March 2009
51 posts
“US consumers will drive more new mobile internet use: About half of US non-users...”
– Mobile Internet Poised for Dramatic Growth
Which Apple Store in NYC should I go to tonight?
“We still believe that, done properly, venture capital can be one of the highest...”
– DISQUS | Lindel
State of the Internet Report →
“Facebook is trying to teach members to use privacy settings to manage their...”
– Facebook at 5 - Is It Growing Up Too Fast? - NYTimes.com
Yes, because enabling privacy settings turn into more of a “headache” to the common user (particularly the exploding 35+ demographic) when they are hidden behind a deceptively simple (yet, really complex) UI.
No Such Thing as Too Much Seed Capital...
navsmusings:
NYC EDC has been meeting with entrepreneurs, VCs and others from the startup community in New York City to figure out whether it is possible to create more startup jobs. I recently participated in a discussion on this topic and there was an interesting discussion about the availability of seed capital in New York. Several folks made the argument that there is already enough seed...
“But, I don’t think this is the only reason Frugality is a core value. Amazon’s...”
– Ian Sefferman - Leaving Amazon: What I learned over the last four years
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Is online advertising more effective than...
mikehudack:
Does anyone know the answer to this question?
My gut: Online advertising is more effective at certain things (i.e. driving actual purchase) while television advertising is typically more effective at other things (i.e. driving brand affinity).
Our hope is that online video offers a perfect hybrid of these two, and is ultimately evaluated on both scores. There’s a battle on right...
“In a note just distributed, Arthur and Janet informed us that the company,...”
– Layoffs At New York Times (NYT)
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My Thoughts About Start@Spark
Today we are launching Start@Spark, a new initiative focused on seed stage investments in the New York and Boston areas. - Why are we doing this?
Spark Capital is introducing a new way to start a company in the Northeast.
I’m extremely impressed by a few areas of the announcement and also the detail provided on their About page.
1. Timely turnaround in three weeks. It’s clear that...
Why are we doing this?
startatspark:
Today we are launching Start@Spark, a new initiative focused on seed stage investments in the New York and Boston areas.
When we launched Spark Capital in 2005, we were convinced that a revolution was taking place at the conflux of media, entertainment, and technology. Four years later, the pace of that revolution has exceeded even our own expectations, as the movement of people...
Beyond the Money: Some VCs Provide Startups With A... →
“Well, they made a website with ruby on rails and without venture capital....”
– Hacker News
“It took place shortly after the first big initial public offering (IPO) of a...”
– Six years in the Valley | The Economist
“I think the way to navigate the digital world is to remember that the consumer...”
– David Pakman - Netflix Got It Right (via betaworks)
“Forget business models. Focus on ideals.
Reconceiving value creation depends...”
– Why Ideals are the New Business Models - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org (via ethanb)
Advisors - how much equity is right?
bijan:
In many cases, young startup companies will benefit from the advice of more experienced (not necessarily older) people that have been there/done that. Often times this experienced person will help out a young company because they are fond of the founders as well as the startups vision and product.
I’ve seen many such people help out young companies without any economic compensation...
“All the lawyers know what the latest standard terms are for various types of...”
– Paul Graham on Why Boston Should Worry About Its Future as a Tech Hub—Says Region Focuses On Ideas, Not Startups | Xconomy
I agree on the laywers part but not so much on the investor fear one.
Design
unalone:
The second-best sort of design is the design that you never notice. The design that gets out of the way and lets you do stuff.
The best kind of design you do notice, but you notice it for the right reasons. Generally speaking, you notice it when you use something in a way it’s not meant to be used, and it still works.
Dropbox is a perfect example. I use it for everything I can think...
Mike Hudack is on fire tonight. Keep it coming! →
“See, the people who populate Facebook are largely from Generation Open. They...”
– Chris Messina on “Generation Open” (via betaworks) (via whitneymcn)
kortina’s bit: yes. I have drunk deeply of this openness idea, and am pretty liberal with the amount of data I share and care little about being served better ads based on pretty much any action I take on the internet.
Of late,...
It's 70 degrees in New York City
(via mikehudack)
Amen. Just got back from rollerblading in Central Park.
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Where is eBay?
continuations:
Short post today as I am on BlackBerry only and headed to Hacking Education. I just have a simple question - where is eBay? This crisis ought to be fantastic for eBay as folks are looking to unload stuff they don’t need and buy things for cheap at auction. Instead the WSJ today has one article about women selling their old clothes out of their closets and another about Amazon...
“The fundamental trend is that consumers are shifting a greater share of their...”
– Gloomy Forecast for E-Commerce Sites - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
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Overspecialized Than Overdiversified
Phew. That’s my first breath I’ve taken since I landed back in New York City on Tuesday morning at 3AM EST. For nearly a week, I was in San Francisco for the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference 2009 and other meetings throughout the Bay Area. You can take a look at the agenda [PDF] on their site (although it was nearly impossible to find online without an invitation to the...
“Please know that Georgetown remains committed to protecting its academic...”
– John J. DeGioia, President of Georgetown University - via email to all alumni
Three kinds of meetings (via Seth Godin)
brit:
“Meetings are marketing in real time with real people. (A conference is not a meeting. A conference is a chance for a circle of people to interact).
There are only three kinds of classic meetings:
Information. This is a meeting where attendees are informed about what is happening (with or without their blessing). While there may be a facade of conversation, it’s primarily designed to...
Agile development is more culture than process and... →