May 2011
2 posts
Stockpiling $aapl
more $aapl at $343.00
Stockpiling $goog and $aapl
Bought the $goog at $533.10
Bought $aapl at $347.13
April 2011
3 posts
More $goog at $521.12
Bought more $goog at $521.12
March 2011
4 posts
Sold AMZN at $161.41
Ahh, I put in a stop for $161.50 on Amazon and it executed this morning; a 2.3% loss!
February 2011
2 posts
March 2010
3 posts
Being Fat Is Not Healthy
My comment from AVC.com.
I think Ben made a lot of good points, investing in the business to beat competitors, the goal is to capture the market and money in a down economy can be a big advantage, but his story sounded alien to me. As Fred stated, “Loudcloud raised $350mm in four rounds of financing (including an IPO) in the first 15 months of its life. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz can...
The Gong Show: Metric-Driven Design →
Back in mid-2009, Douglas Bowman left Google for Twitter, and in the process a small meme developed about his exit blog post. He semi-famously wrote:
…
Now, I understand how someone who is passionate about design aesthetics would have a problem with that kind of culture, but when you…
February 2010
6 posts
Introduction Video -- ExtensionFM -- Chrome...
extensionfm:
Warner retreats from free music streaming
Warner artists like REM may no longer be available to stream for free
Record label Warner Music has said it will stop licensing its songs to free music streaming services.
Companies like Spotify, We7 and Last.fm give free, legal and instant access to millions of songs, funded by adverts.
Warner, one of the four major labels, whose artists include REM and Michael Buble, said such services were...
If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be...
I just subscribed to Paul’s RSS. He was one of the creators of Gmail.
“By focusing on only a few core features in the first version, you are forced to find the true essence and value of the product. If your product needs “everything” in order to be good, then it’s probably not very innovative (though it might be a nice upgrade to an existing product). Put another...
Great Obama Quote
“The notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs — why would I resist that? I wouldn’t … It doesn’t make sense if somebody could tell me, ‘You could do this cheaper and get increased results,’ that I wouldn’t say, ‘Great.’ The problem is, I couldn’t find credible...
January 2010
6 posts
“‘Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” says...”
– New York Times
Published: November 30, 2003
(via spencerfry)
YelpSquare + Their API
From http://www.jonsteinberg.com/2010/01/yelpsquare
I would love to see a more robust API from Yelp. The current one they offer is clearly designed to boost Yelp listings in search engines. Sure you can use a bit of Yelp’s data, but you’ve gotta link back. Soon we’ll need a way to check in on one service and update others. My link between Twitter and Facebook is a good example....
How I Work (Productivity Hacks)
I’ve a big fan of lists, like the ones used in Pivotal Tracker. The most important stuff is at the top, so that’s what I work on. When new tasks come up, I add them somewhere to the list, and by default the task’s importance is ranked. A nifty trick I’ve been using for a few months is to spit the list into 3 sections: 1- watch, 2- active, 3- nice to have. The watch list is...
December 2009
3 posts
The Single is not the New Album
My comment from http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/12/end-of-year-music-posts.html
“And in a nod to the fact that the single is the new album.” I completely disagree. Singles are a great way to find new music, Oxford Comma is how I found Vampire Weekend. A lot of music services are based on playing singles, Pandora and Last.fm being two huge ones.
But come on, a stream of singles...
You can play these songs with guitars
Check out my new playlist! http://mog.com/playlists/31634
Minimum Desirable Product
My comment on http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/12/07/minimum-desirable-product/
I think we’re starting to spit hairs in the lean startup/CDP world. All services needs to be desirable on some level. I don’t see the difference between a MDP and MVP. I also reject smoke tests as MVPs.
If you take the startup marketing for pirates metrics, you’ll see things that measure desirability...
November 2009
1 post
The Fall And Rise Of Media
My comment from: The Fall And Rise Of Media
Did you see this article in The Economist? The future of entertainment Middle-class struggle http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.c… I thought of that as I was reading this post. New media companies will be leaner and faster, but there will be a whole lot more of them too. The article brings up the point that the more options people have,...
October 2009
2 posts
"Audio Preview" Is A Bad User Experience
My comment from: “Audio Preview” Is A Bad User Experience
I agree. It’s tough to create a meaningful music sample. I think limiting the songs to a one-time listen via a cookie is a good start, Lala does something similar already. Selling ads, concert tickets, etc. is probably a lot better and stickier. If I’m listening to a full Radiohead song and you know I’m in...
Is your own dog food good for you? Building apps...
My comment from: Is your own dog food good for you?
Building an app or service for yourself (and hopefully a larger community) can be a great advantage. You just use the service more and spend more time with it. If you follow this path, you need to be super honest with yourself. Working/coding is not the same thing as using your app (as a user would). Are you using your service because you built...
July 2009
1 post
Passive Search and Products
Passive search will be huge. Imagine how great it would be if information you cared about sought you out in a format you preferred. Instead of looking for info, it would find you. We’re getting close to this notion with news and messages. If something is important or interesting enough, I’ll probably hear about it through a friend, Twitter, rss, etc.
Alerts When You Want Them
This...
May 2009
1 post
Distribution and Platforms: The Secret Sauce
The Internet allows us to amplify our messages in ways that were never possible before. This is a big difference between “web 1.0” and “web 2.0” or the social web. Now people expect to be able to reach others quickly.
It would be short-sighted to create a new social web service that didn’t harness the power of distribution in some way. The following are great...
April 2009
2 posts
The Power of Passed Links
My comment from: The Power of Passed Links
This line really struck a chord with me, “I’m getting more and more of my information from the people I’m connected to through email, IM, RSS, Facebook, and Twitter. Also, the nature of the searching I’m doing now is much more targeted and specific.” I started to think about where/how I hear about the media I like (blogs, books, movies,...
Books and Blogs via Recommendations
Today, I left them comment on the Passed Links post from AVC.com. For certain types of media, I’ll only consider buying/reading if it comes recommended from a trusted source. Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
This line really struck a chord with me, “I’m getting more and more of my information from the people I’m connected to through email, IM, RSS, Facebook, and...
February 2009
1 post
Music in the Cloud
I was recently quoted in an article on BusinessWeek.com. I’d like to take a moment to expand on my quote (“If I dump $2,000 into Lala and they go down next month, that’s it.”)
I think it’s natural for music to move to the cloud. Accessing and sharing music has only gotten easier as the mediums have changed from albums, to tapes, to CDs, to MP3s and now the cloud. I...
January 2009
1 post
Viral Marketing vs Viral Services
If you’ve spent any time using or developing web services, you’ve heard the term viral. Viral videos, viral marketing, viral ideas; one this is clear, if it’s viral, it’s good! There was always a light fog of confusion around this idea for me until I read What is Viral Marketing by Seth Godin. It’s a must read.
Seth breaks the viral concept into two sets. The...
August 2008
1 post
Can GameFly Survive in a VGOD World?
To quickly bring everyone up to speed, GameFly is Netflix for video games. Users pay a monthly fee and receive video games in the mail. It’s a great service, I’m a member and I love it, but mailing video games to users is its core business. What happens when users can download video games directly? Can GameFly survive in a video game on demand (VGOD) world?
The shift towards...
June 2008
1 post
Last.fm and Muxtape - Structure vs Magic
As readers of SoUrban.net know, we are big fans of music. Lately, I’ve been rockin two new online music services, Last.fm and Muxtape. Both are online, free services - just drop by these sites and you can start listening to great music now! The more I use these sites, the more I like them, but I also see that they approach online music from two entirely different angles. What can we learn...
May 2008
1 post
Structural Social Network Theory
It seems like successful social networks grow like weeds. Just look at how massive Facebook and MySpace have become. A good social network establishes the foundation for its users, then allows them to do their thing - with minimal interference. This plants the seed for organic growth. One user attracts another, who in turn attracts more. From here Metcalfe’s Law kicks in: the value of a...
March 2008
1 post
"Fail" is not in YouTube's Vernacular
I was surprised to see this post, User Generated Web Video: FAIL, by Hank Williams, on Centernetworks. Mr. Williams claims that YouTube is “a FAIL” because “it can’t make money.” Could that statement be anymore myopic? He continues, YouTube “can’t make money” because “hosting is expensive” and “it’s not clear that pre or post roll...