The 8 phases of dating
2 July 2010
Impossible
1 July 2010
Obsession
30 June 2010
Unless you are prepared to be obsessed… you probably won’t be that successful
Jeff Bezos’s mission
30 June 2010
As published on Fortune
In the face of Kindle price cuts and wild iPad sales, Jeff Bezos is taking Amazon into new markets and onto every device he can. Will it be enough?
Jeff Bezos has been dismissed before. For most of the dot-com boom, he was assumed to be a one-shot wonder, inches away from having his bookstore, Amazon.com, extinguished by Wal-Mart. Now, with Apple’s mad rush into books and readers, people are starting to wonder again. But Bezos, judging by a sit down interview with Fortune last week, isn’t sweating.
So far, the numbers show he doesn’t need to. Last quarter, the company reported a profit of $299 million, up 68% from a year ago. Its ebookstore, which started with some 60,000 titles, now offers upwards of 600,000. And though the company won’t disclose hard numbers about its Kindle user base — Bezos has said Kindle owners number somewhere in the millions — its visibility in the hands of executives, soccer moms and twenty-something professionals reinforces its high-profile status as a go-to device for voracious readers.
But last week, Amazon slashed the price on its second-generation Kindle from $259 to $189 to undercut Barnes & Noble, which dropped the price of its own eReader, the Nook, from $259 to $199, and announced a Wi-fi-only version for $149. Earlier this week, Barnes & Noble reported a larger-than-expected loss totaling 89 cents per share, eight cents more than what analysts had predicted. It significantly lowered its earnings forecast for 2011 but indicated it would shift more of its resources to the growing ebook market.
Java vs .NET
29 June 2010
Validation
28 June 2010
Why newspapers fail
22 June 2010
I have been fortunate to have worked closely with Doug Richard for a year and a half and I think I know him well and appreciate both his expertise and his difficult character. But, I still get pleasantly surprised by his ability to get to the point of things more clearly and effectively than most people. Many ’media experts’ and bloggers, including myself, have debated at length about the future of newspapers and why the big guys are failing. I think however, that this post from Doug does a much better job than most at capturing the essence of what is wrong with the media industry (and also what I love about the US). Enjoy.
One of the joys of living in the US is the sheer convenience of it all. Sometimes that convenience is so much a part of the American experience that it only becomes obvious in its absence. Let me explain by example.
Part of my morning ritual for most of my adult life has been to have a cup of coffee and read the morning paper. Living in West Hollywood for 20 years I would greet each day with a large hot cup of freshly ground coffee and the newspaper, which would be waiting for me outside my door.
Now I’m an early riser but even at 530 or 600 in the morning the paper would be waiting for me. The only real risk the paper took on its way to my doorstep was the weekly ritual of grabbing it before the automatic sprinklers turned on and reduced it to a sodden rag.
Key Words
22 June 2010
The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.
Quick quiz: Who are the three largest Internet companies in the world by market capitalization?
If you guessed Google and Amazon you got two right, but I’m betting few of our American readers guessed the third. I certainly wouldn’t have a year ago. It’s not eBay or Yahoo; it’s Tencent. If you are in the Web space and haven’t heard of them, read this post, because Tencent’s cutesy penguin mascot is only going to cast a larger shadow in the global Web world in coming years.
Low-key Tencent is the largest, most profitable Internet company in China and it has just under 400 million active users–comfortably bigger than the population of the United States. Tencent recently bought 10% of Digital Sky Technology, which in turn owns huge chunks of Zynga and Facebook.
Pick your 2% and own it
19 June 2010
Freaking wordpress video embed doesn’t work so click here to watch this interesting interview to Brad Feld
Tom’s Kitchen, Chelsea, SW3 3QP
18 June 2010
One more from Sinan
I am a big supporter of the weekend breakfast. Even if I can’t wake up early, I still make the occasion to turn the breakfast into a brunch of breads, eggs, jams, tomatoes, cold meats, milk and cheese. This hobby is one of the biggest reasons why I became a big fan of Tom’s Kitchen during my stay in London. This cozy, high-ceiling bistro serves one of the most fulfilling, fun and delicious brunches in the city. From eggs, pancakes to hamburgers everything here is worth trying.
27 Cale Street, SW3 3QP, London; +44 (0) 207 349 0202; tomskitchen.co.uk
Some more goodies for foodies in London
The anatomy of an english breakfast
The Eagle, Farringdon
Village East, Bermondsey
Cafe’ Pellicci, Bethnal Green
The Easton, Farringdon
Key Words
16 June 2010
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
The trouble with trying to spot a winner
14 June 2010
As published by Luke Johnson
Amazing sixth sense
12 June 2010
There are three New York Cities
9 June 2010
As published on Chris Dixon’s blog
There are roughly three New Yorks.
There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and turbulence as natural and inevitable.
Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night.
Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.
Here is New York, E. B. White, 1949
Why I sold Zappos
7 June 2010
A very interesting account from Zappos’ founder and CEO Tony Hsieh and yet another proof of why Amazon is a great company.
The first time Amazon.com tried to buy Zappos, we said no without even thinking.
It was the summer of 2005, and Zappos, the start-up into which I’d poured the past five years of my life (and almost all of my money), finally seemed to be on the right track.
Zappos sells shoes and apparel online, but what distinguished us from our competitors was that we’d put our company culture above all else. We’d bet that by being good to our employees — for instance, by paying for 100 percent of health care premiums, spending heavily on personal development, and giving customer service reps more freedom than at a typical call center — we would be able to offer better service than our competitors. Better service would translate into lots of repeat customers, which would mean low marketing expenses, long-term profits, and fast growth. Amazingly, it all seemed to be working. By 2005, gross merchandise sales were $370 million, and we made the Inc. 500. We weren’t profitable yet, but we were close to breaking even, and our revenue was growing quickly.
SunbrellaWeb: we got funding!
7 June 2010
I wrote in the past about my friend Francesco and his startup. You can read about it here: A place in the shade.
The good news is that a couple of weeks ago we closed our first round of funding and we are marching full steam, and on schedule, to deliver the first solutions just in time for summer 2010. We are of course very excited and confident that this summer will be a blast.
We have 10 beach resorts for which we are implementing the full solution (SunbrellaWeb + SunbrellaMobile) and countless more for SunbrellaWeb only. If you want to know more about either solution click on the link above or get in touch with me: here.
So, what now? while we are working to deliver the first devices on time, we are starting a broad marketing campaign both to the beach resort owners and to the beach goers. We are also slightly revamping the site to make it fresher and easier to use.
We’ll also soon be integrating the Sunbrellaweb booking widget into CityandOut so you’ll be able to reserve your place in the shade from there as well, at the same time as booking your flights and hotels.
If you are in the summer holidays business, if you enjoy going to the beach or are interested in getting involved, just give us a shout.
Location 2012
4 June 2010
As originally published by Robert Scoble on TechCrunch
It’s January 2012 and you’ve just gotten your new Android 3.0-based phone. You’re going on a road trip so you start up the newly-released Foursquare. Gone are the checkins of 2010. Now you tell it where you’re going. This time we’re headed to Harrah’s at Stateline, Nevada. But this is no Foursquare you’ve ever seen before. They’ve finally integrated Waze, Tungle.me, and Yelp information into it. So, let’s discover more of what happens on our trip.
How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs
31 May 2010
Great advice from a great entrepreneur
“I mean damn, did you even see the test
You got D’s, motherf*$@%&, D’s! Rosie Perez”
—Kanye West
No position in a company is more important than the CEO and, as a result, no job gets more scrutiny. Sadly, little of this analysis benefits CEOs as most of the discussions happen behind their backs. This post is a step in the opposite direction. By describing how Andreessen Horowitz evaluates CEOs, I am at the same time describing what I think the job of the CEO is. Here are the key questions we ask:
- Does the CEO know what to do?
- Can the CEO get the company to do what she knows?
- Did the CEO achieve the desired results against an appropriate set of objectives?
Why Apps suck
31 May 2010
Fred Wilson lists a number of reasons why he prefers web browsing to apps. I could not agree more with his assessment.
I’ve tried a few content apps on the iPad, including the much discussed Wired app. But I don’t like reading content via apps on the iPad and I gravitate to the Safari browser.
There are a bunch of reasons I feel this way and I thought I’d articulate them:
1) many of the apps treat pages as monolithic objects. you can’t cut and paste text, you can’t engage with the content. it is just like reading a magazine or a newspaper. if i wanted to read a magazine or newspaper in physical form, i’d do that.
2) as Bijan points out this morning, there are no links to other content apps in mobile apps.
3) i can keep multiple pages open in the browser, just like i do on my laptop. it’s what i’ve gotten used to. you can’t currently multi-task apps although i suspect apple will change that soon.
Continue reading on Fred’s blog and check my pre-iPad launch post What the App!?
Being born under this sign determines many talents, as well as other characteristics that may not be so commendable. Rats are very lively and need a lot of mental and physical stimulation. They can be calm and perceptive, but sometimes their brains can cause a mental restlessness, tempting them to take on too much, only to discover they are unable to meet their commitments. Rats are blessed with one of the best intellects going. Add to their intelligence a curiosity and a bright imagination, and they seem as sharp as a needle.
Detailed Description
of The Water Rat
