This is one way to replicate the scroll magic from this annual report: http://prinzhorn.github.com/skrollr/. It's really user-friendly and uses keyframes for timed actions based on scroll position.
I've been waiting for this for a while. Although git is my preferred method of working, for people who aren't technical and who just can't do stuff from terminal, I think this is a great alternative.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if a tool like this exists on the imdb/rotten tomatoes side to see if a listing is available for Instant Viewing on Netflix?
There's definitely room in the market for several players (in terms of the whole crowd-design/manufacturing space), but I think that down the road, there will be one clear winner. At the end of the day, this industry is a network effects game. Inventors/sellers will always flock to the service with the largest user base to increase their chances of getting their ideas to market. Right now, I'd say the frontrunners are Kickstarter and Quirky, although I've personally seen inventors shy away from Kickstarter because of their increasingly stingy policies. Quirky probably has the most unique model by partnering with big box retailers and tapping into a much broader distribution bottleneck.
Very surprised that Elon Musk was runner-up for founder. The guy is tackling some of the toughest, most important problems in the world that most fear of even thinking about. Not to diminish Kevin Systrom's accomplishments, but I just think that the amount Musk has accomplished with his (three?) companies is tremendous.
Maybe it's just me, but the FB Graph Search intro video seemed to be more of an objective-based searching tool. I (probably stupidly) assumed it could serve as a sidekick to Google search. Forgot that the majority of Facebook users use the default search to find (stalk) other people, and this is just an engine to do it more efficiently. I'm starting to be a bit wary about the monetization potential of FB Graph Search.
Was expecting something about how tyrannical and ruthless an operator he was. Pleasantly surprised by this article (not at his devotion to product), but by the fact that he took his CEO hat off and participated in product as a team member whose ideas could be thrown away like everyone else's.
Trello is absolutely incredible (and they have a really receptive development team). I've used them for development, marketing, HR, etc and have yet to be disappointed. Mobile version is also kickass.
I think the press plays way too much of an emphasis on founders. The early team (first 5-10 members) form the basis of an organization, more so than just the founder. Obviously, the founder sets the tone for the company, but the first team members either affirm it or shift it.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but if you watch the video on the bottom part of the page with Zuck, one of them explicitly says how this product competes with Google. Something about how if two people search for Apple on Google, they'll get the same results, but if they search Apple on FB Graph Search, they'll get personalized results. It's really interesting from a technology perspective the way that search is becoming personalized, and we've definitely seen Google eyeballing search personalization, but it's been limited pretty much to geo and the limited info on G+. Facebook is uniquely positioned to use the volume of data on each person to provide more meaningful results.
From a revenue perspective, I think this is definitely competitive to Google. Not saying it will succeed, but businesses will definitely see value in advertising to hyper-specific segments and personal groups. It sounds strange to say, but I do think UI and speed will be key components of whether FB GS will do well. Search is a convenience market, and if FB GS isn't convenient, Google is always one click away.
I might be alone here, but I've found that it's much easier to put together a high-fidelity PSD that details every intricacy of a site or app before writing a line of code. So, I end up spending more time designing the app/site than actually coding (which I think is the way it should be). Nevertheless, this project is really cool; been playing around with it for half an hour already.
Thanks for the feedback. I've been hearing similar things of late: that early-on, Codecademy didn't really cut it but that now, they've really picked up their game.
Does anyone have any stories about learning with Codecademy? I have a few friends that are very interested in learning to program (mainly web dev stuff - HTML/CSS/JS) and are looking to use Codecademy. I personally learned in high school by ripping apart existing websites, inspecting tons of lines of code, and trying to make things happen in the browser, so I don't know if Codecademy is the right route. Thoughts? Does it help with fundamentals?
Mixpanel in general seems like a really cool company not only to do business with but to work for. I haven't gone into the meat of the product, but from the descriptions on the site and a couple of demos I've seen, it seems pretty powerful and well-designed. However, I have been told that it is a bit pricy in general. Does anyone have any insights on how Mixpanel fares against some others in this space (KISSMetrics, etc.)?
Apparently they aren't accepting any more new users. I have since moved on to Spotify for all my music needs, so I couldn't give you an updated take on AG. It's an interesting platform, but with stuff like Spotify (that quite literally gives you access to every single recorded song in the world), AG kind of loses relevance.
Audiogalaxy was one of my favorite ways to listen to music without physically storing it on my iPhone's hard drive (since I have something like 8,000 songs). The only disadvantage was that I had to keep my desktop on (and the Audiogalaxy helper on it on) so that streaming worked, but it was a great solution for a pretty big problem.
I'm very interested in what Dropbox is going to do with Audiogalaxy. Perhaps more of a dynamic cloud solution where content is not only stored but also interacted with? To be honest, I love the Dropbox interface, but I use G Drive because of the ability to edit documents on the fly instead of having to download them, edit them, and then overwrite/save. It would be awesome to see Dropbox incorporate client-side content editing capabilities, and I could definitely see Audiogalaxy helping with the music streaming aspect of it all.
The thing that I think is lost here is the core of Instagram. Systrom has stated repeatedly that the filters aren't the secret sauce of Instagram. It's the speed of upload, distribution model (able to send to several networks simultaneously), and user interface. I don't think simply adding filters is going to do much for Twitter. Think Facebook Camera (which I believe has filters as well). When you say filtered pictures, no one thinks of Facebook Camera, even though it has filters built in. Not really sure what Twitter's trying to accomplish with this one.
Another thing unsaid about the Lean Startup approach is that it seems to heavily favor software startups, almost to the point that it is more of a manual for a software/web startup than any other type of company. In creating a vertically-integrated retail brand, for example, there's very little margin for error and iteration bandwidth in the initial stages. You really need to do your homework, understand the market, and design a great product to truly make an impact. Scraping the surface with shabby clothes at high prices just to get a feel for the market, for example, doesn't work. In many industries, true product-market fit can only be proven at scale. Man-power tests don't always work in the early stages.