I took the Panasonic Lumix LX-1 to Europe last year and loved it. But it was too big for my front pocket and I wanted to downsize to a consumer-grade point ‘n shoot. So I bought the FX-01 and loved it even more. Since then I’ve recommended it to several people (Chris, Jeff, Marc, Graham, […]
January 11, 2007
Ryu at Dartmouth
Wow, I had no idea this was a local person. Excerpt from PaidContent.org: And then Pogue introduced us to an 18-year-old Dartmouth student named Phillip Ryu. The kid ran a competition called Mydreamapp.com, where amateurs competed to design their fantasy Mac application. The winner, a product Atmosphere (“an ambient way to see your weather”) is […]
January 9, 2007
Completely Redefining What You Can Do
I will be one of approximately 143,215,697 people to mention this today or tomorrow, but this is as close as it gets to product-orgasm. Cell phones have sucked forever, and this is a whole new game. iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet […]
January 3, 2007
Design Is Good For Business
DETROIT, Jan. 3 — The Chrysler Group was the only Detroit carmaker to report a sales increase for December, while the Japanese carmakers Toyota and Honda both saw their sales grow last month, figures from the auto companies showed today. I assert Chrysler gained sales because of design, with a capital-D. Of the US automakers, […]
January 2, 2007
Mattresses
How to cut through the marketing gimmicks. The secret to mattress shopping is that the product is basically a commodity. The mattress biz is 99-percent marketing. So just buy the cheapest thing you can stand and be done with it, because they’re pretty much all the same. And that’s all you need to know. Not […]
December 12, 2006
Wesabe
Been meaning to post this for a while: Wesabe. There’s a good tour describing the app. Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions. We do this by aggregating and analyzing our community members’ personal financial data, and showing tips […]
December 4, 2006
Rich People Don’t Care About Gas Prices
Great essay, with attitude, on why Ford, GM, and Chrysler are sucking eggs so hard. We’re looking at two strategies here. Toyota: build affordable transportation for the masses at a quality level that slightly exceeds expectations relative to price. GM et al: build oversized, under-engineered and fuel inefficient cars for people who don’t care about […]
October 16, 2006
Getting Connected
Classic Steve Jobs quote: Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried? In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three […]
October 6, 2006
Advice on Work
Paul Graham: The best place to work, if you want to start a startup, is probably a startup. In addition to being the right sort of experience, one way or another it will be over quickly. You’ll either end up rich, in which case problem solved, or the startup will get bought, in which case […]
September 23, 2006
Best Seminar Chair, 2006
I sat in these chairs 32 hours last week. I would not want to work full-time in this chair, but it is, by far, the best seminar or workshop chair I have ever experienced. Very comfortable. They deserve an award for designing a chair that fits the body, and Ford deserves an award for purchasing […]
September 14, 2006
The iPod Suit
From Eleksen, the iPod suit: The Bagir suit jacket integrates Eleksen’s ElekTex® smart fabric touchpad technology, which transforms a lapel into a five-button electronic control panel. The ElekTex-enabled iPod Suit is both fashionable and functional. The suit is machine-washable and wrinkle-resistant, making it the ideal choice for today’s music-savvy and style conscious business professionals. My […]
September 14, 2006
Quote of the Day
John Gruber, on Steve Jobs: Remember his on-stage demo last year [of the Motorola Rokr] iTunes-compatible phone? His contempt for the device was palpable; when he failed to successfully switch from song playback to accept a call, he seemed poised to just toss the thing off-stage and cry out that it was a piece of […]
September 12, 2006
Users GOOD, Groupware BAD
I read this Jamie Zawinski essay last year, but it’s worth another look. The trick you want to accomplish is that when one person is using your software, it suddenly provides value to that person and their entire circle of friends, without the friends having had to do anything at all. Then, later, you pull […]
September 11, 2006
Kids Don’t Use Mail
If you think email marketing is going to work forever, you might want to think again.
September 10, 2006
Link Roundup
Miscellaneous tabs still open from last week: * Robert Young on the fat belly of the Long Tail. * Kiko threw in the towel and put the company up for sale on eBay. It went for $250K. Tucows explains why they bought the technology. * Another excellent minimalist layout a la Craigslist and Facebook. More […]
September 7, 2006
Facebook Mini-Review
Well, I had a demo of Facebook, and it’s a very nice web application. [Previously: Attention Metastream. Today: Fred Wilson on the changes (good comments thread).] (I have removed names from this screenshot.) It’s hard to get a sense of it from the picture, but I can tell that if I were a college student […]
September 5, 2006
Attention Metastream
I don’t yet have access to Facebook, but this TechCrunch review notes the key element in successful web applications: Facebook clearly gets the idea of an attention metastream, where page views aren’t the currency that matters but rather how effectively the service allows users to communicate. Facebook users will now have a much easier way […]
September 5, 2006
WoW Update
In June 2005, I wrote about World of Warcraft (WoW): Conservatively, there was a one-time revenue stream of just under $100 million dollars, and an on-going monthly revenue of just under $26 million (just under $312 million annually). They are opening the game up in China soon, where there are 500,000 players in the open […]
August 24, 2006
Now In Clogs
On May 10 I cracked a sole on my Birkenstock Chicago shoes. No biggie, they were six years old, and it was my second pair. The first pair failed the same way at about the same time. Not so bad: Spend $200 on shoes and wear them almost every day and they last six years. […]