May 2013
12 posts
7 tags
Advice
The best thing Yahoo can do for itself is stop being purple.
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Tumblr Staff: News! →
staff:
Everyone, I’m elated to tell you that Tumblr will be joining Yahoo.
Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple.
Well, I guess it’s happening. Doesn’t change anything right now, but let’s see. I’m sure the pressure will quickly be on to generate more than $10m(!) revenue for such a large user base.
As long...
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EA Has No Games in Development For Nintendo's Wii... →
Nintendud.
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Will Yahoo Try to Get Its “Cool Again” by Doing a... →
Could an investment in or purchase of the hipster blogging service take years off the Silicon Valley Internet giant?
Please, no.
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Continuations: Google IO: Google Is the New... →
continuations:
Two years ago I wrote a blog post titled “Is Google the New Microsoft?” hedging it with a question mark. I think after the announcements at Google IO there can be very little doubt that Google is the new Microsoft.
Here is a short check list. Dominant position in one market that generates huge…
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Facebook Home and Dogfooding →
Gruber:
Facebook Home isn’t an iPhone idea. It’s just a bad idea. Facebook is an app, not a platform.A good home screen interface is one that accommodates any app or service, not just one.
Absolutely.
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The future of iOS design? — Thoughts and words →
Tim Green:
To me, there is a distinct movement towards a particular style and I would be very surprised if Apple were ignorant of it. It’s not ‘flat design’ per se and it’s certainly nowhere near the ‘Metro’ levels that people are suggesting they may follow, but it’s a mellowing out of the visual indicators that people need to trigger the idea of a tappable element
A good overview of current...
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A Humbled Kleiner Perkins Adjusts Its Strategy →
After big hits in the dot-com boom, Kleiner Perkins has been sideswiped by a series of lackluster bets in green technology and missed chances in social media.
Echoes Fred Wilson’s recent post about VC returns. It’s a tougher industry than people think, partly because of the glitzy image seed funds give themselves and VC’s status as darling of the SV press.
For more information,...
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Bill Gates on the iPad →
“They can’t type, they can’t create documents, they don’t have Office there.”
Last time I checked, the lack of Office on iPad was nothing to do with Apple or the device. What a stupid thing to say.
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Coming Soon To Facebook: Video Ads →
In an attempt to open up a new revenue stream for shareholders the social network is bringing videos to the newsfeed.
Whoopee.
April 2013
16 posts
7 tags
Facebook deserted by millions of users in biggest... →
Facebook’s dominance in the social media world has come under threat from newer services such as Instagram and Path
Elements of this article are sound – I do think this poses a risk and a problem, but FB losing users to Path? Stupid, and to say that Facebook is losing users to Instagram, a FB-owned business, is also a very silly thing to write and totally undermines your article message....
Nintendo posts loss again as Wii U misses... →
parislemon:
Sam Byford:
Nintendo made an operating loss in 2012 for the second consecutive year as its new Wii U console failed to spark excitement among consumers. The company lost 36.4 billion yen ($366 million) over the 2012 fiscal year; last quarter, the company unexpectedly predicted that it would lose $220 million in 2012 after previously saying it would turn the same amount in profit....
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WWDC 2013 announced for June 10-14: Apple to talk... →
This morning, Apple officially announced that its 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will take place at Moscone West in San Francisco from Monday, June 10 until Friday, June 14th. Tickets …
Please let iOS 7 be great.
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iPhone 6 →
marco:
Regardless of how big of an improvement the next iPhone is, Apple should just call it the iPhone 6 and give the finger to anyone who questions whether the name fits.
As Siracusa said - release it in many colours and call it the iPhone 6. Big enough differentiator to most people, though bloggers will still trash it.
Everything rides on iOS innovation.
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ParisLemon: If Microsoft Were The Inventors Of... →
parislemon:
Here we go again.
Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s head of communications, took to the company blog today to “congratulate” Facebook on the launch of Facebook Home. Except that he’s not really congratulating Facebook, he’s passive-aggressively signaling the old “WE DID THIS FIRST!!!” whiny bullshit…
It’s all about execution. MSFT executed badly, as they have done on every...
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Neophilia as a Form of Hiding →
The same is true of design trends. Many — not all, maybe not even most, but many — of the complaints I see about iOS, for example, boil down to it being familiar. It no longer scratches our itch for new. Apple needs to scratch that itch for us eventually or someone else will, but it’s essential that they find something new and better, not merely new and different.
Gruber gets at what I’m...
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“Regarding Ive: Word on the street is that iOS engineers with carry privileges...”
– via Gruber on Branch.
Definitely the most exciting thing coming to the iPhone/iPad, if true. Software is key to getting people really excited about the iPhone this time round.
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Apple Whisper Season →
parislemon:
With the start of Apple speculation season officially underway, you’d be hard-pressed to find more juicy info than the stuff on this Branch.
Love this time of year.
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OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter Departs Zynga →
Hardly surprising when your acquisition results in the immediate demise of your fad—I mean product—and then you’re left working for a famously bad company with a poisonous culture.
Good for him exiting with a tonne of dollar, though. Job well done.
MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY' →
murkavenue:
CLUE 1: “went to short dogs house, they was watching Yo MTV RAPS”
Yo MTV RAPS first aired: Aug 6th 1988
CLUE 2:
Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on: Feb 23 1993
CLUE 3: ”The Lakers beat the Super Sonics”
Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release…
Happy Easter.
March 2013
14 posts
4 tags
A thought on iOS, Apple, software and hardware.
In my opinion, a major iOS UI update will do more for the perception of the iPhone’s long-term success than the release of an iPhone 5S. I still believe it is the software that people are getting bored of, not the hardware, and yet no one has said this – everyone blames the hardware, but there is still absolutely no competitor out there – not even Samsung – that comes even vaguely close to...
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A "Flat" iOS 7? →
parislemon:
Jessica E. Lessin for WSJ:
Some suggested that in Apple’s next mobile operating system, Ive is pushing a more “flat design” that is starker and simpler, according to developers who have spoken to Apple employees but didn’t have further details. Overall, they expect any changes to be pretty conservative. For the past few years, Apple has unveiled versions of its mobile operating...
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“The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at...”
– Thorsten Heins, CEO, BlackBerry.
My reaction.
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“But Tesla is really a battery and technology company that happens to use...”
– A great read.
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Four Burning Questions →
And four burning questions:
I have spent a lot of time with the redesign and I am not clear how this solves Facebook’s two major challenges: retention and engagement. Yes, it is lovely, and the notifications are sort of nicer, but it still does nothing to make me come back more often and actually if anything I will spend less time. I can skim photos and bounce much faster.
The younger...
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Observations on Tech Stocks.
Apple’s P/E currently sits at 9.76x. Dell’s is 10.37x. The Technology sector’s average P/E is 22.69x, of which the Personal Computer sector holds an average P/E of 11.70x. Google’s P/E is 25.03x.
Need I say more?
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The age of the brag is over: why Facebook might be... →
I’m leaving because a Forbes writer asked his son’s best friend Todd if Facebook was still cool and the friend said no, and plus none of HIS friends think so either, even Leila who used to love it, and this journalism made me reconsider the long-term viability of the company.
– Blake Ross, former Director of Product at Facebook.
Ellis Hamburger, reporting for The Verge:
Facebook admitted in...
February 2013
17 posts
13 tags
Samsung announces Passbook – I mean Wallet – app. →
[…] it’s quite clear that Samsung took its design inspiration for Wallet from Apple’s Passbook (even down to the icon that Samsung used).
More delightful and surprising innovation from Samsung. What a great company.
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“The activist-hedge-fund attack on Apple — in which one of the most successful,...”
– Martin Lipton of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz on Einhorn’s Apple case.
Article: “Shareholder Democracy” can mask abuses.
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Sony fails to show PlayStation 4 console at... →
Shit show.
Dead on arrival, like I said.
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Innovation Through Simplicity →
More on Apple’s overlooked software prowess:
The utter simplicity of the iOS home screen is Apple’s innovation. It’s the simplest, most obvious “system” ever designed. It is a false and foolish but widespread misconception that “innovation” goes only in the direction of additional complexity.
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Apple IS a great Software company.
I’ve read a lot recently about Apple not being a great Software company. Most notably, I saw a lot of tech press scoffing (predominantly via Twitter) at Tim Cook’s assertion that Apple was a phenomenal Software company during the Goldman Sachs conference where he recently spoke. One of the most notable cries was something along the lines of “Cook trumpets Apple software prowess,...
