PowerVocab has 1000 users now

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It was downloaded 252 times yesterday. We crossed 1000 user marks and is currently at 1200 users.

I will soon write my experience about building this product.

iphoneitalia product review

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PowerVocab was reviewed by 7900th ranked website on the internet for web traffic and Italy's top website. The editor liked the product and went on to review it on his website. It was downloaded over 200 times in 48 hrs in Italy alone.

Thank you @iPhoneItalia for reviewing the product

http://www.iphoneitalia.com/powervocab-per-perfezionare-il-vostro-vocabolario-dinglese-200660.html

Best day for PowerVocab

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PowerVocab was downloaded 149 times(new users) on 2/3. This is the highest downloads in a single day. I know compared to the iPhone sales, this is not a big number. But considering that it is an education app targeting a niche market, it is not a bad deal :).

Verizon's iPhone: I can hear you now!

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Sampling of reviews about Verizon's latest gadget, iPhone!. Inspite of what these reviews say, finally being able to use iPhone as a phone is amazing. I had to endure 3 years of AT&T's shitty service, specially while making phone calls. I am never assured that when I place a call, it rings on the other side and I end up thinking they didn't pickup. Even though AT&T's profits from iPhone where lower, they had so much revenue and an opportunity to win customers over for life. It was a once in a life time opportunity and I just do not understand why they never fixed their network to handle all the demand.

• The New York Times' David Pogue: "To answer everyone's question, the Verizon iPhone is nearly the same as AT&T's iPhone 4 — but it doesn't drop calls. For several million Americans, that makes it the holy grail.
• The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg: "What about the trade-offs? Chief among them is data speed... despite a few Verizon victories here and there, AT&T's network averaged 46% faster at download speeds and 24% faster at upload speeds."

• TechCrunch's MG Siegler: "Yesterday, I made a 45-minute phone call from my office. This seemingly unremarkable statement is remarkable for two reasons. First, I was able to place a call from my office — something which was impossible for me to do a week prior. Second, I made it through the entire 45-minutes without the call being dropped once. Again, this was impossible a week prior."
• Bloomberg Businessweek's Rich Jaroslovsky: "There are two significant drawbacks to the Verizon iPhone. One is that, unlike the AT&T version, you can't talk and access the Internet over the 3G connection at the same time. So you can't, for instance, check movie times while you're on a call with a friend... The other drawback is that CDMA, which was developed by Qualcomm Corp., is far less widely used outside the U.S. than is the standard AT&T uses, which is known as GSM. So if you need to use your phone internationally, AT&T may make more sense."
• Daring Fireball's John Gruber: "The hotspot feature works so well that I can't really see paying for a 3G iPad again. I'd rather have a Wi-Fi-only iPad and my iPhone's hotspot, when needed, than pay $15 a month for a 3G data service that only works on the iPad itself."

Michael Cusumano 's New York Times article (Thesis Advisor)

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Publication: The New York Times

Title: The power of the platform at Apple

“Apple has hit that magical combination of gradually shifting from a product to a platform strategy,” says MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano on Apple’s combination of hardware, software and services: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/business/30unbox.html

The story also ran on CNBC’s web site on 01/30/11: http://classic.cnbc.com/id/41337561

And in the International Herald Tribune on 01/30/11: (PDF available through Media Relations)

Is Carol good for Yahoo?

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For a long time I used to criticize Carol's performance as a CEO at Yahoo! (and Yahoo! overall), but after sometime I got bored of it. It felt like I was beating a dead horse and in fact I kind of felt good for them and even cheered a little bit when there was something positive. I guess I like underdog stories :).

I saw an article today in Business Insider on how Carol managed to increase display ad revenues by double digit for 4 quarters in a row and I kind of felt good for them. I in fact wrote an email to my Yahoo friends congratulating them.. Weird :).

I still think Carol is not the right person to lead Yahoo or atleast they need to hire a community evangelist to build relationship with bloggers. Yep, I am offering myself :).

PowerVocab version 1.3.1 is live on app store

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version 1.3.1 with new menu system went live today on app store. It now has sound and antonyms for each word. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/powervocab-lite/id413511366?mt=8&ls=2