chapter four – my 30s
Google’s launched instant search this week, and it’s pretty cool. There’s some interesting chatter on the interwebs about how Yahoo! had something similar in 2005 but couldn’t get the traction and execution internally to make a success out of it. I’m not going to comment on whether or not extending this service would have saved [...]
I’m not a huge apple fan boy, but I’m on my way. I’ve got an iPod Touch, a Macbook and I’ll probably get an iPad at some point in the future. I’ve stayed away from the iPhone as I think the iPod browsing and apps meets my needs. Then I saw the Apple keynote (if [...]
At Yahoo! there was an idea from some people within the company that we should “eat our own dogfood”, i.e. that we should be using our own products and services, that internal Yahoo!’s shouldn’t be using Gmail or other Google/Microsoft products. I was reminded of this idea by an article on Steve Ballmer and Bill [...]
This is Zuckerberg at the D8 conference talking about privacy, he’s pretty defensive, saying things like “we recommend settings… there are misconceptions about the information we’re sharing” and lot’s of other gobbly goop about how Facebook is working on privacy: Now this is Jim Joyce, an umpire who made a mistake on a baseball play [...]
I really like the guys over at Nestoria, a property search engine in Europe. I met them over at Yahoo! and they asked my to be their interview of the month. Here’s an excerpt, for the whole thing check out their blog. 3. Why set up your start-up in the UK? Especially in the current [...]
Interesting article from the Guardian last week talking about the Irish News online pay wall and how they’ve set up a paywall last year with the choice of £5 for one week’s editions, £15 for a month’s and £150 for a year’s subscription but only managed to get “just 1,215 paid subscriptions: 525 weekly, 370 [...]
One of my least favourite sayings is that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. I really hate the idea that someone at any time stops learning. Or that someone can’t possibly learn the skills they need to be able to do something big. At the same time I really hate it when people [...]
Today’s word of the day is “Equanimous”, and is brought to you by my good friend (and the Bee’s cousin) Tasleem Thawar. I can’t remember the exact context in which Tasleem introduced me and the Bee to being equanimous but it’s been a term that has stuck with me for while. According to multiple free [...]
When I was at Yahoo! one of the things that drove me batty was seeing an advertiser take over a property, either the homepage or some other vertical (like Sports or Movies or some other bit of Yahoo). It’s not that I’m not for capitalism and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the attempt at [...]
Being back in London for one week has been great. Socially, we’ve met up with friends, gone out without the baby and been spoilt for choice for take away and nights out. The Bee’s made a friend and been invited to a baby group, so it’s been great to be back. Professionally, I couldn’t be [...]