Killing forms usually sounds great, but the familiarity of basic account create is super powerful. Keeping it simple will beat out engagement methods that someone new to your service can't understand.
Out of these examples I think the gradual engagement model is the most compelling and successful. DropBox has done an admirable job with this process that has led to great user growth and a healthy freemium business as well.
It's a very good talk. Sadly, you are right about familiarity. When I left out the "confirm your password 2 times and make sure it's got the following characters blablabla" element, people actually complained because they somehow felt it was insecure or a bug in the program.
On the other hand, signing up via Facebook isn't that great either. If only OpenID had the foresight to include a data repository (at least for preferred username, email, pic, maybe contacts) we could have avoided the mess we see today.
After first picking up a v1 iPad you knew there were a lot of trade offs to get it out the door. Pretty impressive to build billion dollar beta products, but they are beta products none the less.
Well said. Seems like most people replying are speaking as users who guard their privacy everywhere. Most consumer products are aimed at people that are looking for the bacon immediately. Facebook gives developers a lot of useful information fast so they can get on to deliver the content or service the user thinks they are getting.
When the plumbing works, it's a lot easier to enjoy the architecture where developers and designers deliver real services.
Limitations are ok, but true bugs come from a team that just doesn't care about the product. It feels like a hostage situation: if enough people buy this thing, we'll actually fix it. If not, we are keeping your money.
These types of goals are optimization targets for growth products. They will use this goal to set the annual targets and then quarterly targets. The problem is that if you build a product with real growth the first year looks nothing like the last year.
Revenue usually lags behind user growth too.
Maybe a goal of 5 new products a year will have a better chance of having an impact, not straighline projections that require a shift change in the first quarter.
I wish they would release an intelligent dock that had some storage or USB connectors for a printer and external hard drive. That would be a neat for iPad syncing. Adding an HDMI so you could park the dock next to a TV and control it with and iPad would really be nice.
Alternately, syncing with a Time Capsule would be good too.
Add ports and a keyboard and it will be perfect! Make it a clamshell style so fingerprints wont get on the screen, and protect it when your not using it.
So... Eliminate its differentiating characteristics and turn it into something that resembles the competing netbooks and sub <$500 notebooks whose lunch Apple is devouring, according to Best Buy's figures?
Tactile feedback is pretty important to some people. I haven't tried an iPad yet but when it comes to emails on the iPhone, I would sometimes kill for the ability to just type the way I could on a real keyboard. An iPad with a keyboard hookup is still an iPad.
Most of this stuff is being done over wifi. AirPrint, AirPlay, cloud storage like iDisk, Dropbox, AirSharing, etc. I use an application called Serve-To-Me which does real time video transcoding so I can access my entire video library on the iPad or iPhone. For music I use Subsonic and the Z-Subsonic client. I don't even bother syncing anything locally at this point.
Is there any research that this is actually the case? I'd be willing to guess that this is the case for many folks on HN, but I haven't heard many iPad owners (of which I am not one) complaining about this.
Count me in with the folks that prefer syncing to a computer rather than OTA.
Agreed. Chrome OS table will be awesome. It'll be like upgrading from iPhone to Android. Escaping from the walled garden of "Sorry, you can't do that", to a feature rich device without stupid design decisions - iPad has to sync to a computer running iTunes????? WTF
Does the iPad really need a computer? Apple doesn't seem to advertise this anywhere. Seems odd that you can't turn it on and instantly have a web browser.
Based on my iPhone 3G experience the umbilical cord is only needed for backups, restores, upgrades, and contact sync. You don't need it often, but you certainly can't live without it for more than a few months at a time.
This is really a story of the rising cost of college. As it has grown well beyond the cost of inflation it leave many with debt our parent's generation never had. My father busted his tail in the summers and paid for half a year of college with what he saved.
Does anyone think the quality of educations has gotten better? Is it administration? Facilities? Research?
Reduce the waste in education and the value goes up for everyone (except maybe some people in the dean's office).
Pincus talked on Charlie Rose a year ago about wanting to build a lasting company as opposed to being a serial entrepreneur. I actually love that sentiment, but also think it is hard to differentiate from his current goal: going public.
Wall street investors will value this company very differently if it appears to be a fad that will have momentary glory (and revenue). That said, wall street tries to value a company's current AND future revenues (with an appropriate discount for risk and earnings out in the future) -- so Pincus is trying to get them to believe it is building the bedrock of a company that will last a hundred years.
Right now Zynga is a revenue rocketship (even if you don't like the product, people, or business) that will make Pincus and all their employees wealthy. Pretty easy to get people to work there with those prospects. The sustainable business will be the work of the next generation of employees after first 1000 have vested and moved on.
I wish them the best, but wouldn't count on them being a great stable business in 5 years. Tastes change and the best employees will have long since have cashed out.
US bschools have been overly focused on banking and consulting for the last 15 years (or more). Innovation programs have tried to balance that bias, but in my experience those programs have mixed results. Someone with certificate in entrepreneurship or innovation are trying to use coursework as a proxy for being an entrepreneur. The best entrepreneurs may have gotten an MBA and maybe a certificate in entrepreneurship but those are not future indicators of entrepreneurs.
