Pajama Entrepreneur

I’m a dinosaur: I still love print

Esme Vos — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:03:01 +0000

I will admit that I love the printed word. I buy books, love glossy magazines with beautiful photos, especially love books and mags with gorgeous paper. Although I am a gadget freak and cannot live with the Internet, I still love print. So I think I will subscribe to this new quarterly magazine called Dispatches which the Washington Post recently wrote about:

While newspapers and news magazines have been adopting ever-faster schedules to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle prompted by the always-on nature of the Internet, Dispatches is slowing down the breathless delivery of “what” and downplaying instant analysis.

“Rather than compete with existing newspeople, we just thought we would go deeper and, when possible, closer, and deal with not so much the what and who, but the why and what can be done,” said Rosenblum, a globetrotting former correspondent for the Associated Press and author of the book “Escaping Plato’s Cave: How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival.”

Rosenblum’s website (http://www.mortrosenblum.net) says cutbacks and deterioration in U.S. journalism brought on by ad sales declines and shareholder demands for constant profit leave readers without sources of analysis in times that are more dangerous and uncertain than ever.

A lot of blogs and news sites focus on quantity, not quality, because of their investors’ demand for pageviews. Who loses out? The reader, as usual. When publications become too focused on getting ads, they lose their appeal.

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What’s next in communications: Skype killer, cable goes into wireless and more

Esme Vos — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:32:52 +0000

Andy Abramson reviews the IP communications landscape and surveys the Skype killer rumors, WiMAX and cable companies’ foray into wireless. He says (in part):

So here’s the way I see it. For the most part, the cable guys in the WiMax venture have the most to win because with the mobile WiMax play it gets them into the mobile game with something new, presuming they open up their minds (and checkbooks) and look beyond the opportunity to only a mobile voice play.

Apple abandons iPhone exclusivity in Europe

Esme Vos — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:28:49 +0000

Apple will sell the iPhone through more than one mobile phone carrier in Italy and a number of other European countries. In the US, it sells the iPhone exclusively through AT&T, but in Europe, where iPhone sales have been disappointing, Apple has decided on a different strategy.

There are rumors of a soon to be released 3G iPhone as early as June 2008. Recent price drops (in Germany, Deutsche Telekom slashed the price of the iPhone from 399 EUR to 99 EUR), supply drying up in the UK, lead people to believe that Apple will make an announcement concerning the 3G iPhone soon.

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Employees want the company IT department to support Macs

Esme Vos — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:54:57 +0000

You’d think it was the end of the world. Today on CNBC, I listened to one of the most ridiculous exchanges about whether companies should get their IT departments to support iPhones and Mac laptops. What triggered this discussion is a Businessweek article (The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit) on how employees are demanding Macs. Goodness, what is this world coming to?

The moderator of the CNBC discussion asked why should your boss get you a Mac — so you can be “unproductive” since you’ll bring in your iPod and download music while working. This question is a common one among corporate Wall Street types. There’s still this assumption, especially in the business news area, that Macs are for fun and are not for business (productive) use. Haven’t these people seen the catastrophe that is Windows Vista?

That millions of people, including serious businesses like ad agencies and film companies, have managed to “get by” using Macs has completely passed them by. The iPhone is a wonderful device. It has an elegant interface and is easy to use. The people who use it know they are more productive with it it. Same with any of the Apple laptops. Why not ask the user why he or she likes it so much instead of making assumptions about their productivity/non-productivity? Apple puts so much effort into designing good interfaces and beautiful devices that make people fall in love with them — ask the users why.

I switched to the Mac around 2002 and never looked back. It’s not just how beautiful their devices are, it’s also the ease of use, the operating system, etc. They’re not perfect, for example, they need to fix the wireless networking problems in the Mac Book. But I’ll take beauty (Macbook Air) and a good interface design over the horrid Windows Vista and those hideous clunky Dell laptops.

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PJ Entrepreneur hiatus

Esme Vos — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:33:25 +0000

As you can see I have not been posting too much. It’s been a terribly busy month. I bought the Muniwireless website back from my business partners, so I am running it again. On top of that, I’m also running Mapplr (www.mapplr.com). Busy, busy. But I’ll be posting more soon.

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NYC schools won’t accept Macs until Apple fixes Wi-Fi problem

Esme Vos — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:33:29 +0000

The city of New York told Apple it won’t accept new Macs for its schools until the Wi-Fi problem is fixed. Not sure what the problem is exactly but many users have reported a lag time in logging onto a Wi-Fi network, slow connections on Wi-Fi versus on a wired connection.

Windows-free home office

Esme Vos — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:20:06 +0000

When I gave away my old Dell laptop yesterday, the last visible reminder of the Microsoft Windows operating departed from my life. The laptop had been gathering dust in my closet anyway since 2002 when I switched to the Mac. I still use Microsoft Office for occasional writing, spreadsheets and Powerpoint, but I’ve been mostly on Google’s online apps (docs, spreadsheets). I don’t plan to upgrade to Office for Mac’s latest version.

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UK to allow mobile phones on planes

Esme Vos — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:42:42 +0000

Better enjoy the last remnant of civility left on airlines (i.e. no mobile phones) because Ofcom, the UK regulator, has just said they’re fine with mobile calls on UK-registered aircraft.

Ultimate pajama entrepreneurs: how three Spanish bloggers created the most popular US pro basketball blog

Esme Vos — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:42:15 +0000

This is an amazing story of how three bloggers in Spain managed to create the most popular pro basketball site (Hoopshype) in the US. Never mind that one of them doesn’t even like the sport or that they’ve been blogging (and continue to blog) out of Madrid. Fantasy Sports Ventures bought Hoopshype from the founder, Jorge Sierra, for an amount in the low seven figures, according to the Wall Street Journal, and continues to blog with his colleagues.

I have also been running Muniwireless for several years out of Amsterdam and am often asked how I managed to become the authority on the US municipal wireless market. My answer: anyone can blog from anywhere and become an expert, if he or she is interested, writes well, has passion and . . . a good broadband connection. I can do my work from anywhere in the world as long as I have broadband. Indeed, if you make good money from ads on your site, why not live in a place that has good broadband but a lower cost of living? Why not Buenos Aires or Bangkok?

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Don’t try to fool Google

Esme Vos — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:20:12 +0000

Geosign, a startup that raked in $160M in VC funding, blew up one year later after its business model — gaming the Google search engine — was effectively shut down via a change in Google’s algorithm. Read more here.

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