Chris Lake
I am Director of Product Development at Econsultancy, an entrepreneur and a long-term internet fiend.
Contact me via chris@econsultancy.com.
Read more
An interview with Paul Graham on TechCrunch is attracting flak from the blogosphere for the investment criteria he uses for Y Combinator.
Last week we witnessed the sale of Kiko, a well-designed Y Combinator-funded online calendar. The deal went through via eBay to an as-yet-undisclosed party, for a quarter of a million dollars. Which is a good return for Paul and the Kiko founders, but not the really big bucks that they would have seen had Google bought it. Google of course launched its own calendar app, integrated into Gmail, which prompted the Kiko sale.
So does a fire sale on eBay, albeit a profitable one, mean that Graham is any more correct when he advises startup founders not to worry about business models?
Read more...
by Chris Lake
04 September 2006 14:44pm
0 comments
Rand at SEOmoz has published another fine article, this time on how to attract more traffic to your blog.
The article contains 21 tips, including ‘Choose the right blog software’, ‘Tag your content’, ‘Only one post in 20 can be linkbait’ and ‘Use a human voice’. Rand’s post is linkbait of the very best variety, since it is original, valuable content, so I’m linking to it.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
01 September 2006 16:28pm
0 comments
Hundreds of internet pros turned up for last night’s Lemon Studios Summer Party at The Havana Bar & Club in London, which was roaring good fun.
Many attendees will be in full-on recovery mode judging by some of the strategic quaffing we witnessed. The cocktails were especially dangerous, particularly those that were tipped into glasses the size of small baths.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
31 August 2006 17:42pm
6 comments
A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to ask Barclays why I was paying a monthly fee on an overdraft that I haven’t used for a long, long time.
I knew that finding an answer to this simple question could be a painful process, but I braced myself and set about to find out what was happening...
Read more...
by Chris Lake
01 September 2006 13:14pm
5 comments
Jakob Nielsen has been making some noise this week, ostensibly to promote his new book, about the benefits of speaking in the language that can be easily understood by users.
In the Age of Google this 20-year old ‘speak the user’s the language’ usability maxim has a fresh impetus, since many users begin a web journey on a search engine, by typing in a search query.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
30 August 2006 14:14pm
0 comments
There are some sure signs that we’re not in a bubble, despite some of the big money being hosed at disruptive startups such as Zillow and Jobster.
However, as the pictures below prove, there are some signs that we are witnessing another – ahem – wave of dotcom madness. Notably, the hiring of powerboats…
Read more...
by Chris Lake
30 August 2006 11:41am
1 comment
Apple has pulled off a coup by luring Google CEO Eric Schmidt to its board of directors, in a move that was announced late last night.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
30 August 2006 11:51am
1 comment
Six hours after announcing the Lemon Studios Summer Party and we have had almost 300 people register to attend, proving that the internet industry here in London is as eager as ever to, erm, drink mojitos.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
21 August 2006 17:36pm
0 comments
LOVEFiLM's Craig Sullivan provides a weekly overview of the key news stories to emerge this week in the online video sector.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
18 August 2006 16:23pm
0 comments
This week Web 2.0 startup Kiko put itself up for sale on eBay, after its founders seemingly became bored or disillusioned.
Kiko, which is priced at $49,999 (it has yet to attract a bid), is an online calendar built using Ruby on the Rails and claims about 40,000 users per month. Which, in case you are wondering, is a cost to the ‘business’. Kiko doesn’t appear to have any notable revenue streams.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
18 August 2006 15:12pm
1 comment
