I love the iPad. I hate the iPad. That pretty much sums up my first five days with this new device. Apple has given me lots to like about it and to give me the glimmer of hope that I might be able to use it largely as a replacement for rather than a supplement…
It seems as if we have heard about the coming convergence of electronic communications tools for years now. And yet while we continue to see ever more powerful gadgets that do indeed have greater functionality than their predecessors, we still can’t shed all of our gear and replace it with one central device. Some company…
At a dinner I attended last night in Washington, DC, one of my tablemates said that since I was “Mr. Digital” that I shouldn’t really need to come to DC every week since I could just use video conferencing. Now, I certainly do use video conferencing. And conference calls. And 1-on-1 calls. And email. And…
I have automated voice mail transcription set up so that I get an email when someone leaves me a message. The idea is to save me from having to dial in and listen to a message, especially if I am otherwise occupied at the time. Being able to scan a message quickly to determine its…
My early web experiences were all UNIX-based. Back in the 1980’s, I started using the text-based Internet using UNIX boxes. When I got to college, I used it even more extensively. After I graduated, the World Wide Web came on the scene and I surfed the web from Windows computers, but I created web sites on UNIX machines. But for most of the past decade, I’ve been Windows-centric with my web servers. Until now.
Harry Balzer in today’s New York Times said: “A hundred years ago, chicken for dinner meant going out and catching, killing, plucking and gutting a chicken. Do you know anybody who still does that? It would be considered crazy! Well, that’s exactly how cooking will seem to your grandchildren: something people used to do when they had no other choice. Get over it.”
Are we really headed back to the future? With all of the talk of computing in the cloud — including an expectation of a major announcement this week — are we truly destined to go back to the days when there was little horsepower on the desktop and all the computing was done at a central location?
I am amused by how often someone asks me what the next big thing will be in the Internet space. What’s the next Twitter or Facebook, they may inquire.
Don’t drink the online advertising Kool Aid and dismiss more traditional media outlets. At the same time, don’t buy in to the Internet advertising doldrums and give up on new media opportunities. Try different things and evaluate how beneficial they are to the objectives you are trying to achieve.
Jesse Devitte of Borealis Ventures discusses how the current economic environment provides both challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. Jesse himself is an entrepreneur turned investor with experience in times of boom and bust