I was in a LEGOs’ store today and was wishing I was 10 again. Not that you need an excuse to enjoy yourself with kids toys but it sorta helps. It was amazing how busy the store was and made me feel like I’d wandered into the Apple store. As I watched my son assemble LEGO characters I started to think about how LEGOs had impacted my early life and then thought about how Apple had...
I had a very interesting conversation the other day with a very smart entrepreneur in Boulder. (Not sure if he’d want me to use his name. So I won’t!) We were talking about businesses and how “they are what they are”, for lack of a better way to say it. Meaning Google is a search/ad company. Facebook is a social company and Apple is an consumer electronics company...
I’m on the list! I have an iPad on reserve and very soon I will stand in a long line with many others to get what can only be called the most anticipated piece of computing since . . . well . . . since the iPhone! I’ve also been playing games on my iPhone (Primarily Asphalt 4) and I like them a lot but I have to say that blocking the screen with my thumbs to navigate is somewhat less...
Today was a good day. I got to talk to Vincent Hoogsteder of DISTIMO (@DISTIMO). They’re a company that I posted about two months ago and after reading there most recent report on the status of “all things application store†I thought it would be good to get them on the phone and talk about what they do and how they came to be. Just in case you don’t want to read my original...
I recently read the article in BusinessWeek entitled Why They Can’t Be Friends with Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt on the cover. Sadly Bill Gates was left off the cover and for the most part is an afterthought when it comes to the web and mobile space. (That “Bing thing” may be worth talking about eventually, with its business focus vs academic focus, but I’ll save that for...
I’ve been reading Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz and it has some great insights. (Book report coming soon!) In one section of the book he mentions Harley Davidson, Apple and Nikon as brands that have a rabid fan base via word of mouth. These are brands that we’ve all heard of and when I thought about it, with the exception of Nikon, all are noted as a complete pain in the ass...
(The title of this post sounds like a really bad band.) This is going to be one of those long posts with a lot of links, in order to connect the dots. Work with me . . . We’ve been hearing about recent shifts in the online landscape and I wanted to take some time and outline this changes and then guess at what the potential outcomes may be. Apple recently pulled the Goolge voice app from...
I met with Dan Burcaw, CEO and Founder of DOUBLE ENCORE, the other day and learned many many things. Back in October 2007 Dan Burcaw, was an Apple employee (on the corporate side of Apple Retail group) and was in Cupertino, California for a meeting. He was watching a product manager for iPhone, give a demo. Somewhere during the demo he learned that Steve Jobs had released an open letter that...
There has been a lot of discussion over the last several months about whether viral marketing exists. The first time I heard this I agreed and used a coffin as an example of something that would not sell virally. The product is inherently morbid and therefore was a dead end (no pun intended). As I think about it more I have read of the wealthy building large burial shrines for themselves. I...
Just read a post on TechCrunch where John Biggs writes that he believes the new G1 is the device that will help users view their cell as their computer. I have posted about this before here & here and agree that G1 and Android are a part of the inevitable march towards this new paradigm. I am however convinced that Apple will make this the norm as it has made the mobile Internet experience...