Steve Jobs on Apple Stores…
Jobs understood, however, that his stores would sell not merely products but also gratification. He told the trade magazine Chain Store Age Executive in 2001: “When I bring something home to the kids, I want to get the smile. I don’t want the UPS guy to get the smile.”
[Via]
In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
A fantastic experiment…
As with all things related to Google, the press is gushing about Google arranging transportation for its employees. The report says around 1,200 employees use the transportation service. Compare that to the 18,000 employees of Infosys who work out of Electronics City in Bangalore, most of whom use the bus facility provided by them. Of course, the service from Infy is not free and there’s no free Wi-Fi access and other perks, but, purely from a logistical perspective, it was a massive, well run operation, atleast when I was there.
Eric Schmidt on criticism that Youtube may have been a bad investment -
…an old joke in the Internet is that URL stands for Ubiquity first, Revenue Later.
[Link]
I had written earlier about how the BOINC project could raise money by selling the use of their platform to those who needed it. A new project called CPUShare has started that aims to do something similar.
If you enjoy Dilbert and would like to get more of Scott Adam’s humour, you should read the Dilbert Blog. I think he’s funnier on the blog than in his comic strip.
Read this very entertaining essay about the Chinese language and the author’s attempt to learn it. It’s common knowledge that Chinese is a very inefficient language, but it takes a linguist to tell you exactly why it’s a nightmare to learn.
Swaroop will be working in France for the next two years. He’s capturing his experiences here.
A nice read about spyware company Direct Revenue, and the spyware business in general.
NYTimes writes about a new pair of headphones from Shure which has a switch to cut off the music. What’s amusing is that it also has an external microphone which picks up ambient noise. So, you’re listening to the sounds around you via a mike and headphones. What’s next? Spectacles with built-in video cameras to see?
I wanted to write a long rant about the horrible service from Makemytrip, but instead, I’ll just point you to the experiences some other people have had.
