Jason Thibeault's Blog: From My Pen, page 79

Let the New Space Race Begin

With the death of NASA’s shuttle program comes the beginning of a new space race, one between corporations:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/07/first-private-spacecraft-set-t.html

The annals of science fiction have been littered with not-to-distant futures where corporations rule the world, where businesses wage wars and battle instead of governments. But it seems that we might be on the precipice of that as numerous companies move to fill the void of manned and un-manned space...

Photo: The Art Hidden Amongst Us

Great photo on NatGeo of a person walking in front of a famous mural in New York on Houston Street. Just makes me realize how much art is out there and around us at all times. Guess you just have to think about what makes it art.

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http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/photo-of-the-week/#/new-york-city-art-mural-graffiti_33596_600x450.jpg

The Cost of the Mobile Internet

Ever wonder how much it costs to access the mobile internet? You might be surprise by the results detailed in the infographic below.

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Who’s REALLY using Google+?

The data visualization wizards at Bime have just posted an interactive dashboard of Google Plus data that gives a pretty granular picture.Bime admits that the data is “a few weeks old,” so demographics may have shifted. As we noted last week, user behavior on Google Plus appears to be changing. But Bime’s dashboard is still probably a reliable picture of who the early Google Plus adopters are.

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Interview with William Gibson

If you’re a fan of the seminal sci-fi master, you’ll love this exclusive interview from BoingBoing:

http://boingboing.net/2011/09/01/william-gibson-interview-boing-boing-exclusive.html

Great quote:

Liking the Hollywood movie industry is like liking war. Some people do like war, though, and I’ve sometimes enjoyed my own experience of the Hollywood movie industry. People who haven’t actually been there, been fully in it, with some paid role on which something actually depends, really have very lit...

Sell Food? Own a Bar? Tips to Help You Leverage Facebook

Facebook has a lot of great features to help restauranteurs leverage the power of social media in driving foot-traffic (and word-of-mouth referrals) to their establishments. SproutSocial, a tool to help businesses maximize their use of social media, has published a list of five tips for restaurants to get the most out of social media:

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2011/08/5-facebook-tips-for-restaurants/

The Impact of Social Media on Creativity

GigaOm recently published a great piece on discussing the impact of social media on creativity, citing the John Mayer’s tribulations with Twitter as their prime example:

http://gigaom.com/2011/07/19/does-using-social-media-interfere-with-creativity/

Although I definitely think a discussion around “distraction” is worth a few sentences, I don’t think its fair to make blatant statements about social media and creativity. Creativity can be inspired by the most unexpected of things. Perhaps it’s le...

Is it Up-and-Down or Side-to-Side?

Many businesses grapple with a fundamental market question: should I go vertical and target a specific industry (but reduce my total addressable market) or go horizontal and increase my total addressable market (but deal with a lack of focus)? Although this is a difficult question, I conjecture that going vertical is often the right choice. Focusing on specific industries, market segments, or demographics allows growing companies to further fine-tune their offering without compromising valuab...

Why the iPhone 5 Didn’t Need to be Revolutionary

With the launch of the iPhone 5, there was a tremendous amount of fanfare, media hype, and disappointment. According to industry analysts and tech-gadget pundits, it failed to deliver. It failed to innovate. In fact, there are some questioning Apple’s ability to innovate at all anymore.

But when you really look at the reasons why Apple has a phone in the first place, it might not make sense for them to innovate too much.

Reason #1: It’s All About the Ecosystem

What you have to realize right away...

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mobile Aps

With everyone building a mobile app these days (yes, I am even working on one for Dime Novel Publishing), it’s critical to separate yours from the pack. Obviously that can happen for a lot of different reasons but it all begins with a firm foundation of good design and objectives. GigaOm recently published a great article on seven factors to keep in mind when building a mobile app:

Understand the Potential of Mobile. Mobile shouldn’t be just a fancy gimmick for your company. There should be a...