jamtoday.org

Nov 29

Nov 26

“The whole idea of using the physical store to drive online traffic is pretty interesting,” said Keith Anderson, senior analyst at RetailNet Group, which first reported on the stores.” — Walmart begins ‘pop-up’ store experiment - FT.com (via rafer)

(via rafer)

Nov 13

“I predict that health monitoring will be the next substantial phase of cyborg evolution.” —

Scott Adams Blog: Our Cyborg Evolution 11/08/2011

I agree. Sounds creepy taken out of context, but not in the context of the entire post. Also, the blog of Scott Adams should not be missed.

(via davidhoffman)

“The New Luddites are back, and they’re packing heat. The mighty Economist writes of “the disturbing thought” that “America’s current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much … A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees.” The New York Times chimes in: “technology is quickly taking over service jobs, following the waves of automation of farm and factory work.” At which those of us lucky enough to be software engineers burst into derisive laughter, of course. We’ve heard all this before, more than a decade ago, when ‘outsourcing to India’ rather than ‘automation’ was the threat that would destroy our jobs. Obviously this is more of the same kind of nonsense. Right?” — What If This Is No Accident? What If This Is The Future? | TechCrunch (via new-aesthetic)

(via new-aesthetic)

Nov 09

Squared Away

parislemon:

While I was still at TechCrunch, I would often get asked what startup excited me the most. That’s a massive question. There are a ton. But for the past year and a half, one was always at the forefront of my mind: Square.

Now that I’m a VC, the question is flipped: terms aside, what company would I love to invest in? The answer is the same. Square.

Of course, they don’t exactly need my money — they’re now at the stage where behemoths like Visa are doing strategic investments. And they’re closing $100 million rounds at billion-plus valuations. But I think back to May 2009, when Mike and I were working together to break the news about Jack Dorsey’s new project, then codenamed Squirrel. If only we had the CrunchFund back then…

Of course, at that point, the idea was still more of an intriguing, but somewhat crazy-sounding dream. It wasn’t until Square launched seven months later that it became apparent that this could really be a massive disruptor. And they haven’t disappointed.

Read More

Oct 20

[video]

Oct 18

Engagement x Value

Do you have a formula for figuring out how interested you are in a project?

Perhaps you do but haven’t thought about what exactly it is.

Of course, it’s never quite as simple as an exact formula, but I think this gets about as close as possible for me:

Engagement x Value

I like working on things that engage lots of people. The more the better. And judging from the recruiting notes I get from big companies these days that put the most emphasis on the number of people you’ll reach, I’m not the only developer or designer that cares about the ability to work on things that affect many people more than salary or perks.

But there’s also value in this formula. Except for the odd fun weekend project, I don’t see myself ever again working on social apps that are meant purely to spread and gain users, because there’s no value.

Without engagement or value, the result is zero. They’re both necessary. And as the amount of engagement and value increases for a project, the level of interest from the top developers and designers quickly multiplies. Literally, in this case.