“If you care about your online presence, you must own it.” Fred Wilson discusses how to do that. To his advice I would add “be consistent.” I don’t try to be everywhere all the time, but I do try to post a few useful things to my tumblr each week. I use tumblr and twitter for my “work” related, public posts, and Facebook for my personal posts. I deliberately try to keep the two separate so that I can prevent my politics from affecting my professional life, but mostly so that I can avoid annoying my non-geek friends with geeky things.

It’s amazing how terrible most sign-up experiences are, especially considering the number of books on form design, and the fact that any number of existing sites give designers and engineers great models to follow. I’m a big fan of tumblr’s approach, where the consumer can fill in two or three fields and then begin using the service. This post explains how to create a clear sign-up page that performs well using examples from the web.

Gee, if your locksmith works out of the county administration building he must be good, right? I don’t understand why people are more trusting on the Internet than they would be in real life. Google full of lead gen scams for “local businesses”

An American reporter talks goes underground - sort of - in a Delhi call centre. It makes me miss my masala dosa. An American in Delhi

Stories like this scare the hell out of me. Right now, the world is depending on China - and particularly the Chinese consumer - to drive demand and keep the economy from crawling to a halt. The only problem is that there is little or no transparency in the Chinese economy. The Chinese government - especially local governors - have every incentive to fudge the numbers in order to keep incomes rising and maintain social stability.

Set the Context Be Explicit Capture Detailed Visual Feedback Provide General Instructions and Examples Make Providing Feedback Easy Getting USEFUL design and requirements feedback from stakeholders

A great article from Wired explaining what feedback loops are and how they work. Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops - Wired

The Euro has been a noble experiment in radically decoupling fiscal and monetary policy. The idea was that a monetary union and common market would eventually harmonize member fiscal policies. This has not yet happened - and probably never will. Once Greece Goes…

File this under “too much information.” Or jealousy. Fitbit users accidentally sharing sexual history with world

I really want to see RIM pull it out. As a Canadian, as a Waterloo alumni, and as a geek who wants to see a strong, high-quality smartphone alternative to Apple and Google. Mike and Jim need to talk to Jerry and David - or better yet, to Carol Bartz - and ask them if they regret not selling to Microsoft when they had the chance. Yes, Microsoft has a history of botching acquisitions in this area (Danger?