February 2012
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The futuristic board ... →
This is an interesting read, and I happily acknowledge the female koombayah — however, I think the point would have been better made (and better taken) had it been about overall diversity versus women alone. The stat the article notes about better performing teams resulting from a higher proportion of women is loosely correlated at best — adding any group if non-55-or-older-white-men...
January 2012
6 posts
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“Women aren’t wowed by the gee-whiz of technology,” said Ann Mack,...”
– It’s incredible this topic is finally gaining traction - and more so, getting air time at CES. The differences between male and female technology priorities and buying habits have existed for years, and yet marketers are just now (and just barely) catching on.
Kudos to AT&T, Amazon,...
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“Each lab poses a “challenge”, such as “help us design a new...”
– This is the magic social networks have been waiting for - the ability to take Facebook followers into an idea-sharing environment, and leverage their collective insight into your product ( which they already love) and target consumer (themselves) and make it tangible.
Most of the services offered...
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Yahoo's new leader may be an odd choice - but at...
Breaking news hit the airwaves yesterday - Yahoo finally selected a new CEO, crowning Scott Thompsom (poached from PayPal) with the excitement and the burden of putting Yahoo back on track. The choice is interesting (as many news sources have noted) as Thompson has even less direct ad sales experience than Carol Bartz’ did, but his experience as a global technologist and expertise in...
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December 2011
13 posts
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Oh Verizon, did you learn nothing from Netflix?
Of course, we knew this would happen.
An un-warranted fee for subscribers who make single payments online — and that also, a steep $2 fee per payment, was flawed from the start. Why is a one-off payment more expensive to support than an auto-payment? Isn’t the back-end technology and processing exactly the same?
Not exactly — there is some underlying truth to Verizon’s...
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Does Santa have a factory for gender-neutral toys?...
We’ve been having nightly debates this week amidst the frenzy of holiday shopping, great retail results, and flurry of toy commercials - how “influential” are kids toys, or better yet, kids toys commercials, on what toys kids ‘actually’ like? Or on what toys kids ‘think’ they should like?
Next time you watch a toy commercial, take note of the distinct...
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Perhaps, little by little, Netflix will get their... →
This is good news for consumers and for streaming video. Seems Netflix has pretty busy signing licensing agreements with a long list of British media outfits.
Little by little they’ll get back in our good graces.
http://mashable.com/2011/12/20/netflix-bbc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
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"Goodnight ipad" →
This is awesome — we had to know ‘digital’ would eventually reach our kids favorite bedtime books. Even better will be reading this on the ipad itself before going to bed.
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Pics of Santa's "back-office"operations →
These pics are an excellent representation of how Santa makes it all happen. Love it.
Mashable link —>
http://mashable.com/2011/12/04/online-retailer-warehouses/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
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Google taking on Amazon Prime? Ahh the turf war... →
Amazon has built its business (at least its ‘primary’ business) on being THE online shopping destination fir all things and all people. Then they took on music, ebooks, movies, and even digital advertising.
Funny thing is, if you move backwards through those same industries, you get (roughly) the path Google has charted through the same spaces.
But Google doesn’t do...
November 2011
10 posts
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Publishers and libraries are better off working...
… making this move by Penguin so hard to understand. The revenue-based motivations are clear enough — more e-books checked-out means less e-books purchased, and worse, less hardcopies purchased.
But hasn’t that train already left the station?
It seems counter-intuitive for Penguin (amongst others) to direct their digital frustration at libraries — versus finding better...
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Black Friday strikes back →
Okay, pepper spray and rabid-Walmart shoppers notwithstanding, this is really good news for retailers, for the holiday season, and for the economy overall.
A surge in holiday sales will mean most retailers actually hit their 4Q earnings - helping the market rebound just a tad in January. It doesn’t solve the growth = jobs problem, but it creates a glimmer of consumer confidence that would...
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Google Music - welcome to the lions den
With Google music launching last week, the digital music ecosystem (Google, Apple, Amazon) just got more treacherous.
From the depth of their music libraries, to the free v paid cloud-based music lockers, the optionality and value propositions available to consumers just grew exponentially.
The real indicator will be switching costs and how flexible consumers really are with where we get our...
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Welcome to the NYC Open Data TumblrAs part of... →
If more cities did things like this, we’d have such amazing transaprency to where the country’s most efficient resources, and where they are needed the most. Kudos to Bloomberg and NYC for being at the front of this — even with all the battle scars and likely some of the most severe disparity problems, it refreshing to see such openness.
Now we need some smart people who know...
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Google TV – we had to know this was coming
From investing over $100M of their own money, to hiring TV Exec Jeremy Stern and launching a pilot internet+phone service platform in Kansas City, Google is serious about entering the pay-TV market – and (as usual) massively disrupting it.
And we had to know this was coming. When Google first acquired YouTube in 2007, there were rumors it provided a platform to enter television, though nobody...
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October 2011
14 posts
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Steve Jobs' "one more thing..." →
Great read and really makes you wonder how much more of Jobs’ genius we’ll still get to see.
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Social Networking: U.S. Mobile & Social Media... →
Compelling new stats on the growth and penetration of social and mobile media since last year - stats to note:
Daily access of blogs or other social networks is up 58%
Access to these blogs and networks via mobile apps is up 125%
Twitter and LinkedIn have grown faster than Facebook at rates of +75% and +69% (versus 50% for Facebook - though, most of us were already on mobile Facebook this time...
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Google revenues and earnings way up for Q3 -...
Google Q3 2011: $9.72 Billion In Revenue, $2.73 Billion In Net Income - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NQx3B1tL7R4/
Should be interesting to see how others do over the next week!
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Facebook and ebay have teamed up to take us boldly... →
This is amazing - finally there’s a path merge social networks and engagement with secure and protected online shopping clearly ahead of us - and the best players in both camps are taking us there.
What should follow is s frenzy of developer activity to “activate” the combined technology, and integrate it seamlessly into the online shopping / reviewing/ sharing / blogging we’re already doing.
...
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Netflix secures deal with the CW →
Awesome news and exactly what Netflix needs to prove the high value of a streaming -only business model (even if they’re holding off on that move fir the moment).
Nice job Netflix - more deals like this and hopefully the stock price follows also.
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Google's Own Burning Platform Memo →
Google Developer’s midnight blog post (meant to be ‘internal’ but was posted ‘external’)
This is an unfortunate misstep on the part of one Google developer — and while it won’t change much in the grander scheme of things, it does reveal some vulnerabilities inside Google that at least a few people are worried about. Google’s internal damage control...
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Apple, Meet Facebook. Facebook, Meet Apple. →
Apple and Facebook have much in common, and a lot could come from collaboration between the two — if they could just find a way to meet.
The finally (!) launched iPad Facebook app is a first step to all the great things Facebook and Apple could do together - should be interesting to see what comes next!
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“ … there is a difference between moving quickly—which Netflix has done...”
– It’s incredible to see Netflix reverse course on what was such an enormous strategic decision. While the initial announcements they made to increase prices and establish Qwikster for DVD rentals were neither timed nor communicated effectively, the strategic basis for these decisions was 100%...
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Steve Jobs left an incredible legacy and the tech... →
We lost a great technologist, strategist, and salesman yesterday. He changed the way we think, the way we interact, the way we listen, and the way we communicate. And he transformed the world of personal and corporate computing as we know it.
Thanks for everything Steve — rest assured, those in your footsteps will leave no stone unturned to keep innovation charging forward.
Steven Paul...
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September 2011
12 posts
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Amazon v. Apple -- different strategies, and... →
Great comparison of these two great companies.
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Twitter Study Tracks When We Are →
This is a great piece of analysis on how tweets very closely reflect the collective feelings of consumers during the day, during a week, during a year - etc. Our tweets follow seasonal patters, economic changes, current events — along with the simplest ups and downs in the cultural norms around us. Pretty interesting study results - and raises an interesting question about how Twitter will...
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Could Amazon buy Netflix on the cheap? →
Not many could have predicted Netflix’ rise and fall from internet-darling status with all these twists and turns. New analysis from Wedbush Securities positions Netflix as a “cheap buy” for competitors like Amazon and Google. Particularly following a day of deal making by both Amazon (with 20th Century Fox) and Netflix (with Dreamworks), the idea is compelling. Netflix, having lost significant...
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Netflix (finally) reveals the "real story"...
And acknowledges the error of their ways. Finally we get to understand what’s really going on - Netflix, a now mature new media company (read: an “old” new media company if you like oxymorons) made a decision to fully separate their DVD and streaming businesses - likely to ensure the ability to invest in and grow the latter (still called “Netflix”), while benefitting from the “cash...