Is LinkedIn Useless?

Is LinkedIn useless? Most people you would speak with would say so. Then why does Sequoia put money in it?

The Tech Opportunity in Toys

The $20 billion toy industry has faltered in recent years as children’s tastes and styles of play have changed. Toy spending has been widely seen as migrating to consumer electronics. Children are increasingly craving devices their parents want, many analysts say, like cellphones, digital cameras and portable digital music players, iPod being the best example of a beneficiary of this shift. Is there an opportunity for the tech sector innovators in this transition?

Microsoft + Hollywood

Don’t be surprised if the rules of the content business change dramatically in the future. For example, a successful movie may be turned into a book!

Cricket on Cell Phones: India’s killer app

For Yahoo and Nokia, this is an example to take some cues from: Understanding the cricket ecosystem will provide numerous clues into the consumer psyche of a few hundred million Indians, and working that understanding into their local strategies would prove immensely lucrative.

India’s Hardware Prospects

Hardware System design or manufacturing has never been India’s sweet-spot. However, as the country becomes a major consumer of electronics systems, especially computers, consumer electronics and cellular handsets, it makes more and more sense to do more hardware design and manufacturing locally. EETimes reports on a couple of acquisitions: PCB manufacturer Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik

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Microsoft offers Home Work Help

Taking note of this daily homework battle, Microsoft has decided to help — or at least to see whether it can make some money by addressing the problem. The software colossus has just introduced Microsoft Student 2006, designed to make it easier for middle-school and high-school students to attack homework efficiently by gathering homework resources in one place on the computer.

Yahoo! starts beefing up

Between Yahoo and Google, I still like the former, despite the latter’s sky-high stock prices and current halo-effect. Long time back, Microsoft won against IBM and Apple (and many others) with a Fast-Second strategy. Yahoo may not be at the fore-front of innovation anymore, but some of the properties they have – especially My Yahoo! , Yahoo! Groups, and HotJobs – could be interesting leverages, IF they spend the cycles to figure out how to take those to their true potential. Now, with the focus on better technology and usability, they can, if they fix Product Marketing next.

The Personalization Potential of Konfabulator

Yahoo! Konfabulator should pay a lot of attention to what widgets people want, because mosquito conditions in a certain area, I am afraid, is not exactly a killer app. However, finding the right clothes from the private desktop of big, fat women may well be one!