Every week the New York Times seems to run an article about Foursquare, the redhot mobile game. Most has been technology press, but one NY/Region piece stood out as especially interesting. Beyond Twitter: An App That Lets You Truly See City is written by a non-technology columnist and describes how the ‘tips’ feature of foursquare opened the writer’s [...]

(This is the second in a two part post.  You should probably start at part one which contains a framework for thought.  Part two contains recommendations and my philosophy for first-time entrepreneurship).
The most basic principle of business is that profit is revenue minus costs.  Try considering all fixed costs as a rate — especially a [...]

(This is the first in a two part post. Part one contains a framework for viewing the world.  Part two contains resulting recommendations).
Apple’s app store taught me that living in New York City is expensive.  How expensive? $1.25 an hour.
Consider that the rent for my (rather modest) Brooklyn apartment is roughly $900 a month [...]

This post about competitive dynamics has been stewing in my mind for months now and it’s still a work in progress.  At its heart is a framework for thinking about a common type of tech company:  the aggregator.   The aggregator takes disparate items, gathers them, and presents them as a unified front.
Aggregators can exist for [...]

Lions, Tigers, and Spyware on Phones, Oh My!
Mobile spyware is the focus of the tech media’s latest frenzy. It started when a hacker discovered that the Pre sends back location data about users to Palm.  Next, a blogger ‘discovered’ that certain iPhone apps also phone home.  The frenzy came to a head when [...]