09.14.12 |
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Jess Cartner-Morley, writing for The Guardian:
Remodelling the grand structure into a bricks-and-mortar version of a website is a clear statement to the world that, for Burberry, digital now comes first.
Christopher Bailey, the firm’s chief creative officer, said: “We designed it like that because when you’re shopping at home online, you are on the sofa with your credit card. You don’t stand up and queue.”…
For Bailey, the primacy of the digital experience is self-evident. “I find it weird that anyone would find it weird [digital-first thinking].
“Most of us are very digital in our daily lives now. Burberry is a young team and this is instinctive to us. To the younger generation who are coming into adulthood now, this is all they know.”
Hats off to Burberry for getting the message loud and clear. It’s still shocking that so many high end labels refuse to put their stock online or have such a poor branding experience on their respective websites. There’s an amazing opportunity with this market, both for web designers and developers.
09.13.12 |
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It appears from this Digital Photography Review post that the iPhone 5 camera primary benefit is its speed, albeit with slightly greater light sensitivity.
08.24.12 |
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Writer/designer Craig Grannell:
I’m not of the opinion Nintendo should throw in its lot with Apple and other third parties, effectively becoming another Sega—yet. This is because Nintendo still has the potential to out-Apple Apple in the gaming space, through making games and hardware. This, note, is what Apple proponents rightly say sets Apple apart from much of the competition—it makes devices and operating systems, and so can mesh those things together far better than other companies. But Apple doesn’t do this in gaming.
An excellent point. More recently I had the opinion Nintendo should go the Sega route but I’m starting to move in Craig’s direction.
(Small logistical note: This is my last post before I head off to vacation through September 3rd. I’ll try to drop in with a few minor link posts, but expect content to slow during this period.)
08.22.12 |
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VC firm founder Vinod Khosla, writing for The New York Times:
There are of course mercenaries and people setting up for “acqui-hires” in the valley as well, but that is not what Silicon Valley’s special sauce is about.
In my view, it’s irreverence, foolish confidence and naivety combined with persistence, open mindedness and a continual ability to learn that created Facebook, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Juniper, AOL, Sun Microsystems and others.
Having a vision does not prevent you from being acquired, but starting a company to “do a deal” is not what Silicon Valley culture is about even if most companies that have a successful exit are acquired. An acquisition may be a safety net, a way to free yourself or learn to pursue another bigger or more interesting vision, but those are tools rather than goals of the true Silicon Valley entrepreneurs I have seen.
08.17.12 |
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I noted Hiss earlier as a little stopgap measure to send Growl messages to Notification Center. I used the app for a few days but remained unsatisfied, as every notification is listed as sent from Growl, instead of the proper original app.
Enter Bark. Similar premise, but cleaner. Run Growl and select Bark as the notification style – it takes care of the rest. So far so good, though much of this should be nullified once the Growl 2.0 SDK is fully implemented.
08.16.12 |
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Tech manager/writer Michael Lopp:
it’s 10:35am and the fact you’re reading at 10:35 am means you’re not really that busy…There are many forms to not being busy. You might just be getting your day started with a cup of coffee, you might be on your lunch hour, or you might have seven precious minutes to take a deep breath amongst your crushing responsibilities, but here’s my question: is the lack of busy more fun than your job?
That’s deep Lopp, deep. Yet it’s a good question to consider in today’s rapidly changing workplace.
08.13.12 |
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Startup exec Josh Kerr:
Dalton claims that developers are frustrated with Facebook and Twitter’s ad revenue driven platforms that don’t do enough to cater toward developers. He is right, and there are plenty of examples of the pain that goes with trying to build on those platforms, but there just isn’t enough pain to support a completely new product like App.net.
App.net’s current appeal touches more on the anger in the developer community toward Twitter and Facebook and less on the need for another social platform. Once those two companies get their act together and improve their developer programs, the market will quickly loose interest in App.net.
08.08.12 |
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Jordan Koschei, writing for The Industry on Dropbox’s “get free space” push to have the user complete extra steps after first signing up:
This solution is much more elegant than simply forcing users to sit through instructions. For one thing, it offers them a choice; nobody is forced to go through the steps, but most people will anyway in order to gain the reward. Furthermore, the reward is intrinsically linked to the product — it isn’t a tangential incentive like a badge, but rather more of the product itself. Rewarding appropriate use of a product with more of the same product is simple and elegant.
Dropbox’s approach is novel. I know many non technical people who still rely on Dropbox everyday for syncing critical files between multiple computers. I never would have guessed that such a hard to explain, engineering focused product would have such an elegant setup process, but they do.
08.07.12 |
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Quip isn’t your average Twitter client. While you can just read your timeline, the focus here is on alternative modes: check out extended conversations, read the most retweeted tweets, and lay out all Twitter friendly embedded images in a simple grid. It’s really cool as a ‘lean back’ experience to run through on my iPad at the end of the day.
08.06.12 |
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Essential reading for technology fans who want to avoid crushing, poorly managed corporate culture. The “curve” rating system that required ranking of team members, struck me as especially damming. Yet overall I was a bit disappointed by Kurt Eichenwald’s writing. It felt overwhelmingly one sided and at times a bit superficial. If poor practices like the curve ranking system weren’t liked by almost anyone interviewed, why did they exist? Was it Ballmer? High amounts of red tape? I wanted a bit of a deeper dive here.