ethomaz

The last few weeks have been busy, but Slife 2.0 is now done. It feels great to push a new software release out of the door. The part I like the most is the interaction with users who are checking the app for the first time. Lots of great ideas and feedback.

A big part of this new release was the introduction of Slife Teams, which I like to describe as Slife for teams and businesses. It’s still in beta and requires an invitation to use, but it will be available more widely very soon.

On the heels of two recent stories about personal productivity and information overload in the NYTimes and Huffington Post, I wrote a short post in the Slife Labs blog with a brief analysis of the problem.

You might want to check it out.

It was more than 4 months ago when Microsoft’s plan of acquiring Yahoo! became public. At the time, my prediction was that Yahoo! was going to be acquired, even though I personally didn’t like that outcome.

Well, after months of much tribulation, it looks like Yahoo! will remain independent after all. Both companies reported this week that any merger talks are now over.

Somewhat similar to Apple in the late 90’s, Yahoo! now finds itself in a tough spot. It’s hemorrhaging talent and handing a lot of its search ad inventory to Google, its main rival not too long ago. Many shareholder constituencies are suing the company and plenty of analysts believe the company is doomed.

Despite the bleak outlook, I still think Yahoo! will get back on its feet. But not before a major shake-up in its ranks and a new, strong and visionary leader comes in.

It’s way too early to declare Yahoo! a loser. It took a major fall, but if it comes back and becomes, say the top provider for location-based services, it’s back in the game.

Yahoo! is a very powerful online brand and a bazillion people visit the site every day. It won’t be a threat to Google for a long time, if ever, but it can still be a very progressive and successful new media company. In fact, Yahoo! has always positioned itself more as a media company anyway under the direction of its previous CEO.

Some agree that Yahoo! will regain its footing. Others disagree.

What happens when you create ads for today’s consumer products with the design aesthestics of many decades ago?

“In this contest your challenge is to take modern products and display them in a vintage light, through advertisements. You can also reverse the challenge and take vintage products and display them in a modern way.”

You can check the excellent entries here.

For the last two years, I’ve been tied to a 2-year contract with Verizon. I’ve got a Razr, which might have been a premium phone in the past, but leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion. The software is horrible, the phone is completely locked up, Bluetooth is severely crippled. The list goes on and on.

So, next July 13th, when my contract expires, I am going to walk into an Apple store and get myself a new iPhone. I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while now, and the price drop makes it so much easier to take the plunge (even though the voice+data plan will be “considerably” more than what we pay now). In fact, we will probably get two phones, one for me and one for Andrea.

$199 is a really good deal for this phone. It’s now competitively priced with the Blackberry and offers the functionalities that smart phone users demand (Exchange compatibility among other things). On top of that, you have the great Apple design, hardware, media ecosystem and an incoming onslaught of third-party applications. It’s definitely a good package.

If I were Nokia and RIM, I would be getting seriously fidgety by now. This is a tough game to play and my guess is that the first casualty in the smart phone wars will be Palm. They’ve been struggling for a while. What about Windows Mobile? They will probably stick around longer since they are subsidized by Microsoft’s other money making machines. Apple’s been making the right moves and their media exposure (ads, iPod momentum) sort of eclipses the competition.

Twitter is down a lot, as anyone who tried to use the service knows well. But at least they have the coolest artwork to show in their 404 pages, especially designed to match their UI and theme.

This is what I saw last week when Twitter was busy and couldn’t handle any more connections.

I’ve been meaning to write about Bug Labs for sometime but never got around to doing it. This will be a good post to end my month-long hiatus from blogging.

Bug Labs is developing a programmable platform with hardware modules such as GPS, camera, LCD display and more. The cool thing about these modules is that you can put them together and build anything that you want with them.

Want a home security system? No problem, just plug the motion sensor into the Bug Base, write some code and you are up and running.

Think of BUG modules as programmable LEGO blocks with really special functionalities that you can tap to build your very own product. Here’s a short video from CES 2008, where these guys also got a show award.

It’s great to see something like this out in the world. The open source/community hardware idea is a good one and I hope they do well. The only wrinkle I see has to do with their limited market - geeks, techies and makers. But they must have done their homework and understood that the market was good enough for them.

More videos on the site.

April 30th 2008 will be a day to remember for Brazilian economists and investors. Standard & Poor upgraded Brazil to “Investment-Grade” status. What this means, in a few words, is that the Brazilian economy has become stable enough to be deemed investment-safe.

This is excellent news, since the upgrade will make it possible for many more international investors, such as pension plans, to get into the Brazilian stock market.

More details about all this can be found in this story over at BusinessWeek. It’s a great report on the state of the Brazilian economy and the role of government in keeping things under control.

This analysis of AOL’s financial numbers got me thinking about advertising and online advertising networks. There was a time when top technology companies had to succeed by building products that people wanted to buy. Today, many of them are running after ad dollars.

What’s wrong with this? Nothing, but here’s a point. Ads, lets remember, is only a good thing for advertisers and publishers. Users don’t like ads. In fact, it’s fair to say that other than during the Super Bowl and other exceptional circumstances, most people hate ads and avoid them at all costs. Ads don’t lead to customer loyalty and don’t get people to line up for hours to buy a hot new product.

Let’s look at AOL. Ten years ago, AOL’s revenue was coming from people paying for access to its network. Today, AOL hopes to become a leading ad network and fatten its bank account with ad money. Back in the day, people were paying for an AOL product that they themselves used. Today, AOL’s success is highly dependent on the health of an industry it doesn’t have much control over.

I have a feeling that a lot of companies like AOL are really going to feel the pinch once the current wave of excitement around online advertising dissipates. Unless you can translate ad money into something that people can use and derive value from, you are toast. Google is what it is because it managed to navigate these rough waters very successfully. I would not bet my lunch that AOL can succeed at this game.

Call it a spoof or a video to energize the troops. No matter how you describe or justify this Microsoft video, it’s pretty ridiculous. Take a look:

Reading comments about this video over at TechCrunch, which uncovered this jewel, was quite amusing. Someone is even reconsidering a full-time job offer at Microsoft after watching this. I don’t blame him. Yahoo! employees must be scared after watching this too.