Do you really think people renew an 37signal-product account because they got that nice little present of cute-new-feature each month? (Hint: Maybe they use software to solve an ongoing business-problem, not to play 'diskbox.)
Godin sold his startup to Yahoo. He is now 'acting on it with his bootstrapped 'user generated content'-startup Squidoo. I doubt as a millionaire he needs the revenue from his books and speaking gigs to make a living.
This kind of posts just show how good the perl community is in terms of marketing. Not loud or shrill, just sharing a cup of fresh mint tea at an oasis.
I think there is a huge market for a company who does everything like Apple, except with a different look and style. An iPod with un-rounded corners so to speak.
I am doing Getting Things Done (GTD). One part of it is the so-called "Processing" step. That means you gather all your notes, scraps of paper and so on and work it into your GTD-system. I do this at the beginning of the workday and it helps to focus my mind on what is going on in my world. Because I have to think about my notes (What does that mean? Is it actionable?) I have to load the current "frontier" of problems into RAM. On most days this leads to automatically starting to work directly on the problem at hand and getting into the zone.
That Graham guy you made me think of.. he did the reverse. He came up with the problem first and then solved it leveraging the power of the ultimate tool.
Yes, Linus is an a..hol.. But not in character. He does it as a calculated way to keep the real a--holes off of his chest. I admire Linus for his social / leadership. I learned from observing his strategies.
Do you know what quality journalism is? I don't, I've never seen any. But I am willing to pay for a well researched piece about wether Barack Obama smokes in the White House.