Archive for the ‘Whatever’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Link: Little Big Details
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
This website is a great collections of little details that may pass unobserved but that can make the different between a good app/website and a great one.
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
SyncPad on This Week in iPad
Monday, January 24th, 2011
Last Friday I’ve been interviewed about SyncPad on This Week in iPad.
Tags: Interview, Podcast, SyncPad, Video
Posted in Whatever | 1 Comment »
Delegate or die: the self-employed trap.
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
Another great article by Derek Sivers. I highly suggest to read his blog, full of priceless suggestions on how to be a great entrepreneur (a not only).
There’s a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner.
Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles.
To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.
Posted in Whatever | 1 Comment »
Idea to Market in 5 Months: Making the Glif
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
A great example of fast execution.
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
Things we shipped this year
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Inspired by Seth Godin, I decided to look back at 2010 and make a list of noteworthy things that 39 Inc. has shipped this year:
- SyncPad: A whiteboard for remote collaboration over the internet. This is probably the coolest thing we have built so far.
- Phofolio: Affordable iPhone and iPad applications for creative people. This project has been 99% done for months, but finally shipped it (quietly) last month.
- Contracts: An iOS application to create, sign and archive contracts on the go. If people ask you to sign NDAs as often as I’m asked to, you will love this app!
- SquarePik: The first-ever Foursquare client with image support (thanks to Pikchur). This was our first app to show up in publications like TechCrunch, Mashable and the Washington Post without being in an article listing multiple applications.
- Mobile Dossier: A simple app – built to fill our own need – that analyzes price distribution and chart longevity in the App Store
- Coepio.com: A blog in Italian for entrepreneurs.
- Three applications for internationally recognized brands:
Of course, we did many other stuff and many are still in process, but these were probably the most interesting. 2010 was a very intense year, and I’m sure 2011 will be even more exciting.
What did you ship in 2010?
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
Typefaces for Movember
Sunday, November 7th, 2010
I found this image on ffffound and I thought it was the perfect way to remember all you guys to join the Movember movement. Each year, Movember, the month formerly known as November, is responsible for the sprouting of thousands of Mo’s (Australian slang for moustache, where the movement began) on men’s faces around the world, raising vital awareness and funds for men’s health, specifically for cancer affecting men.
Tags: Typography
Posted in Whatever | 1 Comment »
Jack Dorsey’s life lessons
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
Great lessons, too bad I won’t be able to try lesson #10.
Photo copyright iluvpepero
Tags: Inspiration, Twitter
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
Your e-mail is getting smarter
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Lately I have the feeling that my e-mail is getting smarter. I always being unhappy with most of the clients and solutions to manage my e-mails and contacts, but things are changing fast. So far I’ve been using a combination of labels and the Multiple Inbox lab feature to organize my email, so that I won’t forget the things to do and they won’t be submerged by all the incoming ones. This is what my inbox look like:
But last night Google launched a new feature for Gmail called Priority Inbox, where more important e-mails are separated from the rest. To do the trick I suppose Google consider opening rate and frequency of replies for each specific sender. Of course the filter will get better with time, but I’m already happy for seeing a big player tackling the inbox overload problem. Here’s a video that explains the feature:
So far it seems working pretty well for me and I’m sure it will improve the more I use it. This feature combined with the right plugins, like Rapportive, definitely are making me love my inbox a little more.
Posted in Whatever | 5 Comments »
People are asking for less
Thursday, August 5th, 2010
Take a look at some of the most successful applications in the last few months, even in the last few years. People are craving less. They are tired of overcrowded experiences. Strong evidence of this can be found in the success of applications such as Instapaper and Flipboard.
Instapaper, in combination with the iPad, completely changed the way I consume my daily readings. Now, whenever I see an interesting article, I instapaper it so that I can read it later, when I can give it my full attention, without annoying multiple pages, overwhelming ads, and with less distractions and noise. Even Apple recently added a similar feature to their browser with Reader, a feature that lets you visualize the article à la Instapaper. Some bloggers complained that, in doing so, Apple was penalizing the websites that make their buck from advertising, but in my opinion, when a user clicks the Reader button, this simply expresses a desire for less, for clean, for readability. I’m sorry dear blogger, I love your articles, but I’m sick of your 14 blinking banners right next to it. I’m tired of having to scroll pass your Google Adsense links in order to get to the content. I hate having to go through five two-paragraph-long pages, so that I can help you spike your page views.
Similarly, Flipboard creates a more elegant and cleaner way to consume your Twitter and Facebook stream. Thanks to big images, fewer elements per page, and an intelligent usage of the space, it helps the user focus on the actual content. I feel I’ve been getting so much more from Twitter and Facebook since I have less things to distract my attention. No more cows and gangsters in the way. No invitations to the latest time sink.
People choosing to use these applications are begging developers and designers to create experiences that are cleaner and more pleasant to use. Just listen to them.
Tags: Flipboard, Instapaper, Reader
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
Where is Groupon going?
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
Andrew Mason, Groupon’s CEO, recently announced deals personalization, a feature initially available in six cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle. This move by Groupon was done for several reasons, such as the necessity to differentiate itself from several clones (which are sprouting at the same rate of Groupon’s deals, daily) and an large amount of requests from businesses to be featured on the site. Deals personalization definitely made sense to me, so much so that the announcement was made just few hours before the soft launch of one of my projects, WishADeal.com. How many times have you looked at your inbox and thought, “why am I getting e-mails for pole dancing classes and spa deals?” This is exactly why Groupon is adding some level of personalization. With Wish A Deal I go even a step further by letting you pick the category of the deals you’d like to receive, and gather them from several daily deal sites in a single e-mail.
But where is this daily deals market going? My guess: now that the market is saturated by a leader, Groupon, and multiple clones, the next natural step will be to focus on verticals. Woot spun off Wine Woot, Shirt Woot, and so on. This would be a great time to launch sites such as Daily Burger Deal or Vegan Daily Offer. At this point, people are familiar with the concept of daily deals and would definitely appreciate a really specialized and targeted service. And, I’m willing to bet that this is something that sites like Groupon and Living Social will offer in the near future.
Posted in Whatever | 1 Comment »
Find me here