The poor people that can't figure out that the BMW web site is www.bmw.com. To be honest if they can't figure that one out, then they can't be bright enough to afford a new BMW (can you guess the ones for Holden and Ford).
That's awfully elitist. Novice users don't really distinguish between an address bar and a search box. I've watched users type in "google" into their MSN homepage to get to Google, and then conduct their search. From Hitwise:
Top Queries: Navigational terms rule on the search engines, with top queries often those for sites such as eBay or Mapquest. Top term on Yahoo and MSN? The name of their chief rival -- Google! Ask is notable for not having its top list be dominated by navigational queries.
There are many devices that do a lot of things better than a BlackBerry, but no one does Email better than a BlackBerry does. When you have full Enterprise integration with wireless sync, it's almost like having Outlook everywhere you go. If you read a new email on your BlackBerry, it gets marked as read in Outlook (via Exchange). Reply to an email and it shows up as "replied" and a copy of your email is inserted into your Sent box. It takes some time to get used to, and I didn't like it at first, but now I can't imagine going back to not having it, and I know MANY people that can't live without it.
If you're using a BlackBerry device with only POP3 accounts or with Exchange without Wireless Sync, there are many other devices, particularly Treos, that are much better suited. The 7100 (which is what I have) has much better phone functionality than previous BlackBerries, but it's not nearly as good as modern, dedicated phone interface (like a Samsung or Sony Ericsson). You really have to be close to your email to appreciate a BlackBerry.
Google has done some very good things, but I think people should give Yahoo a little credit for having come out with a very large number of services, often beating others (including Google) to the web with that service.
I completely agree with you here. Google has clearly done a lot to change the way people look at the web and monetization, but it has little that's truly unique anymore. Google spent years building its search engine and produced some incredible results. When Yahoo launched their own proprietary engine in early 2004, they produced a product with results that were nearly as good. I love Gmail for its interface, but is still playing catch-up for features with Yahoo, and they have a brand new interface that will be released soon. Google Maps did a great job and re-invigorating the maps market, but Yahoo's new Maps Beta is really much better. Overture could use some work as compared to AdWords/Adsense, but it's quite good.
In 2003, Google had better than 80% search share in the US. Now it's almost half of that, and there's even more to play out. To me, Yahoo also has the right mindset about Web 2.0 communities -- look at its recent acquisitions of del.icio.us and Flickr -- and these will be important in the future. Google has a lot going for it, but Yahoo isn't just the funky homepage it used to be.
You're right -- very few jobs are like LEGO jobs, both technical and "business." However, there is value in compartmentalizing the employee completely. Security is one factor, but so is morale. Every now and then, there's someone who's getting to leave that becomes cancerous to the organization and can cause uncertainty within the group and the rumor mill starts flowing. When the person is still an employee, they can become difficult to mange. When a resignation has become clear, it's very easy to just send them home as a matter of policy.
I completely agree that a transition period is valuable, but sometimes the risk is very high, particularly when the person has a lot of intellectual capital and is going to a competitor. It's management's responsibility to ensure that nothing more is invested in that person. I've seen this happen many times, and I agree with the process. In many cases, when a transition period is required but the employee is escorted out, the person may be required to come back in for short periods of time within the notice period for "consulting" and "documentation."
Maybe so, but "google" has become a verb, while "eBay" has not.
Though I disagree with you ("I don't really want an Xbox 360 for myself -- I just plan to eBay it and take the profit."), the point is that eBay is more a part of pop culture than Google is. After all, how many Jay Leno jokes have you heard about eBay? And about Google? He even does a regular spot about wacky stuff found on eBay on the show. And he auctioned a motorcycle for Katrina victims on the show for more than $500k and will be auctioning a Porsche Carrera, as well. Not to say that Google isn't an incredibly strong brand, but eBay is much farther ahead at the moment.
Oooh... When you rename a technology, it becomes totaly new and awsome.
Surprisingly, yes! A keyword and a tag appear to be the same -- it's just a word and it becomes associated with whatever it's attached to. However, when you ask someone to tag an object, like a photo, book, or a person, they end up thinking about the problem differently. Instead of distilling it down to ways that people would find that particular product via a search, they think about categorization, and that makes all the difference. Keywords are likely to be about the product (stapler, swingline, red) but tags may associate it with something else (office space, milton). It's all about changing the person's mindset in a very subtle but powerful way.
I consider tagging to be similar to blogging. In the end, it's just a page with some content, much as people have done since the web got started. However, the rebranding and a couple of good tools really accelerated the way people use it and changed the way they think about the content they write. Gone are the "homepages" with links to some photos, a resume, and maybe a list of links. Blogs are the new homepage. 98% of blogs are junk, like 98% of homepages were, but the 2% are truly gems now.
It doesn't need to be -- ou just get many of them. Mounted on the top of every Humvee, it'd be a serious challenge to snipe each of them out individually.
The surprising thing to me is that Google is countersuing in California instead of removing to Federal court.
IANAL, but non-compete agreements are illegal in California. Google could have filed suit in CA, WA, or in the federal system, but I believe they're pushing hard for the CA jurisdiction (and trying to convince everyone that Dr. Lee is a CA resident) because of this.
there is just a lot of ignorance and an attitude only concerned with profit, speed to market, and results
Isn't that the bottom line, though? Software, platforms, and licensing philosophies are usually just tools that enable the succcess of profit, speed to market, and results. If you can't affect one of these things with your decisions, why should anyone beyond yourself care?
That being said, OSS vs closed, GNU vs BSD, worm vs. virus can matter -- but you have to articulate the specific differences toward things they are charged with caring about. Being pedantic isn't going to get you anywhere, but good management teams will be interested in your reasoning if you can say things like:
The Amazon patent does not have to do with pharmacies or drugs. It is constrained only to the web. They're not claiming a patent on the concept of reminding customers of previous purchases -- they're doing it only as a "computer-implemented method," constrained to "electronic catalogs" for an "online store" and "user-specific order histories." Arguably, you could implement the same thing for non-retail websites. Or non user-specific order histories. Or take it off the web entirely. So unless your grandmother's pharmacist was actually a website, the story doesn't apply.
The vast majority of users don't use their computers frequently enough to learn little things like this, so sorting like that works for most of the population, who will continue to read every option from left to right, top to bottom. For advanced users, they should just drag-drop shortcuts to their most frequently used applications to the static launch space on the Start menu -- right below where Internet Explorer and Outlook Express usually sit. On my machine, it reads:
Firefox
Thunderbird
Cygwin Bash Shell
Emacs
Trillian
[separator]
[reordering icons]
This leaves me with my most frequently used applications very close (Start menu, then hit the first letter of the application; sometimes twice if I have more than one that start with the same), exactly as I left them, and keeps the other ones that I use occasionally on a short list ready to go. I rarely expand the full set.
So owners should be liable for illegal activities that are conducted on their Internet connection just because they can't positively identify who is using their network? Sounds like a legal and privacy can of worms. For example, if a cafe allows you free access with a purchase (WEP key printed on the receipt) and you paid in cash, are they still liable? Are they responsible for doling out individual access keys to each person? Most worrysome, how well do they need to identify each person? Do you need to present ID? And are they going to keep a copy of it? And where does "illegal" activity stop? Does soliciting child porn count? Will an mp3 download send the RIAA MIB to the cafe? Will SSIDs need to be logged with the activity and tied to DLs and credit cards? If so, for how long? That's just the beginning.
The intent is right -- reducing spam -- but the methodology is all wrong. Closing open relays and blocking port 25 is an easy start, but remember that spamming can occur with just a single email from a legitimate account. If I have a cafe, and a customer uses a Hotmail account to spam just one person with unsolicited commercial email, should I be liable? I don't think criminal liabilities for connection providers should be set as a precedent.
There actually are engine control systems for motors with more than 4 cylinders that automatically turn off a few cylinders when running at low load.
That's great if you're driving a GM or a Chrysler, but you've bought the wrong car if you're trying to increase fuel economy for a V12 Ferrari (unless you're racing).
"Type-R" is well-known among the racing enthusiasts, as a tuned up version of the original platform to its maximum output
Nope. Actually, I know it to be mostly used for badge engineering- aka posturing.
Nope. Actually, "Type-R" has a very specific meaning -- it's a trademark that Honda uses several of its cars to denote a more highly tuned model, such as an Integra Type-R. The ITR was brought to the US in 1997, featuring a more powerful engine, a different gearbox, and less frills to reduce weight (such as air conditioning and insulation), among other changes. This is not dissimilar to other cars from other brands, such as the Mazda Miata R, the BMW M3 LTW, and the Chevy Corvette Z06. Honda also has a Type-S designation for other cars that sits between the regular versions and the premium enthusiast version.
However, car/pop culture being what it is, the branding has been diluted with lots of wanna-bes and suddenly Type-R stickers and badges started appearing on all kinds of cars, notably non Type-R Hondas, but on other makes and models as well. For example, Accord Type-Rs, of which none were brought into the US, are a relatively common "sight."
"Badge engineering," as you point out, has much to do with the prevalence of such silly names making it into all kinds of non-car products. However, the Type-R designation has a very specific meaning that is rapidly getting diluted in a very bad way.
Full time as an employee or just a paid contractor? A FT employee typically receives all the benefits of being a full-time employee and the compensation package typically involves stock options. However, contractors means that you get checks from them, but with no benefits. Google has lots of contractors.
Also, the Google Toolbar clues Google into new websites. That little icon that shows PageRank asks the mothership if it knows the PR for a particular URL. If they've never seen it before, it's pretty reasonable to assume that they'll come by eventually and take a look at what you've got... This is another possible explanation for the ridiculous conspiracy theory.
That doesn't make sense because the numbers don't add up. There are millions of people out there with pirated stuff and only a few get caught, the odds of me getting caught are literally like one in a million. If I want to buy a $1 song, and there's a one-in-a-million shot that I get caught if I pirate it, how big does the penalty have to be for me to buy it legitimately? A $2 penalty just isn't going to cut it. In fact, a "rational" person is going to require that the penalty be $1M, because the price of the song and the penalty are equal -- both cause the payment of a dollar. However, most people are risk averse, and it doesn't take a $1M penalty to prevent a loss. If the odds are really that low of getting caught and the penalty is really that low, then, for sure, I will pirate every time.
However, most people are not rational -- they're risk averse. So you might gamble $1 on a flip of a coin, but you won't do it for $1M, even though the odds are exactly the same. Reasonable penalties cannot take place until there's a reasonable chance of getting caught -- the law depends upon risk aversity as a deterrent.
My question here is how much of that price tag reflects the license tax to Microsoft? The hardware can't cost more than $150 by itself even at retail prices... even the LCD doesn't justify it. The software itself also doesn't justify the price... maybe another $100 for that so.... IMHO the license is half or more of the purchase price there. Surely the market can come up with a better or comperable offering for much less...I'm not buyin' it, figuratively or literally.
I don't understand the constant attempt to add up the cost of parts and try to attribute it to the price. The truth is that the $500 price is set because the manufacturer thinks that their target buyer believes it represents $500 of value over the lifetime of ownership and the market will bear the price. It's not set because it's an "appropriate" profit over the cost of manufacturing, so trying to attribute the entire price to the sum of its cost is silly -- basic economics should tell you this. There's no way that half of the price is the cost of the Microsoft license and surely they're getting parts for substantially cheaper than we can get them at. Creative is simply trying to take advantage of the premium early-adopters are willing to pay to help amortize the cost of development and market entry. No doubt the products will get better and cheaper as the market for them expands. It's just a question of how big the market will actually get.
Don't enter it.... If it still then rejects it, browse to epitonic.com, emusic.com, or mp3.com, or many other thousands of free mp3 music collections... Go to a fucking live show, for godssakes... The point is, your Social Security Number is YOUR PRIVATE information. You don't have to give it to ANYONE, *unless* you are dealing with social security benefits. Goodbye.
Apple doesn't use the SSN. It's submitted to LinkShare, who holds onto it. They want it so that when they pay you a commission, the information about payments made to you or your company are properly submitted to the IRS. This has absolutely nothing to do with buying music. If you want to be paid as an affiliate, they need to report your earnings to the IRS. As you probably know, anything you submit to the IRS is tagged with your name and SSN.
Because Google's product isn't their search engine, it's what the search engine is running on. We're talking a huge server clustering engine...
Oh really? Is that how they plan on making $250M this year on $3B of revenue for 2004? How do I buy or rent this product that they are selling?
Google's technical infrastructure is novel and very interesting, but it's a cost-reduction measure and not a source of revenue. Seeing how they make money, they're an advertising company more than anything else. But you don't have to take my word for it:
"Because Google arose after the Internet bubble, they were able to acquire a very strong technical team," Mr. Brewer said. "The irony is that they are really more of an advertising company than a search engine company today." -- So Google Is Almost Public. Now Comes the Hard Part.
What makes Google interesting is that it had really nice clean hits. Better than others.
No, what makes Google interesting is that they've figured out how to monetize search. And then how to make it scale. Other search engines and many web technologies are even more interesting, entertaining, or valuable to the user, but difficult to monetize.
The problem is that most people don't. Yahoo has a huge user base already and they're trying to retaining it by going after Gmail's most notable feature -- the storage. So they're making comparable offers, including a premium service. The average Joe now thinks he's got it all. Is the interface and all that stuff worth telling everyone you know that you've switched email addresses? It's a real pain and not everyone's willing to make those changes. Keyboard shortcuts and threaded discussions are great for geeks, but you'd be amazed how little these features are used by the "average user." Walk around the office and look at people's Outlook and how they use it. They barely set it up correctly, never use keyboard shortcuts, always just put messages in chronological order, and are happy with their folders. Gmail's new features are not compelling enough to make it worth the hassle except for the possibility of getting the name that they want. Yahoo is also responding on this front by releasing 50 million dormant account names back into circulation, many of them early names that are easy to remember, like "mbsmith" instead of "mbsmith1532." Combined with the over-hyped fear of Gmail privacy issues, the average Joe might just want to stay where they are -- at least now Yahoo is a viable option for staying. Not everyone understands the new features that Gmail has, but everyone understands storage limitations.
I've asked people if they want a Gmail account and half the time, I get the response, "Why do I care?" I think Yahoo was very clever in their response and it will be interesting to watch the two companies (plus Hotmail, because you know they're cooking something, too) battle it out in the next year.
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There are many devices that do a lot of things better than a BlackBerry, but no one does Email better than a BlackBerry does. When you have full Enterprise integration with wireless sync, it's almost like having Outlook everywhere you go. If you read a new email on your BlackBerry, it gets marked as read in Outlook (via Exchange). Reply to an email and it shows up as "replied" and a copy of your email is inserted into your Sent box. It takes some time to get used to, and I didn't like it at first, but now I can't imagine going back to not having it, and I know MANY people that can't live without it.
If you're using a BlackBerry device with only POP3 accounts or with Exchange without Wireless Sync, there are many other devices, particularly Treos, that are much better suited. The 7100 (which is what I have) has much better phone functionality than previous BlackBerries, but it's not nearly as good as modern, dedicated phone interface (like a Samsung or Sony Ericsson). You really have to be close to your email to appreciate a BlackBerry.
I completely agree with you here. Google has clearly done a lot to change the way people look at the web and monetization, but it has little that's truly unique anymore. Google spent years building its search engine and produced some incredible results. When Yahoo launched their own proprietary engine in early 2004, they produced a product with results that were nearly as good. I love Gmail for its interface, but is still playing catch-up for features with Yahoo, and they have a brand new interface that will be released soon. Google Maps did a great job and re-invigorating the maps market, but Yahoo's new Maps Beta is really much better. Overture could use some work as compared to AdWords/Adsense, but it's quite good.
In 2003, Google had better than 80% search share in the US. Now it's almost half of that, and there's even more to play out. To me, Yahoo also has the right mindset about Web 2.0 communities -- look at its recent acquisitions of del.icio.us and Flickr -- and these will be important in the future. Google has a lot going for it, but Yahoo isn't just the funky homepage it used to be.
You're right -- very few jobs are like LEGO jobs, both technical and "business." However, there is value in compartmentalizing the employee completely. Security is one factor, but so is morale. Every now and then, there's someone who's getting to leave that becomes cancerous to the organization and can cause uncertainty within the group and the rumor mill starts flowing. When the person is still an employee, they can become difficult to mange. When a resignation has become clear, it's very easy to just send them home as a matter of policy.
I completely agree that a transition period is valuable, but sometimes the risk is very high, particularly when the person has a lot of intellectual capital and is going to a competitor. It's management's responsibility to ensure that nothing more is invested in that person. I've seen this happen many times, and I agree with the process. In many cases, when a transition period is required but the employee is escorted out, the person may be required to come back in for short periods of time within the notice period for "consulting" and "documentation."
Surprisingly, yes! A keyword and a tag appear to be the same -- it's just a word and it becomes associated with whatever it's attached to. However, when you ask someone to tag an object, like a photo, book, or a person, they end up thinking about the problem differently. Instead of distilling it down to ways that people would find that particular product via a search, they think about categorization, and that makes all the difference. Keywords are likely to be about the product (stapler, swingline, red) but tags may associate it with something else (office space, milton). It's all about changing the person's mindset in a very subtle but powerful way.
I consider tagging to be similar to blogging. In the end, it's just a page with some content, much as people have done since the web got started. However, the rebranding and a couple of good tools really accelerated the way people use it and changed the way they think about the content they write. Gone are the "homepages" with links to some photos, a resume, and maybe a list of links. Blogs are the new homepage. 98% of blogs are junk, like 98% of homepages were, but the 2% are truly gems now.
It doesn't need to be -- ou just get many of them. Mounted on the top of every Humvee, it'd be a serious challenge to snipe each of them out individually.
Isn't that the bottom line, though? Software, platforms, and licensing philosophies are usually just tools that enable the succcess of profit, speed to market, and results. If you can't affect one of these things with your decisions, why should anyone beyond yourself care?
That being said, OSS vs closed, GNU vs BSD, worm vs. virus can matter -- but you have to articulate the specific differences toward things they are charged with caring about. Being pedantic isn't going to get you anywhere, but good management teams will be interested in your reasoning if you can say things like:
The Amazon patent does not have to do with pharmacies or drugs. It is constrained only to the web. They're not claiming a patent on the concept of reminding customers of previous purchases -- they're doing it only as a "computer-implemented method," constrained to "electronic catalogs" for an "online store" and "user-specific order histories." Arguably, you could implement the same thing for non-retail websites. Or non user-specific order histories. Or take it off the web entirely. So unless your grandmother's pharmacist was actually a website, the story doesn't apply.
- Firefox
- Thunderbird
- Cygwin Bash Shell
- Emacs
- Trillian
- [separator]
- [reordering icons]
This leaves me with my most frequently used applications very close (Start menu, then hit the first letter of the application; sometimes twice if I have more than one that start with the same), exactly as I left them, and keeps the other ones that I use occasionally on a short list ready to go. I rarely expand the full set.So owners should be liable for illegal activities that are conducted on their Internet connection just because they can't positively identify who is using their network? Sounds like a legal and privacy can of worms. For example, if a cafe allows you free access with a purchase (WEP key printed on the receipt) and you paid in cash, are they still liable? Are they responsible for doling out individual access keys to each person? Most worrysome, how well do they need to identify each person? Do you need to present ID? And are they going to keep a copy of it? And where does "illegal" activity stop? Does soliciting child porn count? Will an mp3 download send the RIAA MIB to the cafe? Will SSIDs need to be logged with the activity and tied to DLs and credit cards? If so, for how long? That's just the beginning.
The intent is right -- reducing spam -- but the methodology is all wrong. Closing open relays and blocking port 25 is an easy start, but remember that spamming can occur with just a single email from a legitimate account. If I have a cafe, and a customer uses a Hotmail account to spam just one person with unsolicited commercial email, should I be liable? I don't think criminal liabilities for connection providers should be set as a precedent.
Nope. Actually, "Type-R" has a very specific meaning -- it's a trademark that Honda uses several of its cars to denote a more highly tuned model, such as an Integra Type-R. The ITR was brought to the US in 1997, featuring a more powerful engine, a different gearbox, and less frills to reduce weight (such as air conditioning and insulation), among other changes. This is not dissimilar to other cars from other brands, such as the Mazda Miata R, the BMW M3 LTW, and the Chevy Corvette Z06. Honda also has a Type-S designation for other cars that sits between the regular versions and the premium enthusiast version.
However, car/pop culture being what it is, the branding has been diluted with lots of wanna-bes and suddenly Type-R stickers and badges started appearing on all kinds of cars, notably non Type-R Hondas, but on other makes and models as well. For example, Accord Type-Rs, of which none were brought into the US, are a relatively common "sight."
"Badge engineering," as you point out, has much to do with the prevalence of such silly names making it into all kinds of non-car products. However, the Type-R designation has a very specific meaning that is rapidly getting diluted in a very bad way.
I'm with you on the "sleeper" bit, but my car, is less than stealthy.
Full time as an employee or just a paid contractor? A FT employee typically receives all the benefits of being a full-time employee and the compensation package typically involves stock options. However, contractors means that you get checks from them, but with no benefits. Google has lots of contractors.
300k employees all with desk jobs?
Also, the Google Toolbar clues Google into new websites. That little icon that shows PageRank asks the mothership if it knows the PR for a particular URL. If they've never seen it before, it's pretty reasonable to assume that they'll come by eventually and take a look at what you've got ... This is another possible explanation for the ridiculous conspiracy theory.
That doesn't make sense because the numbers don't add up. There are millions of people out there with pirated stuff and only a few get caught, the odds of me getting caught are literally like one in a million. If I want to buy a $1 song, and there's a one-in-a-million shot that I get caught if I pirate it, how big does the penalty have to be for me to buy it legitimately? A $2 penalty just isn't going to cut it. In fact, a "rational" person is going to require that the penalty be $1M, because the price of the song and the penalty are equal -- both cause the payment of a dollar. However, most people are risk averse, and it doesn't take a $1M penalty to prevent a loss. If the odds are really that low of getting caught and the penalty is really that low, then, for sure, I will pirate every time. However, most people are not rational -- they're risk averse. So you might gamble $1 on a flip of a coin, but you won't do it for $1M, even though the odds are exactly the same. Reasonable penalties cannot take place until there's a reasonable chance of getting caught -- the law depends upon risk aversity as a deterrent.
Yahoo definitely gets it.
The problem is that most people don't. Yahoo has a huge user base already and they're trying to retaining it by going after Gmail's most notable feature -- the storage. So they're making comparable offers, including a premium service. The average Joe now thinks he's got it all. Is the interface and all that stuff worth telling everyone you know that you've switched email addresses? It's a real pain and not everyone's willing to make those changes. Keyboard shortcuts and threaded discussions are great for geeks, but you'd be amazed how little these features are used by the "average user." Walk around the office and look at people's Outlook and how they use it. They barely set it up correctly, never use keyboard shortcuts, always just put messages in chronological order, and are happy with their folders. Gmail's new features are not compelling enough to make it worth the hassle except for the possibility of getting the name that they want. Yahoo is also responding on this front by releasing 50 million dormant account names back into circulation, many of them early names that are easy to remember, like "mbsmith" instead of "mbsmith1532." Combined with the over-hyped fear of Gmail privacy issues, the average Joe might just want to stay where they are -- at least now Yahoo is a viable option for staying. Not everyone understands the new features that Gmail has, but everyone understands storage limitations.
I've asked people if they want a Gmail account and half the time, I get the response, "Why do I care?" I think Yahoo was very clever in their response and it will be interesting to watch the two companies (plus Hotmail, because you know they're cooking something, too) battle it out in the next year.