Real-time granular level data versus more digested information on a macroscopic level: This seems to a be common theme lately. Numerous real-time search engines have popped up thanks to the twitter API. The NYTimes published an article examining why Google hasn’t been incorporating tweets into its results and questioning the use of search engines based on twitter. Google’s results, while not classified as real time, are pretty darn fast to update and provide a much more macroscopic view of the web, unlike the very thin-sliced real-time results of OneRiot and others. This same philosophy also seems to be the reason why the Economist has surpassed most other news magazines in the poorly performing print industry. The Economist’s superior coverage and in-depth analysis on current events in every corner of the globe are what keep readers coming back to it. It’s a one-stop shop for current events, no matter what part of the world your interested in. While Google and the Economist aren’t real-time, they are real-time enough for most of us out there and provide well digested information on a more macroscopic scale.

Launch and Learn: It’s a well know fact that the fast innovation is a key competitive advantage and the best way to achieve that is to release early and release often. This lets you iterate & learn at break-neck speeds while being able to turn direction on a dime if need be. This blog post from Ideo provides some great anecdotes of companies and people who have succeeded as a result of this.

Focusing on brand and user experience in product development:  Andrew Chen examines how a metrics focused approach to product management can often overlook the “softer” aspects of a product such as brand and user experience. The reason being that measuring the value of these efforts is often extremely hard as they might take a while to manifest and are often qualitative in nature. He also makes a great analogy by comparing it to brand advertising, which hits home for me.