Disqus - Latest Comments for stuartma

Re: Inflation in Real Life

stuartma — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:31:24 -0000

I think you are right re CAD/USD Gregor. Both the spending/sovereign debt spree in the US, especially compared to Canada's blissfully boring (for once that's a good thing) situation, together with Canada's energy position would seem to support that in the medium term. Personally, as a Canadian resident, I have taken the opportunity to move as much USD denominated fixed income securities into CAD while the exchange rate was at it's weakest several months ago. So, putting my money where my mouth is, as it were.

Love your thinking, as always.

Stuart

Re: Why Coasters Should Go To #mesh09

stuartma — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:31:25 -0000

Dude, I'm from Halifax. Just sayin' :)

Re: The great depression….

stuartma — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:45:46 -0000

Love it Andy :)

Re: Twitter: The personal becomes public

stuartma — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:17:58 -0000

Well put 'thewie.

Re: Down from the Highs of Happiness

stuartma — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:56:58 -0000

Of course, this time period also covers Bush"s term in office. Just sayin'...

Re: Down from the Highs of Happiness

stuartma — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:37:56 -0000

Maybe when Prince said "tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999" he was right :)

As always, love your thinking Gregor.

- Stuart

Re: Global Industrialism and Oil’s Price Envelope

stuartma — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:25:44 -0000

Gregor, fascinating stuff. I'm very glad that I connected to you via Paul on twitter. I've become a regular reader.

Cheers,
Stuart
(@stuartma)

Re: Personal note: A job change for yours truly

stuartma — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:29:34 -0000

I'm having a bit of trouble getting past the "Climbing Christie Blatchford" challenge, but other than that, I'm happy for you ;)

Wishing you much success, 'thewie.

- Stu

Re: Stop Being Bearish

stuartma — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:42:17 -0000

Great post Howard.

Re: Google needs to mind its own business

stuartma — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:12:05 -0000

NICE :)

Re: Video: A Rick Sanchez greatest hits mashup

stuartma — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:54:57 -0000

'thewie that is just hilarious. Thanks for posting.

Re: Yammer: This thing is a prize winner?

stuartma — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:01:37 -0000

I agree 'thewie. A bit of a head scratcher. But it sure gets folks talking, hey? :)

- Stuart

Re: Not everything needs to be auctioned

stuartma — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:57:46 -0000

'thewie:

I think you, um, nailed it with the "not everything is a nail" comment, and I for one am not surprised that they are seeing huge growth in the "But it now" service. In fact, we can see similar trends in other - big - categories. For instance, Priceline has become much more successful after their near-death experience that helped drive them to offer fixed-price travel services in addition to the auction style. When I was running marketing at Expedia, we wondered whether it would be successful, especially given that PCLN had invested so much in teaching their customers that they were an auction site, as well as the the hoo-haa about their "business system patent" or whatever. Personally, I liked their odds - they could draft on their huge reach and supplier relationships to offer "good enough" pricing without the hassle of the auction.

The flipside is that when Expedia.com in the US tried to offer auction-style pricing for flights it flat-out did not work. Now there could be lots of reasons for that, but basically Expedia customers weren't interested. Which in part led to the acquisition of Hotwire. Different problem - different solution.

- Stuart

Re: Tripharbor.com: Full speed ahead

stuartma — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:44:04 -0000

Thanks Mathew. The ship has left drydock etc. :)

Re: What Question Does Your Product Answer?

stuartma — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:39:29 -0000

That is absolutely and completely accurate. Very well put. Solving problems for people and making their lives better in some way is really the only business model that there is.

Re: Duncan Riley: Lessons in diplomacy

stuartma — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:13:45 -0000

Back a day and already a post with 43 comments. You should vacation more often, 'thewie ;)

Re: The big deal: My link-o-rama

stuartma — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:18:23 -0000

Great round-up 'thewie. Thanks for it.

Re: Barcodes: Really clever or really dumb?

stuartma — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:06:41 -0000

Stunningly bad. I get the theory, but as you point out, it feels very 1998 to me.

Re: Google to buy everything, cure cancer

stuartma — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:38:39 -0000

'thewie, I disagree. I think you should *totally* buy the Eiffel tower.

:)

Re: TripHarbor cruises into the travel market

stuartma — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:06:48 -0000

Thanks for the great post, 'thewie. Travel geek? Aye aye :)

Re: Calacanis: You have to be a “player”

stuartma — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:15:36 -0000

Saying that you can be successful at something without clear means to profitability has to be the stupidest f***ing thing I've heard in a long time. Idiotic. But then, that's pretty much what I've come to expect from Calacanis. And, if you define "success" as getting as I suspect he does - by getting some other idiot to buy you - then I guess he might be right.

Doesn't make any of it a good business idea though. Sustainability has to be in there in my view.

Re: What are we doing when we Twitter?

stuartma — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:12:04 -0000

Great points, 'thewie. And I'm frankly still on the fence with twitter, although I'm warming to it in some ways. We recently had a health issue in our family, and during that I used twitter a lot. Why? Well, I wanted to share what was going on with (mostly actual) friends and I got a lot of good karma back. This was great I have to say. Now, I also had twitter linked to my Facebook status updates, and following this incident I've broken that link (not that I didn't get some nice messages from - again - actual friends who saw what was going on that way). To your continuum point, in looking at it afterwards, it was TMI in the Facebook context, and for the hundreds of "friends" I have on there may well have been cringe-worthy, if not downright creepy. So what works on twitter, especially short, immediate, on the go stuff, doesn't work elsewhere and elsewhere might even be too much period. Of course, my twittering during the health issue might have been too much anyway, but at the time I frankly didn't care and appreciated the instant feedback.

Re: Surprise: No one’s heard of Google Docs

stuartma — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:25:29 -0000

Heh. "Any" key.

Heh.

;)