It’s hard to get a clear picture of how startups are doing because so much of success depends on perception and founders do anything they can to keep that perception up. For all the talk about failing and it’s value (something I don’t necessarily agree with), it’s rare to hear real stories from real entrepreneurs whose companies didn’t turn out exactly as they might have expected. 37 Signals has a nice wrap up of quotes from folks who had to shut down a product, service or company. Here’s a good one from the creator of Wesabe (a competitor to Mint):
Mint focused on making the user do almost no work at all, by automatically editing and categorizing their data, reducing the number of fields in their signup form, and giving them immediate gratification as soon as they possibly could; we completely sucked at all of that…I was focused on trying to make the usability of editing data as easy and functional as it could be; Mint was focused on making it so you never had to do that at all. Their approach completely kicked our approach’s ass.
Exit Interview: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong - (37signals)
I promise I’ll get back to blogging more non-Percolate things, but here’s one more item. Over at the Percolate blog I wrote up a quick description of how our product development process has changed since we moved to running everything off an API:
We start by sketching everything out and finalizing flows. Once that happens everyone gets to work: Backend writes some Python, frontend writes some javascript and design finalizes interaction and visual design. Because it’s all just data being passed around, no one needs to wait for anyone else. As long as the data is modeled, we can write all the frontend code before the actual endpoints are complete (and before the visuals are solidified).
Running a product team has been a really interesting shift in career for me. Some of the stuff I learned working at agencies has been a huge benefit (working in teams, managing creative people) and some other stuff has been totally new (continually improving something instead of launching and jumping to the next thing). It’s fun to work on improving the process and flow and when you land in a real rhythm it’s pretty amazing (not that different than being in the excitement and madness of a great pitch).
I need to write up a longer thing about my overall experience, but this was a start. I’ve got a goal to write more process posts over at the Percolate blog because people seem to like them, so hopefully there’s more coming soon.
percolateproductsTechnologyJanuary 25, 2012
We’re hiring for a bunch of different positions at Percolate and one of the big ones is sales. My co-founder, James, wrote a good post outlining how we approach sales and hiring salespeople. This part in particular hit close to home:
I’ve thought a lot about my profession as my career in digital advertising sales has evolved. It is an interesting profession that I’ve enjoyed but there are things about being a salesperson that I’ve always been intrigued by. For starters, a lot of salespeople, even very good sales people, don’t like to think of themselves as being in a sales profession. They will call themselves ‘business development’ or ‘account manager’ or ‘chief strategy officer’, while often their goals all ladder back to a direct sales relationship with the company that employs them. They might pass it off as, ‘well everyone sells’, and while that is hopefully the case, why shy away from what your profession is? Own it and be proud to say you’re in sales.
Towards the end of my time in agencies I began to fully grasp this. Most/all of your job as a senior strategy person is actually sales: You’re helping to get client buy-off on creative ideas. As we’ve been starting to hire salespeople I’ve been talking to some of the folks I know from the agency world and trying to get them to come over under this capacity. Surprisingly, most are much more open than I would have expected. To James’ point, the holdup is almost entirely in the title, they are worried about the implications of being a “salesperson” not in the actual selling (which most of the folks in advertising I know live for).
Anyway, no specific point here other than to say you should read the post and, if you like it, come work for Percolate.
percolatesalesstrategyJanuary 24, 2012
Matt Haughey (of Metafilter) has a good post about a bad Kickstarter experience. First off, I’m surprised this is the first one of these I’ve read. Second, I think there’s actually a really interesting question in the post around what you’re really doing when you “fund” a Kickstarter project. The project he talks about, a metal iPhone case, shipped with serious signal issues. In an email explanation the creators wrote, “This is also to remind people about what KickStarter is about. KickStarter is about investing/backing a product or idea and funding that idea. When you fund the idea there are ‘rewards’ involved for that investment. Backers are not ‘purchasing’ anything, but merely given a ‘gift/reward’ for helping fund the project. That’s the way I understand KickStarter’s crowd funding model.” I assume this is officially true for lots of legal reasons, but it’s not the way you feel when you’re on the site (or, as Haughey explains, when you see a prototype). It’s easy to forget that many of the people with projects on Kickstarter have never made objects before. It will be interesting to see this continue to play out.
A Whole Lotta Nothing: Lessons for Kickstarter creators from the worst project I ever funded on Kickstarter
Hardly shocking, but it turns out people are much better at predicting the behavior of others than themselves:
Psychologists have identified an important reason why our insight into our own psyches is so poor. Emily Balcetis and David Dunning found that when predicting our own behaviour, we fail to take the influence of the situation into account. By contrast, when predicting the behaviour of others, we correctly factor in the influence of the circumstances. This means that we’re instinctually good social psychologists but at the same time we’re poor self-psychologists.
It’s interesting to think about what puts us in social-psychologist mode and whether we can switch that on for ourselves. Obviously it’s not natural, but it’s got to be possible, right?
[Via Barking Up The Wrong Tree]
psychologyresearchscienceJanuary 9, 2012
Clive Thompson, who I usually really dig, has an unexpected (for me at least) take on Instagram. He likes it (which I also do), but specifically he thinks the filters encourage people to look at things with a more critical/artistic eye. Makes me think about a few things: 1) I think Thompson’s point is true of photography generally. When people have a camera they look at everything as a possible photo and that changes the way things look. 2) It makes me think of Daniel Kahneman’s research around remembering self versus experiencing self and how Instagram encourages optimization around memory instead of experience and 3) My favorite comment about Instagram was from someone (can’t remember whom), who said that the app makes everyone seem like they’re living in this weird depressed state. I agree.
With all that said, I do like Instagram … So take it all with a grain of salt.
Clive Thompson on the Instagram Effect | Magazine
This is a fascinating concept:
ReDigi opened last year with a novel, if controversial, business concept: let consumers resell their old digital music files. Relying on the “first sale doctrine” — the legal concept that someone who buys a copyrighted item like a book or CD has the right to sell it or give it away — ReDigi operates a marketplace in which fans can upload unwanted songs and buy others at a discount.
Obviously they’re now being sued (on the grounds that they are not actually selling the original, but rather making a copy), but the broader question on whether you can have a used digital good is very interesting. Does the ability to instantly copy something kill the idea of used? What about something that’s 3D printed?
digitalLawJanuary 7, 2012
Interesting piece from Mediaite on Buzzfeed Politics: “Buzzfeed’s coverage of the Presidential race is deliberately non-traditional, and likely wouldn’t work as well with an issue that couldn’t presume the same baseline of knowledge from its audience. Nor will it take long for other outlets to mimic what they’re doing; campaign coverage moves and evolves quickly. But Buzzfeed has a head start – smart reporters, savvy infrastructure.” I haven’t spent too much time there yet, but the concept certainly sounds different.
What BuzzFeed’s New Politics Team Is Doing Right | Mediaite
On the surface, Facebook adding these little business cards are not a big deal (other than the scale of any initiative the company takes on). But I do think there’s something more interesting here: This is another step in Facebook owning your identity in the physical world. They’ve already claimed you in the digital world and pretty much locked things up, but the physical world is still a hodgepodge of identities split between governments, banks and employers. There’s never really been a global holder of identity data before (to my knowledge) and I’m not sure I yet understand what the implications are, but I assume it’s something Facebook is thinking a lot about.
Facebook Cards takes networking back offline | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Last week James asked me for my top 5 articles of last year (he posted his) and so I spent an hour or so going through as much as I could find from last year (Instapaper archive is helpful) to come up with my list (which includes a few extra that didn’t make the top 5 cut, but were great). Here it is (I’m not necessarily sure the order is right, but it’s close):
- A Murder Foretold (New Yorker) – Here’s what I wrote about this when I first read it: “Clocking in at just under 15,000 words, the New Yorker article on the murder of a Guatemalan named Rodrigo Rosenberg is long even by their standards. It’s so worth it though. I don’t even want to say anything about it so that you can go and enjoy it yourself. Let’s just say if I could get my hands on the movie rights I definitely would.”
- The Shame of College Sports (The Atlantic) – I’ve read a few things that said this is the best piece of sportswriting in history. I haven’t read enough to say whether I agree or not, but this epic look at the NCAA was amazing. To cover something we’re all so aware of, but know so little about was a brilliant move and added a ton of nuance to the conversation around whether college athletes should be paid.
- The Information (New Yorker) – A good way to judge writing (for me at least) is how much it sticks in my head. Adam Gopnik’s discussion around the current state of internet discourse was probably the idea I talked about most. His breakdown of never-betters, better-nevers and ever-wassers gave a framework for understanding how people view the web (and technology generally).
- When Irish Eyes are Crying (Vanity Fair) – I almost didn’t include this because I’m sure it’s on everyone’s list. Michael Lewis breaking down what went wrong in Ireland. You read it already.
- The Shot That Nearly Killed Me (Guardian) – I debated back-and-forth (with myself) about whether this should make the list or not. It’s not a classic piece of journalism in that it’s not written by a single person about a single topic. However, the idea of getting the best conflict photojournalists in the world and asking them to talk about the most dangerous shot they ever took was breathtaking.
Okay, so those are my five. The last two I’m not totally comfortable with, but a list is a list …
Here are a few others that could/should be on there:
- Getting Bin Laden (New Yorker) – Somebody was going to get this story and it went to the New Yorker. There was some controversy around the amount of truth in it, but no matter what reading a blow-by-blow account of the capturing of the most wanted fugitive in the world is a pretty compelling read.
- A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage (The Awl) – This is the only non-mainstream publication on my list and I so wanted to put it in the top five. I’m not sure there was another article this year that I enjoyed reading more. This crazy look/theory about why McDonald’s runs the McRib promotion in the way it does was totally insane.
- The Assassin in the Vineyard (Vanity Fair) – Again, part of how I judge what I read is how much I repeat it. I must have told a dozen people about this story this year. Some crazy dude holds a vineyard hostage and poisons some of the most expensive wine vines in the world. (I won’t give away the ending.)
Awesome, hope you enjoy.
longformlongreadsJanuary 4, 2012
Interesting story from Fog Creek about getting rid of sales commissions:
Our salespeople all estimated that they were spending about 20% of their time just keeping track of what money was due them. There was constant horse trading. And, most worrying, we created a heavy disincentive to do all the service stuff that makes customer service shine. Why would you want a system that sets up after-sales service as competition against new sales, especially if you have a small sales team? Reputation and retention, after all, are both paths to revenue.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how you build a structure for teams to succeed. Part of that structure is salary (there are lots of other parts as well). We’re trying to figure out a system that makes the most sense for the sort of company we’re trying to build and, in turn, trying to look at accepted practices with a skeptical eye. (As an aside, I’ve also been reading the Management Myth, which explains how management consulting came to be). Anyhow, no real conclusions, but glad to see others thinking about this as well.
Why do we pay sales commissions? - Fog Creek Blog
Just in case you thought things couldn’t get any nerdier, here’s a good piece from Slate on what it takes to make a great map:
According to independent cartographers I spoke with, the big mapmaking corporations of the world employ type-positioning software, placing their map labels (names of cities, rivers, etc.) according to an algorithm. For example, preferred placement for city labels is generally to the upper right of the dot that indicates location. But if this spot is already occupied—by the label for a river, say, or by a state boundary line—the city label might be shifted over a few millimeters. Sometimes a town might get deleted entirely in favor of a highway shield or a time zone marker. The result is a rough draft of label placement, still in need of human refinement. Post-computer editing decisions are frequently outsourced—sometimes to India, where teams of cheap workers will hunt for obvious errors and messy label overlaps. The overall goal is often a quick and dirty turnaround, with cost and speed trumping excellence and elegance.
Who knew?
The best American wall map: David Imus’ “The Essential Geography of the United States of America” - Slate Magazine
For awhile I was reading this restaurant trade magazine religiously and I loved it. There’s something about the food business that fascinates me. I think it has to do with the connection to the American palatte, there is something very basic and real there.
Anyway, the Wall Street Journal had a good piece on how Olive Garden (and other casual dining restaurants) design menus. The gist:
Americans are more adventurous eaters than ever thanks to the popularity of the Food Network, among other TV cooking programming, and the visibility of celebrity chefs. “People will say their favorite fruit is a blood orange,” not just an orange, says Shannon Johnson, executive director of culinary innovation and development for Applebee’s, which is owned by DineEquity Inc.
But for chains that aim to entice almost every demographic group through their doors, there are limits. In several years of tests, Olive Garden diners often deemed pesto too oily, bitter or green. Capers, with their salty, pickled flavor, are too unexpected for many customers, says a spokeswoman.
[Via @leilafern]
foodrestaurantsDecember 22, 2011
Gizmodo has a super interesting wrapup on a Nature paper about why Asian and Western food taste so different:
According to the study, Western cuisines have a tendency to pair ingredients that share many of the same flavor compounds. East Asian cuisines, however, do precisely the contrary, avoiding ingredients that share the same flavor compounds. The more flavors two ingredients share, the less likely they would be paired together in Asian kitchens.
asianflavorfoodDecember 19, 2011
Good perspective on why posts like “it’s time for Congress to learn about the internet” aren’t actually helpful. “If Congress is complaining that they don’t know about something that you care about, the right answer isn’t to tell them to go get educated. The right answer is to educate them. Congress mentioned the word ‘biologics’ 75 times in a month because a lobbyist spent a long time doing their job: educating members of Congress on the needs of its industry.” Generally I like these sort of things because it’s easy to spout off about how things should change, but more interesting to understand how to actually change them. But there’s something else here I really like: When someone doesn’t understand something you should try to make it easier to understand, not lambaste them for not getting it. Not that I think Congress doesn’t need to brush up on some web stuff, but we, as the web, also need to brush up on our explanations of why it matters and how it works (without all the hyperbole normally attached to it).
Information Diet | Dear Internet: It's No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works
I always ask friends of mine who play the guitar who their favorite guitar players are. There’s something fun about hearing from knowledgeable people about why they look up to someone else who is talented in their field. For the same reasons, I really like this roundup of favorite meals from chefs and foodwriters. You get stuff like this from the owner of the restaurant Porchetta:
Porchetta sandwich at a butchers in Bevagna, Umbria. As the owner of Porchetta I feel it is my duty to eat as much porchetta as I can when visiting Italy just so I can make sure I remember what its supposed to be. In recent years however I am sad to say that the environment usually blows away the product. Like everything else the truck stands I loved as a child seem to have become industrialized shadows of their former selves. The bread is dry and tasteless the porchetta even more so. But stumble into the dark butcher shop in Bevagna where the ceiling is covered with house-made hams, guanciale, pancetta and lonzo and in the back behind the case is a glorious porchetta. The skin is crisp and crackly, the tender moist meat perfumed with all the aromatics that it was stuffed with, sliced thick with ample pieces of crisp skin its placed into bread from stone ground wheat fired in a wood fired oven. This is where the inspiration comes from, this is what it used to be and this is still something for me to strive to reach.
Where they ate: chefs' and food writers' best meals of 2011, part I | Gadling.com
I’ve been having this conversation a lot and thought it was worth posting. When thinking about Twitter I keep thinking of all the people poking fun of the service a few years ago by saying that it’s a place for people to share what they had for breakfast.
Now that Twitter has matured and redesigned it’s becoming more and more apparent that the jokes were correct. Twitter is all about what you’re consuming, except it’s not food, it’s content. Twitter is full of people sharing the YouTube video they had for breakfast and the New York Times article they consumed for lunch. The new design seems to be largely focused on this type of behavior.
Funny how jokes sometimes turn out to be insightful.
twitterDecember 16, 2011
The last year has been totally insane. Right around this time in 2010 I left my job at Barbarian Group and gave myself two weeks before getting started on building a company for the first time. To say building a company is different than building a product is an understatement for which I can’t find the appropriate analogy. It’s been crazy and amazing and scary.
Over the last twelve months we’ve started to build a brand I believe stands for something in the industry, created a product some of the best brands in the world pay for and built an amazing team that all came over to my apartment the other night for the first Percolate holiday dinner.
Last week we got through a big milestone and pushed our 2.0 release. Iterating is the thing everyone talks about when they discuss product development and that’s what we did: Looked at the data and built a better product for our core use case (brands publishing content across social channels and their .coms).
Yesterday we announced that along with that release we also raised a round of funding to support the Percolate mission of helping brands create content at social scale. On Tumblr someone asked why we raised money if we were profitable (this is our first round of investment) and the answer is simple: We feel like we’ve found a big opportunity for brands and we’re going to run at it hard. That means hiring good people to both help us build the product (designers, product people, developers) and also to help us bring the product to brands (sales, project management). (Obviously if you do any of those things and are interested in working with us hit me up.)
businessmepercolateStartupsvcDecember 16, 2011
I think my favorite thing from this article about the crazy floating startup village is the nonchalance about about lasers and undersea internet cables: “A laser could be good, but is susceptible to fog, which is bad in the Bay Area. We’re considering running an undersea cable from ship to shore, but it may be be cost prohibitive. [Blueseed has received estimates of over a million dollars for just the installation, but is still researching permits.]”
Reminds me of my favorite Simpson’s joke ever. Homer and Bart are on a boat in international waters and in the distance is a boat with a big satellite dish. Homer turns to Bart and says, “See that ship over there? They’re re-broadcasting Major League Baseball with implied oral consent, not express written consent—or so the legend goes.”
Startup Ducks Immigration Law With 'Googleplex of the Sea' | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
Pretty excellent post by Brad Delong on the things he’s gotten wrong in his career (he calls it “mark-my-beliefs-to-market” time). Some good ones in there, including: “My belief that economists as a group understood as much about the causes of recessions and depressions as John Stuart Mill understood in 1829: that a downturn is a shortfall of planned spending at full employment below income caused by an excess demand for financial assets, and it is cured by either (a) having the government do the spending-in-excess-of-income that the private sector will not, or (b) having the government flood the zone with financial assets so that there is no longer an economy-wide excess demand for them.”
I’d love to see this from lots of folks … Maybe I’ll try to work on mine for the end of the year. Seems like a worthy pursuit.
Mark-My-Beliefs-to-Market Time: I Should Make This an Annual Observance
Really smart thoughts from Dan Frommer on the Twitter redesign. I especially agree with his thoughts around direct messages: “Twitter is trying to de-emphasize private messaging by moving it a layer deeper in the user interface. I’m guessing there are a bunch of reasons for this, not limited to: Simplicity, perhaps relatively low usage by most users, potentially confusing rules around DMing, and that more public content is probably better for Twitter’s product and advertising goals. Some long-time and hardcore Twitter users are probably going to be upset about this, but one of Twitter’s strengths has always been its willingness to design for its mainstream users at the expense of its geek users. (Tip: To get fast access to your DMs on Twitter for iPhone, you can swipe up the “Me” icon at the bottom.)” Also curious to see where things go with brands.
The new, new Twitter: 10 big takeaways – SplatF
Just in case you’re on the lookout for a new show to watch I highly recommend Showtime’s Homeland. Both Daily Beast and New Yorkerhave written good little writeups, the latter describing it like this:
But what I love most about “Homeland” is the way it acts as an apology for “24.” The show was created by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, former writers for that series. (Gordon created the plot arcs for Seasons 3 and 4, and he was the showrunner from 2006 to 2009.) Their previous hit was popular for good reason: it was a well-made fun machine, a sleek right-wing dreamscape with just enough moral ambiguity to elevate it above a Road Runner cartoon. Unfortunately, “24” was also a carrier for some terrible ideas, among them the notion that torture is the best and only way to get information; that Muslim faith and terrorist aims overlap by definition; and, most of all, that invulnerability is the mark of heroism. Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer was tortured again and again, but he always bounced up, jack-in-the-box style, to waterboard on. Characters surrounding Bauer did occasionally argue with the show’s premises. But most of them were A.C.L.U. types who wouldn’t know a ticking time bomb if it kicked them in the face.
24homelandtelevisionterrorismDecember 3, 2011
Another awesome project by my friend Doug Pfeffer. This time it’s Stichtagram: Throw pillows with your Instagram pictures on it.
Stitchtagram
Just in case you thought running and airline was a good business, the FT puts that to rest:
Warren Buffett’s quip about how shooting down the Wright brothers would have been a great service to capitalism is backed up by ugly numbers. In the entire recorded history of the US airline industry, cumulative earnings have been negative $33bn.
[Via @jkalifowitz]
airlinesbusinesseconomicsNovember 30, 2011
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s post about digital versus electronic and Monday’s on Twine comes this announcement from BERG on a new product called Little Printer. As the announcement puts it, “Little Printer lives in your front room and scours the Web on your behalf, assembling the content you care about into designed deliveries a couple of times a day.” What’s more interesting, though, are some of the reasons they chose paper instead of a screen:
We love physical stuff. Connecting products to the Web lets them become smarter and friendlier – they can sit on a shelf and do a job well, for the whole family or office – without all the attendant complexities of computers, like updates or having to tell them what to do. Little Printer is more like a family member or a colleague than a tool.
Plus paper is like a screen that never turns off. You can stick to the fridge or tuck it in your wallet. You can scribble on it or tear it and give it to a friend.
Now this is obviously not a new trend or anything, but what’s neat to me is that it feels like social media is now moving to the physical world. I suspect over the next few years we’ll see more and more devices that let us take the graphs we’ve built and interact with them in some physical way. In the meantime, I’m excited about getting my hands on a printer and while you can’t buy one yet, I did sign up for the mailing list.
PhysicalcomputingprinterspimeNovember 29, 2011
Russell Davies is a very smart dude. I love the conclusion to his short essay on post digital:
And then, this morning, when struggling to think of a good ending to this, I heard a brilliant talk by George Dyson – describing the early history of computing unearthed from correspondence between Turing and Von Neumann. And I thought I heard him cite this quote from Turing. I wasn’t quite fast enough with my pen to be 100% sure and I can’t find it on Google, but I think this is what he said. And, if it is, it’s exactly what I mean and we can leave it at that. What I think he said is this: “being digital should be more interesting than just being electronic”. I’m sure that meant something slightly different in the middle of the last century but the words are useful and simple now, they’ll do for me as a tiny rallying cry; being digital should be more interesting than just being electronic.
digitalinsightrussell daviesNovember 28, 2011
[Editor's Note: I posted this over at the Percolate blog and thought it was worth posting here as well. Hope you enjoy.]
Andy Weissman wrote an interesting post about what he calls the “golden age of internet marketing.” Essentially his vision, which I mostly agree with, is that a few large platforms are going to create native monetization models that better align the interests of brands, consumers and platforms than display advertising ever did. Google and Facebook are the two clear winners in this world so far, as both have found ways to serve brand needs while creating a better experience for users (at least with paid likes in the case of Facebook).
There are a few additional thoughts I have on this whole conversation, though. First, what are the ramifications of a web that is controlled by a few successful platforms? Andy gives the example of Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Soundcloud amongst a few others. All of these platforms have managed to generate a ton of user engagement and some are already at the user scale needed to support native brand interactions. However, this number will always be very small (in terms of total platforms, not total consumers). I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, but I’m also not sure it’s a good thing. I believe deeply that the relationship people have with sites is different than the one they have with platforms, and there will always be value there. The problem is, essentially, to be successful with an advertising buy on a website these days you need to do something native for their platform (the site), which will never have the scale that a Facebook, Google or Twitter does.
Second, I think a lot of Andy’s article places the onus to get this figured out on the brand, but I’d argue an even bigger responsibility lies on the shoulders of the platform to understand how brands actually work. A few weeks ago I wrote about some comments from Jack Dorsey at Twitter about their model. Dorsey talked about capturing intent, which has been a big buzzword around marketing Google’s search advertising was coined as an intent miner. As I wrote then:
Twitter’s value is not about intent, in the classic funnel definition, it’s much more about awareness and interest: About exposing you to new products and services you didn’t know you were interested in. If Twitter can actually deliver this it has a truly differentiated ad product, but I worry they’re following the Google model too much and thinking too low in the funnel.
This may seem like a semantic difference, but I don’t think it is. I think generally Silicon Valley has not done a good enough job understanding what brands are all about and what they’re trying to accomplish with their spend. I actually think there are a lot of startups that think brands are stupid, which seems crazy to me considering most of them are ad funded. What I’m trying to say is that building a native marketing unit requires respecting your customer (the brand) as well as your users (the consumer). At the end of the day what truly separates Google’s search ads from other marketing units is that it’s respectful: It believes the user is smart and the brand knows what it wants.
Last, but not least, I think these platforms are going to need to be careful not to overextend themselves. When Facebook reads an article like the one from Emily Steel at the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago about some of the top brands spending a bunch of money buying likes and then shifting the spend to content to keep those likers engaged, they’ve got to pause for a minute to think about how they can capture more of that value. A native marketing unit can’t capture the entire chain of value and it shouldn’t. Google doesn’t keep you in Google when you click an ad and (hopefully) it never will. But when platforms like Facebook look at the numbers will they be able to not get greedy and try to capture a bigger slice of the pie? Or will they try to become more and more of a walled garden: Controlling as many pieces as possible and causing that beautiful alignment of interests between the platform, user and brand to get out of alignment.
advertisingbannersfacebookmarketingtumblrtwitterNovember 28, 2011
I always thought the most compelling part of driving a Prius was the little screen that showed you when you were using gas versus electric. Sounds like Chevy has taken that idea a step further with their Volt interface:
Its designed to give you real-time feedback on your driving style. When the car is happy i.e. being driven efficiently, the ball is green and in the center of the gauge. Stomp on the accelerator, and it rises to the top, changing color to yellow. Brake too hard so youre bypassing the kinetic energy recovery and it dives to the bottom, again changing color to yellow. The more time you spend in yellow, the fewer miles youll go before you have to start burning hydrocarbons.
For all the stupid talk about gamification, this seems like the real thing: A feedback loop that naturally helps you get better at something.
carschevydesigninterfacevoltNovember 28, 2011
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the economy and American job market lately. Part of it is the natural byproduct of being a news consumer and the other is a result of starting a company during a recession. Anyway, I agree with the Economist on how we got here:
But today’s jobs pain is about more than the aftermath of the financial crisis. Globalisation and technological innovation are bringing about long-term changes in the world economy that are altering the structure of the labour market. As a result, unemployment is likely to remain high in the rich economies even as it falls in the poorer ones. Edmund Phelps, a Nobel prize-winning economist, thinks that in America the “natural rate” of unemployment (below which higher demand would push up inflation) in the medium term is now around 7.5%, significantly higher than only a few years ago.
But I’ve been thinking about a bit of a different angle on globalization. Sure part of it is about outsourcing (the article discusses oDesk, which is task-based outsourcing instead of job-based). I think that’s certainly part of the picture, but the more interesting globalization story to me is about the increasing ability of American companies to be successful without a strong American economy.
Again, my regular caveat is that I’m not an economist and my knowledge of how it all works comes from reading a bunch of articles on the internet. With that said, I’ve gotten to spend some time around some very large multinational corporations over the years and it’s impossible to miss the opportunity they see in developing markets. In the past I assume companies were more successful selling goods to consumers when the American economy was strong. Now that they’re selling worldwide, they can afford a weaker American market with global consumers picking up the slack.
For the first time, it seems to me, the American economy isn’t completely aligned with the needs of America’s companies. When a big company creates global jobs they are also creating consumers for the own goods, something that wasn’t true on the same scale 50 years ago. If you’re an American corporation with a global workforce who are you responsible to: The country you reside or the people you employ?
Again, not sure what this means, or if it’s even a valid economic argument, but it strikes me as a change that isn’t really being discussed.
economicsglobalizationNovember 28, 2011
It’s always interesting to see how smart people get their job done, which is why I like The Setup and Atlantic Wire’s Media Diet feature. The former asks interesting people – mostly engineers – about the hardware/software they use on a daily basis, while the latter digs into the media habits of some of the most successful journalists around (last week was Andrew Ross Sorkin). Beyond getting interesting tips for software and new Twitter feeds to follow, what’s so great about these things is that it recognizes the roll of outside tools and influences in the lives of successful people. It’s a good thing to remember.
mediasetupsoftwareNovember 28, 2011
Hi, I'm 