Category Archives: business
Scruffy ...
Via Justin Kodama and Shailendra Rao’s work on “3D Portable Office” design, Understanding Office Ecologies
, I found David Kirsh’s The Context of Work. This paper is full of insightful models, but the simplest lessons are around the distinction between neat and scruffy office usage “personality types”.
I am undeniably a scruffy, preferring to keep information accessible than organized. [...]
It is arguable that Apple was more innovative with technology prior to Steve Jobs’s return to power. He dissolved the ATG, home of the original Cocoa, and Apple Data Detectors, and famously axed the Newton, continued development of which might have given us the iPhone as a platform years ago.
But the Newton’s brand had been tainted [...]
Seppuku 2.0 ...
Sprout Commerce has figured out how to commit suicide in the Web 2.0 ecosystem.
Immediately after Pete Cashmore’s glowing review in April I began using MyPickList to manage my wishlists, rather than using the “buy” tag in del.icio.us as I had before (and limiting myself to items that have records on Amazon.com is so Web 1.0).
Imagine my surprise, then, [...]
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is one of the most interesting new business models this year. The concept of a task-completion marketplace is not too innovative, but their model of qualifications and exposure of web services certainly piques my interest. Only time will tell if they can fill their chessboard with enough Schlumbergers to keep playing.
Conspiracy ...