I think that the investment and work going into consumer web services feeds the shifting consumer taste for services in lieu of passive content. This trend has been emerging for as long as the term “interactive” and had its most recent, pre Internet, coming around CD-ROM releases like Myst in the late 80s and early 90s.  Consumers wanted to “interact [...]

I got the email from Jetblue this afternoon: A bit sparse on the details, and so typical of the call vs. “do online” mentality of large companies.  When they want money, they urge you to order or book online.  When they owe you money, it’s “give them call.”  This is especially preposterous when in the wake of cancellations, Jetblue knows [...]

I enjoy and feel that it is important to fight for my rights as a consumer.  And so it was with great pleasure that I’ve been watching Undercover Boss.  To date I’ve watched the CEOs of Waste Management, Hooters, and 7 Eleven go “undercover” to work line jobs in their organizations.  In almost all cases, the bosses are “shocked” by [...]

Trying to determine which consumer internet sites will be “winners” is effectively just that: picking winners.   A relatively high level of usage will be required for such sites to be successful on a advertising or freemium model, and guessing what will catch the public’s fancy has historically been difficult in all consumer media (i.e. movies).  Simple sites appear brilliant when [...]

I had two sets of experiences yesterday that involved getting college kids’ views of the world.  Last night, Owen Davis invited me to sit on a panel giving feedback to 9 startups from the NYU Stern undergraduate business school program.  It was organized by rockstar NYU tech organizer Trevor Owens.  I had a great time, but of the nine presenters, [...]

Last night we held the first of what will be ongoing, small thematic dinners at Dogpatch NY. We had a group of 12 entrepreneurs from companies working in local media and local mobile over for dinner. Here’s the group photo: A few themes/topics worth calling out: Group buying is in some ways a misnomer. The group offer is almost always [...]

I used to think that demo videos explaining a product were a sign that a product was too complex; however, as I’m exposed to more products, and have seen some great videos, I’ve changed my view a bit.  The best one I’ve seen recently is from Square: When I mentioned this to Joe, he immediately agreed that it was one [...]

My initial read of the Google Buzz API is that it is a read only API available only on a user by user basis.  A developer can pull a feed of an individual user’s public buzzes if he has the user’s profile name.  There is no river, firehose, or garden hose of public buzzes. There is also no way to [...]

Yesterday, I went with Dan to Crunch gym by Union Square.  Dan pays $64 a month with no initiation and no contract.  I walked in with Dan, and said, “hi, I don’t want to pay initiation, and I want my friend’s price, can you do that?”  The women at the desk made me fill out the carbon paper, said she [...]

On Wall Street the top and largest hedge funds grant “pads” of anywhere from $25 to $500 million to young manager to invest. These pads operate autonomously and the young managers who run them take a direct cut (roughly 25% to 50%) of the firms share if the profits.  So if you run $100 million, and return 15%, the fund [...]