17 features the apple tablet could have: (this list is based on my thoughts as well as what I have read on the web so far and inputs from my friends) (will be adding more features as it pops up in my mind till tomorrow morning =) )
- ereader
- games
- video/movie player
- web cam
- multitouch
- regular iPhone apps
- app store for books, magazines, newspapers
- light version of mac OS
- USB / FireWire port similar to macbook??? (my colleague/friend Dave's maybe prediction)
- wireless
- 3G or 4G
- Expandable memory??? (my colleague/friend Dave's maybe prediction)
- 3D graphics
- Handwriting recognition
- speech recognition
- Virtual keyboard
- real keyboard (probably sliding keyboard)???
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
What will be the apple tablet be like?
As the day of the apple tablet release is nearing, there are so many rumours floating about what the tablet would be and what it's core functionality would be. I thought let me document my thoughts too before the device arrives so that I can brag if my thoughts become true.
The apple tablet could be like Lenovo's hybrid laptop/tablet or a hybrid handheld/tablet. Or it could be like MSI's laptop where the keyboard area is replaced with another display for ebook reading with an option to load a virtual keyboard if needed (this virtual keyboard area could just used a e-ink based display to save power consumption).
My most probable guess is that the apple tablet will be an iPhone with a bigger screen and better processor and more memory/storage, better graphics card with 3D support for better gaming experience. It will have all of the features of an iPhone like multitouch, GPS, WIFi, one touch power on, etc. The operating system will be a hybrid of a mac OS (which means you can install any application, like flash for example) and iphone OS. It will have ability to run all of the existing iphone apps. It would also serve as an ereader for books, magazines and newspapers and even for textbooks (which the college crowd would love). It would have better handwriting recognition and also maybe better voice recognition. It better have some kind of an embedded webcam so that it enables users to do video chat and maybe even take pictures if needed. It would be better if the tablet also has USB or firewire ports just like a macbook.
With respect to the ereader functionality, the question that still ponders me is that whether would that be just yet another app on the app store or would it have an e-ink mechanism (static display without need for screen refresh) to save power consumption (the device could also have the regular LCD display mechanism when not used for reading books). Another question that ponders my mind is whether iTunes will start selling magazines, newspapers and ebooks (or even chapters of books) just like songs? News Corp's Rupert Murdoch would love the idea if iTunes enables newspaper companies to sell Content.
With respect to enabling better gaming experience, another question I have is whether the tablet will have enhanced hardware improvements (maybe an attached game controllers which just slide from the side? (so that it feels like holding a gameboy while playing games) or maybe 3D or even holographic display makes sense for gaming and maybe even for watching movies) or would it just be the kick ass software that would make the tablet THE gaming device. Because rumors are that it could have both.
I cant wait to see if apple comes up with a novel user input mechanism or interface, which just blows our mind (similar to how the multitouch on the iPhone blew our mind when it was released). Would the tablet have a scroller wheel on the sides (similar to a blackberry) for easily traversing between apps,content, etc? One million dollar question I have is whether the tablet would have some significant hardware improvement over the iphone/macbook or would it be some bad ass software on the tablet that would blow our mind (because most of the innovations mentioned above could be just as well done in software without any hardware improvement)....we shall know in 2 days.
The apple tablet could be like Lenovo's hybrid laptop/tablet or a hybrid handheld/tablet. Or it could be like MSI's laptop where the keyboard area is replaced with another display for ebook reading with an option to load a virtual keyboard if needed (this virtual keyboard area could just used a e-ink based display to save power consumption).
My most probable guess is that the apple tablet will be an iPhone with a bigger screen and better processor and more memory/storage, better graphics card with 3D support for better gaming experience. It will have all of the features of an iPhone like multitouch, GPS, WIFi, one touch power on, etc. The operating system will be a hybrid of a mac OS (which means you can install any application, like flash for example) and iphone OS. It will have ability to run all of the existing iphone apps. It would also serve as an ereader for books, magazines and newspapers and even for textbooks (which the college crowd would love). It would have better handwriting recognition and also maybe better voice recognition. It better have some kind of an embedded webcam so that it enables users to do video chat and maybe even take pictures if needed. It would be better if the tablet also has USB or firewire ports just like a macbook.
With respect to the ereader functionality, the question that still ponders me is that whether would that be just yet another app on the app store or would it have an e-ink mechanism (static display without need for screen refresh) to save power consumption (the device could also have the regular LCD display mechanism when not used for reading books). Another question that ponders my mind is whether iTunes will start selling magazines, newspapers and ebooks (or even chapters of books) just like songs? News Corp's Rupert Murdoch would love the idea if iTunes enables newspaper companies to sell Content.
With respect to enabling better gaming experience, another question I have is whether the tablet will have enhanced hardware improvements (maybe an attached game controllers which just slide from the side? (so that it feels like holding a gameboy while playing games) or maybe 3D or even holographic display makes sense for gaming and maybe even for watching movies) or would it just be the kick ass software that would make the tablet THE gaming device. Because rumors are that it could have both.
I cant wait to see if apple comes up with a novel user input mechanism or interface, which just blows our mind (similar to how the multitouch on the iPhone blew our mind when it was released). Would the tablet have a scroller wheel on the sides (similar to a blackberry) for easily traversing between apps,content, etc? One million dollar question I have is whether the tablet would have some significant hardware improvement over the iphone/macbook or would it be some bad ass software on the tablet that would blow our mind (because most of the innovations mentioned above could be just as well done in software without any hardware improvement)....we shall know in 2 days.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas - CES 2010 postmortem
I m kind of disappointed by this year's ces compared to last year's. During last year's CES, LED TVs were new and they were kind of like becoming the new LCDs. 3D technology were coming to the home in the form of 3D TVs. This year I went to CES in hopes to see more tablets, the new halo market created by the buzz of apple tablet, which is slated to release in the end of January. To my disappointment, I did not see too many tablets, which I thought would replace the current netbooks.
At CES 2010, the main attractions were 3D TVs (like last year), Ereaders/ebooks (I m yet to see a clear distinction between the two), netbooks, iPhone accesories (this was by far one of the most innovative areas), wireless charging technologies (like last year).
Apple was all over the place at CES. Infact apple Inc. did not even have a booth at CES (apple stopped coming to CES long time ago, since they started their own macworld to release their products. Probably CES was too inexpensive for the release their products). There was a big area called ilounge at the LVCC north hall where almost every exhibit was an iPhone accessory. Among iPhone accesories, there were iPhone covers with solar charging pads at the back of the cover, USB battery packs, iPhone covers with embedded battery packs, wireless charging stations, kinetic chargers, acoustic headphones, to name a few. Most of these were present at last CES too but the number of companies investing in selling iPhone accesories truly amazed me.
There was a section with mobile apps exhibits but none of the apps impressed me. Every app in this section had some form of hyperlocal thing in them. Most of them were iPhone apps with a few apps for blackberry and very few supporting android platform as well. CES even had a apps for innovation contest for mobile apps. One mobile app worth mentioning is this YourApps / premierappshop (www.premierappshop.com). This one seems to be an alternative app store for apple iPhone & doesn't need apps to go through apple's app approval process. From what I understand I think it uses the bookmark feature of the iPhone's safari browser.
Among netbooks, the most innovative ones, worth mentioning are a keyboard-less netbook design by MSI with dual screens with the second screen acting also as a virtual keyboard and the hybrid tablet laptop (where the tablet can be detached if needed) by Lenovo.
There were ereaders all over the place at this year's CES (I wouldn't call them an innovation because ereaders are not something new, they are just now becoming a commodity). Every ereader was the same and the only difference between the kindle and the ereaders at ces is that the non-kindle ones can read more ebook formats. To me that's not an innovation. Marvel technologies had this ereader with dual screen, one powered by TfT and another one by eink, so that one could use the ereader as a ebook and a netbook. The main advantage that kindle has over these ereaders is the price point of kindle.
There were quite a few companies demonstrating wireless charging power stations. I think most or all of these use electromagnetic induction way of power transfer for charging. On the mobile accesories side, there were companies retailing wireless charging pads for iPhones and blackberries. These charging pads are priced around $100. Futon Innovation stole the pride by showcasing wireless power charging proof of concept at office, homes and even inside cars. One thing all these wireless charging technologies require is to place the device to be charged in very close proximity to the charging source (by this I mean you have literally place the device on a charging surface). The only advantage of these present day wireless charging technologies is that they replace the power cables. Today, to transfer data, we dont require cables anyway. Maybe these technologies are good for office environment, but not for regular consumer use. Someday in the near future, I hope to see a way of charging my iPhone from my hand through an app. I guess I m asking for too much.
There's nothing much to write about TV technologies, except that every manufacture on the floor has a 3D TV now. Too bad these still require glasses. Even content providers are planning launch 3D content sometime this year. Direct TV is leading the herd. Yes, we can watch ESPN on 3D soon. There's an estimate of around 50 3D movies to be made this year.
On the handheld side, every phone manufacture (nokia, RIMM, samgsung,motorola) have new additions. To me, every handheld looked like nothing but an iPhone clone. Being an apple evangelist, I might be a bit biased in my opinion, so I m not going to comment on the handhelds, except that each of these handheld had their own app store. I m thinking whether having an app store per handheld is the right business model or whether the app stores should be carrier specific, but I guess that's not question that's going to be answered in the near future.
Last but not least, intel demonstrated that every device is going to be powered by a computer in the future. I think it's not too ambitious. Intel's recent core i5 and i7 processors on 32 nanometer technology is brilliant. On the mobile front, intel has a new app store called the AppUp center to enable people write apps for netbooks.
More details about CES products with pictures and videos to follow in a followup blog post.
At CES 2010, the main attractions were 3D TVs (like last year), Ereaders/ebooks (I m yet to see a clear distinction between the two), netbooks, iPhone accesories (this was by far one of the most innovative areas), wireless charging technologies (like last year).
Apple was all over the place at CES. Infact apple Inc. did not even have a booth at CES (apple stopped coming to CES long time ago, since they started their own macworld to release their products. Probably CES was too inexpensive for the release their products). There was a big area called ilounge at the LVCC north hall where almost every exhibit was an iPhone accessory. Among iPhone accesories, there were iPhone covers with solar charging pads at the back of the cover, USB battery packs, iPhone covers with embedded battery packs, wireless charging stations, kinetic chargers, acoustic headphones, to name a few. Most of these were present at last CES too but the number of companies investing in selling iPhone accesories truly amazed me.
There was a section with mobile apps exhibits but none of the apps impressed me. Every app in this section had some form of hyperlocal thing in them. Most of them were iPhone apps with a few apps for blackberry and very few supporting android platform as well. CES even had a apps for innovation contest for mobile apps. One mobile app worth mentioning is this YourApps / premierappshop (www.premierappshop.com). This one seems to be an alternative app store for apple iPhone & doesn't need apps to go through apple's app approval process. From what I understand I think it uses the bookmark feature of the iPhone's safari browser.
Among netbooks, the most innovative ones, worth mentioning are a keyboard-less netbook design by MSI with dual screens with the second screen acting also as a virtual keyboard and the hybrid tablet laptop (where the tablet can be detached if needed) by Lenovo.
There were ereaders all over the place at this year's CES (I wouldn't call them an innovation because ereaders are not something new, they are just now becoming a commodity). Every ereader was the same and the only difference between the kindle and the ereaders at ces is that the non-kindle ones can read more ebook formats. To me that's not an innovation. Marvel technologies had this ereader with dual screen, one powered by TfT and another one by eink, so that one could use the ereader as a ebook and a netbook. The main advantage that kindle has over these ereaders is the price point of kindle.
There were quite a few companies demonstrating wireless charging power stations. I think most or all of these use electromagnetic induction way of power transfer for charging. On the mobile accesories side, there were companies retailing wireless charging pads for iPhones and blackberries. These charging pads are priced around $100. Futon Innovation stole the pride by showcasing wireless power charging proof of concept at office, homes and even inside cars. One thing all these wireless charging technologies require is to place the device to be charged in very close proximity to the charging source (by this I mean you have literally place the device on a charging surface). The only advantage of these present day wireless charging technologies is that they replace the power cables. Today, to transfer data, we dont require cables anyway. Maybe these technologies are good for office environment, but not for regular consumer use. Someday in the near future, I hope to see a way of charging my iPhone from my hand through an app. I guess I m asking for too much.
There's nothing much to write about TV technologies, except that every manufacture on the floor has a 3D TV now. Too bad these still require glasses. Even content providers are planning launch 3D content sometime this year. Direct TV is leading the herd. Yes, we can watch ESPN on 3D soon. There's an estimate of around 50 3D movies to be made this year.
On the handheld side, every phone manufacture (nokia, RIMM, samgsung,motorola) have new additions. To me, every handheld looked like nothing but an iPhone clone. Being an apple evangelist, I might be a bit biased in my opinion, so I m not going to comment on the handhelds, except that each of these handheld had their own app store. I m thinking whether having an app store per handheld is the right business model or whether the app stores should be carrier specific, but I guess that's not question that's going to be answered in the near future.
Last but not least, intel demonstrated that every device is going to be powered by a computer in the future. I think it's not too ambitious. Intel's recent core i5 and i7 processors on 32 nanometer technology is brilliant. On the mobile front, intel has a new app store called the AppUp center to enable people write apps for netbooks.
More details about CES products with pictures and videos to follow in a followup blog post.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Demo, Sell and Build - so easy that an engineer can do it
One mantra I have learnt in the past years is "Demo, Sell and Build". I first heard these three words from Bijoy Goswami (founder of Bootstrap Austin) and it sounded like a good concept but I did not care about it much. Later when I tried to build a couple of products myself without selling it first, I started learning the meaning of those three words in the hard way. People around me were telling me that I m an engineer and I don't have the sales expertise to sell the product and I need to hire a good sales man to sell my product and in fact I even started looking for a sales person. Then I figured out that its not a problem with sales, but its a problem with the product itself. I should have built the product after getting the customers and built the product for them and not the other way. Then, the product sells itself.
I no longer believe in the statement "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”.
Its a myth when people say that engineers can't sell. Infact engineers are one of the best sales people if they talk to the customers first before building the product. Sales is not that hard.
Say you find there is a problem. Follow these steps.
1) First talk to the people who face the problem and ask them more feedback about the problem and ask them why they think its a problem and is there anything they do currently to solve the problem (or work around the problem, even if it may not be the best solution).
2) Then, ask them what they think would be the best solution (yes before you provide a solution, ask other people who face the problem). Then see if this is the same solution that you have thought or if not, see which one is better (your solution or the solution that you heard from the people who face the problem). Infact ask them.
3) Once you zero in on a solution, then ask them if they would be willing pay you for solving the problem and if yes how much. If they say yes, there you go... you got your first customer. If you cannot cover the cost of the product with just one customer, go and find more customers. If the people who face the problem are not willing to pay for the solution, then see if there is someone else who may be willing to pay for the solution (or maybe the traffic., but before this ask the people who face the problem, whether they will use your solution for sure.. Maybe take a survey).
4) Once you found your customers, then build a demo of the product and show it to your customers and ask them if they would pay right away or get some guarantee from them for paying for your product.
5) Then build your product.
6) Remember you have already sold your product, and you already have a few customers and getting more wont be difficult anymore.
See, I said selling is not that hard.. So easy that an engineer can do it.
I no longer believe in the statement "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”.
Its a myth when people say that engineers can't sell. Infact engineers are one of the best sales people if they talk to the customers first before building the product. Sales is not that hard.
Say you find there is a problem. Follow these steps.
1) First talk to the people who face the problem and ask them more feedback about the problem and ask them why they think its a problem and is there anything they do currently to solve the problem (or work around the problem, even if it may not be the best solution).
2) Then, ask them what they think would be the best solution (yes before you provide a solution, ask other people who face the problem). Then see if this is the same solution that you have thought or if not, see which one is better (your solution or the solution that you heard from the people who face the problem). Infact ask them.
3) Once you zero in on a solution, then ask them if they would be willing pay you for solving the problem and if yes how much. If they say yes, there you go... you got your first customer. If you cannot cover the cost of the product with just one customer, go and find more customers. If the people who face the problem are not willing to pay for the solution, then see if there is someone else who may be willing to pay for the solution (or maybe the traffic., but before this ask the people who face the problem, whether they will use your solution for sure.. Maybe take a survey).
4) Once you found your customers, then build a demo of the product and show it to your customers and ask them if they would pay right away or get some guarantee from them for paying for your product.
5) Then build your product.
6) Remember you have already sold your product, and you already have a few customers and getting more wont be difficult anymore.
See, I said selling is not that hard.. So easy that an engineer can do it.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Website building 101 for non technical Entrepreneurs
As I thinking about what topic to blog on today, I came to remember something that happened recently.
Recently a couple of my friends with marketing backgrounds, who wanted to sell their product through the web asked for some tips to find the best technology for their website and asked for few developer contacts. Instead of writing emails to each of them, I thought I would write it as a blog post..
I m gonna start with things to do for creating a website targeted to a business selling a product but later will add ability to integrate social media to their website (as in user forums, etc).
Step-1) First gather the list of features you want in your website. If you are selling a product, you might want to include some kind of graphic describing your product or maybe a youtube video describing your product. Then you might want a section describing your company and yourself (the about-us page). Then a contact form so that people coming to your website could could you. Then some way to sell your product (like a shopping cart?)
a) For the graphic describing your product, you may first draw it as a flow chart in a software like Microsoft vsio or even Microsoft powerpoint.
b) For the video describing your product, shoot the video from a handycam or camera and edit it using your favorite video editing software (I m not going to talk about video editing softwares here, but you can find a lot on the web). Then you can upload the video on youtube.
c) For the about-us page, just have the description in text (maybe a powerpoint would do).
d) For the contact form, you might wonder, this would require some programming.. Not really. You can use web services like prefinery.com (this is not really a web service targeted for contact forms but you can surely use it for that) or aweber.com or wufoo.com (HTML form builder and its free). In fact you can create any kind of forms using these services without any programming experience. You just have to creative enough to be able to get your requirements done using the available form tools (almost every thing can be done using these form tools.. If you are creative, you can even build a shopping cart using these form tools).
e) For the shopping cart part, ask the question: Do you really need a shopping cart to sell your product? Can you get an amazon account (amazon.com) and list your product for sale there and link that to your website first to see if you get traffic? This way you don't have to figure out the logistics of selling (especially the shopping cart and payment collection). I think Amazon charges just over 8% as commissions. So if you don't like that, look for other e-commerce sites which charge less commissions and list your product for sale there and link back to your website. Or you can look into Google Checkout (checkout.google.com) to collect payments and sell your product. Maybe once someone pays through google checkout, you can mail them the product (or email them if its somekind of an online product). All these require no programming experience.
Now that you have done steps (a) to (e), you might have put all of them together in the form of a website.
Step-2) Use a website mockup software like balsamiq (http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups) to create the mockups. Watch the 3 minute video in the balsamiq website and you will know what wonders it can do and you can use it. First decide how may pages your website need to have. Then, you can take screenshots of your graphics, youtube video, about-us powerpoint page, web forms and place them in the appropriate pages using the balsamiq mockup software (this is one of the best mockup softwares I have used). Try to do as much as possible in this stage (the layout, fonts, color, etc) because this will reduce your web designer cost by a great deal. You can also draw the mockups using paper and pencil but this is more advanced and scalable (you don't have to look for an eraser when you have to make changes). You may also look into tools like Omnigraffle or Microsoft Vsio. Or do a google search for web mockup softwares and I m sure there will be plenty. In my opinion, balsamiq is the best.
Step-3) Once your mockup is complete using the balsamiq software, now its time to implement it on the web.
Here are some resources for drag and drop web site creation.
These two are the simplest ones among most drag and drop website creation softwares I evaluated.
http://www.weebly.com/
or
http://www.jimdo.com/
If you need something more advanced (as in a CMS), try this: http://www.typeroom.com/
If none of the out of the drag and drop solutions fit your needs, you may need to hire a web designer who can implement the mockups (you have created) in html. This is when you have to think about whether you need a content management software like wordpress, drupal or joomla. For the most part, I think it could be done in simple html itself (but you can use something like wordpress to do this too.. Infact you may even use the basic wordpress template). Remember: the forms, shopping cart, etc are mashups using other web tools (forms using prefinery or aweber or wufoo and shopping cart with amazon or google checkout) and should just be link backs to your website (Don't try to do these from scratch.. just link the forms/shopping cart to the ones you have already created in step 1-d). Anyways ask your web designer for the best opinion.
You can use websites like crowdspring.com or elance.com or odesk.com or even talk to your local web designer to implement it in the website. This should not cost more than a 3-4 hours max of the designer's time to implement. If not, then you are not using the right smart web designer. Ofcourse, I havent included the cost/time to design your logos, etc but c'mon, ask the question: Do I really need the best logo to sell my product? Whats the objective here? Is it to have the best website in the world or to sell the product?
Step-4) Now say, you want to add some sort of social media to your website as in people should be able to login and post reviews and comments and participate in discussions (as in a forum). I would strongly recommend that you use facebook or twitter for that. You can make your website as a facebook connect or a twitter connect website where people can login using their twitter/facebook id (if the users don't have one, link them to twitter/facebook to create one) and post content to their twitter feed/facebook feed and you just pull those feeds to your website. Say you can have the ability to just add comments to the product you are selling (not like a forum but just a stream of comments), then look at this service called http://js-kit.com/ and the techcrunch blog post on this at http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/29/quick-embed-code-to-add-comments-to-any-site/ . I think this commenting service is pretty cool and as I said earlier in the forms section, you just have to creative to use it as per your needs. This is not the best social media integration to your website but you can build something like this in less than 5-10 hours max atleast to start with. Because remember your main objective is to not build a social media website but to sell your product. This would do the job.
Make sure you remember one thing: Say you are trying to sell a product or a service, the website is not your core business. The product or the service you are creating is your core business. The website is one of the many channels/means to sell your core offering. You could sell your product or service through email, face to face, word of mouth, facebook dan page, amazon, eBay, website but in the end all that matters is whether someone pays for your product or service. No one is gonna pay a premium just because you have an awesome website...
Try these steps the next time you think about build a website for selling your product or service or even just like that and let me know how it goes. Good luck!
Recently a couple of my friends with marketing backgrounds, who wanted to sell their product through the web asked for some tips to find the best technology for their website and asked for few developer contacts. Instead of writing emails to each of them, I thought I would write it as a blog post..
I m gonna start with things to do for creating a website targeted to a business selling a product but later will add ability to integrate social media to their website (as in user forums, etc).
Step-1) First gather the list of features you want in your website. If you are selling a product, you might want to include some kind of graphic describing your product or maybe a youtube video describing your product. Then you might want a section describing your company and yourself (the about-us page). Then a contact form so that people coming to your website could could you. Then some way to sell your product (like a shopping cart?)
a) For the graphic describing your product, you may first draw it as a flow chart in a software like Microsoft vsio or even Microsoft powerpoint.
b) For the video describing your product, shoot the video from a handycam or camera and edit it using your favorite video editing software (I m not going to talk about video editing softwares here, but you can find a lot on the web). Then you can upload the video on youtube.
c) For the about-us page, just have the description in text (maybe a powerpoint would do).
d) For the contact form, you might wonder, this would require some programming.. Not really. You can use web services like prefinery.com (this is not really a web service targeted for contact forms but you can surely use it for that) or aweber.com or wufoo.com (HTML form builder and its free). In fact you can create any kind of forms using these services without any programming experience. You just have to creative enough to be able to get your requirements done using the available form tools (almost every thing can be done using these form tools.. If you are creative, you can even build a shopping cart using these form tools).
e) For the shopping cart part, ask the question: Do you really need a shopping cart to sell your product? Can you get an amazon account (amazon.com) and list your product for sale there and link that to your website first to see if you get traffic? This way you don't have to figure out the logistics of selling (especially the shopping cart and payment collection). I think Amazon charges just over 8% as commissions. So if you don't like that, look for other e-commerce sites which charge less commissions and list your product for sale there and link back to your website. Or you can look into Google Checkout (checkout.google.com) to collect payments and sell your product. Maybe once someone pays through google checkout, you can mail them the product (or email them if its somekind of an online product). All these require no programming experience.
Now that you have done steps (a) to (e), you might have put all of them together in the form of a website.
Step-2) Use a website mockup software like balsamiq (http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups) to create the mockups. Watch the 3 minute video in the balsamiq website and you will know what wonders it can do and you can use it. First decide how may pages your website need to have. Then, you can take screenshots of your graphics, youtube video, about-us powerpoint page, web forms and place them in the appropriate pages using the balsamiq mockup software (this is one of the best mockup softwares I have used). Try to do as much as possible in this stage (the layout, fonts, color, etc) because this will reduce your web designer cost by a great deal. You can also draw the mockups using paper and pencil but this is more advanced and scalable (you don't have to look for an eraser when you have to make changes). You may also look into tools like Omnigraffle or Microsoft Vsio. Or do a google search for web mockup softwares and I m sure there will be plenty. In my opinion, balsamiq is the best.
Step-3) Once your mockup is complete using the balsamiq software, now its time to implement it on the web.
Here are some resources for drag and drop web site creation.
These two are the simplest ones among most drag and drop website creation softwares I evaluated.
http://www.weebly.com/
or
http://www.jimdo.com/
If you need something more advanced (as in a CMS), try this: http://www.typeroom.com/
If none of the out of the drag and drop solutions fit your needs, you may need to hire a web designer who can implement the mockups (you have created) in html. This is when you have to think about whether you need a content management software like wordpress, drupal or joomla. For the most part, I think it could be done in simple html itself (but you can use something like wordpress to do this too.. Infact you may even use the basic wordpress template). Remember: the forms, shopping cart, etc are mashups using other web tools (forms using prefinery or aweber or wufoo and shopping cart with amazon or google checkout) and should just be link backs to your website (Don't try to do these from scratch.. just link the forms/shopping cart to the ones you have already created in step 1-d). Anyways ask your web designer for the best opinion.
You can use websites like crowdspring.com or elance.com or odesk.com or even talk to your local web designer to implement it in the website. This should not cost more than a 3-4 hours max of the designer's time to implement. If not, then you are not using the right smart web designer. Ofcourse, I havent included the cost/time to design your logos, etc but c'mon, ask the question: Do I really need the best logo to sell my product? Whats the objective here? Is it to have the best website in the world or to sell the product?
Step-4) Now say, you want to add some sort of social media to your website as in people should be able to login and post reviews and comments and participate in discussions (as in a forum). I would strongly recommend that you use facebook or twitter for that. You can make your website as a facebook connect or a twitter connect website where people can login using their twitter/facebook id (if the users don't have one, link them to twitter/facebook to create one) and post content to their twitter feed/facebook feed and you just pull those feeds to your website. Say you can have the ability to just add comments to the product you are selling (not like a forum but just a stream of comments), then look at this service called http://js-kit.com/ and the techcrunch blog post on this at http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/29/quick-embed-code-to-add-comments-to-any-site/ . I think this commenting service is pretty cool and as I said earlier in the forms section, you just have to creative to use it as per your needs. This is not the best social media integration to your website but you can build something like this in less than 5-10 hours max atleast to start with. Because remember your main objective is to not build a social media website but to sell your product. This would do the job.
Make sure you remember one thing: Say you are trying to sell a product or a service, the website is not your core business. The product or the service you are creating is your core business. The website is one of the many channels/means to sell your core offering. You could sell your product or service through email, face to face, word of mouth, facebook dan page, amazon, eBay, website but in the end all that matters is whether someone pays for your product or service. No one is gonna pay a premium just because you have an awesome website...
Try these steps the next time you think about build a website for selling your product or service or even just like that and let me know how it goes. Good luck!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Is it time to get on the android bandwagon?
As a technology enthusiast and as a person who missed the iphone app bandwagon in the first year and half, I have been pondering with this question of whether to get on to android over the last few months. So, I thought I would share my thoughts here...
First let me disclose that I have an iphone and I just started writing iphone apps myself. However the iphone app market seems extremely competitive such that, so far every single idea that I come up with has already been done as an app. Plus I ask myself the same question that John Nash asks his friends at the bar scene in the movie "The Beautiful mind" - "Why should everyone compete by all of us going for the blond? Instead can each of us go for her friends (may not be as pretty as the blond) but atleast we have a chance of getting laid...". This is the basis of Nash's theory and equilibrium for which he was given the Noble Prize. I m asking the same question to myself - "Should I compete in an overly crowded iphone app market or should I start learning and developing in the android platform so that I get on the game pretty early."
Today, according to Androidlib (Androidlib is a website to browse android apps on the web http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/finally-a-decent-website-to-browse-android-apps-androlib/), there are little over 20000 apps in the android store (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/15/android-market-20000-apps/). Five months ago, there were 10000 apps in the android store (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/09/07/android-market-now-over-10000-applications-strong/). Does this mean that more developers have started getting on to the android boat and I better hurry up? Another interesting observation from androidlib's data is that there are about 37% of paid apps right now versus 35% of paid apps, five months ago. This tells us that not many people are writing paid apps. What does it tell about the revenue? Nothing!
Well, the main question to ask here is - "Are developers writing android apps making money?". Revenue could be in the form of paid app downloads or ad revenue. Do the android developers get any of these forms of revenue and if so whats the split up? I don't have the answer to this question. However, one comment I have is that Google has been the smartest dude in the world with making money with ads, so if your intention is to develop free apps and just make money with ads, then maybe android is not a bad idea. While you are pondering over your decision to write android or iphone apps,keep asking, "Do I want to generate revenue from ads or from paid apps?" and do your research accordingly. This is what I have been asking so far to myself.
A few negatives with respect to android:
1) Recently I was speaking to friend, who is an apple evangelist and is also developing iphone apps and he mentioned that one of his android-developer friend recently complained that no none seems to be downloading his paid app in the android store.
2) Another interesting observation that my apple evangelistic friend made was that android could have the same problem that Macintosh faces over windows interms of adoption.
3) Another big problem that I see with respect to adoption of android is that Google needs to come up with some creative hardware. C'mon lets be honest.. The HTC phones suck! Think about a high school kid or a college kid who wants to impress his girlfriends. Will he guy a cool iphone or a HTC phone (which is not cool at all). I don't have any problem with android.. but just the phone. With google's Nexus One (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/12/nexus-one-google-phone-picture/) (whenever it comes to the market), this might change. Maybe the Droid is already changing this. But what if next year apple comes with a holographic iphone or a iphone as small as a nano with a expandable screen and keyboard. Now thats what google needs if they have to compete with apple.. a better hardware (not just creating a new phone with a bigger screen and slider keyboard.. I m talking about a totally out-of-the-box feature). If there is any chance that this could happen, then I m going to totally jump on to the android bandwagon right away. No questions asked.
A few positive reasons for jumping on to android:
1) The argument towards jumping on the android bandwagon is the programming language.. Its Java, which can be applied anywhere (even in the web with the google web tool kit) and plus it would be great thing on your resume to be a good java programmer. Thats a positive one compared to objective-C which is a ba*tard child of Smalltalk and C from NeXT. Who in the world except apple uses objective-C and from my experiences programming in Objective-C, I had a steep learning curve. However, I got to give to it apple. Their interface builder (this is like the GUI Visual basic used to have where you can drag and drop your UI elements like buttons, text-boxes and design your UI canvas) is awesome. I havent used the debugger in android so I can't compare but Xcode's debugger is pretty cool.
2) Recently a friend of mine gave an awesome idea for apps on android. He asked me to just copy the best selling app ideas on iphone and port it to android. The probability that they will sell in the android is very high. Well, I will take that. That's what I will be doing if I m jumping on the android bandwagon.
Other phone platforms to consider:
There are also other phone platforms like the Symbian OS, Blackberry who have their own app store and app platform. I haven't done any research on this. But I know that most of the corporate market is held by Blackberry and the question to ask is if these guys were to move to a different phone, what will they switch to. If your company is currently supporting blackberry, if they switch, will they switch to iphone or android-based-phones? Maybe the blackberry could start supporting android. In that case, the whole conversation changes.
There is also a new kid in this neighborhood called moblin (http://moblin.org/) which is a mobile platform (similar to android) and is evangelized by Intel to promote their processors' entry into the mobile industry (netbooks at present). Moblin is a C/C++ platform.. Should you start developing for moblin? Maybe if you want to well ahead of the curve in moblin (sure - moblin is going to have users). I leave the decision to you. If you already a good C/C++ programmer, maybe you should start on moblin.
Anyways, keep munching on these thoughts and share your thoughts as well...
First let me disclose that I have an iphone and I just started writing iphone apps myself. However the iphone app market seems extremely competitive such that, so far every single idea that I come up with has already been done as an app. Plus I ask myself the same question that John Nash asks his friends at the bar scene in the movie "The Beautiful mind" - "Why should everyone compete by all of us going for the blond? Instead can each of us go for her friends (may not be as pretty as the blond) but atleast we have a chance of getting laid...". This is the basis of Nash's theory and equilibrium for which he was given the Noble Prize. I m asking the same question to myself - "Should I compete in an overly crowded iphone app market or should I start learning and developing in the android platform so that I get on the game pretty early."
Today, according to Androidlib (Androidlib is a website to browse android apps on the web http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/finally-a-decent-website-to-browse-android-apps-androlib/), there are little over 20000 apps in the android store (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/15/android-market-20000-apps/). Five months ago, there were 10000 apps in the android store (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/09/07/android-market-now-over-10000-applications-strong/). Does this mean that more developers have started getting on to the android boat and I better hurry up? Another interesting observation from androidlib's data is that there are about 37% of paid apps right now versus 35% of paid apps, five months ago. This tells us that not many people are writing paid apps. What does it tell about the revenue? Nothing!
Well, the main question to ask here is - "Are developers writing android apps making money?". Revenue could be in the form of paid app downloads or ad revenue. Do the android developers get any of these forms of revenue and if so whats the split up? I don't have the answer to this question. However, one comment I have is that Google has been the smartest dude in the world with making money with ads, so if your intention is to develop free apps and just make money with ads, then maybe android is not a bad idea. While you are pondering over your decision to write android or iphone apps,keep asking, "Do I want to generate revenue from ads or from paid apps?" and do your research accordingly. This is what I have been asking so far to myself.
A few negatives with respect to android:
1) Recently I was speaking to friend, who is an apple evangelist and is also developing iphone apps and he mentioned that one of his android-developer friend recently complained that no none seems to be downloading his paid app in the android store.
2) Another interesting observation that my apple evangelistic friend made was that android could have the same problem that Macintosh faces over windows interms of adoption.
3) Another big problem that I see with respect to adoption of android is that Google needs to come up with some creative hardware. C'mon lets be honest.. The HTC phones suck! Think about a high school kid or a college kid who wants to impress his girlfriends. Will he guy a cool iphone or a HTC phone (which is not cool at all). I don't have any problem with android.. but just the phone. With google's Nexus One (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/12/nexus-one-google-phone-picture/) (whenever it comes to the market), this might change. Maybe the Droid is already changing this. But what if next year apple comes with a holographic iphone or a iphone as small as a nano with a expandable screen and keyboard. Now thats what google needs if they have to compete with apple.. a better hardware (not just creating a new phone with a bigger screen and slider keyboard.. I m talking about a totally out-of-the-box feature). If there is any chance that this could happen, then I m going to totally jump on to the android bandwagon right away. No questions asked.
A few positive reasons for jumping on to android:
1) The argument towards jumping on the android bandwagon is the programming language.. Its Java, which can be applied anywhere (even in the web with the google web tool kit) and plus it would be great thing on your resume to be a good java programmer. Thats a positive one compared to objective-C which is a ba*tard child of Smalltalk and C from NeXT. Who in the world except apple uses objective-C and from my experiences programming in Objective-C, I had a steep learning curve. However, I got to give to it apple. Their interface builder (this is like the GUI Visual basic used to have where you can drag and drop your UI elements like buttons, text-boxes and design your UI canvas) is awesome. I havent used the debugger in android so I can't compare but Xcode's debugger is pretty cool.
2) Recently a friend of mine gave an awesome idea for apps on android. He asked me to just copy the best selling app ideas on iphone and port it to android. The probability that they will sell in the android is very high. Well, I will take that. That's what I will be doing if I m jumping on the android bandwagon.
Other phone platforms to consider:
There are also other phone platforms like the Symbian OS, Blackberry who have their own app store and app platform. I haven't done any research on this. But I know that most of the corporate market is held by Blackberry and the question to ask is if these guys were to move to a different phone, what will they switch to. If your company is currently supporting blackberry, if they switch, will they switch to iphone or android-based-phones? Maybe the blackberry could start supporting android. In that case, the whole conversation changes.
There is also a new kid in this neighborhood called moblin (http://moblin.org/) which is a mobile platform (similar to android) and is evangelized by Intel to promote their processors' entry into the mobile industry (netbooks at present). Moblin is a C/C++ platform.. Should you start developing for moblin? Maybe if you want to well ahead of the curve in moblin (sure - moblin is going to have users). I leave the decision to you. If you already a good C/C++ programmer, maybe you should start on moblin.
Anyways, keep munching on these thoughts and share your thoughts as well...
Monday, December 14, 2009
Business plan by answering 6 questions... So easy that a cave man could do it
Creating a business plan could be as simple as answering the following 6 questions: Why, What, Who, How, When and Where on your idea. Try this once.. it has worked for me!
1) Why - Why do I need this product? Can people live without it? Is there a real problem that I m solving? Is it a necessity or a want? We define the problem here. If you can't answer this question, then go find a problem first.
2) What - Whats the product? Here we go into product management. This is where we define the solution (or the product).
3) Who - This is the selling part. Who is my customer? Who is my user? The users and the customers may not be the one and the same. For example, in google, an average Joe is the user. The local business down the street who advertises on google is the customer.
As part of this question, try to find out your competition also.. Some people say that they don't have any competition.. Hell no! Everybody has competition. Even the mighty google has competition. Sometimes the competition may not be direct but it could be a substitute competition. Say for example, when someone invented the email, what was the competition at that time? Paper mail, phone, fax, radio, etc.. To find about competition, research.. research.. research.. Use our mighty Google as much as possible.
Once you understand your competition, you should have a pretty good idea about your product and the market.
4) How - How is the product going to be built? How will the solution be implemented? This is the second phase of product management. This would answer questions like: Can I build the product myself? What kind of resources do I need to build the product?, etc..
Now as a part of answering this question, its time for some math. Do a income statement and a cash flow statement for your product. Don't worry its very simple. Just Open Excel and calculate the Cost (cost of building the product and selling it, if any) and Revenue (for example, it could be as simple as: # customers x price paid by each customer). Now Revenue - Cost = profit. Do this for a year or 2 years or till you break even and start making profit (if you don't start making profit from Day 1.. If you sell your product first before building it, you should have profits right from day 1). Be very honest when you do your finances.
5) When - This is very crucial because answering this question plays an important role in product execution. Can I build the product in my lifetime? I want to invent the next search engine which is much better than google.. Can I do it? If we understand our strengths (if you don't know your strengths yet, I suggest you go to http://www.strengthsfinder.com and take the Strengths Finder 2.0 test.. it will help you understand your strengths much better), and know the constraints and resources (could be money, time, people, skills, etc..), then the answer to this should be straight forward. How long its going to take to build my product? This is the step where you work your product timelines.
6) Where - This is not a very important question, although understanding the answer to this question helps us plan well. Where do I get my product built? Can I do it locally or do I have to hire someone from a different state or do I have to get some help overseas? These are all the questions that would get answered here.
Now you have a business plan for your product ready by just asking Why, What, Who, How, When and Where.
The next time you have the Big idea, ask these questions.
1) Why - Why do I need this product? Can people live without it? Is there a real problem that I m solving? Is it a necessity or a want? We define the problem here. If you can't answer this question, then go find a problem first.
2) What - Whats the product? Here we go into product management. This is where we define the solution (or the product).
3) Who - This is the selling part. Who is my customer? Who is my user? The users and the customers may not be the one and the same. For example, in google, an average Joe is the user. The local business down the street who advertises on google is the customer.
As part of this question, try to find out your competition also.. Some people say that they don't have any competition.. Hell no! Everybody has competition. Even the mighty google has competition. Sometimes the competition may not be direct but it could be a substitute competition. Say for example, when someone invented the email, what was the competition at that time? Paper mail, phone, fax, radio, etc.. To find about competition, research.. research.. research.. Use our mighty Google as much as possible.
Once you understand your competition, you should have a pretty good idea about your product and the market.
4) How - How is the product going to be built? How will the solution be implemented? This is the second phase of product management. This would answer questions like: Can I build the product myself? What kind of resources do I need to build the product?, etc..
Now as a part of answering this question, its time for some math. Do a income statement and a cash flow statement for your product. Don't worry its very simple. Just Open Excel and calculate the Cost (cost of building the product and selling it, if any) and Revenue (for example, it could be as simple as: # customers x price paid by each customer). Now Revenue - Cost = profit. Do this for a year or 2 years or till you break even and start making profit (if you don't start making profit from Day 1.. If you sell your product first before building it, you should have profits right from day 1). Be very honest when you do your finances.
5) When - This is very crucial because answering this question plays an important role in product execution. Can I build the product in my lifetime? I want to invent the next search engine which is much better than google.. Can I do it? If we understand our strengths (if you don't know your strengths yet, I suggest you go to http://www.strengthsfinder.com and take the Strengths Finder 2.0 test.. it will help you understand your strengths much better), and know the constraints and resources (could be money, time, people, skills, etc..), then the answer to this should be straight forward. How long its going to take to build my product? This is the step where you work your product timelines.
6) Where - This is not a very important question, although understanding the answer to this question helps us plan well. Where do I get my product built? Can I do it locally or do I have to hire someone from a different state or do I have to get some help overseas? These are all the questions that would get answered here.
Now you have a business plan for your product ready by just asking Why, What, Who, How, When and Where.
The next time you have the Big idea, ask these questions.
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