DISQUS

Robert ... best wishes in whatever comes next. Keep smiling!

I think we will see the upturn first in startups/ tech sector but its too early ... lots of worse news to absorb over next 6 months first.

This is a timely post for me. I am probably in the early adopter category - used twitter in Apr 2007. I watched FF at launch and left, came back, left etc. interestingly my initial reaction to gmail was similar. Took me till late 2004 before I "got it". Today I am devoted to Apps Premium, Docs etc, on web and mobile, and cannot imagine what would make me shift.

Bottom line - i totally agree that it takes time to be an overnight success so stick at it.

PS ... I moved to FF full time over the holidays, and interestingly it was Tweetdeck that did it for me. When I realised I could use lists and rooms in FF to manage my streams of data on my terms, I finally "got" Friendfeed.

The use of the word "authority" by people here when speaking of followers is flawed. Authority suggests that someone has some intelligent perspective. Following in twitter or friendfeed is at best a misunderstood and at worst an unknown behaviour. Fair enough to sneak these features in, but lets not kid ourselves about what it means. Social tools remain the least understood tools and adding features is great but lets not misrepresent.

Its nice - but not enough to get me of Air based Tweetdeck which is more robust. Either way I agree this type of app changes everything and allows more personal effectivity.

you do raise an interesting point here. Something I have learned, at much cost, is that the regulators do not offer protection to consumers. What they do is institute approvals of processes. By that I mean they will agree that Company A has the appropriate processes in place to satisfy them that consumers will be adequately protected.

There might be an opportunity to incorporate p2p as part of the process to satisfy regulators that consumers can be better protected if p2p is part of the process.

Congrats on this Matthew. No easy task you have taken on, and it will require challenging the establishment in many ways no doubt, so you will be the right guy. Good luck.

Nice move. This is excellent value considering the scope of the speakers.

At a more basic level, I suggest we return to basic investment approach that has been lost by many, too young to know the difference - no disrespect intended. In the 50's and 60's rule #1 was to maintain balance bewteen equities and safer investments if you are concerned about risk. Consider cash and government bonds (widows and orphans was the category).

Stock market investment is not safe. Repeat after me ... not safe. its also a long haul investment, not a short term one.

Far out Robert! Don't stop!!
Start ups are accountable to be effective and produce results.

welcome back Robert!

@Brad @CUWarrior ... I too fell into this for same reason as Matt. Now that I am independent of a Bank, I actually don't mind the outcome as it associates me with my blog, and my topic. I have other blogs, and it would be confusing if they were all me.

However it is only me, and even though its in effect a pen name, it kind of says something about what I do. Blogs have to be personal, and owned. However mine is not about my personal life, so I am ok to continue the pen name just to make that differentiation.

On the other hand a CU has many employees. They can't all be CUdejour, so an email from the CU is by definition impersonal. But we all hate those direct mails signed with a stamp from the EVP Personal Banking etc. Those are obviously fake.

At the end of the day the email needs to be clearly written by a person, and having the CU name in the SMTP header is probably ok on that condition. The exception is if the audience is the portfolio of the writer, and for sure that must be a personal email address.

Fear not Fred ... you are the new A List.
I see the Calcanis thing as a joke. Certainly some blogs have moved into something that looks like something in media with multiple authors, and while interesting they are just not blogs, as I define them narrowly, being one persons view, take it or leave it.
So the new A list are the blogs that have their own niche, loyal readers, and commenters. I posted more on this earlier in the week.
http://tinyurl.com/6ck2dt

Indeed ... yahoo mail and hotmail are so convoluted to use compared to gmail its not even funny. Rather than create a new domain, why not rebuild the service and make it usable.

Congrats Brad and family ..... you will be a busy guy!
Colin

I am in .., thanks

I am in .., thanks

I think there remains one overarching problem ... banks/ CU's do not understand the strategic role of technology in their business. This might be caused by being in denial that technology is the business, but whatever the reason, this acknowledgment is essential in my mind.

Banks/ CU's tend to be run by a combination of marketing & product. Both think in terms of product and service design based on fees, interest rates, terms and conditions etc. Once technology is a core component of the design process, then new elements such as UI design, screen flows, product explainability, become essential elements of the design. One of the first questions oiught to be "Will the product work in a self service web site, or mobile phone browser?". This question has to be answered by a technologist.

Just my take ....

PS .. nice redesign

Brilliant post Robert. You live your life in the open, and lead in terms of internet lifestyle. Best of luck, and keep being you!

Colin

Wow... I agree this is huge. The opportunity here to go beyond the way we think today about office apps is huge. I know MS is counting on Office and Sharepoint to maintain their share of market with corps, but friction is not a good way to maintain loyalty. Something bigger is happening here.

Like you, but for different reasons, I love(d) Microsoft ... in the 90's. What has changed though is how to hold on to customers.

- old way: create enough friction, that makes it too expensive and hard to leave
- new way: make really good products

The old way works until someone comes along with something better and easier. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving to open, common standards.

Forget Bungle ... if MS were to scrap IE and adopt Firefox, that would renew the company and centre it around a common view of the technology future.

I think Bungle is precisely what MS ought not to do.

Its physically impossible to be wrong about predictions. Ask any economist. I think the only learning is to ignore personal attacks, or emotionally charged 'rebuttals'.

Robert ... what sets you apart is your willingness to to address issues head on, so you will get some people come back at you. However you at least address issues. The people and one in particular '/' who choose to use personal attacks which add zero value to the discussion, merely remind me why I long ago unsubscribed. Take care, enjoy, reflect and come back soon.

This is interesting. Wondered something similar when i hooked up WP this morning. I wonder if we have to think about horizontal social networks, such as FB as aggregators, and vertical networks such as WP, or Lending Club, as capabilities that folks will pull into their horizontal networks. I'll stop there before my brain explodes.

I installed Xubuntu 2 months ago, and am very happy about capability, stability, and speed. Its not unusual to run for over a week with no performance hit. OpenOffce launches literally instantly - zero delay.

Downside: lack of support for itunes is about the only gap I have seen.

PS ... the trigger for me to switch - After 12 years of Windows, I cannot imagine installing Vista. And I have a core duo fast Thinkpad X60s.