Category
Innovation
-
01.21.10Will you Blippy?Blippy.com is the new social media site where users can automatically publish feeds of everything they buy. Unlike Beacon, the unsuccessful shopping news feed launched by Facebook and then scuttled due to negative user feedback, Blippy is entirely opt-in, and purchase notifications can be limited to specific vendors (Amazon, iTunes) or credit cards. After using the site a bit, I am not sure if I want to publish my purchases in this way, or view all the purchases of my friends. However, given the early traction the site is getting, along with the A-list investors such as Ron Conway, it seems ...
-
01.13.10Bye-bye point-and-shootHappy new year, I hope everyone had a great holiday. I am getting back into the swing of things after returning from a week in Colombia and a brief Disney Cruise to the Bahamas with my family--as well as recovering from the various illnesses one might associate with: a) a trip to South America; and b) a cruise with 800 kids under the age of 10. Business is starting to heat up for KlickFu as well as a few consulting projects, so I have been posting less frequently the past month or so. I will try to write more frequent, ...
-
11.13.09You and your researchIn an interview with Joe Armstrong in "Coders At Work," the excellent book I described in a recent post, the author Peter Seibel refers to a famous talk by Richard Hamming entitled "You and Your Research" in which Hamming advises young scientists on how to do great work, make significant contributions to their fields, and achieve career success. Hamming addresses numerous issues that are relevant for anyone who wants to make their mark and achieve success, certainly including entrepreneurs. I will go into only one of these points in detail here, although I would advise anyone and everyone to take a ...
-
11.12.09Connecting the SoCal Tech dotsToday I wanted to give a shout-out to Dr. Tony Karrer, creator of the Southern California Tech Central (SCTC) web site, which aggregates blogs from various folks working in technology throughout SoCal. As of this week, Tony started including this blog on the site, as you can see from the new banner on the right side of the page. I am excited and flattered to be included among such well-known and respected bloggers, so Tony thank you very much and I look forward to working together. A bit of background on SCTC. Tony founded the site about 6 months ago as a community ...
-
11.06.09When anti-stealth is goodThere seems to have been an increase recently in the discussion among entrepreneurs and others related to startups of whether and to what extent a startup should remain in "stealth" mode. For those who not familiar with the term, stealth mode refers to a startup explicitly not discussing in public its products or strategies. The degree to which a company can cloak its intentions can range from simply not publicly demonstrating its product on one hand to using a false company name during development on the other, only to reveal the true name just before launching. A notable example of the ...
-
09.18.09Farmville, YoFarmville, the virtual farming game from Zynga, now has over 44 million active users and has become the most popular (and I believe, the fastest-growing) social game ever. I do not have much of a green thumb, and I have never been a major fan of simulation games, however, I wanted to get a better understanding of what makes FV so popular and why it is growing so quickly. I am a big believer there is no substitute for using a product yourself--so the past few days I have been diligently building my farm and interacting with friends to help them ...
-
09.14.09Lenses of creativity (part 1)As I mentioned last week, I am slowly making my way through Jesse Schell's excellent book, "The Art of Game Design, A Book of Lenses," in which Dr. Schell presents a series of 100 "lenses," or aspects to consider when designing a game that help maximize the playability, fun, and profitability of the finished product. I highly recommend this book, obviously for anyone who is interested in designing games, and also for anyone involved in creating new consumer products of any kind, from web sites to software to household items or baby blankets. When I started this blog, one of the ...
-
09.10.09The love of productToday is a big day in the development of KlickFu--earlier this morning we delivered (internally) our first working product! This is a thrill for the team and me for several reasons. First, anytime you hit a milestone you have been working toward for a period of time there is always a justifiable feeling of achievement. In this case, it has been over a year since I created the original concept for KlickFu, 10 months since I had the idea to improve it that caused me to get excited enough to leave my comfortable day job and pursue KlickFu full-time, and about ...
-
09.03.09How much is an idea worth? (Hint: more than 1%)As a startup founder, I go to several "entrepreneur" networking events each month. Often these events feature panel discussions on topics relevant to starting a new company, such as how to raise angel financing, how to form strategic partnerships, whether and how to outsource, etc. In general, the panel discussions are on point and helpful and the panelists are successful, experienced, and candid with their comments. However, inevitably at some of these events, the subject of "what it takes to be successful" comes up, and one of the panelists will say the following, usually with all the other panelists nodding in ...
recent posts
- A different way to view Facebook photos with KlickFu
- Can the patent system be fixed?
- Try KlickFu today
- Welcome to the desktop, Facebook
- The downloadable is dead. Long live the downloadable!
- My take on the Samsung Nexus S and Android
- 9 reasons why fantasy football is the most successful social game
-
Categories
-
Links
