Tuesday, August 31, 2010

My Gmail Prayers Heard: Multiple Inboxes

Image representing Gmail as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBasePeople kept saying, but you can already do that. You can set up filters and all. To that I said, Geocities allowed for a lot of what Blogger allows for, but you needed a Blogger to come along. Simplification gets in the crowds. Your average user wants multiple inboxes, not complex filters that you have to keep tweaking like you were some kind of a software programmer.

Real Time Search: Where Google Can "Get" Social
Reimagining The Inbox The Simple Way

And now we have it. It is here. Multiple inboxes are here in Gmail. This is my idea of Google "getting" social. Before this the inbox had become scary to many people. Now the inbox is back with a vengeance. Email is the original social application.

The Official Gmail Blog: Email Overload? Try Priority Inbox

At this rate I am going to be sitting on the Google Board some day. I'd love to.


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Monday, August 30, 2010

FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare


I am very proud of this blog post of mine: Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter. It is one of my popular posts. It keeps getting page hits from showing up on search results.

What I missed out on was FourSquare. I erred in thinking Google Wave was the next big thing after Twitter. (Whatever Happened To Google Wave?, Craig Newmark, Dennis Crowley, Jennifer 8 Lee: Koreatown)

I was there in the hall when FourSquare presented at the NY Tech MeetUp, and I totally did not see the promise that day. The idea of checking in felt just so lame. And over time I have realized that checking in is so fundamental to the mobile web.

I was not the first person to say FourSquare is the next Twitter.

I erred again in thinking maybe Venmo is the next big thing after FourSquare. (Could 2011 Be Venmo's Year?)

I have not done a background check on this yet, and maybe someone else has said it already, but I am today saying it loud and clear, I think FoodSpotting is the next FourSquare. (Soraya Darabi)

Calling FoodSpotting the next FourSquare totally fits into my original fractals talk. The math just feels right. FoodSpotting has hinted at going into other verticals as well, and I can't wait to see what those might be.

I think I am one of the very first to state it so very explicitly, although others have said FoodSpotting is like FourSquare. There is a check in feel to how the app works.

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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Mike Arrington Is A Sexist Pig: Say PeeeeG!

SUNNYVALE, CA - APRIL 27:  Yahoo! CEO Carol Ba...Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe father of Quantum Mechanics Max Planck said once, people don't change their ideas, they die with them. When I think of Mike Arrington of TechCrunch and gender relations, I get reminded of that Max Planck quote. This guy will never "get" it. That's the impression I get. Like Hillary says in her autobiography, how her father was still homophobic all the way to his deathbed. Gays are just wrong. I feel sorry for Mike Arrington. This guy is missing the forest, he is missing the trees. Those who manage to cross over get to experience the richness that women bring to work and to organizations and to excellence that the sexist pigs miss out on. It is like they are color blind or something. They just can't see. It is almost biological. It is as if Mike Arrington was born with a tail and there is no surgery for it.

When Mike Arrington humiliated the female CEO of Yahoo on a public stage in New York City a few months back, I literally cringed. Sexism is the only word that describes the experience. The Yahoo CEO is older, much more accomplished, she is a role model to women. There are so few women CEOs out there that you become a role model whether or not you want to, and Carol Bartz strikes me as someone who really does not want to. But what you gonna do? You are a woman. So put on the pin. You are a role model now.

Months before that Mike Arrington hounded Anu Shukla who has been a trailblazer. Some of her cutting edge company's work is equivalent to the ongoing click fraud with Google's AdWords, but that does not change the fact that Google's money minting machine is a revolutionary product. (Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising)

Mike Arrington is dripping with sexism.

And I actually like the fact that the guy is the founder of the top tech blog in the world. That tells me the only reason at least half of the excellent work done out there has not been done by women is sexism. I dig it that this dude's product is so very visible. On a non sexist planet, the founder of TechCrunch would have been some Maya Arrington.

Sexism is like communism, it is like Islamofascism, it is an ideology, it is a worldview. And Mike Arrington is dripping with it.

Tech, Women, Diversity
Mike Arrington: Too Few Women In Tech? Stop Blaming The Men.
Fred Wilson: Women In Tech and Women Entrepreneurs Discussion
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