As I was perusing the November 2011 issue of Popular Mechanics (via the Zinio app on my iPad, of course), I came across a brief item about the British Antarctic Survey and the discovery of some active undersea volcanoes in the South Atlantic Ocean. “New species have been found nearby,” reports the magazine.

I have always been a big fan of space exploration, but over the past decade or so I have become much more intrigued by underwater exploration. It’s not as sexy as the search for alien life or the quest for an answer to the origins of the universe, but it can be just as exciting — and probably have more practical applications in terms of things like health, energy, and the environment. Plus we don’t have to travel for weeks, months or years just to get in a position to make observations.

There are practical implications to this way of thinking that impact us in our businesses and our lives. It is easy for all of us to get enamored with the idea of solving the biggest problems that get the most attention from the media and the public.

But some of the best ideas, the most successful companies, and the smartest life decisions come from not looking at the stars but at looking around us. What challenges and opportunities are within easy reach? Figuring out how to make a battery with longer life may not get the same attention as finding the ultimate cure for cancer, but it may well have more impact on more lives over time.

As a society, it is good for us to have people tacking the biggest problems. And you or I may be the one to do it. But there are lots of great things to be done closer to home.

In recent years, we have heard much talk of services like Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce and others being “platforms.” The implication is that they are much like operating systems like Windows, Linux, or OS/X where developers can build applications on top of them.

And that’s true, at least in a technical sense. The problem is that now companies are building not just applications based on these web platforms, but also their entire businesses.

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

In the past, entrepreneurs might have built a competing social network or made use of Facebook as a tool to drive traffic to their own sites.

But now, companies like BranchOut Inc., a professional network, and Yardsellr Inc., a social e-commerce application, have emerged that rely entirely on the social network’s users for their business. More such ventures are expected to pop up this year.

There is a big, and often unrecognized, difference between building a company around software that sits on top of an operating system and an application that relies on a web platform. Computer operating systems get installed on hardware and even if the developer makes a major change to that operating system, old software can still run on old versions of the operating system. Nobody comes and forces you to uninstall old versions from your computer.

If you are building an application, and ultimately a business, on top of a web platform like Facebook, Twitter, and Salesforce the same cannot be said. Those web platforms can completely disable your application and shut down your business with absolutely no notice. The only thing restraining them is public outcry and customer complaints – a thin protection indeed.

I am in no way advocating that you don’t take advantage of web platforms and even build applications that rely on them. But no business should base itself entirely on a web platform. This may be a quick route to short-term popularity and perhaps even a fast acquisition, but it is a miserable way to create a sustainable company. No business should ever depend solely on the good favor of one vendor, one customer, one platform, one employee, or any other irreplaceable component. Diversification is a must.

So go ahead and build your platform-based web application. But figure out how it becomes only one part of your strategy and not the only one.

The other day I found myself telling someone that a company I know of has “a product that demos well, but it doesn’t work well once you buy it.” We all know the type, right? At the extreme end are some of the gimmicky items you find sold on TV infomercials. Some of them actually do work well, but a whole lot of them look a lot cooler in 120 seconds or 30 minutes than they work in your own home.

But any of us who are in the online software arena know that it isn’t a phenomenon limited to late night TV sales. And it isn’t just about physical products. Software as a service can suffer the same fate.

As an entrepreneur, my goal is always to build a company that puts out a product that sells well and works well once the user rolls up her sleeves and starts using it regularly. But as with most things perfect balance is rarely possible. Personally, I know I skew toward products that work well because I am fundamentally more of an ideas and product person than a marketer.

That just means I have to put special focus on designing products that sell to compensate for my inherent bias.

Others are just the opposite. I know some folks who have a phenomenal eye for marketing and apply that to their product development activities. I know that those folks will show me a product that demos amazingly well. Often, though, the long-term efficacy the product may not match the glitz and glamor of demo day, however. So they know they need to focus on the long-term functionality in a special way.

Without balance, you have a serious business problem. Products that demo well but don’t work up that same level are destined to have unhappy customer word of mouth and high churn rates (if they are subscription based). Those that work well but demo poorly suffer from the “build it and they will come” fallacy. Without customers to sustain the business, it doesn’t matter how good the product may be.

If you’re an entrepreneur, developer, or marketer, just make sure that you know what your own leaning is and take steps to compensate for whichever side you are weaker on. That means focusing your own energy but also partnering with others inside your organization – or outside – to make sure you achieve the balance necessary for long-term success.

I had a conversation yesterday that spurred me to think back to the “old days” of the World Wide Web. You see, I’ve been at this game long enough to remember Yahoo before it was at Yahoo.com. Most of you probably don’t know that it used to live at http://akebono.stanford.edu.

In any case, I took a dip into the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine (a great tool for peeking at what web sites looked like on various dates in the past) to check out what some of my own early efforts online looked like.

I thought I might share some of my nostalgia with you — and then explain why it matters.

My First Web Site

My site itself no longer exists, but NCSA Mosaic, the organization that gave birth to the first popular web browser (which would later become Netscape), lists my site called CyberPolitics in a September 1995 list of “What’s New” on the web.

My First Web Site Listed in Yahoo

Ironically, the ad at the top of the page showing my CyberPolitics site when the Wayback Machine archived Yahoo on December 20, 1996 was for Townhall.com, a company I would become CEO of a few months later.

My First CEO Gig

Here’s what Townhall.com looked like around the time that I left my role as CEO there. It sure was green!

My First Blog

I started my first blog in 1999. It was called PrimaryScoop and it chronicled the presidential primary campaigns of 2000. It would serve in a roundabout way as the inspiration for CustomScoop.

The First CustomScoop Web Site

On September 1, 2000, not long after we launched the company, the Wayback Machine captured the first look we had for our web site. I especially like the big dip in the “p” to tie in the tagline — classy!

So there you have it. A brief trip down memory lane. What’s the point you ask? Besides a bit of nostalgia, I often find that the past often gives you good ideas for the future. It’s not worthwhile to linger in times gone by, but to check in to what you and others were doing years or decades ago may provide valuable insight that helps gel your thinking today.

I spent the past couple of days in some pretty lofty atmosphere. Not just because I found myself in the Mile High City, but because Eric Norlin put together another fantastic conference. Glue 2011 brought some really smart geeks to Denver to talk about the latest tools, tricks, and tactics that can be used to build interconnected web applications.

At CustomScoop, we interact with other services all the time, often through formal API’s, but also through more “hacked together” methods. It was great to spend time with other technology-minded folks who face some of the same challenges we do. I got to learn how they have built impressive, scalable architectures that help them be more effective. I was exposed to new services and technologies that we will likely deploy ourselves.

Glue – like most of Eric’s events – does a great job of knowing just how long each session should be. It is rare to find oneself itching to move on to the next speaker, in large part because he errs on the side of brevity. It’s much better to be left wanting more than to become bored or annoyed.

Like most conferences, there were a handful of speakers who spent a bit too much time talking about their own products. If I wanted to see a demo, I’d talk to a salesperson; at a conference, I want to focus on ideas and big picture approaches. When I speak to audiences like this, I make a point to talk about what a service like CustomScoop can do – and even note the names of competitors who do a good job at particular things.

Nevertheless, the time and travel were well spent. I fly back East today with a wealth of new ideas, a bunch of useful knowledge, and some new personal connections. And I’m already looking forward to Eric’s next conference here in Denver: Defrag 2011 coming this November.

Last night I ended up at the bar of a mass production restaurant in Broomfield, CO eating unhealthy food of marginal quality while drinking club soda with some of the saddest looking pieces of lime I have seen in a while. No, I’m not a down-on-my-luck recovering addict, just a guy who really wanted to watch the Boston Bruins play the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the 2011 NHL Eastern Conference Finals.

Unfortunately, my hotel room here does not carry Versus. Nor did the hotel bar. From my experience as a hockey fan, that’s pretty common.

Naturally, as a tech guy, I thought I would simply fire up my laptop and watch the game using my Slingbox to watch my TV back home in New Hampshire. Alas, either because of typical poor quality hotel room Internet access or perhaps more likely because I’m in a hotel with a bunch of other geeks who tax broadband more than your average business traveler, the connection was so bad that it would be less painful to call my wife and ask her to set the phone next to the TV so I could listen to the game that way.

Needless to say, listening to the game over the phone wasn’t really an option.

So I asked around at the hotel and was referred to a nearby local establishment that might have the game. And they did. In fact, it seemed like a good place to go to catch pretty much any sports action as the place was full of flat screen TV’s showing basketball, baseball, and hockey. Of course, it also had some poor guy playing a guitar while using his voice to butcher the singing of a wide range of country, folk, alternative, and rock music.

But that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to choose where to watch the game on TV. It requires greater consistency from a wide range of providers and can’t be fixed easily by just one player in the ecosystem.

And we’re not there yet. Hopefully we will be soon.

Much electronic ink has already been spilled over Apple’s decision to make in-app subscription purchasing available — at a 30% fee. I’m about to spill some more.

Today’s open letter from Readability re-stokes the controversy as it claims that Software-as-a-Service providers are now ensnared in the new policy, not just media publishers and content providers. MG Siegler at TechCrunch raises the prospect of Salesforce and other major SaaS companies getting caught by the 30% fee.

There’s a lot getting overlooked here.

The 30% applies only to new sales, not to all users of iOS apps — at least as I understand it. If someone has already paid outside of the app, Apple gets nothing. So Apple is effectively looking not for a “processing fee” as some allege, but effectively a “commission.” By that standard, 30% isn’t quite as outlandish.

The in-app subscription process does not exclude other payment options. SaaS providers are free to sell their products from their web sites and then grant access to the iOS app, as long as someone can subscribe in the iOS app also.

High-end enterprise subscriptions won’t be sold inside the iOS app. Do you really think a Salesforce prospect is going to go into an iOS app and signup from in there? Not likely. That’s a big purchase and isn’t usually an impulse decision — which is where in-app subscriptions should excel.

New subscribers are valuable — and worth paying for. Even if Apple’s approach isn’t perfect, there’s something to be said for bringing new paying subscribers to the table — whether you are a content creator or a SaaS provider. Think about what you pay to get new customers through traditional means and ask yourself how those costs stack up over time.

You can incentivize people to give up personal information. If you’re a SaaS provider, chances are someone may want to access your app via the web in addition to the iOS tool. They will likely willingly give up email address info to you to create that login. Publishers can offer similar benefits or even contests and such to build up the email list of subscribers.

Improved customer renewal efforts could curb in-app costs. I have not done a deep dive on the rules, but if companies mount aggressive renewal campaigns outside of iOS, they can even get out of the 30% for customers who originally signed up in-app. As long as the pricing is the same as in-app, why not send emails with “click to renew” links that go straight into a web purchase option.

Bottom line: let’s stop spend so much time fretting over Apple’s new in-app subscription policies until we see how they work out in reality. In the meantime, let’s inject some reason into the discussion and start thinking about creative ways to benefit from the new approach rather than trying to bury it — efforts that aren’t likely to be successful anyway.

UPDATE: A reported email from Steve Jobs suggests that SaaS applications may not be subject to Apple’s new policies. If that means these applications can’t use the in-app subscription option, the SaaS providers may be leaving money on the table, however.

The sheer size of the annual Consumer Electronics Show makes it a spectacle to behold. Company “booths” can cost millions of dollars to create and seem to consume as much floor space as a football field. One can spend hours walking the show floor only to discover that the surface has barely been scratched.

For my assessment of this year’s extravaganza, hop on over to the DCI Digital blog to read my post “CES About People, Not Products.”

At DCI, I’m looking to hire a Director of Web Development. I need someone who can provide solid leadership to a team of excellent developers. The DCI Digital Team put together an informative and entertaining video describing the job. It’s a great team of people I work with, and we’re looking for the right person to join us.

If you’re interested, please be sure to let us know by going to the DCI Careers page. If you’re not interested, then I’d appreciate it if you would share it with someone who might be or post it to your Twitter/Facebook feeds to help spread the word.

I really want to like the New York Times iPad app. You see, I have taken to really liking the iPad as my primary reading tool. I read books on it (mostly with the Kindle app). I read magazines (mostly with Zinio, but also a handful of publication-specific apps). I read newspapers (like the Wall Street Journal).

The New York Times remained one of the big titles I couldn’t read in full on the iPad. Until this week when the woeful “Editor’s Choice” version of the paper that had been made available on the iPad gave way to the complete content version. It is said that while the content is free today, it will require a subscription next year.

First, let me say that I’m fine with paying for the content. I have long been a proponent of the notion that Content Is Not Free, and I back that up by paying lots of money for compelling content.

However, I had much higher expectations for the New York Times on the iPad. My experience with it so far has been disappointing.

For the moment, I’ll set aside the fact that it seems to crash every few minutes. Changing the screen’s orientation with the app open seems to be a sure-fire way to have an unplanned exit. But it also crashes for no apparent reason as well.

I’m also going to ignore the fact that there are still some little bugs (like characters with accents failing to appear properly when used in a headline).

These are modest technical glitches that I’m confident will get worked out. They are also common to the iPad experience whenever a new app comes out or an existing one receives a significant overhaul or upgrade.

What I can’t let go, however, is the overall usability of the app. First, content is repeated between sections. That may be fine for a web experience, but it makes it painful to try to read the newspaper from cover-to-cover on the iPad as one might with the printed edition. Why do I need to see the same story in 2-3 places?

Of course, the repetition might be tolerable if it were easier to read the content straight through on the iPad. Unfortunately, the New York Times forces me to bring up a menu and select the next section I want to view every time I complete browsing through the last one. The Wall Street Journal handles these transitions much more elegantly by permitting me to move seamlessly from Marketplace to Money & Investing and so on.

I would also prefer an easier method to dispense with interstitial ads on the NYT app. Now, I don’t mind the ads in the first place. Ultimately successful ads will help hold the line on subscription costs, so I say go for it! But the “Skip this Ad” text is not very obvious. Again, I like the way the WSJ app handles this by allowing me to swipe through an ad screen just as I turn pages of content. In fairness, I will probably become more fluid with my motions as I get used to the placement of the Skip link.

The full content of the New York Times on the iPad has been a long time coming — in iPad time at least — but I do applaud the Times for making the move. Now I just hope they’ll work out the bugs and the usability issues so I can go back to reading the paper from cover-to-cover every day — just as the WSJ app has caused me to do with that publication.