Less is more

Gigaom
Om Malik blogs about one of my favorite topics: simplicity. I wager that almost all of your gadgets have too many features. Researchers at the University of Maryland just finished a study on what they call feature fatigue — the frustration that occurs when consumers are overwhelmed and confused by the number of features on their electronic devices. ‘‘Companies can actually make more money in the long run by making products that are simpler than what customers think they want.’’ The smarter strategy? Design simple, dedicated devices like the iPod that do one thing very well. The hardest decisions in product development? What NOT to do.

BusinessWeek

Startup Visible Path, which just landed $17 million from A-list VCs, helps businesses track contacts. Unlike LinkedIn, which builds business networks for individuals via home pages and contact lists, Visible Path keeps tabs on whom companies communicate with. Then it ranks the strengths of those relationships, based on how often people communicate. Picture members of your sales team punching in names of people they are trying to find. A map quickly appears, literally sketching a ''visible path" to their prospect.

Red Herring

Google is teaming up with Oracle, Salesforce.com, Cisco, and Cognos to expand its search capabilities into businesses through its OneBox for Enterprise appliance. Typically, business users have to be trained to search within applications such as business intelligence, sales force automation, and inventory management. But this would make it so users could just ''Google it." What's more, Google is opening up the development interfaces so custom mash-ups can be created. Look for the rash of nifty charts and graphs out of newly searched data.

Business 2.0

Today, one-quarter of Ireland's Ryanair passengers fly at no cost and by 2010 they want more than half to fly free. The airline flew 35 million people to European destinations last year for an average fare of $53. And it still had $368 million in net earnings, giving it an industry-leading 22 percent net profit margin. (Southwest's is 7.2 percent.) How? The airline charges for other things. It sells ads. It charges for every amenity. It plans to offer in-flight gambling -- taking a cut of each wager.

NextBillion.net

Solar Trade Corp. sells solar-powered coffee dryers to farmers in Mexico and Central America -- shattering the myth that renewable energy is something only developed countries can do . . . while emerging economies put it off to tackle ''real" issues first. Turns out that lower-income farmers are willing to pay a little extra up front if it means huge savings in energy costs over the long run. The system also cuts out the middleman so that local growers have more control and more revenue. In Massachusetts, buy Café Solar at Market Basket.

David Sifry's blog

David Sifry, founder and chief executive of Technorati, the place to go to track the blogosphere, says that Technorati is now tracking 35.3 million blogs, and that number has been doubling every six months for the last 42 months. On average, a new blog is created every second of every day and 55 percent are still posting three months after their blogs are created. Technorati tracks about 1.2 million new blog posts each day. With blogs moving toward mainstream territory, 12-step programs for compulsive bloggers can't be far behind.

BBC

US scientists have invented an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) that emits a brilliant white light more akin to natural daylight than traditional bulbs. OLEDs can be printed in wafer-thin sheets that could transform walls, ceilings, or even furniture into lights. OLEDs don't heat, making them far more energy efficient and longer lasting than bulbs. Twenty percent of electricity used in US buildings is consumed by lights, nearly half of which come from light bulbs. Bright idea.