Donald Frump's Profile

I wonder if it’s not so much that they rely too much on data, but they rely on the wrong data, or incomplete data. I imagine that one day, algorithms will be smart enough to predict better what people want to read (much like they’re better today at Buzzfeed than they were 10 years ago).

This. Is. Awesome. This is super relevant data that I would think predicts health risks more than many other data sets healthcare companies are currently analyzing. I wonder about public backlash, but at the end of the day the medical community has been looking for a way to travel consumer behavior and lifestyle choices vs. just genetic disposition and environmental problems. I do wonder how this translates to me buying things to others (e.g. for kids, or elderly parents)

i wonder if this is a winner-take-all situation or if facebook could come in with similar technology and compete well. I am having trouble seeing barriers to entry, other than customers being unhappy with inadequate data.

Great choice of subject and good writeup. I love Legos and would have loved to be able to create my own sets when I was younger. This is a perfect tool for Lego to advance their design since the very essence of Lego is creating something new out of the pieces available to you. The traditional users are already the perfect market for the crowd sourcing tool since they’ve been doing this for years – just without publishing it to the community. It greatly lowers the risk for Lego in making the wrong products or products that are slightly off of what the market wants.

I like the idea of users helping each other out with real-time answers. This can be difficult in an environment where you need answers from specialists, but in the cooking community there’s so many different preferences and tastes that lots of different opinions can be valid. I think this lowers the barriers to newcomers becoming actively involved in the creation of content and requires less validation of info.

Great writeup.

Good post. I wonder where the line is for “setting boundaries”, as I imagine it would change significantly depending on the project. A lot of times having no boundaries can lead to brilliant new ideas from the crowd that the facilitators might never have thought of (and might have been squashed by boundaries).

I agree with the previous posts in why it makes a lot of sense that the ad revenue is so high; it’s a very interested case study to essentially track what people are shopping for – even if they never even have to buy anything from the site. I wonder if Pinterest could somehow integrate with brick and mortar stores, and create an even more relevant set of data. I wonder if Pinterest data could also be used to predict fashion trends, or inspire creativity based upon what people are searching.

Good write-up.

I wonder if FitBit has crossed the point at which adoption is widespread enough that historical data matters. There’s a lot of people who use it, but there are far more people who don’t use it. And if a comparable device comes out that is more readily carried and accessed, Google (as you noted) could definitely overtake it in users who don’t have any historical data. The switch might be painful for the current Fitbit users, but I wonder if the data will ever be transferable between devices (or exportable). It seems like it would be suicidal for Fitbit to offer that, but if the users demand it enough it might be a lose-lose for them.

I really like this line: “What differentiated Spotify though from its competitors, was the understanding that music consumption was inherently a social activity”. It’s a great perspective and true. There was very little music I listen to that wasn’t directly recommended to me before online streaming services.

However, I disagree with this line: “So if a premium user has hundreds of songs downloaded onto their account, the likelihood of them abandoning this capital is slim.” I don’t think users are inhibited by leaving the service because of sunken costs, as long as they can get the same content elsewhere. I have abandoned many music services after spending lots of money on them (iTunes being the most glaring example). I think it’s access the same content on a new platform obviates the worries about losing content that has already been paid for.

Good read. I wonder if this could lead to news agencies being specific for certain fields. I.E. if NYT-esque, cover-all papers were to fade out and instead you had specialization of new sources into industries. It seems like if the NYT isn’t going to be the best in politics, or technology, they might as well not waste resources on covering every subject. Just let those like Politico cover politics, and Wired cover technology. That way they have core competencies and can spend all their resources on a concentrated endeavor. Maybe traditional news outlets are like the conglomerates of news.

Nice writeup. I agree with the changing world you painted, I just wonder about the “personal” aspect vs. the convenience. I would bet that for every person looking for a “personal” experience, they are hundreds of others that just want their coffee fast and easy. Could Starbucks lose the barista altogether and just have automated machines at more locals that create your remote order? This would retain the customized experience (i.e. soy mocha double skim latté), which reducing costs and increasing speed.

Nice writeup. I do wonder about Nazli’s point of over communication though. I’ve experienced this with many apps (whatsapp, band (section J, what?), and groupme, etc). Eventually you just want to shut it off. My partner uses Slack and I see hundreds of notifications fly by, which makes me believe that it could eventually spell it’s own doom.

That said, I haven’t used it. And I’ve long been looking for a better alternative to email, since it seems ripe for innovation. I’d be worried about Google easily replicating what Slack has created (even though they’ve tried their own alternatives before), and taking over in the corporate spaces they are already in.

Another thought would be re: external communcations, as you mentioned. Do we really want two separate services? I often CC both internal and external parties on emails. I once had an email address of internal comms, and one for external. It was both annoying and a disaster. Perhaps Slack can fix this problem.