Rose Cantine

I have just returned from a two-week trip to Peru. I trekked for several days to Macchu Picchu along the Salkantay trail, reaching altitudes of over 4000 meters. Although my feeble attempt at pretending to be a mountain goat collapsed around 3800 meters, I made it without blisters or injuries. I even managed to avoid [...]

An entrepreneur’s honest assessment of what went wrong
Apple has 66 percent of market for $1000-plus computers

There is a fascinating article in the Canadian Financial Post on Geosign, a company that took in $160M in venture capital funding in March 2007 only to fall apart a year later because their business model consisted of gaming the search engines, known as “search arbitrage” which is nothing more than sending people who click [...]

Not exactly a business you can do in your pajamas and quite hazardous but fascinating and rewarding if you are up to it: opening a restaurant in Kabul (Afghanistan). A number of foreign women have opened restaurants in Kabul according to Women’s eNews, offering Thai, Mexican, Filipino, Indian and other kinds of cuisines to residents. [...]

Blyk has finally launched in the UK, with service coming to other European countries in 2008. I’ve been waiting for Blyk to begin its service because the model is totally different from that of other operators:

only 16-24 year olds can get the service
they get 43 minutes and 217 text messages free every month
they agree to [...]

The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports: “Investors directed at least $464.2 million into 101 Web 2.0 deals worldwide in the first half of the year, according to a report released Monday . . . Overall, the number of global Web 2.0 deals climbed 14 percent in the first half, the report said — but [...]

(1) UK telecom company Noodle pays you when you use your phone (from the Times UK):
“Some customers are already making up to £100 a week, more than enough to cover a phone’s running costs, according to Noodle, the telecom firm providing the service. Noodle customers make 2p a minute if they make or receive a [...]

Stylefeeder.com is the latest personal online shopping site that allows you to bookmark items you like (an iPhone, Gucci shoes, Dior bag), find “style twins” (people who share your taste), get product recommendations specific to your taste and solicit advice from others in the community about items you are thinking of buying. It’s a social [...]

Businessweek has posted a long article on how technology has changed the way people work on a daily basis, how goods are produced and services delivered. Laptops, the Blackberry, the iPhone, Skype, instant messaging, cheap data storage, broadband and video conferencing have allowed people to work remotely. The article fails to note, however, how large [...]