@guy

The new site design is here!

2021-04-18T14:46:00.008+03:00

Welcome to the new design for the site 🍾

I think I had the previous design for about 11 years(!!) so a new design was long overdue.

This is the 5th major redesign I've done for my personal website since I launched it in 2001.

Thanks to the Waybackmachine, here are some screenshots of the different designs over the years:

July 2001

September 2003

(btw those boxes were transparent so it looked better)

July 2004

April 2010

Whew, that was an eye sore 😀.

I also moved the blog over to blog.atguy.com and created a simple about me page on the homepage.

Let me know if you notice anything wonky with the site, all the old links should still work.

This one will probably be around for another 10 years so get used to it 🤣

Alfred open folder hotkey workflow

2017-11-24T16:41:00.004+02:00

Here's a really simple Alfred workflow I created that saves me tons of seconds every day.

It does one very simple thing: adds a hotkey that opens Alfred and types in: "open ".
So you can easily open any folder on your computer by just hitting the hotkey and typing the name of the folder you want to open.

Plain and simple.

You can download it here:

Download the Open Hotkey Alfred workflow

How to customize Alfred to work with Google Calendar (Alfred workflow)

2017-06-12T01:24:00.005+03:00

I use Google Calendar in the browser a lot so I thought why not setup Alfred to make working with Google Calendar easier.
(If you're not familiar with Alfred, it's an application launcher and productivity application for Mac)

I started off with trying to find an Alfred workflow that lets you easily open Google Calendar and easily add an event. I couldn't find such a workflow so I started working out different ways Alfred could do what I need.

At the end of the day I ended up creating this workflow that combines the different things I typically do with Google Calendar.

It basically lets you do 3 things:

Quickly open Google Calendar in the browser by typing the keyword gcal into Alfred.
Open Google Calendar using the keyboard hotkey ⌘ + g
Quickly add an event to Google Calendar.

The format for adding an event to Google Calendar is:
gc [event] at [time] on [date] in [location]

For example:
gc Dinner with friends at 8pm on next Sunday
Will open this event:

You can even do things like:
gc Weekly meeting every Wednesday at 3pm
And Google will add an event that repeats every Wednesday at 3pm.

Google does a great job at understanding what you mean when you type in natural language so play around and see.

You can also just type gc and hit enter and it will bring you to the new event page in Google Calendar.

Download the Google Calendar Workflow

If you don't want to add a workflow for some reason you can add this custom search instead:
Add event to Google Calendar
(clicking on that will prompt you to add it to Alfred, it's really easy to do)

It will let you quickly add events to Google Calendar via Alfred using the same format as described above.

Enjoy!

Sh#%, I messed up

2017-06-02T11:00:00.001+03:00

The 6 best apps for managing your tasks, now that Microsoft is killing Wunderlist

2017-05-19T21:52:00.001+03:00

Snapchat trick - How to upload any photo to Snapchat without the white borders!

2017-05-10T23:23:00.000+03:00

Why do we doodle

2017-05-06T22:29:00.001+03:00

BE AN UNDERACHIEVER

2017-04-16T15:53:00.001+03:00

3 best ways to stream videos to Chromecast

2015-08-18T18:54:00.000+03:00

This was originally posted on Medium

The Chromecast is one of my favorite gadgets. It’s cheap, it’s simple, and it usually just works.

However, one of the biggest problems with it is that once you get a taste of the simplicity of streaming YouTube videos to your TV via Chromecast you immediately want to stream your local video files to your TV, with the same ease.

And then the problems start.

There are a bunch of different ways to play videos from your PC or Mac on your Chromecast, and I’ve tried pretty much all of them. After a lot of trial and error these are the 3 best methods that I discovered.

Videostream

Videostream is a Google Chome app. To use it you need to launch the app on your computer (from within Chrome), choose the video you want to watch, and then click on the Google Cast extension to cast the app to your TV. A bit tedious but the stream works well, much better than just casting a tab using the Google Cast extension. The video and sound are smooth and the app is quite easy to use.

As an added bonus, there are free iPhone and Android apps that let you control Videostream from your phone. So essentially you just need to start the video from your computer and do the rest from your phone (like play, pause. rewind, etc.).

Downside: Need to start streaming from your computer

Price: free

Chome app link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/videostream-for-google-ch/cnciopoikihiagdjbjpnocolokfelagl?hl=en

iPhone remote app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id983686352

Android remote app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.videostream.Mobile

Air Video HD

AirVideo HD is an awesome app, regardless of if you have a Chromecast. It lets you view any videos you have on your computer (Mac or Windows) from your iPhone/iPad. So you can be anywhere in the world and your entire video library is easily accessible from your mobile device using Wifi or data. It supports a ton of different formats and even lets you download videos to your iOS device so that you can view them when offline.

In order to use Air Video HD you need to install Air Video Server, their free server application, on any computers you want to access from your mobile device (Air Video Server is available for Windows and Mac).

In order to stream from Air Video HD to Chromecast you currently need to join their “Early Access” program which is a $1.99 in-app purchase. They have a free trial so you can see that it really works for you before you buy early access. My guess is that Chromecast support will soon be part of the regular app and you won’t need to pay for early access. I paid the $2 for early-access and it was totally worth it.

Added bonuses: supports almost any video format (it transcodes videos on-the-fly), works smoothly with subtitles, can stream to Apple TV (using AirPlay), it looks great, and lets you download videos for viewing offline.

Downside: you need to have the server app running in the background. It’s a one time thing that you just install and never have to think about it again. Oh and no Android support.

Price: $2.99 for the app

Site: http://www.inmethod.com/airvideohd

iPhone/iPad app: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-video-hd/id668354926?mt=8&at=11laGd

LocalCast

LocalCast lets you stream videos from your Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod or NAS, DLNA/UPnP, Google Drive, Dropbox, and even videos embedded on a webpage. That means that, unlike AirVideo HD, you don’t need to install anything on your computer. LocalCast just connects to any shared folders on computers on your local network and then lets you cast them to a number of different devices. That’s right, you can also stream videos directly from Dropbox and Google Drive to your TV (or local video files you have on your mobile device).

It supports the following devices that you can stream to: Chromecast, Nexus Player, Amazon FireTV, SmartTV, Sonos, Xbox 360, Xbox One or other DLNA devices (like a Philips TV).

Added bonus: LocalCast lets you stream video to your TV but listen to the audio using your phone’s headphones, if you don’t want to bother people around you.

Downside: doesn’t transcode videos so if casting to Chromecast not all video formats work.

Price: the free version is totally functional but supported by ads. The Pro version (which removes ads) is $4.99

iPhone/iPad app: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/app/localcast-for-chromecast-dlna/id969804264?mt=8&at=11laGd

Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.stefanpledl.localcast&hl=en

Summary

If you don’t mind getting up to your computer to start the video and want an entirely free solution, go with Videostream.

If you want total control from your iPhone/iPad and don’t mind paying $3, go for AirVideo HD. Also, if you have various different video formats that Chromecast doesn’t necessarily support, AirVideo transcodes videos smoothly on the fly.

If you don’t want to install anything on your computer and want full control from your phone (and support for a bunch of different devices & Dropbox), LocalCast has you covered.

PHP code for fetching a remote file and saving it with the right file name

2014-08-07T16:08:00.002+03:00

Here is some PHP code I wrote for downloading a file from a remote server and saving it locally using the file's real name.
It tries to get the real file name using three methods:

First by checking if the server returned the name of the original file to save as (using the content-disposition http header)
By checking the content-type header that the server returned
If all else fails then by the filename in the requested url.

I hope you find this useful.

Why the top Super Bowl 2013 ads worked

2013-02-05T00:32:00.000+02:00

Like every year, a main highlight of the Super Bowl are the TV commercials.
Here's my rundown of the top commercials from Super Bowl 2013, and what made them good.

My criteria for a good commercial was whether it did the job (in my opinion) based on these:

Does it reenforce the brand
Is it memorable
Will people talk about it afterwards
Does it engage the viewer

Excellent ads nailed most of these criteria.

Here's the list:

OREO - Whisper Fight

Everybody was talking about this one, mainly because it was a funny situation. But not only that, the commercial opened up an age old conversation that is directly connected to the product: what's better the cookie or the creme.

Taco Bell

This Taco Bell commercial did a great job of connecting between the brand and having a good time. Even if you think it's shitty food, the ad makes you feel good about living life and having a good time.

The Rock runs out of milk

The message in this ad is that even a super hero like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will do anything to bring his kids milk, even if the world is falling apart. The huge production (explosions, woman trapped in a car with a lion, aliens...) and the silly situation of The Rock running down the street in his pajamas just to get milk, amidst all of this, make this ad memorable.

Hyundai - why turbo

A very simple concept that demonstrates the benefits of this specific product. As the commercial proceeds it gets sillier and more extreme, all building up anticipation for the punch line: "Why turbo? It's just better to be in front" (with the most extreme one coming after the punch, now that you get it).

Pizza Hut - Hut

An excellent connection between all the excitement around the game and their brand. Such a good connection that it makes the viewers think, how didn't I think about that before. All that while repeating the brand name over and over.

Speed Stick Unattended Laundry

Speed Stick took what they are good at (times when you sweat) and told a story that people can relate to. They created a funny awkward scene that men specifically can relate to, and it points out the benefits of their product.

Tide - Miracle Stain

Again, the extreme situation depicted here is very memorable. And fans of both teams could connect to it thanks to the punch at the end.

SodaStream

This commercial uses two interesting techniques, there's the cool effect of the bottles exploding (in a fun sleek way), and the environmental aspect. Both make you relate to the commercial while teaching you the benefits of the product, which is not that well known yet.

Subway FebruANY

Subway took the awful name FebruANY and made it memorable by having a bunch of celebrities trying to pronounce it, in a blooper roll. Viewers are likely to try to say it themselves which increases the chance of them remembering it. So not only do you remember FebruANY at the end of the commercial, the meaningful name hints that you can get anything at Subway during the month of February (even if that's not what they are actually offering).

Go Daddy - Perfect Match

This GoDaddy commercial was kinda boring in my opinion, but I mentioned it in this list because it got a hell of a lot of buzz (and GoDaddy reported record sales after Super Bowl 2013). The old cliché is true, sex sells. It sells even more if you have a geek-loser getting to kiss a supermodel.

Here are more SuperBowl 2013 commercials on YouTube.

What are your thoughts on the best ones?

How I proposed using a Chrome extension

2012-11-30T22:46:00.000+02:00

Yup, I'm a geek. Everybody who knows me knows that.
As you can tell by the title of this post, here's how I proposed to my girlfriend by developing a Chrome extension (there's an added bonus at the end on how my mom discovered on Twitter that I had proposed).

When I decided to propose to my girlfriend I knew it would be geeky. Not Star Wars geeky, I'm not that hardcore, but something geeky nonetheless (and she is totally not a geek so any l33t speak would not work).

I threw around a few ideas. I knew I wanted to surprise her out of the blue, I wanted to do something that required investment (and not just half-ass it), but I didn't want it to be too grandiose (we're both not into those kinds of things).

Eventually I decided that I wanted to mess with her on Facebook.
Then I got the idea of creating a Chrome extension (after all, I was a long time at Conduit :) that injects JavaScript into her Facebook and would let me change stuff there.

Since this was a marriage proposal, the obvious place to mess with her on Facebook was the relationship status. This is what I came up with...

The first step was to ask her for some pretty basic stuff:

I was pretty sure that she would get annoyed with it and not want to cooperate so I added the little locks to give an impression that the information is private.

In the second step, it would ask her to update her relationship status. No matter what relationship status she chose it continued as if she had selected "Married".

and then she'd get this confirmation dialog:

The idea was that she would think she chose "Married" by accident and then hit the "No" to go back and then see that "Married" was selected.

After finally agreeing to update her relationship status she would then see this dialog:

Those are all profile pictures of male facebook friends she has, not including me.
After a few seconds those pictures would fade out and my profile picture would slide in and she'd see this:

I thought that at that point she'd understand and I would be standing there with the ring.

My good friend Adiel helped with the development of the extension and we set it up so that I could remotely control when to run the injected Javascript (thanks again Adiel!).

I loaded up the extension on her laptop during the night and my goal was to get her to check Facebook on her laptop during the next day (the next day was 10/11/12 a nice date to propose on, right?).
Easier said than done.

The extension was loaded up on her laptop, I had the ftp to the server open ready to enable the extension remotely, but she wouldn't go to her computer.

So I decided to send her this message on Facebook:

You have to check this out:

The idea was that she'd get that message on her iPhone and think it wasn't working properly so she'd check it on her laptop. Worked like a charm... she went up and opened Facebook on her laptop.

As soon as I saw she loaded up Facebook I enabled the extension.

She got the "Facebook update your details wizard", got annoyed, and closed the page.
She reopened Facebook, hoping it would disappear, but the damn thing was back (hee hee).
After getting annoyed at it a bit she called me over to show me what Facebook was forcing her to do... so far everything was progressing as planned...

I took a look at it and told her I had no idea what that thing was but since there's a lock there she had nothing to worry about, the information would be private.

Reluctantly, she filled out the first step (home town) and got to the next step with the relationship status. She got really annoyed at that :)

I told her not to worry that she could just choose "single". She looked at me like I was nuts :)
(neither one of us had ever updated their Facebook relationship status till then)

Eventually she chose "single", hit next, and got the "Please confirm you are updating to Married" screen. Just as planned, she thought she made a mistake and went back. There she saw that "married" was selected and chose single again.
Of course the second time it asked her to confirm "married" really pissed her off :)
At this point I told her to just hit next, who cared. She was't willing to and told me to do it. I ended up hitting next to confirm, thinking that she would immediately understand what was going on on the next screen.

The faces came up and again she looked confused, asking me "what the hell is this?". I said "dunno", knowing that my pic would come up in a sec (the ring was already in my hand at this point, she had no idea).

A few seconds later my picture slided in and I looked at her, sure that she knew what was going on, and pulled out the ring.

She was floored :)
She had no idea till that second what was going on (mission accomplished :).

Luckily for me, she said yes!

A few minutes of mushiness ensued while we collected ourselves and indulged in the moment, and then I explained to her how the whole thing worked.

To top all this off, the next thing I obviously had to do was update my Twitter with the good news and that was how my Mom found out I proposed. When I called her to tell her the good news she answered saying "I need to discover on Twitter that you proposed?". She was a great sport about it :)

Like I said, yup, I'm a geek.

Employee Equity by Fred Wilson

2012-04-22T19:10:00.000+03:00

Just saw this great talk by Fred Wilson, principal of Union Square Ventures, about employee equity.
It's a bit long but if you are building a company try to put an hour aside to watch this.

The video of the entire talk is embedded below, and here's a link to Fred's post about it.

There are useful tips and best practices scattered across the entire talk so it's worth listening to, but if you don't have the time/patience here are the highlights.

The high level concept of the entire talk is that "if anybody goes to the pay window, everybody goes to the pay window". Meaning that everybody in the company should be an integral part of the ride and be compensated accordingly in the case that the entrepreneur and founders get their payday by selling the company, IPO, etc...

At the beginning of the talk (minute 3:37-10:40) Fred explains the basics of dilution, giving an example of a common scenario where a founder brings on a founding team, then some seed investors who also get equity, an employee equity pool, and a VC investment. The example shows how the founder gets diluted as more people get a bite of the pie (as do everybody else along the line).

He then goes on to explain various tax implications of options vs. stock and different vesting plans for employees, founders, and the founding team.

In my opinion, the most important part of the talk starts at minute 32:50 where Fred discusses a technique that he uses for how to calculate how many shares to give a specific employee (it goes till about minute 42:00).

Here's how to determine how much stock to give a specific employee:

First of all you need to put down your own real valuation of your company. This is not an official number or something that a 409A firm comes up with (more on that in the beginning of this video, if you're interested), it's how much you really think your company is worth at that point in time. In his example it's $25M.

Next you need to bucket your employees into 4 buckets and their multipliers:

Senior team (CFO, CMO, CPO... executives who report to the CEO): 0.5x - 1x
Junior VP level/directors (people who report to the senior team): 0.25x - 0.5x
Key hires (engineers, designers,... people who are hard to hire and hard to retain): 0.1x - 0.25x
Everybody else: 0.05x - 0.1x

The multiplier ranges are so you can tune it according to your specific market and how competitive/hard to find certain people it is. Geography also affects what multiplier to use.

Now determine the market cash compensation for these people, not what you're gonna pay them, what they would get paid at a competing or big company. In his example it's a CFO who would make $250K annually (you're paying him $175K but he could make $250K on the market).
You then take that number and multiply it by that person's matching multiplier. In this case he used 0.75 which gets to $187,500 which is the dollar value of the equity that you're gonna give the CFO.

All you need now is to see how many shares you have outstanding, and divide. In his example he used 10 million outstanding shares. So you divide the valuation you came up with by the number of outstanding shares to get the price per share (in his example, $25M/10M=$2.5 per share).
Now just divide the equity dollar value that you calculated for that employee by the share price to get how many shares to grant that person. In this example, $187,500 / $2.5 = 75,000 shares (Fred has a calculation error on the board in the class).

Note that the price per share that the employee actually gets will not be the number you used for this calculation, it will be the 409A valuation which is hopefully much lower than the valuation you came up with (you want your 409A valuation to be as low as possible for tax reasons).

At minute 50:15 there is also a part about retention grants. Fred recommends giving retention stock grants 2 years after hiring so that people have unvested stock that will keep them with the company (otherwise they can just leave with their entire stock pool after the 4 year vesting is up).

The formula he recommends for retention grants is one half of what the sign on grant would be for that employee, if the employee was hired today, every 2 years.

So in the CFO example above, he originally got 75,000 shares. Two years later, the company is now worth $50M (twice as much), so his sign on grant would be 37,500. So his retention grant should be 18,750 shares (half of 37,500), vested over 4 years.

That's it, that's the gist of what you need to know about giving your employees stock so that everybody on board is motivated to make the company a success and compensated accordingly.

Why Draw Something Works

2012-03-26T18:24:00.000+02:00

Drawing from bestofdrawsomething

The latest rage to hit the interwebs, as you all know, is OMGPOP's Draw Something (if you aren't familiar with it you can checkout my review of Draw Something on LightenApp.com).
According to their latest news, only 7 weeks after launching Draw Something was downloaded more than 35 million times and Zynga bought the company for $180 million.

We've seen it time and time again where a company takes an existing concept, that was not necessarily ever a big hit, puts their own twist on it, and the result is "overnight success". Google did it with search and Gmail (for example), Rovio did it with Angry Birds, and the list goes on... The OMGPOP story is far from an overnight success, as my good friend Shahar Nechmad noted in a recent post, but they definitely nailed it with Draw Something.

So what did OMGPOP do in Draw Something that caused this incarnation of pictionary to catch on so fast and turn into the amazing phenomenon that it became?

Here's my analysis.

Asynchronous playing - people love playing mobile games and they love playing with their friends. The problem with playing mobile games with your friends is that you typically need to all play at the same time, which is not very convenient when on a mobile device. You usually want to play on your phone when you have some spare time. In Draw Something the entire gameplay is based on asynchronous turns, so that whenever you want you can launch the app and play a round or two, even if your friend/s aren't currently online. When you finish your turn whatever you did is sent to wait for your friend. So you are playing with real people however you can always launch the app and get immediate satisfaction, even if nobody else is playing at that time. Even though it's asynchronous the game still lets you see what the other side experienced as they were playing, watching you draw. So you get the asynchronous game play without losing much of the real-time effect of playing with another live player.

Simultaneous games with several people - The downside of asynchronous games with real people is that you have to wait a lot between turns, till the other person finishes their turn and sends it back to you. The way OMGPOP solved that problem in Draw Something is by letting you play a lot of simultaneous games with many people.
When you complete a round with one person you don't have to wait around for the person to be online and play their turn, you just jump to another simultaneous game with somebody else. The game allows for enough games in parallel so that typical users will have enough games to play and not get bored waiting around. Since people are playing several rounds at once, each time you launch a round you first see the last drawing you drew for that user. That quickly reminds you where you left off and can continue playing from that spot.

Not being able to quit in the middle - Sometimes you run across players who don't really know how to draw well or are bad guessers. Draw Something is designed in such a way so that you can quit playing with anybody you don't want to play with, but the quitting point is at the end of a round. This subtle product feature keeps users engaged longer with the game than if you could just quit in the middle of a round just because the other user annoyed you ("can't you see that's a golf club???"). When you are in the middle of a round and get annoyed at the other user, you still have to complete the round (watch the user guess your word, watch them draw and try to guess, draw a new word). So effectively you can quit the round once you've finished drawing something. But don't you want to see if the user got your word? After all you just created this masterpiece, you don't want it to just disappear, never to be seen by anyone. Right? Ok, I'll go another round and give them another chance.... Not only does this create more activity within the system, it also give a chance for poor players to keep playing (and hopefully improve).

Limited set of letters to choose from - Not letting users just type in the entire word they are guessing, but forcing them to choose from a limited set of characters has 3 benefits. 1) It limits the possibilities for the curent word ("that looks like a dog but I don't have a 'd', I guess it's cat") which in effect increases the chances that people will guess the word, which makes both sides happier ("If he got the word I guess my drawing was good" and "I'm so smart I managed to guess that word even though it's an awful drawing"). 2) It helps with spelling problems, especially with an international userbase. 3) Finally, limiting the characters creates an opportunity for in-app purchases of bombs to eliminate characters and not lose your winning streak.

Easy random player hookup - Even if you don't know anybody who plays Draw Something you can just get the app, create a game, and find a random partner to play with. Since the game is asynchronous and simultaneous this really helped get the game started even when there weren't a lot of users using it yet (it was easy to seed the game with a small group of initial in-house players who took on the new users coming in).

Playing with actual friends - It's very easy to play Draw Something with people that you actually know, via Facebook Connect. And since the game is asynchronous you can even start playing with friends that don't even have the game yet. This both makes the game fun (it's more fun to play with somebody who you know in real life, vs somebody random) and makes the game viral. If you choose not to connect to Facebook you can still play against people you know via either their user name or email address.

Winning streaks + aligned goals - both players playing a round of Draw Something have the same goal, to guess the word. If I draw a good drawing and you guess it, we both win. Combine that with a winning streak counter and both sides have a mutual goal of keeping up that streak and not letting the other side down. This works exceptionally well when playing against friends you know via Facebook.

Not all the things Draw Something did were so outstanding, but these things are what caused the game to be both fun and viral among friends, which led to its great success.

Here are a couple things they didn't do that well on, and will hopefully improve in their upcoming versions:

The user interface when logging in is not standard and actually quite weird. Instead of asking for your email/username and password they ask for your email and username. I've seen more than a few people put in their email and then type their password in the username field (because it looks like it should be the password field) and what happens is that you now get a new username that is your password. Not cool at all.

They also screwed up the Facebook integration when you choose to sign in with a user name instead of using Facebook Connect. If you use a username you can't then connect to Facebook and play against your Facebook friends. That's both less fun and less viral, both sides lose.

In their next version of Draw Something they will let people share their drawings easily on Facebook and Twitter (among other things they'll be adding). This will create more engagement around the game among friends and increase their virality.

I can't wait to see what other product improvements they'll introduce that will make Draw Something an even bigger success....

GrrReader

2012-02-28T03:04:00.000+02:00

Google recently moved the Google Reader link into the "More" section of their top navigation bar (you know, that black toolbar that they added to all of their sites when they launched Google Plus).

For those of us who use Google Reader regularly, it's quite an annoyance. Not only the fact that it's now harder to access Google Reader, but the fact that Google can change whatever they want in these tools that we use daily, and we pretty much have nothing to do about it.

So I took the opportunity to create a Chrome extension that adds it back to where it belongs, on the navigation bar itself.
The extension was pretty simple to write and gave me a chance to brush up a bit on my Javascript skills (especially JQuery stuff).

If you're interested, you can find the Chrome extension for download from the Chrome Web Store (it's free obviously).

Comments are welcome...

Discovering Apps

2012-01-15T14:39:00.000+02:00

I recently started an additional site about app discovery: LightenApp.

As you can probably tell by its name, LightenApp is focused entirely on apps, mainly iPhone apps.

The format is simple: short app reviews added daily.

If you want to discover new apps and get tips and recommendations, just subscribe to LightenApp on any one of these channels:

Like it on Facebook:

Follow on Twitter:
Follow @LightenApp

Follow on Google+:

Get the RSS feed:

If you know any good app that you think should be reviewed, let me know.

Designing a Logo

2011-12-06T12:44:00.001+02:00

We recently changed the name of our company and one of the implications was that we needed to create a new logo for the company.
The name of the company is iglloo (igloo.com was taken, big surprise, but we managed to grab iglloo.com) and when we chose that name I immediately envisioned us having some kind of cute logo, although nothing specific came to mind.
For some reason, we thought it would be pretty easy to create the imagery that goes along with the values what we want our brand to represent (in a nutshell we build apps, primarily for iPhones and iPads), but we quickly learned that creating something "real" out of our vague thoughts, was not an easy task.

We tried a few concepts but the designs that we got were too literal. We kept getting images of igloos.
Things like this:

Which is cute, but not more than that. We were looking for something sophisticated, simple, and fun.

I had envisioned a simple textual logo, with an igloo incorporated somehow as part of that textual logo.

So we decided to open a contest on 99designs.

If you aren't familiar with 99designs, it lets you setup a contest for any graphic work you need. For example, you can create a contest for designing a web page and offer a $300 reward to whomever designs the best page for you.
Lots of designers hang around 99designs looking for projects to work on and they may see your project and submit a design, hoping it will win the contest and they'll get paid.

Similar to the X Prize (and the original Orteig Prize which Charles Lindbergh won in 1927 for flying non-stop from New York City to Paris), the idea is that the sum of all the effort put in to the competition by the participants is greater than the value of the prize.

Essentially you get tons of people working for you for free and one of them gets overpaid a bit for their effort.

Sounds like a great concept, especially for things like graphic design.

I heard from a few people about different results on 99designs, some were really happy and some didn't like the quality of the work they got there. So we decided to go with the cheapest option there ($299) and give it a try.

Within a week we got 38 designers who submitted about 140 design concepts for our logo.

Some were WAY off and a few were quite close to the concept we had imagined and tried to describe to the designers, but none of them really stood out. We were basically looking for a stroke of genius.

Here are a few of the designs that were kinda of the concept we were looking for (some after refinement based on our comments to the designers):

In our opinion, none of them were really spectacular/genius enough and we were pretty disappointed with the results.

At that point we pretty much gave up on the contest, didn't award a winner, and went on with our day to day business (still using the old brand). The rules at 99designs are that if you don't pick a winner you don't have to pay. We were definitely willing to pay full price for the design, if there was something that we liked.

I must say, the support team at 99designs did a great job. They were very accommodating, they offered to extend our contest longer because we hadn't decided on a winner yet (contests are typically for 1 week) but we still didn't get good enough results.

At that point I even tried to create the logo myself and came up with this idea:

I actually really liked the concept (I guess I'm just in love with my own ideas) but the problem was that it doesn't scale. At small sizes that little igloo image is totally not clear.

After about 2 months the logo issue came up again and I went back to 99designs to see the old submissions, maybe looking at them again would give a different perspective. Still nothing spectacular.

Since 99designs offer a refund if you don't pick a winner, I sent them an email and asked how I get the refund. They replied that they can only refund within 60 days and that more than that had passed.

They did offer to reopen our contest and basically start over. So we reopened the contest, again for 1 week.
This time we got WAY fewer submissions. I'm not really sure why (I asked their support and they didn't have any good answers). They also offered to give us their PowerPack for free which basically gets you better listings in their directory along with a few other tweaks so it stands out (usually $85).
The PowerPack didn't make any difference, we just got a few random submissions, nothing even close.

Then while looking at all the different submissions I suddenly ran across this design from the original contest:

I never really noticed it because it "wasn't what we were looking for", we were looking for some kind of genius twist as part of the textual logo.

But this was interesting.

We showed it to a few people around the office and everybody pretty much liked it.

I asked the designer for the meaning of the icon and this is what he sent in reply:

The meaning of the icon according to the designer

Ok, I can live with that.

We then went back and forth playing around with different fonts and stylings, these were among them:

At this point I was just exchanging emails with the designer, going back and forth about different things like the dot above the i, what L's to use, etc... According to 99designs, during the handoff process you can ask for some changes but the designers aren't obligated to do anything. Beehive, the designer who created this logo, was very responsive and helpful.

After about a day of mixing and matching different elements from different fonts (and trying to keep it from looking like a Frankenstein-ish mess) we finally came up with the final design!

It wasn't what we had originally envisioned in terms of the concept, but it does the job.

And without further ado, here is the official new logo for iglloo:

So do I recommend using 99designs?
To an extent. While looking around there at different projects (I was looking to target designers who created things I like) I saw some pretty good designs.
My feeling is that it's kind of a crapshoot, with relatively good odds.
You may be able to get something really good for not a lot of money but you may leave disappointed.

If you can afford $299 then I would give it a try.
I think logos are particularly difficult to design (the story behind the Conduit logo is quite long too) but if you are looking to design a website you'll probably be able to get good results (although 99designs may be a bit more expensive than just buying a template and customizing it a bit).

Twylah - Your Trending Tweets

2011-11-06T19:53:00.000+02:00

One of the annoying things about Twitter is that things that you tweet just vanish into the ongoing flow of tweets and disappear forever, never to be seen again by a human being (and Twitter's horrible search engine makes that problem even worse).

I recently ran across a great service that addresses this problem - Twylah.
Twylah analyzes the content that you put on Twitter and automatically generates a site for you which gives your readers a beautiful summary of who you are and what you tweet about.
That page is also optimized for SEO which is a great way for you to drive new traffic back to your content.

So basically, instead of sending people to your boring old Twitter page (which may be filled at the moment with irrelevant tweets because you just happen to be in an ongoing conversation with somebody on Twitter about the latest episode of Beavis and Butthead), you send people to your Twylah page.

That page will show them your personal trending topics and what you are all about.
My Twylah page, for example, currently shows that I tweet about Twitter, iPhone, Apple, Games, and Nike (I recently ran in a Nike run so I've been tweeting about it).

Look at the difference between a regular Twitter page to the Twylah page generated from it:

It's much easier to understand what kind of stuff you tweet about and it looks much better.

I assume Twylah is mainly targeting brands to use this but I see no reason why any individual who is on Twitter wouldn't want to use it.

Check out my Twylah page and you can request a beta invite to get your own.

Leaving Conduit

2011-05-25T18:15:00.000+03:00

After nearly seven amazing years at Conduit, I have decided to leave the company and pursue other ventures.

This journey started in a room with a small group of all engineers that quickly grew to an outstanding company with over a quarter of a billion (that's right, with a b) of monthly users and a network of hundreds of thousands of publishers. A dream come true for anybody trying to create something online.

One of the first versions of the Conduit homepage

Over the years I've had the privilege of being involved with many different aspects of the company at different stages: from hands on technical roles, to dealing with our very first customers and users, marketing to the long tail, managing support, product definitions, meeting new prospective publishers, leading product, and the list goes on and on.

This experience has been life changing and gave me the rare opportunity to accompany a company from it's inception, throughout the different stages, the ups and downs, up to a huge success story with hundreds of millions of users and a multi million dollar revenue stream.

I would like to thank all the great people who I've worked with over the years at Conduit and am sure that they will continue to make this company a true game changer.

What now you ask?
(ok, maybe you didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway)
Over the past few years, we've all seen the explosion in the mobile web space. Instead of saying "here's an idea for a startup" people now say "here's an idea for an app" (I even unknowingly tweeted this a few months ago http://bit.ly/l8I6Jm). With the easily accessible platforms and infrastructures we currently have, I believe there is a lot of potential for solving problem with the mobile Internet, and that's what I plan on doing.

I've partnered with Shai Wolkomir, a serial entrepreneur but most importantly an old friend, and together we plan to change the world. Or at least have fun trying to do so.
We've assembled a small but very capable team that will give us the ability to try out our ideas and quickly see what works, what needs refining, and what should be thrown out.

The first product to hatch out of our nest is Props which is a way for people to give recognition to people for things they are good at and get the respect they deserve.

So far it's getting a lot of great responses from the people who saw it at TechCrunch Disrupt and we have a lot of plans for it.

So without any further ado: go install it and let me know what you think :)

Cheers,
Guy

Techonomy3 - The Rundown

2011-04-06T09:06:00.003+03:00

(Photo by Yaniv Feldman - Newsgeek)

This is a repost of an article that I originally wrote for Technorati and was published there.

The startup scene in Israel is booming, and a(nother) testament to that is the Techonomy3 conference, which just wrapped up not long ago.
The format is simple: 6 startups presented to about 400 attendees in the room (and probably a few thousand viewing via the live video stream from around the world).
A panel of respected, well-known judges gave their comments after each presentation, and the audience voted on the winner, American Idol style.

America (well, Israel actually), here are your top 6:

Hitpad - an iPad app that automatically gives you highlights of what's going on today by analyzing different online sources and giving you trending topics with drill downs of topics you're interested in. Very cool.
Dapsem - an iPhone app to give your friends virtual fist bumps as a sign of appreciation. The concept of giving recognition to people you know is great and has huge potential.
From what I've seen, Props are the ones to keep your eyes on in that space.
Magisto - a web app (remember those? :) that automatically detects interesting content in your videos for creating professional looking edits of your videos. Like Animoto but with zero effort.
Tingiz - a platform for creating mobile microsites for products. Manufacturers of physical products can create a mobile microsite for their products and connect them via a QR code. The product microsites will show things like product videos, information, Facebook page, etc...
Jumboard - a large plastic PC keyboard with big red, yellow, blue, and green buttons that let little kids easily interact with Flash apps on Jumboard.com. This gives young kids an interface they can easily use to start interacting with games/applications and parents get feedback on the progress of their kids. Kinda like a modern incarnation of the Comfy keyboard.
TVtak - an iPhone app for easily getting information about TV shows. All you do is take a picture of your TV while watching a show and TVtak will recognize what you are watching and give you information about that show (and let you share it with your friends). Very much like Shazam does for music.

Based on the reactions of the crowd and the live Twitter board (which was on fire during the event), Techonomy was a huge success for everybody involved.

And without any further ado... the winner of Techonomy 3 is.....
Magisto!

Congrats to the winners and to the organizers of this conference, they put on a great show.
And to the losers: "it's an honor just being nominated", or in this case, just being on stage.

My Talk On Next Generation Game Platforms

2011-03-21T19:53:00.000+02:00

Here's a video of my talk from the last Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, Germany.

The topic was next generation platforms.

My part starts at about minute 11:30.

Summing Up SXSW

2011-03-19T02:01:00.000+02:00

This is a repost of an article that I originally wrote for Technorati and was published there.

Image by Marc van der Chijs

South By Southwest Interactive is (finally) over and we can all get back to our normal lives (unless it's normal for you to go out every night, meet hundreds of people, and get free food and drinks everywhere you go).
For those who don't know, South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of interactive, film, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin, Texas.

Here's the rundown for this year's SXSW highlights, disappointments, winners, and losers. These are all based on both my personal experience there and on feedback that I got from talking to tons of other geeks and techies there.

Highlights

Klout party - Klout rented a house, had food, drinks, and a live band (Audio Runner). But what made it stand out was that they had a good crowd and the timing: noon on Saturday, which is kind of a downtime in terms of events. Just a good time talking to cool people on a Saturday afternoon.
140conf party - Tons of great people at the Lanai + open bar = great time. Jeff Pulver really knows how to draw in a crowd and everybody enjoyed themselves.
Lean Startup party - SXSW is all about people, people, people. Dave McClure and Eric Ries got a great group of people together, that's what this event was about. After a few hours at the Lean Startup party, the group I was with that night actually left to go to the foursquare party, and then came back to the Lean Startup event since it was so much better.
Conduit pool party - obviously I'm totally biased here so I didn't want to include Conduit's party in this list. The only reason I decided to include it was because other people kept saying it was one of their highlights. So for those who missed it, Conduit had a pool party BBQ on Sunday afternoon. The setting was quite different from other events: it was held at the pool of the prestigious Ashton Austin condos. The setting, timing, food and drinks were great and lots of people actually got in the pool despite the cloudy skies.
SVB - SVB packed the two floors of the Parkside on 6th with top notch people. Everything from investors like Tim Draper to bankers and entrepreneurs were there. And they had a live 80s cover band, great dinner, and surprise show by Andrew Mason (CEO of Groupon) playing the piano to top it off.
Pud meetup - this relatively small meetup (probably about 30 people) was organized by Phillip (pud) Kaplan founder of Blippy (among a ton of other things). Forget the pizza and hotdogs, just chatting with cool people like Alex from Million Dollar Homepage, Aaron founder of Urban Dictionary, and Bram from Bittorrent was awesome.
Foo Fighters surprise show - for those who got in (the lines were LOOONG) was a fun way to end the SXSWi craziness.

Biggest Disappointments

The conference itself - most people I know didn't even bother to try to go to the sessions. A surprisingly large amount of people actually didn't go pick up their badges. The best parts were all the events around the conference, the actual conference was not an attraction.
Fousquare party - tough time getting in so you'd expect it to be killer (and lots of people were talking about it) but checking in here was not worth it.
Mashable Billiards - a lot of noise around this one. The people at the door were REAL a#@holes. Not what you'd expect from Mashable
Twitter retreat - this was a weird one. Expected it to be big and fancy since Twitter was hosting. Was very small, secluded, and not that interesting.
Facebook developers garage - a bunch of people I know tried to find this event but couldn't. Either they canceled last minute or Google maps is WAY off, because nobody I know managed to find/hear anything about this (and we looked a lot).

Winners

Hashable - forget business cards, Hashable is the way to go when you meet somebody new. I would say 3 out of 5 people I met at SXSW were using Hashable, especially people from NYC. Hashable rocks but I do agree with what my friend Nate Lustig wrote, the only downside is that Hashable strips the personality of your business cards into about 100 characters available in a Hashable tweet. I enjoy seeing the creativity in business cards each year at SXSW.
GroupMe - there were tons of group messaging apps trying to push themselves at SXSW. For some reason GroupMe caught on. If you managed to get on the right GroupMe group you'd get insight to where the hot spots are (and get a lot of junk messages).
Plancast - one of the hardest things at SXSW is to know about all the different events. Plancast are awesome at tracking where people are planning to go and letting you follow people that are in the know.
Foursquare - another method of tracking where everybody is going: just follow the right people on foursquare and see where they checkin. Gowalla were surprisingly quiet even though they are based in Austin.

Best Giveaways

Squarespace - free food. Good food. Every day.
Sobe - had an outside bar with both cocktails based on Sobe and just free Sobe lifewater drinks. Lifesaver. Plus always a nice crowd there.

A Squarespace lunch: bacon donut

Best Hangout
Driskill Hotel lobby - at the end of every night (and beginning actually) the Driskill lobby was always packed with TONS of very interesting people. Really can't beat that.

Biggest Pain

Cellphone battery life - With all the checkins, Hashable, Google Maps, Plancast, etc… you'd be lucky if your iPhone lasted through (free) lunch. Some companies tried to help by giving away free battery packs but only a small elite group managed to get those.
Craziness - just trying to keep up with all the craziness was hard. So much going on there was no way to really keep track. And forget about trying keep up with the real world and answer emails.

One thing is for sure though: see you next year South By...

2011 - What Will We See?

2010-12-27T20:56:00.000+02:00

This is a repost of an article that I originally wrote for Technorati and was published there.

(Picture by Sean McGrath)

Once again, it's the time of year for reflection and predictions. I always enjoy reading what others thought about the past year and what they're expecting from the year ahead. With so many interesting happenings in technology in general, and specifically in the Internet space, it's a fun task.

2010 – Year of the Consumer

2010 could be termed the Year of the Consumer with vendors introducing consumers to location-based services (Foursquare, GoWalla), social couponing (Groupon), and a vast array of apps. Apple's iPad changed the game for apps on both web and mobile devices, creating incredible consumer demand. Coupled with the mainstream evolution of smartphones, this demand has launched an explosive market opportunity.

On the development side, there has been a lot of noise about HTML5 and CSS3. All the big guys are behind this, and Adobe even has a tool that converts Flash to HTML5. The popularity and compatibility of HTML5 is increasing every day, but there is still a ways to go before it becomes mainstream.

And let's not forget cloud computing. For the past few years, the technology for cloud computing has been maturing and slowly adopted by many companies. Evidenced by the new TV commercials, cloud computing is now an accessible infrastructure that enables web companies of all sizes to scale relatively easily. And pretty much everybody is using it now.

Top Predictions for 2011

If 2010 was the Year of the Consumer, 2011 will see the inevitable market impact of this shift. New technologies will emerge, and only those with the best user interfaces and marketing strategies will survive. I expect that app mania will continue and businesses of all sizes will expand their footprint on mobile and web platforms.

My Top Ten predictions are:

HTML5 in action. Browser support for HTML5 is getting better (in both desktop and mobile browsers), so we will start seeing HTML5 and CSS3 more and more in mainstream Web applications. Life for Web developers will finally be (a bit) easier, and user experience across platforms will converge and improve, although not fast enough.

Tablet wars will get serious. Apple currently has 95% of the market, but that's because they have been the only real player in the market. That's changing fast with Samsung and others debuting their own tablets. Who will dominate in 2011? Still Apple, especially if/when they launch iPad 2. Dell, Samsung, and HP will be the other major players there.

Android will gain more market share and close the gap with iPhone, but will not overcome it. They aren't doing enough to appeal to the non-techies.

Mobile and web platforms will continue to converge. The web has become ubiquitous so there will be less of a fine line between web and mobile. This has already started with the iPad (is it a mobile device?) and will crossover to other devices like Google's Chrome OS notebook (which still has a ways to go before it can become popular).

The number of app platforms will expand: smartphones, e-readers, televisions, Blu-ray players. I'm not sure we'll see apps in the fridge or washing machine in 2011, but who knows... I look forward to CES in January.

More of our information will be stored in the cloud, and streaming services will increase in popularity. This includes photos, documents, music, and maybe even videos. The pricing will need to become more competitive to make this prediction come true.

Social analytics. We need easier ways to measure and analyze people's interactions in social networks (person-to-person and person-to-brand). This year, we'll start seeing some successes and standardization in this area (which will probably lead to Google acquiring the leader).

Richer TV experiences. Google TV, Apple TV, and Boxee are all working hard to create richer television experiences for us. These products may not yet become mainstream, but will no longer be novelties reserved for hardcore geeks, either. 3D television will not become more popular as some people are expecting.

We will start to see actual adoption of peer-to-peer micro payment systems (Square, for example). It will become more and more popular to just pull out your cell phone when you want to pay for a cup of coffee. This year, though, there probably will be more people accepting payments than people actually paying, but that's the first step towards replacing our old-school credit cards.

Maturing of the location-based application market. Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, My Town (Booyah), SCVNGR, Facebook Places, Google Places, Yelp, and Groupon are all about the places that people go for deals in their business and personal locales. I think some big players will stay on top (Groupon, and Living Social with the help of Amazon). We'll see some co-operations/mergers, and smaller players will go off to silently die in a corner somewhere. Groupon clearly intends to dominate after sending Google packing.

I'll wind down 2010 playing Angry Birds, which for the record, I predict will expand this year and become a major Pokemon-like brand (only cooler).

Happy New Year!

Traveler From The Future

2010-11-09T16:26:00.000+02:00

I recently spent a lot of time traveling, both as a tourist and as part of my job (in my line of work, there isn't really a clear line between the two). The more I travel the more I discover that, thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet and the advanced capabilities of smartphones, traveling hasn't changed this much since Columbus set sail (ok, maybe since those Wright kids got bored with just biking around their backyard).

Preparing For Liftoff
It starts off even before I embark on my adventure, while organizing all my plans. I use a great (free) service called TripIt which easily aggregates all my travel information (flights, hotels, rentals, etc...) and lets me access them from one spot both on the web and my phone. Adding all of my information is a cinch, I just forward all those flight confirmation e-mails (and such) to TripIt and they take it from there (they even have a Gmail plugin that does that automatically if you want). Using the TripIt app on the iPhone lets me easily check my flight status and gate changes, right before my flight. Very useful.

Getting Online
In my day to day life I rely on the Internet quite a bit (anybody say addiction?) but once I land in a foreign country it becomes my lifeline to learning about my surroundings, making my way around, connecting to people who have experience in the new wilderness I've been flung into, and sharing and documenting my experiences.

Once I land in a new country my first order of business is getting online (how else am I supposed to checkin on Foursquare at the airport?). Cellular roaming costs are a biiiiatch, so I would stay far away from that, but I've had different experiences with getting online in different countries. The best being in London, just walking in to a T-mobile store and £5 later I had a working cellphone with unlimited bandwidth for the month. In other countries the experience was less seamless (especially depending on the people's competence in English) but after some running around I always manage to get a local SIM (in Europe you usually want to ask for a "pay as you go" SIM with a data plan, but they don't always understand the "data plan" part). The prices vary but they usually have deals where you can get more than enough bandwidth for pretty cheap.

What I usually do is try to find some offline map apps for my iPhone before I leave home so that I at least have a map at my fingertips when I land and have yet to setup a reliable Internet connection. There are many different apps for this depending on where you're going, a quick Google from home will do the trick to find reviews about the best ones for your destination.

Then the Fun Begins
Being constantly connected with a smartphone while abroad used to be a fantasy (those are the kinds of the things I fantasize about :) but now it's a necessity.
It affects many aspects of my travels:

Getting around - whether it's how to get to a conference venue, finding out where the hell I am, or locating the nearest subway station or nearest McDonald's (a man's gotta eat). Google maps is the killer app for this on the iPhone and Android. If you're in a major city like New York it will even show you public transportation times as part of the walking directions it gives you.
What sights to see - when in tourist mode you don't really know what to see and where to go when planning a trip in a new city. I discovered that there are TONS of great iPhone apps for doing just that - many of them free. The best experience I had was with mTrip (specifically their app for London but they have guides for other cities). Although it's not free ($6, which is less than any travel book you'd buy) it gives you both offline information about tons of different places to see in your city of choice plus an awesome automatic day planner. What you do is tell it where you want to start your trip (your hotel for example), what kind of things you want to see (sight seeing, shopping, churches...), and how many days you have, and it automatically sets up your schedule for the entire trip. You can then manually edit your schedule (add/remove spots, rearrange stuff...) and it gives you transportation instructions from each spot to the next. It's like your own personal travel guide, the easiest way I could think of to getting to know a new city.
Connecting with people - whether it's asking for tips and recommendations from friends or getting help with something when stuck, always being connected to your Twitter and Facebook friends is something that we will increasingly be relying on. I got great recommendations for restaurants and cool exhibits while in Amsterdam and even got a few people searching for me in real time for what settings I need in my iPhone in order to connect to the Vodafone network in Amsterdam (it's kinda hard to search when you don't have Internet :).
Sharing and documenting - the reason people take cameras on trips with them is to both document the experience for themselves and to share with others. I find that by using services like GoWalla and Foursquare I can do both in real time. Ok ok, so GoWalla wont replace my camera entirely, but it's a great way for me to be able to look back and see exactly where I was at what time (and I get information about the place while checking in). And all my friends/followers can see where I am and share their experiences from that place. Invaluable (plus my mom keeps tabs on me this way).

Now I can hear all you naysayers saying "can't you disconnect from e-mails", "I go on vacation to get away from being connected",...

I think that attitude will disappear in the future as we cease to perceive e-mail and IM as work (actually future generations will probably only use Facebook, but that's another post) and the Internet becomes an even bigger, integral part of our lives.

Nobody forces me to answer emails or IMs while on vacation, even if I am connected, and it's up to me when to reply and at what length. It's like turning off the phone while you're away. Feel free to do it, but when you need the phone you turn it on.

What's Next
The two improvements that need to come next stem from the two biggest problems I had when travelling like this:

Battery life
Getting online

During my day to day I'm usually 1 hour away from a power outlet at worst. Most of the time I can plug my iPhone in and not have to worry about its abysmally short battery life (all smartphones currently suffer from this problem). However, while traveling I'll be away from power for at least 8 hours at a time, sometimes it can get up to almost double that. And these are not normal days where I use the iPhone occasionally (is once every 10 minutes considered occasionally?), while traveling I'll be using the phone every few minutes at times: to look at the map, open a travel guide, checkin to a location, take a picture, god forbid even upload a picture... All these things suck the battery like Snoop Dog’s toilet when the cops come.

Battery life needs to improve significantly so that we get to a point where we can do all of these things without having to worry about them killing the battery. Just like the good old days when your Nokia phone used to hold up for a week between charges.

The second road bump in my experiences (aside from losing my luggage, but who cares about that), is getting online in a new country. This needs to become entirely seamless at some point in the future so that you land, turn on your phone, and are connected (without the ridiculous roaming charges). Once demand increases, phone companies will need to realize that their services are a commodity, and as such we expect them to be readily available at our beck and call.

Until that happens, this will remain a luxury only for hardcore geeks.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Code Monkeys

2010-09-15T21:33:00.000+02:00

This is a repost of an article that I originally wrote for Technorati and was published there.

I was reading Jason Hiner's article, "We're entering the decade of the developer", and it sparked some thoughts about apps, developers and the future of both.

As Jason notes, developers are an upcoming force to reckon with, but so are consumers. As apps become more popular, user expectations – and demands – will rise. This means that there will be zero tolerance for UI issues, a demand for sleek design and speed, and high levels of core functionality.

What does this mean for developers? Quite a bit, actually. There will be a need for more than just "code monkey" developers. Visionaries and entrepreneurs who understand the market and its future opportunities, and collaborate with top notch developers to realize those visions will win in the end.

Bottom line: In order to succeed developers will need access to design/UI people and marketing and distribution mechanisms that are easily accessible and have a critical mass of users.

Luckily some of those already exist (and are improving all the time) and many are quite easy to use and can even be free. For the visionaries and entrepreneurs who see and seize these, along with some great infrastructures that are readily available (Paypal, cloud computing, collaboration tools, oDesk, code-sharing/Q&A sites, communication tools...), there are endless opportunities.

This only means good things for consumers and the apps they consume as this decade offers developers much in the way of visibility and possibility.