On the oversaturation of news sources. In other words, you aren’t going to create the innovative journalism company of the next 10 years by finding additional sources. You’ll do it through reinventing the consumption experience, finding new ways to engage readers users, and curating the really valuable content.
Tag: business
Hiring for a Boostrapped Company. When you’re running a bootstrapped company you should hire for the moment and look in your network for great people.
!@$#ing for a living
!@$#ing for a living. What if we had a publishing platform that cost $10 per month and allowed users to distribute half of that money among their favorite 20 bloggers? Sounds like a pretty cool idea and a win all the way around.
How New Ideas Almost Killed Yipit
How New Ideas Almost Killed Yipit. Vinicius Vacanti, co-founder of Yipit, writes about how new ideas and informed pessimism can derail a startup. The key is to stay focused and work through the “crisis of meaning.”
Whiteboard Accounting
Frank Chimero discusses his idea of whiteboard accounting. Or, how to stay sane while freelancing and living through the feasts and famines.
Building the trunk first
Spencer Fry, co-founder and CEO of Carbonmade, explains why you need to first build out a trunk when crafting your business. It’s the trunk, or core, of a business that gives it the possibility of becoming a billion dollar company.
A customer with a problem is an opportunity
If you are a service organization or have to deal with customers, there’s something here for you to learn: a customer with a problem is an opportunity. Empathize with them. Take responsibility. Do your best to resolve the issue. If you do that, you’ll tie the customer closer to you than others who never have a problem.
From Attitude In Customer Service Is Everything by Randy Murray. Wise words indeed.
Frank Chimero on content
A stellar essay from Frank Chimero on content (as told through the metaphor of watery soup).
You ever order soup at a restaurant and get a bowl that’s mostly broth?
The problem is the register at the restaurant is four-hundred bucks under what it was the day before, and everyone is running around screaming “No one wants to buy our soup!” Then they start looking for different ways to distribute the soup. Do they buy new ladles? Would people like it if the ladles were fancier? “Let’s buy new bowls. People would enjoy the new bowls,” they say. Customers could choose the bowl that best fits their personality, or how they’re feeling that day, or whether they’re having the soup for lunch or for dinner.
Pretty fun to substitute “news” for “soup” throughout the post. Reminded me of an earlier article about news systems trying to pass off watery broth.
The 37signals Suite and Ownership
37signals launched a bulk subscription suite for their apps a couple of days ago. In the launch announcement I noticed that they refer to users as owning their apps:
Currently the 37signals Suite is only available for people who already own a Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire account. If you own any one of these apps you can upgrade to the Suite in less than 60 seconds. We will be offering the ability to sign up for the Suite from scratch down the road, but we just don’t know when yet. Note: If you don’t own one of our products yet, and you’d like to purchase the Suite, just sign up for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire and then follow the upgrade instructions above. (emphasis mine)
Despite the fact that you pay a monthly fee to use those apps 37signals says users own the product. They back this up by allowing a functional HTML or XML export of most content at any time.
Compare that to Twitter, whose Terms of Service say “what’s yours is yours – you own your content.” Sounds similar right? Too bad Twitter does not provide a way to export more than 3200 tweets.
The Optimistic Thought Experiment
You’ll want Instapaper for the full article, but this comes from a lengthy piece about the economy, globalization, and market trends at The Hoover Institute.
Those investors who limit themselves to what seems normal and reasonable in light of human history are unprepared for the age of miracle and wonder in which they now find themselves. The twentieth century was great and terrible, and the twenty-first century promises to be far greater and more terrible. Classic investment strategies no longer work in a world where ordinary economic cycles are broken.
Seriously, go read the full article, it’s worth it.