Ars Technica points out the most interesting part of Google’s publisher settlement. My favorite quote from the post:
Google solved the problem by throwing cash at it, signing up major libraries like Harvard and paying to scan just about everything in the building. Volunteers had been doing this with public domain texts for years, but nothing on this scale had been attempted before, and it filled a major hole in access to knowledge.
My friends got married at City Hall earlier this month, and it was beautiful.
Last night we launched our first product, Domainr.
Domainr is a search tool to help you find the perfect domain name, in any TLD. It’s an alpha release—so the usual disclaimers apply. We’re working hard on refining the results, improving the data and making sure the user experience is good.
I’m looking forward to what happens next!
(via Creative Review)
I guess in some ways it was inevitable. A lot of people expected it, and more than a couple asked “what’s taking so long.” So a couple weeks ago, I started nb.io with Eric Case and Cameron Walters. The plan is to make it onto the awesome list. We’re bootstrapping and working on some projects that we want to use.
Tomorrow we’re heading to Mendocino to hack on our first product, away from our usual daily distractions. The plan is to do this regularly—go somewhere with a good kitchen, internets and preferably with a decent dose of outdoors. If you have a house somewhere awesome that you don’t mind sharing for our company hack-trips, email me. We’re currently officing in my house—so trading is definitely possible.
We’re eating our own dogfood—methodically iterating based on the needs of our products’ audiences. In less-buzzword-laden English, this means making stuff that our users want, and really trying hard to not waste time on stuff they don’t. Or as our friend Hans put it, aligning our interests with that of our customers.
But enough about products & companies &c. Time for the Black Kids show!
This is a multipart post, in N stages. Part six: