Wak Oentoenk

One of the things I like about the English language is the number of words that have multiple meanings. Take the word hysterical. It can be used to describe someone who is reacting irrationally, with an extreme excess of emotion. As in, for example, all the stock traders who heard that AT&T had activated only 146,000 iPhones in the last two days of its fiscal quarter, concluded that iPhone sales must be far below expectations, and beat Apple's stock down 6% in a single day (link).Then the...

"Every time we ship product to the market, whether it's in Japan or here in the U.S. or in Europe, it sells out in a matter of days.... If you see one, buy it. Don't assume that you can come back later and find one." --George Harrison, SVP of marketing and corporate communications, Nintendo of America, quoted by ReutersFor a marketing guy, Nirvana is when the world gives you permission to say something utterly outrageous, without anyone questioning it or even believing that it's marketing. Nintendo...

The argument over the viability of Web 2.0 applications misses the point -- most of the applications on any new computing platform die. What matters are the innovations and new business models that we learn from them (link).Last time in this series I discussed what we're learning from Web 2 about managing a community online (link). This time I want to talk about the role the Internet is playing in the creation of new forms of media.Is the internet a new medium?I should start with a definition...

There are so many interesting things going on in the industry that it's frustrating, because I don't have time to write about them all. Jerry Yang is now in charge at Yahoo, which in my opinion means a lot because a founder is often much more willing to revisit old assumptions and make radical changes than is someone who came in after the fact. (I know the stereotype is that founders resist change, but I've found that the exact opposite is often true, especially if the founder is moving up after...