tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:/feedMassive Greatness2013-08-19T22:20:17-07:00M.G. Sieglerhttp://massivegreatness.comSvbtle.comtag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/why-frontback-works2013-08-19T22:20:17-07:002013-08-19T22:20:17-07:00When Apps Modify Behavior<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/nsmcqjsomlgtw.jpeg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/nsmcqjsomlgtw_small.jpeg" alt="BSFFEHICUAEdEpi.jpg-large.jpeg"></a></p>
<p>Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed an app blowing up in my social circle. It’s more of a controlled explosion, really — as far as I can tell, the app hasn’t even yet cracked the top 200 in its category in the App Store. But I think it might, because I think it’s tapping into something at the right time.</p>
<p>The app is called <a href="http://frontback.me">Frontback</a>, it’s an offshoot app from another service called <a href="http://checkthis.com">CheckThis</a>. (To be clear, I’m not an investor in either of these, but I know a bunch of folks <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/checkthis">who are</a>.) The idea is almost laughably straightforward: take a picture of what you’re looking at with the back camera of your phone, then take a photo of yourself with the front camera. The app then automatically stitches those two pictures together, one on top of the other.</p>
<p>From a product perspective, the app has three key things I look for: it’s clean, simple, and fast. The UI is clever. You look at it and immediately know what to do. (The social structure of the feed is a bit muddled at the moment, but they’re working on that.)</p>
<p>But there are a lot of apps that have such traits. Why Frontback is interesting to me is that it seems to be enticing people to do something — something which a lot of people wouldn’t otherwise do — something which is particularly hot at the moment: take selfies. </p>
<p>This is hardly a new concept. People have been taking pictures of themselves for as long as cameras have existed. And certainly innovations like the Polaroid camera, the disposable camera, and then the digital camera propelled the concept forward. But with smartphones, selfies have become something of a phenomenon in recent years. </p>
<p>Except not for me. I’ve always found it hard to take a picture of myself without feeling at least a little bit ridiculous. The thought of then sharing such a picture amplified that feeling by an order of magnitude. You could say I’m not exactly the key demographic.</p>
<p>But that’s the thing: I’m not sure this is something there should be a demographic for. I suspect that even the least vain person in the world would admit that they like seeing pictures of themselves from time to time. It’s interesting to see what you look like. And sharing the most recognizable trait of yourself, your face, with others would seem to make sense as a common social behavior when you’re away from friends and family. </p>
<p>Enter Frontback. It not only allows you to share these selfies, it <em>makes</em> you do it. The picture taken with the back camera is a crutch to prop up your confidence so you can take that front camera picture of yourself. </p>
<p>And what you get is even more interesting than a selfie by itself because you see a picture of what a person is looking at alongside their reaction. More so than many other social photography apps, the result is downright human. </p>
<p>I have no idea if Frontback will actually breakout beyond my own social graph. Maybe the people I know are weird. Certainly, many of them are. But I’m no longer sure that the idea behind the selfie should be considered weird. It’s not a social norm amongst my demographic and older ones because we didn’t grow up with smartphones. But the kids who did seem to naturally gravitate towards this style of visual sharing. Frontback, or <a href="https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/ecf9f60dda1f">something like it</a>, might help the rest of us get there.</p>
<p>In that regard, Frontback reminds me of a few other apps that have altered my modus operandi. Instagram and Vine spring to mind. I didn’t take a lot of photographs before Instagram. And I basically never took video before Vine. But sometimes the smallest tweaks at just the right time can lift the barriers holding back new behavior. </p>
<p><em>[image via <a href="https://twitter.com/ColoredHistory/status/369652581510807553/">@coloredhistory</a>]</em></p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/30-minutes2013-04-02T15:43:41-07:002013-04-02T15:43:41-07:0030 Minutes<p><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/inline_parislemon_24568959260664_raw.jpg"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>— Will Freeman, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H7VtFG9F-c"><em>About a Boy</em></a></p>
<p>I have very poor time-management skills. It’s not that I sit around and do nothing — quite the opposite: once I commit to doing something, I have a hard time stopping. This often makes me late for basically everything in life. And on the flip side, it makes starting larger activities, like writing, even more daunting. I basically have to block off hours at a time. </p>
<p>When I was a full-time writer, this was less of a problem because I basically had one job: to write. Sure, I had a meeting here or there, but rarely more than one in a day. And often none at all. I was just chained to my desk all day, doing one thing. My calendar was simple.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://crunchfund.com">an investor</a>, my calendar is the exact opposite. I’m in meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. As you might imagine, such a schedule exposed my time management issue. At first, this was a cause of great stress. But now, 18 months in (I can’t believe it has been 18 months either), I think I finally have a solid system down.</p>
<p>30-minute meetings.</p>
<p>Obviously, this system won’t work for everyone. And indeed, it will be far from ideal for many people. But I’ve been pretty amazed how much more I can get done in a day by sticking to my Will Freeman-esque units of time.</p>
<p>Previously, I would put a meeting on my books and leave it set for the setting that is the default on most calendars: one hour. Not only is a full hour intimidating — you only have 24 of them in a day, and really only 16-18 waking ones, and that’s if you’re <em>always</em> working — but I have found it to be excessive in the case of most meetings.</p>
<p>(Just to be clear, I’m talking about initial meetings here. Obviously, there often are plenty of reasons why longer meetings will be necessary on the road to an investment.)</p>
<p>When you go into a meeting knowing it’s set to be an hour long, I’ve found that all parties (myself included) will go out of their way to make sure they take up that full hour. That often means padding at the beginning of the conversation (the weather, sports, etc). And fillers at the end (unnecessary questions, “what’s the rest of your day look like?”, etc).</p>
<p>For whatever reason, it seems to be built into our psyche that it’s rude to end a meeting early. So an hour meeting <em>has</em> to be an hour…</p>
<p>…Or more! Often, I’d find my hour meetings spilling beyond the 90-minute mark as well. Again, once I start something, I have a hard time stopping. This was the destroyer of entire days.</p>
<p>30-minute meetings are so much sweeter. As long as you make the length clear at the beginning of the meeting, I find that everyone (again, myself included) gets right to the point and cuts out a lot of the filler and padding that makes up a ridiculous amount of every conversation.</p>
<p>I know that may sound a bit crass. But pay attention to the next conversation you have — how much of it is filled with things that really don’t need to be said? A lot. </p>
<p>Sure, that’s a part of human nature and society — maybe you will make a connection with someone by something said in the filler time. But again, as I’ve been sticking to these 30-minute meetings, I’ve found that all parties are much happier. Entrepreneurs can get back to work. I can take some time to process the meeting rather than rushing to the next one that I’m already late for. </p>
<p>Even with these 30-minute “units”, as Will Freeman notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I’d ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?</p>
</blockquote>tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/the-kaepernick-of-startups2013-01-27T18:58:00-08:002013-01-27T18:58:00-08:00The Kaepernick Of Startups?<p><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/inline_parislemon_24466596684030_raw.jpg"></p>
<p>Last year, Alex Smith led the San Francisco 49ers to The NFC Championship Game. They were one (or two) muffed punts from making the Super Bowl. This year, Smith came back and through the first half of the season, he had completed over 70 percent of his passes (which led the league) for over 1,700 yards and had a 104.1 quarterback rating, which was third-best in the NFL. He was on pace to shatter all of his career highs, and at 6-2, the 49ers were well on their way to the playoffs once again and were arguably the best team in football at that point. Smith had just had a game in which he threw three touchdowns and had only <em>one</em> incompletion. One.</p>
<p>The cases were starting to be made for MVP. And then Smith got hurt.</p>
<p>In the 9th game, Smith left the game with a concussion. In stepped backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick. With Smith still not cleared to play the next week, Kaepernick got the start and helped the 49ers destroy the Chicago Bears. And even though Smith was healthy the following game, Kaepernick started every game for the rest of the year. </p>
<p>The old, unofficial rule in sports used to be that you could not lose your job due to injury. In football, Tom Brady probably changed that in the early 2000s when he stepped in for an injured Drew Bledsoe and became, well, Tom Brady. Still, sticking with Kaepernick could not have been an easy choice for 49ers’ coach Jim Harbaugh. He had pretty much single-handedly saved Smith’s career (certainly in San Francisco, if not the NFL). And Smith was just 28. And again, having the best season of his career. </p>
<p>Still, Harbaugh saw something in Kaepernick (whom, unlike Smith, he had drafted). He went with his gut. And now the 49ers are in the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about this situation all week, trying to think of parallels in the startup/tech world. It’s hard to come up with any. And I wonder if there is a Kaepernick situation out there just waiting to lead some startup to greatness.</p>
<p>Obviously, startups and sports are very different. Players are not founders of companies, for example — they’re essentially hired guns. And founders/CEOs typically do not leave positions with injuries. Plus, different entrepreneurs have different skill-sets in different industries — they’re not quite as interchangeable as quarterbacks. </p>
<p>There are plenty of examples in tech of when a founder/CEO has been replaced at the top of the company. Most of the time, such moves happen when things are going badly. That’s usually the case with quarterback changes as well. But sometimes such changes do happen when a company is growing well, but the founders are deemed too inexperienced (Google, is probably the best example here). But that certainly wasn’t the case with the younger Kaepernick replacing Smith.</p>
<p>Reid Hoffman had <a href="http://reidhoffman.org/if-why-and-how-founders-should-hire-a-professional-ceo/">a great post</a> last week about the hiring of “professional” CEOs at startups. He would know, as he stepped back from the top job at LinkedIn, handing the company over to Dan Nye (who in turn handed the company back over to Hoffman temporarily before LinkedIn finally found Jeff Weiner, who took the company public). </p>
<p>But LinkedIn’s history doesn’t translate to the Kaepernick situation either. As he explains, while the company was going and growing well, it was Hoffman himself who decided he wanted to bring in a CEO to replace him. He benched himself! It turned out to be a brilliant move in the long run, but that would never happen in football. </p>
<p>And, quite frankly, I’m not certain that Larry Page would be replaced by Eric Schmidt in today’s startup world. The current preference seems to be for <a href="http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/">founding CEOs</a>, pretty much across the board. If a company is going gangbusters, would any investor/board member dare replace a CEO? It’s the same reason you never split two face cards in blackjack — you have a winning hand, why risk it?</p>
<p>And yet, the 49ers did. And they landed two blackjacks.</p>
<p>And so I wonder if there is a situation out there where a startup is going well, but bringing in another young rockstar entrepreneur to lead the team would bring about a truly great company. It is perhaps impossible to know, because such things just don’t happen in the startup world. </p>
<p>Incubators like Y Combinator are known for attracting a massive amount of talented entrepreneurs. Obviously, not all of them succeed. But perhaps one would where they otherwise would not if inserted into the right startup. And perhaps they’d pull off a Kaepernickian rise to elite status. </p>
<p>But again, would any board/investor and/or founder risk such a move within a solid company? Doubtful. Not to mention the Zuckerbergian trend of founders retaining board control, making such a “benching” pretty much impossible. Could you imagine if a quarterback baked into his contract that he could not be benched for any reason?</p>
<p>Instead, we now routinely see investors install strong COOs to help guide young CEOs. A top-tier receiver, if you will (who also happens to be able to play quarterback, if needed). </p>
<p>Sometimes those COOs take control. See: Dick Costolo at Twitter, for example. Sometimes they temporarily do. See: Tim Cook in the times that Steve Jobs was on leave of absence due to his health (perhaps the closest thing we have to a quarterback leaving with an injury). Cook, of course, did eventually end up in charge for good. </p>
<p>What if there is a great, young startup out there that’s just one stellar entrepreneur away from becoming the next <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/05/the-fifth-horsemen-of-tech-samsung/">horseman</a> of tech? That’s probably a controversial thought, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. Just something to think about as we get ready for the 49ers to destroy the Ravens in a week. </p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/the-daily-pile-of-shit2012-12-08T18:17:34-08:002012-12-08T18:17:34-08:00A Turd By Any Other Name...<p><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/inline_parislemon_24390354970908_raw.jpg" alt="a.jpg"></p>
<p>…would smell like shit.</p>
<p>This evening, Brian Alvey, chief scientist and founder of Ceros, wrote <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/08/mg-siegler-is-at-least-half-wrong-about-the-daily/">a rebuttal</a> to <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/the-dakly-died-of-suckage/">my post from last week</a> about the death of <em>The Daily</em>. While Alvey wrote his post on TechCrunch as well, I figured two back-and-forths was enough of a circle jerk for TC, so I’ll respond here.</p>
<p>Avley seems particularly annoyed with my post because he and his team helped build <em>The Daily</em>. </p>
<p>And it’s great, you see. No, there’s no tangible proof that it is or was ever great. But he says they put a lot of work into it. Puppy dogs, milkshakes, and rainbows. Effort medals all around.</p>
<p>In reality, <em>The Daily</em> was still shit. I’m sorry, it just was. Alvey implies that I was never a reader — but I was. I happily subscribed to <em>The Daily</em> from its inception until I had to pay for it. At that point, I made the (right) call, that it simply wasn’t worth it — for many of the reasons outlined <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/the-dakly-died-of-suckage/">in my initial post</a>. Clearly, millions of folks agreed.</p>
<p>I did try it about a year later and still found it to be slow and unreliable — not worthy of my money or my time.</p>
<p>Alvey’s main point seems to be that I’m misguided because each issue of <em>The Daily</em> was smaller than 50MB. 50MB! Awesome. It’s a fucking <em>daily</em>. Clearly, I was bitching about <em>monthly</em> magazines that were 500MB to 700MB.</p>
<p>Math: If <em>The Daily</em> clocked in at (conservatively) 30MB a day, that’s 900MB to 1GB a month. </p>
<p>Repeat after me: Turdage.</p>
<p>Look, here’s what really matters: was <em>The Daily</em> a good product? </p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>Yes, it sucked on the iPad 1 and it got marginally better on the subsequent faster iPads. But it was never a great product that provided a wonderful experience. If you fail to hit that simple benchmark, you failed. Case closed.</p>
<p>You can sugar-coat your shit, but it’s still shit. Be a man, own up to it, learn from your mistakes, and improve. I don’t really see the point in writing a post filled with excuses for <em>The Daily</em>. At the end of the day, the market decided.</p>
<p>Again, there will be winners in this space. And the only thing I’m certain of is that those winners won’t look or act anything like <em>The Daily</em>.</p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/neutral-or-neutered2012-11-17T16:45:00-08:002012-11-17T16:45:00-08:00Never Apologize For Having An Opinion — Especially When You're Right<p><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/inline_parislemon_24357658181112_raw.jpg"></p>
<p>You know it’s going to be an entertaining blog post when the lede is: “See the end of the editorial for an important update.”</p>
<p>So when I read the Jon Fingas editorial on Engadget entitled, <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/03/editorial-amazon-and-google-are-undermining-mobile-pricing/">Amazon and Google are undermining mobile pricing, and that may hurt everyone</a>, I was expecting something crazy. Maybe it was suggesting that Amazon and Google are killing baby seals to hurt iPad sales? Or perhaps a notion was put forth that a terrorist organization is bankrolling both companies to keep tablet prices low even though they make no money selling them? </p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>Instead, what I read was a compelling and thoughtful argument as to why the race to the bottom by two behemoths in the tablet space may end up hurting innovation in said space. An opinion piece, sure — but one full of good thoughts worth discussing. </p>
<p>Then I got to the end. </p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Clarifications and apologies are in order.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fuck?</p>
<p>What followed was two paragraphs of backtracking and apologizing. I’m still not quite clear why. I read the entire piece again. Then the apology again. Still no clue.</p>
<p>As the unnamed update editor tells it, the piece should have had more examples and “set a more neutral tone”. Um, why? To ensure that it’s yet another boring-as-fuck piece that no one would even get through let alone think about ever again? </p>
<p>As a writer, I feel disgusted seeing such an update. As a reader, I feel even worse. It reads as if the Engadget editors think their readership to be morons who can’t think and/or reason for themselves beyond what they’re told.</p>
<p>Again, I just don’t get it.</p>
<p>The lede of the update may yield one big clue:</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>“The intent of the editorial wasn’t to excuse the iPad mini’s pricing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So it sounds as if the editors of Engadget were getting flamed about the framing of the post around the iPad mini. When you look below and notice that the post has over 4,000 comments and many of them are written in troll gibberish, you can almost be sure that was the case. (And that’s clearly what John Gruber was <a href="https://twitter.com/gruber/status/269850771678429184">thinking</a> as well <a href="https://twitter.com/gruber/status/269848608969486336">when he shared</a> the November 3 post this morning.)</p>
<p>But I still don’t understand why anyone would feel compelled to make such a visible and apologetic update? It was a provocative editorial. Success!</p>
<p>I like the Engadget team a lot. They’re the sister site of TechCrunch, where I still work myself from time-to-time. There’s zero chance such an update would ever appear on TechCrunch, so I’m not sure why it’s on Engadget.</p>
<p>It <em>seems</em> like this is yet another sad step in the direction of some folks in the media wanting to pretend that no one has opinions. Must. Maintain. Neutral. Tone. Again, I view this as an insult to both writers <em>and</em> readers because it’s an insult to intelligence. </p>
<p>And oh, by the way, did I mention this was a goddamn editorial? That’s a fancy phrase for an opinion piece. </p>
<p>A. More. Neutral. Tone.</p>
<p>Fuck. That. Shit.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Engadget has since removed their own update to the story in question and left the rest of the editorial untouched. I spoke a bit with editor-in-chief Tim Stevens who not only agreed with my take, but assured me that he was not aware of the incident beforehand and immediately made the moves to correct it. He’ll be chatting with his team on the topic. All good.</p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/no2012-10-06T17:05:00-07:002012-10-06T17:05:00-07:00"No."<p><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/inline_parislemon_24292236434166_raw.jpg" alt="large dr no blu-ray9-2.jpg"></p>
<p>A few days ago marked one year since <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/03/mg-siegler-will-become-our-apple-columnist-and-join-crunchfund-as-a-vc/">I made the jump</a> from TechCrunch to CrunchFund — from writer to investor. It has been a fantastic year and I’m really happy with all of the <a href="http://parislemon.com/investments">investments we’ve made</a> (not all of them are listed as some are still under-the-radar/undisclosed, but that’s most of them).</p>
<p>And I’m really glad that I’ve been able to keep writing. Obviously, my pace has slowed. But as I’ve always said, I’ll never stop writing. <a href="http://massivegreatness.com">Here</a>, <a href="http://parislemon.com">there</a>, or <a href="http://techcrunch.com/author/mg-siegler/">anywhere</a>.</p>
<p>One thing I haven’t written too much about yet is investing. That has been on purpose. I learned during my professional blogging years that pretty much above all else, context is key. That is, anyone can write something about anything, but without the proper knowledge about a topic, your post is likely to range from weak to pure shit. </p>
<p>I think about this often when I look at new tech bloggers out there today. I read things that are more or less nonsense — how can you mention <em>this</em> without mentioning <em>that</em>? — but they don’t realize it. Because they can’t realize it. Not yet.</p>
<p>I say that as someone who was in the same boat a few years ago. I was writing and writing and writing, but I often lacked vital context about various topics. That’s a good argument for editors, I suppose. But in the world of fast-paced blogging, there is no going back. You have to learn by being burned. And time solves this since it gives you context. That’s why my number one recommendation for new bloggers is to read as much as you can. You need to be a sponge of information so you can quickly call upon it when you need to write something. </p>
<p>Anyway. Knowing what I know now, I can recognize that I still lack the context to write with certainty and authority about the investing space. For now, I’ll <a href="http://www.avc.com">leave</a> <a href="http://cdixon.org">that</a> <a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/">to</a> <a href="http://redeye.firstround.com">others</a>. I hope one day to add my voice, but it will take a while — I’m still very much learning.</p>
<p>One thing I do feel comfortable weighing in on though is what I have learned. I get asked a lot about the differences between the blogging side of things and the investing side. There are, of course, a ton. (But there is also quite a bit more overlap than you might think.) One of the biggest differences seems straightforward: saying “no”.</p>
<p>It’s obvious, right? If you say “yes” to every investment, you’re going to be the shittiest investor ever. (Or maybe the best, if you have unlimited money and simply allocate it correctly amongst the “winners”.) But it’s still a tough thing to fully grasp.</p>
<p>On the writing side of things, there is no “no”. (Well, for some writers there sort of is.) For the most part, if you take a meeting/pitch, you’re going to write <em>something</em> about that company. It may be positive or it may be negative, but it will be something. </p>
<p>I can count on my fingers the amount of times I took meetings as a blogger over the years and didn’t write something. It was almost always the result of some fuck up, like a broken embargo (<a href="http://massivegreatness.com/fucking-embargoes">more on that</a>). And so it was weird at first to take meetings with startups and know that for most of them, the answer was going to be “no”.</p>
<p>This was especially hard because over the course of my blogging career, I grew to have so much respect and appreciation for startups, learning and hearing and seeing first-hand how hard it is for entrepreneurs to do what they do. When someone first pitches me their idea, it’s incredibly hard not to get wrapped up in their passion and stand up and scream “YES!”</p>
<p>But you can’t do that.</p>
<p>The truth is that this wouldn’t be helpful for anyone — either the investor or the startup. At first, this may not be apparent — money is money, right? Perhaps in some situations, yes. But the best investors provide far more than money. And the best startups appreciate having the right people around them far more than the money. Money is the cost of admission to a wild ride.</p>
<p>And so the hard part of saying “no” isn’t actually the saying of the words, it’s figuring out when you need to say it and why. </p>
<p>It may not be obvious — after all, we have the money and almost always, the idea/product is intriguing is some way. But we have to ask ourselves two things: 1) can we actually help in any meaningful way? 2) do we really believe? </p>
<p>If we can’t answer the first question in the affirmative, we’d just be taking up space and potentially a slot from another investor who could help in a way that may mean life or death for the startup.</p>
<p>If we can’t answer the second question in the affirmative, it’s just as problematic. Every startup is going to face dozens if not hundreds of challenges over the course of their existence. True believers are needed to stay on course and push through. </p>
<p>That’s not to say everyone should be a “yes” man — that’s also potentially fatal — but there needs to be complete conviction in some element, be it the team, the product, or the vision, to weather storms. If you don’t really believe, you’re far more likely to jump ship, potentially hurting everyone. </p>
<p>And really, what’s the point of backing something you don’t believe in? You’re dead weight. </p>
<p>I also think about the Apple product philosophy (of course). The company’s success can be attributed just as much to what they say “no” to as what they say “yes” to. Given the number of investments we’ve made in the past year, it may not seem like we say “no” all that often (heh), but believe me, it has been almost all “no’s”. </p>
<p>It’s not something I’d say I’m “happy” about. But I’ve learned the value of what seems to be a negative thing.</p>
<p>Obviously, we’ll end up regretting some of the “no’s” from a pure business perspective. That is, some of those companies — maybe even a lot of them — will go on to be successful. I hope they do. But again, the power of “no” works both ways. Maybe they achieved that success in some small way because of our “no”. Maybe it further fueled their fire. Or maybe it allowed another investor to come on board and they in turn helped kickstart the sprint to success. </p>
<p>It’s never going to be easy to say “no”. But this past year for me has been about learning when and why to say it. And learning that it’s just as important as “yes” — for both sides.</p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/bloated2012-09-27T17:46:00-07:002012-09-27T17:46:00-07:00Dear Chrome, Slow Your Roll<p>This morning, <a href="https://twitter.com/parislemon/status/251379082330267649">I mentioned</a> that with each new build, Chrome for OS X seems to be getting a bit less stable and a bit more bloated. No big deal, I tend to send such bitchy tweets before I’ve had any caffeine. But I noticed something a little odd in the responses: no one disagreed with me.</p>
<p>In fact, nearly everyone said they had been noticing the <em>exact</em> same thing recently. And it apparently isn’t just with OS X, it’s the Windows build of Chrome too. As the product progresses, for many of us, it’s getting worse.</p>
<p>A number of the responses brought up Firefox. As in, Chrome seems to be heading down the same path that Mozilla’s web browser went down a few years ago. What started as a fresh, fast answer to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer at the height of its dominance, eventually became a slow, buggy, bloated turd.</p>
<p>To many of us, Chrome was the fresh, fast answer to Firefox. Now it seems to be following that same downward trajectory.</p>
<p>To be clear, I love Chrome. I know I give Google a lot of shit, but Chrome is one product I’ve held in the highest regard since its launch a few years ago. I’ve given a look to Safari from time to time, but I always go back to Chrome. It’s just better.</p>
<p>But again, I’m worried that’s changing. And it seems to be changing for a silly reason: feature-creep. It seems like Google is adding stuff to Chrome just to add it. It’s as if they feel like they can’t do <em>nothing</em> feature-wise, so they come up with junk to shove in there, slowing Chrome down in the process.</p>
<p>Google, please stop doing that. I’d actually love it if you took features <em>out</em> of Chrome and brought it back to the original, clean builds that were fast as fuck. That’s all I care about in a web browser. </p>
<p>Instead, we’re at the point now where I cannot shut down my computer without force-quitting Chrome. And the browser is just about the only thing that can get my brand-new MacBook Pro to beachball. </p>
<p>I know it’s a crazy concept in the age of fast iteration on the web, but what if you just stop development on Chrome from a feature perspective? Continue to speed up and refine the JavaScript engine and underlying tech, but keep the browser itself as minimal as possible. </p>
<p>A browser is just a window into the web. Chrome is gaining too much, well, chrome. We’ve seen this story play out before. It doesn’t end well. But it’s not too late to stop it, Google.</p>
<p>Here, I’ll even help. Step 1: rip out Flash.</p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/squeeze-my-hand2012-09-26T14:45:00-07:002012-09-26T14:45:00-07:00Ripping Off The Bloody Band-Aid<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/parislemon_24276627906498_raw.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/inline_parislemon_24276627906498_raw.png" alt="Screen Shot 2012-09-26 at 4.18.55 PM.png"></a></p>
<p>It’s really not that hard to understand. Nor is it evil. Nor is it perfect. Nor is it the end of the world. It is what it is. And my bet is that, as usual, the outrage will be relatively short-lived.</p>
<p>I’m talking, of course, about the Maps situation in iOS 6, and the Google/Apple <a href="http://www.techmeme.com/120926/p46#a120926p46">war of words</a> over it.</p>
<p>Over the course of the past few weeks, we’ve seemingly heard all possible sides of the story. Apple <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/25/3407614/apple-over-a-year-left-on-google-maps-contract-google-maps-ios-app">blind-sided</a> Google. No <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120926/apple-google-maps-talks-crashed-over-voice-guided-directions/">they didn’t</a>. Apple was open to negotiating about maps, but Google wasn’t. No, it’s Apple who wasn’t. Apple was <a href="http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/20/google-has-an-ios-6-maps-app-awaiting-approval-it-is-solely-up-to-apple-to-approve/">refusing</a> to approve Google’s new Maps app. <a href="http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/09/20/on-the-rumor-that-google-has-submitted-an-ios-6-maps-app-and-apple-is-sitting-on-it/">“Nope.”</a> In fact, the app <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/google-exec-not-yet-offered-map-apple-061410153--sector.html">doesn’t even exist</a>. Well, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-25/google-s-schmidt-says-up-to-apple-to-decide-on-maps-app.html">not yet</a>. </p>
<p>Make no mistake, both Google and Apple (or people associated with those companies) are behind the scenes trying to convey their side of the story through strategic leaks. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It’s over. There is no going back. </p>
<p>And it shouldn’t be surprising, from either side. The fact of the matter is that Apple and Google are now rivals of the highest degree. The Google/Microsoft and Apple/Microsoft rivalries now pale in comparison. Those are rivalries of generations past. <a href="http://massivegreatness.com/mobile">All that matters now is mobile</a>. And all that matters there is the iPhone and Android.</p>
<p>Imagine if when the new Yankee Stadium was being built, the Yankees had to play all their games in Fenway Park. That’s essentially the situation we have had here for the past few years.</p>
<p>What makes this even more intriguing is that Apple and Google did originally team up in the space. Apple needed Google’s services to get maps, email, video, and (of course) search off to a quick start on the iPhone. But that was a very different Google. There was no Android yet. Eric Schmidt was still Google’s CEO and was still on Apple’s Board. </p>
<p>Would Apple cut those same deals with the Google of today? Not a chance.</p>
<p>That’s really all you need to know about what we’re now seeing. YouTube is gone. Maps is gone. Email is <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/facebook-email-contact-sync/">being shoved</a> to the background (and was always second-class — there’s <em>still</em> no native Gmail push email support). Search? We’ll see. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/06/two-down-one-to-go/">But don’t be surprised…</a></p>
<p>What is surprising is that Apple was apparently open to extending the mapping relationship with Google in any form. Again, this is their main rival. And Apple was sending that rival massive amounts of data to improve their own product via hundreds of millions of iOS devices (and hundreds of thousands of apps which used Google Maps through the iOS SDK). </p>
<p>To me, that simply shows that Apple was taking this switch seriously right up until the very end. They knew that maps were (and are) a vital component of mobile. And they knew that Google had a seven-year head start. But ultimately, no compromise would work. How could it between these two? They could not be more at odds. </p>
<p>It simply became a question of <em>when</em> Apple would move away from Google Maps.</p>
<p>Apple chose to rip off the band-aid. In hindsight, it may have been the wrong time, but it’s <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/get_the_fainting_chair">hard to argue that it was the wrong choice</a>.</p>
<p>It was a choice between a short, but intense burst of pain versus a prolonged dull pain — made worse by dried blood around the edges of the adhesive. You’re always told to rip off the band-aid. </p>
<p>A number of people have asked: why didn’t Apple just go with Google for another year while they built their own product in the background? In other words, why didn’t they slowly remove the band-aid?</p>
<p>Beyond the benefits of short, intense pain versus long, dull pain, it actually seems like they <em>were</em> trying that. Apple had already clearly been working on a solution in the background for some time. Apple Maps, even in its incomplete form, didn’t suddenly spring up from nowhere over the course of a few weeks this summer. </p>
<p>Apple ultimately made the call that it was ready to go. Perhaps a miscalculation, but it was undoubtedly a harder call than it seems.</p>
<p>To improve mapping data at scale, it’s vital to have information pouring in from as many points as possible. Thanks to the hundreds of millions of iOS devices they’ve sold, that’s exactly what Apple has at their disposal. But with the old Maps app, it was Google and not Apple improving their maps with that information. Every day this continued, it raised the barrier to entry that much higher.</p>
<p>And so: Riiiiiiippppp. </p>
<p>Ouch.</p>
<p>A bit more blood, but it will heal. </p>
<p><em>[image: flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/31878512@N06/3966590147/">Neal.</a>]</em></p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/mobile2012-09-20T01:20:00-07:002012-09-20T01:20:00-07:00My Product Feedback<p>Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile <br>
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<p>It’s obvious, right? I’m hardly the first person to point this out. And yet, I still meet so many startups who are focusing on the desktop/laptop-based web first. I get that development and iteration are easier there, but it’s a mistake. </p>
<p>Discovery is increasingly an issue, and monetization models are still being fully fleshed out. But, from a pure product perspective, those things don’t matter. What matters is that in the next five years every person on this planet is going to be using a mobile device. And these devices are going to be used far more than any traditional computer ever has been and ever will be.</p>
<p>The PC is over. It will linger, but increasingly as a relic. </p>
<p>I now dread using my computer. I want to use a tablet most of the time. And increasingly, <a href="http://massivegreatness.com/sent-from-my-ipad">I can</a>. I want to use a smartphone all the rest of the time. And I do.</p>
<p>The value in the desktop web is increasingly an illusion. Given the rate at which these mobile devices <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/18/iphone-5-review/">are improving</a>, a plunge is rapidly approaching.</p>
<p>Don’t build an app based on your website. Build <em>the</em> app that acts as if websites never existed in the first place. Build the app for the person who has never used a desktop computer. Because they’re coming. Soon.</p>
tag:massivegreatness.com,2014:Post/fuck-math2012-09-11T15:55:00-07:002012-09-11T15:55:00-07:00"It's Math"<p>Earlier today at TechCrunch Disrupt, Ryan Lawler led a media panel. On it, sat Alison Moore, HBO’s Senior Vice President of Digital Platforms. Naturally, the topic of selling HBO direct-to-consumers via HBO Go came up.</p>
<p>“Here’s the thing: it’s math. It’s a little presumptuous to say that $8 [a month per consumer] is going to make the business whole,” was Moore’s response.</p>
<p>Is it presumptuous to think that any of us know more about HBO’s business than HBO does? Of course. But such a statement should also be a huge red flag for the company.</p>
<p>As Moore was on stage, I happened to be reading <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/design/2012/09/iphone_design_documents_from_the_samsung_trial_reveal_more_than_ever_about_apple_s_secretive_design_process_.single.html">this piece</a> by Farhad Manjoo. He talks about the circumstances that led to the creation of the iPhone, based on the testimony from the Apple/Samsung trial. Much of this information isn’t surprising and some of it isn’t even new. But the main takeaway is still important — especially in the context of HBO.</p>
<p>Manjoo:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Given the popularity of the iPod and its centrality to Apple’s bottom line, Apple should have been the last company on the planet to try to build something whose explicit purpose was to kill music players. Yet Apple’s inner circle knew that one day, a phone maker would solve the interface problem, creating a universal device that could make calls, play music and videos, and do everything else, too—a device that would eat the iPod’s lunch. Apple’s only chance at staving off that future was to invent the iPod killer itself. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As I <a href="http://parislemon.com/post/31352529986/how-the-iphone-came-to-be">noted earlier</a> (without the HBO context), in many ways, this is the <em>perfect</em> statement to sum up Apple’s success of the past several years. They’ve gotten to where they are now because they haven’t been afraid to take chances with their business, and this has allowed them to lead rather than follow. Moore’s statement above suggests that HBO’s thinking is the opposite.</p>
<p>And that shouldn’t be too surprising — <em>most</em> companies think this way. After all, who in their right mind tries to disrupt themselves by destroying their own cash cows? It’s exactly why we’re now seeing Microsoft take their <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/31/microsofts-compromise-is-to-not-compromise-or-something/">“no compromises”</a> approach with Windows 8. It’s Microsoft trying to change but also heavily hedging their bet. <a href="http://parislemon.com/post/31000933806/the-windows-rt-demo">My bet</a> is that this will blow up in their faces. We’ll see.</p>
<p>But this is what Apple does. And again, a big part of why they win. The iPhone came along and ate into Apple’s one-time largest business, the iPod. And now the iPad is busy cannibalizing Mac sales. And the iPad mini may cannibalize some iPad sales. This would look like a nightmare scenario to just about any other company in the world. But to Apple, it looks like progress. Because that’s exactly what it is.</p>
<p>Continuing the quote from Manjoo’s piece:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>More than this simple business calculation, though, Apple’s brass saw the phone as an opportunity for real innovation. “We wanted to build a phone for ourselves,” Scott Forstall, who heads the team that built the phone’s operating system, said at the trial. “We wanted to build a phone that we loved.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was Apple’s focus on product, rather than business that gave birth to the iPhone. Had the CFO tried to intervene with the numbers suggesting this wasn’t what was best for Apple’s business, he would have been right, but he probably would have been fired. </p>
<p>Likewise, Moore’s statement about HBO is correct. The math is not in favor of selling HBO access directly to consumers. But if we’re just thinking about this from a pure product perspective, I don’t think anyone would disagree that this is what we all want. HBO is choosing not to build the service we will love, they’re choosing the short-term money. The safe bet. The math. </p>
<p>But if they don’t diverge from this path, it will lead to their demise. Innovation always beats math, eventually. That, you can take to the bank.</p>