Latest News from Brandon Watson

What Do You Call One Search Result From StackOverflow?

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EDT

I checked with the Windows Phone 7 team before putting this post out, and got the OK to write about it. I hit this bug when building out my FriendLinks Windows Phone 7 application, and was surprised to find it was a bona fide bug and not a problem with my coding skills. If there was a default value in the constructor for any new project I start, it would look something like. In any event, here’s the cruxt of the bug. If you are using HttpWebRequest developing on Windows Phone 7, and you get a 301 redirect returned from the web server, and that web server sets a cookie, the current build (as of 03/16/10 at Mix10) of Windows Phone 7 will throw an exception. In the case of my applications, I was trying to determine the title of the page as defined by the “” tags for a given URL.

Windows Phone 7 App Deployed

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:09:25 EDT

It’s pretty exciting to be at Mix10 right now. There’s a ton of buzz around Windows Phone 7. I got a chance to hang with some of the team (thanks AI), and they let me load my FriendLinks application onto a working phone, and it worked straight away. Very cool. Here’s a link to [...]

Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Experience

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:17:00 EDT

Today at Mix10, Microsoft released the developer tools for Windows Phone 7 Series. I’m excited about seeing what apps will get built now that there is general availability of the Windows Phone dev tools. That’s general availability, as in for everyone! Charlie Kindel (if you aren’t, you really should follow him) was nice enough to get [...]

Epic Book Fail

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:45:52 EST

I was watching Colbert the other night, and caught the very tail end of an interview with author Annie Leonard. She was promoting her new book, “The Story of Stuff.” I didn’t catch enough of the interview to know if I wanted to buy it, but did catch enough to grab my Kindle to order [...]

Modern Family Awesomeness

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:04:03 EST

ABC has an awesome hit show on their hands with Modern Family. While there isn’t anyone who can hold a candle to the sheer personality awesomeness of NPH on How I Met Your Mother, the cast and writing on Modern Family are genius. It’s very rare that I laugh out loud at television, certainly not [...]

Hacking The NY Times Best Seller List

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:05:29 EST

There’s a great podcast I have been listening to since 2006 called Keith and the Girl. The content is most definitely NSFW, but discovering this gem was like finding Howard Stern before everyone knew about it. It’s a fantastic show, and they have also done a great job of building community around it. As of [...]

Simple Tax Idea For Students And Businesses

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:36:20 EST

I have long held that our current system of taxation is a bad one. It’s oppressive, is changed too often, and encourages cheating. Further, the more complicated the tax code, the more likely you are to have to spend more time, and in many cases money, sorting out what you do and don’t owe. It’s [...]

Broken Tablets

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:49:14 EST

Apple released their iPad today and lead with this claim: There are more than enough bloggers looking to give their opinions on the topic, so I will avoid that morass. I want to reserve final judgment until I play with it, but I did come away feeling like this scene from History of the World was [...]

Reality Distortion Explained

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:14:00 EST

The rumor mills and speculation are running at fever pitch. I really should have predicted that 2010 would be the year of the tablet. With bloggers falling all over themselves trying to get the scoop on the Apple table, it seems that the bloggers are trying to call a tablet from Microsoft to be announced tonight, though Mary Jo says “I don’t think so.” With all that in mind, I was trying to figure out how to explain the world of tech in which we live.

My Personal 2010 Predictions

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:30:00 EST

In an effort to save a lot of pain and suffering for those people who don’t want to read an incredibly long blog post, I have a nice little summary table. The predictions run the gamut of my personal and professional interests, so they may not be 100% interesting to all people.

Crunchbase Data Mashed Into Microsoft Pivot

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:09:00 EST

About two weeks ago I had the good fortune to spend some time at an offsite where I met Gary Flake. I remember reading the Wired Magazine cover piece on Gary a few years back, but didn’t didn’t have any idea who he was when I was introduced to him at the offsite. As [...]

Introducing Windows Server AppFabric

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:02:00 EST

About one year ago I was fortunate to be working on the launch of Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. With the start of our new fiscal year, I was asked to take over a team which was responsible for the technical marketing for our developer platform product management team. It’s been quite a [...]

Write.NET Code? There’s A Big Prize For That.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:29:41 EST

Here in the developer platform product management team, we have kicked off a new campaign about the .NET Framework. There are so many people doing so many amazing things with .NET, and we want to hear from you. The site linked to above has stories from some of our customers doing some very unexpected things [...]

Find Me A Product Manager Get Free Windows7

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:33:08 EST

In an effort to bolster the economy one job at a time, I have a position on my team that I need to fill. We’re looking for smart, capable people who know how to get shit done, and have fun doing it. You must have a passionate desire to make the lives of developers easier, [...]

Rethinking Customer Support

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:15:20 EST

This week I have been spending time at a corporate offsite. It’s been a pretty amazing experience, and I have seen/learned a ton of things about which I cannot speak. That’s a bummer, because I was blown away by some of the stuff I have seen, but it’s internal only for now. However, should [...]

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Install Fails In Boot Camp

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:15:00 EDT

I ran into an interesting bug this past week when trying to install the beta 2 build of Visual Studio 2010. I tried both the web bootstrap install and the full ISO download. I also tried the Ultimate version as well as Professional. Nothing seemed to be working. It turns out that my machine configuration was [...]

The Hanselman Effect

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:02:45 EDT

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace ScottHanselman { public class HanselmanEffect { public int twitterClicks {get; set;} public HanselmanEffect(int minutesSinceTweet) { [...]

Blog Post + Network Effects = NY Times Article

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:45:00 EDT

About 3 weeks ago, I wrote this article about the Kindle, and mentioned how I thought that for various reasons attached to the Kindle, I was actually going to be reading more. Shortly thereafter, I got a ping on Facebook from someone I didn’t know. His name is Brad Stone, and he identified himself as a journalist and he had some questions about my blog post. I rang him up, and we spoke for a while. In today’s NY Times is the article he was writing.

Every Developer Deserves More Memory

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:39:57 EDT

As part of a mini-campaign I am kicking off at the San Francisco StackOverflow Dev Days, I am upgrading any developer’s laptop to 2×2GB of RAM. I really wanted to have some 2×4GB kits, but those were a bit out of the price range. I am here all day – the guy in the bright [...]

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 Released

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:04:58 EDT

Now that I am back as insider at Microsoft, I guess it would be uncool of me to poke fun at the length of the names that we have to squeeze in to our headlines for product releases. Nothing will ever top my personal favorite “Windows Live One Care Family Safety Settings Beta." Yeah, that [...]

Math That Blows My Mind

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:34:00 EDT

One of my favorite VC bloggers, Josh Kopelman, has an interesting piece on the VC math problem as first envisioned by Fred Wilson. Having gone through the fund raising process, and hearing this nonsense from VCs, I always gnashed my teeth when a VC was setting valuations based on what they needed to own. Not [...]

Netbooks Are The New Razor Scooter

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:00:55 EDT

I am going to go on record here and claim that 2010 will see the rapid and inexorable decline of the popularity of the Netbook. I have been using a Netbook for more than 6 months, and using it with Windows 7. I finally gave up on my Lenovo S10 with 2GB of RAM. While there [...]

Building Signs Only A Nerd Can Love

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:38:57 EDT

The sign lives inside one of the buildings here on the Microsoft campus, and to me it’s awesome for all the wrong reasons. I am sure that there is an argument to be made that this sign does in fact make sense. The numbers progress, sort of. Perhaps the person who put this together has never [...]

Zunes HD Bring Back High School Memories

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:00:10 EDT

Really Zune HD? Really? I was prepared to write a rocking review, espousing my love for you and what a wonderful little device you are. I do, however, have some issues with the software on the PC, and our relationship has been made slightly more complicated by the fact that you feel the need [...]

How To Read More, Longer – Get A Kindle

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:22:10 EDT

It was a very happy birthday indeed last week when my wife surprised me with a new Amazon Kindle. I have more or less been lusting after this product since it was announced. I even went so far as to do some phone interviews with the Kindle team about a year and a half ago. [...]

I Want My StackExchange

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:21:00 EDT

What does a guy have to do to get his StackExhange site set up and running? I put my submission in a while back, but I am probably way down on the list. So in a creative attempt to convince Joel and Jeff that I am worthy, I figured I would give them something to [...]

I Got Scoble-d At TechCrunch50

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:52:52 EDT

I had a great time at the TechCrunch50 show this week. Looks like I made the right decision to go since reports are that there won’t be another TechCrunch50. Sure, there’s going to be TechCrunch30 next year! I am still trying to catch up on sleep, and process all of the great interviews I did [...]

@BrandonWatson Is Listening

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:12:00 EDT

One of the things that I have been loving about being back at Microsoft is working in the Developer Platform team. I have always been a geek, and have this latent developer hiding inside of me. I love designing interesting applications and services, and love to roll some code when I can, though my close [...]

The Power of Social Media

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:00:00 EDT

This afternoon I was sitting in a meeting discussing a potential upcoming marketing campaign to target developers. It’s a great concept, and I am looking forward to seeing it come to fruition. However, during the course of the discussion, it became clear that ad buys would be the primary driver of traffic. My chief concern was that the developer audience uses ad blocker software at a higher rate than the general population. We don’t have data on it, and no one was sure how to get it. I asked the community at Hacker News, and was pointed to this posting about the downloads of AdBlock Plus. That was a good start, but to really get an answer about which we could feel happy I came up with this hack to get quick and dirty numbers.

Human Ready Pellet Machines

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:02:17 EDT

There’s a funny post over at TechCrunch about an iPhone app that might make you better at your job. The app is very simple: run the app, push the button at various points of the day, and you might win a prize. The easy analogy is to the sequence of numbers on Lost. In any event, [...]

Unintended Consequences For Clunkers

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:15:00 EDT

I love it when I see a story or hear an anecdote that leaves me scratching my head wondering if there really was a different expected outcome. The story from the NY Times which has the final numbers on the “Cash For Clunkers” program elucidates a dirty little secret. One of my investments, CarWoo, had the [...]

Actual Funded Slide Deck For Angel Round of IMSafer

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:49:51 EDT

IMSafer Angel Round View more presentations from Brandon Watson. I have been waiting to write this post for a long time. There are a great deal many resources on the web for entrepreneurs looking to learn, such as Hacker News, Andrew Warner’s Mixergy, and Eric Reis’s Lean Startup Blog. However, I have always felt there was a [...]

I Do Not Hate VCs

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:00:00 EDT

It’s been an interesting week. I posted the note about the Zappos deal and got quite a few comments and emails about it. I will readily admit that the use of the word “hate” was a bit pejorative, but I had a point to make and at the time it seemed appropriate. I don’t think VCs hate entrepreneurs, but I do think that there are things that VCs do that make life for entrepreneurs very hard. In some of the discourse I have had over the past week on this topic, I felt a bit like George Costanza trying to explain to his co-worker that he has black friends (for the record, I am an African American, on the off chance that this paragraph offends someone’s sensibilities). I have VC friends. I have many VC friends. I’m not sure that my opinion of the trade has improved much over the last handful of years, but I do like some of the people in the trade. My opinion of the trade itself has more to do with my observations of the value delivered versus the value extracted by VCs.

The Failing Point – Choose Your Name Wisely

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:33:43 EDT

“What’s in a name?” A famous question that is as relevant today as the day it was penned. There are a few things that are completely in your control when you think about starting a business or kicking off a new project, and the name that you select is one of them. It never ceases [...]

The Failing Point – Think Before You Build

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:57:46 EDT

I don’t know about you, but many times when a supposed flash of brilliance hits me, I believe I have the mental equivalent of gold. I tend to get a bit ahead of myself, and start thinking about all of the money that I am going to make, what the product is going to be, [...]

Zappos Deal Shows VCs Hate Entrepreneurs

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:30:00 EDT

The title here might be a bit sesationalistic, but the deal certainly shows how VCs can act in a way that is counter to the wants and needs of the entrepreneurs and management teams. The news yesterday that Zappos sold to Amazon has been circulating with many emotions. CEO Tony Hsieh wrote an amazing letter to his employees, which laid out the deal and what it would mean for the company. Read it if you haven’t already.

The Failing Point – Do Your Research

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:32:35 EDT

The funny thing about great ideas – they are most often loved by the creator and completely misunderstood by those around him or her. Imagine Evan Williams trying to explain Twitter (www.twitter.com) in 2006 to people right before he went live with it. How many people do you think told him that a) they didn’t [...]

The VC Model, The Funded, and The Problem With Associates

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:45:00 EDT

There’s an interesting article over that The Funded which discusses the state of affairs in the VC market. The post itself is a response to the Fred Wilson post about the current state of affairs in the VC market. Fred’s claim is that the VC model is not broken. He’s right. Sort of. Being broken would imply that it was fixed or working correctly at one point in time. I would in fact argue that the model was flawed from inception, and was based on the imbalance of supply and demand for risk capital.

Microsoft Turning Corners

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Mini-MSFT is back, with a post about Microsoft turning The Corner. It’s interesting to contrast his point of view with that of MG Siegler over at ParisLemon. Given my own perception of Valley bias on the part of Siegler (he is one of the new voices of Techcrunch after all), it’s great to see that we’re making progress which is being met with receptivity and not suspicion. Further, everyone is focused on the most important beneficiaries - customers.

The Failing Point – Passion or Knowledge Required

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:22:37 EDT

Another essay for my community book project. I carry a little notebook around with me everywhere I go. I keep this notebook so that I can jot down the ideas for random businesses which pop into my mind. I’ve had plenty of them, and some of them I have pursued with mixed results. When you are [...]

Why “The Failing Point”?

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:38:25 EDT

There could be any number of reasons that I finally decided to write this. I guess the biggest reason is that I keep saying that I will. The astute reader will note that I have been guilty of breaking the very first rule. I can’t have that, can I? Besides, I am not a multi-millionaire, [...]

Chrome OS Screenshot Leaked

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:30:00 EDT

It’s Friday, and it’s sunny out here in Seattle, which means that no work will get getting done. In lieu of work, I did some digging with my contacts on the interwebs, and it turns out there is are a couple of screen grabs of the new Chrome OS floating around out there. I [...]

Awesome SEO Opportunity

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:30:00 EDT

Last week was a big traffic week for me. I had a trifecta of posts that happened to pull in a bunch of traffic, which turned me into a stats addict. In looking at the log files, I wanted to see where the search traffic was coming from and the associated search terms. There was [...]

Microsoft And It’s Two Products

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:57:34 EDT

Robert Cringely has an article up at the NY Times about Chrome vs Bing. It’s a fine piece, but there’s a bit in the middle that makes me shake my head: Microsoft makes most of its money from two products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Nearly everything else it makes loses money, sometimes deliberately. This is not [...]

Broken VCs Aftermath

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:00:00 EDT

Apparently (apparently!), I have said something that hit a nerve. When I posted my thoughts on the whole issues as to whether or not the VC model was broken, I had no idea that it would be the most popular post I have ever written (and it’s not even noon on day 2). Crazy. Predictably, some of my VC friends showed up to the conversation to point out that 1) am angry, and 2) that the “good” VCs don’t have associates. First, I am not angry. It’s easy for the VCs and their ilk to cast those aspersions, but the reality is that they have a fantastic business model, and they are going to fight to the death to protect it. Second, the venture firm that completely blew me up at my last company has no associates. One day I will tell that story, but even firms with only partners can behave badly.

…Sit Around And Talk About The Great Startup You Want To Do

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:45:00 EDT

This is the first essay from the first chapter in my community book “The Failing Point” – essays will be published here online first, and I’m looking for feedback from the community. The permanent site will be live shortly. Each essay title finished the sentence “Under no circumstances should you…”

What Is Cloud Computing?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:05:24 EDT

This is one of those questions with which I am getting bored. You can’t attend a conference these days without someone asking that question. The constant theorizing is akin to the classic debate of “Kirk or Picard?” It’s a question that may never get answered, and in fact will engage the nerds for decades to [...]

What You Might Call A Lie, Some Would Call “Marketing”

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:53:41 EDT

I spent the better part of the last month looking to buy a new car. I have to say, I am quite surprised at the tactics that would be employed to sell a car. It’s bad enough that we are in a bit of an economic, erm, situation borne of borrowing too much and living [...]

Structure 09 This Week

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:49:20 EDT

This week should be an exciting one. Not only do I get to travel down to CA and see old friends, I get to talk to a bunch of great startups, and cap the week off by participating in a panel discussion at Structure 09 – the 1:30PM session titled “Toward Cloud Computing: Private Enterprise [...]

Did Google Just Release Task Queues?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:21:11 EDT

I just logged into my App Engine dashboard to check out some things, and look what popped up on the left hand side nav bar. Intrigued, I clicked on the link to reveal a page with the below text. That link to task queues goes nowhere of note at this time. Truth be told, I [...]