So you think I'll get angry, commenting about how Jobs is restricting the market, right?
Wrong. I support this, actually. I love my history of phones and PDAs (currently rocking a 4GB HTC Trinity P3600), but I hate their instability. Even my beloved Samsung t809 that I've used for a year had issues with third party Java apps!
For me, my phone has to work, period. Almost all third party apps I've used have made things worse. I just hard-reset my Trinity, and it runs like magic, whereas two days ago it would drop calls, lock up, get warm, and have terrible battery life. Who knows which app was the culprit (and yes, I know that Microsoft's WM5 sucks).
Here's the thing: Apple is a private company, so is Cingular. Sure, they use government force (copyright, patents, FCC, etc) partially in their domination of some markets, but they also have the right to restrict their own products and services if they think their users will be happier.
My guess? I'll get an iPhone, and I'll love the fact that it won't have any third party apps to "entice me" and then crash on me constantly. My PC I can reboot and not worry, but my phone can't go_boom on me -- it is my lifeline when I am on the road.
If I need 3rd party apps, I'll use my laptop tethered to my iPhone to get online and run whatever Web 2.5 widget I need.
If you're looking to earn a living from something, you're a profiteer -- regardless of what you think you are. If you are a "for the love of it" artist, don't complain if someone copies it for millions of others -- your art is getting out there.
That being said, I did a market analysis about 10 years ago on the club scene in Chicago. I was a co-owner of a nightclub for 2 years. Most people went to nightclubs for a COMBINATION of alcohol, socializing and music. About 2% of the people I surveyed only chose 1 of the 3 items (actually, 4, sex was a choice). I believe around 6-8% chose 2, but the huge majority was there for 3 of the items. This means that live music, on its own, doesn't have enough value for a large enough market for sustainability. You need more than live music.
Do you buy a car to sit in it or drive it on the road? Does the road maker deserve a profit? How about the company that makes traffic lights? Many markets require other markets to function efficiently.
I'm a writer. I write so that people hire me for my knowledge that I don't write about -- I keep something aside. I also wrote newsletters for years that were subscription only (but I let people freely copy them). When I charged $20 a year, people copied them a lot -- and I got new subscribers. When I increased the cost, they didn't share so much. I made good income for a long time with that. Even with copyright, people MOSTLY believe in compensating someone for work if they get a benefit from it. Even though I download a portion of my movies and music from the black market, I will also compensate a performance that I like -- otherwise I just delete it.
Paintings (my significant other is a contemporary-style painter, actually), that is where getting hired comes into play -- you paint for years to build a name, and then you sell individual pieces. People want the authentic piece, not the copy, generally. If you want to hit a wider crowd, make copies of your original, but sign them -- people pay for it. If someone wants to "bootleg" your painting, they have to invest the time to do so, and the knock-off may not be worth as much.
Let's say you are a photographer or a painter or a writer and someone steals your copywritten work. What can you do? Do you think that 99% of creative "artists" out there can handle a copyright-violation lawsuit, or even afford a C&D letter? Doubtful. Copyright is not helping them.
Copyright -- like any law that automatically creates monopoly forces "legally" -- eventually ends up with cartels in some manner. When you have laws that create a non-market-driven force, you can expect someone to try to take advantage of the laws to harm competition.
The end result of copyright tends to be monopolization in the distribution portion, especially in music and video. This artificially-created cartelization leads to control of many other distribution markets -- radio, TV, concert venues (Chicago shows tend to be run mostly by a large monopoly called Jam Productions), etc. The FCC is also to blame here, as they've allowed the cartelization of copyright to also monopolize the airwaves -- again due strictly to government-legalized monopolization of a product that has a lot of supply, so they cap it.
When a bad band is marketed (and produced) by those in control of the cartel/monopoly, that band is set at a higher level than a band that might be great but isn't part of the cartel/control scheme.
Getting rid of monopoly would be huge in terms of leveling the playing field -- now bands have to not just write good music (and MANY popular bands don't write their music), they have to be able to PERFORM IT regularly as we would perform our jobs.
You spend hours learning new coding techniques or learning new marketing techniques, etc, but it is your long term hours that you pay, not your education necessarily. In music, a band's "practice" and "writing" is like your continuing education -- it sets them apart from the competition by having a new product to offer directly (face to face).
Imagine if a CAD operator decided they should get paid for 70 years whenever someone copies a drawing they worked on. Not realistic, but isn't it art? How is drafting a building plan different from painting a face? Imagine if a plumber charged you per flush for 70 years after fixing your toilet? Doubtful that it would work. But many artists think their labor has value in the long term, even though they shouldn't in a free market perspective.
I make more money every year because the value I give to others increases every year -- I am worth more through learning, perfecting and marketing my skills. A musician can do the same, and entertainment has GREAT value. I go see Penn & Teller 4 times a year in Vegas, and I pay through the nose on purpose because the guys make me laugh. Yet they are on stage 5 days a week! Even Prince is trying this gig in Vegas, and he charges $300 a ticket to see him -- he plays two nights a week at his club. Awesome!
You don't need residual income from the force of copyright to make a living. I'd say 90% of us don't get any residual income on past work -- we get paid for what we produce today.
That's completely false. I've produced 3 bands in 2006 (basically, fronted them the money for marketing, promotion and equipment) that have done fairly well doing relatively small-club tours. Many of them saw significant profits from selling their $3 t-shirts for $15, their $0.50 posters (signed) for $10, and other dookie. Art isn't necessarily a profit center -- getting a job and meeting regular needs is.
A musician can get a job making music for industrial purposes (movies, TV shows, even local productions such as local TV commercials, etc). A musician can get a job teaching others how to play music. A musician can get a job working on soundtracks for video games or other goods. That's where the consistent money is. Otherwise, it is risk/reward: you're out there competing against thousands or tens of thousands of bands, the risk is huge for a very slim chance of a huge reward. Why is this? Because the content is controlled by copyright -- any one band invests 200 hours total in making an album. 1000 bands do this. 1 band succeeds and never has to work again. 999 bands fail and continue to try. Why is the first band any better than the others? Usually because they're colluding with the distribution monopolies (designed this way by the FCC, mind you) who control copyright.
If you're a tiny band and I bootleg your music, you have NO chance of suing me and winning -- I probably have more money than you, if I was a pirate. Copyright only helps the distribution cartels -- and cartels are generally formed by government force.
...keep moving forward by working to repeal laws that instill any form of anti-market monopoly, such as copyright. I promote and produce for a few bands in the Chicago area, and I've worked hard to get them to repudiate monopoly. The bands that do make more money! Why?
Small bands want their music out their -- the CD sales aren't where the cash cow is. Live venues can be very lucrative for even a small band -- getting 300 people to a show can net you $1 a beer or $2-$4 per head. Also, you can upsell your new fans on items they can't easily copy, such as T-shirts, autographed posters, etc. My brother's band Maps & Atlases just received a major article in Guitar Player, and they're moving forward with picking up sold-out shows, all without any representation. They do just fine on cover charges, new T-shirts every month or so, and autographed screen-printed show posters. If they can do 50 shows a year (1 a week), there's no reason that each of them can't make a very respectable 5 figures a year, after expenses.
Sure, CD sales account for some profit, especially on tour, but there is little reason to think that a band needs a label just for radio exposure or MTV. Both are great for the rare groups that can break 50,000 albums a year or sell out to 3000+ crowds -- and the chance of being one of those bands is so rare that it is almost impossible. Even worse, the labels utilize the force of copyright against even the bands that "succeed" by wrapping up all their future income in the form of residuals and management fees.
If you're a small band that wants to make it big -- tour. If you're a medium-sized band that is starting to form an audience -- get a street team. If you're a large band, make more products for your consumers to buy that isn't easily copied. Sometimes that 5 minutes you spend with a fan is worth a lifetime of them wanting your products, even if they get the easily-copied products for free.
The best form of marketing is piracy -- if you're part of the 99% of the artists out there who can't get into the big industry because you have no clout or nepotism pull.
Is it easy either way? NO. Simple laws of supply and demand will show you that most artists won't cut it -- it is very easy to get into the market (financially). The skills can mostly be learned. The production tools are getting cheaper and cheaper. There is a near limitless supply of people who want to get into the market. Surely, few are talented, but the simple fact that there is SO MUCH SUPPLY and so little demand means that most bands will make nothing (or worse, lose a ton of time and money trying). Still, the web will surpass the radio and MTV as the prime networking engine, and I do believe that collaborative filtering engines such a CRITEO will really take off when more small sites start utilizing them to get their microcosm of users to collaborate on what they like and don't like.
Sidenote: If any bands are out here that are interested in trying this theory, and have any touring experience beyond a few local shows, hit me up with an e-mail, we have some money to invest in those who repudiate copyright in exchange for the free promotion that torrents and fileshare offers.
Congrats to KOOPA for proving that you don't need might -- or force -- to be more than a starving artist.
Enron was the poster child of over-regulation -- everything Enron did was because it was allowed monopoly status in a market that was never deregulated. They tried to free wholesale prices from regulation but capped retail prices. That's like saying oil should be a free market for wholesalers, but don't sell it for more than $1 to consumers. The same thing would happen. Bad accounting practices doesn't come from corporations, it comes from impossible-to-understand tax and accounting rules -- loopholes don't exist in a free market.
Congress spends almost a century enacting policies that have restricted the growth of communications that the market desires -- the FCC and a variety of laws and regulations that have mandated micro and macro-level monopolies. Instead of working to promote free enterprise, they want to enact MORE laws that restrict where the market will head based on consumer demand.
Net neutrality is fraudulent, because no one knows what the market will want tomorrow. When selection is mandated to a certain level, nothing rises above it, and little falls below that bar. Instead, you end up with an attempted "one-size fits all" scenario, which never works. It restricts long term development, new technology, and also restricts those who want to spend more for more, or spend less for less.
Net neutrality is bad idea -- just like most regulation of industry. How about revoking some of the pro-monopoly laws that exist, and allowing the market to go where the consumer wants it to? Voting with your dollars gives us cheaper goods in greater quantity. Setting regulations does the opposite.
www.stumbleupon.com works great for me. I'm very satisfied so far.
Disruptive or just overall greatest? (and worst)
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What to Watch for in 2007
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Disruptive technologies? Anything that makes us more efficient tomorrow is disruptive to what fell short yesterday.
1. CRITEO, the collaborative filter. They're moving forward with their API (it's free to register) and they're easy to integrate with from blogs and sites of all sorts. I'm a huge fan of collaborative filtering -- I think it's the next step beyond tagging.
2. HSDPA - High Speed Download Packet Access. T-Mobile should finally roll out some 3G services, allowing video phone calls, faster connections from the road, and a wider coverage of high speed access other than WiFi. I'm interested in WiMax, but I don't have as much faith in the technology due to our ridiculously tyrannical FCC regulations. HSDPA will seriously work to replace my car radio, Skype over GPRS, and other dead media.
3. More IP to POTS interaction. I'm really sick of the area code-phone number designations -- I use Skype for about 30% of my phone calls and 100% of my international phone calls, and I love it, but it isn't there yet. I can't wait for better ways to communicate vocally. My HTC Trinity P3600 phone supports WiFi, EDGE, GPRS and HSDPA -- hopefully soon we will see a move to an integrated POTS/WIFI(VOIP)/etc system where vocal communications can translate from one topology to another.
4. More bandwidth. I was one of the first testers of xDSL in Illinois before it was a catchphrase. I had a 128k/128k SDSL that I used for "free" for 6 months and then paid $200 a month for at the end of the trial period. It changed my world. Now we're rocking crazy speeds, but they're still not enough. I'm still blown away at what I pay for Comcast's 8mbps connection (2mbps realistic). The next jump won't quite be an order of magnitude, but everything helps, especially when running remote desktops, desktop collaboration, and high-bandwidth SQL requests.
5. Lower latency. I don't know if this will really happen, but I'm looking forward to even less lag. High bandwidth != low latency, and if anything I have seen worse latency lately than every before. My customers have been working harder to introduce faster websites, faster SQL responses and faster connections to their VPNs -- all to reduce latency. For me, latency is in the top 5 list of inefficiencies that slow me down. Reducing that inefficiency can likely double my producivity in many tasks.
Top 5 list of non-issues but seem to be important to others:
1. Mobile webpages. I run Firefox on my laptop tethered to my cell phone on the go. I also run Opera. Mobile websites sound great for the common phone, but the #1 reason why that is required is because cell phone companies lock out the ability to run better mobile web clients. Competition will hopefully knock this out -- releasing web designers from having to maintain a second mobile site (or a CSS that gives mobile sites better rendering).
2. RFID. This is a non-issue for me because it just isn't secure. While it is easy to fake a barcode (for example, to barcode a costly item with a less costly barcode and trick the check-out clerk), I'm not sure how RFID will really change my life. If anything, that form of automation will make my life more inefficient in having to deal with the "human check" follow through to verify that the RFID information is correct.
3. Credit Card security systems. I'm not concerned with credit card fraud. I hate Citibank -- they block my card about twice a week because I travel to a new city or country every week. If someone steals my card, I am not liable -- neither is Citibank. The retailer is. Security should be at the retail end. I do a chargeback, the merchant account provider charges back the merchant. End of story. I hate security on credit, it is ridiculous and limits me all the time.
4. Web 2.0. I'm getting sick of Web 2.0 interfaces, even though they look slick and they seem to work well for some websites. More than anything, they make my life difficult because they're not alw
I concur, fully, which is why we like to go beyond the call of duty and beyond expectations. Many of our customers are tech-friendly (some even ready slashdot regularly), so they're regularly surprised when we can beat even a low-end Windows PC into submission for the long haul. For us, it is more important to focus on the long-term goals of customer profitability (which is a great indicator of efficiency and even can be an indicator of employee happiness if there are perks to sustaining a profit-goal) rather than just on our own goal of profitability. We'll always make money, but there are times when we have to eat a loss because we didn't focus well enough on the customer's goals and instead focused on our own.
I'd never hold out on my clients because I know from experience (seeing some competitors fail) that it doesn't make sense it any competitive industry. Government, on the other hand, has absolutely no reason to solve any problem because they've got a monopoly on their "business."
So right now I can see that the "online desktop" might work pretty well for office workers, so long as they don't travel. As soon as you travel at all it's going to cost you quite a bit, and for dubious advantages.
But all I do is travel -- my entire business life revolves around fast net access. When I go to India or Switzerland or Poland or France, my EDGE-based cell phone tethered to my laptop works fine -- nearly everywhere. I have a variety of SIM cards from a variety of providers, but my net annual cost is under $2000 for nearly unlimited high speed access wherever I find myself.
I was in Vegas 2 weeks ago, and my phone tether worked great (even in the airport that has free WiFi). It worked at in the hotel tower I as staying in. I am going to Europe in a few weeks, and I've already checked to make sure I can get at least 128kbps from my phone -- so far, it looks promising.
For me, $2000 a year is nothing if it means I can continue to bill my hourly rate wherever I happen to be. If you can't afford $2000 a year for near-universal high-speed access, maybe you're not in the right business that can't account for those costs. Again, it boils down to supply and demand, and the available supply of high speed access is growing daily. If I can't get an EDGE connection for whatever reason, GPRS will do for at least e-mail and data transfer. If I can't get GPRS, my phone supports WiFi and there are more open routers I drive past every day, especially near discount hotels/motels (higher priced hotel chains seem to charge for it, cheaper ones don't). If you work on-the-go, just find a solution to appease your need for connectivity -- and then raise your billable rate to compensate.
I work in accounting, and Google Spreadsheets just don't cut it. I work with Pivot tables every day for instance, and enormous amounts of data. Google spreadsheets are not practical for me.
Of course -- right now. The current limitations for you are the lack of online-apps that can handle the work you do, and the lack of bandwidth to properly connect you to the online-app. Do you seriously believe that neither will be conquered and provided for in the near future? The term "bandwidth" will go the way of the dodo soon enough -- massive highspeed bandwidth will be a commodity, as long as the FCC and other regulatory criminal bodies won't stop it. When the bandwidth is available, the online-apps will become more powerful in order to prove why they're superior to having to keep your own local copies (and update them, and back up the data, and provide the modern processor upgrades for, etc).
I won't even say "just give it time" because it is already happening now. Heck, HSDPA is closing in on that magicaly 3.6Mbps figure that will really allow the Internet to progress to portable devices in the same fashion that DSL encouraged Web 2.0 on the desktop.
I'm sitting here at my Grandmother's borrowing wireless from a neighbor. The signal is very weak and page loads are on the order of 30 seconds. The idea of online apps makes me shudder.
No, you're just supporting the reality of supply-demand. You have a demand for a service (Internet) at a given price (free). The supply of that service is limited, so you're getting what you want, but because the supply is limited, the quality is comensurate with what you're willing to pay (nothing).
If you wanted better service, you'd just invest in either a better antenna, or a relationship with your neighbor so that they move the wireless router closer to you, or you'd spend money on the quality of service you require -- at a given cost.
If 30 second latency is fine for your given work, then you're gold. If you need it quicker, you have to see if your given work offers enough profit to cover the cost of a better connection. That's the beauty of the free market -- all demands at a given price/performance will either be met, or are unrealistic.
I was contemplating vaccines and software patches and other items that constantly need updating and never really solve the problem and came up with a theory of selling reality -- do you ever want to sell a product that never needs updating or repairs or replacement? Is it anyone's goal to truly fix a problem forever?
One of my businesses is IT consulting, and we really do try to fix our customers problems for good -- when possible. We find that solving problems today ends up giving us more work tomorrow through referrals, etc. We even have a popular warranty where we always fix things that break again for free (even if we lose money on the net), even due to user error. Yet most consultants love the repeat business -- why fix something forever if you're sure that only temporarily patching a problem is enough?
Are there any vaccines or medical products that really do anything permanent? Is part of the reason for temporary cures or fixes just the basic realistic knowledge that temporary cures mean job security?
I don't trust anything that is sold as a "permanent fix" for a problem -- I don't know if we humans are capable of doing anything so self-sacrificial as that.
So when your 100+ employees are trucking along working at their new entirely remote desktops, and all of a sudden the ISP has problems or Google has trouble - how long can your business last without its apps and data?
Forever since I would surely have redundancy for the most recent data. In fact, my office employees already have multiple paths to the web -- a few months ago when our T1s both went down we actually connected to the web via a cell phone GPRS connection. Slow, yes, but we got through the 90 minute outage.
How long can my employees work if the local server blows? It happens. How long can my employees work if the electric company has problems and the backup battery isn't big enough?
For my company, and most companies, 99.5% uptime is enough. 30% is enough if the outages occur off work hours -- which is likely if the service is international in scope.
Sidenote: Modern caching techniques might even allow some intelligent programmer to create a feature that lets you work even through loss of connections to the main server -- while I am not adept at caching technology and theory, you better believe someone will figure out a way to store the most recent used data on a centrally located "caching" server that offloads the data to the main server instantly during connected times, but holds it locally during disconnects. Just a thought.
All speculation seems to exist with a long tail-type graph. Initially, as supply is low and demand is high, the risk/reward ratio is low (meaning that the risk comes close to guaranteeing a reward). Yet over time, those numbers change and the risk/reward ratio goes up -- a high risk with a low reward. Quickly the profit curve falls -- very quickly if the items are easily supplied and demand is limited.
In this case, as in many speculative ventures, the tail portion of the curve can drop below the zero point, meaning profit is now a loss. Once you consider your time spent, shipping, gas, and other costs, that negative-profit point can come fairly quickly as suppy goes up and old demand is met.
I don't believe in speculating on anything once the masses know about it. Housing is an example -- so was the dotcom era. When the kid at Best Buy tells you that it is time to buy a second home/buy a tech stock/buy a PS3 in order to make money, the boom is over, and the last speculators are caught because no one wants to catch a falling knife.
I never would have gotten involved in this mess because you just HAVE to know that Sony wanted to make more of them so they could themselves make the profit. What I never understood about the PS3 is why Sony wouldn't have had more reason to sell them themselves in an auction style. It makes more sense to reap the profits for themselves -- I wonder how many Sony managers and upper-management were some of the initial eBay sellers?
Sidenote: I've always thought that bands should do the same for concert tickets in demand -- why sell them through ticketmaster when the band could auction the high-demand/limited-supply tickets off direct and reap the rewards.
The PC revolution moved us away from a mainframe/terminal environment. Why would we want to move back to a similiar model?
I don't think the PC revolution moved us away from client/server -- it was the bandwidth/process/cost ratios that did. A PC with sneakernet provided better cost/efficiency ratios that did mainframe/terminal. As PC networks progressed, it really surpassed the server/terminal environment. But now we have extended the network beyond the office, and bandwidth is up, costs are down, so the focus today is on offering people access to their data from everywhere instead of just their hard drive.
I love client/server if it means having a really powerful server and a weak client. My PCs at home sit around doing nothing 80% of the day -- wasted hard drive space, wasted processor time, wasted hardware. Sure I can crunch some scientific equations on the PCs when they're dark, but all that technology could be better used if it was shared for others to use.
I would rather lease processor time/hard drive space to use as I needed -- in the amount I needed -- than worry about buying the latest and greatest every 6 months just to keep up. There are times when I have to RIP a 4GB print file on my most powerful PC and I wish I could get a cluster of machines to RIP it faster. For me, client/server in this case would make sense -- if I had 4-6Mbps of bandwidth to send the RIP'd info to my local printer. I _have_ RIPd big EPS files on a remote PC in the past and sent it via DSL to the printer (yes, 500Kbps was fast enough to keep the printer humming along).
For most people, leasing space/processors online would be cheaper -- and I think ISPs will move in that direction in the near future, as they already have in the recent past. Advertising-sponsored web servers are the norm lately, and I don't see why this won't make many happier. Google's apps are ad-sponsored and they work fine for me (and have even connected me with great online services through reading those ads on occasion).
I use Gmail for Domains and love it -- we've even been moving customers over to it and they love it.
I still use a POP3 e-mail app to download e-mails for archival purposes or to better format them for printing. I also use POP3 to get my e-mails to my cell phone/PDA (HPC Trinity P3600, best product ever) and it works fine.
I am ready to move to a virtual online desktop TODAY. Anything I need to backup I will -- everything else I'd rather pay someone else to host for me. While graphics design and high-data jobs require me to work locally, almost everything else works just fine remotely. I can see Wordpress evolving to the point that it could compete with Word locally, and I already use Google Spreadsheet for all my spreadsheet work (I've actually removed my office suite entirely as of last week).
As long as it works over my T-Mobile EDGE connection (bigger than a thin client), it is fine with me. Those days are quickly coming that I won't care what OS I am running as long as my browser is compatible with my online desktop.
That's part of competing -- to give your customers EVERY reason to pick you over someone else. Any good business does it by:
1. Providing a product that meets the current needs of their customers. 2. Providing a path to new features/efficiencies for their customers' futures. 3. Working with third parties to offer incentives to provide your product solely. 4. Providing a proven ROI for a short-term and long-term focus.
Microsoft, to me, is not a monopoly -- except when the State is involved (providing patents and copyrights and trademarks). I'm against those monopoly provisions, but those are "legal" ones. Without them, Microsoft's power over competitors would be equalized. You can't blame Microsoft for taking advantage of what you, the voters, allowed them to utilize. The judgements against them calling them a monopoly are only there because you, the voters, let those policies become standard based on Microsoft's given legal priviledge over competition. Nothing prevents competition from doing what Microsoft does -- except than the competition would rather use THEIR monkeys in government to try to stem Microsoft's growth.
As we see in the relatively free and unencumbered market of the web, Microsoft doesn't have any sort of monopoly -- people are free to choose what they want, and they do. In fact, the long tail effect shows that many products openly compete with Microsoft -- both legally obtained products and illegally obtained ones.
The whole Vista issue is a non-issue. Everyone who cries foul against Microsoft refuses to see that the products they prefer just don't meet the top 4 items I listed -- in fact, some of them fail most or all of them. No one will invest in a product, even a free one, if it doesn't offer those items. Many Microsoft products do -- but not all of them. Vista will succeed only because consultants will like its standardization, manufacturers will like knowing there is a standard interface for their hardware/software to run on, and resellers will like it because it has always worked well enough for both the casual and the power user.
Who cares about it looking like past products? If it worked for Microsoft in the past, why wouldn't they follow through with similar performances -- and making new ones to try to produce a better selling product?
I've been playing with a collaborative filter engine called CRITEO that is completely blowing my mind in how it opens opportunities to gain that "wisdom of the crowds" bit for the average user -- not just huge companies like Amazon or these emergent venture capitalized corporations. Over the past 2 weeks I've been working on some Wordpress code to actually integrate this relevancy predictor (my results should be forthcoming by the first week of January) and it really seems like you NEED a predictive filtering engine to utilize the crowds to give each individual within the crowd relevant results as compared to just generic "ratings."
This Yootle system is interesting, but it doesn't go far enough. Just because the crowds skew towards a majority opinion doesn't mean that opinion is relevant to the majority (I know it sounds weird). Each individual will have certain likes and dislikes within that majority opinion. Without some sort of relevancy predictor, the "majority vote" is useless.
Hopefully we will see more people utilizing systems such as CRITEO's to actually take the input of the masses (thousands, millions, or even billions of decisions and ratings) and run them through a real-time engine to give everyone a unique view of what they might want/need/like/hate/etc. As I spent more time beating on trying to come up with my own quick/real-time solution, the more I realized that using someone else's services let me focus on what is best for my customer -- my content, generally.
The prediction system to rank Yahoo searches is very 2005 -- it really just capitalizes on the likes of the masses, which means it is hitting the top head of the long tail rather than the more important remaining 80%. I'd love to see a search engine that allows you to "rate" your search results or even individual search results in real time, maybe in collaboration with a system like CRITEO. Anyone interested in working on one? I'd be willing to bet that such an investment of time would give many of us a better search engine that actually returns results that are relevant to the individual's tastes rather than the masses' collective "favorites" which are usually way off base. It would also reduce the spam results greatly and open the door to the wisdom of the masses actually making a difference for each individual. What I like about collaborative filter is that 5 seconds per user can mean days or weeks saved for that user in the long run because of the 5 seconds "donated" by the million others.
Actually, in the past 6 months I have been moving much of my phone service to Skype (I have a DID in every country that I have a residency in). I now use Skype from my PDA (fairly good, considering it is Beta software) and we have Skype hooked up to our MCE PC for our home phone. Is it perfect? No. Does it utilize government-regulated corporations? Yes. But I'd say within the next 12 months I think I can transfer entirely to Skype and dump the cell connection entirely.
It is myth that T-Mobile is a State-owned enterprise, though. As far as I know (and I used to consult on these matters professionally), the German phone company was de-Stated around 1988. DT is now a private company, but I do believe that Germany owns a small share, maybe 10-20%. From what I recall, this was the only way for them to regulate the company as the US regulates private phone companies here -- again, this is just conjecture based on previous knowledge that I no longer use.
I can't recall any connection to the Third Reich as historically, the German phone company was part of the German postal service, which didn't start up until post-Hitler times. I can't be certain, but I feel pretty positive that your comment was based on nothing factual at all -- do some Googling to get some more facts, but I lived in Germany (Freiburg) and did quite a large historical study (I was living there to study Von Hayek's employent at the University). As far as I know, Germany seems to be considerably Socialist, but they've made huge steps to privatization of various industries, which is what is making them more competitive in the world market.
I'm not sure about any reports that categorize what is basically a nation-wide business that really exists in terms of local regions, in this case, cell towers. I've used T-Mobile since Voicestream was the originator (actually, since day one of Voicestream) and I've been ecstatic about their coverage in the regions I travel in. For me, this is all that matters. I hear about horror stories with T-Mobile from others -- but their regions are different. For me to use a national consumer report for a company that exists for me mostly on a local level is really short-sighted.
I do like Consumer Reports and I think they do carry weight in their expertise in terms of national products on a national level -- cars, consumer equipment, home equipment, etc. I won't buy a car or a washer or a TV without at least reviewing what CR has to say. But if CR was to try to shoehorn local service into a nation-wide review, I don't think I would consider it trustworthy. For that, I'd contact people in the region and see what they use.
My father recently switched from T-Mobile to Cingular and he is actually happier -- better coverage in HIS region (objective), conversation quality seems better (subjective), and he hasn't had one dropped call versus T-Mobile dropping about 5% of the calls in HIS region. But in my area, Cingular is terrible.
Sure, the report (for subscribers) offers some city-wide ratings, but again it is too generic to really understand or use as a relevant way to pick a carrier. Also, it is important to realize that while "nationwide" can be broken down in multiple ways, it is still an overall general region. The Chicago area that I live in totals about 30 regions from urban to suburban to exurban to rural -- and all of them are rarely used by the same user. For a cell phone user, talking to me (in the burbs) means little if they live in farmland, so why would they care what the overall national service quality is when what matters most is what others in their region use and are happy with?
I am a fan of CR and other free market regulators (they offer opinions, you are free to choose based on that variety of opinion out there), but in this case I think they fall short of need. I do like them in terms of rating customer service, which is definitely NOT region-based or specific to one local market, but produces a reliable review of the company as a whole. I think that is where CR shines: in terms of letting us know about specific problems with their customer service center or with their contracts or with their pricing schemes. But in terms of overall reliability, I think this is more aggregation where aggregation is not appropriate or even considered valid.
I won't ever switch to Cingular myself because of two reasons:
1. I've had friends who have had terrible luck with their call center for help. 2. Bad contracts as compared to other cell phone manufacturers.
T-Mobile has the best customer retention department imaginable, and they seem to care because of the follow-up calls I've received. I also love their handset replacement plan as well as their optional insurance plan which I've used twice in 5 years. T-Mobile has made sure I am never without a working phone, and when I have had problems, they've worked to fix it. For me, that is still secondary to knowing what works in what markets/regions that I use, and CR just isn't appropriate for that purpose.
Sidenotes:
Early termination fees are VERY important when you're getting a $200-$300 handset "for free." Just returning the handset does not cover the commission paid to the dealer.
Upfront price disclosure is important, but it really should be up to the buyer-side of the transaction to understand what they're getting into. If you're not sure, ask a friend to help you.
Realstic coverage maps: What is realistic? I've never seen a coverage map that is consistently right -- things change, and conditions can be effected by new construction or even weather conditions. They can al
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So you think I'll get angry, commenting about how Jobs is restricting the market, right?
Wrong. I support this, actually. I love my history of phones and PDAs (currently rocking a 4GB HTC Trinity P3600), but I hate their instability. Even my beloved Samsung t809 that I've used for a year had issues with third party Java apps!
For me, my phone has to work, period. Almost all third party apps I've used have made things worse. I just hard-reset my Trinity, and it runs like magic, whereas two days ago it would drop calls, lock up, get warm, and have terrible battery life. Who knows which app was the culprit (and yes, I know that Microsoft's WM5 sucks).
Here's the thing: Apple is a private company, so is Cingular. Sure, they use government force (copyright, patents, FCC, etc) partially in their domination of some markets, but they also have the right to restrict their own products and services if they think their users will be happier.
My guess? I'll get an iPhone, and I'll love the fact that it won't have any third party apps to "entice me" and then crash on me constantly. My PC I can reboot and not worry, but my phone can't go_boom on me -- it is my lifeline when I am on the road.
If I need 3rd party apps, I'll use my laptop tethered to my iPhone to get online and run whatever Web 2.5 widget I need.
Long live the Newton, though.
If you're looking to earn a living from something, you're a profiteer -- regardless of what you think you are. If you are a "for the love of it" artist, don't complain if someone copies it for millions of others -- your art is getting out there.
That being said, I did a market analysis about 10 years ago on the club scene in Chicago. I was a co-owner of a nightclub for 2 years. Most people went to nightclubs for a COMBINATION of alcohol, socializing and music. About 2% of the people I surveyed only chose 1 of the 3 items (actually, 4, sex was a choice). I believe around 6-8% chose 2, but the huge majority was there for 3 of the items. This means that live music, on its own, doesn't have enough value for a large enough market for sustainability. You need more than live music.
Do you buy a car to sit in it or drive it on the road? Does the road maker deserve a profit? How about the company that makes traffic lights? Many markets require other markets to function efficiently.
I'm a writer. I write so that people hire me for my knowledge that I don't write about -- I keep something aside. I also wrote newsletters for years that were subscription only (but I let people freely copy them). When I charged $20 a year, people copied them a lot -- and I got new subscribers. When I increased the cost, they didn't share so much. I made good income for a long time with that. Even with copyright, people MOSTLY believe in compensating someone for work if they get a benefit from it. Even though I download a portion of my movies and music from the black market, I will also compensate a performance that I like -- otherwise I just delete it.
Paintings (my significant other is a contemporary-style painter, actually), that is where getting hired comes into play -- you paint for years to build a name, and then you sell individual pieces. People want the authentic piece, not the copy, generally. If you want to hit a wider crowd, make copies of your original, but sign them -- people pay for it. If someone wants to "bootleg" your painting, they have to invest the time to do so, and the knock-off may not be worth as much.
Let's say you are a photographer or a painter or a writer and someone steals your copywritten work. What can you do? Do you think that 99% of creative "artists" out there can handle a copyright-violation lawsuit, or even afford a C&D letter? Doubtful. Copyright is not helping them.
Copyright -- like any law that automatically creates monopoly forces "legally" -- eventually ends up with cartels in some manner. When you have laws that create a non-market-driven force, you can expect someone to try to take advantage of the laws to harm competition.
The end result of copyright tends to be monopolization in the distribution portion, especially in music and video. This artificially-created cartelization leads to control of many other distribution markets -- radio, TV, concert venues (Chicago shows tend to be run mostly by a large monopoly called Jam Productions), etc. The FCC is also to blame here, as they've allowed the cartelization of copyright to also monopolize the airwaves -- again due strictly to government-legalized monopolization of a product that has a lot of supply, so they cap it.
When a bad band is marketed (and produced) by those in control of the cartel/monopoly, that band is set at a higher level than a band that might be great but isn't part of the cartel/control scheme.
Getting rid of monopoly would be huge in terms of leveling the playing field -- now bands have to not just write good music (and MANY popular bands don't write their music), they have to be able to PERFORM IT regularly as we would perform our jobs.
You spend hours learning new coding techniques or learning new marketing techniques, etc, but it is your long term hours that you pay, not your education necessarily. In music, a band's "practice" and "writing" is like your continuing education -- it sets them apart from the competition by having a new product to offer directly (face to face).
Bingo.
Imagine if a CAD operator decided they should get paid for 70 years whenever someone copies a drawing they worked on. Not realistic, but isn't it art? How is drafting a building plan different from painting a face? Imagine if a plumber charged you per flush for 70 years after fixing your toilet? Doubtful that it would work. But many artists think their labor has value in the long term, even though they shouldn't in a free market perspective.
I make more money every year because the value I give to others increases every year -- I am worth more through learning, perfecting and marketing my skills. A musician can do the same, and entertainment has GREAT value. I go see Penn & Teller 4 times a year in Vegas, and I pay through the nose on purpose because the guys make me laugh. Yet they are on stage 5 days a week! Even Prince is trying this gig in Vegas, and he charges $300 a ticket to see him -- he plays two nights a week at his club. Awesome!
You don't need residual income from the force of copyright to make a living. I'd say 90% of us don't get any residual income on past work -- we get paid for what we produce today.
That's completely false. I've produced 3 bands in 2006 (basically, fronted them the money for marketing, promotion and equipment) that have done fairly well doing relatively small-club tours. Many of them saw significant profits from selling their $3 t-shirts for $15, their $0.50 posters (signed) for $10, and other dookie. Art isn't necessarily a profit center -- getting a job and meeting regular needs is.
A musician can get a job making music for industrial purposes (movies, TV shows, even local productions such as local TV commercials, etc). A musician can get a job teaching others how to play music. A musician can get a job working on soundtracks for video games or other goods. That's where the consistent money is. Otherwise, it is risk/reward: you're out there competing against thousands or tens of thousands of bands, the risk is huge for a very slim chance of a huge reward. Why is this? Because the content is controlled by copyright -- any one band invests 200 hours total in making an album. 1000 bands do this. 1 band succeeds and never has to work again. 999 bands fail and continue to try. Why is the first band any better than the others? Usually because they're colluding with the distribution monopolies (designed this way by the FCC, mind you) who control copyright.
If you're a tiny band and I bootleg your music, you have NO chance of suing me and winning -- I probably have more money than you, if I was a pirate. Copyright only helps the distribution cartels -- and cartels are generally formed by government force.
...keep moving forward by working to repeal laws that instill any form of anti-market monopoly, such as copyright. I promote and produce for a few bands in the Chicago area, and I've worked hard to get them to repudiate monopoly. The bands that do make more money! Why?
Small bands want their music out their -- the CD sales aren't where the cash cow is. Live venues can be very lucrative for even a small band -- getting 300 people to a show can net you $1 a beer or $2-$4 per head. Also, you can upsell your new fans on items they can't easily copy, such as T-shirts, autographed posters, etc. My brother's band Maps & Atlases just received a major article in Guitar Player, and they're moving forward with picking up sold-out shows, all without any representation. They do just fine on cover charges, new T-shirts every month or so, and autographed screen-printed show posters. If they can do 50 shows a year (1 a week), there's no reason that each of them can't make a very respectable 5 figures a year, after expenses.
Sure, CD sales account for some profit, especially on tour, but there is little reason to think that a band needs a label just for radio exposure or MTV. Both are great for the rare groups that can break 50,000 albums a year or sell out to 3000+ crowds -- and the chance of being one of those bands is so rare that it is almost impossible. Even worse, the labels utilize the force of copyright against even the bands that "succeed" by wrapping up all their future income in the form of residuals and management fees.
If you're a small band that wants to make it big -- tour. If you're a medium-sized band that is starting to form an audience -- get a street team. If you're a large band, make more products for your consumers to buy that isn't easily copied. Sometimes that 5 minutes you spend with a fan is worth a lifetime of them wanting your products, even if they get the easily-copied products for free.
The best form of marketing is piracy -- if you're part of the 99% of the artists out there who can't get into the big industry because you have no clout or nepotism pull.
Is it easy either way? NO. Simple laws of supply and demand will show you that most artists won't cut it -- it is very easy to get into the market (financially). The skills can mostly be learned. The production tools are getting cheaper and cheaper. There is a near limitless supply of people who want to get into the market. Surely, few are talented, but the simple fact that there is SO MUCH SUPPLY and so little demand means that most bands will make nothing (or worse, lose a ton of time and money trying). Still, the web will surpass the radio and MTV as the prime networking engine, and I do believe that collaborative filtering engines such a CRITEO will really take off when more small sites start utilizing them to get their microcosm of users to collaborate on what they like and don't like.
Sidenote: If any bands are out here that are interested in trying this theory, and have any touring experience beyond a few local shows, hit me up with an e-mail, we have some money to invest in those who repudiate copyright in exchange for the free promotion that torrents and fileshare offers.
Congrats to KOOPA for proving that you don't need might -- or force -- to be more than a starving artist.
Don't mod this guy troll, mod him funny.
Enron was the poster child of over-regulation -- everything Enron did was because it was allowed monopoly status in a market that was never deregulated. They tried to free wholesale prices from regulation but capped retail prices. That's like saying oil should be a free market for wholesalers, but don't sell it for more than $1 to consumers. The same thing would happen. Bad accounting practices doesn't come from corporations, it comes from impossible-to-understand tax and accounting rules -- loopholes don't exist in a free market.
Congress spends almost a century enacting policies that have restricted the growth of communications that the market desires -- the FCC and a variety of laws and regulations that have mandated micro and macro-level monopolies. Instead of working to promote free enterprise, they want to enact MORE laws that restrict where the market will head based on consumer demand.
Net neutrality is fraudulent, because no one knows what the market will want tomorrow. When selection is mandated to a certain level, nothing rises above it, and little falls below that bar. Instead, you end up with an attempted "one-size fits all" scenario, which never works. It restricts long term development, new technology, and also restricts those who want to spend more for more, or spend less for less.
Net neutrality is bad idea -- just like most regulation of industry. How about revoking some of the pro-monopoly laws that exist, and allowing the market to go where the consumer wants it to? Voting with your dollars gives us cheaper goods in greater quantity. Setting regulations does the opposite.
www.stumbleupon.com works great for me. I'm very satisfied so far.
Disruptive technologies? Anything that makes us more efficient tomorrow is disruptive to what fell short yesterday.
1. CRITEO, the collaborative filter. They're moving forward with their API (it's free to register) and they're easy to integrate with from blogs and sites of all sorts. I'm a huge fan of collaborative filtering -- I think it's the next step beyond tagging.
2. HSDPA - High Speed Download Packet Access. T-Mobile should finally roll out some 3G services, allowing video phone calls, faster connections from the road, and a wider coverage of high speed access other than WiFi. I'm interested in WiMax, but I don't have as much faith in the technology due to our ridiculously tyrannical FCC regulations. HSDPA will seriously work to replace my car radio, Skype over GPRS, and other dead media.
3. More IP to POTS interaction. I'm really sick of the area code-phone number designations -- I use Skype for about 30% of my phone calls and 100% of my international phone calls, and I love it, but it isn't there yet. I can't wait for better ways to communicate vocally. My HTC Trinity P3600 phone supports WiFi, EDGE, GPRS and HSDPA -- hopefully soon we will see a move to an integrated POTS/WIFI(VOIP)/etc system where vocal communications can translate from one topology to another.
4. More bandwidth. I was one of the first testers of xDSL in Illinois before it was a catchphrase. I had a 128k/128k SDSL that I used for "free" for 6 months and then paid $200 a month for at the end of the trial period. It changed my world. Now we're rocking crazy speeds, but they're still not enough. I'm still blown away at what I pay for Comcast's 8mbps connection (2mbps realistic). The next jump won't quite be an order of magnitude, but everything helps, especially when running remote desktops, desktop collaboration, and high-bandwidth SQL requests.
5. Lower latency. I don't know if this will really happen, but I'm looking forward to even less lag. High bandwidth != low latency, and if anything I have seen worse latency lately than every before. My customers have been working harder to introduce faster websites, faster SQL responses and faster connections to their VPNs -- all to reduce latency. For me, latency is in the top 5 list of inefficiencies that slow me down. Reducing that inefficiency can likely double my producivity in many tasks.
Top 5 list of non-issues but seem to be important to others:
1. Mobile webpages. I run Firefox on my laptop tethered to my cell phone on the go. I also run Opera. Mobile websites sound great for the common phone, but the #1 reason why that is required is because cell phone companies lock out the ability to run better mobile web clients. Competition will hopefully knock this out -- releasing web designers from having to maintain a second mobile site (or a CSS that gives mobile sites better rendering).
2. RFID. This is a non-issue for me because it just isn't secure. While it is easy to fake a barcode (for example, to barcode a costly item with a less costly barcode and trick the check-out clerk), I'm not sure how RFID will really change my life. If anything, that form of automation will make my life more inefficient in having to deal with the "human check" follow through to verify that the RFID information is correct.
3. Credit Card security systems. I'm not concerned with credit card fraud. I hate Citibank -- they block my card about twice a week because I travel to a new city or country every week. If someone steals my card, I am not liable -- neither is Citibank. The retailer is. Security should be at the retail end. I do a chargeback, the merchant account provider charges back the merchant. End of story. I hate security on credit, it is ridiculous and limits me all the time.
4. Web 2.0. I'm getting sick of Web 2.0 interfaces, even though they look slick and they seem to work well for some websites. More than anything, they make my life difficult because they're not alw
I concur, fully, which is why we like to go beyond the call of duty and beyond expectations. Many of our customers are tech-friendly (some even ready slashdot regularly), so they're regularly surprised when we can beat even a low-end Windows PC into submission for the long haul. For us, it is more important to focus on the long-term goals of customer profitability (which is a great indicator of efficiency and even can be an indicator of employee happiness if there are perks to sustaining a profit-goal) rather than just on our own goal of profitability. We'll always make money, but there are times when we have to eat a loss because we didn't focus well enough on the customer's goals and instead focused on our own.
I'd never hold out on my clients because I know from experience (seeing some competitors fail) that it doesn't make sense it any competitive industry. Government, on the other hand, has absolutely no reason to solve any problem because they've got a monopoly on their "business."
So right now I can see that the "online desktop" might work pretty well for office workers, so long as they don't travel. As soon as you travel at all it's going to cost you quite a bit, and for dubious advantages.
But all I do is travel -- my entire business life revolves around fast net access. When I go to India or Switzerland or Poland or France, my EDGE-based cell phone tethered to my laptop works fine -- nearly everywhere. I have a variety of SIM cards from a variety of providers, but my net annual cost is under $2000 for nearly unlimited high speed access wherever I find myself.
I was in Vegas 2 weeks ago, and my phone tether worked great (even in the airport that has free WiFi). It worked at in the hotel tower I as staying in. I am going to Europe in a few weeks, and I've already checked to make sure I can get at least 128kbps from my phone -- so far, it looks promising.
For me, $2000 a year is nothing if it means I can continue to bill my hourly rate wherever I happen to be. If you can't afford $2000 a year for near-universal high-speed access, maybe you're not in the right business that can't account for those costs. Again, it boils down to supply and demand, and the available supply of high speed access is growing daily. If I can't get an EDGE connection for whatever reason, GPRS will do for at least e-mail and data transfer. If I can't get GPRS, my phone supports WiFi and there are more open routers I drive past every day, especially near discount hotels/motels (higher priced hotel chains seem to charge for it, cheaper ones don't). If you work on-the-go, just find a solution to appease your need for connectivity -- and then raise your billable rate to compensate.
I work in accounting, and Google Spreadsheets just don't cut it. I work with Pivot tables every day for instance, and enormous amounts of data. Google spreadsheets are not practical for me.
Of course -- right now. The current limitations for you are the lack of online-apps that can handle the work you do, and the lack of bandwidth to properly connect you to the online-app. Do you seriously believe that neither will be conquered and provided for in the near future? The term "bandwidth" will go the way of the dodo soon enough -- massive highspeed bandwidth will be a commodity, as long as the FCC and other regulatory criminal bodies won't stop it. When the bandwidth is available, the online-apps will become more powerful in order to prove why they're superior to having to keep your own local copies (and update them, and back up the data, and provide the modern processor upgrades for, etc).
I won't even say "just give it time" because it is already happening now. Heck, HSDPA is closing in on that magicaly 3.6Mbps figure that will really allow the Internet to progress to portable devices in the same fashion that DSL encouraged Web 2.0 on the desktop.
I'm sitting here at my Grandmother's borrowing wireless from a neighbor. The signal is very weak and page loads are on the order of 30 seconds. The idea of online apps makes me shudder.
No, you're just supporting the reality of supply-demand. You have a demand for a service (Internet) at a given price (free). The supply of that service is limited, so you're getting what you want, but because the supply is limited, the quality is comensurate with what you're willing to pay (nothing).
If you wanted better service, you'd just invest in either a better antenna, or a relationship with your neighbor so that they move the wireless router closer to you, or you'd spend money on the quality of service you require -- at a given cost.
If 30 second latency is fine for your given work, then you're gold. If you need it quicker, you have to see if your given work offers enough profit to cover the cost of a better connection. That's the beauty of the free market -- all demands at a given price/performance will either be met, or are unrealistic.
I was contemplating vaccines and software patches and other items that constantly need updating and never really solve the problem and came up with a theory of selling reality -- do you ever want to sell a product that never needs updating or repairs or replacement? Is it anyone's goal to truly fix a problem forever?
One of my businesses is IT consulting, and we really do try to fix our customers problems for good -- when possible. We find that solving problems today ends up giving us more work tomorrow through referrals, etc. We even have a popular warranty where we always fix things that break again for free (even if we lose money on the net), even due to user error. Yet most consultants love the repeat business -- why fix something forever if you're sure that only temporarily patching a problem is enough?
Are there any vaccines or medical products that really do anything permanent? Is part of the reason for temporary cures or fixes just the basic realistic knowledge that temporary cures mean job security?
I don't trust anything that is sold as a "permanent fix" for a problem -- I don't know if we humans are capable of doing anything so self-sacrificial as that.
So when your 100+ employees are trucking along working at their new entirely remote desktops, and all of a sudden the ISP has problems or Google has trouble - how long can your business last without its apps and data?
Forever since I would surely have redundancy for the most recent data. In fact, my office employees already have multiple paths to the web -- a few months ago when our T1s both went down we actually connected to the web via a cell phone GPRS connection. Slow, yes, but we got through the 90 minute outage.
How long can my employees work if the local server blows? It happens. How long can my employees work if the electric company has problems and the backup battery isn't big enough?
For my company, and most companies, 99.5% uptime is enough. 30% is enough if the outages occur off work hours -- which is likely if the service is international in scope.
Sidenote: Modern caching techniques might even allow some intelligent programmer to create a feature that lets you work even through loss of connections to the main server -- while I am not adept at caching technology and theory, you better believe someone will figure out a way to store the most recent used data on a centrally located "caching" server that offloads the data to the main server instantly during connected times, but holds it locally during disconnects. Just a thought.
All speculation seems to exist with a long tail-type graph. Initially, as supply is low and demand is high, the risk/reward ratio is low (meaning that the risk comes close to guaranteeing a reward). Yet over time, those numbers change and the risk/reward ratio goes up -- a high risk with a low reward. Quickly the profit curve falls -- very quickly if the items are easily supplied and demand is limited.
In this case, as in many speculative ventures, the tail portion of the curve can drop below the zero point, meaning profit is now a loss. Once you consider your time spent, shipping, gas, and other costs, that negative-profit point can come fairly quickly as suppy goes up and old demand is met.
I don't believe in speculating on anything once the masses know about it. Housing is an example -- so was the dotcom era. When the kid at Best Buy tells you that it is time to buy a second home/buy a tech stock/buy a PS3 in order to make money, the boom is over, and the last speculators are caught because no one wants to catch a falling knife.
I never would have gotten involved in this mess because you just HAVE to know that Sony wanted to make more of them so they could themselves make the profit. What I never understood about the PS3 is why Sony wouldn't have had more reason to sell them themselves in an auction style. It makes more sense to reap the profits for themselves -- I wonder how many Sony managers and upper-management were some of the initial eBay sellers?
Sidenote: I've always thought that bands should do the same for concert tickets in demand -- why sell them through ticketmaster when the band could auction the high-demand/limited-supply tickets off direct and reap the rewards.
The PC revolution moved us away from a mainframe/terminal environment. Why would we want to move back to a similiar model?
I don't think the PC revolution moved us away from client/server -- it was the bandwidth/process/cost ratios that did. A PC with sneakernet provided better cost/efficiency ratios that did mainframe/terminal. As PC networks progressed, it really surpassed the server/terminal environment. But now we have extended the network beyond the office, and bandwidth is up, costs are down, so the focus today is on offering people access to their data from everywhere instead of just their hard drive.
I love client/server if it means having a really powerful server and a weak client. My PCs at home sit around doing nothing 80% of the day -- wasted hard drive space, wasted processor time, wasted hardware. Sure I can crunch some scientific equations on the PCs when they're dark, but all that technology could be better used if it was shared for others to use.
I would rather lease processor time/hard drive space to use as I needed -- in the amount I needed -- than worry about buying the latest and greatest every 6 months just to keep up. There are times when I have to RIP a 4GB print file on my most powerful PC and I wish I could get a cluster of machines to RIP it faster. For me, client/server in this case would make sense -- if I had 4-6Mbps of bandwidth to send the RIP'd info to my local printer. I _have_ RIPd big EPS files on a remote PC in the past and sent it via DSL to the printer (yes, 500Kbps was fast enough to keep the printer humming along).
For most people, leasing space/processors online would be cheaper -- and I think ISPs will move in that direction in the near future, as they already have in the recent past. Advertising-sponsored web servers are the norm lately, and I don't see why this won't make many happier. Google's apps are ad-sponsored and they work fine for me (and have even connected me with great online services through reading those ads on occasion).
I use Gmail for Domains and love it -- we've even been moving customers over to it and they love it.
I still use a POP3 e-mail app to download e-mails for archival purposes or to better format them for printing. I also use POP3 to get my e-mails to my cell phone/PDA (HPC Trinity P3600, best product ever) and it works fine.
I am ready to move to a virtual online desktop TODAY. Anything I need to backup I will -- everything else I'd rather pay someone else to host for me. While graphics design and high-data jobs require me to work locally, almost everything else works just fine remotely. I can see Wordpress evolving to the point that it could compete with Word locally, and I already use Google Spreadsheet for all my spreadsheet work (I've actually removed my office suite entirely as of last week).
As long as it works over my T-Mobile EDGE connection (bigger than a thin client), it is fine with me. Those days are quickly coming that I won't care what OS I am running as long as my browser is compatible with my online desktop.
Each State gets $750,000 -- customers will share "thousands more."
Nice. Real way to protect the consumer.
That's part of competing -- to give your customers EVERY reason to pick you over someone else. Any good business does it by:
1. Providing a product that meets the current needs of their customers.
2. Providing a path to new features/efficiencies for their customers' futures.
3. Working with third parties to offer incentives to provide your product solely.
4. Providing a proven ROI for a short-term and long-term focus.
Microsoft, to me, is not a monopoly -- except when the State is involved (providing patents and copyrights and trademarks). I'm against those monopoly provisions, but those are "legal" ones. Without them, Microsoft's power over competitors would be equalized. You can't blame Microsoft for taking advantage of what you, the voters, allowed them to utilize. The judgements against them calling them a monopoly are only there because you, the voters, let those policies become standard based on Microsoft's given legal priviledge over competition. Nothing prevents competition from doing what Microsoft does -- except than the competition would rather use THEIR monkeys in government to try to stem Microsoft's growth.
As we see in the relatively free and unencumbered market of the web, Microsoft doesn't have any sort of monopoly -- people are free to choose what they want, and they do. In fact, the long tail effect shows that many products openly compete with Microsoft -- both legally obtained products and illegally obtained ones.
The whole Vista issue is a non-issue. Everyone who cries foul against Microsoft refuses to see that the products they prefer just don't meet the top 4 items I listed -- in fact, some of them fail most or all of them. No one will invest in a product, even a free one, if it doesn't offer those items. Many Microsoft products do -- but not all of them. Vista will succeed only because consultants will like its standardization, manufacturers will like knowing there is a standard interface for their hardware/software to run on, and resellers will like it because it has always worked well enough for both the casual and the power user.
Who cares about it looking like past products? If it worked for Microsoft in the past, why wouldn't they follow through with similar performances -- and making new ones to try to produce a better selling product?
I've been playing with a collaborative filter engine called CRITEO that is completely blowing my mind in how it opens opportunities to gain that "wisdom of the crowds" bit for the average user -- not just huge companies like Amazon or these emergent venture capitalized corporations. Over the past 2 weeks I've been working on some Wordpress code to actually integrate this relevancy predictor (my results should be forthcoming by the first week of January) and it really seems like you NEED a predictive filtering engine to utilize the crowds to give each individual within the crowd relevant results as compared to just generic "ratings."
This Yootle system is interesting, but it doesn't go far enough. Just because the crowds skew towards a majority opinion doesn't mean that opinion is relevant to the majority (I know it sounds weird). Each individual will have certain likes and dislikes within that majority opinion. Without some sort of relevancy predictor, the "majority vote" is useless.
Hopefully we will see more people utilizing systems such as CRITEO's to actually take the input of the masses (thousands, millions, or even billions of decisions and ratings) and run them through a real-time engine to give everyone a unique view of what they might want/need/like/hate/etc. As I spent more time beating on trying to come up with my own quick/real-time solution, the more I realized that using someone else's services let me focus on what is best for my customer -- my content, generally.
The prediction system to rank Yahoo searches is very 2005 -- it really just capitalizes on the likes of the masses, which means it is hitting the top head of the long tail rather than the more important remaining 80%. I'd love to see a search engine that allows you to "rate" your search results or even individual search results in real time, maybe in collaboration with a system like CRITEO. Anyone interested in working on one? I'd be willing to bet that such an investment of time would give many of us a better search engine that actually returns results that are relevant to the individual's tastes rather than the masses' collective "favorites" which are usually way off base. It would also reduce the spam results greatly and open the door to the wisdom of the masses actually making a difference for each individual. What I like about collaborative filter is that 5 seconds per user can mean days or weeks saved for that user in the long run because of the 5 seconds "donated" by the million others.
Actually, in the past 6 months I have been moving much of my phone service to Skype (I have a DID in every country that I have a residency in). I now use Skype from my PDA (fairly good, considering it is Beta software) and we have Skype hooked up to our MCE PC for our home phone. Is it perfect? No. Does it utilize government-regulated corporations? Yes. But I'd say within the next 12 months I think I can transfer entirely to Skype and dump the cell connection entirely.
It is myth that T-Mobile is a State-owned enterprise, though. As far as I know (and I used to consult on these matters professionally), the German phone company was de-Stated around 1988. DT is now a private company, but I do believe that Germany owns a small share, maybe 10-20%. From what I recall, this was the only way for them to regulate the company as the US regulates private phone companies here -- again, this is just conjecture based on previous knowledge that I no longer use.
I can't recall any connection to the Third Reich as historically, the German phone company was part of the German postal service, which didn't start up until post-Hitler times. I can't be certain, but I feel pretty positive that your comment was based on nothing factual at all -- do some Googling to get some more facts, but I lived in Germany (Freiburg) and did quite a large historical study (I was living there to study Von Hayek's employent at the University). As far as I know, Germany seems to be considerably Socialist, but they've made huge steps to privatization of various industries, which is what is making them more competitive in the world market.
I'm not sure about any reports that categorize what is basically a nation-wide business that really exists in terms of local regions, in this case, cell towers. I've used T-Mobile since Voicestream was the originator (actually, since day one of Voicestream) and I've been ecstatic about their coverage in the regions I travel in. For me, this is all that matters. I hear about horror stories with T-Mobile from others -- but their regions are different. For me to use a national consumer report for a company that exists for me mostly on a local level is really short-sighted.
I do like Consumer Reports and I think they do carry weight in their expertise in terms of national products on a national level -- cars, consumer equipment, home equipment, etc. I won't buy a car or a washer or a TV without at least reviewing what CR has to say. But if CR was to try to shoehorn local service into a nation-wide review, I don't think I would consider it trustworthy. For that, I'd contact people in the region and see what they use.
My father recently switched from T-Mobile to Cingular and he is actually happier -- better coverage in HIS region (objective), conversation quality seems better (subjective), and he hasn't had one dropped call versus T-Mobile dropping about 5% of the calls in HIS region. But in my area, Cingular is terrible.
Sure, the report (for subscribers) offers some city-wide ratings, but again it is too generic to really understand or use as a relevant way to pick a carrier. Also, it is important to realize that while "nationwide" can be broken down in multiple ways, it is still an overall general region. The Chicago area that I live in totals about 30 regions from urban to suburban to exurban to rural -- and all of them are rarely used by the same user. For a cell phone user, talking to me (in the burbs) means little if they live in farmland, so why would they care what the overall national service quality is when what matters most is what others in their region use and are happy with?
I am a fan of CR and other free market regulators (they offer opinions, you are free to choose based on that variety of opinion out there), but in this case I think they fall short of need. I do like them in terms of rating customer service, which is definitely NOT region-based or specific to one local market, but produces a reliable review of the company as a whole. I think that is where CR shines: in terms of letting us know about specific problems with their customer service center or with their contracts or with their pricing schemes. But in terms of overall reliability, I think this is more aggregation where aggregation is not appropriate or even considered valid.
I won't ever switch to Cingular myself because of two reasons:
1. I've had friends who have had terrible luck with their call center for help.
2. Bad contracts as compared to other cell phone manufacturers.
T-Mobile has the best customer retention department imaginable, and they seem to care because of the follow-up calls I've received. I also love their handset replacement plan as well as their optional insurance plan which I've used twice in 5 years. T-Mobile has made sure I am never without a working phone, and when I have had problems, they've worked to fix it. For me, that is still secondary to knowing what works in what markets/regions that I use, and CR just isn't appropriate for that purpose.
Sidenotes:
Early termination fees are VERY important when you're getting a $200-$300 handset "for free." Just returning the handset does not cover the commission paid to the dealer.
Upfront price disclosure is important, but it really should be up to the buyer-side of the transaction to understand what they're getting into. If you're not sure, ask a friend to help you.
Realstic coverage maps: What is realistic? I've never seen a coverage map that is consistently right -- things change, and conditions can be effected by new construction or even weather conditions. They can al