petter palander

2012-04-11

This is easily the coolest dance/performance I’ve seen in a long while.

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This is so crazy awesome. Big up Spotify for enabling this.

Source: Spotify

2012-04-10

Smart Argentina

Very smart indeed. Hit ‘J’ when you arrive, and watch a beautiful animation.

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Everyme launches

Just received an email from Everyme, announcing it’s now available for the iPhone. They describe the service like this.

Everyme is a special place where you can be the real you. You no longer need to wonder where the best place to share things that should be private with your family, your coworkers, your close friends, and your significant other is. It’s Everyme. There are no prying eyes looking at your photos and no search engines indexing what you say. There is no public option on Everyme.

What’s interesting however is what they also write.

P.S. Many of you may have been expecting an app that replaced your address book and let you view the social feeds of your friends. You are probably disappointed that Everyme is not that product; however, we couldn’t have made the product we have now if we hadn’t started as we did. We urge you to give the new Everyme a try, and let us know what you think.

This is probably more interesting for me, than for most others, since I’ve been trying to build this service myself. When I heard about Everyme first time last year I got nervous. Mainly because it sounded just what we were doing, but with some heavy funding. I wonder what made them change path, and to me it sounds very much like Path as a matter of fact. So the question is then: that dream people have of a new smart address book, is it dead? Or is it already here?!

2012-04-09

Facebook + Instagram = True :’(

By now everyone probably knows that Facebook has acquired Instagram, for the not-so-modest sum of $1.000.000.000, yep, that’s a lots of zeros. One billion dollar. For a photo-app, some say. For 35.000.000 users, others say. To kill the competition. To strengthen their mobile platform, which is mediocre at best.

For whatever the reason, it’s true and we have to deal with it. I started to use Instagram pretty early on. I was fascinated by their incredible growth. It grew 400.000 users first month. A simple app which let you share a photo from your mobile, with some nice filters and get instant gratification from your friends and total strangers.

I’m not going to tell you why Facebook bought the app, team and all that yummy data, since everyone else has already told you. But I remember my first reaction: wtf, another beautiful creation snatched up by the big beast Facebook. Last one was Gowalla. Another extremely well-made app, that also lacked a monetization model, at least anything sustainable. I’ve been wondering too what Instagram’s business model was. They were hinting that they had something totally radical and disruptive. Not like the other photo-filter-apps, which sold filters. Exiting to Facebook is definitely one business model.

But I wonder what will happen to the community. Because just like Flickr, Instagram has built a vibrant community, of photographers, or iphonographers as some like to call themselves, developers which has built on their simple API, which until recently was read-only. But Om Malik said something that I find very true which makes it so different:

People like Facebook. People use Facebook. People love Instagram. […] Facebook lacks soul. Instagram is all soul and emotion.

And this is what I’m thinking about. How will this change. Will people start love Facebook now? Not likely. Will people stop loving Instagram, to just like it, or even hate it? People loved that Instagram wasn’t Facebook. But now it will be. It will be Instagram by Facebook as much as Flickr is Flickr by Yahoo. And what happened to that community? It moved to Instagram. And what happened to the service? It stagnated. It hasn’t as much as moved for the past few years. And that is sad, and that is what I’m frightened will happen with Instagram too. I hope I’m wrong, tell me I’m wrong because I really love Instagram.

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Facebook’s mobile platform (including its app) is mediocre at best.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

2012-04-07

Silicon Valley Glasses

Jolie O’Dell on the rumours that Instagram is raising a round of $50 million at a rumoured valuation of $500 million:

The company raised a modest $7 million back in February 2011.

I don’t know if she’s ironic or not, but ‘modest’ and $7 million in the same sentence makes me wonder how the Valley affects you in looking at things. That amount for that service anywhere else in the world would be anything but modest.

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Q: Cutesy self-deprecation aside, how can I get in touch?
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Source: usesthis.com

Silicon Valley is the new Hollywood, entrepreneurs are the new rock stars, and having your own startup is like being in a band back in the 1990s.

— http://www.businessinsider.com/randi-zuckerberg-explains-why-she-agreed-to-do-a-silicon-valley-reality-show-2012-4