Despide the fact that everybody got a strange feeling when reading the name "Facebook" in combination with WhatsApp:
Congrats to the team of WhatsApp to build such a successful product in five years with a team of 32 engineers (~ $500 million/engineer). Reminder: They nearly replaced the SMS service worldwide.
Let's hope that the words by Mark Zuckerberg will be the truth and WhatsApp will be kept as an independent product in the future.
Even if the company had nonengineers, it doesn't affect the ratio between revenue and engineers. The statistic usually does not imply that engineering is solely responsible for the success. Further, it generally can be hard to determine what portion of revenue is due to engineering versus marketing/sales, since the functions work together in a dependent way to make money.
Clearly this team has been quite successful! I can't agree say that they have almost replaced SMS, as many people communicate with me through SMS or iMessage. I have never used whatsapp nor has anybody a requested that I use it with them. As far as other messaging, everybody I know uses kik or Skype.
18) Figure out when you're most productive during the day.
Morning person? Evening person? Put small and easy tasks in the non-productive time of the day (or break out, see point 4) and get the big ones in your best time of the day.
And if you're not sure of when you're most productive, there's a Mac app called Vitamin-R that (aside from including a timeboxing/pomodoro-esque timer) includes a stats tool to track the hours and days of the week when you're most focused. Vitamin-R website is http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/
Agreed. The number 1 thing, in my opinion, is to be your own experiment. Listen to your body and your mind as it tells you when it's ready to work and when it's not, then evolve habits that promote effective work.
Example: I am not a morning person. I have also found that if my apartment is messy I get distracted. So I started doing chores in the morning right after getting up. I clean up the place while I'm still half-asleep, and when I am ready to work there is less messiness that would side-track me. Doing this regularly also means I don't have to dedicate a Saturday afternoon to cleaning.
Yes, I agree. I normally leave a clutter in the evening. I clean up glasses and plates, but normally my desk is pretty messy and dirty when the daylight shines upon it. When I tidy up before I take a seat, it puts me in the right mindset to start a normal work routine.
The problem begins with the installation of every android device when you're asked to register a Google account (same process with the Apple ID in iOS). [Sure enough you can use the phone without a Google account or an iOS account but your excluded from each ecosystem]. For me - as an iOS user - I got a much worse feeling using the Google ecosystem than Apple ones because of one simple fact:
Google can get much more value out of the data you're generating than Apple does using it to later 'enhance' your experience for all other Google services (Google Search, Gmail, etc.) showing ads. Knowing everything about my daily behavior ('When is the user active? Was does he do? Where is he? ...') will lead to a perfect profile to sell the right ads.
At Apple you at least got the change to opt-out even using the ecosystem of the unique ad identifier. Correct me if this is possible using a Google account on android as well.
Kindle is a particularly bad example. Kindle forked Android, so are not under control of Google. In principle, other manufacturers could also do this, but in practice it's practically impossible because they'd loose Google Play.
But when you're honest: How many users are willing to use the device without connection to the Google ecosystem? It's the same on iOS. My point of criticism remains the same: The data you're (then) generating in the Google ecosystem has a higher value than in any other ecosystem (Apple, Microsoft, etc.) and more likely makes you a product (and not free).
It seems that every day new reports are published talking about victims that are denied to enter the USA because of the wildest reasons - even with legal papers.
But it's not only the arbitrariness that every report seems to claim. It's more than that the behaviour of the officials towards citizens of other countrys and nations.
"America knows everything" - and you're not welcome any more.
The link refers to a given interview (http://j.mp/138mDHs) with Till Filda (Owner of Ad Block Plus) who gives the information that user can opt-out of the build in "Acceptable Ads program".
In his words the reason for an acceptable ads program seems to be showing acceptable ads (non flashing, blinking, annoying, ...) to the user which seems legit.
Can't understand the 'Mafia' term in this. It's a free product this is their business model. You as a user choose if you accept (or opt-out) this or leave the product behind.
Congrats to the team of WhatsApp to build such a successful product in five years with a team of 32 engineers (~ $500 million/engineer). Reminder: They nearly replaced the SMS service worldwide.
Let's hope that the words by Mark Zuckerberg will be the truth and WhatsApp will be kept as an independent product in the future.