I did an informal survey of the young managers [in Google’s Associate Product Manager program] and asked each to guess if he or she would be working for Google in five years. Not a single one answered in the affirmative. When I reported this to Mayer, she was unruffled. Actually, she told me, it would […]
“To not believe in Patch, you have to believe that consumers in a town don’t want local information, they don’t want local advertising or commerce, and they don’t want a platform they can engage on.” AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, For AOL, a Costly Gamble On Local News Draws Trouble, WSJ I don’t know whether Tim Armstrong’s […]
It was a very emotional day at Answers.com, as roughly 2/3 of the Jerusalem employees were let go. I was impressed by how people handled themselves. It was a day filled not with anger but with dark humor, nostalgia, friendship and support. TechCrunch covered this with Answers.com Gets Gutted By Its New Owner: Massive Layoffs, […]
“Joel Spolsky is changing the world. Maybe not your world, but the world of programmers and software companies and the people who work for them.” Opening lines of Seth Godin’s Tribes When we last left our hero (whom BTW I finally met last week when the FogBugz / Kiln tour hit Tel Aviv), Stack Overflow […]
After almost a year of hype and speculation Demand Media finally had to release some numbers in order to file for their IPO. In case you didn’t have time to read all 269 pages, here are the 5 numbers you need to know: [Reminder: I work at Answers.com, which is in some ways a competitor] […]
[Reminder / Disclosure: I work at Answers.com, which is in some ways a competitor] Congrats to Joel Spolsky on getting funding from an all star team of investment bankers. Having this combination of great entrepreneurs and great VCs certainly increases this companies’ chances. But the company’s current plan seems to based on two (long shot?) […]
Excellent recent articles in the New York Times, TechCrunch, and All Things D have brought some clarity and insight to the issues surrounding large-scale content-creation sites. Here’s an industry overview: Who? Demand Media’s eHow, Associated Content, New York Times’ About.com, Aol’s Seed.com, Yahoo! Answers, and Answers.com’s WikiAnswers (where I work). What? These sites create thousands […]
Fantastic post today by Joel Spolsky Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death? I could feel Joel’s pain. Essentially he was jettisoning the basic premises that had guided him for a decade. Joel came to the painful conclusion that there was only room for one big company in his market, and that if he continued only […]
When new tools create new opportunities it’s important to think about: The eternal truths of the underlying concept How those truths are best applied using the current technologies [youtube]7vThuwa5RZU[/youtube] For example, take Social Media. It’s networking, or relationship building. The most fundamental rules of Networking are: Give before you take. When somebody does something for […]
I enjoy reading Seth Godin and Lisa Barone so I found their recent smackdown compelling. For anybody who missed it: Godin launched Brands in Public where he puts up a page for each brand highlighting what’s being said about them on the web. To gain control of your company’s page you can pay Godin $400 […]