Twitter’s edge is Big Data

Today Twitter announced that it purchased Backtype, a tiny company doing Big Data. The website says the company does “social media analytics” which is pretty much saying “Oprah sits on a couch.” It’s the buzzy-est of buzz words, but if you dig into this you find that the company doing things that everybody wants. Like …

Twitter's edge is Big Data

Today Twitter announced that it purchased Backtype, a tiny company doing Big Data. The website says the company does “social media analytics” which is pretty much saying “Oprah sits on a couch.” It’s the buzzy-est of buzz words, but if you dig into this you find that the company doing things that everybody wants. Like …

We finally made it to California

I feel compelled to write this after Amy’s posts on being bicoastal and her dream of living the ideal life. I am part of this too…well, half of it. I also want to live in both Washington, DC and Southern California. Each one is home to a lifelong love of surfing and politics. In both places …

Entrepreneurs Taking on Cabs

A few years ago I was in New York chatting with a cabby. The fellow was dirty, smelly, and overweight but fun to talk to. Especially since we were asking him about the black sedans that were all over the city. You can get in one, trade cell phone numbers with the driver, and have …

Our consumer-driven growth model is broken: Now what?

Last week at dinner, our friend (@doyendon) challenged 1X57 to find, or at least contemplate, a solution to consumer-based economies, aka contemporary capitalism, which is causing a global crisis of unconscionable proportions – with food and energy prices soaring, world populations surging, and weather-related disasters like tornadoes, tsunamis, droughts, fires and floods increasing in frequency and scale. In a …

How to build your business around the 90/10 rule

“There is a 100/10/1 “rule of thumb” with social services. 1% will create content, 10% will engage with it, and 100% will consume it. If only 10% of your users need to log in because 90% just want to consume, then you’ll end up with the vast majority of your users in the logged out …

A Poem: Signs the economy is picking up

Last week the bells were sounding alarm The jobs report was down Housing is still in a depression The pundits are starting to talk double dip But what about my report Pennies on the ground 15x more pennies on the streets I’m hauling in the copper Strength in the economy? Bums are now only taking …

Get some magic pixie dust

From Kathy Sierra: The real pixie dust is when you ask yourself, “how can I help my users get more comments on THEIR blog?”. You want to be the guy who asks, “How can I help my users get more followers and fans?” What prompted me to write this is the latest magic pixie dust …