Author Archives: payne

It isn’t often that you see the MPAA on the defensive.  Their recent release about the SOPA/PIPA blackout, Chris Dodd said: “It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their … Continue reading →

Though I didn’t plan it, we ended up with sort of an “audio/visual” Christmas.  I got AirPlay-capable Pioneer receivers for my family and my brother.  I also gave several Roku boxes as gifts:   the entry level model was $45 (Amazon … Continue reading →

We pay about $1600/month for family health insurance.  It’s a pretty good HMO plan from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MA (BCBSMA), and we’ve been generally happy with their benefits.  However, we miss ten years ago, when it was $600/month, with … Continue reading →

Here is your marketing misfire of the week. This company takes out a full page ad in TIME magazine, puts in a QR code, but doesn’t even mobile-optimize the landing page! Those fonts are really tiny.

I usually blog by value, but now, I’m blogging by reference. With that bad piece of geek humor out of the way, I want to thank Dharmesh Shah for graciously publishing my article on his OnStartups blog. The comment stream … Continue reading →

When we started Open Market in 1994, the Internet was pretty much the Wild West. Everyone was figuring out what it “meant”, and it was a time when a 2-person company could have the on-line presence of IBM (and often … Continue reading →

I’m reading Steve Jobs’s biography, and though I’ve heard many of the Apple stories, it’s amazing to me how involved he was in fine details of Apple’s product design.  It reminds me that details matter, great products are about details, … Continue reading →

Steve Yegge’s post about Google’s platform strategy has been making the rounds lately, and buried in it is something very interesting: Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager. He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon’s retail site. He hired Larry Tesler, … Continue reading →