I'm a big fan of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
The genius of Murakami is in his discipline,
focus and determination. I see him as a virtual Zen master - an embodiment of wisdom,
passion, skills and exceptional will. The elements of his work and life story are inspirational and (here's where ReadWriteWeb comes in) particularly
applicable when you're running a startup. Therefore in this post, we take a look at what modern technology startups can
learn from this Japanese literary master.
Cuil did it by the start-up text book - stealth mode to big launch and then massive PR. That gets the early adopters buzzing and then its off to the races. That works beautifully when the start-up is actually creating a new market. Twitter is a brilliant example (leaving out tech issues and monetization, Twitter has to be one of the best examples of rapid market adoption). However this does not work well when it is a mature market. It is hard to see why so experienced a team at Cuil would have made such a fundamental strategic error.
Unfortunately for Cuil, this could be a great opportunity for Yahoo BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) to shine.
Windows Live Mesh, Microsoft's new S+S (software plus services) platform for data synchronization has received a lot of attention this month. First, it opened up its private beta to all of the U.S. (and others who were willing to edit their regional settings), next they released their mobile version, and then the Mac version was unearthed by LiveSide. However, after LiveSide published their blog post, Microsoft took down the link to the Mac version that they had uncovered. But today, the Mac version has been officially released.
The Google Maps team today rolled out yet another update. This time, they have decided to simplify the layout by putting more focus on the search form and taking away the tabs underneath it. Thanks to this update, the maps on the page get a bit more screen-estate and searching for directions has become a bit easier as well. This update comes just a few weeks after Google Maps added walking directions to its feature set.
Social bookmarking has become a pretty standard activity these days, with the likes of Mento, Delicious, Mister Wong, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon offering numerous variations on this theme. Browzmi is taking a different approach from these services by focusing on real-time, collaborative web browsing and bookmarking, with chat being one of its main features. What is especially noteworthy is that Browzmi is not an extension, but basically a browser in a browser.
Browzmi was founded by Travis Parsons in 2006 and is currently being developed by a five person team. Browzmi has not taken any venture funding yet. Registration for Browzmi is open.
Microsoft today unveiled video footage of an exercise called the Mojave Experiment, where unwitting Windows users were tricked into watching a Vista demo while told it was something else. The experiment's subjects were all people who had a negative impression of Vista but no personal experience with it. One short demo later almost all of them reported a far more favorable impression of the operating system "Mojave" than they held of Vista.
The videos are reminiscent of the infamous Milgram Experiment, where Stanford researcher Stanley Milgram fooled subjects into believing that a fake situation was actually real. That experiment has been the subject of decades of ethics debates - Microsoft's Mojave was just creepy. Note: Several readers have responded in comments saying that this is not a legitimate comparison to draw. We will take your thoughts into consideration before drawing wild comparisons between tech marketing campaigns and arguably egregious violations of individual rights in the future. :)
Communications company British Telecom (BT) has acquired innovative web telephony platform Ribbit for a reported $105 million. BT has been sniffing around the Bay Area for startups to acquire for some time and this one is a great fit. Not just because both companies are in the voice market but because as a means of folding click-to-call functionality into any web application - Ribbit is fascinating.
BT was supposed to be a big mover and shaker in the communications industry of the future. Telephony expert Om Malik has been watching the company's progress closely though, and says that it has largely failed to live up to its promise. Can Ribbit move the needle for BT? We think it could in a big way.
As of today, Scrabulous, the wildly popular Facebook Scrabble game, is no more. If you try to login to the app now you'll get the message "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice." You have the option of entering your email address to receive further information about developments in the matter. While Scrabulous fans are certainly angered over the app's shutdown, the unanswered question still looms: did Hasbro have to do this?
Atlantic Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, has just launched an Adobe AIR app called Fanbase. This desktop app offers fans a way to connect with their favorite artists from Atlantic Records, a label whose roster includes big names like Death Cab for Cutie, James Blunt, Buckcherry, Gnarls Barkley, Jet, Panic At The Disco, Paramore, Rush, Staind, Rob Thomas, Simple Plan, Missy Elliot, and many more.
Does Knol (our review) make Google into a “content company”? Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis makes a compelling case. You can say he is conflicted, because his Mahalo venture has a lot to lose if Knol succeeds. Or you can say that he knows of what he speaks, because he is in the eye of the storm. Jason’s view that Google is the closest we have to an operating system for the web makes sense. His comparison to how Microsoft, an earlier generation operating system vendor, invaded the application market that had belonged to their partners, rings true. This is what dominant tech companies have always done.
