett Rooney will be presenting in my stead.
• Finally, on Friday and Saturday is Gnomedex up in Seattle, where I’ll be on a panel and participating as part of a lunch.

I’m back on the West Coast again, at least for a few weeks. I moderated a panel at the Syndicate Conference in NYC this past Wednesday. We arrived Tuesday evening, in time to catch a fun blogger dinner at Gallagher’s Steak House in Times Square. For this particular carnivore, it was like heaven. Large slabs of cow and other mammals all over the place. Very yummy. Wednesday morning, I had a meeting with Business Week’s Stephen Baker, as described here. Stephen asked some great questions, and I hope I was able to give coherent answers (thanks to jet lag, I was operating on about 2 hours of sleep). After that, I moderated a panel at Syndicate. The panelists did a great job, and I thank them for making the panel a success. Unfortunately my flight was at 6pm, so I had to scoot right after the panel ended. With a seat in the last row of the plane, and after having the plane sit on the tarmac for an hour due to weather delays at SFO, I finally got back home around midnight.

As part of our ongoing Universal Inbox strategy, we launched weather forecasts in Bloglines this evening. Simply click the ‘Add’ link from your My Feeds display, and then select the ‘Weather’ link. You can add a weather forecast by city/state or zipcode. Forecasts are available from throughout the world, and like all of Bloglines, this new feature is localized in the 8 different languages that Bloglines supports.