Scott Rafer's Blog

reblogged from: tedr*tumblr

"J.Crew Group Inc., the U.S. clothing retailer, rose 7.7 percent after the close of New York trading after reporting that third-quarter profit more than doubled. Net income advanced to $43.9 million, or 67 cents a share, from $19 million, or 30 cents, a year earlier, the New York- based company said today in a statement. Revenue climbed 14 percent to $414.1 million."

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J.Crew Climbs as Quarterly Profit More Than Doubles, Sales Rise - Bloomberg.com (via tedr)

Rafer sez:
There are so many retail losers and so few ecommerce winners.

24 November 2009 at 20h22

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reblogged from: Hiten Shah's Tumblr

"Life is really simple as far as I’m concerned. There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you’re successful."

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Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, Inc. and Mahalo (via hiten)

Rafer sez:
That’s all well and good if you think there’s some reason beyond random chance that your physical health, mental health, and mental aptitude are up to the task. I don’t. No matter which position you take on how you gained so much potential, the statement lacks empathy to a degree that I can barely comprehend. Happy holidays, ungrateful one.

24 November 2009 at 20h17

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» Facebook Creates Dual-Class Stock Structure - WSJ.com

Rafer sez:
What terrible widows and orphans ripoff is going to have to happen before the SEC makes this maneuver illegal?

24 November 2009 at 15h43

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"Blue State Digital used what it calls a “relationship ladder,” which broke down voters into increasingly targeted groups based on the depth of their involvement, from the 13 million people on the campaign’s email list up to the 200,000 people who hosted events."

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Vogue Sees Web Lessons in Obama’s Campaign - Digits - WSJ

Rafer sez:
“Relationship ladder.” Brilliant. The Blue State guys explain the typical e-commerce funnel to people who are scared of consumer CRM.

24 November 2009 at 14h23

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"To be fair, Gowalla has had a sort of sub-game based around the dropping and picking up of items (basically, virtual goods) since the beginning. But in the latest build of its iPhone app which hit the App Store today, version 1.3, there are some new gaming aspects. The first is that items now have histories attached to them. This allows you to see who has had an item before you in a city. Looking over some of my items now, it’s actually pretty interesting to see that I know some people who have some of them before me."

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Gowalla Ups Its Game And Hints At Future Business Models

Rafer sez:
It seems like Gowalla should glom the functionality of WheresGeorge and BookCrossing, both of which are effectively virtual ownership and tracking of real goods. They have fabulously old domains, decent uniques, and could desperately benefit from camera-integrated iPhone apps.

24 November 2009 at 12h23

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"It’s pretty complicated stuff,” said a source. “The really, really hard part is that you’ve got so many different kinds of devices running on different operating systems. And how do you handle that?"

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Time Inc.’s Squires Assembles Team of Rivals to Harness Digital Media | The New York Observer

Rafer sez:
Good thing that source is anonymous. Documenting one’s horribly dated views is problematic.
1. Publish an API.
2. Move on to the real problem — attracting developers.

24 November 2009 at 10h23

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"What’s the point of having someone come [to us] occasionally who likes a headline they see in Google?” Mr. Murdoch asked in his recent Sky News interview. “Sure we go out and say ‘We’ve got so many millions of visitors, you had better advertise’ and so on. The fact is, there’s not enough advertising in the world to go around to make all the websites profitable."

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Why Murdoch Can Afford to Leave Google for Bing - Advertising Age - Digital

Rafer sez:
News Corp. would suffer no economic damage from blocking Google’s crawler for six or nine months. They may even benefit short term. However, Mr. Murdoch didn’t learn the lessons of Myspace’s decline under his ownership. Momentum matters even more online than it does in newspaper and cable businesses.

24 November 2009 at 8h57

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reblogged from: Hiten Shah's Tumblr

"Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is."

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Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop (via hiten)

Rafer sez:
There are a thousand different ways for founders to agree with this statement. As with all issues of survival, each mode of agreement feels like First Principles. None of them may be.

In my world, I know that I can manufacture a place for myself in which I fit. I have no confidence anyone else can.

24 November 2009 at 8h06

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"I mean, they’re not stupid — life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth — one that is, in effect, told only to Inner Party members, while the Outer Party makes do with prolefeed."

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Image by Taekwonweirdo via Flickr

Secrets of the WSJ - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

23 November 2009 at 15h07

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reblogged from: pkmk tmblr

pukomuko:

atencio:

Brand identity firm Wolff Olins did a fantastic job at taking AOL, a company that was already on the fast track to becoming an obsolete laughing stock, and speeding up the process by giving it a horrible new brand (“Aol.”) and these hideous logos. I’m starting to suspect Wolff Olin is actually a front for a group of globalization-hating activists who try to bring down huge corporations by giving them terrible advice and design work. They’re the same company behind the controversial London 2012 Olympics logo and the horrible new Wacom logo. [via]

new wacom logo sure looks terrible ;] too much coke at wolff olins agency…

Posted 23 November 2009 at 11h30 | 12 notes and Comments