Craigslist, Plenty Of Fish plus some others are examples of sites that took a really minimalist approach to design but managed to pull in a massive market share through fulfilling a customer need. Revenue from advertising paid the bills.
We wrote about ugly design before, how in some cases it actually increases conversion rates. It's odd but sometimes ugly is beautiful...
> "Blogging mistake #1: Not prominently linking to your main site
> Blogging mistake #2: Not integrating with social properties
> Blogging mistake #3: Making it harder to subscribe to, and regularly follow, your blog
> Blogging mistake #4: Only blogging about product announcements
> Blogging mistake #5: Hiding what your product is about"
Agree in part to these but blogging and social media are overplayed. Building and integrating all these elements, and building a sufficient & quality following is tough work.
These tips certainly point novices in the right direction, but even doing these well doesn't mean you will succeed - at blogging or at your startup.
Amen to overblown. I've seen many high paid persons who have made careers of being C-Level bloggers... You'd better be tying some type of metrics to the value of your blog to justify spending that much effort on it.
In a recent fictional book about poverty in the UK, two types if poverty were identified.
One was unintentional poverty- someone falls into trouble due to no fault of their own. Maybe illness, trauma etc
The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this category.
> The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this category.
The UK tax and benefits system creates perverse incentives. The systems are baffling (advisors for tax or for benefits need a lot of training (accountants need degree level studying and qualifications)) and interlocking. They are handled by different government departments. Mistakes are common. If the people paying the benefit make a mistake to your detriment nothing happens. (Or if you make a mistake to your detriment.) (And if you don't notice in time you're unlikely to get that money ever.) But if they make a mistake in your favour that money will be clawed back, no matter how long ago the mistake was made. And if you make a mistake in your favour, or if you don't report their mistakes in your favour, you risk interview under caution, arrest, and prosecution.
Compare this treatment of people who are poor with, for example, very wealthy companies taking extreme borderline legal tax avoidance measures.
People who have learned dependence might not feel deserving, but getting them off benefit and into work isn't as easy as clubbing them with punishments. Especially since it was society that put them there.
The problem in the UK, which is caused by the government, is that there are several points where people end up with less money overall (including housing benefit, and childcare) if they earn more money / work more hours.
While you can argue about 'deserving', it is the government's fault that they have set up a system which encourages people not to work.
Unforuntatly, the current attempts to fix this are (in my opinion) just creating a more confusing system where it is easier to get trapped or confused.
It's a great story however skeptical of these retrospective views. I wonder how much of her motives were driven by protecting the mortgage holders and the economy; or protecting her career prospects.
Saying this, Hunt seems much more deserving than the former banker in this article:
1- When logged in comments and submissions (by logged in user) should be highlighted in a distinctive colour.
2- Comment karma should be shown publicly rather than privately. ie each comment should show value.
3- Comments within a thread should be able to be sorted by comment score.
4- Submitted links for same news stories should share karma points. Several times you submit the same story only to see someone else collect karma hours later.
5- Increase transparency on how comments ranking works.
6- Increase transparency on max submissions and comments allowable per day.
People always dismissed it, when I told them - if only I was born x years earlier I would have graduated at the start of the boom cycle. I would have landed a high paying role out of college/Uni and earned enough cash by the end of the cycle to see me through the bust years. With the work experience I would have a better chance competing against new grads. Considering the value of money etc, benefiting from a 2/3 boom cycle could put you well ahead financially.
While this is rather simplistic and exceptions to the rule, timing can make one hell of a difference.
That's also the reason why the job-hop to get a raise is so common.
Pay rises are multipliers on your current salary - which is based on when in the boom/bust cycle you got hired. If you were hired in a bust you can get the maximum raise every year but at the end you will still be getting less than someone hired in a boom.
> Why are Rails people so obsessed with accelerating the trivial?
From a Rails beginner perspective...
Having spent days trying to get Rails up and running on a Windows box, this product looks absolutely awesome.
Even the so called out of the box solutions still needs hours of customization. Every new release of Rails means starting from scratch with limited documentation.
Anyone who has struggled with installing Rails on Windows, then finding a decent IDE, installing all the other packages etc etc will appreciate being able to get to that point in 60 seconds via their browser.
I am sure some Rails experts and Mac Users may disagree but getting started in Rails takes a lot of effort.
We wrote about ugly design before, how in some cases it actually increases conversion rates. It's odd but sometimes ugly is beautiful...
http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/keep-it-simple-...