March 2010
9 posts
2 tags
VaultPress: A great example of an uncommonly... →
I love the MadLib style sign up screen for the newly announced VaultPress. Why? The main reason (among several) is that the line beginning with “I know you’re planning to charge about $30 a month for this” got me to *not* sign up. I love that they are not wasting my time signing me up for a service that I would never pay anywhere close to that price for. Kudos. Unless of course...
1 tag
Working backwards to achieve success →
What Aaron calls a “theory of change”, I’ve always just called “working backwards”, but I’ve used it successfully throughout my career starting some time in high school. I’ve never been big on five-year plans or anything like that; I just enjoy envisioning a positive outcome sometime in the future and working out the steps, backwards, to get there.
1 tag
Newly revealed e-mails from YouTube founders... →
“A few days later, Chen sent an explosive e-mail to Hurley and Karim saying: “Jawad, please stop putting stolen videos on the site. We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site, because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see...
2 tags
WatchMichael Lewis thinks only 10 to 20 investors really knew what was going on in sub-prime. Fascinating 60 Minutes interview.
3 tags
John Gruber's beneficially paranoid advice about... →
“Every hard drive in the world will eventually fail. Assume that yours are all on the cusp of failure at all times.”
I still rely on TimeMachine for everything but it’s probably time to buy an external disk and at least do a full monthly on it.
1 tag
“Hundreds of headlines wash over us every day. And part of why many of us engage...”
– Matt Thompson on why the way we report and consume news is precisely wrong. Matt is, of course, precisely right. If you’re at SXSW next week, I don’t know how you could justify missing this talk.
2 tags
2 tags
WatchJon Stewart Skewers Media’s Obsession with Chat Roulette: Funniest Wii Craps reference ever, as well. It’s really interesting to me that Chat Roulette is getting this much “attention” when TinyChat has been around so much longer, essentially does the same thing and more, and is much more useful to the average person. Just goes to show how viral public sex acts can be.
1 tag
"Add features and customers forever and rake in... →
The 2005 email that spawned Picnik, Google’s latest buy. If you’re thinking about launching a startup, you should study this e-mail carefully. It’s a perfect example of exactly how a crazy little thought becomes a big idea, and even on its own, it’s better than most “official company business plans” people present to VCs. I gave a talk at Webstock in New...