Improving App Discovery

How do you discover new apps to download to your iPhone? Most people download apps based on word of mouth and recommendations from friends. Others rely on online searches or ratings. All these methods are ineffective. Over the past few years, I have certainly spent a few hours looking at lists of the “top 50…More

Ask Questions First. Get a job at a Startup Second.

A few days ago, I hosted an event at Penn on “how to get a job at a startup.” Eric Friedman and Charles Birnbaum of foursquare, (both of whom I worked with last summer), and Christina Cacioppo of Union Square Ventures offered advice on how to reach out to startups and enter an entrepreneurial world.…More

Save the Internet

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is one of the most infuriating bills in congress right now. Ostensibly, it seeks to protect intellectual property and copyrighted material. However, the bill allows for serious action to be taken against websites that enable or facilitate copyright infringement. The way this bill is structured, an entire site like…More

Life in the cloud

I haven’t use the “my documents” folder once this semester. It is exhilarating. Today, I keep most things in various Google apps and docs, DropBox, and in a few weeks, probably in iCloud too. It is no secret that cloud computing and file storage is the future. It is more reliable and imbues a seriously…More

Siri: is the future talking to our computers?

Though I still have the iPhone 4, I’ve been able to play around with Siri on the iPhone 4s over the past few days.  I’m impressed, but more by what Siri represents than its current functionality. While the voice recognition is great, Siri is the foundation for mobile artificial intelligence. Right now, Siri clearly uses…More

Keeping it simple

As technology becomes increasingly complex, simplicity is becoming increasingly valuable. While people turn to technology to simplify their lives, the ability to take the complex, evolving, and limitless power of technology and shave it down to a simple action, function, or use is a true achievement. Ironically, it is the most user friendly, simplest technology…More

Airbnb and the importance of trust online

Trust is the most important currency of the online world. It is fundamental to everything from online transactions, to e-commerce, to social networking. This trust in the online world is crucial for modern life and enables much of the success and development of societal interaction.   In the offline world, we are taught early on…More

Blog or bust – why I am blogging

For the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that I should start a blog. Initially, I believed that blogs were reserved for two extremes – angsty teenagers or those who truly contribute great content  – with little room in between. A series of events recently convinced me otherwise (though I’m still not totally…More