[Coté Memo #22] Nextdoor vs. Babycenter, Weird Fiction, VID & steaks

Aug 18, 2014

Meta-data

Hello again, welcome to #22. Today we have 30 subscribers, so we're +/-0. I'd love to hear what you like, dislike, your feedback, etc.: memo@cote.io.

See past newsletters in the archives, and, as always, see things as they come at Cote.io and @cote.

Follow-up

It was pointed out to me that the Business Intelligence MQ I linked to last time doesn't require you to lead-gen yourself. Also, Microsoft lists all sorts of licenses analyst research free for th' viewing...obviously for stuff they like, but we're all big kids in our big kid pants here, right?
The Pivotal report I mentioned a few issues back is now up.
The report I wrote on Rackspace's DevOps service is up now as well. Yup, also for clients only.

Tech & Work World

Pretty boring day in tech-land for me, not much news.

Teradici's workstation virtualization fun

For those who are into the whole "virtual desktop" thing, I'm finishing up a report on Teradici. Brian Madden, the king of covering this space, has a write-up.

Here's the 451 take I have on it:

As the needs for end-user computing devices continue to fragment, Teradici is wise to expand its portfolio and look down-market. Alternative client profiles like mobile and Chromebooks may erode a the broad appeal of virtual desktops, but we feel there will be a constant need for virtual desktops in the engineering and security paranoid fields that like the controlled access. Adding the ability to connect to workstations as a service in the public cloud should be appealing when enabled later this year as well, especially for smaller businesses that may want to shift large up-front capital costs to ongoing operating expenses, renting monthly instead of buying up-front.

I'll put a link in follow-up once it's out.

What's going on Nextdoor?

According to this story, Nextdoor is used in 25% of US neighborhoods. That's a swag, but still interesting. In observing my wife's Internet usage, I'd say this is what she spends her time on, in order:

Facebook
Email
Babycenter
Nextdoor
Misc. other stuff

It's gotten to the point where Kim is more "on-top" of the Internet that I am. She lectures me on how to use Facebook! I've self-exiled myself into the tech world ghetto and long forgotten colonies like podcasts and flickr.

Anyhow: this Internet thing might just work out.

Fun & IRL

"Weird fiction"

Having finished The City and The City, I started a new China Miéville book I had on hand, Perdido Street Station. It's sort of like a Shadowrun in steampunk-era book. Or, kinds of like if that one page of explicit weirdness in each Lovecraft story (you know, that one page were someone finally glimpses a tail poking out from under someone's pants, or a little rat with a human-face dances on your face) was a longer book. Anyhow, this new Miéville book is pretty nice so far.