Why People Don’t Like Microsoft
I read this great blog post over the weekened by Zoho basicially explaining why people don’t trust (or like for that matter) Microsoft, but do trust Google. Funnily enough they say it all boils down to karma.
As someone who’s believing more and more in “doing good things and good things will happen to you” (and its not just ‘Earl’ that makes me believe this – its several things that I might write a blog post about one day), it was quite pleasing to read. Here it is:
http://blogs.zoho.com/general/microsoft-silverlight-vs-google-wave-a-study-in-contrasts
Itunes playlist for songs you like but don’t listen to enough
I’ve created a really enjoyable itunes ’smart playlist’, which I’m listening to now whilst sorting the garden out.
I’m not a big fan of hammering a tune so this ones ideal. Basically its a playlist of songs I like but don’t listen to much for one reason or another.
Its all songs with 3 stars or more with less than 4 plays.
Its bringing up some great old songs I’d forgotten about (ie. I rated them without listening because I know they’re great) and songs I loved on first listen but forgot about.
Backwards Thinking on Saving Newspapers
Usually when I read an article that interests me I’ll simply share it via my Google Reader shared items, but some are worth highlighting on this blog too.
Over in America – during the past two or three months it seems – things seem to be heating up with regards to the discussion of saving the newspaper.
I’ve been fascinated by this for some time now. Although its not completely cut and dry, more often than not it seems bloggers have a better understanding of the situation than the newspapers.
This has been no more apparent than this blogger’s (Techdirt) reply to this newspaper’s (The Washington Post) article by two lawyers who propose changes to the law to help save the newspaper.
The choice quote on the part of the lawyers is:
Bring copyright laws into the age of the search engine. Taking a portion of a copyrighted work can be protected under the “fair use” doctrine. But the kind of fair use in news reports, academics and the arts — republishing a quote to comment on it, for example — is not what search engines practice when they crawl the Web and ingest everything in their path.
Publishers should not have to choose between protecting their copyrights and shunning the search-engine databases that map the Internet. Journalism therefore needs a bright line imposed by statute: that the taking of entire Web pages by search engines, which is what powers their search functions, is not fair use but infringement.
What the lawyers suggest would result in search engines becoming useless and if enforced would pratically bring the web to a halt.
The choice quote from the Techdirt article is when they highlight this user’s (Dale Harrison) comment which was submitted on the Washington Post’s article. It makes an excellent point:
A lesson worth remembering is at the turn of the 20th century people had a transportation problem… and the solution turned out not to be a “faster horse”… but a Ford.
And one should note that the Ford didn’t arise out of the “Horse Industry Revitalization Act”.
I think the future of the media business will look as different as Ford and Toyota’s operations look from horse traders and blacksmiths.
Imagine what the passage of such ill-conceived legislation would have done to the car industry a century ago.
It would have strangled the nascent auto industry at birth, postponing its inevitable rise while sheltering a dying industry, only postponing its inevitable demise… doing great damage to both. Newspapers need to be encouraged to adapt to the future, not retreat behind legislative walls hoping the future will go away.
The newspaper industry’s troubles go to the very core of their historical business model.
What’s historically given value to editorial content is the relative scarcity of distribution versus readers. Newspapers have enjoyed natural localized economic monopolies that allowed each of them to exercise monopoly control over the amount of content (and advertising) they allowed into their local marketplaces.
Monopoly constraint of distribution and supply will always lead to prices (and profits) significantly above open market rates. Newspapers then built costly organizational structures commensurate with that stream of monopoly profits (think AT&T in the 1970’s).
The dynamics of content replication and distribution on the Internet destroys this artificial constraint of distribution and re-aligns advertising (and subscription) prices back down to competitive open market rates. The often heard complaint of Internet ad rates being “too low” is inverted… the real issue is that traditional ad rates have been artificially boosted for enough decades for participants to assume this represents the long-term norm.
An individual reader now has access to essentially an infinite amount of content on any given topic or story. All those silos of isolated editorial content have been dumped into the giant Internet bucket. Once there, any given piece of content can be infinitely replicated and re-distributed to thousands of sites at zero marginal costs. This breaks the back of old media’s monopoly control of distribution and supply.
The core problem for the newspapers is that in a world of infinite supply, the ability to monetize the value in any piece of editorial content will be driven to zero… infinite supply pushes price levels to zero!
What this implies is that no one can marshal enough market power to monetize the value of content in the face of such an infinite supply and such massively fragmented distribution. Pay-walls, lawsuits and ill conceived legislation won’t allow the monopoly conditions to be re-constructed.
There are certainly ways to make online news profitable… and many of us are working to develop such approaches… but I can assure you they don’t involve inventing a “faster horse”…
The artcles can be found here – the Techdirt one in particular is worth a read. It does a great job of debunking the suggestions made by the writers of The Washington Post article:
Idea: A Phone that Warns you of Scam Calls
If I ever get a call from a number I don’t recognise, using the browser on my mobile I’ll often perform a search on Google and nine times out of ten there is a post which states its a scam (also nine times out of ten its the first result in Google that tells me this).
This happened earlier today with the number ‘02920 359001′, and sure enough it appears to be a scam.
This made me think: wouldn’t it be neat if my phone did this for me whenever a number not in my address book calls me? If it comes up as a scam, then it would note it on screen. Given the speed in which it can get this information (at current mobile connection speeds), it might be that the information may only be available when you check your missed calls, but that’s better than nothing.
Whenever I do one of these Google searches it usually points to a user generated site, so a wiki of sorts would be an ideal host of this information. Obviously, in order for the phone to be able to access this information, an API should be written so phone developers can easily access the information.
The next obvious step then is for a tool such as Google Voice (which sadly isn’t available in the UK) to offer the option to outright block such calls coming through (much like gmail blocks a massive amount of spam mail). If such a block takes place, an SMS/Email/Tweet/etc would be sent to you to say that a call has been blocked. You are then free to act on it as you please.
The possible downside to this idea is the fact the public control the data which blocks calls. That obviously leaves the door open to abuse. The ideallist inside me though believes this wouldn’t be a large issue.
I’d be curious to know whether an app could be written for one of the more modern smart phones out there (eg. iPhone, an android based device or the new Palm Pre) to perform this. Do developers have such access to those phones?
How Not to Sale a Car to Me
A few weeks back we bought a new (well, second hand) car. It was one of the more painful shopping experiences I’ve had, and its not because I have no interest in cars.
We went to a local dealer called Somerset Cars Sales. It was a painful, frustrating, demoralising experience for one reason: the cars were not priced up.
Instead we were given a printed price list which you can use to match up the make/number plate.
At a guess there were between 100-300 cars and it wasn’t easy finding the price.
As we were on a budget (as most people are), it was quite a demotivating process. We’d see a car we’d like, eventually find the price and then realise its too much. This happened again, and again, and again. Eventually we found three cars in our price range that we didn’t mind – but none of which we wanted to buy. There may have been many more in our price range – one of which we might have bought – but it was simply too much hassle. It wasn’t a pleasant shopping experience at all.
We then went to some other dealers who had prices shown. This was soooo much easier and enjoyable. Right from the start we could see what we could get and there was no disapointment.
Why would you want to encourage disapointment? I hope at the very least its a logistical reason (ie. To many prices to maintain) rather some kind of sales trick (ie. Before the customer realises it costs just a little too much, let them fall in love with it).
We eventually purchased are car from a dealer called Brian Plowright. He didn’t have a huge selection, but if he does have what you need then I highly recommend him.
He’s a great salesmen in that he’s very friendly, goes above and beyond what’s required to make a sale and doesn’t push the sale.
Certain people in mobile phone shops could learn a lot from him. None of this ‘as I’m you’re new best mate, and cause I like you (,and cause my boss says I have this much scope for discount to make a sale) I’m going to throw in this discount’ bullshit. No in your face, jump on you when you enter the store.
For example, the car we bought had a small dent in it. We asked whether we could either get a discount or have it fixed by him. He told us we’re getting a good deal anyway, so no. Fair enough really – he knew he’d made the sale. However, when we went to collect the car a week later he’d had it fixed at no extra cost.
That’s how to generate good word of mouth. Unlike Somerset Car Sales which I can’t put down enough.
Blogging when the Urge Takes Me
This blog rarely gets updated.
Quite often I’ll be walking to catch the train and come up with a blog post. Or perhaps be sitting on the sofa and come up with one. However, by the time I’m sat back in front of a PC (more to the point, a PC not in work) the urge to write a blog entry has gone.
In fact sometimes during my lunch hour I’ll write a post, email it home and still not bother to post it once home as again, the urge has gone. The moment has passed.
That’s why I’m really pleased to find out that blogging on my Blackberry really isn’t that painful now (see my previous post). Something I didn’t mention in that post was WordPress’ simple, yet functional m.wordpress.com interface.
Now when I get the urge I can type and post it there an then. The first such post is this one.
Ironies: Blackberry Curve Keyboard
I purchased my Blackberry Curve around 16 months ago. At the time I couldn’t afford an iPhone so looked for the next best thing.
I should say now that’s I’ve not regretted the Blackberry (BB) purchase, however I’ve since saved up to get an iPhone once my 18 month contract is up.
Before getting my BB, I remember a friend telling me he purchased a BB over an iPhone because he wanted a keyboard he could blog on.
Soon after getting my BB I pointed out to him my one disappointment with it was that the keyboard was just too fiddly to write anything lengthy on.
And its because of that, I find it ironic that an hour ago – after writing a lengthy blog comment – that I figured that writing a blog post on the BB would be a piece of cake, and that I should start doing it.
And so here is my first Blackberry written blog post. Apart from the fact its hard to include hyperlinks, its worked nicely.
Its just a shame that in a couple months time I’ll switch to the iPhone and likely dislike that keypad even more 
until then though I hope to write more posts than I’ve been doing of late.
