2008 2
The difference between Okorko and Twitxr
Publicado por MartinVarsavsky.net en General con Sin Comentarios
Recently FonLabs launched two apps. One is a site that offers a simple way to measure the appeal of different web sites called Okorko (is it OK or knocked out?) and the other one is Twitxr (pronounced Twitcher) a tool that brings photography to Twitter, the messaging platform. Interestingly both were featured on Techcrunch as they were launched and both had the same initial traffic. But as I watch the usage in both platforms you can see that while Okorko is destined to be a niche site with limited appeal (it was launched as a geek answer to Hotornot), Twitxr is getting real usage from many people, including Michael Arrington who first trashed it but then actually got to like it, and it is growing nicely. The positive forces that converged on Twitxr is that it combines Twitter than everyone knows, photography that everyone loves with cross postings on Flickr and Facebook. A twitx (pronounced Twitch) is a moment that is capture by text, picture and geolocalization automatically available in many mobile phones. The easiest way to use Twitxr is to try iTwitxr with a hacked iPhone (the only type of iPhones that are really fun to use). As far as data is concerned we are getting around 5000 uniques per day 2 weeks afer the launch. The cost of developing Twitxr was around $10K and it will cost us around $1K per month to maintain.
2008 2
Air bombardment in Somalia
Publicado por MartinVarsavsky.net en General con Sin Comentarios
The BBC reports that the US Army is bombing civilian targets in Somalia right now because there´s a suspicion that there are terrorists around. Even if there were terrorists US has to stop its policy of air bombardments of civilian towns in which terrorists may be present. Think about it. There are probably Islamic terrorists in Madrid where I live right now. Should we get bombed then? Are we all fair game for USA to catch terrorists? And even if a terrorist is identified, should he/she be killed from the air or instead brough to justice as we do over here in Spain? Why is placing bombs terrorism and throwing bombs from airplanes not terrorism?
2008 1
¿Cuando va a tocar fondo el dolar?
Publicado por MartinVarsavsky.net en General con Sin Comentarios
Aquí hay un artículo que escribí sobre el tema en el blog político más importante de Estados Unidos. No me animo a pedir que lo traduzcan.