DISQUS

Robert wrote, "We HAVE to get a clue about our new global world and what is coming at us. China is changing VERY quickly"

We've got plenty of examples already of Americans having the evidence right in front of their eyes and still not seeing how much the world is changing. I wrote about that, how Detroit has never had a Pearl Harbor-type moment where the change was so sudden it couldn't any longer be denied or ignored

http://allthings.blogsome.com/2008/11/14/still-...

But it's not just Detroit, changes are coming faster and faster from every direction, impacting every part of our country, yet so many Americans still don't seem to get it. It's both puzzling and frustrating.

Just like in World War II, I'm sure we could rise to the occasion and deal with the increasing levels of global competition, etc., if we put our minds to it, but there has to be the collective will to do that, to really try to compete and innovate.

I remember reading this back when Robert posted. I happened to run across his Twitter page tonight, a little over 4 months later, and if you check http://twitter.com/craignewmark, you'll see that he's now tweeted over 1,000 times!

As a big Twitter fan I got a kick out of that :)

Yeah, I keep thinking Apple's going to make a major acquisition, whether Adobe or someone else.

Wasn't Jobs just talking about their cash hoard ($18Bln) this week, too, and how they did NOT plan to distribute any of that via either dividends or buybacks?

Maybe Jobs figures the Nokia/Silverlight deal ought to make Adobe more willing to make a deal?

I wonder who else Apple might be looking at, too. It's sure looked lately like they could use a lot more programmers!

Could you give some examples? I'm thinking of one, if I'm understanding you correctly: invest in San Francisco retail, real estate, banking and so on rather than in gold panning itself (which mostly boomed just a few years).

Isn't that what Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker all did that gave them the $$$ to be able to then go into railroading?

It's amazing how much context you can gain from Twitter, following people/events/news stories/emerging technologies, etc., all over the world.

I'm sure we'll find many ways to make use of it.

Well, Amazon supposedly thinks long term, so maybe there'll be a Twig next year, then a Branch, and finally by the time they get to the Amazon Log they'll actually be saving a lot of trees :)

But seriously, I'm not sure geeks are the early adopters for a technology like this.

Back in 1984, Macs really were pretty simple to use, but ever since System 7 and the explosion of extensions, preferences, etc. it's been less and less true. Of course, Unix makes all that a lot better organized, but there's just so MUCH stuff it's amazing to me it works at all.

On the other hand, it's really aggravating when something was working fine, and then an "upgrade" breaks it. This still happens way too much. I never upgrade the OS right away, and never from Software Update.

The Mac has improved a lot in recent years, but I still have to spend quite a bit of time just fixing stuff, at least several hours a month - usually not at a convenient time - not counting backups and other basic maintenance.

Of course, a lot of that's not Apple's fault, but I hope they won't pat themselves on the back too much for making computers "easy to use", because there's still a long way to go.

Not sure what you like, but The Year of Living Dangerously is a great, intense Peter Weir film, one of his best.

John Johnson, the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines and other businesses, came from very humble beginnings and was quite aware of the need to keep a positive attitude in a startup.

Early on in his entrepreneurial life, he actually fired an employee after he remarked that he didn't think they would succeed

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_...

That may seem drastic, but as an entrepreneur I can understand why he did it. Once you set out to do something, you suddenly become much more aware of how severely negativity and risk aversion are holding others back.

Negativity is something that, as an entrepreneur, you must fight every day, both externally and internally. It's an enemy never to be taken lightly!

"Post a link on Twitter, Jaiku, or Pownce, then after indexing catches it, Google the name of company linked to and watch how high it appears in SERPs. Like #1 or #3 in many cases."

Yeah, I've noticed that. Sure hope that doesn't change for my Twitter link posts now that Google's picked Jaiku.

I've just spent a little time on Jaiku, but like Pownce it just lacks the simplicity of Twitter. I'm sure there's ways to make a more feature-rich service while retaining a simple interface, but they're not there yet.

If the interface isn't really simple, it won't be fast, which is essential to how I use Twitter. Of course, it's also easier to display the service on a basic phone, but I guess those are going away soon w/ iPhone, gPhone, and who knows what else!

Yeah, I think Twitter's starting to bounce back to the top of the heap after a lot of buzz about Pownce, in particular.

Twitter is still my favorite. It's so simple & fast.

"Disgruntled consumers are much louder than satisfied ones."

Yeah, that's one of the main reasons why "The customer is always right."

"I also have noticed the same problem with franchises, as with Panda, and this is a bit odd since franchises are actually independently owned."

That's a common problem, independent franchisees putting their own profits ahead of the overall brand/reputation of the parent company.