Author Archives: payne

Twitter and Facebook

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Why do we need Twitter and Facebook?  (esp. after Facebook’s redesign, making it much more Twitter-like)

One reason:  tweets are 100% public, Facebook status updates are (generally) not.

As such, the collective tweet-stream is a great source of near-real-time information.  Lately, I find myself searching more than tweeting, mostly to find current info or if others are sharing my current problem (e.g. “EC2 down”).  When I do tweet, I’m tweeting more to a search result audience (e.g. “lots of spam getting throug gmail”) than to my immediate friends.  But I’m not sure this is typical behavior.

Twitter really wants to be a feature on Facebook.  I think they (Facebook) could pull this off if they came up with a manageable way to deal with privacy scopes:  100% public, semi-private, etc.

Analytics-Driven UI Design

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I thought Douglas Bowman’s recent post about his departure from Google was interesting.  As a visual designer, he felt Google’s data-driven culture was “paralyzing the company” and “preventing it from making any daring design decisions”.

Ten years ago (before I blogged, and therefore could prove this claim), I opined the future of user interface design would be a combination of visual design and direct marketing analytics.  (At the time, the DM folks were the ones that figured out the yellow envelope worked better than orange, etc. — the precursor to modern Web analytics).

The combination is key:  visual design without considering usage data is just flying blind.

Analytics without any design work doesn’t yield innovations & breakthroughs.  Think of it this way:  no amount of analysis of a farmer’s use of his horse and plow is going to get a design for a tractor.

Google’s clearly doing something right, but maybe they’ve taken analytics-driven design to the extreme?

Investing vs Speculating

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Brad Feld’s recent blog post on “Investment vs Speculation” is recommended reading for every entrepreneur.

Brad’s writing as an investor always learning now ways on how to invest $10000, but the points apply to entrepreneurs working on new opportunities.

Is your idea an “investment”:  do you see an opening to create real value?  Or are you speculating, and betting that someone will acquire the future business for more than the financials suggest it is worth?

GPS Feature Wish List

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I’m a huge GPS fan, and have wondered how I got through two decades of driving without electronic navigation help.

Recently, the innovation rate in navigation applications seems slow.  TomTom raised the bar a few years back, but nearly everyone’s caught up:   most units are quite good.

I’m wishing someone would “iphone” this market, with a great design that delivers a new level of innovation and blows everyone else away.  To that end, I’ve started collecting design elements and features I’d love to see, on this Wiki page.

Please feel free to comment and contribute.

When Disruptive Value is Sponged up by the Incumbents

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Charles Teague and I were riffiing today on entrepreneurial opportunities around the iPhone, location-based services, and other areas.   A recurring discussion theme was:  sometimes technology disruptions don’t lead to NewCo opportunities.  Why?

Consider the hype around Web Services from years ago.  There were dozens (perhaps hundreds) of companies funded, but today, can you name a single durable, sustainable, profitable, value-creating Web Services company?

Web Services is clearly an important disruptive technology, but the value created was entirely absorbed by existing companies:  Amazon, Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc. and the hundreds/thousands of other Internet technology companies.  In other words, it wasn’t disruptive enough.

True disruption comes when a new technology is so different, existing companies have difficulty processing it, and that “processing delay” lets a NewCo move in.  The Internet was the last major example:  Amazon was off to the races while Barnes and Noble was still parsing the implications.

Many disruptions really aren’t truly disruptive.  Take location-based services — it seems clear that most of the benefit is going to be absorbed by existing apps and companies.  It’s not to say that location-based services can’t be a component of a successful app, but I have a hard time believing that the location-based companies (e.g. Loopt, Where.com, etc.) will be successful without major strategy changes.

Notebook time

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I sometimes use JDarkroom for writing.  It blanks out the screen, giving only monospaced text, letting you focus on words (not formatting, the clock, the weather, email, surfing, or blog reading).

But when I need to think, turning off the computer entirely and writing on paper seems to work best (I like the large squared Moleskine notebooks).  It goes everywhere, boots instantly, and never crashes.  Because my writing bandwidth is much lower than my typing bandwidth, I focus more on thoughts than words.

For creative thinking, I also find it helps to shake up my surroundings.  I like leaving the office and going to a restaurant, coffee shop, library, museum, etc.  I’ve even made excellent “think time” out of waiting at the dr’s office, waiting to pick up the car with new tires, etc.

Try scheduling some notebook time.

“More turning to Web TV”

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I got a big chuckle out of this article from CNN, about consumers canceling cable service and turning to the Internet for TV.

The analyst/pundit comments reminded me of the Internet naysayers from the mid 90s:

The brutal economy may motivate some consumers, like the Wynsmas, to switch to Web-based TV, but it won’t necessarily hurt the cable or satellite TV business, which has historically been recession-proof.

Yes, but this is the first time in history that consumers have a viable alternative to satellite and cable TV.  And, the alternative happens to be entirely on-demand.

And:

“The cable companies have invested billions of dollars to expand the footprint and reach of their services, and it will require a similar investment by the [Internet Protocol Television] players to catch up,” said Lewis, the technology consultant.

Not really:  cable companies spent billions building infrastructure, both for broadband/IP and for proprietary cable distribution.  Since IP is open access (in theory), the IP TV player don’t need to duplicate that investment — they can just ride on the back of it.

App Stores for Mac and Windows?

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David Pogue wrote today about the 15,000 apps now available in the iPhone app store.  It’s pretty amazing.

But where’s the app store for Mac and Windows?  

Buying apps on-line is not a new concept:  I’ve got a handful of “indie” apps that I use regularly, and many big-name apps can be now bought on-line.  But Apple’s nailed the user experience for shopping and purchasing:

  • User reviews.  Gathered in one spot, on the “buy” page, just like Amazon.
  • Streamlined purchase & install flow.  Enter your iTunes password and you’re done.  Compare this to filling out an order form, entering payment info, confirming, downloading, opening the download, starting the install, going through the install wizard, and launching the app.
  • Enabling small value purchases.  Apple has enabled the low-price, high-volume app.

The same thing should exist for Mac and Windows.  

User reviews and “most popular” would let the best float to the top of the charts.  A standardized store would supplant the proprietary download/install modules (e.g. Adobe, EA, Valve/Steam, etc.).  The rev share with the store operator (currently 30% for the iPhone) would be lower because it competes with other distribution methods.

But it’s something only Apple and Microsoft can pull off — it really needs ubiquity to work.  (But Apple might be able to do it for Windows, if they bundled the app store with QuickTime/Safari).

Angel Funding Contraction

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Any entrepreneur considering angel funding should read today’s NY Times article “Angel’s Flee From Tech Startups“, and some of the followup commentary.

Angel investors, unlike most professional investors, control most of their investment portfolio.  If their equity investments drop (say) 35%, then they can immediately say “whoa!” and dial down their startup investments.

Professionals (e.g. VCs), on the other hand, are investing committed funds from limited partners.  The stock market can drop, but they’ll still have the $300m fund to “put to work” (otherwise, the LPs will ask why they’re paying management fees).  It will take a VC fundraising cycle for the rebalancing to work through the system.

Because of this, I think angel funding for new projects contracts much more quickly in market downturns.  It will be interesting to see if the professionals take up the slack.

Flash is the New Client-Side Java

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Remember Sun’s vision for Java:  client-side applets, downloaded on the fly, running in/alongside the browser?  It was a great vision, but Microsoft moved to block browser adoption and Sun botched it.  After nearly 15 years, client-side Java never really hit critical mass.

Instead, the original vision has quietly been realized by Adobe Flash.

What happened?  Video.

Site operators (notably, Youtube in 2005) discovered Flash was the best way to get in-browser video.  The growth of Internet video cemented Flash’s position as a ubiquitous browser-plug in.  Then, Adobe started adding Java-like features, notably ActionScript 3, a fairly efficient virtual machine, and a decent set of libraries.

Most of my developer friends reject Flash as “an animation system, with a crappy scripting language“.   They were probably right 3-4 years ago, but not any more.  With the latest Flash players, Adobe’s moved away from the animation-centric design to much more a generalized, programmatic system (that happens to have great animation support).

Just like Java, except with >98% market adoption.