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Businesses Software Apple

We Pay Our Rent By Buying Coffee 442

Posted by michael from the 1000-lines-per-cup dept.
Wired is running a story on Delicious Monster, a startup Mac software company whose main office is a Seattle coffee shop. Hope they're drinking decaf.
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We Pay Our Rent By Buying Coffee More

We Pay Our Rent By Buying Coffee

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  • Decaf? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:02PM (#11375437)
    As long as it's not Java.

  • Also fascinating: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:04PM (#11375449)
    Their website is run on a Motorola 68000 chip embedded in a biscotti. Try not to spill, fellas!

  • Delicious Library (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sg3000 ( 87992 ) * <sg_public@@@mac...com> on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:06PM (#11375453)
    > it generated $250,000 worth of sales in its first month

    Wow, I must have contributed to some of that.

    Delicious Library is cool, if a little bit slow. But it's still new, so that's not surprising. The attention to detail is really amazing. When you add artwork to a catalog item, the application adds a screen to the item image to make it look like it's in a DVD case, or the cover of a book. If you say it's a hard cover or soft cover book, the size of the book changes, too. I wrote a nearly pointless review [gadgetmadness.com] of it for Gadget Madness.

    Scanning in your books, DVDs, games, or whatever into the system is actually a kind of fun. It's one of those Mac OS X applications that when you show someone who doesn't have a Mac, they get that comically jealous look on their face.

    • And DVD Profiler for windows isn't as good?

      • Re:Delicious Library (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Squozen ( 301710 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @08:25PM (#11376117) Homepage
        I haven't used DVD Profiler, but it certainly doesn't look as fun to use from the screenshots on their website.

        I don't see any way that DVD Profiler can track your books, CD and games either, or use a webcam to scan product codes, or any mention of being able to find others with similar tastes (coming in the next release of Delicious Library).

        On the positive side, DVD Profiler is cheaper. Grats to you.

  • Decentralisation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Daxx_61 ( 828017 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:06PM (#11375454) Homepage
    Why-ever not? A start up has to start up somewhere, and if the company does not require a fixed premises as such, these guys are free to meet in the park, in the high street, in coffee shops. It's really just an extreme example of how decentralised business is becoming these days.

    • Re:Decentralisation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:19PM (#11375529)
      Why-ever not? A start up has to start up somewhere, and if the company does not require a fixed premises as such, these guys are free to meet in the park, in the high street, in coffee shops. It's really just an extreme example of how decentralised business is becoming these days.

      Don't you worry, as soon as they have serious money in the bank, they'll feel compelled to set up shop in a regular office building, with a flashy street sign, they'll start wearing suits, and they'll start hiring overhead such as "managers", "VP of sales" or "HR manager".

      And every now and then, they'll gather up in the meeting room to reminisce "how cool and crazy we were in the beginning, dude".

      That's how every start-up I worked for ended up turning into when they had the chance to develop into something...

      • Re:Decentralisation (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sg3000 ( 87992 ) * <sg_public@@@mac...com> on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:29PM (#11375574)
        > Don't you worry, as soon as they have serious money in the
        > bank, they'll feel compelled to set up shop in a regular office

        Maybe. But I read on Think Secret [thinksecret.com] that Delicious Monster was started by some guys who left the behemoth software conglomerate Omni Group [omnigroup.com]:
        Two former employees of developer The Omni Group have reportedly founded a new Mac OS X software company called Delicious Monster Software, and exciting products are in the works. The company was formed by Omni Group founder and former President Wil Shipley as well as interface designer Mike Matas, both of whom are said to have formed Omni's user interface team ....

        So it sounds like they left a small company to put together an even smaller company.

        I admit, I just use their software. I know none of these guys and I've never worked for their companies, but it doesn't sound like either company is running to put on the white shirt and tie just yet.

      • Re:Decentralisation (Score:4, Funny)

        by ratnerstar ( 609443 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:44PM (#11375645) Homepage
        Office building?! HR Manager?! What horrors we suffer in the name of success....

      • and CEO gets 95% dollars (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cheekyboy ( 598084 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:52PM (#11375685) Homepage Journal
        Dont forget the hardworkers get a dime, while the CEO/leader walks away with millions because his equity was 95%+.

        Its one thing to have controlling interests (>50%) share, but its another quite evil thing to USE your employees to make yourself filthy rich, then sell out, sack the employees and leave em to dry while the CEO walks away super uber rich with 10 lifetimes of assets/money.
        • Dont forget the hardworkers get a dime, while the CEO/leader walks away with millions because his equity was 95%+

          You know how to solve that?

          Open your own company and stop complaining.

          That is the beauty of a free market.
      • Don't you worry, as soon as they have serious money in the bank, they'll be sued by Monster Cable for everything they have or licensing fees.

  • easier solution (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:08PM (#11375467)
    Wouldn't it be easier to work from home? That's what I do.
    • If you read the article, they say "When there's just two of you, you can't stay in one room all day."

    • Easier to go insane, yes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:42PM (#11375632) Homepage Journal
      Wouldn't it be easier to work from home? That's what I do.

      I started a company with a friend of mine three years ago. We each worked out of own homes, and met twice a week in person (at a coffee shop, natch') to be sure we were synched up. But after a while it started to become difficult for me to stay in the same damned room all day, then move over a few feet into the kitchen for dinner, a few feet over to the living room to watch a movie, and then a few feet again to go to sleep. I felt like a freakin' hamster.

      When we got the chance to share office space with a couple of other guys who ran their own small companies, we jumped at the chance. Splitting the money three ways makes rent much cheaper, and we get human contact. Sometimes you don't need to have specific interaction. You just need to be around people.

      That's part of the appeal of working in a coffee shop. You can focus on what you're doing, but there's enough human activity that you can also get that feeling of connectedness. When you work alone at home by yourself it's easy to feel disconnected from the rest of humanity, no matter how many IMs you get from your buddies.

      But maybe it's just me. I haven't yet transcended meatspace.

      • Re:Easier to go insane, yes (Score:5, Funny)

        by ruvreve ( 216004 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:58PM (#11375717) Journal
        The irony being that you have a hamster cage sitting on your desk and the furry creature inside is still planning his revenge against the monster that put him in the dungeon and tricked him into running for hours in that little wheel.

      • Re:Easier to go insane, yes (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FinestLittleSpace ( 719663 ) * on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:07PM (#11375764)
        it's definately a balance. for a year now ive worked in an office of 10, in a room of 3 people (including me). Increasingly though, ive grown tired of the people; depending on combinations of who's in our room at the time (people often wander in and work with someone/chat), i get different stress levels, and sometimes (very much so in the past few months) find it EXTREMELY hard to work at all with certain people in the room, or just ANYONE in the room. It's pretty much got to a point where there's 1 guy (who is having a break in a week for 2 months, phew) TOTALLY destroys any moral to work. He's just that much of a cock....heh.... loves the sound of his own voice...self righteous...everything *sigh*.

        So... a few days ago i had a big deadline. I was REALLY getting concerned by my workflow (or lack of...) so i took the opportunity to work from home (i live 200 yards away, so the guys dont have a problem with it) and worked 36 hours flat (dont.. ask) because for the first time in months, i felt GENUINELY motivated. i couldnt believe how motivated i was just being able to focus without some idiot slagging me off/boosting his ego.

        And that's my story. too much of one can piss you off, too little can also piss you off... and dont work with wankers, it isnt fun.

    • Re:easier solution (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TomorrowPlusX ( 571956 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:01PM (#11375737)
      Not everybody *enjoys* working from home.

      Personally, I like to separate my work from my life. It's not that I like one and not the other, it's that I like them to be different.

      I do work in an office, but when I work on my own projects ( robotics & AI ) I do it in a coffee shop. It works for some mindsets. For me it gives me the comfort of *not* being cooped up in my apartment. I get to be surrounded by humanity, and in the chaos of noise, people and music, somehow my mind focuses like a needle.

      When I work at home, I end up just being distracted and watch a movie, or spend time with my GF.

      E.g., not productive ;)

      • Re:easier solution (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Skidge ( 316075 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:50PM (#11375972)
        Not everybody *enjoys* working from home.

        Very true. I thought I would; I'm a fairly introverted guy and able to focus pretty well on things, so when I had the opportunity to work remotely for my company, I did for about a year and a half. It was great at first, but after a while I found myself longing for more of a division between work. Working from home, for me at least, led to a feeling that I was never not at work; if I had some spare time, there was a small feeling prodding me to spend it finishing up some project for my job.

        I finally had enough, so I found a new job, in which I work for a relatively large company in a large room with 10 or so other developers in it. It's actually quite refreshing to have those other folks around. Just having some other ideas floating around me has greatly increased my motivation. Plus, when I get home, I'm now only at home, not at work.
      • I second that, but with a twist. I telecommute full time, but I prefer spending a couple of days a week at a coffee shop for the same reasons you suggest.

        But I can't imagine working in a coffee shop WITH my coworkers. That would kill my ability to focus. The second any of them want to take a break, it would automatically make everybody else want to stop and talk, because the surroundings are too close.
    • I run my business from home and my cities central library. Sometimes it's nice to get out of the house and the library is free to use.

  • Security? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by locokamil ( 850008 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:11PM (#11375484) Homepage
    I'd wonder about security though. These guys are working on wireless internet on a public network while developing proprietary software. What's to stop one guy with a snooper and a latte-wielding disguise from stealing all their work? Yes, it's quirky. And I'll be damned if I wouldn't love to pay my rent in coffee... but I'm just not sure it's good business. Of course, this is all speculation on my part. We only have a Starbucks here.

    • Re:Security? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:15PM (#11375501) Homepage Journal
      I'd wonder about security though. These guys are working on wireless internet on a public network while developing proprietary software. What's to stop one guy with a snooper and a latte-wielding disguise from stealing all their work?

      It's called data encryption, in the form of a VPN. Look into it.

      Really -- this problem has been solved for a long, long time. Create your own virtual network within the network by implementing an encryption and authentication system so that only those systems and users belonging to the company can connect and intercommunicate, and your work just looks like garbage to anyone wishing to snoop in on you.

      Yaz.

  • Yeah, but... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How much coffee will they have to buy to pay for the bandwidth bill?

  • I'm not much of a coffee drinker.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by neoee ( 795835 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:16PM (#11375509)
    its really a shame they don't have Wi-Fi at my local bar. Paying rent in beer sounds like a much better option.

  • next version concerns (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MoreDruid ( 584251 ) <moredruid@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:19PM (#11375531) Journal
    While I like this product (I especially think the barcode thing is spiffy), I don't really like some of their ideas for the next version. They state that you will be able to see other peoples profile with the same taste... Well I think marketeers are going to have a field trip with this... a fully free accessible database of online contacts already sorted by the profile you make... all that for only 40 bucks. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea in principle, but it's just too easy to be taken advantage of.
    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the article stated it would work something like the iTunes sharing, which is over a local network. I personally think its an awesome idea to see what someone else has, and for well known people to publish their own catalogues (I think there is third party software to publish this in HTML format now).

    • Re:next version concerns (Score:5, Informative)

      by wjsdelicious ( 850217 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @11:08PM (#11376846) Homepage
      We will absolutely have sharing your collection be "opt-in," on several levels. We aren't Safeway.

      Amazon already has 1,000,000x the data on people's buying habits and their relations to each other than we'll ever collect, so I suspect that if marketers were going to have a field day, they'd be calling Amazon long before us.

      It's true that it'd be _possible_ for us to do less-than-good things with the data we collect, but we're not going to. We're going to use the data to create new virtual communities of people with common interests, and bring our fragmented society closer together. If you don't want to join in those communities, don't check the preference box.

      Mike has always been against us making the "buy similar items" aspect of our product too prominent, because he didn't want us to seem like a front-end to Amazon. And when we were looking for a way to help the world with our money, It was his idea to give all of our Amazon associates' money to charity, so it's clear to our customers we are NOT trying to encourage them to BUY BUY BUY.

      Any new technology can be used for good or evil. I would expect people on this forum would recognize this truism isn't an argument against progress; it's a caution against recklessness.

  • Coffee? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DrNibbler ( 547534 ) <sean@seanre[ ]r.com ['ise' in gap]> on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:21PM (#11375542) Homepage Journal
    Here I thought that mac developers would be drinking hot cocoa

  • Not surprising when your co-founder was... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tyrione ( 134248 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:26PM (#11375566) Homepage

    Co-founder of OmniGroup in Seattle.
    http://www.omnigroup.com

    I had no idea Wil left his baby, OmniWeb to do a start-up. With his almost 15 years of Cocoa programming experience I'm sure they'll make it.

  • I met these guys at Macworld... (Score:3, Informative)

    by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:27PM (#11375568) Homepage
    And you know what? They're ordinary, hard-working developers, and they're quite creative. Apple should be hiring them.

  • Nice Software But... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xelph ( 542741 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:36PM (#11375611)
    ... also a complete, utter waste of time.

    I have to admit that I bought the software because I am a Criterion collector and because the developers did a really nice job in terms of look and feel. So I scanned hundreds and hundreds of DVDs in there and now I can see them sitting on gorgeous virtual shelves on my fully loaded PowerBook G4. And I can pat myself in the back. And that is about it.

    The fact that useless software (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is beyond common sense. But the saddest part is that I am actually contributing to that trend.
    • I don't have the software, and I haven't tried it. I have a reasonably large book collection, but it's all sitting in a garage on another continent.

      If I had access to my book collection, I imagine Delicious Library might come in handy. If I scanned in all of my books, I could instantly find out whether I had a particular book or not. (More than once, I've bought a copy of a book I already owned.) Even better, I could search within (some of) the books I owned using Amazon's search feature. Of course, I can

    • Re:Nice Software But... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Moofie ( 22272 )
      You don't like it. I do. What's your point?

      One of the reasons I buy media is to lend it out to my friends. I've lost more than one book/DVD/game that way, and Delicious helps me keep things organized. It's superbly designed, really easy to use, and does exactly what it says it does.

      You've got buyer's remorse. I'm a happy customer. Both of us were free to buy, or not buy, the program. What's the problem?

    • Re:Nice Software But... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by siliconjunkie ( 413706 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:54PM (#11375698)
      The fact that useless software (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is beyond common sense.

      For starters, I have no interest in spending my money on something that makes me "nicer". What the hell is something that makes you "nicer" anyway? Prozac?

      Secondly, have you looked at the things that people spend money on? You don't have to delve too deeply into the economy to see that people don't spend the majority of their moeny on "things to make them more knowledgeable, or more intelligent". What does "common sense" have to do with anything?

      But the saddest part is that I am actually contributing to that trend.

      No, the saddest part is you didn't have he foresight to realize that a piece of software designed to catalog your software isn't going to make you "nicer", "more knowledgeable" or "more intelligent". It's a goddamn pretty database application. Were you expecting to achieve enlightenment or something after you installed it?

    • Re:Nice Software But... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iocat ( 572367 )
      I don't have this software or an OSX capable Mac, but it does have some useful features, mainly for wants lists exportable to Palm or some other device (or paper). For instance, I have most of John D. MacDonald's books, and I'm frequently buying ones I don't think I have, only to discover I do, either under a different title, or with a different cover page, etc. So that's one use.

      If you have to store your books in boxes (if you have too many), that's another good use, although I don't know if the software

    • ... also a complete, utter waste of time.

      I have to admit that I bought the powerbook because I am a developer and because Apple did a really nice job in terms of look and feel. I did some coding work on it, and it is no different then if I would have done it on my previous computer. And I can pat myself in the back. And that is about it.

      The fact that a useless shiny computer (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is bey

    • Re:Nice Software But... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wjsdelicious ( 850217 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @09:20PM (#11376369) Homepage
      It's funny, because most people's reaction to our software when they first see it is, "Wow, how useful! Here's my credit card," but for some it is, "Wow, how useless... here's my credit card."

      I don't actually want to argue with your point, although it's worth mentioning, as other people have, that you can print out your list of stuff and tuck it in a safety deposit box, so if you lose your collection to fire or theft it'll all be replaced exactly. Or you can print your collection and take the list to the video/book store and make sure you don't duplicate items. Or you can track your loans and make sure you don't lose items.

      Or you can use the smart recommendations and find items you never knew you'd like, and buy with more confidence that you aren't wasting money. Or you can sell items you're no longer using in just a couple clicks, and make some extra money AND tidy up your life.

      All of these things potentially make and/or save you money.

      But, you may not want to do any of that. What I'd like to point out is, our real goal in writing software is to make you smile.

      Did we succeed at that? Because, for instance, "The Incredibles" probably didn't make you better, stronger, faster (etc), but I'm betting you don't regret the $9 you spent on it. And if every company's goal was to make products that made people smile, I don't think the world would be a bad place at all.

  • Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MeerCat ( 5914 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:38PM (#11375615) Homepage
    Especially in the financial centres of big cities it seems that Starbucks et al are not really a "coffee company", but are in fact selling very on-demand temporary office space ("Regus Lite") with free coffee as an incentive and informal time-billing system.

    Anyone who's worked for a large investment bank and has tried to book an office for a quick meeting will know this is true (especially if the meeting rooms operate as a "profit centre" and so you have be recharged the costs). It's amazing how much you can find out about the state of the IT dept of a large company just by hanging out in the nearest coffee shop - are they hiring or firing, are the staff excited or bitching, what new projects are they working on.... industrial espionage was rarely so cheap.

    Similarly, airports are now in the business of selling multi-day car parking and short term entertainment for an hour or two.

  • It's not as good as it sounds (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrAndrews ( 456547 ) <mcm AT 1889 DOT ca> on Saturday January 15, 2005 @06:45PM (#11375648) Homepage
    I run four companies from my local coffee shop. Sit in the back with my powerbook and always look like I'm waiting for someone to show up. But the downside is that you can easily be tempted into vanilla lattes every hour, which costs as much as a 15th-floor corner office, and will likely get me a kidney transplant in five years.

    Now if only I had products I sold that earned money, I'd be breaking even...

  • Cuecat (Score:2)

    by smartin ( 942 )
    Anyone know if this will work with a cuecat barcode reader? Got a couple of them sitting here collecting dust.
    • If you find a way of making coffee from a cuecat, please let me know..
    • They're not USB, so I'm not sure how you would hook it up to a Mac. I suppose if you had a USB serial adapter, with some clever driver hacking, it would likely work.
      • Not true. I have 3 USB CueCats. I believe they were introduced a little later after they realized what a horrendously bad idea it was asking people to unplug their mouse or keyboard to free up a PS2 port!

        Anyway, they show up under XP as a standard "Human Input Device," like a USB keyboard. I imagine they would work on Macs too.

        • Re:Cuecat (Score:3, Informative)

          by Moofie ( 22272 )
          Wow, that sounds like a question they must get asked frequently. Quoting from the FAQ [delicious-monster.com]:

          Can I use my CueCat or other USB barcode scanner with Delicious Library?

          Delicious Library should support any USB barcode scanner that sends data in the same fashion as a keyboard. The CueCat scanner does not fall into this category, but the following instructions allow you to modify the CueCat to be more compatible.

          How to modify your CueCat barcode scanner (1965 USB Models): The USB models has an onboard 16 pin SMD com
  • Uh oh, now that it's been slashdotted we can expect a lawsuit from Monster Cables any time now...

  • Similiar Software. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jwcorder ( 776512 )
    There is a similiar version of this software for DVDs that runs on the PC platform. http://www.intervocative.com. Even has a free version. Doesn't do books, cds, or games, but I love it for my 500+ DVD collection.

  • Lloyds of London started the same way (Score:5, Informative)

    by jdfox ( 74524 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:07PM (#11375763)
    The famous Lloyd's of London insurance group started out in Lloyd's coffee house in the late 1600s. This bodes well for Delicious Monster. :)

    Excerpts from the book "Against the Gods" by Peter Bernstein [powells.com]:
    "One afternoon in 1637 * a Cretan scholar named Canopius sat down in his chambers at Balliol College, Oxford, and made himself a cup of strong coffee. Canopius's brew is believed to mark the first time coffee was drunk in England; it proved so popular when it was offered to the public that hundreds of coffee houses were soon in operation all over London.

    What does Canopius's coffee have to do with * the concept of risk? Simply that a coffee house was the birthplace of Lloyd's of London, which for more than two centuries was the most famous of all insurance company's. *

    The second half of the seventeenth century was also an era of burgeoning trade. The Dutch were the predominant commercial power of the time, and England was their main rival. Ships arrived daily from colonies and suppliers around the globe to unload a profusion of products that had once been scarce or unknown luxuries-sugar and spice, coffee and tea, raw cotton and fine porcelain. * Information from remote areas of the world was now of crucial importance to the domestic economy. With the volume of shipping constantly expanding, there was a lively demand for current information with which to estimate sailing times between destinations, weather patterns, and the risks lurking in unfamiliar seas.

    In the absence of mass media, the coffee houses emerged as the primary source of news and rumour. In 1675, Charles II,
    suspicious as many rulers are of places where the public trades information, shut the coffee houses down, but the uproar was so great that he had to reverse himself sixteen days later. Samuel Pepys frequented a coffee house to get news of the arrival of ships he was interested in; he deemed the news he received there to be more reliable than what he learned at his job at the Admiralty.

    The coffee house that Edward Lloyd opened in 1687 near the Thames on Tower Street was a favourite haunt of men from the ships that moored at London's docks. The house was "spacious, well built and inhabited by able tradesmen" according to a contemporary publication. It grew so popular that in 1691 Lloyd moved it to much larger and more luxurious quarters on Lombard Street. Nat Ward, a publican whom Alexander Pope accused of trading vile rhymes for tobacco, reported that the tables in the new house were "very neat and shined with rubbing." A staff of five served tea and sherbet as well as coffee.

    Lloyd had grown up under Oliver Cromwell and he had lived through plague, fire, the Dutch invasion up the Thames in 1667, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was a lot more than a skilled coffeehouse host. Recognizing the value of his customer base and responding to the insistent demand for information, he launched "Lloyd's List" in 1696 and filled it with information on the arrivals and departures of ships and intelligence on conditions abroad and at sea. That information was provided by a network of correspondents in major ports on the Continent and in England. Ship auctions took place regularly on the premises, and Lloyd obligingly furnished the paper and ink needed to record the transactions. One corner was reserved for ships' captains where they could compare notes on the hazards of all the new routes that were opening up - routes that led them farther east, farther south, and farther west than ever before. Lloyd's establishment was open almost around the clock and was always crowded.

    Then as now, anyone who was seeking insurance would go to a broker, who would then hawk the risk to the individual risk-takers who gathered in the coffee houses or in the precincts of the Royal Exchange. When a deal was closed, the risk-taker would confirm his agreement to cover the loss in return for a specified premium by writing his name

  • My stupid Seattle Coffee Shop story... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by writermike ( 57327 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:09PM (#11375774)
    I'm a Starbucks geek. (Yes, I think there is such a beast.) I go there almost daily. I bring people in to try new products. I have a card. I even read Howard Schultz's book. So, I was pretty excited when my wife and I visited Seattle about three years ago. We saw the original site, of course. We even visited the huge headquarters building. (Does anyone else find that Starbucks figurehead peering over the building just a little creepy?)

    For those of you who haven't read Schultz's book, Starbucks and Peet's are linked in their history. Many folks say that it was really Alfred Peet who introduced Schultz to the darker, Full City roast that Starbucks finally used for their coffees.

    Well, having read the book about the history, I wanted to see Peet's, too. There weren't any in New Orleans, where I lived at the time.

    I visited one near the city center and I was immediately struck by the similarity in decor and layout between Peets and Starbucks. I mentioned this to the attendant.

    It's true! Icy glares do send a chill down your spine.

    I came to understand later the local rivalry between the companies that harkens all the way back to when Peet left Starbucks. Somehow Schultz didn't mention this. I can't believe it! ;-)
  • One of the software's niftiest features is its ability to use a video camera to read a product's bar code, which is used to fetch product details from the net.

    Remember the CueCat? That which scanned items and barcodes and transmitted them out over the 'Net to marketers? No offense, but I really don't think that open profiles with scanned barcode data for individual people won't be exploited somehow.

    Good idea, guys, but unless the profile information is inaccessible to robots, the consumer gets the shaf

  • OMG! They don't have an actual office! And this is worthy of the front page? I mean, seriously.. There are countless small companies out there who don't have an office. Or is it because they're in the Seattle area, the home of over-priced coffee and pastries. that this is considered so cool?
  • "We work eight hours a day."

    Damn, I want their job. Only 8 hours a day? Do they mean 7 days a week?

  • Cocoa bindings (Score:5, Interesting)

    by akuzi ( 583164 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:28PM (#11375864)
    The Apple developer site has an interesting article [apple.com] on how Delicious Library's use of the Cocoa bindings framework.

  • It's really not that unique (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @07:51PM (#11375979) Homepage
    If you really think about it.. there's quite a few software developers without an office.

    The Mac community has some great shareware developers. Some work out of their own homes. No office, no staff. Just their own place.

    Some collaborate online. Look at all the open source products now. Not all have their own office (like the Mozilla Foundation). Quite a few projects are 100% virtual.

    I think this model will have even more of an impact in the next 10-15 years. It's not really necessary for someone who programs all day to have an office to themselves... it's wasteful.

    It's perfectly acceptable for such an employee to work from home, or any other environment, and perhaps spend 1 day, or perhaps 2 afternoons a week in the office. You can then used shared work space and cut down on costs.

    With the availability of high speed connections, VPN's for secure network access, VoIP providers providing cheap phone access....

    the only thing is human interaction. And even that. Think about how often your actually "need". A few meetings a week. Now how many of those can't be done over the phone?

    Really, only a much smaller sum of work needs to be done at the office.

    Provided good management skills are used, to keep employees on target, and on time... there's nothing wrong with a virtual company.

    In fact... it's much more efficient.

    Don't forget the time you save people. If you work 1 day in the office a week, that's only 2 commutes (one each way). With an average commute time of a little under an hour (being generious). That's several hours a week that an employee can then use to either conduct work, or extra family time (or time at the strip club).

    Why not hire the guy who lives in Kansas when the office is in NYC? If he's good, it's great. You can teleconfrence him in, and fly him in for a day or two every several weeks. He can work from home, and code just like the guys in the office. You don't need office space (which in a city like NYC, just a few square feed for a cubicle is expensive). Just pay his office phone, DSL/Cable line, and send him some hardware.

    Wiki's, Bugzilla-like systems, Intranet Portals, Email, VoIP, they all make it much easier to do.

    Virtual Companies will be playing more and more of a role in the future. Especially true for IT jobs. Since they are very easy to do remotely.
  • Decaf is the witth's brew [sorehands.com]. Or 'near' beer or sex without touching.

  • Booxter (Score:3, Informative)

    by Spankophile ( 78098 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @10:17PM (#11376642) Homepage
    I hope they're related somehow.. otherwise one of these is a total ripoff.

    This [deepprose.com] looks exactly the same without the fancy wood panelling.

  • Readerware? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @10:19PM (#11376648) Journal
    Can anybody give a brief compare and contrast between Delicious Library and Readerware [readerware.com]? They sound very similar, perhaps DL is pretty much the same with a much better UI?

  • Am I the only coffee-house user who this annoys? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OnanTheBarbarian ( 245959 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @11:00PM (#11376811)
    I've spent an inordinate amount of the last decade sitting around in coffee houses of varying degrees of corporateness (Starbucks obviously being on one end of the scale). Quite frankly, one of the reasons that I've stopped spending time at coffee houses are people using coffee houses in exactly this way.

    I don't mind people working in coffee houses. I don't mind people meeting in coffee houses. What I do mind is when people start doing things like presentations to enough other people that they have to raise their voices, talk loudly and endlessly on their damn cell phones (not to mention taking endless calls), and blather away like they own the whole place. Guess what - it's not your office, guys. It's really not.

    Tech nerds are usually fairly good about this. Some of the local business types are just complete pricks about this, though. It's like they've never considered the idea that the whole place isn't interested in the unique, dynamic work environment that their chain restaurant is going to provide.

    I'm not under the delusion that coffee houses should be some sort of library-like atmosphere, or that no-one should ever conduct business there, or anything like that. I'd just like (for a change) for people who are doing business in a coffeehouse to recognize that they aren't in their own office.

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