Archive for May, 2007

Was at a B -B-Q recently, and I was the burger flipper. Not such a bad job … I could probably get used to it … maybe even saying “would you like fries with that” 500 times a day. On the other hand … maybe not. But it was interesting to see who went...
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Scoble’s interview with the Google program manager: This is huge … an environment for building applications locally that will sync globally. I can see thousands of major and niche applications for this. google, gears, offline, sync, scoble, john koetsier
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Do you have one of those cheesy motivational posters on your wall? In your company, somewhere? It’s probably something about teamwork, or hard work, or persistence, or excellence, or … Boring! Old hat! Cheap! Manipulative! Welcome Demotivators from Despair, Inc. Now these are fun. Their customer (dis)service page says “We’re not satisfied until you’re...
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While not straying too far off the beaten track for this blog, I just had to post a great quote. It’s from Smoke Blanchard, mountaineer, hiker, traveller, guide, climber, trekker, truck driver, and about a thousand other things in between … and appropriately enough, it’s about life and career choices. Most choices at the...
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Was just reading in Isaiah tonight and came across this passage: “But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, You descendants of Abraham my friend … I took you from the ends of the earth, From its farthest corners I called you. I said, “You are my servant,” I have chosen...
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I hate Russians. Not all Russians – just the ones who keep ruining the internet for the rest of us by running half the spam zombies on the planet. The software that runs this blog (WordPress) notifies me every time I have a new registered user – someone who can post comments, even write...
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Free business idea of the week, coming right up … Rent a warehouse. Your bedroom will do until you get swamped with business. Advertise that you will send people’s gifts to their loved ones after they die. Collect people’s articles and store them safely. (OK, maybe the bedroom won’t work after all.) Charge them...
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I just got reminded today that you can’t sell someone the solution before they’ve bought the problem. Which is why so much marketing is selling real or imagined problems. problems, solutions, marketing, john koetsier
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I was just wondering: what human needs drive web 2.0? Participation Wanting to be part of something Belonging Errr, sort of like participation but if participation is dating, belong is getting engaged Creativity Wanting to make something Believing Wanting to believe something Meaning Wanting to matter. Related to believing but is more the result...
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OK, so I called my father a savage today. Trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds. He called with a computer problem: he’s trying to install some application on his PC. Problem: he’s completely clueless about computers. So I’m doing the familiar dance … what happened, what does it look like, what...
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Well, add one more piece of data to the debate about whether Amazon hikes the prices of items that you put in your shopping cart but don’t buy. (I’d link to the original story, but the LA Times is an SEO idiot.) Every single one of the 5 books in my shopping cart is...
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Remember that … totally innovative never-been-done-before six-figure customer support, training, and marketing initiative for a multi-ten-figure product line with extremely high gross margin … project that I was pitching a week or so ago? It’s a go. Just completed it via conference call a few minutes ago. I am pumped! Now, of course, the...
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… here’s a hundred places to start: Top 100 Open Courseware Projects And they’re all free. online, education, courseware, free, john koetsier
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My brother-in-law Jeroen Vermeulen is an amazing artist … one of his 8′ x 5′ paintings hangs in my dining room. Here’s a site that I recently put up for him: More content to come, as per usual. We’ve only got his recent paintings up … nothing before January of this year. That’ll come...
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Text Link Ads just informed me that (yay!) they’ve sold another ad for me. (You can see ‘em down near the bottom of the right column under, appropriately, text link ads.) This is cool, because it pays the hosting bills and because I make more from TLA than I ever did from Google AdWords....
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