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The Google Phone may be a data only, VoIP driven device. And Google may be lining up at least AT&T to provide those data services for the Google Phone, says one person we spoke with today.

Users could still make calls just like a normal phone, of course. The calls would just be over the data service instead. In fact, this is the exact vision Google proposed back in 2007 when they were bidding on the FCC auctions for the 700MHz spectrum.

Google can even issue phone numbers to users via Google Voice. In fact, I’ve already ported my mobile number to Google Voice, and Google has plans to roll out that feature more broadly. Google Voice can also handle the VoIP function for the phone.

Our sources at AT&T have confirmed that they’ll sell data-only plans to customers who bring in BlackBerry and Windows devices, and strip out the voice plan. They won’t do this with all devices – you can’t get a data only plan on the iPhone, for example. But AT&T is open to data-only customer relationships.

Will the Google Phone be data/VoIP only? Right now we only have one thin source for this. But we’re continuing to dig.

I also really admire Wal-Mart. An example: I pay $50 to ship money between Japan and the US, which is fairly competitive for international wire transfers from first world financial institutions. Wal-Mart wanted to offer financial services to Mexican immigrants to let them ship money between the US and Mexico. They said "Screw it: this is going to cost $2.99. Until we find a way to lower the price." They impress me with their relentless, all-consuming, borglike quest for improved efficiency, which I think does wonderful things for poor people. I wish all businesses I deal with had Wal-Mart forever nipping at their heels. (For example, I wish they could bring that pricing pressure to bear on my behalf for financial services.) I know, I know, I'm supposed to feel class-based superiority to their customers and pretend that their $12 China-made shirts are grossly inferior to my $100 China-made shirts... but I've never been good with that sort of mental gymnastics.

Convincing people they need a carbon rock through a brilliant marketing campaign ("A Diamond is Forever" named best advertising slogan of 20th century by Advertising Age). This slogan convinces Americans and global consumers to change their courtship practices; that it is completely normal and expected to spend 2 months salary on a diamond engagement ring as a symbol of love.

Another ad urged consumers to hold on to family diamond Jewelry as heirlooms. This cutoff the aftermarket of diamonds and increased the market power of the firm.

De Beers then artificially keeps the prices very high. These carbon rocks aren't rare in the natural world. The company restricts supply through a cartel system. Less than 200 companies are allowed to buy from the firm.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/diamond5.htm

I am sure Cuil would disagree with this, however their problem was more mass marketing too early and having too big of an audience for their effectively Alpha release.

自从开始使用微博客，就一直渴望拥有一款 CMS+Microblog 的写作系统。以前写剧本和小说，我常用“成文厚”卡片来记录书写一些不确定的片段，而后通过卡片的重新排序来确定最终的关联结构。后来改用电脑写作，一个个临时文件替代了传统的纸张卡片，复制粘贴、修改润色甚至排版都要方便得多，但唯一的问题就是：没有卡片直观。卡片摆放的灵活性是用传统电子文本编辑器所无法替代的。

微博客出现之后，我很快就把它与记忆中的卡片关联起来，很早就和几位好友详述过我的“网络卡片”构想。以前随身带几张卡片，记录下只言片语，而如今用手机就可以轻松地更新微博客信息，更不用说还有不胜枚举的客户端及插件式发布工具了。我在博客里写到过，我的确幻想过Google 收购 Jaiku 之后，会把它与 Google Doc 以及 Google Note 这些工具结合起来，从而形成一个更为便捷的书写系统，遗憾的是这显然不是 Google 想做的事。

The partnership with LinkedIn affirms Twitter’s role as a network for professional conversation. More than social sites like Facebook, people use Twitter to keep abreast of professional news and share links to articles about their industries.

“Twitter is not only a massively open platform, but also it’s a place where there’s a tremendous amount of professional information already being shared, and we wanted to be sure that was coming to our LinkedIn user base,” said Allen Blue, LinkedIn’s co-founder and vice president of product strategy.

His approach was that every task is either 100% complete or 0% complete.

No task is ever "80%" complete. If you really think that it is, then break it down into smaller tasks, 80% of which are 100% complete and 20% of which are 0% complete. This way it becomes much clearer what is complete and what remains to be done.

I have never allowed anyone to report anything as n% complete for values other than 0 or 100. As soon as someone does, that's a pretty good sign that they may be confusing motion with action.

All the things you hear today, since the iPhone, about the independent developer - Omar identified that community years ago.

“He kept a maniacal focus on the independent developer,” Goetz continued. “He ignored the carriers, he ignored the ‘walled garden.’ When he started, there was no economy around mobile. It was the inception of this market. He’s a special entrepreneur, and he built an extraordinary business in a short time.” (It’s worth noting that Sequoia has added a picture of Hamoui on its sparsely decorated home page as a tribute to him.)

• TwitPic is currently the largest and most popular image sharing service for Twitter. Due to its popularity, there are also popular twitter clients that have built-in support for TwitPic. Do I have to mention you can use it with your Twitter login and password?
• yfrog comes from the guys behind ImageShack and you can bet it is very simple to use. Upload, log in (yes, with your Twitter account), share and that’s it. Simple and fast.