Current Events

Flaming Lips makes the upsell into an art form

September 20, 2011

I’ve written about the innovative use of the premium upsell as something instructive for anyone selling premium content. I just learned about the Flaming Lips Gummy Bear skull which they released earlier this year which has turned the whole premium upsell thing into an art form. I love it! Embedded inside a 7-pound gummy bear [...]

Tagged as: flaming lips, music, publishing

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Google Wallet in the Wild

September 18, 2011

OK, call me an idiot if I missed something but I just saw a headline speculating on rumors about a launch date for Google Wallet. Everyone’s searching around online for leaked memos for clues but meanwhile, in the real world, at the Peets in downtown SF, I already see a Google Wallet reader right there [...]

Tagged as: embargo, Google, google wallet

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Those Who Seek Beauty, Will Find It

September 18, 2011

Over the weekend I saw the film, Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about the New York Times street fashion photographer. It’s been years since I’ve wandered into to the Style section of the Times where Bill’s weekly On the Street photo-scrapbook lives (this week’s column, Reality Check). The film is an inspiration to those [...]

Tagged as: fashion, photography

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Google Flight Search UI – Brilliant

September 15, 2011

Google’s Flight Search scatter plot visualization of fares is brilliant. Word is that fare data is still light (they don’t have any international, non-US fares) but the UI has put all other travel comparison sites on notice.

Tagged as: Google, travel, user interface

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Airbnb started as Air Mattress, Bed and Breakfast

September 8, 2011

Touching story about how Airbnb started and grew into what it is today. Talk given by Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder. PSFK CONFERENCE NYC 2011: Joe Gebbia from Piers Fawkes on Vimeo.

Tagged as: airbnb, startup

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Textbook 2.0

August 26, 2011

I’ve written a few times about the future of publishing. Once to highlight concepts by Bonnier, another time to highlight a talk given by Steven Berlin-Johnson. I now work at a publisher, GigaOM produces reporting on the tech industry and GigaOM Pro produces long-form research reports. The long-form research reports are an interesting challenge. Because [...]

Tagged as: books, publishing

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Steve Jobs, Master of Delivery

August 25, 2011

Watching Steve Jobs introduce new technology is a wonder to behold. He doesn’t bash you over the head with hyperbole nor run circles around you with facts and figures. Instead he walks on stage in jeans and sneakers and pulls something out of his pocket like a wandering hiker might pull out a beautiful stone [...]

Tagged as: Apple, ipod

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New Job, Two Weeks In

August 12, 2011

A friend from Finland asked how things were going at the new job which nudged me to put some thoughts down. Here are some highlights from the past two weeks, was introduced to everyone via a broadcast message to everyone in the office as, “the guy who helped get the MSFT/Nokia deal done.” made my [...]

Tagged as: GigaOm

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Back to Base

July 27, 2011

Today is my last day at Nokia. The great mobile adventure is over. More accurately, the need to define a mobile web as something other than the internet at large has mostly vanished. I left Yahoo for Nokia with a vision of building services to connect the social web to phones that knew more about you [...]

Tagged as: GigaOm, Nokia, publishing

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