• There’s a lot of discussion going on about how patent’s don’t really make sense in the IT world like they do in other industries (such as medicine). The post Microsoft Patent Trolls Salesforce from the guys at 37Signals really does show the absurdity of the world of patents in the IT world.

• In the post No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers, Steve Blank explains why a business plan isn’t the end all be all. He explains why it’s important to initiate the contact with your customers early on, even before you start building your product if you can. It’s even more important than creating your business plan, which I agree.

• If you think it’s not possible to release quickly and release often in software development, then you really need to check out WordPress.com’s continuous deployment strategy. They average 16 product releases a day!

• In the last few years Sun Microsystems has been struggling, losing market share and pretty much collapsing financially. Oracle, ie. Larry Ellison, recently acquired Sun and is in the process of building it back up. Interestingly, Larry was pretty blunt, and he didn’t really hold back, in this interview about his views on what Sun did wrong.

• I’ve always wondered about Life Lock’s ads, where Todd Davis their CEO, publishes his Social Security Number. Well it turns out his identity has been compromised at least 13 times! Not exactly the showcase example for his product. He’s now in trouble with false advertising, amongst other issues.

• I’ve been a fan of Balsamiq for some time for quick prototyping, however Google just released a new Rapid Wireframe Sketching feature in Google Docs that looks pretty powerful. And as far as I can tell it appears to be free. Should be interesting to see how that market develops.

• Ever wonder how sites like Reddit.com can grow and support large user bases? The post 7 Lessons Learned While Building Reddit to 270 Million Page Views a Month gives a good explanation.

• The world of artificial life has had a major breakthrough recently. Without being too technical, they’ve been able to create cells according to their specifications, that is program cells to do what they want. If the report is accurate, which it appears to be based on the source, then this will be one of the bigger scientific discoveries of all time!

• The world of VC is very froth with peril, and often the founders are taken for granted. Steve Blank tells an interesting story of how he was treated poorly because, as he puts it, You’re Just the Founder. As you can tell I’m not a big fan of VC, and this is just another reason why.

• Alwin Hoogerdijk published his results of “Upgrade Week” where his company gave a significant upgrade discount on their software product for one week to all their customers that hadn’t yet upgraded. I have to admit, I was quite surprised by the success he got.

• Anthony Feint has written How to Suck at Branding, and this is exactly how you can suck. Very simple and very straightforward. My favorite his is last item: Outsource it. I especially liked the last lines, “Did I mention you’re busy.  Let some PR company handle your branding.  They’ll get a nice generic logo designed for you, and they’ll take some nice profile shots of your uber cool founder. Then they’ll launch a “social viral interactive marketing experience” (youtube video), to help spread the word.   You don’t have to do anything.  In fact, why not retire to an island and be a recluse.”

• There are many ways to calculate the most efficient routes, but I never would have guessed using slime mold.

• Sometimes when you sign up for a new credit card or a new bank account you’re offered a signup bonus, which can be in the form of a cash, an item of value, and so on. The problem is that you need to be careful because signup bonus from banks are usually taxable whereas those from credit cards aren’t. Not only that, but the taxes are calculated on the retail value and not the actual market price, which means that in some cases the bonus signup item may cost you as much, if not more, than if you bought it yourself!

• And the last reading assignment for this week comes from The Oatmeal, 8 Websites You Need to Stop Building. My personal favorite is #6, The Next Facebook: “All I need is someone who can design, code, host, launch, manage, and market it”. “Okay what’s your budget?” “Well I don’t actually have any money right now. But I’ll pay you in equity, which according to my projections will be worth eight hundred million dollars within 6 months.”

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