Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The impact Steve made Apple make
I read a lot (too many) stories on the resignation of Steve Jobs last day. I find this one on O’Reilly Radar the best, really focusing on the impact and change he made Apple make.
In an era where entrepreneurialism is too often defined by incrementalism and pursuit of the exit strategy, Jobs’ Apple was always defined by true husbandry of a vision, and the long, often thankless, pursuit of excellence and customer delight that goes with it.
Ironically, though, Jobs’ greatest innovation may actually be as basic as “bringing humanity back into the center of the ring,” to borrow a phrase from Joe Strummer of the seminal rock band, The Clash.
Nuff said? Well, the article doesn’t go into the impact of the resignation itself. Is Jobs replaceable? He may have raised Apple to stand on its own feet, and he may also have built in the right insurance by staying in the board, but time will tell if this is enough to resist the urges from a market leader too control its positions in stead of keeping the view on the future product leaps.
I truely hope it will. But there are enough signals it is moving into a new phase. Not only based on the lawsuits for market protection and the patent wars, I think this was probably always a invisible part of the business. And also not only based on the fact that the new CEO Tim Cook has earned it credits in making the business more effective. But definitely by the next phase of lock-in strategies with the introduction of iCloud. How great the service seems to be, it could be well used to play the world domination card like we know it from Microsoft the last decades.
I’m a big lover and collector of the Apple products, and enthusiastic user of the service ecosystem. And I give it a fair chance that the DNA of the company is strong enough to inspire us with more disruptive human touched products. But it will be exciting times for sure…
Can we expect Google Groups?
This week a very interesting presentation by Paul Adams of Google was published on Slideshare called The Real Life Social Network. He nailed some trends in social media on real behavior. It was all over the blogosphere already. It reminds me of my presentation on virtual gated communities at Reboot 11 in 2008. One of the things I was thinking about back then was the way we would create groups with different levels of privacy. It will be very interesting if the presented visions of Adams are translated into a new social approach by Google, just like the rumor that was spread this week by former CTO of Google. Interesting to see how Google are trying to use another angle to confront facebook, with a differentiation in groups. Another thought I had is still valid: can we have interoperability in these groups between different providers?
links for 2010-01-14
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Beautiful clear infograph of the world progress report. With some interesting numbers too.
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Better version than the Dutch wie-o-wie. Looks adequate.
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Tool for making bookmarklets form a lot of short cuts in one bookmarklet. Works smart, like quicksilver but in the browser.
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Marketplace for fan pages of Facebook. More hype than trend maybe…
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Like the simple design and the focus of this tool. I doubt this could be a word killer for meeting minutes. And really missing an export function.
links for 2010-01-12
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Great list of speakers, good place for inspiration lost hours ;-)
links for 2010-01-11
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This is a good post on the new phase in the web we are experiencing right now. I think I wrote about it more than one, the smart context. The term predictive web describes is well.
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Adding feedback options on a beta-version of site is hip. And this is a nice overview of the current products in the market.
links for 2010-01-10
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It is an interesting continuous discussion; the role of privacy. It definitely is changing, people will be using privacy more instrumental. With a more open starting point indeed.
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Another tool for company inside collaborative working. For on the list.
links for 2010-01-09
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A research on the use of twitter. With a analysis of a sample of 1000 tweets with not a lot of surprises.
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Good overview of the new form of marketing where you start with a dialogue, conversate and collaborate.
Can Layar become an on-the-road-search tool?
You all know Layar of course, it can’t be missed. The new tool made by SPRX Mobile is as the say themselves ‘the first mobile augmented reality browser’. Next week there will be a first devcamp with Bruce Sterling setting the context. And that is interesting because I think the approach of Layar is showing different models for a new emerging augmented world.
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Return of the flashmob as driver closed grouping
Today we had a flashmob hype in Amsterdam. The successful Stockholm Michael Jackson contributing flashmob was the inspiration for this event. However the flashmob generated lots of attention and a lot of people had a great day in preparation and executing, the flashmob failed in my opinion. The basic idea of a flashmob is to surprise a ignorant crowd by a orchestrated action done by a view. This one was the opposite. But unless the failure it could be seen as a driver for some interesting trends. Some thoughts…
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The next ubiquitous services
In an article of Winston Ross which he wrote for Newsweek (but wasn’t published) I found some interesting teasing quotes. The article itself asks the question what the next Twitter will be. That is a question that is often asked, but in essence not relevant. What is interesting however, is one of the subquestions that emerges: which are the services that will be unmissable, that will be part of our daily routine and become ubiquitous.
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