August 2008
9 posts
3 tags
Post Powerpoint Presentation (and Presidency)
Barack Obama’s acceptance speech yesterday at the Democratic National Convention was remarkable in its clarity and delivery. Concrete attacks on John McCain and clear policy statements replaced the at times lofty oratory of some his more recent speeches. Yet it was hard to even look away for the entire duration — that’s how riveting the delivery was. And none of it involved...
2 tags
Tennis, Chess and War (and Startups)
One of my father’s favorite sayings is “Tennis, chess and war are lost through one’s own mistakes” (translated from German). Growing up, I used to really dislike this saying, in retrospect mostly because I lost against my Dad at tennis for a long time excactly because of my own mistakes. Yesterday afternoon, I took the kids to the US Open to see some of the first and...
2 tags
Dignity
On vacation I had an interesting parenting moment. I threw my son in the pool with his clothes on, something I had done a few times before, but this time the reaction was very different. He was really upset and ran off. When I caught up with him he complained about my making him lose his “dignity” in front of others. I was a bit shocked at his use of the word in the first place, but...
2 tags
Apple App Store Versus Facebook Apps
Umair Haque is at his usual stimulating and frustrating best in a recent post comparing Apple and Facebook’s third party application strategies. Stimulating because he is looking at an important topic and pointing out interesting differences. Frustrating because Umair’s free wheeling style and usage of otherwise well defined terms leads to conclusions that seem unwarranted (at least...
2 tags
Shopping for School Supplies
We have three kids in elementary school and yesterday I spent nearly 2 hours at Staples together with a bunch of other dazed and confused parents. The ritual of buying school supplies may have nostalgic value to some, but I find it appallingly inefficient. The ideal solution would be for the teachers to simply go ahead and order the supplies online and have them delivered to school. I suspect...
$1000 Virtual Bling →
Harry’s coverage of the $999.99 glowing ruby app is pretty balanced. Some folks, like Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider, think it simply obnoxious. Personally, I think it’s “really, really f*ing brilliant” (to quote Bono) - would probably work even better if it were a limited edition. Seems to me that most people protesting this secretely wish they had thought of it...
1 tag
Top Signs Your Service is Going Mainstream
Planning to turn this into a top ten list, but here is a start. The order may take some work too.
Your name becomes used as verb or noun. Biggest success here in recent memory is of course “google”, but it was nice to see a “Hail to The Twitterer” headline in the New York Times this weekend (print edition, online the article has a different title).
Your...
2 tags
Dell Trademark: Cloud Computing →
There is something broken in the trademark process when a company can get a mark on a term of art that is already well established. Dell filed this application in March of 2007 when “cloud computing” was already in use. For instance, by simply googling for “cloud computing 2006” the first result is an article in ZDNet that has “cloud computing” in the...
2 tags
Avoid David and Goliath (for Strategic...
For some startups partnerships are essential to execution, for instance by giving access to an audience, a technology, or a process. In those situations I have a rule that is based on a fair bit of experience: try to avoid partnering with other startups (David) or the biggest players in the respective market (Goliath).
Partnering with other startups is problematic because they may change...