The biggest pro is volume. These type of editors enable a much wider base of people to create content. Google App Inventor will clearly increase the amount of apps available in the Android Market.

The biggest con is quality. Apps created with an editor like Google App Inventor are inherently limited in their capabilities. It may be a great editor (I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet), but the best apps will still be created by people with the programming skills necessary to add additional layers of customization and complexity.

The problem is, Android doesn’t need quantity, it needs quality. As someone who interacts with both Apple’s App Store and Android’s Market on a regular basis, I can say without a doubt that Apple is crushing Android. It’s not about the quantity of apps–Android has over 50,000 apps. It’s the fact that the vast majority of those apps are complete trash, which deters users like me from paying for apps, and further deters quality developers from developing for Android. It’s a vicious circle, and the only way to fix it is to bring some legitimacy to the Android Market that’s missing.

At this point Google’s best hope is to focus on improving the existing app experience for its users. Great apps needs to be curated and brought to the forefront while bad apps are filtered out of the system. Purchasing apps needs to be way easier, and the whole experience needs to feel safer. Until that happens, a giant influx of mediocre apps is going to hurt more than it helps.

The beauty of poker, and the reason it’s beatable while other casino games are not, is that you’re playing against other players instead of against the house. Every time a player at your table makes a mistake in a hand, the other players in the hand who play more optimally make money.  It stands to reason then that if you want to make the most money possible, you should not only play well, but you should play at a table filled with the worst possible players (affectionately known as “donks”).

That’s a good idea in theory, but in reality it’s easy to get stuck at a bad table. It takes some time to settle in and figure out the table dynamics, and as the bad players go bust and good players take their spots, it’s really convenient to just stick around so you don’t have to rack up your chips and start the process over again at another table. It’s the easy thing to do, but it’s also one of the worst things you can do if you’re serious about making money.

The same thing happens in life all the time. It’s incredibly easy to get stuck in situations that aren’t optimal for us out of laziness or fear or stubbornness. The secret is remembering we can always change tables, as Tony discovered:

I’d realized that whether in poker, in business, or in life, it was easy to get caught up and engrossed in what I was currently doing, and that made it easy to forget that I always had the option to change tables. Psychologically, it’s hard because of all the inertia to overcome. Without conscious and deliberate efforts, inertia always wins.

Spot on. Be sure to check out Tony’s book when you have a chance. It’s an easy read and packed full of practical wisdom.

• Anyone who tells you its a replacement for the Kindle probably hasn’t used a Kindle. The eink on the Kindle really IS that important. Its just like reading a regular book, but easier. The iPad is bulky in comparison and its really not enjoyable to read on. I stare at a computer screen most of the day, reading a long book on one is the last thing I want to do.
• It is primarily a device designed for consuming media, but that’s ok. Ive read various people say its a step back because it doesn’t allow for much content creation (no camera, etc) but we have to consume all that content somehow right? The iPad does that very well.
• It is a bigger iPhone, but that’s the point. The size of the screen makes all the difference. No matter how sweet the phone, you’re constantly aware of the constraints brought on by the size of the device. While I would almost never go out of the way to watch video on my phone, I could see myself regularly watching movies on the iPad even over TV. Same goes for gaming and other applications. So while it is just a bigger iPhone, it has the potential to lead to huge changes in the way we consume media.
• It is a GORGEOUS device. Every time I pick it up and flip through the screens of icons I’m taken aback.
• I have an Xbox 360, a Wii, and a Nintendo DS. I can already tell my wife and I will be playing the majority of our games on the iPad. Its just that good at gaming. Were definitely casual gamers, so this wont be the case for everyone, but I think the iPad makes gaming accessible for an huge amount of people that wouldn’t otherwise play games.
• Its a super basic device, which is frustrating at times. Like while Im browsing the web or reading blogs, I want access to IM. To not have it just doesnt feel right. Its also infuriating that I cant easily save images from Safari or even set them as my background. Seriously?

All-in-all, a great purchase. Certainly an awesome device for the masses. Oh, and the on-screen keyword isn’t bad either. I typed this post using the Wordpress app.

That cute app typifies exactly what’s going on with print. Everyone is asking if the iPad can save print, but that’s not even a valid question–once content is on the iPad, “print” ceases to exist. It doesn’t matter how much the experience of reading the New York Times on the iPad is like unto reading a hard copy, it’s still digital content. Maybe this is just semantics. Maybe by saving “print” people don’t actually mean saving the traditional form of newspapers and magazines, but of saving the publishing companies themselves.

If that’s the case, then the real question is whether or not the iPad and other digital devices can save the big publishers. The answer to that question is yes, of course, in the same way it can “save” and sustain the new publishing companies. Digital is the new medium for content consumption, and the big publishers are not-so-subtly conceding this by hailing the iPad. It’s ironic that the device they’re pinning their hopes on actually just further blurs the lines between their content and all the other content residing on the web.

Unfortunately the blurring of that distinction is something they can’t avoid. Digital content is the future, and the rules are different on the web. The vast majority of consumers are content with getting their news from sources that aren’t the newspapers or magazines–sources like any number of hugely popular and well-written blogs on the Internet. These new publishers developed low overhead models of doing business that actually work on the web, and in order to survive, traditional publishers will have to make similar changes.

All publishers need to start thinking of themselves as digital content companies. They need to start shuffling things within their organizations to make them viable in the digital economy. They need to take a good look at the business models of new content companies that are thriving to see how they should adapt. Salaries are going to have to be slashed and budgets are going to have to be re-evaluated. It won’t be pretty, and it may very well have a net-negative affect on the quality of journalism available, but such are the demands of the market.

He has an inspiring success story, he loves “hustle” (i.e. hard work), and he decided to distill his philosophy on business into his 160 page book called Crush It!: Why Now Is the Time to Cash In On Your Passion.

Crush It! is pretty much a blue print for how he started Wine Library TV and is filled with useful advice for people who are looking to take their own talents and transform them into cash on the Internet. It goes over the process of selecting your topic, building your online presence, and cultivating the grit necessary to succeed.

Let me tell you my favorite thing about this book: it emphasizes work and is geared towards people who are new to Internet marketing. That makes it the perfect book to hand out to friends, family, and the odd stranger when they ask you how to make money on the Internet.

Beyond that, I’d say the book is great for beginners, but is a little elementary for those with a decent amount of experience in online marketing, especially social media. The material is, in general, very basic.

That said, I believe Gary’s overall vision of where business is going on the Internet is right on. He preaches “conversational marketing” (my term), as opposed to purely transactional marketing. Nothing is one way–you engage your audience in a conversation instead of simply directly marketing to them. Why? Because genuine dialogue builds insane amounts of trust, loyalty, and credibility.

The Internet has introduced unparalleled levels of transparency in commerce. Companies use to get away with treating customers poorly because consumers essentially had no recourse; if they were really upset they might tell all of their friends about their bad experience, but little could be done beyond that.

Now, stories of relatively insignificant slights turning into global PR disasters are the norm. Consumers are connected on the Internet, and as technology advances, our ability to act as a group will continue to empower us.

Consumers will also increasingly look to one another to make purchasing decisions instead of relying solely on traditional forms of advertising. This is already happening in a very real way (I pretty much never buy a book, eat at restaurant, or try a recipe until I’ve read reviews). The very best way to cultivate a loyal customer base, then, is to engage them in a transparent and open manner–to leverage their voices into passion for your products.

Unfortunately Gary doesn’t go much into this, but I understand why. The purpose of the book is to serve as practical guide to those wanting to “cash in” on their passion, and, for the right person, I think it’s a pretty good start.

My pile of books remaining to be read:

• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
• Inside the Tornado by Geoffrey Moore
• Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
• Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
• Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur by Dermot Berkery
• Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts and Mergers & Acquisitions by Joshua Rosenbaum
• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
• Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
• Spin Selling by Neil Rackham
• Solution Selling by Michael T. Bosworth
• It’s Ok to Be The Boss by Bruce Tulgan
• Secrets of Question Based Selling by Thomas A. Freese

To make matters worse, I got a Kindle for Christmas. That’s like putting a giant vodka vending machine in an alcoholic’s bedroom and taking away their anti-depressants. I can literally buy a book with a click of a button and have it in front of me within a couple of minutes. The results of my post-Christmas binge are starting to pile up (both in ebooks and real books), so I figured I’d challenge myself to finish all of them before I bought another book. After I finish a book from list the I’ll write up a short review and add some of my own thoughts, the check it off the list. Here she is:

• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
• Inside the Tornado by Geoffrey Moore
• Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
• Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
• Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur by Dermot Berkery
• Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts and Mergers & Acquisitions by Joshua Rosenbaum
• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
• Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
• Spin Selling by Neil Rackham
• Solution Selling by Michael T. Bosworth
• Secrets of Question Based Selling by Thomas A. Freese

It’s a not-so-gentle reminder that revenue models are more important than ever. Creating a start-up built soley around high traffic volume can, at the very least, lead to wasted time. Incorporating a revenue model upfront and actually understanding how you’re going to make money is far more important than it use to be. Why? Because generic forms of advertising are not nearly as effective as they once were. Banners are dead, and Adsense is the new Banner ad.

Develop a focused, engaging ad model that adds real value to the visitors experience. As the average Internet user gets savvier, anything less will lead to lost revenue.

In this post I’m going to show you how to easily create an affiliate site that’s great looking, SEO friendly, and completely free. It should be noted that the first step to this whole process is figuring out what products or offers you want to target, and making sure there’s a market for it. That’s a key issue that I won’t be covering in this post, although I hope to write about it in the future. For now, I’ll assume you have your keywords and you’re ready to run with it.

As an example, I’m going to use a site I created recently called BlackBerry Storm Wallpaper to show you first-hand what I’m talking about.

Find a Starter Theme

This is the easy part, unless you’re OCD. I typically spend way too much time browsing themes because I’m somewhat of a perfectionist, but as long as you’re a reasonably well-adjusted individual, this should be no sweat. Here are a few things to look for when choosing a WordPress Theme:

• Simpler is better – You’ll probably want to go with a clean, one or two column theme. The last thing you want is for your visitor to get distracted by the cool ad boxes or the array of oddly placed columns. Plus, if you go with a complicated theme, you’ll have to spend extra time filling the space.
• Watch for widgets – Most new themes are widget-enabled, which makes adding features on the fly really easy. Keep an eye out for widget-ready sidebars when picking your theme.
• Keep your product in mind – Don’t get a grudge theme for your gardening tips blog. Just use your intution.

In my case, I wanted to create a mini-site that provided cool wallpaper for the BlackBerry Storm, because the Storm had just come out and there were no good resources available. I ended up finding a great photo gallery theme that allows me to upload and display my new wallpaper.

Customize Your Theme With Widgets and Plug-ins

After you’ve selected your theme, you need to decide what you want it to do. If you’re creating a simple affiliate site that you don’t want to put a lot of work into, the answer is probably “not much”. Since affiliate sites are typically centered around good content with affiliate links mixed in, focus on additions that make your site function and add depth to your existing content. Here are a few plug-ins and widgets I like:

• WP-PostRatings – This widget came with the theme I used in my example project, but I’ve used it on several other sites as well. It essentially allows you to turn your WordPress blog into a product review site–or anything review site–on demand. The included sidebar widget is nice because visitors are automatically drawn to the top rated posts (think products).
• pageMash – Allows you to easily control how your pages display in navigation menu. Sometimes you’ll want to change the order of the pages, or stop a page from displaying altogether. This plug-in can do that for you.
• All in One SEO Pack – Basic SEO is a necessity for any self-respecting affiliate site. With this plugin, you’ll be able to do a bunch of things, including customize meta descriptions, change your page title, and prevent duplicate content issues by stopping certain content from being indexed (like categories).
• Google XML Sitemaps –  A great way to get indexed. Google likes sitemaps, this plugin will create one for you. It’ll also notify Google and the other major search engines when you make updates.

I also frequently use the ‘Recent Posts’ widget that comes standard with WordPress, along with the ‘Categories’ widget. Beyond that, there is probably not much you need. I would recommend against displaying recent comments and your “Blogroll”, unless they have a specific purpose. Remember to keep it simple and legible.

Modifications and Hacks

Plug-ins and widgets are the easiest way of customizing a theme, but typically there are a few elements that you’ll have to get your hands dirty to fix. This often involves dealing with a bit of code–whether HTML or PHP–so some basic programming knowledge is advisable. If you don’t know much about programming and you’re just stubborn, Google can be a great place to find exact instructions on how to create your hack. Here are some basic changes you might consider:

• Changing header graphics – If your theme includes a standard header graphic instead of text, you’ll likely want to change it to match your site theme. Understand that going the extra mile and creating a simple logo can shake any sort of “spam blog” feeling your site may have. Usually the HTML for the logo will be contained within the header.php file, but if it’s not, you should check index.php. These files are located in your theme’s home directory and can be modified through SSH/FTP or the Theme editor within WordPress.
• Remove post dates, authors - This is a cool hack that can transform the feel of your blog into an actual content site. Look through index.php and page.php to locate the lines of code that display the post information, like date added, author, and trackback links. Simply delete this line and you’ll be left with post titles and post content–no dates showing just how old your content is. This can be an advantage if you don’t plan to update your blog frequently. If new, fresh content is part of your plan, then it would likely benefit you more to leave this information intact.
• Delete sidebar elements – I find myself doing this quite a bit. Much of the time certain elements will be be hard-coded into the sidebar, like RSS feed links and ‘About Me’ sections. These can be distracting for users, so you’ll want to remove anything you can’t manually remove through the Widget interface in your admin panel. Fortunately it’s quite easy. Go to your theme’s home directory, open sidebar.php, and find the code that displays the sections you don’t want. Typically the content will be above or below the code that makes the widgets work, which you don’t want to touch.
• Design customization – In general it’s a good idea to leave the theme’s basic design alone. Otherwise, you’re likely to spend a lot of work on a simple affiliate site when you have better things you can be doing (like creating more affiliate sites). If it’s a big project that warrants more work, or you need some structural changes to make your content display correctly, you can go about changing those elements in the included css files, as well as the various page files written in php. With my site, I left the colors and basic elements alone, but had to hack at the stylesheets to make my wallpapers look right when clicked on.

Anytime you’re editing code, you should be sure to back-up the files before you make significant changes. It’s also a good idea to comment out lines of code by typing ‘//’  in front of them before making any actual deletions. If you don’t know what you’re doing, get some help or leave it as is. Code hacks can be frustrating.

In addition to code hacking, there are some simple settings you may want to adjust before you put your blog live:

• Permalinks – For SEO purposes it’s good to make sure your permalink structure is descriptive as possible. Click on ‘Settings’, ‘Permalinks’ in the your admin panel. Most people will recommend “/%category%/%postname%” for a permalink structure, and I agree. Just enter that text (without the quotes) in the ‘Custom Structure’ field of the Permalinks page and hit Save. You’ll need to add a bit of code to your .htaccess file, which you can do through SSH or FTP. The file sits in your blog’s home directory.
• Static Index Page – I don’t always use this modification, but it’s easy to do if you want to keep the same index page and list your posts/reviews/products below it or on the sidebar. Just create a Page containing the content you want on the index page, then go to ‘Settings’, ‘Reading’, and select the page you just created as your static index page.

Other Resources

The three levels of customization presented here are enough to transform your affiliate site into something unique, and with very little time invested. Once your site displays how you want, add your content, integrate your affiliate links, and you’re on your way. Here are some other resources:

• WordPress Themes – 100 Free Excellent Themes, WordPress Theme Directory
• Widgets & Plug-ins – WordPress Plugin Directory
• Hacks & Code – WordPress Codex