Archives for March 2008

Is Facebook Really Efficient?

March 20, 2008 1 Comment

In my morning reading I came across the BusinessWeek article Facebook CEO Admits Missteps. I found one specific statement in this article a bit contradictory (in my mind):

“We are trying to help people communicate really efficiently, and we are going to allow developers to build some of them inside Facebook.”

I find thiscontradictory because the Facebook interface is the last thing I would think of as efficient. Maybe it’s just me, but since the first time I logged onto Facebook, I had a hard time trying to figure out how to use it. And when I started looking into developing a Facebook application I ran into the same issue. For a company that is trying to enable “efficient communication”, they should look at making their application interface more efficient and user friendly.

Am I along in this thinking? Does anyone else think that the interface to Facebook is hard to use. When I compare it next to LinkedIn, I find it very hard to use.

Maybe that’s part of the problem, what I use as my reference point. LinkedIn has a very clear purpose and (in comparison to Facebook) is very narrow in focus. When you’re trying to be everything for everyone, it’s hard to keep the usability.

Apple’s New Corporate Push

March 6, 2008 Leave a Comment

In my morning reading this morning, the headline Apple Goes Corporate from a BusinessWeek article caught my eye. I felt for a while that the pre-announced iPhone SDK was a lucrative opportunity for some enterprising developers to port or build a VPN client for the iPhone. This would be the missing link that would allow corporate users to move to the iPhone as they would at least be able to get their email on the device, even it if wasn’t in as seemless way as a BlackBerry provides. There would be a large number of new iPhone under just such a scenario.

But from this article, it looks like Apple is planning on doing a much more frontal approach to developing specifically for the Corporate market. What I don’t understand is…What Took So Long?

Did it take a 35% stock price drop to budge the stubbornness out of Apple with regards to the corporate customers? Or is now finally the right time after having enought Macs sneak their way in the back door of many companies over the self-serving concerns of the IT department? I made a switch almost 6 months ago back to the Mac and I would need to be hard pressed to move back to a PC again at this point. And every day I visit more companies where I am spotting the renegade Apple users.

Now, the interesting thing will be to see if this is just a marketing push to increase the stock price or if there will be a serious drive to move Apple into the corporate world. I wouldn’t expect a full frontal attack on all fronts, but using the iPhone as the wedge to open the crack in the corporate customer is a great strategy.

(Photo by Shapeshift)

Of Guard Dogs and Wall Street Bankers

March 5, 2008 Leave a Comment

It’s not often that I’ll break out into a full fledge guffaw while reading the Wall Street Journal, so when it happens it’s understandable that my wife gets a little concerned. This morning, while reading the page one Marketplace article How Kerkorian Won Wynn’s Mirage (WSJ.com login required), this is exactly what happened.

The article is an excerpt from the new book Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas (whew, what a title!). As I was reading this article, the following quote is what made me break in laughter:

Mr. Wynn’s ranting excited his precision-trained guard dogs. Perceiving a threat to their master, the German shepherds commenced to case the room for danger. One dog shoved his nose into Mr. Fusco’s [a Goldman Sachs banker] crotch in an attack position. The dog stayed that way, staring at the investment banker, for the full length of Wynn’s tirade. “I was petrified,” Fusco recalls. “I’m thinking, ‘This job isn’t worth this.’ “

The vision of a high power wall street banker making a “sales call” on a prospective new client and finding himself petrified with an attack dog staring at him hungrily is delicious! Oh the pain of landing a $15M new client…