If Léo Apotheker had run Microsoft in the 1980s, it would have killed Windows in January of 1986.
I wish the rest of the world worked like the web. “*Pay* for a Big Mac? It should be free. Monetization is your problem. I’m a user. Free!”
What the $99 TouchPad firesale tells us about the tablet market
Harry McCracken on Technologizer:
the TouchPad fire sale–which probably appealed more to bargain-hunting gadget nerds than the masses–is such a bizarre event that it just doesn’t tell us that much about the potential market for very low-cost tablets.
Ian Betteridge puts it even more succinctly:
Nothing.
An evolution of foursquare design from January 2009 – August 2011
One of the great things about working on one product is the ability to iterate; the bad thing is you never feel like you’re done.
When foursquare started there was no real visual design on the app. Naveen was coding it up alone and he used all native Apple UI elements. I was helping out on the side and slowly we added custom elements and branding and for SXSW 2010 we did our first visual pass at the design. At that point I was doing everything, and it showed. One person can only do so much. Now we have a talented group of UI and UX designers and these days I mostly work on the iOS app.
We just put out a new build complete with a new blue navigation bar, photos inline, single tap cells and a newly designed check-in detail screen. I’m really proud of this current iteration of the app and can’t wait to see it continue to evolve.
Twitter landscape in Indonesia 2011
Saling silang published a report on the state of “social media” in Indonesia for the first half of 2011 which you can see on Slideshare. Some of the highlights with regards to Twitter:
- There are nearly 85 million internet users in Indonesia according to Business Measurement Intelligence report
- Third most active country on Twitter with 13% of tweets, nearly doubles the UK at 4th place with 7%. The US tops the list with 28% of tweets, followed by Brazil with 24%.
- Nearly 1.3 million tweets per day collectively
- No day is significantly more chatty than the other.
- The busiest times during the day are between 5 pm and 10 pm (33% of tweets) but mornings make up 30% of tweets.
- Jakarta is the most tweeting city with 13% of tweets, followed by Yogyakarta with 11.7% and Surabaya with 11.3%.
- Nearly 87% of tweets are from mobile devices.
So, Tell Me Why You Want a Divorce?
HUBBY: I can’t stand her attachment to Facebook. She just can’t stop checking it every five bloody minutes!
WIFEY: Oh, you can’t stand it because your buddy tagged you that photo where you were clearly staring at that slut’s boobs!
HUBBY: I did not stare at her boobs. It’s a stupid angle! You’re the one who added random hot guys with six packed tummies as your *friends* on Facebook
WIFEY: Hello! Everybody knows that they are gays! I did that only to tell you to go to the gym!
HUBBY: Oh, I love the way you communicate to your husband.
WIFEY: Don’t teach me how to communicate, you BlackBerry-addict! You and your constant obsession with the number of your followers on Twitter!
HUBBY: I’m a marketing guy, for God’s sake! I’m manning my corporate’s Twitter account! I told you that a thousand times!
WIFEY: And, that’s why you lock your own personal Twitter account and never accepted my following request?
HUBBY: I accepted you once, but then you unfollowed me. Remember?
WIFEY: I unfollowed you, because you never followed me back.
HUBBY: I never did that because I know you only use Twitter to do stupid chat with your friends.
WIFEY: Oh, and you do serial tweets on just whatever, from dinosaurs to the history of China! Just blog it if you wanna brag your Wikipedia knowledge, will ya’?!
HUBBY: Just like you brag about your interplanetary fashion styles in Blogspot?
WIFEY: I. Am. The. Best. Fashion. Blogger. In. Town! I have to appear weird! You are so unbelievably childish!
HUBBY: Talk to my hand!
WIFEY: I tried. I can’t. Your hands are busy with your BlackBerry.
OKAY, OKAY! Please, stop! Let’s start from the beginning. Where did you two meet for the first time?
HUBBY & WIFEY: Friendster.
Google Shows How Not to Complain About the Patent Mess
Great breakdown of Google’s patent post by Harry McCracken.
It is fairly amazing that one poorly constructed post has managed to turn Google from a sympathetic figure in all of this into a jackass/crybaby hybrid.
I think the idea behind the post was right, it’s just that Google tried to be specific without being specific enough (and without vetting at least one crucial thing). Perhaps they should have taken the most general, common-sense approach and simply taken a stand against bullshit patents.
Of course, they can’t really do that with a straight face while they’re trying to buy 8,800 new ones at the same time.
Ha! If you missed the reference, you need to watch Firefly and Serenity.
The History and Mystery of the High Five
I was calling Sleets because I wanted to talk to the man who invented the high five. I’d first read about him in 2007 in a press release from National High Five Day, a group that was trying to establish a holiday for convivial palm-slapping on the third Thursday in April. Apparently, Sleets had been reluctantly put in touch with the holiday’s founders, and he explained that his father, Lamont Sleets Sr., served in Vietnam in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry — a unit nicknamed The Five. The men of The Five often gathered at the Sleets home when Lamont Jr. was a toddler. They’d blow through the front door doing their signature greeting: arm straight up, five fingers spread, grunting “Five.” Lamont Jr. loved to jump up and slap his tiny palms against their larger ones. “Hi, Five!” he’d yell, unable to keep all their names straight.
AuliaSays 