In the intro talk here at Future of Web Apps, Brian Oberkirch quoted a Kevin Marks tweet which is AWESOME:
Before worrying about your business model, get your pleasure model straight
This is so right on. Too often, we worry about how we’re going to make money with our Web app or Web content but we don’t think about how we’re going to improve the lives of our users.
More soon…
It’s really cool to see Ann Bernard and Keith Casey’s Web app WhyGoSolo get so much deserved love from the blogosphere.
They were recently profiled:
What the app does is allow you to meetup with folks who want to attend real life local events. That way they don’t have to go buy themselves and you get to meet someone with similar interests.
While I haven’t tried it out yet, it’s a GREAT idea and I intend to give it a whirl soon.
Plus they’re local to the Washington DC area and it’s great to see a local bootstrapped startup get international Web attention.
I’m totally pumped. I’m headed to Miami on Wednesday. It’s so frickin’ cold in Washington DC. It’s 82 degrees F in Miami right now. 😀
I’ll be at BarCampMiami and Future of Web Apps (FOWA). At FOWA, they have a killer speaker lineup like Kathy Sierra, Kevin Rose, Gary Vaynerchuk, and others.
If you’re going to either of those events or live in the Miami area, drop me a line. I’d love to meetup.
Last night, I was flying from Michigan back to Washington DC and didn’t get home till around 11:30pm. I completely missed the Oscars. I was kind of bummed It’s a show that I usually like to watch every year.
Well no worries. The cool kids over at Mahalo Daily did a video synopsis… “The Oscars in 60 seconds.” It’s pretty good. Check it out.
I don’t feel as bad about missing the show now.
I’m in Michigan this weekend so I didn’t get a chance to make it to this month’s Refresh DC. It’s fun to see the photos though. It was packed. It was HUGE. This is great. 🙂
The DC tech scene is alive and growing.
It’s been really interesting to watch as Apple has continued to lower and lower and lower the barrier to entry for people to buy their first iPod.
With the recent price drop, someone can now walk into the Apple Store and pickup an iPod Shuffle for $49.
It’s like now… if people ever wanted to try an iPod, they could just get an iPod shuffle. It’s $49. What do they have to lose?
I guess… if I wanted to learn from this, I’d ask myself that if I’m trying to sell product X how can I make it so simple that people would be like “what do I have to lose?” It’s so easy and has such a low barrier to entry.
Because I’ve been traveling a lot lately and have had a longer commute to work, I’ve had much more time to read. One of the books that I recently finished is “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody” by Daniel Lyons.
Not too often is there a book that has actually made me laugh out loud. This book made me laugh out loud.
The book is kind of an out growth of Lyons’ blog – The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, which is also a riot to read.
I’d recommend reading the book to anyone who is like me a member of the cult of mac.
As I’ve mused in the past, I don’t think the paper newspaper translates very well into the online space. With the news of the New York Times cutting 100 of its newsroom jobs, I start thinking about who/what will be the future of the industry. Obviously depending on a paper newspaper and paper ads isn’t enough.
More and more I think the future is a personlized start page, like iGoogle or Netvibes.
What does a newspaper?… It takes a bunch of different disparate sources of information from around the world and aggregates them into one convenient space.
What does a personalized start page do? … It takes a bunch of different disparate sources of information from around the world and aggregates them into one convenient space.
Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of hanging out with my buddy Livingston. He’s getting his Master’s Degree in Publishing at George Washington University.
As one of his class projects, he had to make a Web site and I offered to help.
His Web site is called AfPub. He’s really interested in publishing in Africa and wanted his site to be a central source for resources online.
So… in no time at all, we had installed WordPress, picked put a theme, and published some content.
It was great to see his excitement about taking his thoughts and interests and putting them out there for the world to see. Reminded me of my initial excitement with getting out their online.
So head over to AfPub and tell my friend Livingston hi!
Oatmeal Stout - Justin Thorp's blog 