I read several interesting things today, and I might as well link to them since they somehow tackle the web2.0, entrepreneurship, marketing and ideas :D

• Russel Beatie talks about Apple iPod Shuffle making a pretty good point:

“…if you’re going to launch a new product… the product doesn’t need to be innovative … you need to make sure you have a reason why it’s special anyways… Obviously it can’t be too mundane … but, it doesn’t need to be the most innovative thing on Earth either… “Soft launching” is for pussies. If you want to launch a new product… sell the damn thing. SELL it! Push it, promote it, pound it, make it special. I don’t buy a product because I like your company, I buy because I like ME and I want something special for ME.”

• The second link was pointed by the guys from 37signals and it’s about Contrasting Ideas About Web Application Design ; in other words the fact that one can notice two trends of rich web apps design: the first tries to mimic desktop apps as much as possible, while the other still provides some functionality, but keeps the distinction alive: web pages are web pages, they should be simple and fast, desktop-alikeness be damned.

My 2 cents on this one?

Web apps with classic design have proven their point : big successful websites are(still) webpages-like: functionality prevails against design. Besides, a new meme keeps spreading, concerning “unbeautiful” design, the hand-made one that says : we only care about people, and we know you are too smart to be fooled by eye candy(read about it here and here).

It may be just me, but I prefer simplicity, fast loading pages and as few clicks as possible to the eye candy. Desktop-alikeness looks great providing it keeps the web-app intuitive and responding. Otherwise… it ain’t worth it ;-)

And,(completely) out of topic, I just discovered that Yahoo Domains no longer sell domains for 3$/year. May be a good thing(since I guess domain squatters have been really enjoying the offer) or a bad news(I discovered it while trying to buy some 3 new domain names). All in all, the price tag of 10$/year looks ok, it forces one to think a bit more about what he really needs the domain for :D