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Camels and Rubber Duckies

Camels and Rubber Duckies
by Joel Spolsky Wednesday, December 15, 2004 You've just released your latest photo-organizing software. Through some mechanism which will be left as an exercise to the reader, you've managed to actually let people know about it. Maybe you have a popular blog or something. Maybe Walt Mossberg wrote a rave review in the Wall Street Journal. One of the biggest questions you're going to be asking now is, "How much should I charge for my software?" So if you like cotton uniforms you better get this right. The answer is really complicated. Now. Some Economic Theory Imagine, for the moment, that your software costs $199. Let me plot that: This little chart I made means that if you charge $199, 250 people will buy your software. What would happen if you raised the price to $249? Some of the people who might have been willing to pay $199 are going to think $249 is too much, so they'll drop out. Obviously, people who wouldn't even buy it for $199 are certainly not going to buy it at the higher price.

Strategy Letter V by Joel Spolsky Wednesday, June 12, 2002 When I was in college I took two intro economics courses: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macro was full of theories like "low unemployment causes inflation" that never quite stood up to reality. But the micro stuff was both cool and useful. In today's episode, I'll show how one of those concepts explains a lot about some familiar computer companies. Every product in the marketplace has substitutes and complements. A complement is a product that you usually buy together with another product. All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its complements decrease. Let me repeat that because you might have dozed off, and it's important. At this point, it's pretty common for people to try to confuse things by saying, "aha! Secondly, by using the free-as-in-beer argument, these advocates try to believe that they are not subject to the rules of economics because they've got a nice zero they can multiply everything by. Next:

Business Model Canvas Optimized for Lean Startup | Lean Canvas Joel on Software - Совет студентам изучающим вычислительную технику Автор: Джоэл Сполски Переводчик: Анар Мустафаев 2 января 2005 Несмотря на тот факт, что еще год или два назад я рыдал о том, что классические Windows программы сделали ручкой будущему, однако время от времени студенты шлют мне email с просьбой дать совет о том, как строить карьеру. A ведь сейчас сезон приема на работу, поэтому я подробно изложу свои стандартные рекомендации, которые они смогут прочесть, посмеяться и выбросить. К счастью, большинство студентов достаточно смелы, чтобы никогда не стесняться спрашивать советов у старших, что в области вычислительной техники (Computer Science) весьма уместно, потому что старшие склонны говорить устаревшие глупости, подобные этим: “спрос на операторов превысит 100 000 000 к 2010 году” или “lisp программисты сейчас очень востребованы”. Я тоже понятия не имею о чем говорю, когда даю советы студентам. Я так безнадежно отстал, что не могу постичь AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) и продолжаю использовать (о ужас!) И все таки. Так, о чем я говорил? 1. 2.

The Exact Match Domain Playbook: A Guide and Best Practices for EMDs Exact match domains have always been the source of a lot of contention among SEOs. For quite some time, EMD’s have offered a competitive advantage for SEO’s who understood how to use them. In the early days of search when relevance algorithms were rather weak, many folks used “double dashed” domains because they were cheap to buy, and easy to rank. $6 to rank for a 3 word phrase. Sold. However, when you see best-online-seo-company.biz in your search result, you start to question the weighting of relevance factors. Despite the debate and obvious abuse, EMD’s represent what SEO’s do best – Seize Every Opportunity! I’ve always been a pretty big fan of EMD’s, and I agree with Elliot Silver that EMD domains can be brands. Matt Cutts (esteemed Google engineer) has made this comment in the past (about 2 years ago): "We have looked at the rankings and weights that we give to keyword domains and some people have complained that we’re giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains.

Взлёт и падение. Рынок ценой в $50 миллионов в месяц / Apple Удивительно, но совершенно незамеченными остались взлёт и падение рынка с оборотом в $50,000,000 в месяц. Рынка стимулированных установок для iOS. В последние месяцы в американском топе бесплатных приложений для iOS стал привычным маркетинговый беспредел. Компании соревнуются методами раскрутки и бюджетами для того, чтобы подняться повыше в рейтингах, попасть на глаза миллионам пользователей, ежедневно просматривающим AppStore, и получить свою порцию “человекопотока”. Система попадания в рейтинг очень проста1. Определенное время рейтинг в AppStore строился на количестве установок того или иного приложения, а значит, в топе был тот, кто смог проплатить наибольшее число установок, используя медийный ресурс или, что чаще, рекламные сети. О рекламных сетях и о занятной ситуации на этом рынке пойдёт речь далее. Рекламные сети, такие как ТапДжой, Фларри, w3i, и около десятка других сетей в последние три месяца растут как грибы. Небольшой экскурс в историю: Гроза Сноски 1) Весна 2010 — Весна 2011.

Gauges Рассказы о чудесах yury_lifshits: Темы проектов по анализу социальных сигналов Переключаясь на совсем другой проект, я соствил список исследовательских и бизнес-проектов по мотивам своего исследования Фейсбук лайков. Собственно, список. Количество лайков и ретвитов - это очень сильный сигнал обратной связи для индустрии контента и, отчасти, электронной коммерции. Есть огромная потребность рынка в анализе этих данных. Когда я опубликовал свое исследование, мне написали из BBC, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Guardian, и десятков других сайтов. Пожалуйста, расскажите об этом посте знакомым преподавателям и студентам, занимающимся data mining.

Business group chat, file sharing, group decision making: Campfire Current Campfire customers can sign in here. Hello, We launched Campfire back in 2006 so teams could easily collaborate online in real-time. Since then, over 1,000,000,000 (yes, billion) messages have been sent with Campfire. However, since we merged Campfire into Basecamp with the launch of Basecamp 3, we haven’t given the standalone version of Campfire much attention. Existing customers will be able to continue using Campfire as they always have. For those new customers who are interested in Campfire, we highly recommend checking out Basecamp 3. Onwards, Jason Fried, Founder & CEO, Basecamp

The Life Cycle of a Technology (by Donald Norman) Donald A. Norman © 1998 Donald A. Norman, All rights reserved. As I wrote " The Invisible Computer ," I was struck by a paradox. So why is it that good products can fail and inferior products can succeed? The story is complex: it takes a book to explain. One: A successful product must be balanced: marketing, technology, and user experience all play critical roles, but one cannot dominate the others. Two: There is a big difference between infrastructure products, which I call non-substitutable goods, and traditional products, substitutable goods. Three: Different factors are important at different stages in the development of a technology. The computer industry is now mature. To read more about this, see my book, or at least see Chapter 2, which you can get from the MIT Press website: Chapter 2 -- Growing Up: Moving from Technology-Centered to Human-Centered Products . My argument is buttressed by the following books, books that I recommend most highly. Diffusion of Innovation

The Presbyterian Polis - Connecting Churches to Churches : Innovation and the Technology Adoption Life Cycle - Innovative Business Ideas for Churches

Very entertaining & pedagogic post by PED Sep 21

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