A trip to Singapore in June
Posted by claude - 01/06/09 at 01:06:50 pmI’m taking a trip to Singapore between June 8th and June 11th.
ad:tech Singapore
Link randomness #1
Posted by claude - 18/05/09 at 07:05:21 pm
So I constantly find cool stuff and sites on the web, which when bookmarked, get lost forever. Because of this I’ll start blogging these links so that they can live on and don’t get locked away in the dark bookmark cave.
All right, here we go:
- Benchmade
Really cool knives. Might buy one of those soon (not that I need one anyway). - Fitbit
A thing that tracks your fitness and sleep. Might produce enough pressure to finally get me into a gym. - CureTogether
Just a cool idea. Crowd sourced health research. - Just Play
Article about Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band – must read! - Sonos
Multi-room sound system. MUST HAVE! - thesixtyone
Don’t know, interesting music site. - foursquare
Must copy for China…
Zurich, the next startup epicenter, not.
Posted by claude - 12/05/09 at 01:05:41 pm
Paul Graham has an interesting blog post essay about startups and the idea that most successful startups are located in a startup epicenter, such as San Francisco. According to his article, all you need is a first-rate university and a place so nice that rich people would want to live there.
Being Swiss, I was always quite optimistic that Zurich could become one of these places. It’s a beautiful city, it’s home to the ETH, it has a nice lake, an international airport, nearby mountains to go skiing and, last but not least, a “flexible” tax system for high net worth individuals.
Unfortunately, my high hopes took somewhat of a hit a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to speak (video conference) at an event of the EPFL, the French speaking counterpart to the ETH. The event was dubbed “Managing Risk of/for New Ventures” and was a mix between presentations and shorts pitches from local entrepreneurs. The event being part of the university’s “Executive MBA in Management of Technology” program, I had quite high expectations and I was looking forward to seeing some good pitches.
Sadly, I thought that the presentations were quite disappointing and I was almost shocked by the way these entrepreneurs pitched their products and services. Out of 6 two minute pitches there was only one pitch where I understood what the company is doing and what their value proposition is that will help them succeed. The other 5 pitches all had the following “features”:
- Slides with so much size 12 Arial text that you could write a book out of it.
- Graphics that came straight out of the word art gallery.
- Speakers with very limited English skills.
- Inability to tell the audience what the company is doing within two minutes.
I do think that some companies might actually have a good product but I strongly recommend that they all start broadening their horizons, start reading some English blogs about entrepreneurship, get their pitches right and live up to international standards because Switzerland just isn’t that big of a market. Granted, Lausanne (EPFL) is not Zurich but I fear that the level at ETH isn’t really all that different.
Learning from StackOverflow.com
Posted by claude - 30/04/09 at 11:04:38 amMark Pincus’ lessons from Tribe – fail fast
Posted by claude - 29/04/09 at 04:04:14 pmFacebook Highlights: Algorithm developed by a 6 year old?
Posted by claude - 21/04/09 at 12:04:04 pmI normally don’t join the “I want the old Facebook back” crowd but the latest redesign is really a bit hard to digest. The one thing that annoys me most, is the “Highlights” box. I’ve been observing the contents of this box for a while and I think it’s save to say that a good 75% of all items are nowhere near something I’d call a highlight.
So let’s looks at the highlights presented to me when I was logging in to Facebook this morning.
Awesome, thanks for telling me! First of all, Coco lives in Hamburg, which is about 10′000km West of my location. Second, I’ve never had any contact with here, never send messages, wall posts, nothing. And the most important thing, Facebook knows that I am in a relationship.
Really? Who? No contact over Facebook, ever.
All right, that might be interesting if this same album wouldn’t have been around for like a month already and constantly re-posted by the owner. Been there, done that, thanks.
Interesting group. I joined it, now stop showing me that damn thing.
Next item, the group owner posting a note for the group I’ve already joined. 7 people like it, aha.
Classical music. Not really my taste, and Facebook knows that.
A note withe _one_ photo. Never had any interaction with the poster (apart from adding him as a friend), none of my other friends commented on this etc.
And last but not least, a tagged photo of my girlfriend. Now that’s a highlight, there’s even a comment for this photo. Oh wait, this is MY own comment. Never mind.
I generally enjoy using Facebook, it’s free and I think they provide a lot of value. However, the latest changes appear to be a somewhat rushed reaction to the whole Twittermania and/or some Zuckerberg ego trip. The Highlights algorithm needs some serious work, otherwise it’s just a giant waste of screen estate or ad space.
Facebook, Wolfram|Alpha, StealthStartup. Will the next Google Killer stand up please.
Posted by claude - 10/03/09 at 07:03:09 pmExciting times we are living in. Technology and the web are evolving at a speed never seen before and we can’t even imagine which tools and services will be available to us in a couple of years time.
Anyway, today I simply wanted to link to two blog posts, both announcing the next Google Killer. First, we have my friend Julius who is proclaiming that Facebook is soon going to eat Google’s lunch. And then there is Stephen Wolfram and his team who apparently came up with something that “could be as important as Google“, a computing machine called Wolfram|Alpha.
Personally I think that neither of those is going to be THE Google Killer, but that we are in a transition to a completely new way we interact with the internet and our social circle using technology. If you look at numbers such as the fact that around 20% of all servers that are sold each year are bought by Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft (add Facebook to that list soon) tell you that we’re onto something big. And it’s certainly not just about desktop apps like Word to the cloud.
With all that uncertainty, I’m happy that there is still one constant: Sex sells!
Could someone please build the Paypal of mobile payments?
Posted by claude - 13/01/09 at 07:01:54 pmI was just reading this article on TC about mobile payments. As the article appropriately describes, transaction fees of 30-40% are way too high for any merchant to seriously consider this as payment methods. Especially because mobile payments, as a quick and easy way to send money, would be best used for cheap articles (virtual gifts etc.). But giving away 40% of a low priced item isn’t really something you want to do. And what about adding mobile payments to existing website, shops or communities? Would you just charge members, who want to pay via mobile, 40% more or give up half of your margin?
So, why is there no Paypal for mobile payments where I can store my CC number and then simply use my mobile phone for payments? Depending on the country, there could even be an integration for direct bank billing and other country specific payment methods. Maybe I am missing something but I sure that even with all charges considered, the merchant transation fee would be way below the 30% that are currently charged. Zong, can you please add that?
The Borg are coming
Posted by claude - 03/11/08 at 02:11:25 pmThis is amazing! And a bit scary…
Why paper prototyping sucks
Posted by claude - 09/07/08 at 04:07:37 pmThere’s no undo button and it doesn’t save you from bad ideas…
Started off good, got stuck in the middle.
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