Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Two features: Categories + DARKSPANK

1. Homepage Categories.
You can change your default homepage categories. Want gossip staring
you in the face when you open linkspank? Voila.
http://www.linkspank.com/index.php?page=edithome

2. Themes
We are testing just one site theme - Darkspank. More are to follow.
http://www.linkspank.com/index.php?page=editskin

Hopefully you enjoy them. If not, keep it to yourself. (Just
kidding; feedback desired.)

On using Twitter / what I'm doing

Twitter is best designed for providing a firehose of data about what
you're doing and thinking. That's what it's built to do with it's
short format and flexible alert system, and (unlike facebook) it's not
built to do anything else.

Why would anyone want to know what I'm doing and thinking eight times
a day? I have no idea. The main person who would is my mom, and she's
not on Twitter. But come to think of it, there are several people who
I'd like blow-by-blow accounts from.

You can "follow" someone without getting text messages about them on
Twitter, but I think this option is overused too. The main question is
whether you want to step up to the firehose at all.

Anyway, if you're interested in my firehose (!), you can find it under
bitchell on Twitter. If not: I understand.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Saturday, January 17, 2009

There is no such thing as a universal economic downturn.

There is no such thing as a universal economic downturn.
Strategy hinges on tradeoffs. The misfortune of one company, industry, region, or point in space-time is the opportunity of another. On this I think of Porter and Blue Ocean Strategy. Even if the overall market cap out there falls, the potential for any individual or company to profit is constant.

An example:

Recession? Not for These Businesses

For the VERY lastest in news, articles, videos, you can search for recession on Linkspank.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

20 second analysis: Apple after Steve Jobs

There's been a lot of non-analysis about speculation about the fate of Apple after Steve Jobs, who's taken six months leave from Apple and whose return is speculative.

Say he did depart in June 2009, rather than return. Here's my quick analysis, broken into two parts:

You could sum up Apple's business strategy as innovation + ecosystem.

The innovation that Jobs has personally brought to the company and directed is probably the hardest thing to replace. And repeated, profitable innovation has proved impossible for most companies.

Apple's strategy doesn't require constant innovation (like a chip designer or a Nokia or Motorola), so much as the occasional disruptive innovation (Mac/iPod/iPhone), because the company does a good job of selling their products in a protected environment in which they get to capture all the value (iTunes and the whole Mac "ecosystem"). Even without another major innovation, they are good for another several years (and even if Jobs stuck around, it would be tough to expect another major innovation). You should doubt that another major innovation is going to come even WITH Jobs, because they are so hard to come by. So the situation doesn't change in his absence.

As for the ecosystem, the whole point of the ecosystem is that it tends to protect itself (with care and maintenance of the brand and partnerships); we should expect any other competent CEO to run with it correctly.

The corporate culture of Apple is much discussed. But since I'm discounting Apple's ability to sustain innovation post-Jobs, it doesn't matter whether the culture would support further innovation (though there good reasons to think it wouldn't). On the other hand, squeezing money of the ecosystem is something that the culture is currently build for.

You can search for the newest stuff about Apple on Linkspank.