The Immigrant Song

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

In the depths of twittering a lot, I have not done a real, big think blog post in a couple weeks.  I apologize.  I'm deliberately publishing this before it's finished.  I want to think about this more.

But, perhaps it is with some sense of irony that I decided to write one about Nick Carr's piece Is Google Making Us Stupid?. I firmly believe that Google cannot make us stupid. Only we can make us stupid.

Carr makes some interesting observations about our changing behavior throughout the generations, noting the impact of the timepiece, scientific management, the printing press, as well as the Google.  My favorite, of these is the idea (with which I largely agree) that in the over scheduled life there is a debasement of our existence. The late great  Mitch Hedberg had a great bit about not wearing a watch, suggesting a meeting time with someone of "when that guy's eating a hamburger".  Which guy?  "You'll know." Being synchronous in our interactions and planning has made many things possible, but is this marked by a bond of obedience to the clock?

In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.

It is true that we have shed the sun's dominance of our life's rhythms, that we have adopted new ways of organizing life around the concept of time as being finite. 

So does this awareness of the finite nature of  our literal "life time" improve our degrade the qaulity of our lives?  Is electronic media, or the clock, or The Google somehow making us all worse off?  And is that all the more devious because it is couched as progress instead of a negative trend?

If you can't read a book anymore, I submit to you that I can.  I'm not bragging, but I love books and I think I will always love them.  Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule.

Books I have read this year (calendar 2008) so far:

Beneath the Tree of Heaven (Chung Kuo # 5)   

White Moon, Red Dragon (Chung Kuo # 6) 

Dry Ice by Stephen White

Currently reading (I don't usually read two books concurrently but it happens sometimes):

The Time Traveler's Wife

World War Z

So is it really true that we won't sit still to read anymore?  That's pessimistic, I think.  Is it the case that we can't appreciate a pace of life which does not revolve around the clock?  That we cannot unplug, unlearn, optimize our behavior to adopt new technologies without destroying ourselves?  I seem to be doing okay, if that';s any evidcence, and I hope we can all seek a third way, where we seek connection regardless of medium, and that leads to a balance between them all.  If there is a detrimental effect of not being able to unplug, then in my view it falls on the plugged in, not the plugs, to change their behavior.

 

videos + autoplay + Google Reader = ouch

I was reading my feeds in Google Reader (where I subscribe to the  NextNY blog), and I noticed that before I even got to it, the Social Shore vid from nextnyers started playing.  That is, I heard the audio but didn't know where it came from.

It seems that the video begins playing as soon as Google Reader pre-fetches the post.  I've known for some time that Google Reader will allow a video in a post to play while you scroll through the rest of the items so i began to do so while I listened to the audio, which was still playing.  Before long, even though I had not yet reached another video, the "mod my life" video started playing, and the audio was now running on top of the Social Shore audio. 

Never seen any other feeds react to Google Reader in this way- it's frustrating and it makes me want to avoid the feed.  I now see that this is the default site behavior- I wish nextnyers would think about changing that.

Norton places big bet on Mac virtualization vulnerabilities

I forgot how much I like Ars Technica.  They have great coverage of Apple technology, the kind I used to get in my MacWeek fix when I was a kid (back when I could tell you the specs of every NuBus or PowerPC Mac being made).  Here,. Ars points to  Norton places big bet on Mac virtualization vulnerabilities- basically now that you're running OSX and a virtualized WinXP or Vista, you'll need anti virus protection for both. 

I think this is a smart move considering that for those of us mac users who have Windows as a secondary OS, updates and patches might not be downloaded in a timely manner, and if you only run the OS for a couple minutes at time,
you're not going to want to spend it downloading updates.   So maybe my usual diligence with antivirus software (such as on my office machine) might not be the protection I think it is in a virtualized install. 

A strategy to watch.

Locking in Viewers to Watch the Commercials

Why does old media (music, movies,  and TV primarily) employ a strategy of making war on their customers?  In this piece about a Cox VOD service with un-skippable commercials.    They don't even bother to call it "fast-forward challenged"Some snippets from Locking in Viewers to Watch the Commercials:

You don’t need TiVo if you have fast-forward-disabled video on demand.
....
This is about combating DVRs.  As we developed this at every stage, there was an agreement that however we put this together, disabling the fast-forward function was key.

Sigh. Why is it necessary to make something less fucntional or DISABLE a piece of popular functionality in order to get it to sell?   Another cable industry "service" that will get zero traction.  Long live the economy of free! 

 

nextny 2 years later and nextAnalytics

A personal reflection on the last two years: nextNY was really quite helpful. I first heard about nextNY in February 2006 when I was looking for a new job, back when the NY Tech Meetup had fewer than 200 people attending.

Since then I've helped organize a few events, found a new job, and learned a lot of new things.  One of those things has been web analytics. 

So, I've decided to see who else within nextNY is struggleing with these issues, and what we can learn from each other, for the benefit of clients, financial backers, employees and partners. 

Check out the event wiki.

Microsoft & Netscape, after all these years

I'm just reblogging from Shelly Palmer's Mediabytes for contrast:

MICROSOFT  has made an unsolicited offer of $44.6 billion to purchase YAHOO,<snip>

and then at the bottom

NETSCAPE will be officially retired today by AOL.  All updates and support will stop, as the once industry-leading browser is laid to rest.  Farewell old friend.

So, on the day that Microsoft acquires a Dot-com original, the progenitor of so much search and web technology, AOL retires the browser that Microsoft set out to kill. Just coincidence there.

Microsoft clearly won the Netscape war, notwithstanding the lame DOJ result.  Will it win search?  Will it be able to unseat Google by acquiring all of Yahoo!'s eyeballs?

Time will tell.  Microsoft has a history of making the long play, and the eventual catch-up. We shall see.

Link: MediaBytes February 1, 2008 | MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer Video.

Destination unknown? I miss my MacBook

This mornign my work laptop died while I was giving a presentation.  The battery life has slowly degraded over the last 5 or 6 months, until this morning it lasted barely 40 minutes.  Meanwhile my MacBook Pro at home has no problem working for 3 hours...which I used to think wasn't very good.

And here is how bad things have gotten:

It doesn't even recognize the battery!  AAARGH!!!!!

UPDATE: Switched out the battery- we seem to be golden, now.

Late to the party- MacOS X Trojan

Is Gadi Evron right that "It's Mac season. The next two years will be interesting"? 

Saw this from Darren Herman's Ramblings page.  As a Mac user, I can't tell you how many false or useless codecs I've probably downloaded  since I started using MacOS X  in 2002, just to TRY to play the same media as Windows users could.  There is still no way to play Intel Indeo video on a Mac running OSX -  not that OS9 is an option. 

Mac users like me live in a world where things are improving (the Flip4Mac extensions for Quicktime which extend Quicktime player have been great), it can be frustrating.  Plus, if the vulnerability requires you to type the administrator password...well you have to do that pretty much when installing anything. 

So, the risk is probably real, but it won't be Klez or Blaster or anything like that, in its current form.  The day we get ActiveX on my Mac, I'll worry then.

 

Link: New Apple Trojan Means Mac Hunting Season Is Open.

twitter getting spammy?

I just got notified that a twitter of nothing but (apparently) marx brothers quotes was following me, along with two twitters of coupons and deals.  The NYC coupons look interesting and useful, the other random coupons look terrible.  I will not link to any of these, but I just think it is interesting to understand your own place in the social order through twitter. 

Dot-com names get dottier - Los Angeles Times

In an article vaguely reminiscent of the Dillon Edwards "There was only one web address available" SNL commercial parody  (vaguely NSFW) the LA Times reports (a bit late maybe) that .com name shave lost all sense of meaning.  I'm inclined to agree.  My favorite line from the story:

"Naming a company is like naming a celebrity," said serial entrepreneur Jared Kopf, who has helped christen companies including Adroll.com, his online advertising firm, and Slide, a Web photo service. "Made-up words don't come with psychological baggage."

Well played.  See also NBCU/News Corp new site, "hulu"- as soon as they let me into the private beta I'll share more.

   

Dot-com names get dottier - Los Angeles Times.

Yahoo Money Hemorrage

Yahoo Search appears to be down.  How much money do they lose per minute of outage?  A lot, I bet.

On Google's Dominance- Is Automated Advertising Missing The Point

Maurice Saatchi writes in the FT that the ROI optimization inherent in buying targeted and automated advertising on platforms such as Google's AdWords misses the larger point about the human role in audience persuasion.

Admittedly, Saatchi and  Saatchi is part of Publicis’s ( nearly $6bn in annual revenue) empire , and their offline media buying and planning business is probably a decent chunk of that.  But near the end, there is this snippet: 

Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practised by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere. They are the people that are needed to help advertisers navigate the internet because, as Aristotle knew 2,000 years ago: “Fire burns both here and in Persia. But what is thought just changes before our eyes. The decision rests with perception.”

 
I think this is an interesting question. If search advertising promises to present advertising messages only to those who show intent to purchase a product or service, is the search advertiser avoiding the true persuasive challenge of advertising? 

I'm tempted to think that any large advertiser would be foolish to fully ignore mass media campaigns and market research.  Metrics will have a place in advertising campaigns for the foreseeable future, but if Google's advertising platform gave advertisers the feeling that they left money on the table (in unrealized sales from persuasive campaigns), surely advertisers would start buying different ads?

nextny meebo room in my blog too

Disabled. that was getting annoying.

follow up on NextMadison Ave: Book recommendation

At NextMadisonAve Michael Hurt from Microsoft suggested that people take a look at Porter's Strategy, which is largely viewed as a definitive work on corporate strategy.  For a really interesting look at why some strategies succeed and others fail, especially when it comes to new technologies, I would suggest folks check out Michael Raynor's The Strategy Paradox, which includes in particular a discussion of why Microsoft has been so successful over the years.

Mr. Hurt admitted that Microsoft has to struggle with the idea of whether it is a software company or an internet company.  He also used the term "audience company" but I think one still needs to account for the idea of where one thinks the audience is, and many strategy scholars would see successful strategies as being built on a bet about where the audience is: the desktop or the internet, for example. Raynor points out that the beauty of Microsoft has been that senior management (C-level and above) has created opportunities for developing businesses on both online, desktop, (and mobile, and video game consoles) so that they are not betting one one future shift.  A classic hedge.

See Raynor's book for more detail on how creating strategic options at the highest levels of an organization allows individual business units to focus on committing to a strategy and executing their bold ideas.

Raynor's work deserves more coverage; look for more summaries of his insights in future posts.

SEO for Baby Names

From today's WSJ:

[W]hen Ms. Wilson, now 32, was pregnant with her first child, she ran every baby name she and her husband, Justin, considered through Google to make sure her baby wouldn't be born unsearchable. Her top choice: Kohler, an old family name that had the key, rare distinction of being uncommon on the Web when paired with Wilson. "Justin and I wanted our son's name to be as special as he is," she explains.

So that's what we've been reduced to, is it?  SEO for baby names?

Blackberry Thumb Massage

Thrillist has a great feature on a midtown NYC spa, Graceful Services and their remarkable set of therapeutic services for gadget related stress (physical stress, that is).  I had occasion  to get a massage last week, and I have to say that one of the best parts was just having my keyboard and BlackBerry Pearl - operating hands worked on. 

Online Video Monetization-oooh you scallywags

I just read in this AdAge piece that Brightcove is poised to be the syndication venue of choice for online video.  This kind of monetization opportunity is something I've wanted to see for a long time- I thought maybe Google video could make it work. 

I've been saying for about a year that there could be a business in a market making function- bringing content and viewers together at non-zero prices- that would be in everyone's interest..but I'm  not sure that Google video isn't better positioned and I'm also not sure it's even a business- what  are the margins like on online reservation platforms like SABRE etc?

In general, I think content owners are too paranoid to think straight about business opportunities in the download market. 

If the incremental revenue for a Dr. Who episode is zero when someone downloads a pirate copy but is X when someone watches a copy-protected stream from the BBC, the free copy wins the educated consumer with a little time on his hands (aka probably a majority of Dr. Who fans).  In my mind the issue is that content owners aren't willing to split the difference- as though introductory microeconomics ceased to exist for their products.  With smart pricing and a global content delivery network, this could be a killer, but buy-in from rights holders is a huge roadblock.   Sigh.

Services King of Chicago

Maitre D': You're Abe Froman?

Ferris: That's right, I'm Abe Froman.

Maitre D': The Sausage King of Chicago?

Ferris: Uh yeah, that's me.

Maitre D': Look, I'm very busy. Why don't you take the kids and go back to the clubhouse?

Ferris: Are you suggesting that I'm not who I say I am?

Maitre D': I'm suggesting that you leave before I have to get snooty.

Ferris: Snooty?

Maitre D': Snotty.

Ferris: Snotty?

[thanks wikiquote]

Someone sent me a link to a BusinessWeek story, "Could Apple Become Games Console King?" Just to put the fortune teller hats on, I think we ought to think back to when the Mac Mini was introduced, and everyone said it would be Apple's way to dominate the video home entertainment experience, esp. with Movies. The idea behind this seemed to be that the strategic move was quite clearly aimed at a video download type of environment.

 I'm going to pick Jan 2005 (the date of this "I, Cringely" column http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050120.html) as the date of collective conciousness of this strategy. So the  date of collective consciousness of the iTV/iGames strategy is September 2006.

How long before we get video games though ITMS?  Even if Apple is getting better at licensing, is in bed with Disney, and has plenty of great HW engineers, it is going to be a while, I think.  Not to mention waiting for 802.11n to be final.  It can't possibly take less time than the realization of the iTunes Movie Store.   Early 2008? That seems right to me.

If the PS3 ends up being as big an improvement over the PS2 as the PS2 was over the PS1, and the price settles a bit, I am not sure I bet on Apple to be the "Services King of Chicago" but Apple might sell a good bit of hardware...

Day 11 of the Fedex Monster

About a month ago, I discovered that a number of our invoices from dear ol' FedEx had shipments clearly not sent by anyopne ion my office.  Seems that Pape Diarra (near columbia University) sent Seneba Bone (Dakar Liberte, Senegal- on the western tip of Africa) 72.6 lbs of lord knows what.  There were  maybe a dozen shupments like this, to destinations in the US (viginaia, west virginia, Tennessee, Florida) all with shipper and recipient unknown to me. 

Our account number is in the wild somewhere.  Obviously, every day that goes by before our account is closed means that FedEX is performing a service for which it will never be paid.

Every customer service rep with whom I have spoken, and I bet there have been nearly 20 different ones, considering the number of phone calls, has been helpful and understood the seriousness of the situation.  However, seemingly as a result of our affiliation with a large research university, new acccounts must go through a specific account executive.  FedEX will not disclose his e-mail address or direct phone number, so all I can do is leave him two voice mails a day, which are unreturned.  I am at a loss.  I won't authorize payment on the airbills in question, but I can;t close the account until we have a new one.

Sigh.  What a shame for a company to treat us this way.

 

Note to self: fix categories in typepad interface.

Shorting eBay and Amazon

So I just noticed that the Skype protocol has apparently been cracked by engineers in China.  I immediately thought of the post on Mark Pincus's blog where he asks if he should short Ebay and go long on Amazon in equal amounts (swap).  Looks like that might be an even better idea, now.