The experience economy

Before World War 2, the middle-class in the developed world struggled to afford basic needs. In the post-war boom, standards of living rose dramatically, and people consumed far beyond what they needed. It was the age of conspicuous consumption: a race to own bigger cars and houses, and accumulate more stuff. The mean income in the developed world became sufficient to provide for a comfortable life.

Today, people increasingly realize they own more than enough stuff, and don’t want to pay for feature-rich versions of that stuff. Four blades in your razors are enough. In the language of Clay Christensen’s disruptive innovation framework, the product economy overshot the mass market’s needs.

An economy of experiences is emerging in its place. Experiences make people happier than products (a fact that scientific studies support). The popularity of experiences like music concerts has skyrocketed compared to corresponding products like music recordings. Apple, the most valuable company in the world, maniacally focuses on product experiences, down to minute details like the experience of unboxing an iPhone…

via The experience economy – Chris Dixon.

Reblogged from TechCrunch:

A really smart interview

Andreessen: My bet is that the positive effects will far outweigh the negatives. Think about Borders, the bookstore chain. Amazon drove Borders out of business, and the vast majority of Borders employees are not qualified to work at Amazon. That’s an actual, full-on problem. But should Amazon have been prevented from doing that? In my view, no. Because it’s so much better to live in a world where that happened, it’s so much better to live in a world where Amazon is ascendant. I told you that my childhood bookstore was something you had to drive an hour to get to. But it was a Waldenbooks, and it was, like, 800 square feet, and it sold almost nothing that you would actually want to read. It’s such a better world where we have Amazon, where everything is universally available. They’re a force for human progress and culture and economics in a way that Borders never was.

Anderson: So it’s creative destruction.

Andreessen: When Milton Friedman was asked about this kind of thing, he said: Human wants and needs are infinite, and so there will always be new industries, there will always be new professions. This is the great sweep of economic history. When the vast majority of the workforce was in agriculture, it was impossible to imagine what all those people would do if they didn’t have agricultural jobs. Then a hundred years later the vast majority of the workforce was in industrial jobs, and we were similarly blind: It was impossible to imagine what workers would do without those jobs. Now the majority are in information jobs. If the computers get smart enough, then what? I’ll tell you: The then what is whatever we invent next.

via

The Man Who Makes the Future: Wired Icon Marc Andreessen | Epicenter | Wired.com.

Full size over on Flickr.

Our very own Matt Mullenweg puts it well:

Liz Gannes writes for AllThingsD, Automattic Grows Up: The Company Behind WordPress.com Shares Revenue Numbers and Hires Execs. In addition to Stu joining as CFO and Paul as Consigliere/Automattlock, we’ve been on a hiring roll the past month or two with excellent folks joining at every level of the company, including two more Matts. If you’re passionate about Open Source and making the web a better place, like we are, there’s never been a better time to join. My favorite thing about logging in every morning is the people I work with. Friends say I work too much but it hardly feels like work at all. Update: Now in Techcrunch too

via http://ma.tt/2012/04/automattic-growth/

I don’t think he’s been back since 2009

Way back when, I used to use Google Gears to run gmail in offline mode in Firefox – usually when on a plane without wifi. Eventually Gears was retired, and a while after that, Google released a chrome app called Offline Google Mail that looked to do most of what you could once do with Gears.

I know I can install Thunderbird or run Mac Mail to do email offline, but I like the idea of using just my browser and not installing or running other client apps.

So on a recent trip Virgin America had non functioning wifi, and on the other leg it just barely worked. So I figured I’d put Offline Google Mail through it’s paces. What I found was pretty lacking and I took some notes

• 1) This is a biggie. It won’t work if you are offline ! WTF you may say ? “Offline” is in the app name. Yes, but to make it work, you need to first launch the app while you are online and then keep the browser open. Otherwise you see some version of the screenshot above.  This seems like something that has to be fixed — as you never know when you might need offline access, and certainly don’t want to have to plan for it.
• 2) Reply-all always CCs me the sender. Small thing, but annoying to have to remove yourself each time if there is more than one person on a thread.
• 3) native spell checker doesn’t work.
• 4) can’t force plain text mode in reply, you get stuck in this visual/rich mode which I’m not a fan of
• 5) no option to send & archive, which is my default in gmail
• 6) A biggie. It doesn’t detect the email address (i use multiple ones) to which the email was sent to. Unlike desktop gmail – which replies from the account the email was sent to
• 7) When I click save, it picks a different time zone than my machine’s. Maybe that’s a gmail/calendar thing — but causes confusion.
• 8) Another biggie. It doesn’t download attachment or images, clicking “show images” doesn’t do anything. Would love an option to include attachments.

Too bad it’s not open source — could send in patches

Anyone else have a better setup or recommendation ?

I see other complaining too:

Damn. Offline gmail solutions suck! Do I need to try Outlook?? Apple Mail is slow. Sparrow has screwed me 2x's. Gmail offline app not good.—
David Samuel (@dsamuel) April 19, 2012

@rsarver @dsamuel they all suck. i just put up with web gmail and keep an offline tab open.—
Peter Pham (@peterpham) April 19, 2012

I’ve been using a Mophie battery case since SXSW, so I almost didn’t notice the real problem, but decided yesterday to go hunting for a solution.

I found a thread on the Apple support forums, and was skeptical, but gave it a try:

1. Reset all settings (GO TO: settings -then> general-> reset all settings)

2 a. Go through initial setup steps (lang, wifi, siri, enable location, etc) and choose setup as new phone (don’t worry your apps, data, contacts, mail will still be there). Do NOT restore from iCloud or iTunes (It can copy back corrupt settings)

2 b. If you do not get the complete new setup screen with language setup and setup as new phone or restore from iTune/iCloud backup, be sure to go back to #1 and reset all settings again (it should happen the second time)

3. Turn off system location services timezone and iAd (settings -> location services -> system services)

4. Fully discharge battery (until you get the spinning wheel and it shuts off)

5. Fully recharge battery (overnight if possible)

And 48 hours later I’m happy to report that my battery life has never been better. It’s nearly midnight now, and I was on a few hours of calls today, and the battery is at 14%.

YMMV, but worth a try if you are seeing issues.