Quantify Reading – Yes, I am among 5% of the readers

As per Pocket stats I am among the top 5% of readers on their service.

 

Pocket Reading Stats

Apart from using Pocket, I have completed reading 9 books this year with two more on the go. And I have read a lot using Zite app. My estimate is at the very least I would have read at least 2 million words this year and this does not include Facebook, Twitter, email, work related readings etc. Was it all useful? Most likely not? But I am definitely a bit wiser because of all that I have read.

This brings me to my question of quantifying reading. We need services where we can quantify our readings, measure them, dissect them and get more insight. This kind of service will provide an insight on what we read the most, the topics of our likings and dis-likings, where we spend the most time, authors that we like, authors that we don’t like, our passions, etc. We could use that information to measure how we have integrated what we have read in our lives. We could have a ‘Reading Health Factor‘.

Sugarsync – Problem with snatching away free goodies

Couple of days back below is the cut of the email message that I received from SugarSync. Kudos to them on making the decision on focusing only on paying customers and not to support free file syncing service.

SugarSync Email

The problem I have is we did not see this coming as a consumer. They were aggressive to give free space, even when Dropbox was merely giving 2 GB free space, they decided to bump it up to 5 GB. They gave generous bonus space for referrals. They never had any expiry date on the free service they were providing. As a user I fell in love with this product and the service became an integral part of my workflow. I kept promoting it at every opportunity I had (and did not even worry about using my referrals).

Nobody likes free things being taken away and I am not an exception. We take things for granted and start believing that it is our right to have it for free (and it is not). If the expectations were set to begin with long long back, it would have been different. But the case here is to either pay or leave. Somewhere I lost the trust. Somewhere giving 75% discount on the first year did not seem sufficient. If the company was thinking about making this change for a while, why did it not communicate early? How long away was this “while”?

Ah, well I have taken this as an opportunity to do a cleanup and move my stuff elsewhere. SugarSync I have packed my bags to make way for your paid customers! As of this writing, I find a lot of users on Twitter who are in the same boat and already moved onto other providers or searching for a new home for their data. I wonder if there was a better way for SugarSync to tackle this? Are there expectations from customers using free service drastically changed? I among with many others feel this.

I wish them all the best although our relationship did not have the happiest of ends.

Business Model Innovation

Business models don’t have the same shelf life that they used to and need to be constantly challenged, evaluated and refined.

One thing’s for sure, business models can no longer be treated as stone tablets divined by wise men on mountains to last for eternity.  They have become increasingly perishable. Saul entreats us to “think big, start small, scale fast.”  Sounds like good advice.

via Business Models and the Singularity | Digital Tonto.

Spotify to Google Play Music

Google Play Music became available in Australia today and I took the change to check it out.

Google Play Music
Google Play Music

I have been a paying Spotify user since it launched in Australia and have been a happy customer for the most part.

The good part?

  • I was still going to pay AUD $11.99/month, same as Spotify Premium.
  • Based on my initial search it has the songs that I am after
  • Search is good
  • I won’t need any app on my desktop and I will be able to play  it from the browser (Spotify does offer the same as well)
  • I can upload upto 20,000 tracks

The ugly

  • Cannot share on Facebook and Twitter (this can be potentially a deal breaker)
  • The iPhone apps needs more polishing!

What I miss?

  • Not having iPad optimised app
  • Again – Not able to share the songs I like on Facebook and Twitter

Hoping

  • Google can bring over my likes, dislikes, favourites from YouTube and recommend me music to my liking
  • More Indian songs
  • More audio book collections

As the service gets more traction I am hoping that the service improves. Spotify while I check and test the service out I will remain a free user.

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Perfecting one thing at a time

One thing that I have learnt over the years working on various projects is the need and the importance to ship  on or before time. Want to dot all “i” and cross the  “t’s” and there may be slippages or a “no-go” in project lingo. Shipping things just to get it out of the door [or to look good on project tracker] and it might be ineffective or virtually useless.

Trying to make yourself a perfect candidate before you apply for that role or ask that girl out? Well while you wait and work on that, the bar may keep rising and you or your product might never be completely perfect.

How about finding a problem or an opportunity, identifying what’s most important to get going, setting or identifying timelines, picking the most top priority thing to perfect and work on it till you get it and then ship it out.

Be Agile! Update, re-iterate and ship again.

Shipping often would not only boost your [your teams, your customers] confidence but also allow you to learn quickly from your mistakes and act accordingly. God did not make humans as we are in one day, He took millions if not billions of years to perfect us. He just kept on shipping better iterations.