A few weeks ago I was interviewed about Astek by Alice Truong from Medill. She wanted to write a story focusing on how a small company like Astek gets through a tough recession. We’re very happy with the way it turned out, and encourage you to read on.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Marketing, Web

I’ve seen a few good articles recently that can help you use Twitter the way you want to use it. That is, after all, the greatest thing about Twitter. The platform is so simple in design and execution that it can be used however you see fit. I rarely use the Twitter web site itself, opting instead for Twitterrific on the Mac and Twittelator Pro on the iPhone, so these first two articles give a great overview of other ways to access Twitter, from mobile devices to your desktop:

23 iPhone Apps

Top 20 Tools

This one is devoted to the craft of gaining a Twitter following:

Create a Following

And here’s a peak into how the C-suite is using Twitter:

Top CEO’s on Twitter

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web

The company behind the infamous Blackberry, Research In Motion, was clearly caught off-guard with the iPhone considering it’s taken them nearly two years since the iPhone was announced to release a touchscreen competitor, the Blackberry Storm. It makes me giggle to remember all the Blackberry users holding onto their “real” keyboards as superior when now this touch screen is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I imagine it will take some time to work out all the kinks, but I welcome the competition to the iPhone and look forward to playing with one. No matter how good the phone is, nothing compares to the application platform Apple has created to support the iPhone, which has a revolutionary distribution framework allowing developers to sell their applications easily to all iPhone users.

Update: David Pogue’s review really tears the Storm apart, here’s an interesting take from Al Sacco. The things that really stick out to me are the lack of Wi-fi (are you kidding me?) and the lack of ingenuity in the touch screen keyboard. This is what people don’t get about the iPhone. Apple files more than 200 user interface patents to create a seamless user experience. Only that level of expertise and effort can produce something that seems so simple. It’s not just a virtual keyboard, it’s that someone (probably many people) have thought through nearly every aspect of every screen so there are no accidents and you never feel like anything’s missing. It just works.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Gadget, Technology