smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Seth on dumbing down products:

The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?
Dumb customers.

This is very true — to a point. Sure, one person can be smart, forward thinking, adventurous and a potential zealot for the cause. One person can cope with far more than we might naturally expect.

But a group of people can be dumb, staunchly conservative, quick to assume, easily scared and in some cases, downright dangerous. That may sound like a harsh critique, but I assure you that isn’t the case. It’s part of a group instinct, something that ensures longevity and safety.

And no matter what business or service you provide, some won’t care about the mechanics, or features. They just want product A to fit need B. How that happens is entirely irrelevant.

“Dumbing down” a product or service doesn’t work, Seth is bang on there. However, neither is pitching it with an Einstein-like intellect. Balance the delivery and temper it with an understanding of your target market, or audience.

When you know what customers want and how they think or react as a group, you’ll know how best to deliver.

MacHeist have released this year’s bundle:

“Last year’s bundle caused a frenzy in the Mac community, selling over 16,000 copies in a week. This year, we’re setting our sights a little higher, with a larger bundle, a two week sale, and what we believe to be a stronger collection of apps. Simply put, this is the best Mac software deal in history.”

I see some neat stuff here, even as a newly minted part-time Mac user I can recognise a few sweet deals in the mix that make it a tempting offer. Then there are the claims that a percentage will go to charity — always a crowd pleaser.

However, interest is tainted by previous antics in which much tom-foolery, claim, counter-claim and questions of ethics occurred, leading one to wonder just how much of a ‘deal’ this really is.

Seth Godin on lessons de musique:

“The biggest opportunity for the music business is to combine permission with subscription. The possibilities are endless.”

There is so much understanding packed into this I hardly know where to begin.

Whilst labels fight to retain a business they have profiteered from for years, artists are embracing this ideal directly, forging new partnerships with the consumer and fan alike. It’s a level of intimacy the big labels have only ever dreamed of achieving.

Translation? Lables have to evolve, grow and most importantly adapt to new technologies and mediums.. or face eventual extinction.

"We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple." — an open letter from Mr Jobs, with a rare offer in the current market.

Typically I would shun highlighting advertising, yet this collection of advertising decks has as much colour, aesthetics and flair as any design studio, that it rates a mention - the international entries in particular.

".. after 400 cycles, the battery should hold about 80 percent of its original capacity. But Sullivan reports that it’ll be completely dead after ‘300-400 recharges’." — the truth is somewhere in the middle, approximately 500 or so charges is a typical failure point.

A nifty little site to give a blog "9 minutes of fame" — every 9 minutes a new URI can be submitted for the edification of others. #