elruso.com Blog » Web 2.0 http://elruso.com/blog Evgueni Pervago writing about Web 2.0 and technology in general Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:54:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Todo lists galore and a short review of Rough Underbelly http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/23/todo-lists-galore-and-a-short-review-of-rough-underbelly/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/23/todo-lists-galore-and-a-short-review-of-rough-underbelly/#comments Fri, 23 Jun 2006 04:33:27 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/23/todo-lists-galore-and-a-short-review-of-rough-underbelly/ SolutionWatch posted a great review of 25 TODO lists. I’ve tried Remember the milk but for some reason it didn’t click with me. The one I find interesting is Rough Underbelly (those Web 2.0 names, sigh…). Unlike other lists, you assign either 1, 2, 5, or 10 points for each task depending on its importance (the following list is from Printable CEO):

roughunderbelly-legend.png
You then maintain the list as any common to-do list but the points done each day are tallied automatically and can be displayed as a chart.

roughunderbelly-points.pngroughunderbelly-graph.png
I think it’s a great idea especially for people whose time is somewhat flexible and some measure of productivity is important: especially when there is a big difference between “Check data on slide X” and “Set-up a structure for a presentation”.

One suggestion for improvement would be custom legends (e.g. 2 points=”My Action X”) because having to maintain mental mapping of actions to points can get bothersome and kind of defeats the original purpose of Printable CEO.

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/23/todo-lists-galore-and-a-short-review-of-rough-underbelly/feed/ 0 Joe’s Goals: to-do list with a twist http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/14/joes-goals-to-do-list-with-a-twist/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/14/joes-goals-to-do-list-with-a-twist/#comments Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:08:51 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/14/joes-goals-to-do-list-with-a-twist/ Via ichris.ws comes a link to a to-do list with a twist: Joe’s Goals. Instead of adding things you need to do, you add stuff you try to avoid and keep a score:

Joe's Goals Screenshot

You get 1 point for completing a “do” and -1 for completing a “don’t” and get to share the daily score with your friends (not sure I’d want to though :-)

On a more conventional note, for work I’m a heavy user of a very simple Backpack by 37signals.

Update: Seems there’s already slightly more complex version of Joe’s Goals as a Win/Mac application: Sciral Consistency

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/14/joes-goals-to-do-list-with-a-twist/feed/ 0 Google Spreadsheets: After trying the beta http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/08/google-spreadsheets-after-trying-the-beta/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/08/google-spreadsheets-after-trying-the-beta/#comments Thu, 08 Jun 2006 04:49:32 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/08/google-spreadsheets-after-trying-the-beta/ In my earlier post I argued why Google Spreadsheets is not a threat to Excel in any way or form. Now that I had chance to try it out myself, I’m more convinced than ever.

It’s actually barely usable for any serious kind of work (which is where most of the cash in Excel cash cow comes from):

  • No autofill – I unsuccessfully tried to drag a range (1, 2, 3 for example) down to fill out, say, 20-30 consecutive numbers. No luck. Ctrl-D/Ctrl-R shortcuts for copying right/down do work though.
  • No charts – Much less important than other things I’ve mentioned, but still a significant omission (Excel charts are not perfect by any measure though)
  • No offline access – One of great points mentioned by Ian Landsman

In my humble opinion, this is a case of just too much blogosphere hype with little real substance.

Update: iRows seems to be more useful, though less sleek than Google Spreadsheets: autofill, charts are included. And it supports collaborative editing to boot.

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/08/google-spreadsheets-after-trying-the-beta/feed/ 0 Google Spreadsheets: Not really a threat to Excel http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/06/google-spreadsheets-not-really-a-threat-to-excel/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/06/google-spreadsheets-not-really-a-threat-to-excel/#comments Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:48:21 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/06/google-spreadsheets-not-really-a-threat-to-excel/ Vinny Carpenter takes a quick look at the just-launched Google Spreadsheets. Although some people think this is an Excel challenger. I, however, don’t think it’s a threat to Excel power base at all.

Although it’s well known that most of the time Excel is used for fairly basic tasks, most of the biggest users (consulting, corporate finance, investment banking) use a very wide subset of functions including:

  • External database queries
  • PivotTables (extremely important)
  • Large, complex spreadsheets (30+ sheets in a single workbook)

Which Google Spreadsheets is unlikely to offer in the short term (although I’m willing to be proven wrong). Most importantly, data that ends up in the spreadsheets is of confidential and/or proprietary nature and wouldn’t be on an online service.

That doesn’t mean that Google Spreadsheets won’t have its users, it’s just not a threat to most of the core Excel customers.

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/06/google-spreadsheets-not-really-a-threat-to-excel/feed/ 1 Fun interface to boring data as a business? http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/01/fun-interface-to-boring-data-as-a-business/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/01/fun-interface-to-boring-data-as-a-business/#comments Thu, 01 Jun 2006 20:52:08 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/01/fun-interface-to-boring-data-as-a-business/ Juice Analytics has a great post about huge gap in quality and ease-of-use between consumer-oriented reporting interfaces and those typically found in enterprise software. Zach makes the point that the enterprise reporting, besides coming last in the development process, usually puts raw data above insights and values quantity over quality.

Doug McClure wonders whether this represents an underserved business niche for some new start-up explore. I’d say hell, yes!

Presenting information has a lot of know-how and it’s definitely transferable. It doesn’t matter whether you’re displaying sales of widgets or inventory of beef cows, time series is still a time series and the thing people making decision want to know is the same. It’s the “so what” or “why do I care”. And typical enterprise reporting interface sucks at doing that.

One could easily imagine a start-up staffed with people who know how to extract the “so what” from a data dump, people with interface design skills and yes, some graphic designers to make looking at it all much less a chore.

Any takers?

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/06/01/fun-interface-to-boring-data-as-a-business/feed/ 0 Talkety, callback phone to phone http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/26/talkety-callback-phone-to-phone/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/26/talkety-callback-phone-to-phone/#comments Fri, 26 May 2006 21:39:55 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/26/talkety-callback-phone-to-phone/ Talkety is a new VoIP-based phone service which works in a fairly novel manner:

Talkety will connect any two phones, cellular or landline, by number. With ease and effectiveness, all one must do is type in his number, the number he wishes to dial, click “connect” and let Talkety do the rest.

The caller’s phone rings. By answering, the call is triggered, and the second phone rings at the other end, connecting the two individuals with clarity.

No software or hardware needed and rates are fairly competitive (e.g. 5 cents per minute Mexico-U.S. and 3 cents U.S.-France vs. zero and 2.5 for SkypeOut).

Some people have commented that you still need to pay your local phone service fee but that’s only an issue 1) if you live in a country/area where naked DSL is available or 2) you’re not using it mainly for long distance calls where the savings usually are greatest.

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/26/talkety-callback-phone-to-phone/feed/ 0 At last an alternative for Mexico street-level maps http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/25/at-last-an-alternative-for-mexico-street-level-maps/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/25/at-last-an-alternative-for-mexico-street-level-maps/#comments Thu, 25 May 2006 16:22:14 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/25/at-last-an-alternative-for-mexico-street-level-maps/ It used to be that the only option to check Mexico City/Monterrey street-level maps online was fairly mediocre (compared to Google Maps et al.) Guia Roji site (no smooth map scrolling was particularly annoying). Checking out local.live.com after reading TechCrunch article I found out to my delight that it finally had street-level maps at least for Mexico City and Monterrey. Images below are linked to map locations.
local-live1-cropped.png

local-live2-cropped.png

The only issue is that I couldn’t get search for streets to work (it searches for places such as stadiums and parks just fine) which somewhat limits its usefulness. If someone knows what I’m doing wrong, feel free to comment.

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/25/at-last-an-alternative-for-mexico-street-level-maps/feed/ 0 Yahoo! Analyst Day: Why it pays off to read analyst presentations http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/23/yahoo-analyst-day-why-it-pays-off-to-read-analyst-presentations/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/23/yahoo-analyst-day-why-it-pays-off-to-read-analyst-presentations/#comments Tue, 23 May 2006 01:40:23 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/23/yahoo-analyst-day-why-it-pays-off-to-read-analyst-presentations/ Deviant Abstraction points to a very interesting 188-slide presentation of Yahoo’s strategy. As Nicolas Toper seems to be right about blogosphere silence, I’ll try and make some noise. A lot of people underestimate the value of investor presentations to gain insight into corporate strategy and this one is particularly tedious and long (they usually run at 20-30 slides)
There’s a lot to be perused there, but the most interesting idea is this strategy, summed up in a list:

  1. Use Yahoo’s huge user reach (500M+ users) to build up a critical mass
  2. Use that critical mass to launch/strengthen a social network-type application e.g.
    • Yahoo! Answers (social search)
    • Flickr (integration into Olympics and general news coverage)
    • Now almost 30% of Y! web search page views
  3. Take advantage of “social search” to strengthen traditional search (happened in Taiwan where Yahoo! won market share from Google)
  4. Monetize (the average revenue per user went from 35 cents per month in 2001 to 79 cents in 2004)
  5. Rinse and repeat.

Read/WriteWeb is the other blog with interesting analysis of other parts of presentation

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/23/yahoo-analyst-day-why-it-pays-off-to-read-analyst-presentations/feed/ 0 Snap, new search engine with a useful twist http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/snap-new-search-engine-with-a-useful-twist/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/snap-new-search-engine-with-a-useful-twist/#comments Fri, 19 May 2006 17:12:44 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/snap-new-search-engine-with-a-useful-twist/ Via NogzBlogz comes a pointer to Snap, a very interesting search engine. Although it all starts with a simple search box:

Snap.com Search box

Results page is a pleasant surprise with easy keyboard navigation (Up, Down, Enter) and page thumbnail fairly quickly displayed on the right side. Based on few searches I did, results quality is not bad at all and seeing a preview of the page helps immensely.

Snap.com results

Update: Wisdump wrote a very nice review of Snap, including some very valid critique

Tags:

]]> http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/snap-new-search-engine-with-a-useful-twist/feed/ 1 Why Web 2.0 just may be another bubble http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/why-web-20-just-may-be-another-bubble/ http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/why-web-20-just-may-be-another-bubble/#comments Fri, 19 May 2006 16:07:39 +0000 Evgueni Pervago http://elruso.com/blog/2006/05/19/why-web-20-just-may-be-another-bubble/ An article in NYT argues that this time it’s different, which as David Dodd once said are four most dangerous words in the English language:

Venture capitalists are also tending to show far more restraint before deciding to invest in a start-up — such impetuousness to be part of any deal perceived as hot helped to fuel the Internet mania of the late 1990’s.

Sure, the focus now is now on “users” not on “eyeballs” and there are no theglobe.com type IPOs, but current situation is still too close to the Last Great Bubble to be comfortable:

  1. Industry still with low barriers to entry in most sectors (see YouTube vs. Google Video, MySpace vs. Friendster, Google vs. Yahoo, etc.) — maintaining competitive advantage is hard
  2. Advertising once again is the king for most of the startups, with few notable exceptions (37signals’s applications come to mind)
  3. Huge amount of press and buzz around hottest startups, Google especially (I still think its valuation is ridiculous by the way)
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