Surprise, We Have No Time

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.

There’s Hope for Yahoo!

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.

Modern Products In Vintage Clothing

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.

iPhone 3G Will Kill Palm

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 Downtime Artwork

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.