November 2009
53 posts
“[The ‘digital world’ is] not just a once in a generation shift – it...”
– Bill Thompson
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Dave Winer has started using Tumblr →
(He’s the godfather of RSS/podcasting, an Internet veteran and one of the smartest thinkers on the future of communication and the web that I know of).
Winer mostly uses Tumblr to talk about RSS Cloud, his contribution to the real-time web.
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TechCrunch on Little World Gifts →
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paidContent:UK says... →
“If Playfish can sell for $275 million and Zynga can attract big funding on reports of bigger revenue, there’s clearly life in the virtual goods game. So six Liverpool developers are hoping to emulate the success that pair has had in getting people to pay for things that don’t exist…”
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The iPhone startup I work at on The Unofficial... →
“Instead of taking a novel to bed tonight, take some API documentation.”
– Jon Steinberg on Hackable Business Development
Worryingly, I actually do this sometimes.
“Oftentimes, in order to do the big things, you have to let the small bad things...”
– Tim Ferris, who wrote Four Hour Work Week
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Monarchy in action. →
“Oxfordshire’s oldest resident has received a new-style birthday card from the Queen - after complaining that she always got the same one.
Catherine Masters, 110, from Stanford-in-the-vale, wrote to the Queen to say she was wearing the same outfit in five of the cards she had received.
She received a surprise visit by Prince William in May 2009 to apologise”.
PROUD TO BE...
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Jazz Economics →
“If being a jazz artist is so unsustainable, why don’t more people weigh the cost-benefit analysis and quit? Why do people keep going into jazz performance studies at record levels, and apparently staying on the scene? An economist might tell you one of two things: the supply curve is high because artists are supplementing their performance income with other pursuits, or that demand is...
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A tweeted haiku that I was unreasonably proud... →
Helping unwell mate, Friends don’t let friends use Vista, Winter virus, both.
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“What else would replace the tens of thousands of jobs lost in mining, steel...”
– “North England to replace satanic mills with iPhone app factories”
Hilarious comments on a piece in The Register about my recent iPhone report.
“There may have been some Golden Age of Lobbying, where this kind of hysteria...”
– Clay Shirky on people getting outraged at cheap books.
“Almost every software job in [New York] city was terrible. You had a choice of...”
– Joel Spolsky
“If you’re the first to acquire the album release cover as a virtual good,...”
– Viximo Partners With Interscope Records
I love virtual gifts, but I’m not convinced the appeal is “analagous” in this instance.
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"Winning iPhone Strategies" →
Report I co-wrote for Northwest Vision & Media. I know I’m biased, but I think there’s some pretty interesting stuff in here, including:
A chat with Marco Arment (Instapaper).
Thoughts from Ged Maheux of Iconfactory on Ramp Champ.
The guys from Chillingo tell us how they help developers.
Thanks to everyone who contributed or gave their time.
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Mark Vonnegut on his brother Kurt. →
“He often said he had to be a writer because he wasn’t good at anything else. He was not good at being an employee. Back in the mid-1950s, he was employed by Sports Illustrated, briefly. He reported to work, was asked to write a short piece on a racehorse that had jumped over a fence and tried to run away. Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, ‘The...
"A sports car with a baby seat".
Encouraging girls to “have it all” is not realistic and they need to know their lives will be more complicated than that, a leading head teacher says.
Macworld UK - iPhone developer profile: Little... →
That’s us!
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“Some companies say, ‘What product should we build with this...”
– Evan Williams
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Exclusive First Look: ‘Little World Gifts’. An... →
Fame at last ;-)
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D'ya think TechCrunch want the exclusive? ;-)
Had to buy a new Macbook battery this evening. Staff at the Liverpool Apple Store said they hadn’t been noticeably busier since the iPhone became available on Orange today.
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From 148Apps: →
“If you didn’t realize yet, Jelly Car is the #1 app in the App Store, both in sales and revenue. Being a 99 cent app, it had to of sold a mess of copies to beat out Rock Band in revenue, so good for Walaber… wait…what?!?! Disney? Walt Disney? Disney of Miley Cyrus and to a lesser extent Mickey Mouse fame? Yes sir. The guys at Walaber must’ve made some fat loot on that deal”.
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“Profitable farming is the same as pornography.”
– Ganari Takahashi, Japanese pornographer turned vegetable farmer, on his transferrable skills, adding: “You have to create an image and make it cool.” (via boutofcontext)
Creating a cool image is just marketing, and many of the same marketing principles apply regardless of the product you’re...
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Mystery of Argleton, the 'Google' town that only... →
“Tantalisingly, ‘Argle’ echoes the word ‘Google’, while the phantom town’s name is also an anagram of ‘Not Real G’, and ‘Not Large’.”
The Telegraph writes an article about what is likely a database screwup, and makes out it’s some sort of intriguing mystery.
(And I’ve fallen for it by linking…)
Big game hunter: The search for the next Monopoly →
Surprisingly fascinating!
“In 1983 Friedhelm Merz, the editor of Die Pppel, organised a small get-together for games lovers in an Essen school hall. Five thousand people turned up, and the road outside was so overcrowded, it had to be closed. Today, Internationale Spieltage – more commonly known as “Spiel” – is the world’s largest annual board games convention, occupying, for four days...
"Sellafield turns away BNP leader" →
At first I misread that as “Seinfeld…”
Complete different story.
Amirite?
“Everything always seems intelligent and witty when you put it in quotes.”
– (via sarahtheresa & dawnowar)
WatchCool 3D stuff on the iPhone from my job.
“Any communication system that wishes to supplant email will need to offer both...”
– Why Email Remains the King of Internet Communications
That includes you, Wave.
“Giving modifications back to the Drupal community is the next breakthrough...”
– Thoughts on the Whitehouse.gov switch to open-source
“Android is not only a phone OS, it’s a CE [consumer electronics] OS. If Ford or...”
– Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model
“Zenware refers to application programs that function with a minimum of...”