Email Center Pro - New Video Introduction Launched

I work with a great group of people at Palo Alto Software developing a collaborative email application called Email Center Pro. Today, we unveiled a new video that introduces the service - it's featured on emailcenterpro.com. We love the video,it's fantastic, we've watched it dozens of times - it does a great job of communicating the problem Email Center Pro solves. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Credit: Principals - Jason Gallic (Email Center Pro Marketing Manager) worked with Christian Martel Atelier Transfert Design to produce the movie.

History of the Internet

Facebook Users = Country

How many users do you have? That's a question you hear a lot in the Tech Industry. Most people are really skilled at creatively inflating the number because users = money, success, influence, and more. If you're talking valuation in the Tech Industry it usually looks something like valuation = users * inflated user value.

Scanning my feed stream today I happened across a post by Mark Zuckerberg. If you don't know who Mark is - well, just stop reading this and go back to work. Mark wins the award, IMO, for best answer to the "How many users do you have?" question.

"Today, we reached another milestone: 150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. This includes people in every continent—even Antarctica. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria." -- Mark

Here's why I think Mark wins the award:

• He says "actively" and then backs it up with "almost half of them are using Facebook every day" - most people stretch the definition of "active" or don't even bother using it
• He gives the number of users real meaning and context by creating a country for them which happens to be larger than Japan, and Russia
• and it helps to have 150 million users
  

Email Center Pro - Collaborative Email

I spent quite a bit of my time in 2008 working on a collaborative email solution for the SMB market called Email Center Pro.

Email Center Pro is a web-based service that makes it easy for business people to collaborate on and manage "shared" email addresses like customerservice@ and info@. I like to say that Email Center Pro turns "shared" email addresses from "money takers" into "money makers" by improving response time and response quality.

We officially launched Email Center Pro in April of 2008 and since then we've been using feedback from our customers to rapidly evolve the service. Some of the new features we've added over the last eight months have been documented on the Dead Simple Software blog. I'm a big fan of our recent improvements to the way we display conversation history.

I'm really proud of of the way we've evolved the service this year and I think our subscribers appreciate the work we've been putting into the service. I'm looking forward to the continuing evolution of Email Center Pro in 2009.

FriendFeed and Twitter ROI for Robert Scoble?

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch thinks Robert Scoble needs a FriendFeed intervention. Michael believes Scoble's reputation as a "blogger" is suffering because he's spending too much time on FriendFeed and Twitter and not enough time on his blog. On Twitter Robert has nearly 45,000 followers and has written over 16,000 messages. On Friendfeed Robert has nearly 23,000 subscribers.

Scoble responds to the attempted intervention on his blog and on FriendFeed.

What do I think? I applaud Scoble for risking his reputation as a blogger to put the wider social network and micro-blogging to the test. I think Scoble has increased his influence in 2008 by establishing himself (and his brand) on FriendFeed and Twitter. I don't think it will take much effort on his part to get his Web 1.0 blog numbers back up again - if that's what he wants to do. I think Arrington is probably jealous that Scoble (essentially a one man shop) has him beat on the FriendFeed and Twitter metrics. Arrington is probably looking at 2009 wondering how he can catch up ; )

Keep up the good work Robert! I think your investment in FriendFeed and Twitter will pay off.

Azure Services Platform

Jason's 120% Solution

Pandora Ads Rock

I love Pandora. Pandora is a free Internet Radio service that uses the Music Genome Project to send you a constant stream of fresh tracks based on your music preferences. I love rocking out to the music streams Pandora sends my way every day.

The core music service Pandora offers is impressive but Pandora impresses in a lot of other ways.

Pandora's user interface contributes a lot to the success of the service. The user interface is beautiful and a pleasure to use.

Pandora is an ad supported service and I've always been impressed by the way they've integrated ads into the user interface. Ads are usually integrated into a website as an afterthought - slammed into the right margin or simply dumped into a header or footer. Pandora on the other hand integrates, or blends, the ad into the user interface. I think this makes the ad far more effective.

Recently, Pandora has been making more of the ads integrated into their service interactive. Today the HP TouchSmart ad really impressed me - it was beautiful and a pleasure to interact with. I think this type of ad is a very effective branding tool. Ads like this might not convert well on the spot but I do think they're great for brand building.

Where's the Exit?

Google Audio Indexing - Finally

Everymoment Counts

Everymoment Now is providing a new view of the 2008 general election. Excellent graphs shed some light on the media trends surrounding the general election a little more visible. The graph on the home page caught my attention for a minute or two. Plans are in the works to make use of the technology and ideas behind the site beyond the general election.

The current version of Everymoment Now is focused on the 2008 US General Election. When the election is complete we'll have 100 days of data leading up to November 4th. We feel that being able to look back over the election, to see where media shifts occurred and what stories had the greatest impact on the final outcome is pretty important and powerful.

Seth's Inbox Culture

Do you spend your day responding and reacting to incoming all day... until the list is empty? ... and then you're done. - Seth Godin

iPhone 2.01 Update Available

Drop.io Twitter Integration

iPhone 3G Availability

Disappointed iPhone Owners Abound

ScribeFire / Testing / Testing

ScribeFire, an extension of FireFox, enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into their blog(s), post entries, take notes, and optimize their ad inventory, directly through the Firefox browser.

Google DOCS / Google DOCS "Share this document" feature busted in Firefox 3.0

I was trying to share a Google DOC with two co-workers this morning and ran into this problem again in FireFox 3.0. Notice the strangely absent text box for your invites below Invite people? I had to load docs.google.com up in IE to share the DOC. Annoying - not the 1st time I've seen this problem. Pretty sure I experienced it in in FireFox 2.x for a while as well. Come on people.

iPhone 2.0 / emailing a geotagged picture to Flickr

Emailing a geotagged picture to Flickr doesn't work.

I've been trying to send geotagged pictures to my Flickr account via email. Guess what. iPhone 2.0 strips the EXIF data (that's where the geo tag is) out of the picture before it emails it. Dumb. Why? Security? iPhone users are way past the security issue. Flickr users are talking about it here. I hope Apple fixes this soon.

Update: lockergnome pointed me towards AirMe (available on Apple's AppStore) for geotagged uploads to Flickr.

iPhone 2.0 update - Tardy Developer

One of the guys on my team was late coming in this morning. Why? The iPhone 2.0 update didn't restore his recurring alarms. Damn, you Jobs. Were you late today because of your iPhone 2.0? Maybe I'm just a sucker ; )
--------------------------------------------

UPDATE:

Turns out the iPhone 2.0 upgrade did not copy over my recurring alarm
clock. Damn you, Jobs.

On Jul 14, 2008, at 10:00 AM, Alex Boone wrote:

> Hey guys-
>
> I feel really stupid but I overslept my alarm this morning (by a
> long shot). I'll be in the office ASAP.

iPhone 2.0 update = FRUSTRATION

Friday, July 11th, I loved Apple and hated Apple. I hated Apple because the iPhone 2.0 update bricked my iPhone for a good part of the morning. Restarting iTunes over and over again, hoping for a connection to the Apple update server, isn't my idea of a good time. I loved Apple for the App Store and adding Microsoft Exchange support to the iPhone.

By the end of the day, I was impressed, and felt good about the update. I was still an Apple fan.

After having spent the weekend with the update I'm frustrated. Battery life is a problem for me now and it wasn't before and for some reason the phone likes to shut down completely when I leave it alone for too long. Most likely, some of these problems can be attributed to one, or more,  of the 3rd party applications I downloaded from the App Store. But shouldn't Apple do a better job of protecting the core of the phone from poorly written App Store applications? After all, they do a pretty job of protecting the core of the U.I. from poorly written applications.

iPhone 2.0 might have more bling but iPhone 1.0 was a better phone. iPhone 2.0 will get better with time but I won't be too surprised if some people want their iPhone 1.0 back. Did Apple add too much bling to iPhone 2.0? Apple, remember this, in the end - it's a phone. Still an Apple fan.

1st Apple AppStore Purchase

I just purchased my 1st iPhone app through the Apple App Store. What did I buy? Joe Kueser's Fuel Gauge (iTunes link) for .99 cents. Fuel Gauge is currently #9 on the App Store Top 25 list. I'm going to use it to see just how much gas my 84 Toyota Land Cruiser is sucking down.

The purchase process was amazingly easy. I think the App Store and more importantly the iPhone apps are going to fuel some major growth in Apple's share of this market. Contrasting this experience with my experience installing apps on Microsoft-based SmartPhones - no comparisson.

IMO, developers are going to flock to this platform because it does so much to provide the commerce infrastructure and it doesn't take a whole lot (because Apple provides so much in terms of U.I. guidance and coding tools) to write something that's pretty handy for the iPhone.

WOW - I'm really impressed with the 2.0 upgrade so far. I'm also really like the addition of Microsoft Exchange Support - it's interfacing with our Zimbra server perfectly.

iPhone 2.0 update = Error

Accessing iTunes Store........
Accessing iTunes Store........
Accessing iTunes Store........
Accessing iTunes Store........

Error

Early this morning, I anxiously slipped my battle hardened 1st GEN iPhone into the warm embrace of its' docking craddle this morning to receive the update we've both been anticipating for so long. Nearly shaking, I clicked the button to check for an update in iTunes hoping that the coveted update would be available to my anxiously waiting iPhone. It is! Hooray! I clicked the appropriate buttons to start the update process and sat back to check email and sip my steaming coffee. It's going to be a good day. The stock market might be coming apart on bad news from the mortgage companies and increasing oil prices but the iPhone 2.0 update is here so it's all good.

Error We could not complete you iTunes Store request. An unknown error occurred (-4)
There was an error in the iTunes Store. Please try again later.

Crap, maybe the world really is coming unglued. Now I'm stuck without a phone and I feel like my trusted iPhone doesn't know who I am anymore. Will it wake up and remember me? Come back friend. My coffee is cold now and it's NOT all good here.

I'm not the only one - there are others.

UPDATE 07/11 9:47AM P TIME: Getting some traction with the iTunes store. Restoring and activating now - looks like my phone an I are going to be OK.

UPDATE 07/11 10:11AM P TIME: Still having problems with iTunes and connecting to the iTunes Store but my phone managed to Activate and Restore.

3G iPhone?

Pogue, Mossberg, and Baig 3G iPhone reviews appear. Shiver me timbers. What's the verdict? Good summary of their reactions over on CNET's Crave blog. Personally, I think I'm going to see if the software upgrade for my 1st generation iPhone can meet my needs before I consider the upgrade. Also, I'm kind of interested in finding out how long my 1st generation iPhone can take the abuse before it fails.

What are you going to do?

Well done Netflix

Tag Galaxy - a new way to search Flickr

Puppet Interviews - Dove Deeper

Puppet Interviews

Yahoo! IM for MAC

TransferBigFiles

Obama Ads

Drop.io

Drop.io enables you to create simple private exchange points called "drops."

Searching Gmail

Lists of Twittering journalists - good people to Follow

Viewzi

My money is on Craigslist

firefly demo on scripting.com

New Google Reader for iPhone

R2-D2 Projector / Awsome

PC World Reviews Email Center Pro

Applause: Blaine Cook

I'm clapping for Blaine Cook, x lead architect for Twitter, and I'd like to thank Blaine for all the hard work he put into making Twitter what it is today. Twitter may be experiencing some growing pains but I think Blaine is catching more flack for the problems this week than he deserves. Throw out a Tweet for Blain and thank him for all of his hard work - attach the hash tag #thankyoublainecook. Blain's website - includes phone number and email address if you're looking for his contact info.

Related: Silicon Alley Insider: Lead Architect Blaine Cook Out at Twitter

Charlie Rose Interviews Charlie Rose About Technology

Creating Infectious Engagement

The Stanford d.school is hosting a free mini-conference on Creating Infectious Engagement May 6th from 3:30 to 6. The event is open to the public and it is a great opportunity to connect with smart people and benefit from everything the Creating Infectious Engagement team is working on. I will be attending the Stanford Managing Teams for Innovation and Success Executive Education program June 1 - 6.

Our Stanford d.school class on Creating Infectious Engagement is holding a conference next Thursday May 1st from 3:30 to 6:00 that is open to the public.  We have some great speakers lined-up who will talk about what it takes to spread good ideas. Please RSVP to Joe Mellin at ciersvp@gmail.com if you will be joining us, as we need to plan for food.  The conference is in the new d.school space in building 524 in the learning theatre. A big thanks to Joe for designing this wonderful poster.  Please send it along to your friends!

NOTE for the Creating Infections Engagement class: I discovered this event in Guy Kawasaki's Twitter stream.  Lot's of streams (Twitter, Flickr, Blogs) feeding the rivers (FriendFeed, Facebook, TechMeme) which feed the ocean (national media) these days. Interesting stuff.

Email Center Pro Launch Week

In March, I blogged about a new product we're working on at Palo Alto Software called Email Center Pro.

I’m happy to announce that we’re officially launching Email Center Pro (ECP) this week. You can read more about the launch in my recent post on the Dead Simple Software blog. Or here, and here, and here.

If you missed the chance to grab a beta account, don’t freak out, you can still kick the tires by signing up for a FREE account. We're all very excited about this launch - so come on over and check it out.

Internet Tubes Plugged by 2010 Says AT&T

U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010.

c|net AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

image from: Google Blogscoped

Soocial Hassle Free

South Park Internet Stars Massacre

iPhone - Wallpaper

I spent some time over the weekend personalizing my new iPhone - new wallpaper was 1st on my shopping list. Here's what I picked up.

Flickr iPhone Wallpaper Group: Almost 10,000 iPhone ready wallpaper images - I'm sporting Ininja on my walls.

Iconfactory : Freeware : Desktop: A great collection of illustrated iPhone ready wallpaper images - click the iPhone icon to download.

Getting the wallpaper up on the walls of my new iPhone took no time at all. Syncing photos to an iPod or iPhone is easy. 

iPhone - Got one

Homer - is that you?

pixeloo, a Photoshop professional, answers the question - what would Homer Simpson look like if he was real? This pretty much freaked me out completely. Want more detail?

Email Center Pro

Palo Alto Software, the company I work for, is getting ready to launch a new product called Email Center Pro (ECP) next month and we're all very excited about it.

For more than a decade we've been focused on our business planning software product, Business Plan Pro, so some people will think ECP is a bit off course for us. So why did we decide to build it and take the chance? Simple. We think it can help people succeed in business and helping people succeed in business is what we're all about - it's our mantra. Business Plan Pro, for obvious reasons, has helped a lot of people succeed in business and we feel really great about that. ECP does it in a less direct way but it will help you improve the way you run your business and increase your chances of success.

Email Center Pro helps you manage shared email addresses like sales@yourcompany.com and info@yourcompany.com. It provides your team with easy access to these email accounts by creating web-based shared mailboxes that the whole team can access. You can assign messages, track conversations, add notes to messages, and use templates to respond to messages in consistent ways. You can efficiently manage more email and deliver better quality responses to your customers. See - it will help you improve the way you run your business. At Palo Alto Software, our customer services teams use ECP every day and our business is better for it.

You can learn more about the product by visiting the Email Center Pro website. If you're interested in a Beta account - leave a comment explaining why you need the product and I'll hook you up. 

twhirl

Vista Ultimate Dreamscene

I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate at home and bumped into a cool new feature available to Ultimate users as an Ultimate Exclusive. The feature is called Dreamscene and it makes it easy to replace your boring static wallpaper with exciting dynamic wallpaper - apparently, without taxing your system resources too much. If you're an Ultimate user and good about downloading updates (even the optional updates) it's probably already installed; if you don't already have it installed, you can use Windows Update to download and install Dreamscene. While you're updating - grab the Dreamscene Content Pack as well.

Instructions for activating Windows Vista Ultimate Dreamscene:

1. Right-click the desktop
2. Select Personalize from the menu that appears
3. Select Desktop Background on the Personalizaton screen
4. Select Windows Dreamscene for Picture Location on the Desktop Background screen
5. Select a Dreamscene, your background will update, click Ok after you settle on a Dreamscene for your background. NOTE: If you don't have the Content Pack installed, you will only see one Dreamscene in the list of available Dreamscenes. The Content Pack brings the number closer to ten.

Dreamscene is working pretty well for me on my modestly equiped Lenovo laptop so far. I like the liveliness it brings to the background - I have a rainy day scene running for my background. Oh, Dreamscene is also smart enough to go into a static state when the laptop is running on battery power. If you are a Vista Ultimat user - it's worth a look.

   (Vista Dreamscene: Select "Windows Dream Scene" for Picture Location)

BigDog. My next dog?

Boston Dynamics is working to build my next dog, and DARPA.mil is funding it. Not really.

But check this crazy thing out - it's called the BigDog and it got BITE. You can see why the military is partially funding the project. Imagine how scared you'd be to sit around a fire with all of your buddies from the axis-of-evil club in the middle of the dessert if you knew a bunch of BigDog units with laser guided guns and titanium teeth were running around looking for you with infrared eyes and super sniffers. [via]

Google Apps - Sneaking up on MS Office?

I'm a big fan of Google Apps. If you check my browser history you'll see a lot of action around docs.google.com. I think Google Apps is sneaking up on the flank side of MS Office for the sneak attack - but I'm an early adopter and smart enough to realize that I don't represent the masses. MS Office still owns the lion's share of the office productivity market. Bernard Lunn, a self described "later early adopter," writes today on "Why Google Apps is a Serious Threat to Microsoft Office."

This is the perspective of a “skeptical, later early adopter”; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don’t spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze. [continue reading]

In his post, Bernard does an excellent job of summarizing some of the key reasons more and more people are logging into docs.google.com. Collaboration, and mobile access are two of the key reasons.

Microsoft managers, patting themselves on the back for cooking-up a nice marketshare pie chart, need to keep one thing in mind - a lot of current Office users are dabbling in docs.google.com - at some point, the tipping point, they'll stop adding Office to the cart when they're configuring a new machine because docs.google.com is good enough. I have Office on both of my machines at the office and I spend more time in docs.google.com than I do Office.

Gotta DIGG! - The Song - Viral Promotion Tactic

Microsoft Auto

Office Live Workspaces Beta Announced - Snore

Scoble posted a video interview yesterday with a couple managers from the Office Live Workspaces (OLW) team - they talk about the service, the future of the service, and walk us through a demo. Microsoft announced the BETA for (OLW) yesterday. Sign-up here if you're in to this kind of thing - Windows Live ID required. Personally, I have very little need for a service like OLW.

Office Live Workspaces is an improvement over previous versions of Office Live which were more small business oriented and very SharePoint like but the service has a huge anchor tied to it - it requires Microsoft Office.

I have multiple copies of Office 2003 and 2007 so I'm by no means an Office hater but I use Word and Excel less and less as the months pass. Instead, I'm using services like Google DOCS and Google Calendar more and more. Why? Primarily, because I can access the services from almost anywhere without any system requirements other than a decent internet connection and a browser. Access from anywhere is important to me because I use multiple computers on a daily basis - I simply can't afford to spend time keeping client-side software current on all these machines.

Collaborative functionality is another major reason why I'm using services like Google DOCS more and more. If I need to collaborate on a document with a team, I'm going to use Google DOCS. I'm done passing Word and Excel files around in e-mail - constantly trying to track changes and a mess of files with files names that get more and more creative as the collaborative process continues.

Microsoft is losing the ability to provide me with products that work the way I want to work. I understand why they have to protect Office - it's a cash cow and all that - but that huge anchor is going to really screw them up in the long-term if they can't put it down and move Office forward at a faster pace and in a revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary way. How hard would it really be for Microsoft to offer the Office suite as 100% web-based solution? I'd pay for that and they'd probably get more out of me over the years than they do currently for Office.

Office Live has been in the works for two years - a good decisive strategic decision to make Office available in the cloud two years ago would have Microsoft in a better position today. Make the decision and implement guys before it's too late. Office Live Workspaces - Snore.

Joel Spolsky and Fog Creek Send 37Signals Passive Call For Help

Joel Spolsky, CEO of Fog Creek Software and author of the popular Joel on Software blog, wrote a post the other day that would piss me off if I was Jason Fried - Jason is one of the founders of 37Signals which publishes a bunch of very successful web-based software applications.

In Joel's post, Where there's muck, there's brass, he starts off talking about how everybody has a "gnarly problem" - spending way too many words talking about bread and his childhood; which he apparently spent making bread.

    Work that makes you unhappy is what I mean by "a gnarly problem." - Joel

He goes on to say that the market pays for solutions to "gnarly problems." Apparently, one of Fog Creek Software's gnarly problems is getting their bug tracking product, FogBugz, to run on their customers' own servers. FogBugz is available in hosted and "serve yourself" configurations. Fog Creek deals with the "gnarly problem" of getting FogBugz to run on their customers' own servers because apparently the market is willing to pay for it. This is where Jason and 37Signals come in.

Earlier in the week Jason published a post titled Installable software? - a response to a question re: whether or not 37Signals had plans to produce installable versions of any of their applications. Jason's response - unlikely. You can read his post if you want to know the details of the why. Here's a summary of the why.

If we built installable software we’d have to spend a lot more of our time on technical support, write a lot more documentation, slow down our development process, and lose a fair bit of control over our customer experience. For some companies this wouldn’t be a big deal, but for us it would be a real drag. - Jason

So unless they (37Signals) deliberately want to keep the company small, which is a perfectly legitimate desire, they might eventually lose their reluctance to do things that seem gnarly. - Joel

The one thing that so many of today's cute startups have in common is that all they have is a simple little Ruby-on-Rails Ajax site that has no barriers to entry and doesn't solve any gnarly problems. So many of these companies feel insubstantial and fluffy, because, out of necessity (the whole company is three kids and an iguana), they haven't solved anything difficult yet. Until they do, they won't be solving problems for people. People pay for solutions to their problems. - Joel

FogBugz began it's life as installable software. Today, FogBugz is available as a hosted solution. More people still buy the installable version over the hosted version but that's starting to change. I think Fog Creek will see more and more of their customers moving to the hosted solution. I think Fog Creek developers will start to favor the hosted version over the installable version. The installable version will eventually go away.

I'm sure Joel - like a lot of software publishers is feeling vulnerable. Maybe that's why he lashed out. Technical barriers to entry are coming down - it's getting to the point where it's pretty easy (and inexpensive) for a few kids and an iguana (Joel's words) to reverse engineer a software application and drop it on a server somewhere. Fog Creek is better off if their customers think "installable" is a requirement - that's harder to copy - there's a barrier there. These days, it's less about the software and more about marketing. That's a hard thing for some software publishers, especially the veterans, to get their head around.

Joel should probably be taking advice from Jason as opposed to sending it in the other direction. I'm in FogBugz (the installable version) and Basecamp hours per week and FogBugz could use a little love from 37Signals. Oh and we're still trying make time to upgrade our FogBugz installation - it's becoming a gnarly problem for us.

Lessig On TED

The post Copyright Extremism Begets Extremist on Tim Berry's blog, Planning, Startups, Stories, pointed my browser towards a TED presentation by Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig, very eloquently, uses a series of historical stories to support his argument that existing copyright law is impeding creative expression in a digital world. Lessig did a good job of presenting the problem, a potential solution (CC), and hope that things will change in the future if history has anything to say about it (BMI).

Copyright law, like patent law, needs to be reformed. It's broken and it's stifling the creators. Given the importance of IP to our economy; you'd think this would be a higher legislative priority. Unfortunately, I think the legislative branch isn't equipped to keep up with the speed of the information economy. Reform will start at the source (the creators) and work it's way up through the system. Will? Has.

More Photos on Facebook Than Flickr

Office Snapshots

[picture credit - Eddie Codel]

If you enjoy peeping into the offices of hot tech companies - a new blog, Office Snapshots, is sure to please. Companies like DIGG, Ning, Facebook, and Jaiku have already been profiled. The Office Snapshots crew is getting through closed doors - a lot more than shots of the lobby and receptionist here.

Plaxo - Do you know You?

Do you know You? The Plaxo Connections system asked me that question today and I got a laugh out of it. It's a good question though in the context of the growing on-line "social" networking craze. How many of the Friends in your on-line social network really know You? Do you know You better as a result of the time you spend in on-line social networks? Unfortunately, I think most of today's on-line social networks, make it dfficult for you and your Friends to know You.

What's "Open Social" All About

If you haven't heard about Google's Open Social yet - you will shortly, it's launching tomorrow. Mark Andreesen's post today does a great job of summarizing what Open Social is all about. His social network company, Ning, is one of the participating "containers" so he's a biased but I think his post benefits from his "insider" perspective. I'm interested to see how Facebook reacts. Will Open Social strengthen or weaken your Friendverse?

-------------- 

In a nutshell, Open Social is an open web API that can be supported by two kinds of developers:

• "Containers" -- social networking systems like Ning, Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, and Friendster, and...
• "Apps" -- applications that want to be embedded within containers -- for example, the kinds of applications built by iLike, Flixster, Rockyou, and Slide.
  
  Source - BLOG.PMARCA.COM

--------------

Dare Obasango: OpenSocial: Google Proposes Widget & RESTful API Standards for Social Networking Sites "This is a brilliant move. - Dare Obasango"

Giga Om: OpenSocial, Google’s Open Answer to Facebook "OpenSocial attacks Facebook where it is the weakest (and the strongest): its quintessential closed nature. - Om Malik"

Anil Dash: Blackbird, Rainman, Facebook and the Watery Web "Think of the web, of the Internet itself, as water. Proprietary platforms based on the web are ice cubes. They can, for a time, suspend themselves above the web at large. But over time, they only ever melt into the water. And maybe they make it better when they do. - Anil Dash"

TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/google/ 

palmit.commentary post: Friendverse Weakens

Updated 11/01/07

Mark Andreesen is back with another Open Social post today and this one includes an excellent screencast summarzing Open Social and what it's going to do for social networks by providing a real-world example. Additionally, Google announced today that MySpace and Six Apart are joing the growing Open Social network.

Screencast:

http://networkcreators.ning.com/video/video/show?id=492224%3AVideo%3A93279

Web 2.0 Patterns

PodTech.net produced an interesting interview with James Governor (RedMonk) and Duane Nickull (Adobe) at Adobe Max '07 in Barcelona where they talk about Web 2.0 design patterns and their upcoming book on the subject. Their discussion about design patterns and how they're used in the very dynamic Web 2.0 ecosystem is interesting and worth watching.

From the Archives: Windows Vista Packaging Patched

Joel, over at Joel on Software, wrote today about his less than fantastic experience with the new Office 2007 packaging. Back in February of this year I wrote about my less than fantastic experience with the Vista packaging. I thought I'd pull that post back up to the surface in this "From the Archives" post. Enjoy. Microsoft. Suck this up and stop repeating your mistakes. Hire new uber-packaging experts.

---- From the Archives, February 2007, Windows Vista Packaging Patched ----

Earlier this week I came across a Windows Vista Ultimate package here in the office and discovered something interesting - a U.I. flaw in what was probably an uber-expensive package designed by uber-packaging experts from all corners of the world.

I saw the package sitting on a co-worker's desk and was immediately interested. I've worked on designing software packages in the past so a package like the Windows Vista package that is obviously going to be well funded and the product of hundreds of hours of experience deserves some attention. I picked up the package, looked at the front, looked at the back, and proceeded to open it. To my surprise, and some embarrassment because my co-workers were watching, I had a hard time getting it opened. I don't remember how long it took me to get it opened but I do know it was way longer than it should have been. Even after I got it opened, using what appears to be a last-minute hack, I had difficulty opening and closing the package. Is this for real? How many of these packages is Microsoft shipping? Did they test this at all?

The hack I referred to is illustrated in the photo I took below. The little red piece of tape attached to the top of the package can't be part of the original design but without it I would have been really stuck. I'm sure the last minute hack was subject to protest on the designers part - it's ugly. Did Microsoft "Patch" the Windows Vista package? We'll probably never know.

By the way, I passed the package around the office for a little in-house usability testing and a lot of really smart people turned red trying to get the Windows Vista package opened in front of a crowd. That's bad design - period.

Has anybody else had this experience? If so, comment.

Does anybody know who designed the package? If so, comment.

Related:

I found this post on the Windows Vista Team Blog that, after having seen the package for myself, is almost comical.

TripAdvisor Buys Facebook Application "Where I've Been" for 3 Million

Wow, it looks like travel site TripAdvisor has acquired Facebook application "Where I've Been" from creator Craig Ulliot for 3 million. Less than two months ago Craig could barely afford to keep the app. up. "I have 250,000 users, now what?"

In what is by far the largest Facebook application acquisition to date, travel company TripAdvisor has reportedly acquired Where I've Been from Craig Ulliott for $3 million. -- Inside Facebook

This acquisition is going pump a lot of developer talent into the Facebook platform. Congratulations Craig - the best programmer!

Breaking: palmit.commentary acquired by New York Times

I'm pleased to announce that palmit.commentary has been acquired by the New York Times for an undisclosed amount of (love that smell) cash.

The New York Times, smartly, rushed palmit.commentary to the top of their list of blogs to acquire. As many of you know, they just acquired the blog Freakonomics. More blog acquisitions are expected as part of the recently updated New York Times "stay relevant" business strategy. The acquisition was quick and painless - the whole transaction happened via PayPal and IM.

We're working on integrating palmit.commmentary into the New York Times design template for acquired blogs. They said something about needing to spell-check my blog and make it look more like a newspaper but I expect to see my content on The New York Times soon. It will probably look a lot like this [[blogs.nytimes.com acquired blog template]]

Scoble Inside Twitter Headquarters

Scoble gets inside Twitter headquarters. Scoble posted An inside look at Twitter yesterday, a video interview on the scene at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, featuring pretty close to the entire staff. There's a lot of good stuff in this interview. Scoble covers everything from their recent round of funding to the technology under the hood at Twitter. Worth watching if you're at all interested in Twitter and services like it - or Web 2.0 bubble companies for that matter ; )

My Twitter Profile. My take on Twitter and services like it - there's a future in the micro-blogging format but I don't really have a use for it in my life or work today. My Friendverse doesn't Tweet so that makes the service pretty useless as far as I'm concerned. Following events or popular people using the service just isn't my thing. Connecting it to SMS just makes my Q really annoying.

Internet Crash

I can't believe it - it actually happend - the Internet Crashed! Ted Stevens was right - the tubes just aren't big enough to handle it all. Sorry for the lack of posts lately folks - more important things going on at the moment.

Friendverse Weakens

There's a rift forming in your Friendverse and you need to close it before it destroys the social fabric that holds your Friendverse together. The Friendverse is the invisible bond that connects you with your friends - the people you really know, like, and trust.

friend n. - A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.

Yesterday, I was part of a blog conversation about the need for a standard that makes "Friend" lists more portable. Moving from one social network to another, Twitter to Pownce for example, can be a frustrating experience because you have to re-build your "Friend" list every time you move. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take your "Friend" list with you when you move to, or start ,a new social network? The experience is especially frustrating for the socialites that have thousands of supposed friends - people like Robert Scoble who boast "Friend" lists numbering in the thousands. Yes, a standard that makes these lists more portable would be nice but maybe we should be looking at the way we're "Friending" before we start developing a system to support meaningless "Friend" lists.

I've received multiple "Friend" requests from Twitter users that have "Friend" lists numbering in the thousands. The same thing happens to me on Facebook. I completely ignore most of these requests because I don't like the idea of "Friending" people I don't know, like, or trust. I should be able to invite a "Friend" over for dinner. A "Friend" would come to my funeral. Don't you want to know someone, at least a little, before you add them to your "Friend" list? I guarantee you this, Robert Scoble has people on his "Friend" lists that he wouldn't associate with in the real world.

I believe my Friendverse should be based on real relationships, a true reflection of my real world social network. I think people with "Friend" lists numbering in the thousands aren't respecting their Friendverse. Not respecting your Friendverse, letting that rift form, can have real world consequences. Your real world friends, that crucial support network, will weaken as your expanding and meaningless "Friend" lists consume your time, weakening your social network. Your real world friends will begin to question their value in your social network as they become one of thousands that call you a "Friend." If you have thousands of "Friends," what does that make them? A "special" friend, a "best" friend, a "real" friend? If you don't give your Friendverse the respect it deserves you'll end up with a very weak social network and few real world friends.

So perhaps we should stop looking for ways to expand and transport meaningless "Friend" lists and instead focus on building a meaningful and rich Friendverse. People we like, know, and trust.

I Want an iPhone - David Pogue - NYTimes

comScore Releases Facebook Metrics

comScore recently released updated Facebook metrics. The 25-34 age group is growing faster than any other group - 181% year-over-year. Obviously, open registration and a very developer friendly platform are contributing to this growth. The Facebook crew has managed to almost double their unique visitors year-over-year - 26.6 million visitors in May 2007. I've started building my Facebook profile. Have you?

Rich Tech 10

iPhone - Can you hear it now?

A next generation web browser and UI really DOES need a next generation network to deliver the next generation mobile web.

iPhone - 700,000 Sold Over Weekend

Apple over the weekend sold more than 700,000 iPhones to rocket past analyst predictions and shatter AT&T's record by selling more iPhones in three days than Motorola's RAZR did in its first month.

The iPhone Review

If you're going to read one iPhone review, read this one.
iPhone Review - Engadget

Steve Gillmor On iPhone

Steve Gillmor's quick-take on the iPhone. Happy or not? Watch the embedded video below and find out. By the way, I'm loving my Motorolla Q on the Verizon network. The iPhone might be great but the network counts for a lot - complaints from switching Verizon customers, accustomed to Verizon's great network, are already coming in. For me, a network with excellent sound quality, coverage, and reliability is more important than the phone. Can you hear me now? I'm not knocking the phone, I'm knocking the network it's tethered to.

Tim Berry and iPhone Drama

Tim Berry: iPhone as Classic Drama - Business on The Huffington Post

Tim Berry, founder and President of the company I work for, has an excellent post up on the Huffington Post about the launch of the iPhone and drama surrounding it. Tim's perspective on the iPhone launch is especially interesting because of his history with Apple in the 80s and his involvement in their business planning.

I'm eagerly awaiting the iPhone introduction, but not just because I want one. I'm looking forward to the drama of Jobs, Apple, and cool gadgets vs. the stock market and financial analysis. I'm hoping that Apple and Steve Jobs can establish coolness as a wild-card measure of long-term health in a stock market world ruled by short-term metrics like gross margins and last quarter's earnings. It's a classic drama, complete with a hero, a fatal flaw, and, I hope, final redemption.

Name Our Baby

We have kids and we're fortunate to have another one on the way. I don't talk about my family here on palmit.commentary and I intend to keep it that way - no, you can't name our baby. I go a kick out of this Blaugh comic though - not too far from reality for some blogging parents. Don't let your community name your baby and don't optimize your baby name for Google search ranking.

Motorola Q vs iPhone

I ordered a Motorola Q on Tuesday from my cellphone provider - Verizon. The Q is coming my way via FedEx, I should have it by tomorrow. The Q is replacing my Motorola RAZR, which I'm quite fond of, but needs at the office necessitate the upgrade. The upgrade also means I won't be getting an iPhone any time soon. Some of you might find this surprising considering my recent iPhone posting frenzy.

Why did I opt for the Q over an iPhone?

1. Cost. The Q, $179 - the iPhone, $499, or $599. 2. Proven track record. The Q is a great phone and a reasonably good PDA - it has the track record to prove it. The iPhone might suck. Even if it doesn't V 2.0 will be better. I'm going to give Apple some time to make it better and cost less. 3. Windows Ecosystem. I live in the Windows world and so does the Q - it remains to be seen how well the iPhone will do in a Windows world. 4. Verizon. Verizon provides the best all-around service of any carrier I've ever used. The phones work, I get great coverage, they don't drop calls, and their customer service is excellent. Switching from Verizion to AT&T (which I've had bad experiences with) for an iPhone isn't worth it. 5. Zimbra. We're switching to a Zimbra mail setup at the office - I know the Q supports Zimbra Mobile - the iPhone may not. 6. Microsoft Outlook. I spend a lot of time in Microsoft Outlook. The Q has great support for Outlook - the iPhone may not.

I'm still a big fan of Apple's products. I have an iPod and I use it almost everyday. I still really like the iPhone and I hope it's great. I'm just waiting for a V 2.0 that's better (more storage, better carrier options, a replaceable/extendable battery) and less expensive. The 1st iPod shipped in 2001 with 5g of storage - today, for the same money, you get 80g of storage and a much better product. I'm going to wait - at least a year. More to come on my Moto Q experience.

Update 06/21/07

See Apple already working on cheaper variants of iPhone 

iPhone Optically Excellent and Energized - Now in Hybrid ; )

CUPERTINO, California - June 18, 2007 - Apple today announced that iPhone will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback. In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours - more than 10 days - of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.

Father's Day Picaboo Photo Book

It's Father's Day here in the United States today and my most excellent family surprised me with a beautiful photo book from Picaboo.com. The photo book is hard-bound and the photo pages are excellent quality. My wife was able to insert her own custom captions and text to give the book a very personal touch. This is the 1st time we've used an on-line service for something like this and we're both impressed with the quality of the book and Picaboo's service as well. A friend passed a promotion code over to my wife last month so she gave it a shot - we got a $29.99 photo book for $8.99 including shipping - great deal. We're also planning on giving competing sevices like Scrapblog and Blurb a shot. I'd really like to get more of our pictures off of the computer and back into the real-world where people can enjoy it. Happy Father's Day Dads!

ZOHO Creator Rocks

Jason Calacanis - The Crisis We're Facing on the Internet

Well, I think the wisdom of the crowds is beneficial, for sure. But I think that there is a limitation to everybody having a voice in something. If everybody has a voice, then you end up with something average. If everybody participated in the making of a movie, it wouldn't be so good. But if you give Scorcese total control, it can end up brilliant - so there's really a limit to how far you can push the wisdom of crowds. -- Jason Calacanis

iPhone Available 6 p.m. June 29th Your Time Zone

Mac Rumors Featuring iPhone Details from AT&T Traing Manual

On Friday Mac Rumors published a series of, what appear to be, scanned copies of an AT&T iPhone training manual. They do a good job of summarizing the scans (so you won't have to wreck your eyes trying to read them) and the scanned copies are available as well. Apparently, someone that goes by cindynjgirl79 sent them the scans. The Google search on cindynjgirl79 produces some interesting results - maybe this is cindynjgirl79's MySpace page - it's 3rd in the results. There aren't going to be a lot of surprises left when the iPhone ships on June 29th.

Apple Jesus Phone

Google Calendar Directory Released

Indie iPhone Ad Spacetacular

Techmeme vs. Scoble's Link Blog

Jeff Han Unveils High-Resolution Multi-Touch Computer

Google Gears

David Sacks // It's the Bread, Not the Peanut Butter

David Sacks, the founder and CEO of Geni, wrote an interesting post for TechCrunch today titled The New Portals: It's the Bread, Not the Peanut Butter. David writes about the evolution of the "Portal" site and theorizes that Facebook and sites like it, where your social network provides you with relevant information, are the next step in the evolution of the "Portal" site. Interesting theory.

For the last several years, Yahoo, MSN and AOL have all suffered a declining share of pageviews, but that does not mean the portal is going out of style. Rather it has been redefined, first by Google, and now by Facebook in potentially even more profound ways.

Nissan Robot Takes Japan

A robot ,developed by Nissan and Shoji Kawamori in Japan, apparently is loose in Tokyo - Ginza, last know location. Picture and video appear below. More at PinkTentacle.

Google Trends

Google buys Feedburner for $100M

Valleywag - Arrington = Mickey Mouse

Arrington is like Mickey Mouse, in Fantasia: as did the cartoon character in the Disney movie, the Techcrunch founder has cast a spell that's gone wrong; and it's too late to put the magic back in the bottle.

Matt Mullenweg Interview - Webware

Al Gore's Office

Check out Al Gore's office setup - 3 wide-screen Apple displays! -- source

Is my blog boring? The cute kittens don't think so.

Hi, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

According to Scoble your blog is boring if you resort to posting cute pictures of cats for traffic. Is he right?

This is a picture of a couple kittens I took at the Green Hill Humane Society.

Cute? Or, boring?

Cory Doctorow writes about dealing with jerks in your community

How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community by Cory Doctorow

Related to my previous post, Death Threat Shutters "Creating Passionate Users" Blog, that discussed Kathy Sierra's unfortunate decision to leave blogging because hostile jerks invaded her community. A good read for any blogger.

In extreme cases, you end up with the kind of notorious mess that Kathy Sierra found herself in, in which trolls directed such bilious, threatening noise towards a harmless advocate for "passionate users" in web-applications that she withdrew from speaking at O'Reilly's Emerging Tech conference. - Cory Doctorow

Related Posts: 

Seth's Blog: The Troll Whisperer 

iPhone - I'll wait until they get the worms out of it

Craislist's Jim Buckmaster Interviewed // Refreshing

Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist, did a fireside chat interview with BusinessWeek editor Jessi Hempel, at The Nantucket Conference. - Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Craigslist's approach to doing business on-line is refreshing. For example I loved Jim's response to this question.

Craigslist could generate hundreds of millions in revenue and be a public company. Why haven't you done this? "You can't serve two masters. You either have to serve Wall Street or customers. We chose customers. Sure, we could generate more revenue, but we have enough to support the things we need to do."

Unfortunately, Craigslist shines the way it does because their approach to business is rare.

Apple iPhone receives FCC approval

Apple Inc. on Thursday received the official go-ahead on its first ever mobile handset, as regulators for the Federal Communications Commission gave the iPod maker the green light to commence sales of the device in the United States.

Google Reader - Just "Slick"

I spend a lot of time In Google Reader, probably too much, and I've got to tell you - it's just plain slick. You can't define "slick" software but you know when you're sitting in front of it. It feels slick. A specific feature addition motivated me to type this up.

Google Reader (as far as I can remember) has always supported an Email feature that lets you e-mail a feed item. Until recently however, it wasn't slick. Clicking Email below a feed item would pop-up a new window that just didn't feel right. It worked and did what it was supposed to do but it wasn't the best user experience. Recently, the Google Reader team improved the Email feature. They didn't add new functionality - they just improved the user experience. Now, clicking Email below a feed item (the link is still in the same place) drops a nice little frame in below the feed item and before the next feed item. It's simple, it features fields for your recipients, a subject, a short note to go along with the item, a send button, and a cancel button. And more importantly, it feels slick.

Google Reader is "slick" because the team spends time working on the finer points of usability. They didn't have to improve the Email feature, it worked fine before, but they did and in the long-run it pays off. Google Reader is quickly becoming the preferred web-based feed reader.

Some other "slick" Google Reader features include:

• Short-cut ? displays excellent Keyboard Short-cut overlay
• When you Email a feed item to someone a copy is put in your Gmail "Sent Items" folder
• The "To" field is connected to Gmail so "auto-complete" functionality works

(screen grab: clicking Email below a feed item drops a nice little frame in below the feed item and before the next feed item)

New York Post Reports Microsoft and Yahoo! Talking

BILL'S HARD DRIVE By PETER LAURIA and ZACHERY KOUWE - Business - New York Post Online Edition

May 4, 2007 -- Stung by the loss of Internet advertising firm DoubleClick to Google last month, Microsoft has intensified its pursuit of a deal with Yahoo!, asking the company to re-enter formal negotiations, The Post has learned.

Good or bad? I'm still forming my thoughts. I have friends that work for Right Media, recently acquired by Yahoo!, I wonder what they think of this? I'll update this post as more news flows in.

Update 05/07/07:

The Wall Street Journal reports that the talks are no longer active. [ Source ] Maybe this was just a press play on Microsoft's part to test the waters and the market. A deal of this size ( excess of 50 billion for Yahoo! ) requires a scouting mission or two. After all, a deal like this is a lot about public perception.

Death Threat Shutters "Creating Passionate Users" Blog

Business 2.0 Backup Strategy

Wow. A Business 2.0 employee apparently deleted the June issue of the magazine from the editorial server before it could go to print. Worse, the backup server wasn't working so they pretty much lost the whole thing. Expect to see an article of the importance of a good backup strategy in the July issue ; ) Did somebody loose a job over this? Ouch.

Source: TechCrunch - June issue of Business 2.0 deleted before it could go to print

Silverlight

Mix07 started yesterday, Microsoft's developer oriented conference, so the pipes are pushing a lot of Microsoft bits this week. Silverlight, Microsoft's Flash/Flex/Apollo competitor, is capturing the bulk of the attention. Trying to figure out what Silverlight is all about? Check out these links.

The Universal Desktop - The how and when of Adobe and Microsoft's Rich Internet Application Technologies

TechCrunch - The Web Just Got Richer

The Universal Desktop - My lunch with Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie 

Tim Sneath's Blog - Microsoft Developer Evangelist 

Updated 05/03 

Knowledge @ Wharton -  The Man Who Would Change Microsoft: Ray Ozzie's Vision for Connected Software

CNET News.com - Ozzie's Quiet Revolution at Microsoft 

Ed Burnette's Dev Connection - Dissecting  Silverlight

Scoble -  Microsoft "rebooted the Web" yesterday

Scott Hanelman's Computerzen.com -  Hanselminutes Podcast 63 - Scott Guthrie and Jason Zander on Silverlight

SmugBlog: Don MacAskill - Thoughts on Silverlight 

Channel9 - Scott Guthrie: Silverlight and Cross-Platform CLR (video) 

Updated 05 / 08

ScottGu's Blog - Silverlight ** probably one of the best overviews ** 

What's a RIA?

Rich Internet Applications, RIAs, are the talk of Geek Town lately. New development tools from Microsoft and Adobe (Silverlight and Apollo respectively) promise to be the tools eager developers will use to build this new generation of software applications. Are geeks geeking out over an acronym again? Or is there something revolutionary coming down the road from Geek Town?

The citizens of Geek Town have been tossing the term RIA around for years but it has only recently become popular. IMO the term is still being defined. The Wikipedia page describing the term is a collection of loosely coupled facts (some simply wrong) that's difficult to string together - I think it's obvious the citizens of Wikipedia are struggling to define it well. My definition of a RIA is fairly general. A RIA is a software application that looks and behaves like a traditional client-side software application but it's available from any computer with an Internet connection and the data it's accessing is primarily (off-line mode will be a feature of many RIAs) stored in the cloud. That's how I define a RIA now but I'm sure my definition, like Wikipedia's, will evolve over time as well. The technology used to create the RIA isn't important. Accessibility is the primary driver in my definition.

I think there's good reason to be excited about RIAs and the changes that are sure to come with them. A RIA combines everything we love about the latest generation of web apps. with functionality we've come to expect from traditional client-side software that doesn't live inside a web browser. Accessibility is what I love most about the web apps. I use everyday - I can access the same information in Google Calendar or Google Reader from any machine with and Internet connection. The current generation of web apps. is great but we're coming close to reaching the limits of what we can do in the browser. I still use a number of traditional client-side software apps but over the last year the scales have tipped in favor of web apps. Traditional client-side software simply feels bulky, isolated, and behind the times from a design and look-and-feel perspective. Inexpensive hardware is also a driver behind the move to web apps. Installing tradiditioanal client-side software in the traditional way just doesn't make sense from a convenience or cost perspective for people with access to multiple computers.

For web apps. to evolve to the next level the technology has to change - web apps. need more access - more access to the technology that has, until now, given traditional client-side software a performance advantage over web. apps. For web apps. to evolve to the next level they have to move past the boundaries, living in the web browser, creates. The days of dealing with the awkwardness of the << Back and Next >> buttons that don't really apply in a Web 2.0 world are coming to an end. This isn't the end for web apps. as we know them or traditional client-side software - this is the beginning of a development period that will bring the two camps together to build better software for users. RIAs will play a major role in re-shaping how we think about software over the next ten years.

Related:

Ebay's RIA - San Dimas Demo 

Windows Vista Packaging Patched

Earlier this week I came across a Windows Vista Ultimate package here in the office and discovered something interesting - a U.I. flaw in what was probably an uber-expensive package designed by uber-packaging experts from all corners of the world.

I saw the package sitting on a co-worker's desk and was immediately interested. I've worked on designing software packages in the past so a package like the Windows Vista package that is obviously going to be well funded and the product of hundreds of hours of experience deserves some attention. I picked up the package, looked at the front, looked at the back, and proceeded to open it. To my surprise, and some embarrassment because my co-workers were watching, I had a hard time getting it opened. I don't remember how long it took me to get it opened but I do know it was way longer than it should have been. Even after I got it opened, using what appears to be a last-minute hack, I had difficulty opening and closing the package. Is this for real? How many of these packages is Microsoft shipping? Did they test this at all?

The hack I referred to is illustrated in the photo I took below. The little red piece of tape attached to the top of the package can't be part of the original design but without it I would have been really stuck. I'm sure the last minute hack was subject to protest on the designers part - it's ugly. Did Microsoft "Patch" the Windows Vista package? We'll probably never know.

By the way, I passed the package around the office for a little in-house usability testing and a lot of really smart people turned red trying to get the Windows Vista package opened in front of a crowd. That's bad design - period.

Has anybody else had this experience? If so, comment.

Does anybody know who designed the package? If so, comment.

Related:

I found this post on the Windows Vista Team Blog that, after having seen the package for myself, is almost comical.

Tivo and Amazon.com Unbox Partner

Tivo's new partnership with Amazon.com Unbox is going to be good for Tivo - I'll use the service to download and watch movies. Actually, I might use it for TV shows I don't have access to as well. Smart deal.

On the same day that Walmart launched a competing movie download service and then fell flat on their face over simple browser compatibility issues, Amazon announced an incredibly cool, long rumored new partnership with Tivo. - TechCrunch

Me Too

I want what Michael Gartenberger (Jupiter Research) wants. Me too! I also want what Michael already has - a Microsoft Exchange Server. Might be time to look into my own "hosted" Exchange solution.

I love Exchange. Every time I get a new computer or Smartphone, all I do is plug in our Exchange settings and magic happens. All my contacts, calendar items, to-do lists and email flow directly into the new device automatically. Once that happens, if I make a change on one device, it ripples across all the others. Everything is in sync and up to date. It's nice we've solved sync for PIM information but that's not enough for me now. Now I want sync for everything. I regularly move among multiple PCs and other devices like Smartphones. Trying to keep just two PCs in sync is a total nightmare. Stuff gets lost. I want to have (or have access to) every picture I have taken (I've been a digital camera users since 1995), every song in my collection and every document I have written on every one of my PCs. If I take pictures and download them to one of my PCs, I want those photos updated on all my other machines the next time I access them. I want it to happen simply, invisibly and just work. Now, many of you don't switch regularly between a dozen PCs and Smartphones on a regular basis but there are multiple devices in everyone's future. Whoever solves this next generation of sync first is going to win big. Oh. And while we're at it, can I have that cross platform please? - Michael Gartenberger

Windows Vista Myths

Takeaway: The official consumer launch of Windows Vista has brought with it a great deal of confusion, misinformation, and some fairly ignorant assertions. Windows expert Deb Shinder debunks some of the misconceptions she's been hearing, from exaggerated cost and hardware requirements to feature limitations and compatibility issues.

iTunes 7.0.2. Works w/ Vista

Apple is suggesting Windows iTunes users delay updating to Windows Vista until they can get an update for iTunes out. iTunes works fine for me on my Vista powered Lenovo - it was working fine on RC1 and it's still working fine on the Gold bits today. I think this is probably just Apple trying to cast a shadow of doubt on the new operating system from Redmond. If it doesn't work properly - it's Apple's bad - they've had plenty of time to prepare for the Vista launch. Apple is good at making their Windows-based customers feel 2nd class - Microsoft should leverage this in their efforts to market the Zune. I'm going to trade my iPod in for a Zune.

According to a company statement provided by Apple spokesman Derick Mains, "Although iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs, Apple is aware of some known compatibility issues and recommends that iTunes customers wait to upgrade to Windows Vista until after the next release of iTunes, which will be available in the next few weeks." Apple declined further comment. - source

Digg Dumps Top Diggers List

Digg is dumping the "Top Diggers List" - a move probably designed to reduce the perception that the community is easily gamed by top diggers. I think this is both a smart and bold move by the Digg management team. Smart, because they're making a decisive move to protect the integrity and public perception of the social network and bold because they risk pissing off a lot of the people that built the early community. We'll see how this pans out for them.

Related:
Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: Listening
TechCrunch: Digg Removes List of Top Users
Marketing Pilgrim: Digg Takes Away Power from Top Diggers

Geni Launch Crashes

Yesterday a TechCrunch post pointed me towards a Flash-based family tree creator called Geni. I'm into this kind of thing so I went off to take the new product for a spin. Unfortunately, Geni wasn't prepared for the traffic that came their way when they were picked up by TechCrunch, Lifehacker, and other sites. Yesterday, I was willing to cut them some slack but they're still having problems today and I'm loosing patience as I imagine others are. Geni would have been much better off with a limited and more controlled release. This isn't the right way to do it - you only get so many chances to impress the early adopters and opinion leaders. A release like this leaves people wondering if they should trust you with their data and it will be hard for them to get past the initial bad impression. A lot of web X.0 startups are just a flash in the pan - Geni's flash is underexposing the picture.

Updated 01/19/07 - still having technical difficulties

Image: Tried to login 01/19/07

Updated 01/21/07: Arrington agrees with my early assessment - TechCrunch Geni Overwhelmed with Early Popularity - notice the last part of the permalink address "/geni-blew-it/." I finally managed to start building my family tree last night using Geni and there's a lot I like about the service. If they can get past the technical hurdles Geni is sure to be very popular.

Updated 01/22/07: mike@geni.com keeps sending me this very generic, not all that informative, automated message. I've received 3 exact copies of this message. Suggestion: make it more friendly, informative, and a bit more sincere.

Greetings,
 
We received an email last week notifying us that the Geni web site had difficulty drawing your tree.  We believe the problem is now resolved.  Thanks for using Geni!

Mike

iPhone from Apple Does it All!

I'm on Linkedin

Call me a late adopter, I don't care, I'm finally connected to Linkedin. Creating connections is fun - I've already connected with a few people I haven't talked to in a while.

Related: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn - Guy Kawasaki

My 2007 Tech Predictions

• Windows Vista will be hugely popular.
• Apple's growth in the personal computer space will slow as a result of Vista's success and the next generation hardware that will support it.
• RIA apps., powered by WPF/WPFE and similar technologies, will start to get traction as the line between client-side software and web-based software continues to soften.
• Yahoo! will continue to loose momentum as Google and nimble Web X.0 companies continue to eat away at it.
• Wi-fi everywhere and geo-based advertising will start to catch hold and Google's early efforts in this space will pay off - securing their dominance in the ad space for the near future.
• Microsoft will establish multi-media beach-heads in more American living rooms this year using the xBox 360 platform - re-configuring the gaming system into a Media Center replacement via free updates as unsuspecting users sleep.
• Apples's cell phone will change the way we think about cell phones and cell service forever.

Read what everybody else is predicting for 2007.

NOTE: I reserve the right to add to this list for the remainder of this week ; )

Conversation: Value of the Long Tail

Yahoo! Bookmarks BETA Blows!

Yahoo! Bookmarks BETA blows big time. Thomas Vander Wal reviews Yahoo!'s long overdue update to the popular bookmarking tool and calls it an Alpha at best and I think that's being generous. A ton of the primary functionality doesn't even work - it's bad to the point where I'm abandoning Yahoo! Bookmarks and heading off to del.icio.us for the 1st time and I've been using Yahoo! bookmarks for years. Yes, I know, Yahoo! owns del.icio.us but they haven't managed to screw it up yet - fortunately. Yahoo! gets 0 credit for anything to do with del.icio.us. I almost didn't install the del.icio.us toolbar buttons for IE because the setup was signed by Yahoo! A company with the kind of engineering and QA resources Yahoo! has - has no business publishing crap like this for public consumption. Stay far, far, away from Yahoo! bookmarks BETA. The mess that happend with the recent Yahoo! Toolbar update just adds fuel to my fire. I'm loosing all confidence in Yahoo! and I'm starting to agree with some of the voices that are saying Yahoo! will be the next AOL. Keep it up Yahoo! - good looks will only get you so far.

Update 01/05: Tom Chi, Yahoo! Bookmarks Product Lead, is in the comments. Yahoo! Bookmarks BETA is still totally un-usable for me and I've pulled it off 3 of my machines in favor of del.icio.us - which I'm really starting to like.

Man vs. Machine Air-hockey

Check out how fluid this robot's motion is - impressive. Robotics technology feels like it's starting to progress more rapidly. I'm guessing advancements in computer technology (smaller and faster processors) is making it easier to develop more complex and smaller robots.

Folding UMPCs?

UMPC sales have been lackluster this year - they started shipping in March. The 1st year (well almost) of the UMPC feels a lot like the 1st year of the Tablet PC - again, lackluster. I hold Microsoft responsible for my over-use of the world "lackluster." Microsoft needs to find and crown a Marketing Czar that can give Jobs a run for his money. They've got the hardware, the software, and the people talent - what they lack is the marketing talent. All the hardware innovation in the world isn't going to do it - even Fujitsu's folding UMPC will go mostly un-noticed.

Taking the Origami principle to heart, Fujitsu reckon they've got the ultimate UMPC licked, with this swish design for a laptop which literally folds in half to fit your pocket. >> T3

Help Me Buy a Laptop

Leah Culver, who works for Instructables, came up with an ingenious idea to get herself a brand new MacBook Pro - for FREE. Smart, very smart. Congrats. Check out her laptop. Video of Leah etching her new laptop.

High School 2.0 - Calacanis / Denton Style

Dave, a Techcrunch commenter, has it right - the cat fighting between Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton is High School 2.0 and the related Techcrunch post by Michael Arrington reads like an article out of the student-run school paper. On the other hand we're all reading it so doesn't that just make us a bunch of High School students? I appreciate Mike's coverage of the spat and enjoy reading about the more colorful side of the business sometimes. The comments associated with Mike's post are even more colorful ; ) - locker talk.

Messing around with Jason, IMO, isn't smart. He's well connected, visible, smart, and rich. Andrew Baron crossed him (listen to this TWit podcast) once and I think that might have marked the beginning of RocketBoom's trouble. RocketBoom.com Flame-out.

Related:
Nick's post "Netscape: The Calacanis Effect" gets it started
Jason starts firing back with "My favorite blogger/blog of the moment..."

Microsoft Media Center SDK Features Thomas Hawk's Work

Microsoft Media Center SDK Sample Application, originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

The new Microsoft Media Center SDK includes a sample application that features Thomas Hawk's photographs. Hawk, in my humble opinion, is a fantastic photographer and I just love browsing his work on Flickr. Check his work out for yourself.

Scoble Style

Zune Failing

I really think Microsoft's new media player, the Zune, is going to flop. All the marketing dollars in the world aren't going to displace the iPod - at least not this time. Gary Stein recently commented on something that happened on CNN related to the marketing challenge Microsoft faces with Zune. Zune is going to fail because marketing products isn't one of Microsoft's strengths. Just look at the Zune website - the fake lifestyle shots are transparent and an instant turn-off for the demographic Microsoft needs most at this point - the kids.

I watched CNN this morning and Soledad O'Brien literally interrupted the tech-biz reporter, who was talking about the Zune, to extoll the virtues of her new, $70 iPod Shuffle. The next time the story came through the cycle, she had gotten her iPod out of her office and demonstrated how cool it was that you could clip it, and essentially un-sold the Zune, and pitched the iPod. -- Gary Stein's post

Blinkx Walls Rock - Here's my "Bush Terror" wall