innovator

Microsoft on iTunes in 2003: 'We were smoked'

There has been a lot of commentary following last week's New York Times op-ed by Dick Brass, a former Microsoft executive who claims that the company is bogged down by process and infighting, and has hence lost its ability to innovate.

One of the most interesting follow-ups comes from Groklaw, which dug up some e-mails placed into the public record a few years ago during an antitrust case against Microsoft. (These materials have been a treasure trove of interesting and sometimes-embarrassing internal communications, including then-Windows chief Jim Allchin's 2004 admission that he would have bought a Mac over … Read more

The application is the new the operating system

If you're a Google Nexus One user, you experienced a bit of magic last week.

In one click of an over-the-air update, your Nexus One became an iPhone--offering the ability to pinch and expand the screen to zoom in or out.

Just one click, with little to no user intervention. That's what operating systems look like in the 21st century, a future more clearly playing out in mobile than in the more traditional realms of personal computers and servers.

Apple is leading the way on this, but application developers have been quick to pick up on the trend.… Read more

The hardware hogs all the glory

Humans really are like magpies; we love shiny things. The iPad shows yet again how easily we are attracted to hardware baubles, even if it's actually the more abstract ecosystem of services, content, and software surrounding the hardware that makes the physical product truly worthwhile.

I find this a fascinating phenomenon, and it's something I talk about in the chapter on Convergence in my book, as it's a critical thing to understand if you are in the business of creating ecosystems that combine hardware, software, and service elements. I've seen it happen time and again where … Read more

Wozniak on the importance of piquing kids' interests

Apple founder and tech pioneer Steve Wozniak participated Monday in a San Francisco-based lecture series, The Discovery Forum, which serves to increase awareness about the importance of childhood creativity, and raises support for the Bay Area Discovery Museum's educational exhibitions and programs.

Wozniak, in conversation with TV anchor Dana King, discussed some of the projects he played around with as a child such as wiring circuits and building ham radios. He said he never thought his interest in electronics would lead to a career--his interest was the result of personal curiosity. (He also went off topic for awhile on his Prius problems.) … Read more

Social media and sports: Sony Ericsson's Twittercup

Here's an example of a traditional marketer proving with a smart Twitter campaign that social media and sports are a natural fit. Sony Ericsson, one of the long-term sponsors of the World Cup, has turned to Twitter to engage fans months before the World Cup begins. The Twittercup collects and counts fan tweets, creating a competition among attending nations. Since its launch in early December, it has received more than 43,000 tweets.

Apple is the zeitgeist company

The launch of the iPad yesterday put an exclamation mark on an increasingly obvious point: Apple is the company that has captured the cultural zeitgeist. The massive hype leading up to the event--apparently achieved in a groundswell with very little effort on Apple's part--shows that it really is the "It" company right now.

Not so long ago, Google claimed that position. The amount of press ink (literal or virtual) that Google has been able to create every single day for the last decade is just astonishing--it is not uncommon to see two or three articles on the … Read more

Ex-Googler Lee sees Apple tablet debut in January

Sure, every blogger worth his salt has weighed in on the long-rumored Apple tablet that may or may not be--its possible size, shape, specs, debut date, and on and on. Now offering up a perspective on the matter is a high-profile tech industry executive, Kai-fu Lee, who until recently was the head of Google's China operations.

It seems that Lee, who's now working to foster entrepreneurship in China, wrote on his Chinese language blog earlier this week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be releasing a tablet PC in January, and expects to produce a voluminous 10 million … Read more

Time for marketing innovation 2.0

For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi has decided to not run any advertisements during the Super Bowl. Instead, the nation’s second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its "Pepsi Refresh Project," an online community that lets Pepsi fans list their public service projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read. Visitors to the site can vote to determine which projects receive money. The program will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities. Last year, Pepsi spent $33 million advertising products such as Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos during the Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it was on Pepsi alone. Ad time last year for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average. Pepsi spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said Super Bowl ads don't work with the company's goals next year: "In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement." Pepsi's remarkable decision epitomizes the new paradigms of marketing: Online instead of TV; many-too-many instead of one-too-many; engagement instead of advertising; sharing instead of broadcasting; movements instead of events; communities instead of campaigns.… Read more

Flexing the boundaries of flash memory

The University of Tokyo recently announced the development of "organic flash memory," a nonvolatile memory that has the same basic structure as a flash memory and is made with organic materials.

Flash memory is a compact form of storage that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. To date, it's been primarily used in memory cards and USB flash drives, but during the past two years it has made its way to notebook SSD hard drives.

The memory developed at the University of Tokyo is physically flexible and can be used for large-area sensors, electronic paper and other … Read more