Square: It’s All About the Momentum, Baby!
Reading about Square’s latest $100 million in capital raised at a $1 billion valuation, it’s tempting to write another Bubble Story. While it’s undeniable that it would be hard to do that financing in the wake of the recent Sequoia RIP Good Times era, there’s something more interesting to think about here. First, let [...]
Quality is Part of the UX Too
Just had a back and forth with @dahowlett on Twitter about Dropbox’s recent breach of security. For about 4 hours passwords didn’t matter to Dropbox–you could type in whatever you wanted and access anyone’s data. Dennis went on a pretty good rampage about it, and I have a hard time blaming him. Yes, accidents happen, [...]
Connectivity Disrupting Traditional Models: Online Peer to Peer Commerce
As the world became more connected through the Internet in the 1990′s, many disruptive uses of this connectivity were tried and in some cases have grown into wildly successful businesses. One aspect of connectivity is the way it opens up…
Facebook Aiming to be the Central Hub for Social Shopping?
I read that Facebook just started testing a new feature called “Buy With Friends”. It seems that the feature, which only works today with virtual goods inside games, let’s users get discounts on items that their friends buy. When a user makes an in-app purchase of a virtual product using Facebook Credits they are offer [...]
Software Marketing Pranks
I envy software marketing types. They get to stay kids forever: pull pranks and even get paid for it.:-) Today’s example comes courtesy of TechCrunch: PayPal competitor WePay dropped a 600lbs ice block at the entrance of the Paypal developer conference. They got chased away and Moscone security removed the ice block. My question: who [...]
Greylock + Angelgate Signal the Seed Funding Pendulum Has Reversed
Image via Wikipedia Seed money. In many ways, the first investment in your company is the most important. Once you have investors, it becomes exponentially easier to get more investors, at least if you don’t screw it up. Once upon a time, a slideshow and a team could raise quite a lot of seed money. [...]
Are You Still Using Your Real Credit Card Online? You Shouldn’t.
So iTunes got hacked and some users saw unauthorized purchases up to $600 in their accounts. I’m shocked. Not at the fact that iTunes got hacked, but that users exposed their credit accounts to such extent. Websites do get hacked, it’s a fact of life. Users need to change their passwords, consider what other sites [...]
IBM, Red Hat adopt “VMware Pattern” for Cloud. Disruption Strategy Emerges
IBM this week clarified its plans to handhold enterprises into the cloud, working with Red Hat to bypass VMware with the announcement of Smart Business Development & Test on the IBM Cloud. I have been talking for a while about what I call The VMware Pattern, in posts such as Amazon Web Services: an instance [...]
Amex Acquires Revolution Money — Another Step Away From Spend Management
American Express continues to disappoint in the Spend Management sector of late, having taken the ball on their opponent’s 40 yard line numerous times with the result so far having been numerous interceptions and punts and nary a touchdown, not even …
Novel/Inadvertent way to promote a tech conference
Gremlins can sometimes be good
Yesterday, gremlins either stomped my blog page or they laid waste to a ZDNet advertiser (see below).
I remember some old Marketing sage telling me in college that some of the best advertising or marketing is a mistake. He told me how those pages that were stuck together (or not cut correctly) [...]
