the hackademic

"It’s only when we start talking about 10-digit exits that the prospect of creating [another] true..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:20:39 -0400

“It’s only when we start talking about 10-digit exits that the prospect of creating [another] true PayPal-style mafia becomes a reality.””

- Ryan on the seduction of selling out early & why Silicon Valley’s heydey might be over.

Especially relevant given the Tumblr acquisition this week, just replace Vancouver references with New York.

"If your degree was focused upon one particular area, don’t let that stop you moving in another..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:24:04 -0400

“If your degree was focused upon one particular area, don’t let that stop you moving in another direction. If college hasn’t worked out for you, don’t let that put you off…. If you spot an opportunity early on and are really excited by it, throw yourself into it with everything you have got. Be ambitious. There probably won’t be another time in your life when you have such freedom of opportunity. Grasp it with both hands.”

- Richard Branson’s advice to graduates, echoing Debbie Millman’s fantastic commencement address on courage and the creative life.

Pair with Don’t Go Back to School.
(via explore-blog)

"Battery isn’t some one-off feature. You don’t fritter entire train rides away worried that your..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:20:06 -0400

“Battery isn’t some one-off feature. You don’t fritter entire train rides away worried that your phone doesn’t have diamond-cut chamfered edges, or which widgets you should have on your home screen. (Or if you do, that is very sad and you should stop.) Your night has never been ruined because your apps load too slowly. We bitch about annoyances, app availability, syncing issues. But if we accept that reception almost entirely subject to outside forces, you’re left with battery life as more or less the only way your phone can totally screw up your plans. It’s the only thing you worry about. And we really need to stop ignoring it.”

- http://gizmodo.com/5992917/battery-life-is-the-only-spec-that-matters

I could not have said this any better

I really suggest you click on the link and read the whole article.

(via eweissman)

Google's 20th employee (who designed the homepage & Gmail) maybe bought Tumblr

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:35:16 -0400

Think of it like that.

Yes, Yahoo killed startups. But now this woman is in charge.

Marissa Mayer is a badass programmer - she’s not just a businesswoman or CEO, but a product manager intimately tied to iconic products that she’s created with her own code.

I doubt the woman who tested every element of Google.com to a painstaking detail is happy every morning when she visits Yahoo.com.

Do you really think that the woman who tested 41 different shades of blue is going to force a team of awesome product designers to put smiley faces and exclamation marks on your dash and turn this beautifully designed product into a monstrosity?

Yahoo reportedly eyeing Tumblr for possible $1 billion acquisition

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:22:45 -0400

Yahoo reportedly eyeing Tumblr for possible $1 billion acquisition:

In no way am I a market analyst, but this just seems weird, especially for the price tag when compared to Instagram.

Facebook acquired Instagram for “1 billion” when it only had 30 million users. Tumblr has over 100 million blogs & an “audience of 170 million,” whatever that means.
Instagram didn’t make money or have any sort of monetization strategy. Tumblr’s average ad deal is over six figures.

One would just generally assume that Tumblr is worth a hell of a lot more than 1 billion dollars considering it’s the #9 website in the USA*

Other acquisitions to compare it to:

Microsoft acquired Yammer for 1.2 billion
Rumoured Google acquisition of WhatsApp for 1 billion
Salesforce acquired Buddy Media for $689 million
Wildfire acquired by Google for rumoured $250 million

*I just checked Alexa and it looks like it’s #19 in the US now and #32 worldwide

The best part about this is that if someone (read: a court) asks...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:55:09 -0400

The best part about this is that if someone (read: a court) asks them where the information came from, they can’t tell them because they don’t know.

Introducing Strongbox, a Tool for Anonymous Document-Sharing : The New Yorker

Wishing you safe travels back to earth, Commander...

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:09:00 -0400

Wishing you safe travels back to earth, Commander Hadfield!

I’ve worked with a lot of high profile clients both at HootSuite and with my own freelance work, but the most rewarding project I’ve ever been able to work on, even in a small way, is by helping Evan Hadfield manage the social media for Commander Hadfield.

He is a force to be wreckoned with, as he’s worked ridiculously long days in Switzerland managing the YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and Soundcloud pages.

That’s a LOT, and you can read more about how he did it in Evan’s own words here on the HootSuite blog.

This team has made space cool again, at a time when we need to desperately make STEM cool again. I hope the social media posts continue with the next group aboard the ISS, but in the meantime, be sure to follow the next rising star Astronaut Abby.

nevver: Message to a Graduate This sums up how our education...

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:27:13 -0400

incidental comics grant snider

incidental comics grant snider

nevver:

Message to a Graduate

This sums up how our education system is broken in so many ways. Why do the hoops stop?

No Joke: Syrians Hack The Onion

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:12:10 -0400

No Joke: Syrians Hack The Onion:

socialmedi-ocre:

The Syrian Electronic Army broke into the Twitter account for The Onion on Monday and posted several fake tweets.

Too many companies don’t protect their social media assets like they do any other asset. The IT folks behind the Onion give you 4 tips into how protect yourself against a hacking on their blog here.

Is LinkedIn the Creepiest Social Network?

Thu, 09 May 2013 16:07:41 -0400

Is LinkedIn the Creepiest Social Network?:

A while ago I was wondering why LinkedIn had an option to put your relationship status, and some of my friends said that they used it to generate dating leads.

Musings of Steve Johnson

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:46:00 -0400

Musings of Steve Johnson:

Unofficial musings about social media, business and technology in general.

I just realized that HootSuite’s CRO has a tumblr! You should follow it for snippets of commentary & good reads.

"The real value of a real education … has almost nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:18:48 -0400

“The real value of a real education … has almost nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness.”

- David Foster Wallace (via explore-blog)

Glassagram I actually thought this article was satire, but...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:27:08 -0400

Glassagram

I actually thought this article was satire, but apparently not. TechCrunch sums it up nicely:

“Technological marvel? No. Handy app and an example of what’s to come from Glass developers? Yes.”

parislemon: iheartapple2: (1999) Steve Jobs Introduces The...

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:09:00 -0400

parislemon:

iheartapple2:

(1999) Steve Jobs Introduces The World to WiFi

Just look at that response over something we take completely for granted now just 14 years later.

This just brought tears to my eyes because I am that much of a geek.

Internet Archive by Deepspeed media “It’s basically...

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:09:00 -0400

Internet Archive by Deepspeed media

“It’s basically a computer that clicks on every link on every webpage…it just keeps going until you get to the end. Turns out, there is no end. The web is in fact, infinite.”

This is incredible - an archive of the internet is stored on 10 petabytes so you can surf the web as it used to be, like back when people actually used the tearm “surf the web.”

"If there’s not going to be another Google,” Graham said, “then we’re so deeply screwed that we all..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:28:07 -0400

“If there’s not going to be another Google,” Graham said, “then we’re so deeply screwed that we all should be getting bags of silver and shotguns.””

- Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine - NYTimes.com

There’s a handful of great quotes in here.
(via dpstyles)

"We studied the adoption of a mobile service product among 27 million users in a Yahoo instant..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:55:24 -0400

“We studied the adoption of a mobile service product among 27 million users in a Yahoo instant messaging network and used statistical techniques to separate influence (specifically, how a friend’s use or recommendation of the product affected another person’s decision to use it) from homophily and other confounding factors. We found that traditional models overestimated the power of influence by a factor of seven and that half of perceived influence was really just homophily and other confounds. We also learned that overestimates of influence were particularly extreme early in the product’s life cycle. That’s because early adopters are more likely to be similar to one another than late adopters are.”

- If you want to study how people use your product, you should probably start by reading this: What Would Ashton Do—and Does It Matter? - Harvard Business Review

Or if you’d rather see a video, Sinan gave a talk about this at DataGotham last year and you can watch it here.

(via radioon)

Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley: “People Think We Don’t Know How To Generate Revenue. This Is Wrong.”

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:42:00 -0400

Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley: “People Think We Don’t Know How To Generate Revenue. This Is Wrong.”:

We’re signing six-figure deals with national merchants. We’ve already got a million merchants claiming their business page — we can just say ‘Would you like to spend $50, $100 dollars to drive X number people into your store?” These aren’t just ad impressions they’re paying for. We only count when we actually bring people into your store.

Dennis Crowley is by far my favourite CEO to follow, and I love his commentary in this article. Very excited to see where Foursquare goes with explore & beyond!

Related, Hunter Walk talks about other potential monetization strategies in These Three $50B+ Companies Should Be Fighting Over Foursquare. Hint: it’s credit card companies.

#rocketscience

Facebook five years ago? Nope, it’s Russia’s social...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:40:03 -0400

Facebook five years ago? Nope, it’s Russia’s social network VK which has over 200 million users. Eerily similar though, it felt like I was back in high school.

Much like Foursquare’s latest update, Facebook’s new...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:19:33 -0400

Much like Foursquare’s latest update, Facebook’s new brand page categories for mobile are a huge improvement both visually and for discovery. Now you’ll see the most relevant content front and centre, depending on what type of page it is (above is the new page for local businesses).

Looking for a restaurant? Now you’ll be able to prominently view their location, hours of operation, and ratings, which is probably all you really need.

“This sort of thinking is very much optimized from a discovery point of view. People stumble upon pages through all sorts of ways…They haven’t heard of it before, they got there, they want to know what this is, and what they are about.” - Product design manager Jasper Hauser