Jason Calicanis: You Are Your Own Media Company | Generation Like | FRONTLINE | PBS

by dldamore

Jason Calicanis: You Are Your Own Media Company | Generation Like | FRONTLINE | PBS:

“Amazon’s video production is unstoppable when you think about it. I mean, they’re going to be able to look at all these e-books created by individuals — and so some 15-, 16-, 17-year-old writes an e-book about zombies, and then another 20-year-old writes one, and then they look and see, well, what page did people give up reading the book. This one had a cutoff rate of page 15 on average, but this one people read to page 50 on average. Let’s option that one and make that into a TV series. That’s the power of data.”

*The Power of Data.

Pandora Thinks It Knows if You Are a Republican – WSJ.com

by dldamore

Pandora Thinks It Knows if You Are a Republican – WSJ.com:

“The company matches election results with subscribers’ musical preferences by ZIP Code. Then, it labels individual users based on their musical tastes and whether those artists are more frequently listened to in Democratic or Republican areas.”

*The next election cycle has already started. Message targeting for votes. Could be used to suppress votes, via negative messaging, for competing candidates too.

iBeacon – Shopping Technology

by dldamore

iBeacon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“iBeacons could send you notifications of items around you that are on sale or items you may be looking for”

*It will be interesting to see if supermarkets integrate this with your shopping list, created in app or on the web, tied to your phone to enable complete purchases of intended purchases. Where would receipes and recipe apps play in to this? There are some items and ingredients that shoppers would have a hard time finding. Integration of data on item location and items for intended purchase could make shopping easier and better for both buyer and seller. 

For the seller:

  • All intended purchases for a shopping trip bought. 
  • More satisfied customers as they get their shopping done faster
  • …

For the buyer:

  • Reduced or eliminated frustration finding an item.
  • The app will ensure you find it as it is integrated with store plan-o-grams for the store you are in. 
  • Less time going to a second or third store or returning to get a forgotten or missed item.
  • …

*There could be big changes to in-store retailing in the next five years.

A VC: Investing In Startups In Europe

by dldamore

A VC: Investing In Startups In Europe:

“… european entrepreneurs have fully made the change from locally focused to globally focused and are mostly now building businesses that can and do serve a global user base from day one.”

 

*Talent and opportunity is global in the Information Age. Leave off the word european and it still has essentially the same meaning for what the opportunity is in the current environment.

*I am not sure what to call the period of time we are in. Information Age seems appropriate to me at the moment. Computer Age and Digital Age also make sense.

Feature Request *What Would Make RunKeeper More Valuable?

by dldamore

Dear RunKeeper,

I’ve been thinking of how to get a little more value out of RunKeeper. I was thinking it would be cool to have a way to add a pair of shoes as equipment. It’s my understanding that shoes wear out after so many miles. Perhaps even weather conditions play a part too.

Here’s the idea…

Add Shoes

Estimated Distance on Shoes to start? (usually this will be zero.)

Then as people do their runs RunKeeper can keep track of miles, similar to how an odometer keeps a log of miles on automobiles. If weather is a factor in shoe longevity perhaps RunKeeper can use location data that the user has alloweed RunKeeper to collect to get local weather data. Is it cold? How cold? Is it raining? … Those are some factors that may impact suggested length of service for shoes when running. There might also be some cool graphs that could include shoe data as well.

Shoes in good condition prevent injuries.

Spending money at the right time feels good. My shoes are worn out, it’s time to replace them.

RunKeeper can ask the user if they want to participate in a referral purchase program. Some people buy replacement shoes online and some buy them at a local shop.

One more thing. Please consider allowing people to include shoe purchase data as a part of a shoe history locker. Brand, Model Number, Size, Price and Vendor/Store.

Best,

DLD