garry’s subposthaven

Let us take a breath and remember what the world was like before Apple introduced the iPhone:

1. Carriers ruled the industry with an iron fist
2. To access carriers’ networks handset makers capitulated everything
3. Carriers dictated phone designs, features, apps, prices, marketing, advertising and branding
4. Phones were reduced to cheap, disposable lures for carriers’ service contracts
5. There was no revenue sharing between carriers and manufacturers
6. There was no notion of phone networks becoming dumb pipes anytime soon
7. Affordable, unlimited data plans as standard were unheard of
8. A phone that would entice people to switch networks by the millions was a pipe dream
9. Mobile devices were phones first and last, not usable handheld computers
10. Even the smartest phones didn’t have seamless WiFi integration
11. Without Visual Voice Mail, messages couldn’t be managed non-linearly
12. There were no manufacturer owned and operated on-the-phone application stores as the sole source
13. An on-the-phone store having 65,000 apps downloaded nearly 2 billion times was not on anyone’s radar screen
14. Low-cost, high-volume app pricing strategy with a 70/30 split didn’t exist
15. Robust one-click in-app transactions were unknown
16. There was no efficient, large scale, consistent and lucrative mobile app market for developers large and small
17. Buttons, keys, joysticks, sliders…anything but the screen was the focus of phones
18. Phones didn’t come with huge 3.5″ touch screens
19. Pervasive multitouch, gesture-based UI was science fiction
20. Actually usable, multi-language, multitouch virtual keyboards on phones didn’t exist
21. Integrated sensors like accelerometers and proximity detectors had no place in phones
22. Phones could never compete in 3D/gaming with dedicated portable consoles
23. iPod-class audio/video players on mobiles didn’t exist
24. No phone had ever offered a desktop-like web browser experience
25. Sophisticated SDKs and phones were strangers to each other

This list too could go on. But it’s sobering to remember that a single device by a company with zero experience in the industry and against all odds caused such a tidal wave of change. Change didn’t come because of Nokia, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, RIM or any other player in the market for the past 15 years bet their company on it.

This is an astonishing story. An 18 year old engineer from Nepal comes up with an economically viable solar cell made from human hair.

Somebody hook this guy up with the green VC's in the valley!

Edit: Damn, it's a hoax.

Headache – (often described as being gradual in development and diffuse, and sometimes throbbing and severe)

Fatigue -- (e.g., fatigue, tiredness, lethargy, sluggishness)

Sleepiness/drowsiness -- (e.g., sleepy, drowsy, yawning)

Difficulty concentrating -- (e.g., muzzy)

Work difficulty -- (e.g., decreased motivation for tasks/work)

Irritability -- (e.g., irritable, cross, miserable, decreased well-being/contentedness)

Depression -- (e.g., depressed mood)

Anxiety -- (e.g., anxious, nervous)

Flu-like symptoms -- (e.g., nausea/vomiting, muscle aches/stiffness, hot and cold spells, heavy feelings in arms or legs)

Impairment in psychomotor, vigilance and cognitive performances

I've cut back my Red Bull intake and have been experiencing this of late. I thought I was getting sick or had mono, but I think it's probably just caffeine.

I just popped open a Red Bull now and I'm feeling better already. That's how you build real billion dollar companies: get people physically addicted.

Cuban's advice: declare war on the "aggregator" Web sites that get a free ride on content. These aggregators—sites like Drudge Report, Newser, and countless others—don't create much original material. They mostly just synopsize stuff from mainstream newspapers and magazines, and provide a link to the original.

Think about this for a minute. The aggregators and the old-media guys are competing for the same advertising dollars. But the aggregators compete using content that the old-media guys create and give to them at no cost. This is insane, right? It's like fighting a war and supplying the enemy with guns and bullets.

I hope bookmarklets and blogs remain exempt from this firefight. ;-)

He displayed a fabricated headline from that same newspaper, this one supposedly drawn from a couple of decades ago: “Presidential Action Saves Computer Industry”. A fake article beneath it describes government intervention to prop up the ailing mainframe industry. It sounds ridiculous, of course. Computer firms come and go all the time, such is the pace of innovation in the industry.

Yet for some reason this healthy attitude towards creative destruction is not shared by other industries. This is just one of the ways in which Dr Grove believes that his business can teach other industries a thing or two.