Dan Burcaw's Comments

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : Custom Business Applications for iPhone

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:16:00 +0000

Sounds great, see you there!

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : iPhone IS Entrepreneurship

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:51:18 +0000

Fantastic! :-)

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : Where's the iPhone Open Source?

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:52:55 +0000

No doubt about it. My point is that the sooner a lively open source community is built around iPhone the better for commercial and non-commercial interests. You're right, though. The App Store has overnight created an economy that everyone wants a piece of. It almost reminds me of the flyers on street corners: "Make $5000 per week from home!!!".

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : What Makes a Killer Workspace?

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 10:28:26 +0000

Fluffy chair? What do you have in mind? Good callout on adjustable height desk!

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : Clear Markerboards

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 10:27:27 +0000

I agree... a little expensive. Good call out on the plexiglass. Someone should repackage plexi in a "reconfigurable" way for this purpose.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : Brainpark To Solve Information Loss in the Workplace

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:14:20 +0000

You bet Mark. I look forward to it!

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : Open Source is like Coffee for Startups

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:40:32 +0000

Thanks Chris, will do. I strongly believe the story of Open Source is rich with lessons and learns that can be applied to the broader world of business.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : The Startup Process - Research & Competition

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:37:35 +0000

Thanks Ray!

Where the Rubber Meets the Road... : Tiny is a big deal!

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:58:14 +0000

Matt- this is great. Relay is exactly what I need. It looks slick while being relatively lightweight. Thank you!

VC Adventure : Know your audience

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:24:01 +0000

Maybe a by-product of the twitter world we live in? The perception of accessibility could confuse the dynamic and result in some of the characteristics you are describing. Hmm.

VC Adventure : Know what you don't know

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:31:12 +0000

Absolutely. They need to give users many ways to receive their results. RSS is great, but only one tool in the toolbox. For example, I might want to receive super important Filtr feeds via Instant Message if the results are needed in quick-reaction type setting.

FiltrBook might want to think about providing an open API architecture that allows developers to plugin a variety of different "delivery modes" such as they ones you and I have discussed.

VC Adventure : Know what you don't know

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:26:42 +0000

Seth, you are absolutely correct. Of course, tuning goes both ways. The user experience needs to encourage usage that prevents a lengthly (and burdensome to the user and thus active usage) trial-and-error cycle.

It might be interesting if they provided a way for users to (optionally) "seed" a URL or text clipping that is highly relevant to what results they hope to receive in an on-going fashion.

I love the idea of a world that downplays keywords. :-)
(one reason I hope PowerSet has moderate success)

A few suggestions, otherwise I think they really have something fantastic that I will no doubt be using (I hate search). Thanks!

VC Adventure : Know what you don't know

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:14:01 +0000

Oh, and by the way. How great would it be if they could deliver the morning briefing over Socialthing! or Twitter?

Of course, their pitch is all about "business intelligence" so they would have to interact with a social stream in a way that ensures the results are only shared with the intended audience.

VC Adventure : Know what you don't know

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:09:15 +0000

I like it. I have seen a need for something like this for a while. The ability to "tune" the results that arrive in your morning brief is great-- though I hope users don't have to go through too many iterations of "tuning" before they get the results they are really looking for.

VC Adventure : How I don't travel

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:45:48 +0000

have you ever tried sleeping on the tray table? It might just work. :-)

Feld Thoughts : Making Email Connections at an Early Age

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 13:56:22 +0000

It is all fun and games until emails from 16 years get published-- a fun email but a real reminder that email is permanent. :-)

Feld Thoughts : Glue Me Back Together

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:43:08 +0000

A major problem with the way things are heading is information overload. The same thing that has made search so awful (compared to the early days when there were relatively few sites to crawl).

The trouble is information overload causes fatigue. Fatigue limits participation. This screams for glue that gets ahead of the problem rather than amplifying it.

Feld Thoughts : I Need A News Feed For My News Feeds

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:57:33 +0000

"Anyone that has a meaningful volume of social network activity quickly learns how to turn these notifications off. This defeats part of the real time value of social networks"

So true. Any system that attempts to help this problem needs to allow for prioritization of specific feeds, but also an overall tolerance to volume.

For example, Fred's feed is really important, so let's make sure I always receive everything that is going on there (maybe at the detriment to some other feed I care less about).

Some days I am particularly busy, so I may not have as much tolerance for a high volume of traffic from any source (including Fred). The spigot is closed a bit, but Fred's traffic still has the highest priority of flow down the pipe.

VC Adventure : The bird is cold

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 09:08:46 +0000

It is clear that Yahoo has spent the bulk of their time on architecture and the developer kit. They have API kits for 5 languages and a decent amount of documentation/examples. Yet no apps. Strange.

I noticed that the API allows the user to control the "zoom level" of their location (e.g. city, neighborhood, etc). It will be interesting to see how different apps try to encourage higher precision-- which is almost always more valuable (and useful).