February 2010
0 posts
“as much as Volcker’s is suitably skeptical of the 21st century version of...”
– Volcker Does Not Get It « naked capitalism
This is why I’m not a fan/scared of Paul Volcker.
(via jryu)
Rafer sez: And 1990 is exactly where we need to go if we want to permanently fix these problems. Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1988. The Naked Capitalism blogger is capitulating on a...
quantcast.com - Quantcast Audience Profile →
Rafer sez: Smart. I’d never thought to check the Quantcast on Quantcast page. They keep it public. Good work.
“And another try for Apple to get into the gaming industry..
Untill you make a...”
– Nintendo’s Iwata dismisses iPad - News at GameSpot
Rafer sez: Innovator’s Dilemma at work. The core gaming people, vendors and users, don’t see Apple coming. “It’s feature-poor,” and the rest of the entirely predictable complaints.
This particular comment is...
January 2010
2 tags
Kreepie Kats in 'Dear God, While You're Busy... →
9 tags
More on shortUrls. Move to a single domain.
Pagerank image via Wikipedia
The shortURL world (bitly where I’m an advisor, awe.sm, etc.) is currently dependent on an html page redirect standard called a 301 Redirect. I’m convinced this standard will start to erode before long under the weight of its own tremendous success. The issue is that the standard requires that any browser or crawler that touches a 301 URL should...
“Firefox FORCED developers to get on board with the standards-based web.”
– Scoble: Can Flash be saved? (via gross)
Rafer sez: Agreed, but more importantly to @scobleizer — Who cares if Flash (or IE or AOL Mail) is “saved?” These are assets of decidely non-benevolent, for-profit companies whose employees may need to undergo the stress of switching jobs....
4 tags
“Hello Zipster,
You may have seen it on the news already, but just in case, we...”
– Image via CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
ZipCar’s member email about the Toyota recall.
Translation:
You’re our customer so our vendor’s screwup will not become your problem. It doesn’t matter whose fault it was; your experience comes first.
“In one year, here’s what I caught (you might have your own list):
The last...”
– Free Publicity: Who do we help? - Anil Dash
I really, really enjoy Anil Dash.
(via gross)
Rafer sez: Easy to forget the glass-half-full points with the healthcare and wall street messes. McCain certainly would not have even gotten these done. He probably can’t understand why they’re...
3 tags
“Clearly they’re more interested in unit sales than per-unit margin. The mobile...”
– Daring Fireball: Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad
And from the POV of their competitors—Unexpectedly low Apple iPad price forces notebook vendors to re-evaluate their tablet PC strategies:
However, starting a price war at below US$499 raises concerns...
12 tags
Yours, Mine, and Ours 2.0
agarwal:
The web has devalued packaged content. Repackaging content for tablets won’t reclaim the value, creating content experiences will.
Rafer sez: The MyBlogLog team is fond of saying that every social site just needs to do a great job defining three bits: Yours, Mine, and Ours. I’ve been giving a stock speech for years describing how to come up with the parts.
The bottom 80% of...
“But if the banks want us out of their business, they should get out of our...”
– The rest of the article doesn’t really go anywhere, to be honest, but this paragraph was too good to not share.
The little-known reason why investment banks got too big, too greedy, too risky, and too powerful. - By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine
(via heyitsnoah)
Rafer sez: The author is also a...
4 tags
“Skype, one of the most popular VoIP applications, said it had a 3G iPhone app...”
– Apple confirms 3G VoIP apps on iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch; Skype is waiting | Technology | Los Angeles Times
Rafer sez: Now the iPad does what I need.
3 tags
“I trust every publisher to protect my privacy as much as I trust every banker to...”
– MediaPost Publications The Fox Guarding the Hen House 01/29/2010
“But what about his concerns over Apple’s role as iPhone — and now iPad —...”
– Former Facebook for iPhone Developer Joe Hewitt Says iPad “Everything He’s Been Wishing For” | The iPhone Blog
8 tags
“Why is the iPad (seemingly) so easy to dismiss? Well, for one, it is an...”
– Check Mate: Apple’s iPad and Google’s Next Move - O’Reilly Radar
5 tags
We're all iBottoms
Image via CrunchBase
Lots of people, including me, felt let down by the iPad announcement. The sex of the iPhone launch(es) made us expect a bigger, better orgy.
Instead, Jobs showed up and said, “Orgy? Were you so drunk last time that you don’t remember getting married? And, oh baby, what a pre-nup you signed.”
This is why it's worth learning about advertising
superamit:stammy:rinich:
…
Verizon launched a Droid ad two months ago that essentially let the world know how doomed they were. The ad showed a bunch of “iDon’t”s. iDon’t have 5 megapixels. iDon’t have multitasking. Item after item of flaws in the iPhone that this new technology could solve.
Apple, meanwhile, showed a phone that could speak foreign languages at you, identify birdcalls in...
Its not the size of your market, its what you do...
brycedotvc:
For seed and early stage investors I’ve found that you either fundamentally and instinctively believe that something is a big market or you don’t. Because, often, the most interesting companies are operating in as-yet-undefined markets or are attacking and existing market from some niche that the large incumbents dismiss as not being big enough to warrant their attention and...
2 tags
On the lack of iPad Euphoria →
sawickipedia:
rafer:
heyitsnoah:
The Awl has the best comment yet on the iPad:
Still, I’m a little taken aback by the immediate and vocal lack of enthusiasm for the product. What does it lack? What was everyone hoping for that did not materialize? This is a very rough thought that I may or may not refine, so take it as such, but the iPad is a lot like Barack Obama: Everyone was able to...
“A lot of people have argued that requiring Apple to approve every application...”
– Is Apple Evil? (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)
Rafer sez: It’s only their plan until Mobile Safari improves enough to obviate the question.
On the lack of iPad Euphoria →
heyitsnoah:
The Awl has the best comment yet on the iPad:
Still, I’m a little taken aback by the immediate and vocal lack of enthusiasm for the product. What does it lack? What was everyone hoping for that did not materialize? This is a very rough thought that I may or may not refine, so take it as such, but the iPad is a lot like Barack Obama: Everyone was able to project their own fantasies...
11 tags
URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should... →
Rafer sez: James and I are on opposite sides of a basically unknowable argument. Does Google really treat 301 Redirects as the standard dictates? From the outside, SEOs et al can tell that Google comes close, but there’s no way of knowing if there’s some kind of discount or accelerator applied to this category of links rather than having them be transparent proxies for the underlying...
“Hi, I’m Vincent “Vinny” Van Gogh…artist, mad man, dead...”
– Jesus, Kirk and Vinny
Rafer sez: Ok, that’s pretty funny.
“Apple has to create a new category here—that’s something it has not done in more...”
– Three Things Apple Needs To Do To Make Its Tablet A Breakthrough Device | paidContent
Rafer sez: Really? I’m pretty sure that history will view the iPhone as the first of a new category. Given the predominance of data use and WiFi — combined with the low probability that AT&T will...
“The SPOFs have not gone, just moved. No, the namenode may not fail, but all I...”
– Steve: Developing on the Edge - Cloud MapReduce
about AmazonWebServives.
(via pukomuko)
“If news media outlets want to thrive in this new environment, they need to start...”
– Maya Baratz: In the App Economy, Newspapers are Apps
Rafer sez: This is a terrible idea. The open web is the only platform that lasts.
It is suicidal for existing large web enterprises to become dependent for distribution on Apple, Facebook, et al. Trading a quick buck for long-term value is how...
TechCrunch sold an Interstitial to RIMM?
I just went to TC to read up on last night’s attack, and I had to “Skip this Ad” to see any content at all. Did they sell out to Forbes when we weren’t looking?
prog21: Flickr as a Business Simulator →
“Cloud computing arrived, making VC deal terms economic only as growth capital...”
– Deprogramming VC & Reprogramming SWOT
Jesus, Rafer is so smart sometimes. This is the best rendering I’ve seen of a thought I’ve had for a few months.
(via giantrobotlasers)
Exactly. So now VCs trying to play in the <$1mm range have had to figure out how to scale their operations to make...
“We are now 200-plus years past Jefferson’s wish for permanent revolution and...”
– How America Can Rise Again - The Atlantic (January/February 2010)