Business Archives

• 31 Dec 2009

  Fixing Twitter from the Other Extreme

  "What we need to do to design is to look at the extremes. The middle will take care of itself." —Dan Formosa, from the documentary "Objectified" When Twitter introduced features to address their retention problems with new users, they failed...

• 9 Jul 2009

  Generation M

  While I often cringe at us-versus-them diatribes, I found Umair Haque's The Generation M Manifesto spot-on in his description of how this "movement"-based generation is transforming the Whys and Hows of doing business.

• 25 May 2009

  Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business

  Apple's Jonathan Ive tops the list of 100 Most Creative People in Business according to Fast Co. While I personally found most of their choices questionable, I was glad to see Hayao Miyazaki (#31), Evan WIlliams (#34), Neil Gaiman (#40), Gary Hustwit (#74) and Jane McGonigal (#80) mentioned.

• 10 May 2009

  Data-Driven Design

  “Using data is fundamental to what we do. But we take all that with a grain of salt. Anytime you make design changes, the most vocal people are the ones who dislike what you’ve done. We don’t just throw the numbers in a spreadsheet.” — Douglas Bowman on the subject of design.

• 25 Jan 2009

  Designers Republic RIP

  Sadly, Designers Republic closed its studio. “It hasn’t really been DR for the last two or three years: it had gone too far from what it was supposed to be. I want to go back to what DR was ... working hands-on and not through account managers..."

• 17 Oct 2008

  Usability Tests in the Wild Seminar Discount

  Limited seats are available for this 90-minute virtual seminar, The Quick, the Cheap, and the Insightful: Conducting Usability Tests in the Wild. Add promo code WILDFRIDAY to get a $30 off, reducing the fee to just $99.

• 23 Jan 2008

  People before Profitability

  There is simply no question that Mr. Bezos’s obsession with his customers — and the long term — has paid off, even if he had to take some hits

• 3 May 2007

  What's A Modem?

  Dial up is no longer king in the US as AOL Slips to No. 3. With 12 million subscribers, AOL lags behind AT&T (12.9 mil subscribers) and Comcast (12.2...

• 29 Apr 2007

  Org Charts in the Age of Web 2.0

  I love Forbes' new *experiment* -- tapping into the knowledge of Web users to help construct org charts for various companies wiki-style: Forbes: Org Chart WIki. Reminds me of They Rule.

• 18 Nov 2006

  Onliness

  Seems like another take on Purple Cow, Marty Neumeier recommends that every business should develop an "onliness" statement: "Our brand is the only (blank) that (blank)". The Onliness of Strong Brands.

• 16 Aug 2006

  SERPs: Placement Matters

  Most AOL users tend to click on the first page of search results according to Davor Strehar @ Europe: AOL: 90% clicks on the first page, 4% on second. Wonder how much of this can be extrapolated to other search engines?

• 8 Aug 2006

  AOL's Mea Culpa...Sort Of

  AOL's an incredibly rigid, top-heavy organization where nothing ever gets done without approvals from several executives. I'm not buying this. AOL apologises over search data 'screw-up'

• 3 Aug 2006

  Confirmed: AOL to Lay Off 5,000 Employees

  Not quite as extensive as originally rumored in Valleywag but significant staffing cuts nonetheless: AOL to slash payroll by 5,000 employees.

• 18 Jul 2006

  Innovating for the Masses, Not the Money

  Putting people at the heart of innovation: Power Laws Of Innovation via Core77.

• 17 Jul 2006

  Client-Designer Relationships: The Abridged Version

  In this day and age, I'm surprised to find the occasional client who still thinks a designer is no more than a (insert graphical application here) monkey. Seth knows otherwise and this is one of the many reasons I respect this man: How to live happily with a great designer. I'm inclined to include this in my proposals as a guideline for client-designer relationships...some clients can really use it.

• 6 Jul 2006

  SXSW Podcast

  The podcast for the SXSW panel I was on this past March, Does Your Blog Have a Business, is now finally available!

• 29 Jun 2006

  MSFT and Reverse Word of Mouth

  The Register exposes Microsoft's rather unseamly tactic for muzzling partners who are faced with disgruntled customers. Exposed: techniques to silence Microsoft 'haters'.

• 27 Jun 2006

  Read the Font End User Agreement

  A UK publishing firm was found to have used 11,000 unlicensed typefaces. How do I work as software snitch? Publisher in £80,000 font raid.

• 26 Jun 2006

  Banner Blindness

  People ignore things that are irrelevant (and, in my case, fugly) -- so why do many businesses still insist on peppering websites with banners? Research: Internet Users Plagued by 'Banner Blindness'.

• 26 Jun 2006

  Digg Demographics

  I dig Digg. So I was pretty interested in finding out more about Digg's audience. Once again, my preferences tend to skew male. Federated Media on Digg's audience.

• 25 Jun 2006

  AOL Rumored to Sack 75% of Its Workforce

  Yet unconfirmed Valleywag tip: Guest scoop: AOL allegedly axes most of its dying Access department. One thing's for sure, however, investors and analysts are unhappy with AOL's continued lackluster performance and dubious leadership.

• 22 Jun 2006

  Who Matters Most?

  Business 2.0 today published its list of 10 people who don't matter and the 50 people who do.

• 20 Jun 2006

  Google Has Other Products Besides Search?

  Despite Google's aggressive, frequent product rollouts, it seems that they're having trouble competing in non-search markets: Google Verticals vs. Google.com: What is Google's end-game?

• 19 Jun 2006

  Game, Interrupted

  The online game, Second Life, will feature an American Apparel store: Online Shopping via Forbes.com. I don't know about you but I find this invasiveness a little creepy.

• 19 Jun 2006

  50 Tips on The Art and Business of Design

  Very helpful tips (if not reminders) on ideation, execution, best practices and minefields for designers: Computer Arts: 50 ways to become a better designer.

• 14 Jun 2006

  Re-Branding Mistakes

  Great list of tips that brand stakeholders (not just marketers) often make when re-thinking their brand: ReBrand's Top 20 Mistakes Marketers Make.

• 12 Jun 2006

  The Peter Pan Principle

  Middle-agers are the new kids as more grown-ups indulge themselve in cartoons and other kid fare: Adults Do The Darndest Things.

• 9 Jun 2006

  SEO Myths

  Three common search engine optimization myths debunked: (1) You can be guaranteed consistently high rankings...

• 8 Jun 2006

  AOL's Email Ads

  AOL has done it again: piss off more subscribers. For $23.95 a month, AOL subscribers get Web 0.5 features and now...unsolicited ads in emails!

• 8 Jun 2006

  iTunes: Emerging Channel for PDF eBooks

  The latest issue of The Fader is available for free on iTunes. Of course, MAKE magazine, had released PDFs through iTunes on occasion in the...

• 29 May 2006

  TV Guide Needs Guidance

  With print publications continuing to experience eroding readership, TV Guide seems to think it may have the panacea to recapture newsstand buyers: a free DVD of television clips. Isn't it cheaper to make these clips available for download online instead...

• 23 May 2006

  Marketing through Chatty Housewives

  BusinessWeek reports that Procter & Gamble has hired moms to endorse and spread the word about their products in stealthy word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. This just really crosses the ethical line, in my opinion. Sorry, but my friends won't sell me out so they can get loads of free product samples by shilling unwanted groceries. But this is why I don't have too many friends, I guess.

• 21 May 2006

  Microsoft's 4,000-Page Open XML Draft Standard

  "At 4,000 plus pages, a 6.7MB Microsoft Word document, the Open XML draft standard is less of a standard and more of a painfully detailed description of how Open XML could be used to display almost any possible Microsoft Office...

• 21 May 2006

  Pearl Jam Does Good Web 2.0 Business

  Pearl Jam released their most recent video under a Creative Commons license. The video can be donwloaded for free from May 19-24 at Google Video...

• 18 May 2006

  Fubar? What fubar?

  Pogue's piece on The Human Side of a Microsoft Disaster offers an interesting perspective from a former MSFT employee behind what had gone wrong with their Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC): "It's like when a new Robin Williams movie comes out...

• 18 May 2006

  PDFs Make Good Business, Part 2

  Following on the heels of O'Reilly's earlier report on their customers' overwhelming PDF preference, 37 Signals reports that their PDF book has made close to $175k in sales: 75-day Getting Real book stats update - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals).

• 17 May 2006

  PDFs Make Good Business

  O'Reilly's Rough Cuts stats confirm that folks DO like PDFs after all with 95% of their customers opting for the PDF version of pre-release books: O'Reilly Radar > Gentlemen Prefer PDFs.

• 15 May 2006

  Beta Testing Books

  O'Reilly applies the principles of community stress-testing to book publishing with Rough Cuts, pre-release PDF versions of books that readers can collectively help shape and finalize. O'Reilly releases book betas online.

• 12 May 2006

  PDF Versions of Current Magazines for Free!

  Free PDF eMagazines of popular newsstand titles including Make vol. 5, the May 2006 edition, Step Inside Design, April 2006 issue -- even the current issue of Harvard Business Review -- and much more. (Yes, you read it right -- FREE!)

• 9 May 2006

  'Savvy' users cause AOL job cuts

  That's right: AOL blames savvy users for their recent layoffs. I particularly love the BBC News' double entendre headline too. (Those Brits. They do have a good command of the language, don't they?) BBC NEWS | Business | 'Savvy' users cause AOL job cuts.

• 5 May 2006

  McDonald's Makeover

  McDonald's unveils a revamped look for their franchises. But, the clean, simple lines and iPod aesthetic are the antithesis of their food which is superfluous and unrefined. Do they really think you can change customer perception that easily through store camouflage?

• 5 May 2006

  "The economic model of the film business is broken"

  Just days after Steven Soderbergh railed against Hollywood's ineffective business model where, among other things, he disapproved of the outrageous compensation of A-list talent, Entertainment Weekly reports that a number of A-listers are having trouble getting their $25 million-per-picture asking...

• 4 May 2006

  Microsoft Goes Back to the Storyboard: The Snarky Version

  I'm stumped by Microsoft's latest move. Apparently they're in the early production stages of developing a spate of TV-style shows, according to a recent report from Ars Technica. This is somewhat of a revival of a past failed attempt in...

• 4 May 2006

  Pay As You Exit

  Few of you may know of a Little Rascals episode where the kids staged a Flory Dory show to raise money. Rather than conform with conventional wisdom, however, the kids admitted the audience into the show without demanding payment up...

• 3 May 2006

  AOL Subscribers Continue to Defect

  According to Time Warner's recent Q1 earnings call, "AOL’s overall U.S. brand subscriber base declined 835,000 in the first quarter to 18.6 million." In 1997, my first year at AOL, we had boasted 11 million members. It had swelled to 33 million by my final year with the company in 2002. What a sad reversal of fortune. The Internet Stock Blog � Time Warner Inc. Q1 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (TWX).

• 1 May 2006

  AOL Management Doesn't Get It

  The Inquirer and the New York Times separately share their lack of optimism for AOL's executive oversight and direction. Seriously, what's to love?

• 25 Apr 2006

  Thumbs Up for ThinkFree Online Office

  You get 1GB file storage. You can create, edit, collaborate and share Microsoft-compatible word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Did I mention that it's entirely free? ThinkFree. I've only just started to play with it so I'm sure there are more features that I haven't uncovered yet. It probably makes coffee too.

• 22 Mar 2006

  Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business

  I had the great pleasure of being a co-panelist with DL Byron at last week's SXSW panel, "Does Your Blog Have a Business?". A designer and entrepreneur, he has co-authored...

• 14 Mar 2006

  SXSWi 2006: Does Your Blog Have a Business

  Thanks to those of you who attended the panel. And thanks, too, for the copious notes from the panel discussion from Rands in Repose and Auscillate! I also wanted to provide the link to Clay Shirky's essay on Situated Software...

• 7 Mar 2006

  Economics: The Abridged Version

  I don't really watch SNL. However, I do remember one skit in particular with Father Guido Sarducci on Economics 101. Basically, according to him, all you need to know about economics can be summed up by the laws of supply and demand. Joel Spolsky has come up with an equally funny lesson on how to set pricing for your software: Joel on Software - Camels and Rubber Duckies...

• 30 Dec 2005

  Yahoo!s RSS Findings

  If you can get past the horrendous spelling errors, this article has some rather disappointing findings from a Yahoo! survey on RSS....

• 30 Dec 2005

  Overstock CEO's Information Overshare

  Overstock's CEO discloses way too much during a recent Bloomberg interview where, among other bizarre things, he admits to lying about initiating a program to uncover a Sith lord to ruin Overstock and triple-dog-dares Mark Cuban. Now those strange Overstock...

• 9 Oct 2005

  Less is More. Indeed.

  Grammar issues aside, Jason Fried's notes on Less as a Competitve Advantage offers a good primer on the advantages of *one-downing* and *under-doing* in business and development. For a really good read on the subject of business parsimony, download Seth...

• 12 Apr 2005

  Fully del.icio.us

  Joshua Schacter announced that he has left his full-time job and accepted financing from a small group of investors to focus on putting together a team dedicated to developing del.icio.us. Unsurprisingly, the investors include a number of tech biggies: Union...

• 2 Feb 2005

  Roadrunner & AOL Broadband

  Time Warner recently announced that AOL and Time Warner Cable's Roadrunner service will join forces. Wait...how long ago was the merger officially completed? 2001? And they just realized this redundancy? I wonder how long it will take them to realize...