Month: June 2003

If you have perused my blog, you probably get the sense that I am the type of person who will try just about any software application if it is easy to use and useful. Well, that is in fact the case. I have been playing with a lot of new tools designed to help end users keep their contact databases up-to-date or to get more value from the contacts that they or their colleagues have. I definitely believe that these tools are the future of contact management, but my early experience with these tools has unearthened some interested information about the value that others see in these products.

Read More “You’ve Got Contacts — The Future of Contact Management Software”

When I first saw and played with a “keychain storage” dongle, I was convinced that this was the next big thing in portable data storage. There was a big article on ZDNet
painting a rosy picture for these devices. Based on what I have seen, these devices have not yet set the world on fire in the way that I and others had predicted. What went wrong?

Read More “Whatever Happened to the USB Keychain Drive?”

Between my recent joy in playing with the MSN Messenger 6.0 Beta and a recent Byte and Swtich article on IM archiving I have one question — wasn’t corporate IM supposed to be here by now?

Read More “Wasn’t Corporate IM Supposed to be Here by Now?”

The New York Times recently had an interesting article, “Nokia’s Brand Best Feature to Beat Rivals”, about how Nokia’s leadership position in the handset market might be more a function of branding than of feature leadership. Are they on to something here?

Read More “Nokia: The Power of the Brand”

Every now and then I try to step back from position as a technophile and dissect an area where I feel particularly passionate. I am certainly hoping that wireless home networking comes to pass in the very near future, but I can construct a case in my head as to 1) why it doesn’t happen at all or 2) why it doesn’t happen as quickly as I would like.

Read More “What if Wireless Home Networking Doesn’t Happen?”

I was reading an interesting article at the New York Times (The Corporate Blog Is Catching On) about CEOs and corporate executives who blog. I have had a few readers ask me how I determine what is or is not appropriate to write in my blog as a venture capitalist. Here is a quick-and-dirty list of what I think are best practices and a few thoughts on how these rules will evolve.

Read More “The Corporate Blog is Catching On”

A colleague of mine, Mike Mettler, pointed me to a very neat tool called NewsGator. NewsGator allows you to subscribe to any RSS-enabled blog or newsfeed service and have the content delivered directly to you in your Outlook inbox. In addition, NewsGator allows you to publish to popular blog formats including MT, Blogger, and Radio. As blogs continue to move into user communities that are less technically proficient, tools like this will become increasingly important.

Read More “NewsGator — A Great Tool for Blog Enthusiasts”

My local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, recently posted an article about the
Apple iTunes initiative and its early success at generating interest in paid legal music downloads. I am more surprised by the amount of press given to these initiatives than I am by the success that paid music offerings are having.

Read More “Why the Success of Apple iTunes Confirms what we Already Knew”

Network World published a very interesting article on the behind-the-scenes IT magic that drives JetBlue’s infrastructure. Besides some of the nuts-and-bolts decisions that the company made, this article is a lesson on how you can really use IT to change the cost dynamics of a marketplace.

Read More “The JetBlue Advantage”

I was reading an article earlier today about how retailing giant Wal-Mart plans to mandate that its partner network adopt and deploy RFID tags by 2005. Is the technology ready for prime time?

Read More “RFID for All?”