blakeborgeson.com - Latest Comments

Re: confirmation bias exposed (in 1960)

tani001 — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:41:50 -0000

Humans don't like to be seen as coldhearted, so a starting point might be to point out all the people dying all over the world while you sit in the box, unable to save them. I doubt that would win the game except against an exceptionally bad gatekeeper, but it meets the other criteria so if we think along these lines perhaps we can come up with something actually persuasive.

Re: my comment on seth godin’s post “breakage”: be careful with your customers

jonathan_n — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:21:57 -0000

Thanks!

I'd looked briefly at Google's website optimizer. I'll take a look at Eric's posts, too.

I just found the blog from your profile on Hackers and Founders. Good stuff. Keep it coming.

Re: my comment on seth godin’s post “breakage”: be careful with your customers

blakeweb — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:35:56 -0000

Hey Jonathan--great to see you here!

My favorite resource for discussions about versioning so far is Eric Ries, co-founder of imvu. He's incredibly smart both technically and business-wise and just started writing a fantastic blog about 4 months ago at http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com. I imagine you've seen links to some of his posts on hacker news. He's very prolific as well. To thin it out a bit, here's a link to a tag of split-test posts he's written: http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/searc...

He talks about doing all the versioning the manual way deep within the code for the site, which is how we set it up as well. But you can use some tricks to leverage google's website optimizer if you're limited in your coding bandwidth. For example, if you've got an out-of-the-box ecommerce solution or you coded one yourself, just run some different versions of portions of your homepage that link through to duplicates of the same product, but at different prices. Then google handles all the cookies, tracking, and conversion analysis. You'll have to do some math yourself to pick the optimal price for you based on your profit margins--conversion rates is, I believe, as far as website optimizer will take you. Hope that helps!

Re: my comment on seth godin’s post “breakage”: be careful with your customers

jonathan_n — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:11:23 -0000

I'd love to read some of your ideas on how to test pricing on your customers. I really hadn't thought of it. But it absolutely makes sense. Any resources you come across in terms of price testing would be great, too.

Re: obamanomics needs a one-liner: excellent nytimes article on obama’s economics views

tiberiu84 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:29:07 -0000

The first thing that we must think of is payroll services. We have such an abyss between the income of rich people and poor people... The distance can't be described and we should make it possible to describe...

Re: ooga vs. y combinator, apple vs. google, designer vs. curator

eve isk — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:16:11 -0000

This is just fantastic. Thank you for Great Post..........................

Re: some good web finds last week: zembly platform, startup ideas, a postmortem

blakeweb — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:18:12 -0000

Hmm...I don't, but since I haven't really done much with that account, I was
going to change the password so you could check it out. Unfortunately,
there doesn't seem to be any way in their account interface to change
passwords, and the 'lost my password' function is broken.

I haven't tested it much honestly, but it seems sweet. Something for you to
look forward to. =)

Re: some good web finds last week: zembly platform, startup ideas, a postmortem

rahmin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:14:34 -0000

hey blake - nice find re: zembly. do you have any beta invites?

Re: my comment on seth godin’s post “breakage”: be careful with your customers

Dan Graham — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:33:53 -0000

I read that post yesterday as well and decided that I disagreed, in general, with his assertion that you can't treat supply and demand as a curve. I think that there are probably very few cases where you raise prices by 5% or 10% and you lose a substantial chunk of your customer base forever. Even if it were true that Seth's insurance company lost a substantial chunk of customers during that price increase, it's probably because the Insurance company jumped too far up the curve where the curve looks more exponential. That would be a result of anticipating the curve incorrectly -- and as you point out in your 'comment,' testing is a great way to help define the curve so you know what to expect with price changes.

I do think it could happen with trust more easily; with the most extreme cases being a bank that skimps on some software and ends up constantly giving all their customers' money away to someone else. Although car companies kill hundreds of people a year due to shotty design and they are still in business -- so who knows?

Re: what i liked at techcrunch50: fitbit, grockit, goodguide, and peter thiel

blakeweb — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:13:38 -0000

Sorry disqus ate your comment, and thanks for letting me know--that's something I should keep an eye out for if I can.

tonchidot: No, I definitely don't think it's really real. I mean, the video isn't fake, but yeah, I agree that it's a hacked demo in that their application isn't really ready at all. They seeded it with perfect data in a perfect scenario, so the video wasn't realistic at all. But it's coming soon, I hope.

swype: Yeah, I skipped them--I never paid attention to them at the event because I have an app on my iphone already as of a couple weeks ago that does what they're doing, called writingpad (http://www.shapewriter.com/iphone.html). So swype's technology didn't look that unique or defensible to me. I like writingpad a lot, though right now it's confined to its own little notepad application rather than subbing in for the default iphone keyboard. That's what swype is trying to change, I guess. Seems like apple and the other phone makers will just do it themselves, and hopefully have it as another option for the way the keyboard works.

Although looking at their website, it seems swype might be targeting actual computer touch screens over mobile devices. That seems like it could be really useful.

Re: what i liked at techcrunch50: fitbit, grockit, goodguide, and peter thiel

ParkerJones — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:29:16 -0000

You'd think disqus would be better about not eating comments.

The summary:

-Agree with you about goodguide. Just waiting for a mobile, barcode-reading app to frontend it.
-You get a feel for whether Tonchidot is for real? Everything I've seen has a very hacked-together-to-make-a-demo look. Plus I'm skeptical about how well this would work. In any case, I think we'd all like to see this technology improve-- the different applications are pretty exciting.
-No mention of Swype, which I think could be a game-changer for touchscreen devices. Just like T9 was for texting

Re: using a speculative market to decide our laws? (”futarchy”)

blakeweb — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:18:42 -0000

That's true--I think right now the idea definitely doesn't have a lot of support yet. Maybe we need an authoritarian government to bridge the gap...with me in charge. =)

Re: using a speculative market to decide our laws? (”futarchy”)

blakeweb — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:17:04 -0000

Good point. It actually does seem reasonably achievable to do some experimentation of this sort at the local level. Experiments with governance on a national level may have to wait until the first seasteading (seasteading.org) colony is launched. =)

Re: using a speculative market to decide our laws? (”futarchy”)

Dan Graham — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:38:45 -0000

My first thought is whether or not the futarchy proposed policy would fare well in its own system, or whether the betting market would estimate a failure...i have my opinion...

Re: using a speculative market to decide our laws? (”futarchy”)

adamheroku — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:19:16 -0000

I'm for it - the mechanisms of republican democracy are long due for an update to modern philosophy and technology. However, don't start at the national level. Let state, county, or city governments experiment first.

Re: CERN regarding worries about creating black holes: don’t worry, it’s safe. we promise.

Eric — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:32:37 -0000

I always knew a neutral country like Switzerland would negate existance

Re: CERN regarding worries about creating black holes: don’t worry, it’s safe. we promise.

freddie stewart — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:19:39 -0000

we reallly could be in deep trouble

Re: CERN regarding worries about creating black holes: don’t worry, it’s safe. we promise.

Joe Monkhouse — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:10:55 -0000

STOP ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEEE

Re: obamanomics needs a one-liner: excellent nytimes article on obama’s economics views

blakeweb — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:17:41 -0000

Dan,

Your comments are all spot on. In retrospect, I can see that the excerpt I chose doesn't do much more to talk about what ideas Obama has about what will change. It more just describes at a high level, via references to the last few presidents, where Obama sees himself on the political spectrum economically.

As you supposed, there are lots of more specific details in the article itself, and to that point, that's really the challenge someone like Obama faces. He's really got a good handle on the economics issues in my opinion, and I think this article shows that, but how can he communicate that to Americans? Not more than 1 in 20 Americans is actually going to read anything as long as that whole article, and it's a lot less than that probably. So how does he convince the country that he's the best person to put in charge of it? He's got to break it down into terms people can understand, and that's the goal I think he's trying to work towards mentally in that excerpt.

One of the specific ideas/plans mentioned in the article, something I've been hearing about in the last couple of months as a possibility, is decreasing the payroll tax. The way it's structured, it essentially discourages businesses from investing in people. I agree that decreasing or phasing out the payroll tax, and picking up the slack with the changes he proposes to income and capital gains taxes, would likely be great for the country.

Re: obamanomics needs a one-liner: excellent nytimes article on obama’s economics views

Dan Graham — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:37:25 -0000

I haven't read the 8 pager, and probably won't, but I did want to point out that the excerpt you reprinted is full of politician speach that makes it painful for me to listen to politicians.

I am as a big an Obama fan as the next intelligent American, but it bothers me when they talk about their views without saying anything and just using words that everyone agrees with.

"drove it over a cliff", "So what we need to bring about is the end of the era of unresponsive and inefficient government and short-term thinking in government," "the foundation for the market to operate effectively and for every single individual to be able to be connected with that market and to succeed in that market"

It seems to me that every politician and president would agree that we want an 'efficient' and 'responsive' goverment and one that thinks in the 'long-term'. It also seems like every president would want the market to 'operate effectively' and for people to be able to 'succeed'

The trick is when using language like that for people to think "Oh yeah, I guess I am for an efficient government...go Barack!" -- This is a common thing people do in the businessplace as well.

The real question and the real difference comes in when they begin discussing HOW the government could be more efficient or HOW to make people more able to succeed in the market place -- which I'm sure the paper that I won't read talks about =)

Re: ooga vs. y combinator, apple vs. google, designer vs. curator

Dan Graham — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:13:10 -0000

Great Post!

Re: finally, good statistics: have any mutual fund managers beaten the market?

gregorylent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:42:00 -0000

there are truths so hidden as to be talked about only in mystical circles, one is that we aren't nearly as in control of our lives as our egos like to think. articles like this are simply pointers to the underlying reality. cause and effect are often not what they seem. successful people like to think they are successful because of some reason, but often it is simply luck or fate or karma or the flow of the times ...

i expect a lot more growth in this kind of understanding, and a lot of it is going to come from the advertising world, simply because effectiveness is proving to be a very difficult measurement problem. there really is little to measure! there are other forces at work.

and since you like umair, he is talking towards some of this. that energy follows intention, the good vs. evil meme, are not quantifiable, they are qualitative. the realm of quality is the realm of the subject(ive).... and this is not the ego we think is so important.

look for subtlety to increase, and a huge necessity for creating more refined measuring tools. we almost are going to need to be inside 6 billion minds, seeing through 6 billion sets of eyes and concepts.

Re: studies show shorter blog posts are the new hip thing

Jeff — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:26:18 -0000

There's been a definite trend towards briefer posts, at least among the blogs I read. I wonder if this is in response to the threat from Twitter?

There's certainly nothing wrong with keeping things to the point :)

Re: reblog: president bush pardons himself via congress for potential warcrimes

blakeweb — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:14:20 -0000

Andre-
Thanks, I appreciate you linking to the digg story--I hadn't seen that, but that makes sense. I see a couple comments on that dig post from several days ago that seem to indicate this story is talking about "the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was recently struck down as unconstitutional by the supreme court." [swrostmore], and one of the commenters at digg correctly points out that the video was first posted on youtube in January of 08. So the story isn't brand new it seems.

The story in general also really isn't all that surprising to me--I don't blame Bush for pursuing, as strongly but quietly as he can, retroactive immunity for all the gray area (some would say it's not very gray) he's trudged into with all the cia interrogation issues since 9/11.

Re: reblog: president bush pardons himself via congress for potential warcrimes

Andre — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:05:58 -0000

Just letting you know that this is 2-3 years old. It passed the house and senate but section 7 (the pardoning himself part) was found unconstitutional this past year.

Check out some of the comments on Digg for more info: http://digg.com/politics/President_BUSH_PARDON_...