2 Percent Creativity

If you have followed some of the posts on 37 Signals and their various web apps, design philosophies and the new Writeboard, you just have to see this post on their blog today. Essentially they are doing a product demo on how they are using Writeboard to write their new book. But look at the comments that some of their users are making. What you are seeing is much more than a product demo, it is the way really useful and powerful new software is being written.

Using Writeboard to collaborate on the text for our new book - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals).

The funny thing about the web, especially for those involved in the real estate industry, is that the real innovation and potentially the future, remains 2-3 years ahead of most users today. It’s the bleeding edge, the innovators, early adopters and power users, that shape what we will all want to have next. These are the true 2%, the Purple Cows, the excellent ones….

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The recent purchase of a small company, Konfabulator, has many Widget users shaking their heads. Charlene Li presents a very interesting perspective on her blog that suggests there is more than meets the eye here. I have one question and one thought on this move by Yahoo. The question is, why buy a company whose product was basically wrapped into the latest MAC OS? I believe the Konfab folks launched a lawsuit as a result of this move by Apple. Secondly, contrary to Charlene’s hopes, I cannot see any reason why Yahoo! would ever consider setting the Widget free. It is not in their nature to share. Time will tell.

Link: Charlene Li’s Blog: Why Yahoo! buying Konfabulator is more than just about widgets

Now, I am going to date myself with this one, but this is a story too long in the making. First, I want you to know, I am a die hard MAC user. I bought my first MAC in 1985 and had the first (bootleg to boot) copy of Pagemaker, courtesy of the MAC rep at the time, on my 512k, in Canada. Simply put, I was there…

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