Apps With Their Heads in the Clouds

19th January 2012 by Ryan Arroyo

I find Amazon’s recent announcement of DynamoDB, a new service for their cloud computing platform, particularly exciting. Amazon’s new service offers allows developers to easily attach an infinitely scalable and high performance cloud-based database to their apps. Only a short 12 months ago, there were well-funded companies dedicated to selling scalable cloud-backed databases built off of Amazon’s core database service. Those companies found early success because scaling applications and their associated data is hard, really hard. However, it looks like that is no longer the case. I expect we can now take scalable databases for granted, just as we take cloud computing for granted. It’s now simply a tool in our belt, instead of an obstacle.

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Is Your Product a Painkiller or a Vitamin?

11th January 2012 by Ryan Arroyo

I’ve created a lot of products in the technology space over the past 4 years, individual businesses and for my clients, some more successful than others. In looking back, the common denominator between successful products was that they creatively and effectively solved a large and identifiable customer pain. They were painkillers. Less successful products were vitamins, or “nice to have” products. The ones that failed did so because they didn’t identify a clear customer pain or they tried to take on too much.

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Mobile App Opportunities in 2012

10th January 2012 by Ryan Arroyo

I predict 2012 will be a transformative year for mobile apps, as businesses evolve their mobile strategy from experimentation to complete integration within their existing business units.

Here are four mobile app strategies and themes where I see the biggest opportunity in 2012:

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