Continue reading Busy in July… preparing for an Eventful August
Microsoft considered acquiring, Slack, the in-work team productivity app, for about $4B. Then, CEO Satya Nadella and Bill Gates suggested Microsoft should drop the idea and invest the money into improving Skype instead, thus killed the Slack purchase idea. And now, Microsoft have created a nearly identical Slack competitor.
Continue reading Microsoft new Slack competitor: the Skype Teams is here
Steve Case is, among other things, the co-founder of America Online (#AOL), the company that democratized online access. He’s written a book called The Third Wave: An Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future.
Guy Kawasaki recommends that you read it to gain insights into the next curve of tech entrepreneurship. You can get it here.
In his book, Steve talks about the importance of the 4 P’s to help you being successful:
Continue reading Next Wave of Entrepreneurship with Guy Kawasaki and Steve Case
Gamification has the power to motivate users and customers, directing them towards your business needs and objectives. Using gamification techniques you can turn visitors to customers, and customers to loyal members of your business. If you are not familiar with Gamification, I urge you to learn about Gamification and its techniques on Yu-Kai Chou’s website.
Yu-Kai Chou is the top authority on gamification and human motivation through game-like processes design. He’s said to be “at the cutting edge of the field of behavior design.”
Yu-Kai has created the gamification framework named Octalysis which helps you in deriving all the fun and engaging elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities, while putting the emphasis on human motivation when designing your business processes.
I’v had, and still have, the pleasure and privilege of working with yu-kai. Together we have developed the Octalysis Online Tool, to help its users create octalysis graphs, as part of the process of gamifying their businesses.
In the beginning of 2016, I have upgraded this tool, with a new and very useful feature: Save & Load. This feature enables “floating” visitors to register as users, allowing them to save octalysis graphs they have created and load existing octalysis to continue working on them.
This new feature was developed with the purpose of making these processes as quick and simple as possible.
And so, sign up and log in are very straight forwards, and include the very minimum information and interaction from the users.
Saving, and loading, octalysis graphs is even simpler, allowing the user to focus on the creation and perfection of the octalysis and business needs.
I invite you to check out and experience the Octalysis Tool for yourself.
Please share your feedback in the comments below.
MongoDB or Mysql? NoSQL or Rational SQL? which is better for me?
In this post I will quickly present each database type, and tell you how you should decide which database to implement on your next project.
Continue reading MongoDB or Mysql? NoSQL or Rational SQL? which is better for me?
It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post. There are 2 reasons for that: one, I didn’t have much time, and had lots on my mind. And two, which is the main cause, I had many changes in my personal life.
In the last couple of months, I moved to a new apartment and my son was born. These 2 events have kept my hands (and head) full: getting familiarize with parenting, as well as house holding.
But, I am getting back on the horse, which also means, getting back to writing on the Digital Product Critic blog.
As always, I will keep sharing new and wonderful apps, sites and gadgets as they are launched. So you will be one of the first to hear and experience them.
I will also write a weekly (hope to keep it weekly) review on a specific site/service/gadget, from my point of view (as the Digital Product Critic): user experience, design, usability and more.
Hope to keep you informed, knowledgeable and entertained (sometimes) with all the reviews and news I have to share in the digital realm.
Yours, RonB
In short: the HTTP sucks. And there’s a new kid on the block, the IPFS protocol. It’s better and will soon replace the broken HTTP, making our internet faster and more reliable.
Yu-kai Chou was helping CaptainUp, a gamification platform, and has created a 10-episode series of videos called “Engaging Website Design” where he talks about how to create an engaging website by incorporating gamification concepts.
Yu-kai’s videos are shot all over the world and this first one focuses on finding a gamification platform.
Read the full blog post here: http://www.yukaichou.com/gamification-video-course/engaging-website-design-series-part-1-3
Since Glass was first introduced by Google, many companies believe that the next big thing is wearing computers on your face.
Just last week, HTC and Valve demonstrated their face-mounted computer, called Vive, and it was met with wild rapturous applause from tech writers.
Here is a quick overview of all the different virtual and augmented reality headsets that companies are building and showing off these days:
Read the full story on BusinessInsider site.
Recently, the IFTTT (if this than that) has introduced a new service, the DO Button. This service, available for mobile devices, empowers you to create your own personalized button with just a tap.
With the DO Button you can save time and control the world around you with Recipes that connect your button to Philips Hue, Google Drive, Nest Thermostat, and hundreds of Channels you use every day.
This new feature is competing against existing services, but seems to have the advantage of an already existing and experienced product. IFTTT already has many users and many ready-to-use Recipes which makes the experience of the DO Button more immediate and fulfilling.
The DO Button service, and other similar to it, offer to create a “shortcut” button on our mobile devices, for our favorites actions, online and offline. The real jump leapfrog for this kind of service will be the DO Brain Chip.
When you have a short-cut thought, you can achieve much more in less time. You can shop in your favorite super-market, while on the phone with your mother, while chatting with friends, and all that while you are playing tennis with your partner.
This post brought to you, in preparations to April’s Fool Day 😉