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The Complex System: Story of an Entrepreneur: 10 Keys to Exponential Growth
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There is a great article on Mock App about cracking the iPhone algorithm, which is a nice addendum to my post on the topic which can be read here. This guys findings take my theory even more to the extreme. His evaluation suggests that the first 24 hours are the absolve most important in an apps lifespan. The first 24 hours actually can define the entire ROI of an app. Read his article to learn more, here is the link again, it’s a 3 parter.
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Archive for May, 2011
My daily readings 05/30/2011
May 30, 2011My daily readings 05/29/2011
May 29, 2011-
在說話前，聆聽；在索取前，給與；在批評前，等待；在祈禱前，原
在說話前，聆聽；在索取前，給與；在批評前，等待；在祈禱前，原諒；在放棄前，嘗試。
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Apple May Have Tweaked App Store Ranking Algorithm, Making Downloads Matter Less
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The changes resulted in a pop for Facebook’s mobile app, which jumped to the #1 position for free apps in the U.S. after having mostly lingered between #10 and #20 for the last year and a half. That app, naturally, has extremely high daily active usage with 39.5 million users opening it every day, according to AppData. Netflix jumped to #19 after being ranked between #30 and 50 for the last month, while Pandora is at #6, up from hovering in the twenties for the last two months.
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“It looks like it’s daily actives and monthly actives. Basically, how much is the product used? Is it just sitting there on the handset or is it being actively used?” said Mike Breslin, who heads marketing at Glu. “Download numbers can have a lot of duplicity.”
Google, which constantly tweaks its Android Market rankings, may have begun weighting an app’s ratio of daily active users to monthly active users — a measure of stickiness — more heavily in recent weeks, according to teen-focused social network MyYearbook. The company had noticed suspicious ranking fluctuations across its entire portfolio of apps. Google did not comment on this.
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It’s unclear how these changes will affect these developers and networks. For one, if Apple is weighting active usage and ratings more heavily, then that will incentivize developers to create higher-quality, more engaging apps — which is a good thing. But it may also make user acquisition more unpredictable. It may even make it harder for brand new apps to be discovered because the rankings will favor longstanding apps that already have a large, existing base of users.
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The financial fallout on these pay-per-install networks is unclear. W3i, one of the larger cross-promotion networks, said it started to pick up the algorithm changes last weekend, but that two of the company’s larger install campaigns had gone normally and that both apps broke into the Top 25.
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“The hardest thing is to get someone to download a game. That real estate is so valuable. But we’re confident that once we get there, users will like our games. Quality is king.”
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Gameview had used an install campaign to help get a recent title, Tap Jurassic, to 1 million downloads in ten days last month.
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iCab Mobile Modules and Apple – iCab Blog
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But the modules feature is not gone. I’ve simply included all modules which could be downloaded before from my server directly in iCab Mobile, so all the modules are automatically available without downloading them before. So for most users nothing serious has changed.
The only problem is with the modules (written by users) which I don’t know of. Users can no longer write and share their own modules themselves. If you know of such a module or if you still want to write a module, please contact me. I can add these modules to the next updates of iCab Mobile and this way the modules can be still shared with all iCab Mobile users.
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”Modules” for iCab Mobile are simply a more comfortable variation of bookmarklets, and these are still allowed by Apple (and I assume Apple can not forbid that the user will save and use bookmarklets). Maybe if I would have called the modules “smart bookmarks” and would have made installing them much more complicated, Apple would have never asked to remove the ability to download them from the internet.
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My daily readings 05/28/2011
May 28, 2011-
TweetPhoto Becomes Plixi, Presents New Vision for Location-Based Services
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The most important difference between TweetPhoto and Plixi is a new feature involving user-created events and places. Anyone on Plixi can create an event or place using the new service, and these can be either public or private, as desired. An event could be something as large as a rock concert or as small as a 4-year-old’s birthday party. Plixi users at these events can upload their photos to a collective pool via a unique email address or the new Plixi iPhone application (awaiting approval). This allows all the photos from a particular event to be gathered into one place instead of being “scattered all over the Web,” says Sean Callahan, Plixi’s co-founder and CEO.
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With Plixi, the company will also focus heavily on privacy. Instead of re-creating your social graph by importing your Facebook and Twitter friends, you create a new social graph on the site. While that seems a bit tedious, it also allows you to get a fresh start by specifying who can see what photos as they are shared.
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Exclusive: Lockerz Acquires Social Photo Sharing App Plixi (Formerly TweetPhoto)
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Plixi is an enormously popular social photo sharing application that serves more than 1 billion photos monthly. The startup rebranded from “Tweetphoto” last year, as the photo sharing network expanded beyond Twitter to other platforms like Facebook and MySpace and added location-based check-in features. While Plixi offers a standalone web and iPhone app, more than 300 developers have integrated Plixi’s photo sharing technology, including Seesmic, TweetDeck and others and the startup handles more than 67 million API requests daily.
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Over time, Lockerz and Plixi plan to developing new media sharing features to engage customers, such as the ability for Lockerz members to share their activities, photos and videos
on other social networks. The newly combined company will also focus on increasing and
enhancing celebrity content.
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Facebook Still Has No iPad App But They’re Building A Desktop Software Team?!
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Seriously though, this isn’t just one engineer they’re looking for to work on fun products (like the nifty, but experimental Mac Desktop Notifications app), this is an entire team they’re building. Again, to work on desktop apps. The job description:
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Similar responsibilities for diigo’s client developers.
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- Work closely with our product and design teams to define feature specifications
- Work closely with our Platform team to build server-side APIs and interfaces in support of these applications
- Conduct design and code reviews
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这是个有趣而又惊人的事实：人们在面对全新事物之时会变得格外悲
这是个有趣而又惊人的事实：人们在面对全新事物之时会变得格外悲观，即便他们通常很乐观。于此同时，同样的人，在觉得自己对某事已经熟悉之后，又会变得过分乐观。第一个事实往往会把一个聪明人变成笨蛋，不幸的是，后一个事实的作用也是如此。
My daily readings 05/27/2011
May 27, 2011-
As upset as I’ve been w/Diigo sometimes, especially for unresponsiveness, they are nimble and have some smarts: http://t.co/CFlISUN
My daily readings 05/25/2011
May 25, 2011-
奇虎360第一季度净利润660万美元_互联网_科技时代_新浪网
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-截至2011年3月底为止，奇虎360产品在中国互联网用户中的渗透率为88%；
-截至2011年3月底为止，奇虎360安全浏览器的月度活跃用户人数为1.92亿人，截至2010年底为1.60亿人；
-截至2011年3月底为止，奇虎360安全浏览器的用户渗透率为48%，截至2010年底为41%；
-截至2011年3月底为止，奇虎360个人启动页的月度活跃用户人数为1.07亿人，截至2010年底为9000万人。
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奇虎360第一季度网络广告营收为1640万美元，比去年同期增长198.4%，比上一季度增长16.2%。奇虎360网络广告营收的强劲增长，主要由于奇虎360安全浏览器和奇虎360个人启动页等公司主要产品的市场渗透率进一步增长，以及由于整体上有利的市场环境。
奇虎360第一季度互联网增值服务营收(主要来自于网页游戏)为620万美元，比去年同期增长165.5%，比上一季度增长17.5%。奇虎360互联网增值服务营收的增长，主要由于公司平台上的网页游戏数量增加，以及用户基础扩大。
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不计入股权奖励支出(不按照美国通用会计准则)，奇虎360第一季度净利润为660万美元，去年同期净亏损为58.5万美元，上一季度净利润为520万美元。
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My daily readings 05/23/2011
May 23, 2011-
PPTV陶闯做客微访谈：视频网站很难演变成SNS_互联网_科技时代_新浪网
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陶闯：2011年，70%的电视机都有互联网接口或部分预装了视频功能，用户市场是存在的。目前规模化的推广还在看国家的政策和政策力度。美国本地市场的互联网电视在今年出货量会达到90%以上。
提问：如何提升用户的粘度和活跃度，网络视频同质化严重的前提的下，如何走出独特的商业模式，是否可以将网络视频作为一个将人与人的联系平台，从而演变成一个社区，融入第三方机构为我服务？
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陶闯：不是很容易。视频是一个内容为核心的服务。在内容的前提下是可以建造SNS人群关系的。但这是SNS的一个垂直应用。
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陶闯：国外有web video和online TV之分类。PPTV是做网络电视(online TV)，不是web ideo。当技术门槛减小后，我相信几乎各网站都会有视频内容。他们会将视频体系化，分类化，垂直化。但是强势和高粘度的online TV不会很多。
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陶闯：客户端和网站这是产品的两种形态。会员中心是连接器。我有幸请教过youtube创始人之一Steve Chan。我问他对客户端的看法，他的回答“只要你有用户喜欢的体验，是网站还是客户端，并不最重要”。我们的经验是，大量高粘度用户喜欢客户端观看长视频。
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The other common way for a shareholder to “gain liquidity” is if the company gets permissionfrom the Securities and Exchange Commission to publicly sell its stock. There are a lot of regulations around trying to make sure that unsophisticated members of the general public don’tget defrauded by companies selling ownership, especially post-Enron, so this is a long and difficultprocess and generally doesn’t make a lot of sense in the U.S. if your company is making less than$100m/year and has been profitable for several years in a row. When the company “goes public”and has an “Initial Public Offering”(IPO), it creates some new Common stock that it sells toinvestment banks calledunderwritersthat in turn sell the stock to members of the generalpublic or other investors. Done well, this process generates a bunch of cash that the company canuse to grow, and the company’s employees can sell some of their stock on the market after a brief “lockup” period.
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Debt-holders are always first in line (if the company has various lines of debt, which debt gets paid first is usually spelled out), followed by the Preferredshareholders, followed by Common.
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刘强东披露与资本博弈过程：控制权决不放弃_互联网_科技时代_新浪网
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尽管经过了多轮融资，京东的控制权也未旁落。刘强东指出，在自己的投资人中，99.9%都是属于风险投资人，包括沃尔玛家族，李彦宏以及另外一位行业人士，之所以选择他们，是因为他们在零售、金融、互联网行业的影响力，而他们所占的股份都不到1%。
虽然没有透露目前投资人的股份比例，但刘强东强调自己的股份依然远超过50%。“京东董事会目前有9个席位，前三轮的投资人共占4席，而我本人有5个董事会席位。”刘强东表示，最近，为了提高决策效率，他正打算把董事会席位缩减为7个，自己占4席，仍占有绝对控制权。
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My daily readings 05/22/2011
May 22, 2011-
Answers are easy. Finding problems are hard. | VentureBeat
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Problems: 1)Mobile photo don’t looks great. 2)Upload takes long time. Small and upload before caption.3)Share to multiple applications at once.
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I couldn’t agree more with Mike Krieger’s comment at the end. Solving a simple problem at scale can be an enormous challenge, and the elegance with which it is done is key. Jim Soss, CEO, Red Aril
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Hacker News | How Google Docs Killed GDrive
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GDrive VS Dropbox case.
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At the time [2008], Google was about to launch a project it had been developing for more than a year, a free cloud-based storage service called GDrive. But Sundar [Pichai] had concluded that it was an artifact of the style of computing that Google was about to usher out the door. He went to Bradley Horowitz, the executive in charge of the project, and said, “I don’t think we need GDrive anymore.” Horowitz asked why not. “Files are so 1990,” said Pichai. “I don’t think we need files anymore.”
Horowitz was stunned. “Not need files anymore?”
“Think about it,” said Pichai. “You just want to get information into the cloud. When people use our Google Docs, there are no more files. You just start editing in the cloud, and there’s never a file.”
When Pichai first proposed this concept to Google’s top executives at a GPS—no files!—the reaction was, he says, “skeptical.” [Linus] Upson had another characterization: “It was a withering assault.” But eventually they won people over by a logical argument—that it could be done, that it was the cloudlike thing to do, that it was the Google thing to do. That was the end of GDrive: shuttered as a relic of antiquated thinking even before Google released it. The engineers working on it went to the Chrome team.
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蔡达标与潘敏峰都是东莞长安镇人，蔡达标比潘敏峰长一岁，从小青梅竹马，抬头不见低头见的长相厮守，彼此培养了难以割舍的真情。1991年，两人不顾父母反对，喜结连理。
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“为了做第一大股东，你丧心病狂、不择手段，带领家人疯狂地侵占我和我弟弟的财产，我相信法律是正义的，你这种不义之财，早晚都要吐出来！苍天有眼，因果皆报！”2011年4月1日，潘敏峰针锋相对地发表了题为《蔡达标，你什么时候才肯放手！》的公开声明，家族内部矛盾到达了无法调和的地步。
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然而，蔡潘二人离婚之际，潘敏峰为了要回儿子抚养权，忍痛割爱将自己名下25%股权转给蔡达标，这说明潘敏峰本人对于家族亲情的看重远远高于商业利益，而蔡达标也正是因为潘敏峰为了亲情可以牺牲一切心态，让自己股份有了与潘宇海并驾齐驱的机会，为现在的二虎相争埋下了隐患。
真功夫内乱让大家看到了“夫妻店”模式的弊端。但事实上，真功夫早期的蓬勃发展完全得益于蔡达标与潘敏峰的相濡以沫、同舟共济。蔡、潘二人从同甘共苦到反目成仇中间的是非曲直，也给当前中国许多有着股份制与宗族色彩混搭基因的多数民营企业敲响了警钟。
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在外界看来，潘、张一直保持着琴瑟友和的完美形象，但圈内人都知道，由于理念与性格存在巨大差异，潘、张二人一度也走向分手边缘。由于对公司发展方向及内部管理模式有着完全不同的判断，两人多次交锋，给双方带来无尽痛苦。为了避免矛盾升级，他们不约而同选择了回避。张欣跑到欧洲，潘石屹躲到日本。好在两个人最终想清楚，不管矛盾多么不可调和，骨子里已经水乳相容，无法分离。最终摈弃成见，重归于好。
为了抹平家庭分裂对共同事业所产生的巨大阴影，张欣先做出了妥协与让步，暂时放弃国际化的“野心”，“忍辱负重”让自己平淡下来，几年之内都以相夫教子的方式支撑着潘石屹的“野蛮生长”。
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潘石屹、张欣夫妇相互妥协，让我们看到了很多“夫妻店”在同享荣华时的甜心一面；黄光裕、杜鹃夫妇相互勉励，则让我们看到“夫妻店”在共担困苦时的坚韧之处。这两者也正好从正反两面揭示了“夫妻店”要走向阳光大道，既离不开夫妻二人共同的信念与理想，也要能够形成一套扎实的相互妥协与包容的沟通机制。“二人同心，其利断金”是“夫妻店”保持长盛不衰的最大秘诀。
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赶集网的杨浩然与王宏艳于1995年结婚，10多年来，两人关系也算是相安无事。2005年，杨浩然与哥哥杨浩涌共同创立赶集网，在取得了一定成功之后，风平浪静成为往事。
赶集网自成立以来业务量稳步提升，获得了投资机构的青睐，并逐渐走到了上市这一步。但杨浩然的成功不仅没让妻子王宏艳分享到任何富贵，反倒让后者觉得杨一直以来都在“胳膊肘往外拐”，通过将股权转给哥哥的方式，蓄意转移婚内财产。最终，王宏艳以离婚诉讼干扰赶集网上市，似也在情理之中。
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上海新娱乐频道知名主持人杨蕾，因被王微的才识吸引，委身“下嫁”。婚后，杨蕾不遗余力地支持土豆网。为了能让王微在事业上更上层楼，杨蕾不惜动用凭借工作关系积累的各种公共资源，并多次引荐之前的同事加入。但很快，杨蕾察觉到王微的生活作风问题，感情一下子落入冰点
。杨蕾在土豆创业初期并没有与王微“明算账”，这种以情代理的经营模式，在离婚纠纷中自然会出现财产难以辨清、分割的隐患，并直接搁浅了土豆网的上市计划。
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最初情投意和、志同道合，最后却恩断意绝、分道扬镳。家族企业在创业过程中，由于对“夫妻感情”这一无形资产权力与义务划分不明确，而为事后夫妻二人情变之后的同室操戈埋下隐患，并进而导致家族矛盾严重干扰公司正常运营的恶性案例发生。这些活生生案例提醒我们：在创业前，夫妻之间要“理性一些”——尽量划清相互之间的责任、义务与权益；企业做大之后则要“感性一些”——多克制、多包容，多念念相濡以沫之情，不要被金钱役使，迷失了自己的心性。
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You Need to Win the Battle for Share of Mind
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But what I do see in the market in 2011 is way too many “me too” solutions where a bunch of founders have brainstormed a way to do a better Groupon, a better Gilt Groupe, a better Twitter or a better Quora. When pressed, not enough of these entrepreneurs can answer questions about why users would still be using this product in 5 years, about why their product is going to solve a consumer or business problem that isn’t being solved today. They pitch me features, not value.
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I would encourage you to think bigger. The market is over-weight in companies trying to solve problems for bars & restaurants. Sure, that’s a fine category. I have no problem with it. But what about education? Healthcare information? Energy? Housing? Auto? Financial Services? There are so many big inefficiencies in this country that need tackling. I feel quite comfortable that our bars & restaurant industry will be just fine.
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萧条的华强北：山寨手机走向穷途末路_通讯与电讯_科技时代_新浪网
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比较下，家电行业，手机行业，PC 行业，在中国的不同发展历程。为何手机行业国产的不行? 当一个产品，还处于创新的上升期的时候，中国产品，优势就不大。 当一个产品，非常成熟，创新下降的时候，中国产品的成本优势出现。
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在深圳华强北和北京中关村等大型消费电子集散地，山寨手机曾经一度“占山为王”，但现在，它们正在失去一线阵地。市场调研机构iSuppli数据显示，2010年国内山寨机出货2420万台，比2009年的3320万台下降27%，增长趋势明显放缓。
而山寨手机的幕后推手——大陆山寨手机芯片主要供应商台湾联发科技(MTK)上月末刚刚发布的一季财报显示，今年一季度，MTK收入198.67亿元新台币，同比减少39.3%，实现净利润30.65亿元新台币，同比大幅下滑72.3%。
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据一位不愿意透露姓名的行业大佬介绍，早期走上“山寨”之路的人，很多是正规手机厂商的一些研发和管理人员。2002—2004年间，国产手机经历 短暂繁荣后突然掉入冰窟，南方高科、科健、易美等一批红极一时的厂家轰然倒地。这些公司的技术人员和管理人员，部分进入其他品牌厂家，更多的是自己另起炉 灶。但由于资金和实力不济，只能偷偷摸摸地干“地下工厂”。
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而山寨手机在设计上也极富想象力。一辆微型奥迪轿车模型，翻过来就是一部带摄像头的触摸屏手机，在其“车头”的前灯里面，竟然暗藏着一只手写笔；一 款有着早年“大哥大”风格的手机，因为其上端的天线能在瞬间释放出强电流，而被称为“防狼手机”；一个“手雷”握在手里也不用害怕，只要一掰，它马上就可 以拨打电话了。更极致的表现是，震耳欲聋的8个喇叭或是被某个高僧开过光，都成了手机的卖点。
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也还是有创新点的。
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由于做山寨手机的越来越多，竞争也越来越激烈。吕志平回忆，三年前，一台手机的利润是一两百元，而现在，则是8—10元钱，不及以前的十分之一。
和吕在同一个市场的朱旺对此有着更直观的感受。他做的是手机电池生意，三年前，一块电池至少能赚1元钱，现在则降到了2—3毛。他揶揄，别看自己卖的是高科技，其实已经和卖白菜没什么区别。
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什么原因导致利润减小: 同质竞争+ 需求萎靡。 智能手机风潮。
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由于苹果采取的是“终端+软件+应用”的商业模式，山寨所依赖的外形和功能优势被彻底颠覆。现在，没有人想要能开酒瓶的手机，人人都喜欢能下载应用、玩游戏、看视频的手机。
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iPhone, app store, 大大降低了创新门槛。 之前山寨产品的创新门槛其实比较高，因为普通开发人员，没发distribute app.
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虽然联发科非常清楚，自己的未来取决于能否在3G芯片上复制2G时代的成功，但知易行难，直到如今，其也没有推出一款真正“质优价廉”的3G芯片。
而握有芯片核心技术的高通，在3G时代几乎享有了绝对的话语权。这导致3G芯片的价格居高不下，山寨机最核心的价格竞争优势也就荡然无存。
在与数据消费紧密结合的3G时代，电信运营商以各种形式的补贴拉低3G智能手机的价格，甚至可以实现“零元购机”，以此吸引消费者进入自己的网络。这无疑对无法获得补贴的山寨机施加了更大压力。
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2008年，上网本风行一时，一些山寨厂商高调上阵，当年3月，甚至在深圳召开了“中国首届上网本暨山寨本产业高峰论坛”。一些打算打自主品牌的山 寨厂商放言：“中国山寨上网本将冲出国门、走向世界”。但仅仅半年时间，上网本就被一个更新的产品——平板电脑所淘汰，一些投入巨资的山寨厂商因此而血本 无归。
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My daily readings 05/21/2011
May 21, 2011My daily readings 05/20/2011
May 20, 2011My daily readings 05/19/2011
May 19, 2011-
Readdle Takes on Mobile Safari with Free Terra Web Browser | Mac|Life
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Terra 1.2 adds some features highly requested by its user base, including the ability to import bookmarks from desktop versions of Safari, Firefox and Chrome. This feature alone solves a thorny problem recently discovered in a Readdle customer survey that shows the lack of bookmark import was a key reason why users abandoned third-party browsers in general.
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“Each day Terra users spend over 500,000 minutes on browsing the web which is equal to 1 year time period. These solid numbers grow every day. Now, with the added bookmarks import feature, we expect the product to grow even more rapidly,” says Alex Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO.
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Apps 6 Times More Popular than Web on Phones, Less Popular on Tablets
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Also of interest, especially to mobile application developers, are the differences in app and Web usage between tablets and phones. On smartphones, apps are 6 times more popular than Web browsing, while on tablets, the difference is not as significant.
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The study, conducted in April 2011, found that on smartphones, apps were used 85% of the time, but the Web browser was used just 15% of the time. On tablets, apps were still popular, but were used just 61% of the time as compared with Web browsing, which was used 39% of the time.
Says Jing Wu, from Zokem’s research team, “it can be speculated that for tablets, the bigger screen and the better overall user experience in browsing contribute to the relatively higher face time for Web browsing. On smartphones, on the other hand, a smaller screen and of course, better availability of apps, contribute to the apps’ dominance.”
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