Netizen

Monday, July 23, 2012

Character Limits In Email

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Imagine an email service where when someone emails you for the first time their message has a character limit of something like 200. If you never open up their emails, they stay put at 200. And their messages don't count against your inbox space.

But if you open up their email, their limit goes up to 300 or 400 characters. But if you don't reply to their email, they stay there. On the other hand you could simply ban them and their privileged 200 characters are also gone.

But if you read and reply, the character limit goes up to 500 or more. Unless you specifically click on a button that allows them limitless space.

At one end are email concepts like on Facebook where you message me because we are connected. At the other end are regular email services where anyone can send you anything.

The inbox has to be like a cellular membrane. It has to protect the cell, but it also has to selectively allow outside stuff.

Beyond this "membrane" there have to be hard core demarcations. Facebook seems to have nailed social communication. Seems like people you know really well are only so many. And I feel like Asana is cracking the code on work communication. I have been reading up on it.

Marissa Mayer: Towards Products

Yahoo Has Seen Its Future; In One Word, It's Products

the board was unconvinced that Mr. Levinsohn's deal-making and media savvy would be enough to save Yahoo. The economics of content aren't good enough, and Yahoo doesn't have the firepower to pony up, say, the $100 million YouTube is spending on original channels or the hundreds of millions more Netflix is spending to acquire rights to TV and movies..... By all accounts, Ms. Mayer wowed the board in interviews. While Mr. Levinsohn made a case for maximizing what Yahoo is today, Ms. Mayer represented what Yahoo could become, a company that builds products... Yahoo spent 18% of revenue on product development in the first quarter..... "Yahoo's entire value is built around starting points -- the home page and email" ..... "The only reason [Yahoo] can afford all the good content is the scale of the homepage and email." .... Yahoo will have to create new, powerful products in areas such as mobile

When David Filo Gets Excited, I Get Excited

Yahoo! Co-Founder David Filo said, “Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development. I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo’s product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors.” .... for the longest time after Yahoo! IPO’ed and David was a billionaire he continued to drive a beat-up Datsun to work every day ..... He still works every day at the company in a slightly messy cubicle. ..... One former engineer told me a story of how David jumped in and stayed up all night helping pitch in to solve some platform problem the company had several years ago and how he was always available to help with problems on IM. ...... “Why isn’t David on the board?” I asked a Yahoo! executive a few years ago........ “He doesn’t want to. They’ve asked him many times. He goes to most board meetings anyway. Besides, he’s happy to let Jerry be the public face for the two of them.”

Marissa Mayer enters the Yahoo pressure cooker

Make Flickr Free Again

One fine day Yahoo decided it was going to charge for Flickr. When the rest of the industry was going in the other direction. And I remember feeling, Yahoo has lost its way.

Photo is so central to the mobile experience. It has proven to be the central mobile experience. And Yahoo almost shuttered a crown jewel. That was a dysfunctional move by a dysfunctional company.

How Marissa Mayer handles Flickr will tell me a lot about if she has what it takes to bring the sexy back to the Yahoo brand. For one, make it free. People should be able to upload as many pictures as they want. And they should be able to embed the pictures wherever they want. That sharing part is key. And then see if Flickr can be given a mobile version.

Marissa Mayer: Google News Item

I think I just created a section called Marissa Mayer on my Google News page. This is the first time I have done so for a tech CEO. I think I am going to watch the moves she makes as she makes them.

Pages