Over the past few months we played around with a number of online collaboration suites. We were searching for a way to organize everything and have a central dashboard to keep track of projects, tasks, and timelines for multiple users.
Some of the tools we tried were Jotspot, PBwiki, Zoho, and Basecamp.
» Continue reading “Online Collaboration Suites and Why I Don’t Get Zoho”
The other night I went downtown to take a photo of this sign:
This is Infinium’s sign that (for now) still graces a building in downtown Sarasota, Florida. The company moved to Seattle some time ago.
Infinium Labs was the former name of Phantom Entertainment Inc., the company behind the Phantom Game System. Aptly named, it was one of the biggest examples of vapourware anyone has ever seen.
The company burned through $75 MILLION dollars of investment capital with nothing to show for it, except a laptop keyboard that to this day has not materialized.
» Continue reading “The $75 Million Keyboard: Infinium’s Phantom”
I’m just amazed at how bad MSN’s AdCenter is - even after having all this time to grow and improve? . Without ado, here are some reasons why MSN AdCenter is a flaming pile of poo:
1. Retro Beta. This might be the first time I’ve ever seen a product launch THEN regress into beta a year afterwards. The “new” version that just came out just got a “beta” sticker attached to it. I thought the natural sequence of events was “beta -> lots of testing -> not beta”. I’m just waiting for the announcement: “Coming in 3Q, 2007: MSN AdCenter Alpha.”
» Continue reading “MSN AdCenter: How Doth Thee Suck So? Let me Count the Ways”
Jason Calacanis really doesn’t get it. I don’t know why I got such a visceral reaction to his post, but I don’t think I was the only one. He basically said that it was “unconscionable” for Wikipedia not to monetize the Wikipedia project.
He called on Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) to put up a leaderboard ad on the site. He claimed it would produce $100M that could help fund other projects. He then suggested that the site have a 25×25 px “Hosting donated by AOL” banner.
Wow. I’m simply stunned at how somebody can be so blinded by his own hubris. Last month I enjoyed hearing Kevin Rose’s speech in which he talked about his stance against paying top Digg contributors. I agree 100% that once you introduce money into the equation, it can undermine the entire community.
People smarter than myself have torn the Calcanis post apart, and rightly so. There are just so many problems with his assumptions. He also doesn’t seem to understand that not everything is about money – that people might value community and a shared purpose. And maybe this lack of understanding is what makes for such an interesting chart (comparing the traffic between Netscape and Digg):
And moreover, this:
It looks like the Calacanis camp (AOL and Netscape) needs more advice than the people behind Wikipedia and Digg.
