OurielOhayon

Reading blogs starts to become painful

In spite of Twitter capturing more and more of my attention i am still reading lots of blogs. The pattern has shifted though. I used to read them only via google reader and netvibes. in a clean and uncluttered environment.

But with twitter i am flowing with my followers and read on the fly when i see a good link. Which points to the browser

One thing i have noticed with all major blogs. 

Blogs are becoming impossible to read. 

Blogs used to be lightweight and fast to load publication platforms but are today, years later, real media formats with complex CMS, tracking codes, advertising snippets wrapping the content.

It takes no less than 5 to 10 seconds for a page to load (at least on my Chrome browser with decent connection) and the pleasure of reading blogs is faded by the cascade of probably useful for the editors/owners but useless for the reader - pile of code.

In addition more and more the content itself takes a smaller part of the page, which makes the page looks like more a christmas tree for advertising.

Not mentioning that getting to the comments is also painful

This is why i believe blog readers are still and will still be popular. They provide a clean experience, although nothing great for reading comments.

I am missing times where it was great reading Techrunch, Readwriteweb and Gigaom on the browser. I love this blogs, but i much prefer skipping reading for later rather than going straight to the news.

iPad2: Smart Cover and Smart Stains

I love the iPad 2 and its speed. Really so much better than the iPad 1. one of the best features of the iPad2 is not in the iPad2. Is around the iPad2. The Smart cover

the only problem. It leaves dust stains on the screen. precisely 3 of them, vertical from top to bottom, as in the cover mould. As you can see above. Why does not it come with a smart wipe

Attention to details? Any idea how to prevent this?

PS: another problem with the smart cover, is that it does not hold very well on the ipad2 when fully open. Magnet seems a bit weak

"congrats on the funding"

We recently announced our (appsfire) series A funding with a top tier european VC.

Beyond the obvious excitement one of the things that struck me was the number of time i received messages of congratulations. This got me to think a little because after a moment i started to fill uncomfortable with this

And today a post on Techcrunch, following a though by Set Godin resonated in me and drove me to write those lines

I first fell uncomfortable because i received "personal" congratulations and i believe the credit is wrongly attributed: the congratulations goes to all appsfire's team. and a round of funding is never ever one man's work. Managing the work flow vs VCs is often indeed one/two man's job but the fact you manage to raise is never and can never be attributed to 1 or 2 persons

But the thing that disturbed me most what the "between the lines". Funding is probably not such a great achievement in itself but a necessary milestone to get to the next level and the word "congratulations" is inappropriate in its natural meaning/perception

Frankly i find it a lot more difficult to build the right team and find talents, than finding funding. This is why i always answer "Thanks for the congrats, but this is not the most difficult part [although it is highly time consuming]

The right message should be "Congrats for not stopping where you are, and taking it to the next step" and not "Congrats you got a bunch of money, now all's cool"

Funding your company, specially with established VCs is like recognizing that you'll change your lifestyle as a company and that some other ambitions are down the line. Some other form of pressure and management style is required. It is very different to take a new service to a couple of million of users and build a sustainable company.

That's why a funding is never about what has been achieved but what is required to be achieved, and not yet visible. If you have a competitor getting funded right now you know what i mean: this is not what you see and know but what you don't

People dreaming of getting funded live for the wrong dream. Indeed a nice milestone. But this is not the goal. It is not even a goal.

You'd rather have super happy users or customers as your first and only priority.

And the day you receive this message "congrats for the funding" remember, this just a humbling reminder of what needs to be achieved.

ps: to all those who send the message i really want to thank you. this post is not about how a message should be sent, but how it should perceived and understood by entrepreneurs

My problem with the Apple TV

I have been enjoying quite a lot the Apple TV since i have it. Having the ability to stream your computer or the web (a little part of it) over the air to your TV is quite magical

But there is one major break for me to be able to use consistently and naturally. 1 button stands between me and my apple TV

Indeed because it is not native to the TV but connected to it via a secondary HDMI source, you need to switch your mind and your TV to the right source

For this you need to take your TV remote control to get to the right source. But i NEVER use my TV remote control

I use my cable TV remote who turns on the TV and let me switch to the channels - but not change the source

This means that for getting to the Apple TV i need to get another remote. The TV remote. i never ever use (hidden somewhere)

Bottom line: The AppleTV is a great device but can't get the natural adoption it deserves because it is not native to the TV or the Cable Box

And i believe this is why Apple will end up making TVs. This is the only way Apple can give a 1 remote, 1 click experience to their users

It would still be connected to my Cable, but because the iPhone is the remote, i would never ever need a TV remote again

Apple "TV"+iPhone = winner

Why this blog has been dead silent lately - and how i survived it

You probably noticed that this blog has been put to silence. The thing is that i lost a little control of my time lately.

I think i went just through the toughest period i have even known. So what happened?

Well it is very simple: at the same time i was/am running a startup (travelling often), we just had our second baby (our first is 2 years old), we decided to buy an apartment, for which we had to take a mortgage (good luck with that in Israel...), followed by a nightmarish period of back and forth between my ex-apartment and new apartment to run the works and decoration, moving house (and of course everything went wrong...) and as if that was not enough we worked hard at completing a series A funding (dealing with many skeptical VCs that leave you without answer, many NOs...but also a few good YES)

All that in the past 4 months....Insane, believe me. Still can't figure out how i am still alive :) How did i make it? Persist. Being stubborn, sleeping little, working fast, eating if you can, learning to deal with secondary problems with more prospective, and being surrounded with supportive people...But still not easy. at all..

If you plan to create a startup, have 2 babies, buy a house and run a series A, think twice. no think three times...

So now my head is a bit cleared up, i will resume the blogging part from time to time.