Google + Motorola
So GOOG wants MOT for 12.5B. AOL + Time Warner, Excite + @Home … I don’t see this ending well.
Andre Gide
One of my all-time favorite quotes. First read this about 16 years ago:
“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
Pandora’s Box
Years ago I listened to Yahoo! LaunchCast all day long while I worked. Somewhere along the line that morphed into listening to Pandora and boy, what a difference. Whereas LaunchCast was pretty good at getting to know my tastes in music, Pandora seemed downright amazing.
But several months ago I moved on again, this time to TuneIn Radio on my iPhone. TuneIn Radio gives you free access to tens of thousands of radio stations all over the world which means you can find pretty much anything you feel like listening to. It will preview what’s playing on a station. You can search in real time by song or artist (there are more search parameters but those are the ones I use the most).
If I want, I can plug my desktop speakers into my iPhone and play TuneIn in my office. I can stream TuneIn into my car over 3G. I can get my favorite stations around the globe anywhere I can get a decent data signal which, these days, really is just about everywhere.
I still think Pandora is awesome but I wonder if their IPO might be letting the genie out of the bottle. The mob is fickle …
Hope you make it guys!
Ron Johnson, CEO JC Penney
I’m posting this at the risk of being the David Goldstein to a JC Penney turnaround in retail.
I’ll take my chances.
I don’t think it’s stupid for Ron Johnson to leave Apple. I think joining JCP is. Johnson can be credited with Apple’s retail success insofar as he holds/held the title tethered to the responsibility for it. I believe the level of success is as much timing as anything. You can distribute the best message about the best products to everyone but if they’re not ready to accept the message, you don’t succeed.
Apple got to pick and choose their retail locations which is a large part of their legacy. JCP is physically and mentally associated with low-cost, low-end, low-price. Maybe they’ll shutter some stores. Maybe they’ll open some new ones. JC Penney inside Grand Central? All-glass JCP stores?
I understand the desire to run an iconic brand from the top floor, but at what cost? Investing $50M of your own money shows commitment, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect wisdom.
As always, time will tell.
Groupon: cash & crash.
Groupon’s current model isn’t sustainable. The founders and early investors know this which is why they’re using rounds and an IPO to cash out as much as they can. Large numbers of businesses are attracting customers who are only interested in coupons and deals and would never otherwise be patrons. As a web developer/designer it’s widely accepted you never engage a client by pricing to the bottom. It’s the same in business - coupon’s are great but coupon shoppers are only loyal as long as they’re getting coupons. And Groupon’s deals aren’t sustainable at massive discounts.
Don’t get me wrong - it’s a clever model. But the fact is they’re riding a wave of timing and novelty and printing money along the way. I suspect the cash & crash isn’t far behind. And as always … only time will tell.
On the Eve of WWDC 2011.
Yes, I’m a fan of Apple products. I’ve also read (but do not purport to be an expert of) much of Apple’s history, the result of which is a significant amount of respect and admiration for the sum total of Apple’s brand and leadership.
I’m a fan of any company that combines beautifully-designed products with fearless leadership, smashing the status quo along the way. The truth is there just aren’t that many companies that fit the bill.
Now that I’ve written my novel-esque disclaimer trying to persuade you of my objectivity regarding all things “Apple”, I’ve been thinking (not too hard, don’t worry) about tomorrow’s WWDC keynote and specifically, what’s going on with Apple and Twitter. I certainly understand the handiness of being able to connect to Twitter in numerous, interesting ways from within iOS but there’s so much talk about it, the black helicopters in my head are circling. Is this only a technology relationship of convenience or is it something more?
I believe it was last year (time can be such a blur) when Jobs had Zuck over to his house to dinner, which is apparently one of, if not Jobs’ favorite location for doing the “big deals”. And there were a few speed bumps integrating iTunes/Ping/Facebook. I guess I’m just wondering how big is Apple’s appetite for social media? Apple knows content is king and I think it knows user-created content (email, pictures, blogs, etc.) are tantamount to content. Apple moved from providing content (music, movies, apps via iTunes & Mac App Store) to user-created content (MobileMe) and tomorrow is likely dropping all those ingredients into the iCloud cauldron.
So why are my cranial black helicopters doing loops? How aggressive is Apple is going to get with social medai and their coffers of cash? I’m doing my best to avoid theorizing Apple will buy a big social media player like Twitter but … well … ? Probably not, I know. They bought Quattro Wireless after a failed attempt to buy Admob … big ol’ datacenter in NC … inviting all the international press … all this talk about Twitter? Not that Twitter is insignificant but I keep thinking, in light of Lion, iOS5, iCloud … who cares about Twitter tomorrow? What could be happening that’s generating so much talk?
We’ll know soon enough.
And so it begins.
For as long as I’ve been designing and developing web applications, it strikes some people strange I don’t blog, tweet, etc. So here it is: my official entrance into the public eye. Prepare to be stupefied attempting to figure out why I bothered. It’s actually simple - I’m working on some fantastic and exciting projects of my own (e.g. no clientele) and I want to talk about them! Well, that and I decided I needed a place to point out what’s right and wrong with the Intertubez.
Let the virtual pugilism begin.
