Imagine a Musical Interface, Mirror it on Your iPad: Max + Mira Start with any creation, and touch it right away from the iPad, with Max (or Max for Live). Photo courtesy Cycling ’74. I heard David Zicarelli once describe Max as a blank sheet of paper – a canvas on which you can imagine any musical creation. Until now, though, there’s been no way to touch those creations directly – other than with a mouse. Mira is a lovely solution to that idea. The app works with Max for Live, too. For those of us who have spent ages testing patches clumsily with the mouse, the potential is simply lovely. Mira costs US$49.99, so priced at the same rate as Lemur. The iPad serves as a remote control for Max patches, supporting a range of UI objects – including new ones created for touch and motion. The iPad and desktop sync wirelessly. I’m going to begin to sound like a broken record, but I do think another essential solution will be for desktop software to support touch. But make no mistake: this looks like a very nice way to work.
Six Lessons That Might Have Saved Our Business Had We Learned Them Earlier Six Lessons That Might Have Saved Our Business Had We Learned Them Earlier I don’t care what anyone says. Failing sucks - especially when it comes to your startup. It’s like being kicked hard in the shins right after being dumped, all while standing in the pouring rain with no cabs in sight, only to have a huge truck drive by and splash mud all over you. Photo by rawlands It’s only when you’ve hit rock bottom that you can start getting back up though, right? Today we announced that we’re shutting down our startup, Path.To , which you can read all about here . This post, however, isn’t so much about that announcement. Here are the top six things we’ve learned during our time growing Path.To: 1) Don’t wait to solidify your monetization strategy. “A ‘build it and they will come’ mentality has taken over the startup space. We started out with the strong belief that if we could build up a large, impressive user base, that the customers would follow. 2) Technology alone isn’t the solution.
Do You Know the Difference Between a Copywriter and a Copyright? Do You Know the Difference Between a Copywriter and a Copyright?What You Don’t Know Could Be Costing You Money All leading companies and brands use professional copywriters to make everything from their pay-per-click ads to their web pages, flyers, newsletters, and brochures. A Copywriter is a sales professional who is skilled at crafting copy that inspires the reader to take action, whether it’s a request for more information or to make a purchase. Smart company’s hire professional copywriters not because the CEO doesn’t have time to write the company blog (which she doesn’t), but because they understand that copywriting is a valuable selling and branding tool, vital to the well-being of their company. A Copyright is what you do once your branded content has been created. Copy Sells 24/7 Most new business owners regard copywriting as a nuisance, something that they have to do themselves until they can hire an assistant to do it for them. Copywriting is both a craft and a science.
Tell It, Don't Sell It: Startup Storytelling It’s not HTML5, iOS development or CSS3. (Although, those are valuable skills). No, this is a skill that we are all born with, and something as old as time. Many of us use it, but few of us master it. I’m talking about storytelling. In an era where consumers are bombarded with unfathomable amounts of irrelevant information, success in business will be had by those who can master the art of the captivating story. Your Customers Can’t Hear You (So You’re Losing Money) Today, roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes of data will be created around the globe. And guess what? In the information age, your ability to edge out your competitors and claim market share will be based on your ability to tell convincing, captivating stories. Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today – Robert McKee Even Apple had to learn the hard way about the importance of a good story. Stop Alienating Your Customers Would you trust someone who just talked at you all the time without listening? 1. 2. 3.
How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year Nivi · February 24th, 2009 “Lean startups are built from the ground up for learning about customers.” – Eric Ries I recently sat in on Eric Ries’ presentation on lean startups at Berkeley. Audio: The Lean Startup (mp3) Slides: The Lean Startup (pdf) The audience consisted of students from Steve Blank’s course on customer development. Built to learn Many founders believe that early stage startups are endeavors of execution. Eric takes a different approach. IMVU learned its way to product/market fit. Learning to learn This is the scientific way of building startups. IMVU learned to learn. Update: Eric writes a follow-up to this post on his blog. Topics Case Studies · Customer Development · Lean · Presentations The 6 Most Important Mobile App Marketing Lessons This guest post is by one of Clarity’s top experts, Sylvain Gauchet. When it comes to marketing your mobile application he has helped startups all over the world and has quite a bit of experience to show for it, including: Being an all-knowing jedi master of App Store Optimization (ASO)Co-Founding Apptamin who’ve helped hundreds of developers market their appsCreated app videos for a range of big ticket startups like Booking.com, Chupa Mobile, Twitchat and many more The idea of “build it and they will come” just doesn’t work, even in a crowded market. We see app developers still releasing apps without any (or not enough) feedback from customers or any real app marketing strategy. It doesn’t have to be that way though. 1. Considering the amount of time and/or money you’re going to put into building your app, you want to make sure there’s a demand for it. You want to fill a gap, and a big one if possible. Start by doing some market research and it doesn’t need to be convoluted. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Focus or Die: 3 Ways Focus Will Get You To 1M Users Today’s featured guest post is by Seth Berman. In this post he writes about how to focus on acquiring your first 100 customers so you can be en-route to 1M+ users. Seth has done it before, growing BabyCenter to over millions of users around the world. Here are some other accomplishments that make Seth pretty great: Director of Global Marketing at BabyCenter, the #1 mobile and web pregnancy and parenting destination worldwide, with a monthly audience of 34 million users.At BabyCenter, Seth is accountable for user growth, email marketing with 1.5 billion opt-in emails annually, product marketing, app store optimization for mobile apps that have been downloaded 9 million times, and SEO for a site that dominates in the pregnancy and parenting industry.Seth is a mentor at 500 Startups. After helping dozens of early stage startups with business strategy and marketing, I’m repeatedly amazed with how complicated the founders and early employees can make things for themselves. 1. 2. 3.
Web Startups La brevetabilité des logiciels, innovation informatique protection logiciel licence La brevetabilité des logiciels Présentation La propriété intellectuelle est un pilier fondamental de l’innovation technologique ; l’innovation n’a plus lieu simplement dans les secteurs traditionnels, comme l’automobile ou la chimie… mais dans l’industrie informatique. Il est naturel que la propriété industrielle continue à remplir sa mission séculaire et protège pleinement les inventions techniques de l’industrie informatique. Les logiciels peuvent être protégés par le droit et par un brevet. Le champ d’application du logiciel n’est plus limité au secteur de la bureautique et de l’industrie. La CNCPI souligne que la protection par brevet des inventions mises en oeuvre par ordinateur est d’autant plus économiquement justifiée que l’ingénierie en matière de logiciels supporte, au même titre que les technologies plus traditionnelle, des coûts de recherche et développement importants. Questions-réponses Comment définir à la brevetabilité des logiciels ? Liens utiles