How We Software Types Can Make Money. This Less Everything post simplifies how to make money in the software biz. The last paragraph tells the tale, “Focusing on making a small group of people’s lives easier is the key. If you always keep focused on that then it guides your decisions. Show them solidarity and they will reciprocate. Love them, bring them joy, protect them, the money will follow.” Other choice bits in the post as well.
Tags in the Real World. I haven’t spent enough time at the beta Microsoft Tags site to truly get it, but the prospect of the Internet connecting more things to other things is pretty darn exciting. Perhaps a precursor to Bruce Sterling’s Spimes, where the lifetime of an object can be tracked through space and time. Here’s an interesting article somewhat related describing a house hooked up to Twitter in “The Tweeting House: Twitter + Internet of Things.”
Bootstrapped is a good word. 10 rules for app startups from the newest blog in my OPML, Less Everything. Excerpts include: Release, release and release. Your app will probably fail, most of them do. Be ballsy. Build something you want to use. Find the cheapest, fastest way to 500 paid users.
Man with a business, a wife and a little girl on “free.” I’m 200-some pages into Chris Anderson’s Free on my [NordicTrack], and to honest, it’s quite a disappointment. The good news is that it’s generating a lot of interesting conversations around building and sustaining a business on Free. Jonathan Fields’ Why I Hope the Free Brigade Got It Wrong is the most personal, man-on-the-street perspective on Free I’ve seen, certainly better than anything Anderson wrote on the subject.
Objective Free. A more objective but no less valuable post on Free is from mashable with an idea I’ve not considered, “Free will not last forever. No one has to be afraid of free, because it’s just a transitional phase in the history of the Internet.” That’s interesting, yes, but I’m really only featuring this article because it contains an excellent analogy on Free based on donuts.
Participatory Links? Steve Rubel’s Lifestream seems to be evolving nicely with the latest addition of a Linkstream. Here Steve lists his bookmarked links giving his readers the ability to vote on their popularity. His own personal Digg, I guess. While I like the app and the concept, even a popular Internet media dude like Rubel doesn’t seem to be inspiring a lot of reader engagement with this one.
Paying our Karmic dues for Clarinet Dweeb suffrage. An Awkward Family Photo titled A Beautiful Mind. Anyone with a history in high school band remembers the designated clarinet dweeb. It’s been over 30 years since high school for me, but I remember the clarinet dweeb in my band. I even remember his name (though I ain’t saying.) Ridicule was exercised without mercy, yet I’m sure the guy is making 3-times as much dough as I am now. The illusion of clarinet dweeb superiority was nice while it lasted.
B&N Kindle Something. This TG Daily article describes the upcoming Barnes & Noble eReader as a Kindle Killer. May be. Scroll down to the photo comparison of the two readers. Based on that photo, uh yeah, I’ll check out a B&N eReader.
Mmmm… Pizza with the iPhone. We haven’t ordered a pizza from the local Pizza Hut in about 6 years, but I think I’ll chance it just to use this new Pizza Hut iPhone app.
Helen on Walter Cronkite. One of my two new favorite authors, 82-year-old Helen Philpot (the other being her friend of 60 years, Margaret Schmechtman) shares her impressions of Walter Cronkite while along the way acknowledging the humanity of President Obama and the evil that is Rush Limbaugh. She even shares a passing reference to George Bush, “When George Bush was President I didn’t want him to fail...I expected him to at least try to keep his campaign promises. Instead what we got was a moron of a President who crawled up Dick Cheney’s ass and lived there for 8 years.” As for Margaret’s reflections on Cronkite, apparently she only wanted to jump his bones. “Cronkite was the Anderson Cooper of his day. He could melt my butter each and every evening. He could toast my bread on both sides.”