Category: Essays
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The New Apple TV is a Game Changer
Apps in your TV, games on your TV, websites mixed with TV stations. What a tour de force! This is the kind of stuff our industry needs, a new device that is interwoven perfectly into our daily habits while giving us more freedom to chose and interact with the digital world. The future of television is all about apps. That was almost verbatim what Tim Cook said to start the conversation about Apple TV. The…
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Tim Cook Has Been a Great CEO And He’ll Prove it Today
Apple is largely expected to reveal an assortment of new products and services for its fans all around the globe. We’ll probably see new iPhones, get a hard date for OS X El Capitan and enjoy some meaty surprises. All and all, despite the Apple Watch fiasco, Tim Cooks has been a great CEO, here’s why. Nice Transition Cook was able to lead a post-Jobsian Apple into an era of shared leadership and utility-oriented computing.…
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Probabilistic Analysis and Information Architecture
Web development is more than pixel crunching. To create high-traffic web properties you need to think like a mathematician. Yes, retention is important, and so is user-centered design; but probabilistic analysis is most certainly what differentiates great properties from average websites. To make your traffic go up, statistical analysis is still more powerful than design hacks. How to Tilt the Odds in Your Favor 1. Limit the number of options. Initially, it’s best to have…
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Information Science > Computer Science
We are no longer coding primarily for “computers” in the strict sense of the world. Post PC devices including smart phones, tables, IoT sensors and devices, wearables and smart appliances all point to a future were computers take a back seat. In light of the many shifts taking place since the last couple of decades I guess is time we start using other terms to refer to the field traditionally called “computer science”. What about…
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Become an Engine of Change
Focus on the change that you want to see in the world. Read every day about leadership, technology, finance or personal improvement; don’t waist your hours in nonsense. Because, if you use your time well, you can become an engine of change. You can be the connector that refers key people to world-changing entrepreneurs. Or the clever programmer that comes up with a faster algorithm that changes an entire industry. But, in order to do…
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Litecoin Has Grown Over 500%
Bitcoin’s smaller brother, Litecoin is making big news this week. The alternative cryptocurrency has risen from a mere dollar and some cents to over 7 dollars. Indeed and incredible week for the second biggest crypto. There are many reasons for Litecoin’s big correction, let’s go over a few: – Less spam tolerant. The great river of spam transactions going on at the Bitcoin network is not economically feasible in Litecoin. For a full explanation please…
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Market Segmentation and the Quantcast Growth Hack
Market segmentation is a marketing strategy which involves dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers, businesses, or countries who have, or are perceived to have, common needs, interests, and priorities, and then designing and implementing strategies to target them. Market segmentation strategies are generally used to identify and further define the target customers, and provide supporting data for marketing plan elements such as positioning to achieve certain marketing plan objectives. Businesses may develop…
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Managing Gridlock
Gridlock is a common situation for traction-less startups. Your ratings on the App Store are falling, there’s no growth in your monthly visits and revenue couldn’t be more stagnant, so what do you do? What can you do when VCs are pushing one way, employees on another and competitors won’t let you move forward (via lawsuits or otherwise)? The first step is to assess the situation finding key avenues for change and identifying the key…
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Forget About Reading the News. Focus on Making News.
People largely talk about similar issues: news, celebrities, new policies, etc. But you are different, you want to make a dent, to craft a legacy, to have an impact by improving a critical sector of our daily lives. I get it. Making big social contribution starts by getting ahead of the mainstream train of thought and actually working on making news instead of constantly following or reporting on news. Being an innovator is all about…
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Attention to Detail
Attention to detail is key. We have been highly conditioned to evaluate things according to their superficial qualities and, in all fairness, in an increasingly virtual world, superficiality and reality often collide. Be fanatical about details. Go over each screen at least fifty times (literally). Sit down with designers and work on color coordination, branding, alignment, and overall UX. Your app’s design is telling users how much you care. Your app’s design is an ever-present…