Blog Tile is Lojack for Anything A few months ago I blogged about mobile apps [http://danielodio.com/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-apps-that-is], and a startup in particular that was unlocking data from cars via its mobile app. Â Recently, my wife turned me on to another great example, a startup called Tile [http://www.thetileapp.com/]. If you've
Focus This Is Why Focus Is So Important Barnes & Noble gave up on its color Nook reader today. Â From this NY Times article [https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/losing-ground-on-nook-barnes-noble-ceases-its-manufacture-of-color-versions/?nl=technology&emc=edit_tu_20130626&_r=0] : > "Barnes & Noble Changes Course on Nook | Barnes & Noble conceded on Tuesday that
Audio API The Magical Power of Audio APIs I've always been a fan of audio APIs / mobile SDKs. Â For example, if you're watching the Conan O'Brien show and you have the Team Coco app [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/conan-obrien-presents-team/id398401657?mt=8] open at the same time, it'll
apple This Is Why Mobile Wins: iPad Mini is 151x Faster than Hotel Wifi I'm at a Sheraton hotel in downtown NYC. The iPad Mini's LTE cellular data speed is a blazing fast 39.24 megabits per second. Compare that to the slow-as-molassas 0.26 mbps of the hotel wifi that my laptop is connected to. That means the iPad
Launch No, really. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just get it launched. I get so many entrepreneurs telling me that their product isn't ready to be launched. While you definitely have to have something to launch, you almost surely don't need something as good as you think. As a reminder, here's what the Amazon.com [http:
Elon Musk Elon Musk Pwns Fisker Karma and Better Place Shai Agassi [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shai_Agassi#Better_Place] is an amazing guy. In this TED Talk from 2009 [https://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html] he outlined a vision for an electric car with swappable batteries -- a startup called Better Place [https:
apple Apple helps Microsoft: iOS 7 flatters Windows Phone 8 I've always considered Microsoft's WindowsPhone a darkhorse competitor to iOS & Android. Microsoft has boatloads of cash but has never been able to get a meaningful market share in mobile against iOS & Android. But when I saw the new iOS 7 screenshots on Matt Gemmell&
9th Grader A 9th Grader Takes a Leap that Terrifies MBA Students I judged the NFTE [http://www.nfte.com/] Quarter Final competition at a local San Francisco high school today. Â NFTE is an organization that teaches entrepreneurship to students in high school and younger. One of the pitches today was made by 9th grader Simran Pabla around a pilot program she&
Crypto Currency What Gets Me Hot & Bothered: Crypto Currencies, Drones and 3D Printing If I weren't so passionate about the ways that mobile devices are changing the world [http://go.danielodio.com/crush], I'd be spending my time in one of the following three areas: Crypto currencies like Bitcoin, the commercialization of drones, and the rise of 3D printing.
mobile Yeah, Mobile Is Just a Fad The crowd in 2005 vs. 2013 when the new pope was announced. Yeah, mobile is totally just a fad.
mobile There are 2 types of mobile engagement: Inherent vs. Enhancement. The CMO of Home Depot has it nailed. Today at the Mobile Marketing Association's NYC Forum [http://danielodio.com/community/sharethis-sends-me-to-mobile-marketing-association-forum-2013-conference-in-nyc] , the CMO of The Home Depot, Trish Mueller, gave a gangbusters presentation on the impact mobile has had to her company. As she was showing off what The Home Depot's mobile app can
Google Hacking Google Glass: dSky9 Demos Starfinder App in its Glass Simulator That's Barg wearing Google Glass above and also below A DC-based startup called dSky9 [http://dsky9.com/] is creating some super interesting apps [http://dsky9.com/apps/] for Google Glass [https://www.google.com/glass]. At yesterday's Mobile Outlook 2013 event, the founders Barg & Greg
Social TV Mega Trends, Social TV, Liberating Data & More at the Mobile Outlook 2013 + ApolloMatrix Happy Hour Paul Sherman, the editor of Pototmac Tech Wire, puts on an awesome Mobile Outlook panel every year. I participated in 2010 [http://danielodio.com/161] and 2011 [http://danielodio.com/state-of-mobile-2011-ceo-of-millennial-media-panel] and again this year at USA Today's Gannett HQ in McLean, VA. It's funny to
Journalists Journalists As Hitmen? Priceonomics just posted a fascinating story mulling over the future of journalism [http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/49378591328/how-would-you-save-journalism]. Here's one eye opening stat from the story: > "The journalism industry seems to be in trouble. Newspaper revenue has shrunk [http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/newspaper_
Hugalopes A Raw and Vulnerable Moment: The Hugalopes Story Jazz Tigan, the creator of Hugalopes (a "fuzzy Mr. Potato Head" plush toy) and I sat down to discuss entrepreneurism, knowledge sharing [http://go.danielodio.com/knowledge-sharing], hyper efficiency [http://go.danielodio.com/instrument] on a computer, the Socialize acquisition [http://go.danielodio.com/acquired] and many other
entrepreneur Is Entrepreneurism Due To Nature, or Nurture? An Interview with Eric. I just got off a Skype video chat with Eric Wilker [https://www.linkedin.com/pub/eric-wilker/7/956/21a], who is an Executive MBA student at USC in addition to being SVP of Business Planning & Operations at Warner Bros. Â He had to interview an entrepreneur as a part
mobile CMOs: Stand Out In The Mobile Engagement Crush This week, Facebook Home [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/apr/09/facebook-home-android-lockpick] , an Android app that will change a user’s phone home screen and core features, will make its consumer debut. Facebook's Home initiative is the latest salvo in the mobile engagement battle, which
MiFi I Can Do Anything with a MiFi In My Pocket I'm traveling in Barcelona, Spain this week, and Hertz gave me the best upsell ever: A 4G MiFi for 8 euros per day. The last time I traveled internationally just three years ago, these didn't exist. Now, this little device, which I rely on at home,
Product Optimizing Product/Market Fit: First Be Proactive. Then Be Reactive. I just read this post [http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2013/04/02/levelup-is-down-to-half-its-former-headcount-and-needs-to-raise-money-fast/] about how the startup Level Up has raised $41MM but may now be running out of cash, and according to the article is down to half its previous employee count. Â It got me thinking about a big
Venture Capitalist Heidi Roizen Calls Me a Cockroach A few weeks ago, Heidi Roizen [https://www.google.com/search?q=heidi+roizen&aq=f&oq=heidi+roizen&aqs=chrome.0.57j60j61l3j62.1355j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8] , a well known venture capitalist with DFJ [http://www.dfj.com/] and longtime entrepreneur in Silicon Valley,
Venture Capitalist Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla on Perseverance Vinod Khosla is a legend in Silicon Valley. He's the powerhouse behind Khosla Ventures [http://www.khoslaventures.com/]. Way before that, he was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, and then became a general partner at Kleiner Perkins. He's also done many other amazing things
Lyft My Lyft with Romeo I had to get back to our new SF office after a meeting, and instead of taking a cab, I decided to try Lyft [http://www.lyft.me/]. One the way over to the meeting, I had taken an Uber [http://danielodio.com/me-and-my-driver-ish] car that my colleague Adam ordered
Entrepreneurship Is Taught Through Life, Not In The Classroom Yesterday a group of students from my alma mater, the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce [http://www.commerce.virginia.edu/], came to visit. They were spending a week in Silicon Valley as part of their spring break. I've long privately urged McIntire to become
Socialize Was Acquired by ShareThis. Here's What The Experience Was Like. As was reported in TechCrunch today [http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/20/sharethis-aims-for-mobile-with-23m-series-c-led-by-t-venture-acquisition-of-social-app-platform-socialize/] , we've just signed a deal to sell our startup Socialize [http://www.getsocialize.com/] to ShareThis [http://www.sharethis.com/]. Although having a successful exit is a dream for many entrepreneurs, I find myself feeling
Selling Socialize to ShareThis: A Description of the Deal process While I can't speak to the terms of our deal with ShareThis, I'll use the experience to walk you through the general framework of a deal process, so you understand the multiple steps involved. What I'm going to share is not a reflection of