MYBLOG by Ouriel

Bahu.com has a great new design

 

Bahu.com just released a new version of its  social network. Although i am biased as investor, and board member i have to admit they have done a great job. The quality of execution of this small team is very impressive for a company of this size. We recently met with a big company (a very big one) that could not believe Bahu was doing so much with such a little team (7 guys). I am not afraid to say that the user experience is much better than MySpace and in some way than Facebook (specially for this age group) although the user base is still small compared to those giants.

I am a big fan of the quality of execution. And i think the Bahu guys are on to something good. Keep on running!

Technorati Tags: bahu

Now i really want to shop at Diesel

Hilarious, Smart way of creating virality using counter rules of advertising (meaning by not mentionning anything related to the product)

Globes.co.il should take "EMBARGO" off their RSS titles....

Respecting Embargos (a disclosure date for a news) is important, but announcing it is one does not make sensse. if someone from the globes is reading this post or if you know someone working there can you pass the message: leaving "embargo" in the title of the RSS feed doe not look good, in addition not to be understood by most people.

I have been observing is for a while. and i don t see changes. here is the feed if you want to test it for yourself http://www.globes.co.il/WebService/Rss/RssFeeder.asmx/FeederKeyword?iID=1397

Picasso in 3D

Quite amazing i must say. via emob

New Hahlo3, officially the best browser based twitter client for iPhone

I usually do not blog about each dicovery i make on my iPhone, but i could not resist that one. Hahlo has released a new version that is simply a masterpiece to let you access and control twitter from the browser. Until now i was using TwitterMobile and PocketTweets, but this goes beyond everything.

Just pay a visit on hahlo.com on your iPhone

What the hell is SixApart is doing about Spam!! [update: SixApart is on it+ TIP]

Just a short note to say that i am not happy at all with Typepad Lately. I have been under a huge wave a spam comments. I have flagged them, i have notified their team, i have talked even with some people there that tell me they do everything they can. But i still receive spam comments every single day. Worse: i am not even notified when that happens. Worse: i don t even receive notifications when someone post a regular comment (or better said, i receive them randomly)

So Sorry about that, i know if affects your reading (this is why i am writting this note), but that goes beyond my control. If this goes on i will have to either close all my comments on this blog or migrate to an external commenting system like disqus or intensedebate (i tried half happy in the past)

bottom line: Six Apart wake up...this looks really bad. Spam should be priority NUMBER 1 before anything else

update: SixApart has taken my request very seriously. Several guys contacted me in the hour and are putting special attention to my blog to monitor the spam activity. I appreciate this kind of reactivity, i just wish for other bloggers that are on typepad could see an improvement without any "special attention". I do not expect 100% improvement, it is impossible with spam, but this should look better soon.

i actually have a suggestion for blog plateforms. Most spam come from comments of posts that are 30+ days old. would be good to have an option to close comments automatically if a post is more than 30+ days old

update 2: i assume this was not a bad suggestion, Typepad just released an option that enables that. You can see it for yourself here. It is available in the configure tab, in the feedback section

Technorati Tags: spam, typepad, sixapart, comments

the 2 values of a consumer electronic device

I have learnt over time that the price of a consumer electronic device is not the most important aspect of its value. Most consumer electronic devices (take mp3 players, DVRs,...) come with a series of configurable parameters that helps this device become your device. You set the time of the clock, you change a couple of settings and menus, look and feel....this is obvious with anything that has a hard disk. Meaning nearly everything today.

Take your computer or your iPod. You buy it X dollars (and X * 1.5 if you buy it in Israel). But soon over time you load it with data, personnal settings, movies, pictures...And suddenly there is an emotional value that comes up which materializes in the fact that if you lost your computer or consumer device you would be more worried about the data and personal environment than the device itself.

I find myself in that situation and many companies have built a business out of the fact they enable you to "secure" what's valuable to you in a device (call it back up). A consumer electronic that has no back up capability is a big break in my view. Blackberry offers for example a full back up. But the iPhone is really poor in that sense. iTunes is supposed to help but it does not really back up everything and if you sync your iPhone with another computer you will loose a lot of data. I have a digital picture frame but there is no way i can back up the pictures i have uploaded there.

The price of a consumer electronic over time becomes insignificant. My personal environment becomes really what matters. If the manufacturer does not help me in keeping this safe, there is a big chance i will not come back to it later. The problem is that you only realize and understand  that once your machine crashes or when you switch to something new.

For me a great device is one which has backup and that enables me easily to port my settings to a new device. i don't know anything perfect in that sense. But anything getting close to that is a good driver to purchase for me.

update: i just had a brief exchange on Twitter with @tinythoughts and i think a good reference came to mind. The second value of a consumer device is the soul, meaning what matters to your heart. Like everything try to separate the body from the soul and you get nothing

Video: China trains have created a new job: passenger pusher

What i really wonder is what is going to happen once the door will open at the next station

Congrats Mike!

Reaching the TOP 100 most influential of TIME magazine, is quite an achievement. One more in the long list of achievements of Techcrunch created by Michael Arrington. Really happy to be part of this crew. My only criticism is that i am not sure the banker suit is a good fit for my blogger friend :)

I note the French president Nicolas Sarkozy or Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are not part of this ranking. What's happening to them?


Technorati Tags: time. techcrunch, michael arrington

Small tip for improving meeting productivity

It is very rare a meeting does not involve the usage of a laptop and a presentation. I have been attending those past two years hundreds of meeting where i am always observing the same thing: we loose a few minutes each times because we need to turn on the laptop and open the right program and launch the appropriate file. Specially if you don't have a mac where turning on a computer is longer. This is critical if you want to optimize the amount of time allocated to your meeting

Here is my simple tip

Before the beginning of the meeting (for example while waiting in the lobby) turn on your laptop, open the right program and file. Put it in stand by. then go to your meeting. Take your laptop out of Stand By mode. this should take a few seconds only

The other benefit of that tip: it will make a good impression!




Technorati Tags: meeting, productivity, laptop