Archive for September, 2010

  • Proximo Tropical Gringo Show este lunes

    Tropical Gringo ShowEstuve hablando con Thomas y queremos objetivamente analizar el Tropical Gringo Show, su formato, el horario, etc.  Thomas y yo disfrutamos mucho el show y nos encanta tener una audiencia que hace comentarios y preguntas.  Para nosotros, es gratificante hablar de temas que nos encantan (que nerdos) y poder expandir esta conversacion junto con todos ustedes.

    Decidimos no transmitir hoy para tomar un momento para considerar diferentes formas de diseñar el show.  Estaremos transmitiendo este lunes a las 7:30pm (hora Colombia).  Mientras tanto, por favor dejen comentarios sobre ideas, sugerencias o comentarios con respecto al show y como mejorarlo.

  • Software Development Company Dream Team Minus One CTO

    dreamteamI just got back from a great meeting with a fellow entrepreneur. He’s been working on building a dream team of partners to launch a top notch software development firm focused on cutting edge development that includes gaming, social networks and mobile (each project needs to include one or more of these).  He has already built and sold a software development firm and has since learned a lot more do’s and don’ts and we will be launching in a couple of months.

    We already have a team of more than ten engineers assembled and are close to negotiating a seed investment to get off to a running start.  One of my jobs is to find interesting projects in the states and/or Europe.  I will be reaching out to my contacts to find these.  Many operations down here focus on small traditional projects in the local market, but we are focused on working on top tier projects with innovative companies (large and small).

    The initial software development center will be based here in Colombia with the possibility of setting up additional centers in the most appropriate places (e.g., Asia, eastern Europe, etc.).  We have some pretty impressive technical people (including architects).  Nevertheless, I mentioned that we should look for a superstar CTO anywhere in the world and periodically fly that person down here to guide the technical team and develop the company vision.  My friend was surprised by the suggestion, but he immediately saw the logic.

    Thus, if you are superstar CTO material or know someone who is, please contact me. This position is for you if you’re into leading a team of eager learners and workers down here in Bogota, Colombia and are interested in fun international travel (reach out to anyone at the local embassy and they’ll tell you how much fun Colombia is – really, beyond what you’d expect).  Obviously, the idea is for our new CTO to be a partner in the business and this would include becoming vested in the company.

  • Google Instant muestra resultados sin hacer clic

    Google InstantGoogle acaba de lanzar Google Instant para hacer streaming de sus resultados de busqueda a medida que digita. La idea es tratar de predecir sus resultados y accelerar el proceso de busquedas.  La empresa espera que la experiencia de usuario se mejore ya que no es necesario hacer clic para obtener resultados.

    En terminos de diseño de la interfaz, me gusta mucho la simplificacion para el usuario (y la caja de busqueda mas grande) en adicion a los resultados instantaneos.  Esto es definitivamente una ganancia para todos y mantiene a Google en su posicion dominante en busqueda. Sin embargo, va ser interesante observar el proyecto social/juegos de Google Me cuando este lo lanzan.  Aunque busqueda sigue siendo importante, los medios sociales continuan creciendo y podrian, posiblemente, ser mas importante en la ecuacion con el usuario hacia el futuro.

    Google sabe esto y está haciendo todo lo que puede (desde mejorando la experiencia de busqueda hasta desarrollando su nueva iniciativa de redes sociales) para mantenerse como lider. Thomas y yo estaremos hablando sobre esto hoy durante el show a las 7:30pm (hora Colombia).

  • Google Instant shows who’s the king of search

    Google InstantGoogle just launched Google Instant to stream search results as you type.  The idea is to try to predict the results you are looking for as well as speed up the search process.  In the process, the company hopes that the user experience will be much improved as users need not click even once to obtain results.

    In terms of user interface design, I really like the whole simplified design (with larger search box) and instant results.  This is most definitely a win for the company in terms of maintaining its dominance of the search market. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to look at what they launch in the social networking/gaming space when they unveil the Google Me project.  Though search will continue to be important, social media continues to pick up steam and could conceivably be a more important part of the user equation.

    Thomas and I will discuss this on our weekly show (in Spanish).