Forgive me for disappearing again; I spent the end of November and all of December in Taipei, Hangzhou, and Shanghai and then last-last weekend in LA and last week in New York and Boston…I know. I know nothing about the tech/startup scene in Taiwan and China (nor could I really sense its presence on either shores…or even in LA), but I did get to meet up with a few friends in New York who are truly making things happen.
Only two days ago, this article on “Why Tumblr is Kicking Posterous’s Ass” became all the rage, as the author’s reason was, “Tumblr is a New York company and Posterous is a Silicon Valley company.” In his other words, “Posterous is an engineered product, while Tumblr is a designed product.” Gobry makes two audacious points:
- “New York has truly come of age as a startup hub, with its own “style”, its own way of doing things, its own mindset, which can sometimes — not always, but sometimes — kick Silicon Valley’s ass.”
- “For consumer web apps today, design matters more than technology” because “technology is no longer what differentiates most consumer web apps”, it’s design (UI/UX design, social design, business model design).
He goes on to prove why Tumblr is better designed than Posterous.
As someone with a design background and continued interests in design, I find this fascinating, because 1. The Bay Area is also a major design hub home to the world’s best design consultancies like IDEO, Smart Design, Frog Design, Fuse Project, and 2. New York is known for fashion design and media, but…tech? So I did a little research and surprise, surprise, my favorite artsy communities & companies really are based in New York: Behance, Carbonmade, Etsy, Squarespace (to name a few)…and all you thought of besides Tumblr was Vimeo and Foursquare (all equally “cute” and well-designed).
I think I need to move to SoHo.
The main reason for my New York trip was simply to say hi to my friend and attend his startup party for Postabon. Postabon hasn’t really picked up anywhere outside of New York City yet (although you may post your own bons and start a trend!), but it has been featured in PCWorld as one of the “10 Sites and Services That Will Matter in 2010” and on TechRadar as one of the “8 Really Useful Websites You’ve Never Heard of“—yet. Postabon has even been picked up in China and Brazil—impressive for something that has been around for less than a year.
Check it out and download the iPhone app!
I also got to meet up with another friend who’s launching another startup in TWO WEEKS, SO STAY TUNED. (I’ll probably do a blog feature then.)
For those interested in learning more about New York’s startup scene, subscribe to the Startup Digest! My friend curates for the NYC newsletter and lists out weekly events.