Tony Wright dot com

Christian Anderson (a former colleague at Jobster) had an interesting (and well-researched) post on his blog called “How to Pitch Robert Scoble — HINT: No Direct Tweets“… , which led to a discussion on FriendFeed (with Robert himself weighing in) that was pretty interesting.
I had a contribution bouncing around in my head but held off […]

I can’t help but think that the startup world is a bit drunk on the concept of viral distribution. Distribution is a huge problem for startups, so I suppose that I can’t blame them.
First of all, I want to point out that I think viral distribution freakin’ rocks. It’s amazing. It’s awe-inspiring. […]

I wrote a little guest post over at FoundRead (part of the GigaOm network). Give it a read!
http://foundread.com/2008/04/02/ycombinator/

Don Norman recently wrote a fine piece entitled “Why is 37Signals So Arrogant?“. As a student of link/click bait, I have to applaud him. Bravo! It’s right up there with Jason Calacanis’ post about firing anyone who isn’t a workaholic (his followup is a bit more measured).
So I’m going to do one […]

RescueTime will never be a purveyor of widgets (as a primary business), but there’s no denying that widgets are a damn good way to spread the word about your product, assuming that anyone actually wants to install them.
A widget that displays exactly how you spend your computer time may be creepy to some. As […]

I have a hard time getting high-and-mighty about the paparazzi crap that I see in grocery store lines, given that I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from the train-wreck controversies of online celebrities. I just…. can’t…. look…. away!
Over the past two weeks, one of the big memes in the echo chamber is […]

Evan Williams (founder of Twitter, fellow corn-fed midwesterner-turned-dotcommer, and someone I get to meet via YCombinator!) has a fabulous post on how to evaluate new product ideas. To sum up his excellent post, here is the matrix he came up with:
Tractability
Question: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?
Obviousness
Question: Is […]

“”Marketing is a Tax You Pay for being Unremarkable”
Robert Stephens
Founder and Chief Inspector, The Geek Squad
While I think that’s a touch on the simple side, it rings pretty true. What would happen if all the people who were concentrating on advertising and PR instead started focusing on making the offering and/or the customer service […]

Alan Steele (ex-Jobster colleague) tweets:
“using a mac for the first time in many years. so far i don’t see what all the fuss is about. it’s just another desktop…”
I tend to agree. A computer is a means to an end, and an XP Windows box usually gets me to my “end” just fine.
There are […]