How Farmville’s Creators Accesses Market Demand

by Brent Gairy on July 11, 2011

I received an email recently from Ramit Sethi about how Zynga –  the creator’s of the phenomenally popular Farmville game on Facebook – is able to continually generate hit games.

How Zynga Assesses Market Demand

- Create a 5-word pitch for a new product or feature

- Put it up on a high traffic webpage

- If it gets clicks, collect the emails of interested customers

- Build a ‘ghetto’ version of the feature

- Test everything

- Iterate constantly

Read the article and watch the video at Grattisfaction.

Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office 365

by Brent Gairy on July 8, 2011

Lifehacker has a comprehensive roundup on the online versions of the office productivity suites – Google Apps and Office365. This is very helpful for small business owners who aren’t willing to spend hundreds on Microsoft office.

Feature-for-feature though, the two services offer the same basic functionality, although it can be said that Office 365 shines with polish and flare where Google Apps offers affordability and accessibility.