CoBook is (yet another) app which tries to tackle the address book space–something that’s really necessary, once you get beyond managing a few friends and family members in Address Book.

It clearly is a piece of beta software–it crashed quickly while indexing my contacts, and doesn’t have a tear-away option, so you can’t see contacts while in another program–but it does a lot of things right, starting with baked-in Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter integration to match what’s done on iOS devices, really easy note-taking to remember context, and syncing with most of OSX’s default software. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to include Exchange. Still, they’re planning to launch a full version soon (~$25), and I’m looking forward to it.

Soonr is a cloud document sharing service, which is interesting … but I was particularly excited by Soonr Scribble, an app they apparently just released at MacWorld (now on iOS). It lets people write on a wide range of documents–not just PDFs, which seems to be industry standard.

I’m a little concerned that it requires a Soonr account, which starts at $99/year, but I could still imagine it as a boon to college students and consultants, for mark-ups and note taking on the fly. It also makes a stylus a much better option, though I’d recommend avoiding the Griffin.

Apparently Coke had some bad experiences with barcode scanners in the early days. Coke Zero resulted in a swiss army knife, and Diet Coke resulted in a pink pillow. They didn't call out the scanners by name, but I fear we were one of these. I think we've improved since then.

• 90% of buyers would use buy-online & pick-up-in-store later, if available, says @NCR
  I’m not sure if “buyers” is an important distinction vs. shoppers.
• 95% of all retailers have only a single store, says @EliseDG90
  I wonder what percentage of retail stores are part of a single location retailer though
• 90% of people trust brand recommendations from friends, says @HubSpot
  … which explains why people are optimistic about social shopping. Interestingly, a number of other presenters suggested shopping was only a semi-social activity (vs. shopping at the mall today with friends) because you all have separate screens, even if you share some limited information
• Mashable reported that consumers don’t like to shop on branded apps, and instead shop online. I’m not sure where applications like RedLaser fall here, however–it isn’t a branded app (like Walmart’s app), but it certainly isn’t browser based shopping either.
• PayPal’s Sebastian Taveau (@frogtwitt) noted that 25% of shoppers searched for retailer information , 10% compare prices and review … but 78% actually buy online. How can we get consumers doing more research online? How much of this is because people go directly to destinations sites (like Amazon)?

It looks like Foursquare is moving to take on Yelp more directly--I just got this notification, pushing their recommendation service. If only they'd first fix their notification clearing code. Getting the iOS red "new notification" icon to go away is harder in 4Sq than any other app.

I don't think eBay printed me enough business cards. I'm guessing it is only ~1,000?

According to Microsoft's typography page, Google Chrome doesn't support the newest typography features. Except it does. What's the deal, MSFT?

Update: I take it back. I was wrong.

Chrome: Support OpenType.

The WSJ is reporting that job growth is accelerating. About time!

The Eatery is another interesting app which encourages users to snap pictures of food, and then rate them as “Fit” or “Fat.” The rating is accomplished in a hot-or-not style with a nice interface twist: You see the picture, then drag it down to the star rating bar. Very slick, and runs very smoothly on my iPhone 4S.

That’s an improbably small margin of error. That said … how did Santorum get 25% of Iowan’s votes?

Here’s a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas?

He just resurfaced this now and argues it holds true today.

Quick thoughts on how to take advantage of this:

• Learn to program. It isn’t that hard.
• Borrow now. Interest rates will probably be higher in 5-10 years, since they can’t go much lower.
• Change jobs, unless you love what you’re doing.
• Learn how to market things.

Personally, programming/marketing are the top areas I want to immerse myself in for the next year. Outside of work, at least.