Month: January 2010
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What People Pay For
As a natural follow-up to his Monetizing Your Web App article [previously], Dan Zambonini looks at user needs and what people are willing to pay for: Time: Convenience, Efficiency, Immediacy Scarcity Comfort Esteem: Id, Desirability, Self-Image, Ego Belonging: Relationships, Sex, Affection Survival: Health, Safety, Wellbeing Financial Security: Wealth, Success, Career Entertainment: Emotion, Experiences Intellectual Stimulation:…
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Three Words of Startup Advice
Posted one at a time to his Twitter feed and spread using the #StartupTriplets tag, Dharmesh Shah–founder of HubSpot–has distilled his best startup advice into forty-seven three-word chunks: startup triplets. My favourite ten: Hire generalists early. Hire specialists later. Invest in culture. Encourage diverse thinking. Decide with data. Accept imperfect data. Encourage rational debate. Make…
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What a Non-Programmer Should Do In a Startup
Twenty things a non-programmer should do in a startup; a list compiled by Spencer Fry in response to a question asked on Hacker News: Writing the copy for the website. Mainly keeping the support documents up-to-date. Doing all the business related tasks. Doing all the customer service. Handling all incoming e-mail. Doing all of the…
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Creating Effective Messages
Nature has published a short interview with psychologist Robert Gifford looking at the “interface between psychology and climate change”. Noting the problem of pubic distrust of scientific messages that are delivered with uncertainty, Gifford proposes five elements of effective messages*: It has to have some urgency. It has to have as much certainty as can…
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An Analysis of Supermarket Checkout Times
An analysis of supermarket checkout times has shown that express lanes (for people with fewer than 5 items, say) are not always the most efficient checkout route for time-sensitive shoppers. Dan Meyer, a high school maths teacher, has done the hard work (providing his data and analysis) and came to the following conclusion: [Express lanes]…
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Environmental Assumptions
Big business is environmentally destructive: a widespread and almost unquestioned assumption. A false assumption, according to Jared Diamond, noting that profits often arise from green initiatives and environmental concern is of inherent importance to many large corporations. The story is told through the lens of Wal-Mart’s transport and packaging initiatives, Coca-Cola’s concern “with problems of…
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Marketing and Spreading Online
Bud Caddell, strategist at Undercurrent, talks with the author of Chief Culture Officer, Grant McCracken, on Bud’s experience of marketing online and how it really should be done–by the small and large companies. This on making something ‘spreadable’: Trying to design a program that reaches mass first, isn’t going to spread at all. It’s not remarkable, there’s…
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Advice from Economists
Jim Rogers—co-founder of the Quantum Fund (with George Soros), economic commentator, guest professor of finance at Columbia University and author of A Gift to My Children—provided a short interview with the FT discussing his thoughts on making that first million, on travelling, and some general advice to the next generation. What is the secret of your success? As…
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Terrorism and Our Responses
Shortly after the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 incident, Bruce Schneier provided links to a number of articles that published interviews, quotes or essays from him. As expected, Schneier calmly reiterates his old advice that is as valid now as it was pre-9/11. The one not to miss: Is aviation security mostly for show? The best defenses against…
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Web Design Research Results
Some of the more enlightening/worthwhile results from a number of studies on design and usability conducted by Smashing Magazine, found via their otherwise-ordinary 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines article: General design decisions taken by the top 50 blogs (part two): 92% use a fixed width layout with 56% varying the width between 951 and 1000px. For body…