How does one learn to think, if not through education? And academic article-based education is the primary way of learning in academia.
I very much agree with the post's point about the first step. In order to make a significantly disruptive breakthrough, it's necessary that one knows where the outer edges of that domain lie.
Now that I think about it, I've used usesthis.com for this very purpose - to get some anecdotal "votes" for particular categories of services. If this was listed out in an easier-to-read fashion, I personally would love that.
Good article about getting at the core of what users ALREADY want. I think that this is the crux of the confusion for most people. Many startup entrepreneurs want to make vitamins when they should really be making aspirin.
This idea of documenting everything through the process from idea generation to publishing is very interesting. I keep thinking that these types of storyboard explainers might be useful in a lot of contexts - tech startups especially.
This is a classic critical mass app and I'm a little skeptical right now as to if it has the legs. But then again, I thought Quora was the greatest thing since sliced bread and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
The categorization rankings seem pretty subjective. I read somewhere that your best bet, if possible, is to call your company what it does. If your software emails timed newsletters, call it newsletter or emailer and keep working around that until you find something available.