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  • 1 min read

It’s not all love and kisses

We all love Wikipedia - I know I do. I've sung it's praises to lots of people and have personally often looked stuff up in it and been satisfied. Still I can't help but be impressed with an article I came across written by Robert McHenry former Editor in Chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He's sick and tired of it and not going to take it any more :

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him." (from TechCentral Station)

Check it out, it's worth a read. What do you think? Technorati Tags: wikipedia

  • 1 min read

Apple Video iPod Strategy

For you Apple and iPod afficionados, here's an interesting article about what Apple might be up to, tying together various tantalizing hints into a good story:

"Apple's a shrewd operator. First, its spreads misinformation from the top - like how Steve Jobs famously slagged off media centre PCs in a conference call with financial analysts last year. "We might as well make it a toaster too," he said. "I want it to brown my bagels when I'm listening to my music," he said at the time. "And we're toying with refrigeration, too." (from APCMag)

  • 1 min read

More iPod stuff

Continuing my iPod thoughts, today I read that a lawsuit has been brought against Apple on the iPod nano screen scratching situation. So maybe there really is something going on. On my (recently dead) iPod, I did have plenty of mild scratching - I don 't know if the problem on the nano is any worse. I got to see one of the new Video iPods here at Pop!Tech. Another very impressive device from Apple. The screen is larger than you expect and the picture, watching a sitcom and listening to the audio over the ear buds, was remarkable! (BTW, in case you missed it, Walt Mossberg himself commented on my post recently about the iPod nano, clarifying that he didn't write about it because of my post. Duh.)

  • 1 min read

I am my own PR agency

Over the last week or so I've been working around the clock preparing for BlogBridge's appearance at the BlogOn 2005 conference in New York City. Contemplating this at the end of the first day, I have to say it's been a blast although quite different from what I've done in the past. This morning, before 7:00am I left my hotel on 23d Street for the half hour walk to the Copacabana. In my backpack was a computer, power supply, 250 1 page "sales sheets" (color fliers) and a bunch of business cards. I was headed for a 2 day conference where BlogBridge is being highlighted as one of Chris Shipley's BlogOn 2005 Innovators. An honor for us, and great visibility for BlogBridge. But the feeling was, "I am my own PR agency." Today was preceeded of two weeks of scrambling, tightening up the web site, the positioning, the FAQs. Pushing to get some last important refinements into the product. Finalizing the sales sheet, getting it printed at VistaPrint, dealing with a misprint and re-order. Preparing a series of Quicktime self running demos for when I wasn't at the demo station. Oh, yes, and it sas just me at the demo station the whole time It was a great day. I spoke with influential people. They listened and took notes. We had a big day of downloads. And I got universally positive feedback on what we are doing. Feels good!

  • 2 min read

Thinking about business models

Inquisitor is a really cool program that augments the search box in Safari (which for you heathens out there is the default Mac OS X web browser.) It's kind of hard to explain just what it does - it's kind of a magical word completion thingie that guesses, based on other searches and who knows what else , what you are going to search for. But I am not writing about Inquisitor, although I recommend it highly. Here's a post by it's author, Dave, who is trying to figure out how or whether he can make some money with his creation.

"Why am I considering pay-per-download? Well, one advantage is that it's far easier to do than a full-blown registration system. While the levy is very small, if everyone gives a little then everyone benefits. It seems more equitable that way. Alas, it is true that there's no solid way to enforce the levy. The software could be traded easily between friends or posted on an unauthorized website. The former I view as a form of viral marketing and the latter is traceable and can be dealt with as a clear-cut breach of license." (from David Watanabe's blog)

The question of when and how and how much to begin charging users of BlogBridge occupies me from time to time. Our core objective right now is to get BlogBridge into everybody's hands - everybody in our target market that is - so called "Infojunkies" or "Professionals." But this won't be forever. The beauty of a project such as this is that we can be clever, innovative or at least experimental so all new and different ideas are worth thinking about. Technorati Tags: blogbridge, businessmodel

  • 1 min read

Follow-up on my iPod Rant

After my rant a few days ago about the quality of new-fangled electronic gizmos I got various emails. Most interesting was this link to Walt Mossberg's comments about the scratching of the iPod nano's, where he says:

"If I were reviewing the nano today, I would still call it "the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested," as I did in my review. But I would include a strong, prominent, warning that it scratches too easily in normal usage. This is a real downside to an otherwise excellent product." (from Mossberg's Mailbox)

I can 't claim that my rant caused Walt to write this clarification, but it sure is timely. I haven't bought my nano yet, so I am going to wait, at least for a few weeks, to see what happens. One of the emails also pointed me to this David Pogue Video commentary on the nano. Funny. Technorati Tags: iPod

  • 3 min read

How long should a Treo 600 last? How about an IPod?

A confluence of five events:

  • My two year old Treo 600 stopped working : Despite my best efforts to revive it. Reboots, hard resets, new software - it was dropping calls all the time and had finally become unusable. Took it to the Sprint Store where their tech played with it for 1/2 hour and came to the conclusion that it was defective. As it was out of warrantee, my only option was to turn it back in to them for a $50 credit towards my next phone. There is no repair option. There is no authorized repair facility. This is a $400 device, 2 years old. Throw it out.

  • My two year old iPod stopped working: Despite my best efforts to revive it. Reboots, hard resets, new software - more and more often it would hang in the bootup mode, to the point now that it had become unusable. Took it to the Apple store where their tech played with it for 1/2 hour and came to the conclusion that it was defective. As it was out of warantee, I was basically SOL. Apple doesn't repair them and doesn't authorize any other repair.

  • Walt Mossbergstrongly endorsesiPod Nano.In fact he really really loves it. Walt Mossberg of course is one of the top journaists covering consumer electronics, computers and software. He's hard-core -- doesn't give any quarter when it comes to the user experience. Here's some of what he says: "… In fact, the nano has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested -- including the iconic original white iPod. And it sounds great. I plan to buy one…"

  • Palm Treo Owners sue Palmin a class action lawsuit: According to Om Malik, a frequent commentator and well known blogger: This just in…. things are getting decidedly bad in the Palm-land. Disgruntled users are suing the handheld/smart phone maker over all the technology related issues."

  • iPod nano Screens crack? This has been reported all over the place, up to the point that Apple (who never does this kind of thing) has agreed to replace some small set of nanos that they agree are defective.

Ok, so what do we make of this confluence of events? I was somewhat outraged at Sprint not taking responsibility for a 2 year old, $400 device simply ceasing to work. And I was somewhat outraged a few weeks later at Apple for not taking responsibility for a 2 year old, $350 device simply ceasing to work. In both cases they were like, "well it's out of warantee so of course we can't replace it." And I was, like, "I am not asking you to replace it, I'll be glad to pay to have it repaired." And they, "Well, we don't repair them." SOL. I guess my expectations are out of whack. I guess I should just plan that my multi-hundred dollar electronic gizmo is only good for 2 or so years. Shouldn't we expect more? If Walt Mossberg can be outraged at some piece of software being a little hard to use or crashing now and again, why not be as outraged at some piece of hardware not lasting more than 2 years? I think that should be a consideration before giving it two thumbs up? Technorati Tags: iPod, sprint