This morning I boarded a flight from San Diego to San Francisco. Two weeks ago, recalling one of my New Years resolutions, I realized that I hadn't read a book a month and am certainly in danger of probably only hitting half that number this year. In fact to be technical I think I resolved that the works be fiction and my last one was Paul Graham's Artists and Hackers. Certainly not fiction but definitely enjoyable particularly because one of our young rising star engineers kept citing passages from it I felt compelled to read it.
I had recently been chatting with Russ Beattie about the various Nokia Internet tablets and he mentioned off handedly that the N770 had a great ebook application and that he had found a full text copy of the Neuromancer he was reading and that led to a discussion about the new book from William Gibson, Spook Country. What? How the hell did I miss that! I have read every one of his books.
I immediately ordered the book and looked forward to the opportunity to read the book. This morning I cracked open the book and with the music of The Mortal Coil floating through my iPod began the read. It became an immediate Deja Vu on so many levels.
My mother died suddenly but not altogether unexpectedly back in 1985. That set into motion for me a journey I would characterize as the low point of my life in terms of where I was mentally and emotionally. The end of that approximately year journey sort of came to an end up in Seattle when I ended up bunking with one of my fraternity brothers for a week or so north of downtown. It was during that time that I picked up a copy of the Neuromancer and I spent the better part of a couple of days wandering around downtown Seattle reading the book on park benches and while riding the buses and taking in the rainy, misty Seattle days. The memory of that time has always been with me and the cyber future that Gibson portrayed would be a big part of my re-entering the digital world in the years to come.
The opening chapter of Spook Country is set up on the Sunset Strip with mentions of The Mondrian and the Standard Hotel and many of the clubs I frequented in my early 90s industrial/punk phase as well as during the last ten years of digital media wireless startup city hoping staying in the Ian Schrager, Tablet Hotel land hotels. It made me smile and put a wrapper on how funny life can be. I can't wait to see where this book goes.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Anthem Goes Live on Virgin
We announced here that we have launched Anthem on Virgin Mobile with Black Planet, Asian Avenue, Mi Gente, Glee, Faith Base, Xanga, Vox, Live Journal and Rabble. We technically Rabble has been there a while but we have switched the underlying client architecture to a single client that interfaces with the above mentioned communities. More to come.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Boulder
Last week I traveled to Boulder, Colorado to see the presentations from the techstars group. It was a great event and I will do a detailed write up today or tomorrow (hopefully) of the different teams products I saw.
An unintended benefit was my first visit to Boulder. What an amazing town! I have a number of friends who attended the University of Colorado and who raved about the city and the school. The setting of the school, adjacent to an amazing rock formation and surrounded by mountains can hardly be described. The town had a great feel as well as one would expect from a college town.
I think that beyond the content and the teams and products presented last week, it was quite a smart move by the folks at techstars to bring talent into Boulder through this vehicle. I believe over half of the teams that presented were from outside of Colorado and they now intend to set up their companies there. Beyond Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and New York, I think that the fight for talent can be tough, even in a city as big as San Diego. I think that a techstars type enterprise in San Diego and other cities would be a great thing to invigorate the local technology industries and give the entrepreneurs something to galvanize around.
An unintended benefit was my first visit to Boulder. What an amazing town! I have a number of friends who attended the University of Colorado and who raved about the city and the school. The setting of the school, adjacent to an amazing rock formation and surrounded by mountains can hardly be described. The town had a great feel as well as one would expect from a college town.
I think that beyond the content and the teams and products presented last week, it was quite a smart move by the folks at techstars to bring talent into Boulder through this vehicle. I believe over half of the teams that presented were from outside of Colorado and they now intend to set up their companies there. Beyond Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and New York, I think that the fight for talent can be tough, even in a city as big as San Diego. I think that a techstars type enterprise in San Diego and other cities would be a great thing to invigorate the local technology industries and give the entrepreneurs something to galvanize around.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Hotspot@home
As a follow up to the rambling wifi device post I made previously, I picked up one of the Tmobile Hotspot at home devices. Actually, that would be a phone and a router. For information check out their website here. The name is "The only phone you need." Hmmm.
The phone that comes as part of the kit is either a lower end Nokia or Samsung phone. The phones are both fine but aren't blowing anyone away with fancy features. THE fancy feature is a UMA chip. UMA stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access and what it essentially means is that you can use WIFI, at least in this implementation.
I am a long time Tmobile user for my personal primary phone. One of the bad things about Tmobile at my house is that there really is only one place in my house that gets good reception. I tend to overlook that because I try not to talk on the phone at home. With the new Hotspot@home phone, this issue disappears. What the phone allows you to do is to make phone calls using your wifi as the origination point. An added bonus of this is that for calls that originate on wifi, they don't count against your plan. Essentially they are free. An added bonus to this is that whenever you walk into a Tmobile hotspot, your phone also automatically routes itself to the hotspot for call origination/termination.
Ok, Derrick, so that's fine except I talk when I am driving in my car and last time I checked there isn't any wifi on the road. True and in this case the handset seamlessly transitions to the Tmobile network. Pretty nifty stuff. As an added bonus, if you start your call on wifi, and jump in the car and transition to their network, the call is still free. I have to say that I was really skeptical of the handoffs but upon multiple trials, I found that it is excellent. There are occasional issues, for example, when I walk out my house the Tmobile connectivity is bad and the handoff either gets mangled and sounds like hell or actually drops. In general though, that is the rare exception.
So I like it. Now what? Well when I thought it through, to me the benefits of this service are mainly two. First, this kills those companies that are trying to magnify the cell signal in your home. If carriers adopt UMA configurations like this and consumers happen to have broadband, then this is a great way to ensure that you have good cell coverage at home. I guess that's why they call it The only phone you need, which I assume is a reference to the need to have a landline at home when your cell doesn't work.
The second benefit is the extension of free minutes for consumers. In my case that doesn't do much since I have a 5000 minute plan, but I get the value for people who have broadband, which I think is an important distinction. The reason I point that out is because the phones they deployed in this package are pretty underwhelming and given my perceived demographic skew of users who have broadband, they are probably not phones that more affluent customers would want.
What I anticipate though are future devices that are similar to my smartphone. The benefit of the UMA access would be great to use as a web surfing device, for file transfers within a local area and some of the other things you see with the Apple Phone. The questions this raises though are around cannibalization of existing business models and possible breaks in the closed or controlled nature of the networks. My bet is that several of the carriers will approach this in a thoughtful way that will ultimately result in a wow kind of consumer offering. I am not entirely sure what that is yet but I think that one can see some of the elements beginning to form and how they could possibly be joined.
The phone that comes as part of the kit is either a lower end Nokia or Samsung phone. The phones are both fine but aren't blowing anyone away with fancy features. THE fancy feature is a UMA chip. UMA stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access and what it essentially means is that you can use WIFI, at least in this implementation.
I am a long time Tmobile user for my personal primary phone. One of the bad things about Tmobile at my house is that there really is only one place in my house that gets good reception. I tend to overlook that because I try not to talk on the phone at home. With the new Hotspot@home phone, this issue disappears. What the phone allows you to do is to make phone calls using your wifi as the origination point. An added bonus of this is that for calls that originate on wifi, they don't count against your plan. Essentially they are free. An added bonus to this is that whenever you walk into a Tmobile hotspot, your phone also automatically routes itself to the hotspot for call origination/termination.
Ok, Derrick, so that's fine except I talk when I am driving in my car and last time I checked there isn't any wifi on the road. True and in this case the handset seamlessly transitions to the Tmobile network. Pretty nifty stuff. As an added bonus, if you start your call on wifi, and jump in the car and transition to their network, the call is still free. I have to say that I was really skeptical of the handoffs but upon multiple trials, I found that it is excellent. There are occasional issues, for example, when I walk out my house the Tmobile connectivity is bad and the handoff either gets mangled and sounds like hell or actually drops. In general though, that is the rare exception.
So I like it. Now what? Well when I thought it through, to me the benefits of this service are mainly two. First, this kills those companies that are trying to magnify the cell signal in your home. If carriers adopt UMA configurations like this and consumers happen to have broadband, then this is a great way to ensure that you have good cell coverage at home. I guess that's why they call it The only phone you need, which I assume is a reference to the need to have a landline at home when your cell doesn't work.
The second benefit is the extension of free minutes for consumers. In my case that doesn't do much since I have a 5000 minute plan, but I get the value for people who have broadband, which I think is an important distinction. The reason I point that out is because the phones they deployed in this package are pretty underwhelming and given my perceived demographic skew of users who have broadband, they are probably not phones that more affluent customers would want.
What I anticipate though are future devices that are similar to my smartphone. The benefit of the UMA access would be great to use as a web surfing device, for file transfers within a local area and some of the other things you see with the Apple Phone. The questions this raises though are around cannibalization of existing business models and possible breaks in the closed or controlled nature of the networks. My bet is that several of the carriers will approach this in a thoughtful way that will ultimately result in a wow kind of consumer offering. I am not entirely sure what that is yet but I think that one can see some of the elements beginning to form and how they could possibly be joined.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Arcata
I am kind of on summer blog vacation. Not entirely by choice, but the combination of a really busy work schedule coupled with a couple of long weekends with the family has made me disappear for the last week.
Last Thursday night I drove up to Los Angeles and then flew out the following morning to Arcata, CA. The last time I had been in Arcata was in 1984 at a debate tournament in college. I remembered that it was a nice place although slightly rustic, but that was about all.
I have to say that I was totally blown away by the trip. We spent a bit of time around Redwood National Park north of Arcata. We did a little hike through the Lady Bird Johnson grove which was beautiful and timely given her recent death. The highlight of that part included sighting a pretty good sized Black Bear that ran across the road just in front of our car.
After a small lunch we went up a bit further and visited Fern Canyon which was the setting for some of the scenes from Jurrasic Park 2. It was really unbelievable. While there we saw a really Big Elf buck that was grazing near the canyon entrance.
On the way back towards Arcata, we ran into a whole herd of Elk that was grazing in a field. There must have been 40 or so.
The day before I left there was an editorial article talking about how eco tourism hasn't taken off the way people expected so far. I blurted out that the reason I saw was that there really aren't a whole lot of accommodations and getting there is still a pain. Hopefully that changes with time as I think that the north west corner of California is up there with Yellowstone and some of the other beautiful national parks. Ok, now I will get back to technology. I will have some pictures of the above on my Flickr page if you are interested.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
13 years
Monday was my 13th anniversary. Jessica and I had planned to go to Switzerland this summer for a week but we got caught in the passport nightmare and decided to punt. Before we had done that we planned on spending our anniversary hiking in the mountains around San Bernardino. Even though Switzerland was out we decided to do the hike anyways as hiking was something we did a lot of when we were dating and during the first chunk of years of our marriage.
Our target for the hike was Mt. San Jacinto, which is the second highest peak in Southern California. I had forgotten that it was also the first real big hike I had taken her on. Back then she wore tennis shoes. Not a good idea.
As a hiker who hasn't hiked in a while I forgot all the important things. Things like packing enough water. Packing moleskin for the inevitable blisters. Not entirely freezing your water bottles. All the good stuff.
The hike we chose was via the Palm Springs Aerial tramway to Long Valley, Round Valley and then up to the peak. About two miles in, I realized that 1, I hadn't worn the right socks and 2, I didn't have moleskin. We thought long and hard about turning around but ultimately ran into a guy who graciously gave me some moleskin.
After that it was steady going towards the top although I have to say I was sucking wind pretty hard. I can maintain a consistent pace without much stopping but the altitude and the relative shortage of water took a bit of a toll. About 3/4 of the way up we stopped and had a lunch i made that was homemade pesto from the garden on ciabatta with brie and heirloom tomatoes grilled on a panini grill and wrapped tightly to keep it from drying. It rocked. The basil has been exceptional this year in the garden.
We eventually made it to the top where some other hikers snapped this photo for us. Coming down Jessica realized that there was a tear down my pants about 18 inches long that left my "full seat" exposed. I told her it was simply a equipment malfunction and that it was a good idea to create an a$$ vent for hikers. I am sure I looked very foolish.
Before leaving the top we signed the book and then headed back down. The entire day was a great flashback of the foundational years of our marriage and it was an awesome day spent away from kids, startups, and outside distractions. Each step reminded me how lucky I am to be married to such a wonderful woman, mother, life partner and friend. I can't wait to head back up there with her in another 13 years or so.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
San Diego Events: Comic Con and The Dead Sea Scrolls
There are a couple of attractions in San Diego currently that warrant attention.
The first is Comic-Con 2007. I attended my first one around 12 years ago. At the time I was working at Sony Pictures and my boss asked me if I wanted to make a couple of extra bucks driving a group of animators down to the convention. I took him up on it and was surprised to find out it was a lot of the animators of The Simpsons. They were a lot of fun. Back then Comic Con was small.
I went yesterday towards the end of the day and spent some time with my son walking around and taking pictures with people in full costume. This is no longer a small event. It sold out Friday and Saturday so far and I am betting that Sunday does the same. No longer a place for oddball comic collectors and refugees from a Dungeons and Dragons convention. Every gaming company was there. All the studios are there. It is MASSIVE. The rise of shows like Heros and Smallville only hint at the fascination with superheros we have in this country. If you aren't in San Diego this weekend make plans to come next year. This is quickly becoming one of the must see shows.
The second event is the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Natural History Museum. We went last weekend and it was just amazing. When I was in high school many years ago I visited the Getty on a Latin class field trip and saw an illuminated manuscripts exhibition that was breathtaking. These hand written books were from the 1200s and 1300s. Better yet they were in Latin and I could read them. It was awesome. Those documents are nothing compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls which date back to the early 1st Century and some that may be even slightly older. Looking at 2000 documents leaves you with a feeling that is hard to describe.
The big downside of the exhibition was the attendance. In Los Angeles or New York, there would have been lines out the door and spending time looking at the exhibit would have been difficult. Not in San Diego. We strolled up and had the place to ourselves with just a handful of others. Hats of the the Jacobs for bringing such an important cultural exhibit here. Hopefully more things like this will build on some of the other great cultural items in San Diego (Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse) and raise the prominence of San Diego as a cultural destination rather than a place for beaches and fish tacos. Maybe. :-)
The first is Comic-Con 2007. I attended my first one around 12 years ago. At the time I was working at Sony Pictures and my boss asked me if I wanted to make a couple of extra bucks driving a group of animators down to the convention. I took him up on it and was surprised to find out it was a lot of the animators of The Simpsons. They were a lot of fun. Back then Comic Con was small.
I went yesterday towards the end of the day and spent some time with my son walking around and taking pictures with people in full costume. This is no longer a small event. It sold out Friday and Saturday so far and I am betting that Sunday does the same. No longer a place for oddball comic collectors and refugees from a Dungeons and Dragons convention. Every gaming company was there. All the studios are there. It is MASSIVE. The rise of shows like Heros and Smallville only hint at the fascination with superheros we have in this country. If you aren't in San Diego this weekend make plans to come next year. This is quickly becoming one of the must see shows.
The second event is the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Natural History Museum. We went last weekend and it was just amazing. When I was in high school many years ago I visited the Getty on a Latin class field trip and saw an illuminated manuscripts exhibition that was breathtaking. These hand written books were from the 1200s and 1300s. Better yet they were in Latin and I could read them. It was awesome. Those documents are nothing compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls which date back to the early 1st Century and some that may be even slightly older. Looking at 2000 documents leaves you with a feeling that is hard to describe.
The big downside of the exhibition was the attendance. In Los Angeles or New York, there would have been lines out the door and spending time looking at the exhibit would have been difficult. Not in San Diego. We strolled up and had the place to ourselves with just a handful of others. Hats of the the Jacobs for bringing such an important cultural exhibit here. Hopefully more things like this will build on some of the other great cultural items in San Diego (Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse) and raise the prominence of San Diego as a cultural destination rather than a place for beaches and fish tacos. Maybe. :-)
Rabble at Comic Con
Well sort of. This morning I grabbed the paper and was immediately drawn to the picture of zombies on the front page. I realized quickly that one of our employees was quoted on the front page and mentioned Rabble. Link here. Very cool. I am in fact headed down today to take my son. I had tried to get out of it because it is such a zoo, but he insisted. So I will be there wearing my fancy new Rabble T-shirt with pride.
Congrats to Jennifer who organized the parade. An added bonus is a quote by Howard Rheingold of Smartmobs fame who cites the zombie parade as a sort of flash mob.
Congrats to Jennifer who organized the parade. An added bonus is a quote by Howard Rheingold of Smartmobs fame who cites the zombie parade as a sort of flash mob.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Mobile Jones is back and a new one as well
I hadn't talked to Debi in a long time. I know she was doing some other stuff mostly focused on podcasting and to my knowledge had been true to her pledge earlier this year to quit blogging. In recent weeks she started again and I always enjoy her thoughts/rants, etc. Do check it out.
While chatting around a podcast I was supposed to be involved in but had to flake on due to a biz dev conflict, Debi suggested that I subscribe to Paul Ruppert's blog. Paul is a former executive with Mobile 365 as well as one of the co-authors of the patent around international sms cross protocol exchange. Needless to say he is an old timer in mobile terms and another blog I would add if you are mobile interested.
While chatting around a podcast I was supposed to be involved in but had to flake on due to a biz dev conflict, Debi suggested that I subscribe to Paul Ruppert's blog. Paul is a former executive with Mobile 365 as well as one of the co-authors of the patent around international sms cross protocol exchange. Needless to say he is an old timer in mobile terms and another blog I would add if you are mobile interested.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Quien es mas Macho? Mylo or N770
While many of my mobile cohorts have been fawning over or hating their iPhone, I have been spending a lot of time getting to know the Nokia N770 I bought on Woot.
Russ wrote a great post today about a remote desktop client for the N770 that you can find here. That served to remind me that I had an overdue post. Fyi - blogging and startups don't mix, but I digress...
I almost titled this post "The emergence of the wifi device" which seemed like a bit much, but it is what I have been thinking about since playing with this device. In the last year there has been a marked increase in the number of devices I carry that have wifi connectivity. My PSP, P990, Mylo and now the N770. What is the significance of wifi and what promise does it hold from my perspective?
To begin with, I am not a converged device believer. There is no one device that will have the features that I want. I believe that when one device tries to do everything it doesn't do anything well. I think there are devices that can hit a wide range of functions and do them well but at some point it starts to fall over. As I have stated previously, I carry my P990 and the Sidekick 3. The P990 is just an awesome device to me but it doesn't do Instant messaging very well. It also doesn't do a very good job at playing games or playing video, at least not in my opinion. The Sidekick is an amazing IM device. I don't use it for anything else. I know that there are a lot of Nokia users who swear by the N95 the same way that I fawn over my P990.
So broadly speaking, how does wifi improve my communication experience? The obvious things are fast downloads, possible voip usage, circumventing my carrier network charges, and in some cases the ability to share files locally. The downsides? Poor handoff, fixed perimeter usage, encryption set up for some networks and in some cases speed degradation when too many users are present(although in most cases that isn't a concern).
There are many who are brighter than me who can elaborate further but in a nutshell the above describes how I think about it. In any case, I have gone down the wifi road with my devices and am increasingly thinking about where it all leads. While I want to talk about the Mylo and the N770 in particular I think that it makes sense to walk through the other devices as well to give context.
The PSP. I love the PSP. I max mine out every chance I get. I do a ton of things with it that I wont elaborate on. Wifi is very important for a couple of reasons and is completely useless in others. Wifi is the mechanism to browse the web. The input mechanism is terrible so I don't do that much. To upgrade the firmware, I use wifi. This has been by far the best use of wifi and I have seen revision after revision of firmware upgrade the device since I bought it. One of the coolest firmware upgrades gave me 6 months free wifi at Tmobile hotspots. A very tasty treat that I didn't expect.
Putting content on the PSP. Sorry, wifi isn't able to do that. This is a major travesty and one I cannot fathom. Instead I am left connecting cables to laptops to transfer Tivo shows, pictures, and other stuff. I can't imagine that this will remain like this but in the meantime that is a tragic gap in what you can do with wifi on this device.
The P990. The P990 has wifi. I almost never use it. The first best use case of wifi with this device for me was email. I could quicky download email and in the case where some god friend or coworker sent me some kind of megabyte size file I could switch over to wifi and grab the offending item quickly. Unfortunately for me, when I have the WAN/wifi enabled and I leave the local area, I find that my GPRS tends to barf and timeout when fetching my email. When I disable the WAN, everything woks fine again. Beyond email and the occasional web browsing (which works very well) I don't really use wifi. What would be really cool would be some kind of voip client or the ability to use wifi to tap into the video conferencing capabilities of the device which doesn't work on my US EDGE network today.
The Mylo. I bought the Mylo when it came out as it reminded me of some kind of cross between the Sidekick and the PSP. Admittedly it was an impulse purchase at the time and I wasn't properly informed about what it could/couldn't do. I do recall vaguely some review that mentioned the emergence of wifi devices that started with the N770. I spent a fair amount of time with the Mylo over 2 or 3 months and came to a couple of conclusions. Awesome Skype phone. And not much else. The media capabilities are good. Great speakers and great sound. Getting music in and even worse, video, is a nightmare again requiring cables and PC connections. Web browsing is certainly better than the PSP. While traveling in Europe I was pumped to get to use the Skype capabilites at Hot spots but the Tmobile free wifi service was North America only so I was very bummed by that.
The N770. The N770 has none of the style or class of the Mylo. The Mylo looks slick and has a great slideout keyboard that is usable. The N770, although it lacks the Sony design edge is a monster. Most critically, it isn't strictly tied to wifi. You can use Bluetooth to connect to a phone when you aren't near a hot spot. While traveling in NYC a couple of weeks ago I could pull out the N770, connect to my EVDO phone and check email, surf the web and generally do a lot of the things I do on my laptop in a much smaller package. The single network piece is a serious Achilles heel of the PSP and the Mylo. No doubt that will get fixed in the future.
As I spent more time with the N770 a really important distinction became apparent to me about the inherent nature of this device versus the Mylo. The Mylo is a communications device at it's core. The preinstalled IM clients and more importantly Skype drove both the major use cases as well some of the design considerations (QWERTY keyboard and general phone form factor). The speakers and display also speak to the media aspects of the device.
The N770 on the other hand seems firmly rooted in business productivity type applications, at least in my opinion. There is extensive support for email, web browsing and contact management. The extensive Linux application support is extremely impressive although it isn't as user friendly as a simple business person would like. I am sure that the N800 takes it up a notch in usability. There is audio and video support, as well as support for VOIP via Gizmo project but those features seem underpowered in device form factor and audio output.
I have to say that I actually use the N770 and am excited to try more things like the remote desktop application Russ mentioned. In general, I don't use the Mylo except for the occasional Skype call when I don't want to be tethered to my PC. I imagine that the next generation of the Mylo will see some upgrades along the line of the N770 / N800. I am actually getting an N800 now to see what the next generation of Nokia device does well and where they have migrated to from a technology perspective.
So Mas macho? The N770, although I think that there is a future for Sony in this category especially as they see continued growth and movement in their handset joint venture with Ericsson and their vertical focus on camera and music with the Cybershot and Walkman lines.
With the recent announcement by Tmobile of their wifi/phone offer, it appears to me that the walking the line between wifi and actual carrier networks is about to be crossed/blurred and mashed up. As that starts to occur I think that finding the right and best applications of the various networks will be a challenge for all the manufacturers and will be the key to success. I like where Nokia is at but I suspect that the winners will be vertically tied to specific use case or consumer group like gamers/productivity, etc.
Russ wrote a great post today about a remote desktop client for the N770 that you can find here. That served to remind me that I had an overdue post. Fyi - blogging and startups don't mix, but I digress...
I almost titled this post "The emergence of the wifi device" which seemed like a bit much, but it is what I have been thinking about since playing with this device. In the last year there has been a marked increase in the number of devices I carry that have wifi connectivity. My PSP, P990, Mylo and now the N770. What is the significance of wifi and what promise does it hold from my perspective?
To begin with, I am not a converged device believer. There is no one device that will have the features that I want. I believe that when one device tries to do everything it doesn't do anything well. I think there are devices that can hit a wide range of functions and do them well but at some point it starts to fall over. As I have stated previously, I carry my P990 and the Sidekick 3. The P990 is just an awesome device to me but it doesn't do Instant messaging very well. It also doesn't do a very good job at playing games or playing video, at least not in my opinion. The Sidekick is an amazing IM device. I don't use it for anything else. I know that there are a lot of Nokia users who swear by the N95 the same way that I fawn over my P990.
So broadly speaking, how does wifi improve my communication experience? The obvious things are fast downloads, possible voip usage, circumventing my carrier network charges, and in some cases the ability to share files locally. The downsides? Poor handoff, fixed perimeter usage, encryption set up for some networks and in some cases speed degradation when too many users are present(although in most cases that isn't a concern).
There are many who are brighter than me who can elaborate further but in a nutshell the above describes how I think about it. In any case, I have gone down the wifi road with my devices and am increasingly thinking about where it all leads. While I want to talk about the Mylo and the N770 in particular I think that it makes sense to walk through the other devices as well to give context.
The PSP. I love the PSP. I max mine out every chance I get. I do a ton of things with it that I wont elaborate on. Wifi is very important for a couple of reasons and is completely useless in others. Wifi is the mechanism to browse the web. The input mechanism is terrible so I don't do that much. To upgrade the firmware, I use wifi. This has been by far the best use of wifi and I have seen revision after revision of firmware upgrade the device since I bought it. One of the coolest firmware upgrades gave me 6 months free wifi at Tmobile hotspots. A very tasty treat that I didn't expect.
Putting content on the PSP. Sorry, wifi isn't able to do that. This is a major travesty and one I cannot fathom. Instead I am left connecting cables to laptops to transfer Tivo shows, pictures, and other stuff. I can't imagine that this will remain like this but in the meantime that is a tragic gap in what you can do with wifi on this device.
The P990. The P990 has wifi. I almost never use it. The first best use case of wifi with this device for me was email. I could quicky download email and in the case where some god friend or coworker sent me some kind of megabyte size file I could switch over to wifi and grab the offending item quickly. Unfortunately for me, when I have the WAN/wifi enabled and I leave the local area, I find that my GPRS tends to barf and timeout when fetching my email. When I disable the WAN, everything woks fine again. Beyond email and the occasional web browsing (which works very well) I don't really use wifi. What would be really cool would be some kind of voip client or the ability to use wifi to tap into the video conferencing capabilities of the device which doesn't work on my US EDGE network today.
The Mylo. I bought the Mylo when it came out as it reminded me of some kind of cross between the Sidekick and the PSP. Admittedly it was an impulse purchase at the time and I wasn't properly informed about what it could/couldn't do. I do recall vaguely some review that mentioned the emergence of wifi devices that started with the N770. I spent a fair amount of time with the Mylo over 2 or 3 months and came to a couple of conclusions. Awesome Skype phone. And not much else. The media capabilities are good. Great speakers and great sound. Getting music in and even worse, video, is a nightmare again requiring cables and PC connections. Web browsing is certainly better than the PSP. While traveling in Europe I was pumped to get to use the Skype capabilites at Hot spots but the Tmobile free wifi service was North America only so I was very bummed by that.
The N770. The N770 has none of the style or class of the Mylo. The Mylo looks slick and has a great slideout keyboard that is usable. The N770, although it lacks the Sony design edge is a monster. Most critically, it isn't strictly tied to wifi. You can use Bluetooth to connect to a phone when you aren't near a hot spot. While traveling in NYC a couple of weeks ago I could pull out the N770, connect to my EVDO phone and check email, surf the web and generally do a lot of the things I do on my laptop in a much smaller package. The single network piece is a serious Achilles heel of the PSP and the Mylo. No doubt that will get fixed in the future.
As I spent more time with the N770 a really important distinction became apparent to me about the inherent nature of this device versus the Mylo. The Mylo is a communications device at it's core. The preinstalled IM clients and more importantly Skype drove both the major use cases as well some of the design considerations (QWERTY keyboard and general phone form factor). The speakers and display also speak to the media aspects of the device.
The N770 on the other hand seems firmly rooted in business productivity type applications, at least in my opinion. There is extensive support for email, web browsing and contact management. The extensive Linux application support is extremely impressive although it isn't as user friendly as a simple business person would like. I am sure that the N800 takes it up a notch in usability. There is audio and video support, as well as support for VOIP via Gizmo project but those features seem underpowered in device form factor and audio output.
I have to say that I actually use the N770 and am excited to try more things like the remote desktop application Russ mentioned. In general, I don't use the Mylo except for the occasional Skype call when I don't want to be tethered to my PC. I imagine that the next generation of the Mylo will see some upgrades along the line of the N770 / N800. I am actually getting an N800 now to see what the next generation of Nokia device does well and where they have migrated to from a technology perspective.
So Mas macho? The N770, although I think that there is a future for Sony in this category especially as they see continued growth and movement in their handset joint venture with Ericsson and their vertical focus on camera and music with the Cybershot and Walkman lines.
With the recent announcement by Tmobile of their wifi/phone offer, it appears to me that the walking the line between wifi and actual carrier networks is about to be crossed/blurred and mashed up. As that starts to occur I think that finding the right and best applications of the various networks will be a challenge for all the manufacturers and will be the key to success. I like where Nokia is at but I suspect that the winners will be vertically tied to specific use case or consumer group like gamers/productivity, etc.
Monday, July 23, 2007
iPhone comedy
If you have never read The Best Page in the Universe, I have to recommend it highly. He doesn't post that much but when he does it is priceless. Last week Chris in my office sent me a link to his latest rant about the iPhone which you can read here. NC-17 all the way.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Walken For President
Damon sent me a link to the Christopher Walken for President site which you can find here. While I don't know if this is a joke or not, it certainly couldn't be worse than they guy in office today.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Intercasting named to the Always On 100 Top Companies List
We are honored that today we were selected as one of the top companies in mobile on the Always On list. Full details and the complete list can be found here.
Anthem on Sprint
Today we announced the launch of Anthem on Sprint in this press release here. It has been a lot of hard work from our team but we think that the end product is something that will help define communities on mobile devices. What exactly is Anthem? From a user perspective, it is a donwloadable application that will allow people to interface with existing web based communities they use on the web. At launch we are rolling out Xanga, Live Journal, Vox, Rabble, Black Planet and several other properties from Community Connect. What the user sees is a web like experience on their phone. They have full read and write access just like they do on the website.
We expect to announce a number of additional carriers very soon as well as a number of additional social networking sites/communities. One of the great things about our approach with Anthem is that it will lead to preinstalled applications on the handset that bring the flexibility to add communities in the future.
On the Rabble front this brings us to 9 carriers with deck support from the carrier. We are working with the three largest carriers, Sprint, ATT, Verizon as well as Virgin, Cricket, Metro PCS, Cellular South, Claro Puerto Rico and Centennial Puerto Rico.
We expect to announce a number of additional carriers very soon as well as a number of additional social networking sites/communities. One of the great things about our approach with Anthem is that it will lead to preinstalled applications on the handset that bring the flexibility to add communities in the future.
On the Rabble front this brings us to 9 carriers with deck support from the carrier. We are working with the three largest carriers, Sprint, ATT, Verizon as well as Virgin, Cricket, Metro PCS, Cellular South, Claro Puerto Rico and Centennial Puerto Rico.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Russ is blogging again
Friday, July 13, 2007
Hyatt Place
In an earlier post I wrote about how I had used my LBS enabled Google Maps application to find a hotel while stuck in Denver. That hotel was a new Hyatt Place hotel near the airport. I don't normally write about hotels (except Tablet Bookings) but this was a pretty cool new concept. We arrived at the hotel exhausted and saw a line of a couple of people speaking to the front desk agent and two check in kiosks. I went to the kiosk, swiped my credit card and in about a minute was checked in as two room keys popped out of the machine.
The decor of the place reminded me of W or Ian Schrager styling with a bit more lively colors and a feel that reminded me of some kind of update on 60s French Utopian design. Think Kubrik but friendly.
When we got to the room, the bed was awesome, the TV giant and beautiful, and the whole place feeling like an upbeat W.
Apparently this place had been an Amerisuites hotel that had been converted. I generally avoid the Courtyard and other suite style places as they feel geared to families and not business travelers. This was the opposite. It also didn't have the overly hip feel of some of the places I usually stay.
I hadn't heard much about this new brand but I hope some other chains follow with what felt like a good combination of the things us road warriors want with the right balance of convenience, services, and comfort. Two thumbs up!
The decor of the place reminded me of W or Ian Schrager styling with a bit more lively colors and a feel that reminded me of some kind of update on 60s French Utopian design. Think Kubrik but friendly.
When we got to the room, the bed was awesome, the TV giant and beautiful, and the whole place feeling like an upbeat W.
Apparently this place had been an Amerisuites hotel that had been converted. I generally avoid the Courtyard and other suite style places as they feel geared to families and not business travelers. This was the opposite. It also didn't have the overly hip feel of some of the places I usually stay.
I hadn't heard much about this new brand but I hope some other chains follow with what felt like a good combination of the things us road warriors want with the right balance of convenience, services, and comfort. Two thumbs up!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Net Neutrality
One of the wonderful surprises of the Mac has been the ease of use of my Sprint Upstage phone as a EVDO modem. I can't say how amazing it is to pull out the laptop, connect to the phone wirelessly and be online anywhere with some screaming connectivity.
Over the last two weeks while using this I have had some intermittent connection problems. I would connect, and then disconnect. This kept happening to me so I started turning off applications like Adium and Skype. Through a process of elimination I realized that if Skype was up, the connection disconnected. That of course led to the aha moment that Sprint is blocking Skype traffic through whatever port they happen to use. As someone who works with carriers this isn't news to me so I turn Skype off and away I go.
I had originally planned to post this observation around a post that highlighted the fact that the wireless networks are closed networks and not the Internet and that they had to bid on spectrum, put up towers etc.
Since then the new FCC guidelines around the 700 mhz spectrum auctions were announced with a lot of flaming back and forth about whether or not this was a gift to Google and a shot at carriers and how carriers are stifling innovation etc. As a reader of tech blogs the blogosphere was heavily in favor of this and in general was pretty unkind to the carriers. I didn't spend too much time thinking about it as in general I find that the biggest critics are people who either have difficulty working with the carriers or who think everything should be free, Internet, music etc.
Before I boarded the plane to San Diego I picked up the WSJ and read a couple of interesting articles about the spectrum auction. There was a strong argument made that this move was an attempt to change the nature of the auctions to the advantage of tech companies. I know that the truth lies in the middle somewhere but as a free market person, I think that the journal made much stronger arguments than what I read online. It will be interesting to see where it all shakes out. If you have any interest in the topic I would try to check out pieces from both sides as there is a lot of merit in both arguments.
Over the last two weeks while using this I have had some intermittent connection problems. I would connect, and then disconnect. This kept happening to me so I started turning off applications like Adium and Skype. Through a process of elimination I realized that if Skype was up, the connection disconnected. That of course led to the aha moment that Sprint is blocking Skype traffic through whatever port they happen to use. As someone who works with carriers this isn't news to me so I turn Skype off and away I go.
I had originally planned to post this observation around a post that highlighted the fact that the wireless networks are closed networks and not the Internet and that they had to bid on spectrum, put up towers etc.
Since then the new FCC guidelines around the 700 mhz spectrum auctions were announced with a lot of flaming back and forth about whether or not this was a gift to Google and a shot at carriers and how carriers are stifling innovation etc. As a reader of tech blogs the blogosphere was heavily in favor of this and in general was pretty unkind to the carriers. I didn't spend too much time thinking about it as in general I find that the biggest critics are people who either have difficulty working with the carriers or who think everything should be free, Internet, music etc.
Before I boarded the plane to San Diego I picked up the WSJ and read a couple of interesting articles about the spectrum auction. There was a strong argument made that this move was an attempt to change the nature of the auctions to the advantage of tech companies. I know that the truth lies in the middle somewhere but as a free market person, I think that the journal made much stronger arguments than what I read online. It will be interesting to see where it all shakes out. If you have any interest in the topic I would try to check out pieces from both sides as there is a lot of merit in both arguments.
LBS Use Cases - Hotel Finder and Cabbie Helper
So what I didn't say about the trip to Colorado was the nightmare return home. We arrived back at the Gunnison airport on Sunday afternoon several hours before our flight. This wasn't a big hit with Jess but I miscalculated the time of the drive for some reason. We checked in and hung out with the airport wifi and our computers while Tate watched some DVDs. About an hour before take off time we had some bad news that the flight was going to be delayed. We had a tight connection in Denver so this was some big time bad news.
The delay stuff was hanging over the whole time and it quickly became apparent that we weren't getting out of Denver once we arrived. At the airport it was a complete mess. Apparently Denver shut down for two hours or so for lightning storms and this killed the feeder flights coming in from the little towns nearby. The lines were out the door. If you have ever been stranded in Denver, then you know that the only decent hotels are about 45 minutes away in downtown Denver.
I had two bad nights in Crested Butte with a not so great bed and an upcoming cross country trip to NYC so I had to get a good nights sleep. I whipped out my Helio Ocean and pulled up the Google Maps application. I searched for Starwood, Hyatt and other chains that do a good job with the beds. I found a Hyatt Place hotel very close to the airport and called them. They had availability so I booked a room. This experience was so good I will follow up with another post just about this new approach to hotels later.
I hopped in a cab and said I wanted to go to the Hyatt Place at the airport. He was dumbfounded. Never heard of it. I whip out the phone and said here on the map, go here.
While in NYC this week I was playing with the Google Maps application again as I was plotting out my 5 meetings per day itinerary. I can't recall how many times in NYC I am asked about the cross street and I don't have it. 550 Madison? Madison and what? I don't know, I am from LA. Our numbers make sense there. Not this trip. Madison and 55th. So there. My favorite was a meeting in the East Village where I pulled the phone out and said look, this is where it is.
These examples are the kinds that make LBS compelling to me.
The delay stuff was hanging over the whole time and it quickly became apparent that we weren't getting out of Denver once we arrived. At the airport it was a complete mess. Apparently Denver shut down for two hours or so for lightning storms and this killed the feeder flights coming in from the little towns nearby. The lines were out the door. If you have ever been stranded in Denver, then you know that the only decent hotels are about 45 minutes away in downtown Denver.
I had two bad nights in Crested Butte with a not so great bed and an upcoming cross country trip to NYC so I had to get a good nights sleep. I whipped out my Helio Ocean and pulled up the Google Maps application. I searched for Starwood, Hyatt and other chains that do a good job with the beds. I found a Hyatt Place hotel very close to the airport and called them. They had availability so I booked a room. This experience was so good I will follow up with another post just about this new approach to hotels later.
I hopped in a cab and said I wanted to go to the Hyatt Place at the airport. He was dumbfounded. Never heard of it. I whip out the phone and said here on the map, go here.
While in NYC this week I was playing with the Google Maps application again as I was plotting out my 5 meetings per day itinerary. I can't recall how many times in NYC I am asked about the cross street and I don't have it. 550 Madison? Madison and what? I don't know, I am from LA. Our numbers make sense there. Not this trip. Madison and 55th. So there. My favorite was a meeting in the East Village where I pulled the phone out and said look, this is where it is.
These examples are the kinds that make LBS compelling to me.
Crested Butte
This last weekend Jessica, Tate and I traveled to Crested Butte, Colorado for a wedding for a good friend of ours when we lived in Los Angeles. Three things worth sharing. One, we loved this area. It had a lot of the charm of Jackson Hole, WY without being crowded. The town had a great vibe and the number of activities you could do was astounding, hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, river rafting, etc. Just to name a few. We want to go back with the whole tribe as soon as possible.
Two, I got to see a lot of our friends from when we lived in Los Angeles. We were really fortunate to have a great group of friends who worked in the film industry who are down to earth, smart and a lot of fun to be with. Of course life gets in the way of time spent together and I haven't seen many of them much in the last eight years (Has it been that long?). While catching up, a couple of them were completely up to date with me from reading my blog. I was flattered that they cared enough to stay in touch virtually and I was amazed at how having that in place made for some interesting conversations about things people were working on or thinking about. I whimped out on one of the party nights as I was kind of shot and I regret that but hopefully the experience makes us all try to reach out a little more and stay in touch.
Three, Tate came within about 200 feet of his first serious summit, Mt. Crested Butte. We took the ski lift up and he just trekked right on up the mountain, passing some teens along the way. It was great and I think I might have a hiker in the making. As we approached the summit the path gave way to rocks and some sheer sides and Jess and I didn't feel all that comfortable putting him in that kind of environment especially with a storm looming. Next time. Pictures here.
Monday, July 02, 2007
iPhones, Woot and Internet Tablets
On Friday I knew I wasn't going to be picking up an iPhone. Although it was clearly an event, it wasn't on my list. I felt a pang of jealousy for all the people I saw in line at the Apple store by our office.
I arrived home Friday afternoon and before me was a smallish box with the Woot label on the side. I quickly turned my thoughts to the box. Earlier in the week I was looking for my daily Wot fix and saw the Nokia N770 available for $125 + shipping. This device was recently retailing at about $350. Two very interesting things about the device intrigued me. One, it was one of the first devices in the wifi appliance category. Two, it was built on an open platform around Linux so there is a ton of software available. At $350 not too interesting to me. At $125 it was a must have.
So while man of my pals were in line getting their iPhones, I was trying to set up my Internet Tablet.
In brief, the N770 allows you to connect to either your wifi, or through your phone using Bluetooth. I spent something like 5 seconds setting up Bluetooth with my Sprint EVDO handset and away I went. There was little difference between the wifi and the phone from what I could tell. The device has a web browser, email client, media management, voip support and other things that are common on PDA or PDA like devices.
I spent the better part of the weekend playing with the device and will follow up with a write up shortly with a reference to the Mylo and some other devices to put the N770 in context. The short review is, I really dig the N770. If you can get one for cheap go grab it.
I arrived home Friday afternoon and before me was a smallish box with the Woot label on the side. I quickly turned my thoughts to the box. Earlier in the week I was looking for my daily Wot fix and saw the Nokia N770 available for $125 + shipping. This device was recently retailing at about $350. Two very interesting things about the device intrigued me. One, it was one of the first devices in the wifi appliance category. Two, it was built on an open platform around Linux so there is a ton of software available. At $350 not too interesting to me. At $125 it was a must have.
So while man of my pals were in line getting their iPhones, I was trying to set up my Internet Tablet.
In brief, the N770 allows you to connect to either your wifi, or through your phone using Bluetooth. I spent something like 5 seconds setting up Bluetooth with my Sprint EVDO handset and away I went. There was little difference between the wifi and the phone from what I could tell. The device has a web browser, email client, media management, voip support and other things that are common on PDA or PDA like devices.
I spent the better part of the weekend playing with the device and will follow up with a write up shortly with a reference to the Mylo and some other devices to put the N770 in context. The short review is, I really dig the N770. If you can get one for cheap go grab it.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Social Networking - The Beer Filter
Over the last month I have been suddenly deluged with a number of requests from friends migrating to Facebook. I signed up after they had opened up originally and quickly found that none of my friends were there. Old guy. But now they are. And in looking at Facebook and that some of my adult/real friends look like they may really be setting up their home there, it made me come to the conclusion that unlike most of the other sites I have signed up for, where I approve any friend request, I am not going to do that again.
Not this time. On Linkedin I am up over 300 people and a surprising number of them are actually friends. Then there are legions of people I met at a conference, or have had one meeting with, or I may have actually met at some time. No more of that. With Facebook I am applying the beer filter. What is the beer filter? I won't do an add friend unless I have actually sat down and had a beer with someone. The only exceptions I am making are people I work or worked with whom I might have had a beer with as part of larger company function. If the beer filter works then I may actually accumulate a good number of people who really are friends, colleagues or people I work with in business. At least that is the hope.
Not this time. On Linkedin I am up over 300 people and a surprising number of them are actually friends. Then there are legions of people I met at a conference, or have had one meeting with, or I may have actually met at some time. No more of that. With Facebook I am applying the beer filter. What is the beer filter? I won't do an add friend unless I have actually sat down and had a beer with someone. The only exceptions I am making are people I work or worked with whom I might have had a beer with as part of larger company function. If the beer filter works then I may actually accumulate a good number of people who really are friends, colleagues or people I work with in business. At least that is the hope.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Avoiding Email Bankruptcy
Coming into this year, I realized that the activity level of work just continues to increase. I think there were times at Vivendi when I was possibly busier, but it had a natural ebb and flow that is different than in a startup. In a startup you have the ebb and flow but everything is on a continued upward trajectory.
I spent some time with the Getting Things Done materials and through most of this year kept telling myself that I would get rigid about how I process things. My natural state is to keep a lot of details in my head and switch back and forth very quickly. A lot of that ability was honed in my early 20s when I was a dispatcher at the studios and had to track 50+ people all day long all over Los Angeles. It was sort of like a living video game with screaming studio executives in the background. In retrospect it was really a lot of fun and to this day I can juggle a lot at the same time. This however doesn't scale.
The biggest monkey on my back has been email. I generally hover around 300 to 700 emails that are to be filed or to be responded to. In general, most of those are to be filed. With a number of posts from people like Fred Wilson making posts about email bankruptcy (deleting your inbox and starting over), I paused for a second and considered the option. My anal retentive nature with respect to information made that a bad option for me. I had to bear down and solve it. Last week as I transitioned to a replacement for my two year old laptop, I got the email box to zero. I plan to keep it there. I also am trying to use some structured approaches to deal with the scaling of information. I will keep you posted as to my success.
I spent some time with the Getting Things Done materials and through most of this year kept telling myself that I would get rigid about how I process things. My natural state is to keep a lot of details in my head and switch back and forth very quickly. A lot of that ability was honed in my early 20s when I was a dispatcher at the studios and had to track 50+ people all day long all over Los Angeles. It was sort of like a living video game with screaming studio executives in the background. In retrospect it was really a lot of fun and to this day I can juggle a lot at the same time. This however doesn't scale.
The biggest monkey on my back has been email. I generally hover around 300 to 700 emails that are to be filed or to be responded to. In general, most of those are to be filed. With a number of posts from people like Fred Wilson making posts about email bankruptcy (deleting your inbox and starting over), I paused for a second and considered the option. My anal retentive nature with respect to information made that a bad option for me. I had to bear down and solve it. Last week as I transitioned to a replacement for my two year old laptop, I got the email box to zero. I plan to keep it there. I also am trying to use some structured approaches to deal with the scaling of information. I will keep you posted as to my success.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Mac Attack
So add me to the long list of people who switched from a PC to a Mac. I have never ever been a Mac user but the opportunity to use the Mac, PC and Unix environment on one machine was irresistible, especially as I became more comfortable with the Mac from using the Mini at home.
Yes it is great and I love it. No it isn't a social movement or the next best thing to sliced bread. My only hope is I get another 2+ years from this laptop as I did my last HP Laptop. I am thinking that I will.
One big drawback so far is the support for business nerds. Getting Outlook contacts to a Mac format was a real pain in the ass. I had to buy a $10 software package called Outlook2Mac. How I am going to sync things with my main smartphone is still a mystery to me. One big plus was the set up of my Upstage EVDO handset as a modem using Bluetooth. That ruled. No software, no discs, no drivers. It just worked. As it should.
Yes it is great and I love it. No it isn't a social movement or the next best thing to sliced bread. My only hope is I get another 2+ years from this laptop as I did my last HP Laptop. I am thinking that I will.
One big drawback so far is the support for business nerds. Getting Outlook contacts to a Mac format was a real pain in the ass. I had to buy a $10 software package called Outlook2Mac. How I am going to sync things with my main smartphone is still a mystery to me. One big plus was the set up of my Upstage EVDO handset as a modem using Bluetooth. That ruled. No software, no discs, no drivers. It just worked. As it should.
Monday, June 18, 2007
The Helio Ocean
I have been carrying around the Helio Ocean since the new phone launched. In general I don't like to talk much about carriers or devices because we work with both carriers and handset OEMs. In the past I have made the exception with Helio because I felt that they were targeting people like me as the core of their consumer base (Gadget freak, early adopter). This was based mostly on the early descriptions of their market pre-Myspace deal. The Myspace deal was confusing to me because I think that Helio, which is in general a higher end device carrier than the broad based US carriers that offer lots of phone choice as well as free phones and family calling plans, was targeted at a slightly older and slightly more affluent consumer. Given Myspace's ubiquity that may be a mistake on my part but in general I personally thought it was a head scratcher.
The Ocean, however, is the type of device I would expect from Helio. It is definitely a device like no other on a carrier today. While true their are devices like the LG Envy and others, the Ocean brings an amazing combination of hardware design and usability, with an awesome handset UI and a great network.
Big plus - The action on the Ocean (Pantek) both the traditional and qwerty side are switchblade like and is very similar to the Sony Mylo. The FAST mobile messaging and IM integration is ambitious and fairly well executed. The LBS enabled Google maps application is probably the hottest thing I have seen on a phone.
Big minus - The handset seems like it is bit under microprocessor strain. For example, although the Fast mobile IM works well, there are times when you type on the keyboard and the phone seems like it is hung, until about a minute or so later when it actually types. I can't tell if this is hardware or software related but that's a must fix in the future. No use of the device as a phone modem. Maybe that is going to change?
So to reiterate, I am exited to see Helio push the envelope with a device like this. I can't wait to see what the next devices are going to be absed on this direction. There are a number of concerns I expressed previously about the deck being kind of locked down, the inability to use Opera or Opera mini etc. that may be issues around Pantek devices specifically. In any event, I would bet that in the future those issues will fall by the wayside.
One big question I had that seems to have disappered is the H.O.T or Helio On Top application from the Ocean. I thought that in concept this was one of the coolest things that Helio was trying to do. The software for the Hero was pretty buggy but I figured that would be fixed over time. I wonder if there is a data load issue with that kind of application? Hard to say.
The ultimate question I face when I look at a device is whether or not I would adopt this as my primary phone. In this case I would give the Ocean a pretty high thumbs up in general if not for my involvement with my current phones. Yes, phones. I am still way bought into the Sidekick III. It is almost laughable that I carry a device just for IM, but it is really that good. I think that I could use the Ocean in a serviceable way, and it is certainly better than anything I have seen on other handsets including my SE P990, but it isn't as good as the Sidekick for IM. On other fronts I think it probably beats the Sidekick but as that is my primary use case, I am still going to carry the larger device.
Since I am a smartphone user, it isn't a fair comparison as a replacement for that class of device but it is certainly a top of the list phone if I were to abandon the smartphone class of device.
Hats off to the Helio team for a bold direction with their newest phone. I can't wait to see what is next.
The Ocean, however, is the type of device I would expect from Helio. It is definitely a device like no other on a carrier today. While true their are devices like the LG Envy and others, the Ocean brings an amazing combination of hardware design and usability, with an awesome handset UI and a great network.
Big plus - The action on the Ocean (Pantek) both the traditional and qwerty side are switchblade like and is very similar to the Sony Mylo. The FAST mobile messaging and IM integration is ambitious and fairly well executed. The LBS enabled Google maps application is probably the hottest thing I have seen on a phone.
Big minus - The handset seems like it is bit under microprocessor strain. For example, although the Fast mobile IM works well, there are times when you type on the keyboard and the phone seems like it is hung, until about a minute or so later when it actually types. I can't tell if this is hardware or software related but that's a must fix in the future. No use of the device as a phone modem. Maybe that is going to change?
So to reiterate, I am exited to see Helio push the envelope with a device like this. I can't wait to see what the next devices are going to be absed on this direction. There are a number of concerns I expressed previously about the deck being kind of locked down, the inability to use Opera or Opera mini etc. that may be issues around Pantek devices specifically. In any event, I would bet that in the future those issues will fall by the wayside.
One big question I had that seems to have disappered is the H.O.T or Helio On Top application from the Ocean. I thought that in concept this was one of the coolest things that Helio was trying to do. The software for the Hero was pretty buggy but I figured that would be fixed over time. I wonder if there is a data load issue with that kind of application? Hard to say.
The ultimate question I face when I look at a device is whether or not I would adopt this as my primary phone. In this case I would give the Ocean a pretty high thumbs up in general if not for my involvement with my current phones. Yes, phones. I am still way bought into the Sidekick III. It is almost laughable that I carry a device just for IM, but it is really that good. I think that I could use the Ocean in a serviceable way, and it is certainly better than anything I have seen on other handsets including my SE P990, but it isn't as good as the Sidekick for IM. On other fronts I think it probably beats the Sidekick but as that is my primary use case, I am still going to carry the larger device.
Since I am a smartphone user, it isn't a fair comparison as a replacement for that class of device but it is certainly a top of the list phone if I were to abandon the smartphone class of device.
Hats off to the Helio team for a bold direction with their newest phone. I can't wait to see what is next.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Devices in my Bag - Phone Porn
Two things happened to me a couple of week ago that made me dump my travel bag out on the kitchen table to reassess what I am carrying around in my bag.
First my Sprint Ambassador phone, the LG Fusic expired and I had to switch to a new phone. I have to say that I really loved that Fusic.
Second, I was heading to Europe and I had to free myself of my CDMA phones. I figured that would lighten the load in the bag when you consider that I carry around power cords for all these devices.
So I thought that it might be fun to share which devices I am carrying now including a little editorial where appropriate and the promise of a full review where warranted.
Jawbone - Tom in our office was cruising around a couple of months ago with a bluetooth headset that looked like something from Counter Strike instead of a McDonalds headset. He said it was the Jawbone and it uses special technology that isolates sounds so you could in fact be mowing the lawn and talk on your phone. Not a use case I would consider but a good pitch. I found that after too many times driving my car with one hand up to my ear that I should use one of these devices. It also looks pretty cool. The noise filtering doesn't perform as advertised but how often do you mow the lawn anyways? The added side benefit is that I have been stopped by half a dozen people who have asked me if that is the Jawbone. I am impressed that they have that kind of mindshare when I have never heard or seen an ad. It could be what I am watching. For the record, I don't wear it in the office.
Helio Ocean - I have spent the last four weeks using this phone as a replacement for my Sidekick. It does some things really well and others not so well. I think this one warrants a full review. All in all I would say that it is a thumbs up, but like I said, I think it is a longer discussion.
Bluetooth Keyboard - Underneath the Ocean I have a fold out Stowaway Blue Tooth expandable keyboard. I haven't used it in over a year. I keep business cards in the bag. Reminder. Take out if bag next trip. The device was ok historically, but if I am going to bother with pulling it out, I might as well just get the laptop fired up or use the qwerty board on my other devices.
Sony Mylo - I have written about the Mylo before. Funny how it looks like the Ocean? Except no phone capabilities, and no upslide to complement the side slide. I topped up my Skype out and set up a Skype In account because I thought in Europe there would be hotspots everywhere. In fact, there were hotspots, at around $.36 a minute or $50 a day. What a disappointment. I thought I would come back with a great use case for the Mylo and it didn't happen. On the other hand, if I were in our office in London and had our own network, it would have been infinitely more affordable that using my cell phones. Next time.
The Upstage - What an awesome music phone. I can't get the Flip thing figured out. Apart from the device however, what I found intriguing is that Europeans like to say how far the US is behind Europe in mobile. In fact the media capabilities, LBS capabilites, and quality of service of Sprint and Verizon are insane. If you use some of their advanced technologies, I can't imagine that there are superior services in Europe. Now that could be my North American ignorance, but using my super fancy quad band phone on a smoking hot 3G network didn't strike me as anywhere near as fast as the data rates on US 3G CDMA. This wasn't a benchmark test and it was more my opinion, but I have to say next time I will be trying to test it more aggressively, like actually using the video calling capability.
Samsung A707 - This is my standard demo phone. Not too fancy, not too constrained although it is a 3G device. I have been using this to demo video primarily.
Nokia N73 - I have a couple of demos on this device, primarily around Flash. I generally shun Series 60 devices for demos as I think it deviates to far from where the consumer market is in terms of feature set and price. That said it is certainly a nifty phone on par with any of the high end phones I have used. I am more bought into the Symbian UIQ platform but it feels pretty close.
P990i - I love this device. It is my most favorite ever. In Europe I was able to see the nifty little 3G icon light up for the first time. That was cool.
Moto Q - I demo Windows Mobile on this. If I carried a Blackberrytreoqblackjack, I am pretty certain that this is the one I would carry.
PSP - I love this device. It isn't pictured because it was in the process of filling itself up with movies from my Tivo. Isn't that fricking cool? I can't wait until they fix the keyboard missing thing.
Marc Andreessen Blog & GoMo News
Over this last weekend I was turned on to two new blogs that I want to pass on. First, Marc Andreessen from web browser fame started a blog. It is a great collection of posts about technology, VCs and personal productivity. I'd say it is a definite subscribe given the quality of his first several posts.
The second one is GoMo News which describes itself as Edgy Wireless News. Debi Jones turned me onto it during a conversation where I lamented the shortage of good wireless blogs, or rather new voices. There are in fact a good number of mobile bloggers ala the Mobile Carnival ring, but it seems like there aren't a whole lot of new faces posting these days. Maybe they are working on companies...In any case GoMo looks promising as they are kind of irreverent and we even got singled out as a potential bubble company. Thanks guys!
The second one is GoMo News which describes itself as Edgy Wireless News. Debi Jones turned me onto it during a conversation where I lamented the shortage of good wireless blogs, or rather new voices. There are in fact a good number of mobile bloggers ala the Mobile Carnival ring, but it seems like there aren't a whole lot of new faces posting these days. Maybe they are working on companies...In any case GoMo looks promising as they are kind of irreverent and we even got singled out as a potential bubble company. Thanks guys!
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Europe
Europe was a blast. It was a really busy trip and I had a bad time with jet lag. The purpose of the trip was all business development (carriers, offdeck, community sites). We arrived in London, which was 40 degrees and raining the day we arrived. Glad it was almost summer, I can't imagine what winter is like. ;-)
Our meetings went well and I only have a couple of observations about London. First, the US dollar is in a really sad shape. The last time I had been to London was 3 1/2 years ago and I was blown away by how expensive everything was. I guess those deficits in the US aren't helping.
Second, WIFI is a joke. By that I mean that it was either a. obscenely expensive, or b. it was metered by the minute. Yes by the minute. I guess in some ways that makes sense but for something that probably doesn't have any variable cost it seemed like a big joke.
Third, I love Carphone Warehouse. What a great concept/store. Their selection was amazing and their ubiquity was impressive. I am excited to see what they do with Best Buy over here in the US.
Fourth, transportation in and around London is a pain. Granted transportation is amazing, but to get from one meeting to the next seemed to consume around twice the time that you spend in NYC doing similar things. It could be how we planned things out.
One really funny story. Right after we get to London, we showered, changed and headed to the Express. As the train pulled up, the car that stopped in front of us had a familiar face. It was Tasso Roumeliotis from Wavemarket. Now the odds that a couple guys from the west coast, who happen to work in mobile, happened to be in London at the same time, and just so happened to be on the same train, which just happened to deposit us right in front of each other was beyond comprehension. In any case it afforded us some time to catch up, compare notes and chat. They have been doing some good things with their Kid Finder application and it was good to hear that they are doing well.
In addition to the strictly business aspects of the trip I got to spend a little time with Russell Buckley from Admob who is one of the bloggers at Mob Happy.
London was a bookend on both sides of the trip and in the middle we took some of the exploding Southwest style budget airlines in Europe to Germany for meetings in Dusseldorf and Bonn. I had been to Germany back in 1997 in Munich and really liked it at the time. This time I truly fell in love with Germany. The weather was beautiful and the scenery in the Rhineland reminded me of the Pacific Northwest in summer, or something like North Carolina. Everything was very organized and clean and people spoke a lot more English than I recall.
When I returned home I had some observations about differences in the US and European market in terms of wireless coverage and services but I think I am going to hold off on that editorial until after my next trip when I have more data.
Our meetings went well and I only have a couple of observations about London. First, the US dollar is in a really sad shape. The last time I had been to London was 3 1/2 years ago and I was blown away by how expensive everything was. I guess those deficits in the US aren't helping.
Second, WIFI is a joke. By that I mean that it was either a. obscenely expensive, or b. it was metered by the minute. Yes by the minute. I guess in some ways that makes sense but for something that probably doesn't have any variable cost it seemed like a big joke.
Third, I love Carphone Warehouse. What a great concept/store. Their selection was amazing and their ubiquity was impressive. I am excited to see what they do with Best Buy over here in the US.
Fourth, transportation in and around London is a pain. Granted transportation is amazing, but to get from one meeting to the next seemed to consume around twice the time that you spend in NYC doing similar things. It could be how we planned things out.
One really funny story. Right after we get to London, we showered, changed and headed to the Express. As the train pulled up, the car that stopped in front of us had a familiar face. It was Tasso Roumeliotis from Wavemarket. Now the odds that a couple guys from the west coast, who happen to work in mobile, happened to be in London at the same time, and just so happened to be on the same train, which just happened to deposit us right in front of each other was beyond comprehension. In any case it afforded us some time to catch up, compare notes and chat. They have been doing some good things with their Kid Finder application and it was good to hear that they are doing well.
In addition to the strictly business aspects of the trip I got to spend a little time with Russell Buckley from Admob who is one of the bloggers at Mob Happy.
London was a bookend on both sides of the trip and in the middle we took some of the exploding Southwest style budget airlines in Europe to Germany for meetings in Dusseldorf and Bonn. I had been to Germany back in 1997 in Munich and really liked it at the time. This time I truly fell in love with Germany. The weather was beautiful and the scenery in the Rhineland reminded me of the Pacific Northwest in summer, or something like North Carolina. Everything was very organized and clean and people spoke a lot more English than I recall.
When I returned home I had some observations about differences in the US and European market in terms of wireless coverage and services but I think I am going to hold off on that editorial until after my next trip when I have more data.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Where is Waldo?
Sometime approximately 24 hours ago I was walking through the park adjacent to Buckingham Palace. I had a bit of the jet lag sleep issue and thought a brisk walk would do me some good. Fast forward. Train to Heathrow. Pass out in Admirals Club. Run to plane. Pass out on plane. Land at JFK. Work in Admirals Club. Rush to plane. Board plane. And then the nightmare starts.
We push out and proceed to spend the next four hours touring the airport. Apparently there was some horrible thunderstorms which of course there was no evidence of at JFK. Strange. After four hours, and I began to complain loudly at two hours, they cancel our flight. Having figured as much, I was one of the first of the plane to rebook for tomorrow. Ouch, nothing until 1 PM. LA? Yes, run to gate there is one last one out. Get in plane. Plane pushes out. And we wait. Again. At least I have my EVDO phone and the laptop and they have a bit more tolerance of us tired and angry fliers. Someone said Bush flew in and did this. Seems possible but frankly all I want to do is get in my own bed. Europe was great. Recap later.
We push out and proceed to spend the next four hours touring the airport. Apparently there was some horrible thunderstorms which of course there was no evidence of at JFK. Strange. After four hours, and I began to complain loudly at two hours, they cancel our flight. Having figured as much, I was one of the first of the plane to rebook for tomorrow. Ouch, nothing until 1 PM. LA? Yes, run to gate there is one last one out. Get in plane. Plane pushes out. And we wait. Again. At least I have my EVDO phone and the laptop and they have a bit more tolerance of us tired and angry fliers. Someone said Bush flew in and did this. Seems possible but frankly all I want to do is get in my own bed. Europe was great. Recap later.
Monday, May 28, 2007
London Calling
I am in Boston about to hope on a plane to London. This week includes trips to London, Dusseldorf and Bonn. Should be busy. I think it's been 3 1/2 years since I have been to Europe so it's definitely overdue. Trip report later. I have a feeling that there will be more than a few trips to Europe this year...
Star Wars Recap
The Star Wars convention was awesome. For my son Tate it was a superbowl of activities. We traveled to
The convention was broken up into a commercial area where you could buy just about anything you wanted, a fan hall with things like Jedi training classes and then a variety of meeting rooms and other stuff. We really just spent out time in the commercial and fan hall as well as getting pictures with just about every character you can imagine. Here Tate is with his Jedi outfit and a Storm Trooper helmet which might be a good birthday present in the next couple of months…
Friday, May 25, 2007
Star Wars Anniversary
Tate and I are off to the Star Wars convention today to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars. Nerd pictures to follow shortly...
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Unintended Consequences
It was great to hear from my many friends and acquaintances when we announced our Series B round. It's almost funny when you realize who follows what you are doing and are kind enough to reach out and say congratulations. What wasn't as exciting were the avalanche of unsolicited calls from service providers and salespeople for products we don't really need. It is as if there is a wire that comes out and there is an army of people who wait to see where money is flowing and they are waiting to reach into the river to take a swipe at the fish, er money.
As someone who does a lot of business development and sales, I can totally appreciate the need to reach out to people you don't know and to reach out to people who you think might need your service or product. Where I have a problem, is in the lack of qualification of a prospect. Something on the order of 80% of the solicitations have no relevance to what we do in any way shape or form. Accountants? Ok, that makes sense. Banks? Check. Lead generation services? Not exactly.
In addition to the really bad hit rate, which I think speaks to some laziness on the part of the sales professional or telemarketer, is the method of reaching us. We have a generic phone number that goes into an IPPBX and I get an email with the message attached. When I get a chance I play those messages. Some people are slightly more crafty and they go to our website and look up our email and send a direct email to either Shawn, myself, or both of us. Ok, a little more effort.
The really smart ones actually do a little bit more homework. In my case that would be finding my blog. Once they have found my blog, if they actually look around and read some stuff they will find that I put my cell phone number on here. The very small handful of sales professionals who did this managed to get me on the phone last week. While I didn't welcome the unsolicited interruption, I did in fact either channel those people to the right person or told them there wasn't a need for their product, albeit as quickly as possible. Hats off to the resourceful.
As someone who does a lot of business development and sales, I can totally appreciate the need to reach out to people you don't know and to reach out to people who you think might need your service or product. Where I have a problem, is in the lack of qualification of a prospect. Something on the order of 80% of the solicitations have no relevance to what we do in any way shape or form. Accountants? Ok, that makes sense. Banks? Check. Lead generation services? Not exactly.
In addition to the really bad hit rate, which I think speaks to some laziness on the part of the sales professional or telemarketer, is the method of reaching us. We have a generic phone number that goes into an IPPBX and I get an email with the message attached. When I get a chance I play those messages. Some people are slightly more crafty and they go to our website and look up our email and send a direct email to either Shawn, myself, or both of us. Ok, a little more effort.
The really smart ones actually do a little bit more homework. In my case that would be finding my blog. Once they have found my blog, if they actually look around and read some stuff they will find that I put my cell phone number on here. The very small handful of sales professionals who did this managed to get me on the phone last week. While I didn't welcome the unsolicited interruption, I did in fact either channel those people to the right person or told them there wasn't a need for their product, albeit as quickly as possible. Hats off to the resourceful.
CNN Center
There was this mural at CNN Center in Atlanta I saw this morning while walking around. This particular piece had a number of news terms on a wall. I thought that given the rise in user generated video, this particular segment 'Raw Video In The System" had a funny double meaning as the old and new media worlds collide.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Blogging Birthday - 3 Years and counting
As of today, I have been blogging pretty regularly for 3 years. Back in 2004 when I started I don't think I imagined I would keep doing this. Now, 882 posts later, I find it more enjoyable than ever although my ability to move to a long form of narrative has never materialized. For those who keep tabs on me through this vehicle, thanks for the kind comments and your continued interest.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
We raised a $12 million Series B
The press release is here. We are extremely excited to be working with Venrock. They are a firm with a great tradition of working with entrepreneurs to create great companies. We had met them when we were out raising our Series A, and are glad that we are now in business with them as we move forward in a growth period of our company.
We are also excited to have our previous investors, Avalon and Masthead, involved in our Series B as well. Both firms have been great supporters of ours and I'd like to send my thanks out to the various partners at each firm. We really appreciate their insight, support, and continued involvement in the building of our company.
Without the great team we have built, we wouldn't be able to accomplish the things we have so far, nor would we be able to deliver on the vision we have going forward. A big thanks to our team for all their hardwork and dedication. We expect to do big things in the coming year.
We started this company with the intent to work closely with the carriers to develop a category of applications and to work to build this category in unison with them. We appreciate the support we have had from all of our carrier partners so far and look forward to delivering on the promise of an exciting revolution in mobile data applications.
Most important to me though, has been the support of my wife and my kids. My wife has been a world class startup wife, raising our kids, running the house, and continuing to work 75% time as an attorney. I can't thank her enough for her belief in what we are doing and her strength in helping to make that a reality. Without her, none of this would have been possible.
We have a lot of exciting announcements coming very quickly and we look forward to sharing the news as it becomes available.
We are also excited to have our previous investors, Avalon and Masthead, involved in our Series B as well. Both firms have been great supporters of ours and I'd like to send my thanks out to the various partners at each firm. We really appreciate their insight, support, and continued involvement in the building of our company.
Without the great team we have built, we wouldn't be able to accomplish the things we have so far, nor would we be able to deliver on the vision we have going forward. A big thanks to our team for all their hardwork and dedication. We expect to do big things in the coming year.
We started this company with the intent to work closely with the carriers to develop a category of applications and to work to build this category in unison with them. We appreciate the support we have had from all of our carrier partners so far and look forward to delivering on the promise of an exciting revolution in mobile data applications.
Most important to me though, has been the support of my wife and my kids. My wife has been a world class startup wife, raising our kids, running the house, and continuing to work 75% time as an attorney. I can't thank her enough for her belief in what we are doing and her strength in helping to make that a reality. Without her, none of this would have been possible.
We have a lot of exciting announcements coming very quickly and we look forward to sharing the news as it becomes available.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Location Free P990 Not Available in US
I had someone post a comment to my Location Free post and they asked whether or not the Location Free software for the P990 I found worked in the US. In fact it doesn't. I was pretty bummed and I don't understand why it doesn't. Sony customer service confirmed that it doesn't work and didn't have a release date.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Google History
Have you checked out Google history? You should. It is awesome, and brilliant and scary, all at the same time. If you have read my blog before and wondered about my posts on Attention, or went and read some Goldhaber stuff, or checked out Atten.tv, and you still find that this topic is a bit academic or difficult to grok, then I suggest you go check out Google History.
A week or two ago, I read a post about Google history and quickly signed up and allowed the logging of all my data in a variety of categories. Then I forgot about it, much the same way I keep my Attention recorder running on my browser (By the way...When is Root.net going to fix their security certificate? Very disappointing, but that is another post...).
Earlier this week I went in to see what was in my Google history goodie bag. The main page is a chronological listing of all the pages I clicked on from now going backwards. I have this in Root.net as well but I get to block out certain domains I may not want to record (things like ego surfing my site statistics). Not here, everything gets recorded. Not really a problem, but still kind of freaky when you sit down and think about it and then multiply me by the population of the web world who uses Google. I am creeping you out yet?
I can then slice it more finely by looking at just news, or images or videos etc. especially for Google related services. Not too shabby.
I then click on trends which slices out the top queries, top sites, and top clicks. Are you still wondering why they are making so much money in advertising? Hold on there is more...I almost forgot to add you can slice that by week, month, all time etc.
My favorite part though, and where I think it all really comes together is the tab called interesting items. Here Google has determined other searches, pages, videos and gadgets that might be relevant to what I have been up to while surfing on the web. The list of pages is pretty impressive as we have been doing the fund raising exercise and the top 10 list for me includes nine venture firms and a buyout firm. Uncanny. I am curious though on how they rank them. Could it mean that the sum total of my interests (wireless, media, etc) when intersected with venture fund raising means that these are the best prospects for closing a round with those specific venture firms? Hard to say. In any event I was pretty surprised that there weren't fantasy football references or NFL draft results or other items which given the recent NFL draft would make the most sense. Maybe the algorithm is skewed?
In any case, if you have the slightest interest in Attention or wanting to understand the data you are throwing off when you mindlessly browse and search the web, I would certainly recommend that you check this service out. In any event, Google isn't the only company tracking this data (Yahoo, Doubleclick, AOL, etc.) and I think it is important we all be cognizant of the invisible transactions we are all generating behind the scenes with our web based actions. A final note is that I am not a Google hater or fearer as I know some are. I use Blogger, Google, Gmail, Google Apps and occasionally Google Maps. I get that the price of the services I am using are a value exchange that they need to offset by profiling me in great deal to yield high advertising returns. I would however like for Google to give me the option to keep my own copy of all the data they are keeping on me in the event that I want to use it for my own benefit somewhere down the road. You know, like when I am trying to decide which venture firms I should call on first, or which ones I should cross off the list. :-)
A week or two ago, I read a post about Google history and quickly signed up and allowed the logging of all my data in a variety of categories. Then I forgot about it, much the same way I keep my Attention recorder running on my browser (By the way...When is Root.net going to fix their security certificate? Very disappointing, but that is another post...).
Earlier this week I went in to see what was in my Google history goodie bag. The main page is a chronological listing of all the pages I clicked on from now going backwards. I have this in Root.net as well but I get to block out certain domains I may not want to record (things like ego surfing my site statistics). Not here, everything gets recorded. Not really a problem, but still kind of freaky when you sit down and think about it and then multiply me by the population of the web world who uses Google. I am creeping you out yet?
I can then slice it more finely by looking at just news, or images or videos etc. especially for Google related services. Not too shabby.
I then click on trends which slices out the top queries, top sites, and top clicks. Are you still wondering why they are making so much money in advertising? Hold on there is more...I almost forgot to add you can slice that by week, month, all time etc.
My favorite part though, and where I think it all really comes together is the tab called interesting items. Here Google has determined other searches, pages, videos and gadgets that might be relevant to what I have been up to while surfing on the web. The list of pages is pretty impressive as we have been doing the fund raising exercise and the top 10 list for me includes nine venture firms and a buyout firm. Uncanny. I am curious though on how they rank them. Could it mean that the sum total of my interests (wireless, media, etc) when intersected with venture fund raising means that these are the best prospects for closing a round with those specific venture firms? Hard to say. In any event I was pretty surprised that there weren't fantasy football references or NFL draft results or other items which given the recent NFL draft would make the most sense. Maybe the algorithm is skewed?
In any case, if you have the slightest interest in Attention or wanting to understand the data you are throwing off when you mindlessly browse and search the web, I would certainly recommend that you check this service out. In any event, Google isn't the only company tracking this data (Yahoo, Doubleclick, AOL, etc.) and I think it is important we all be cognizant of the invisible transactions we are all generating behind the scenes with our web based actions. A final note is that I am not a Google hater or fearer as I know some are. I use Blogger, Google, Gmail, Google Apps and occasionally Google Maps. I get that the price of the services I am using are a value exchange that they need to offset by profiling me in great deal to yield high advertising returns. I would however like for Google to give me the option to keep my own copy of all the data they are keeping on me in the event that I want to use it for my own benefit somewhere down the road. You know, like when I am trying to decide which venture firms I should call on first, or which ones I should cross off the list. :-)
Maker Faire and The Star Wars Convention
On May 24th Star Wars Celebration IV, which is a 30th anniversary celebration of the release of Star Wars, comes to the Los Angeles Convention center. My son Tate loves Star Wars so we are going to head up for one of the days to check it out. We saw a bunch of Star Wars types at Comic Con last summer and this figures to be a total blow out for nerds.
The weekend prior the Second Annual Maker Faire takes place up in San Mateo. I mentioned the Maker Faire to Tate before I had heard about the Star Wars event. If given the choice he would do both but if pushed I think the Force is a bit stronger in him. Tate and I have had a lot of fun doing different projects and I think if we could swing it he would really love the Maker Faire. I showed him the promo podcast for the Faire and it really stuck in his head, so much so that last night whe we were talking about having to choose only one of the events, he drug out all his toys and made his own "Maker Faire" on the floor of the family room. Picture here.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Noodles
I like to cook and am a fan of a wide variety of cuisines. I tend to go in phases both in terms of what I am cooking and what I am sampling while pumping up the frequent flyer miles.
Around two years ago my friend Jonathan who manages a bunch of the top bands today (Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes) took me to an old warehouse style noodle shop in Soho for lunch. It was amazing. I didn't recall the name of the place but I knew that if I ever ended up in Soho for lunch I had to find the place. A couple of weeks ago, while in NYC, I had coffee planned with Jonathan and the day before I was determined to find that place he took me took. That place is Kelley and Ping. A slightly blurry picture can be seen here. The featured dish was Roast Pork in Chicken broth with egg noodles. If you are a noodle freak, this is a must stop.
The following week on the left coast, I stopped in at Osha Thai Noodles and had an equally good bowl of noodles although this time with duck as the meat.
Needless to say, Noodles are on my list right now. Know any good places where you are?
Rabble Schwag
We are going to be getting some new Rabble wear for our community in the next couple of weeks but in the meantime we rolled out some stuff on a CafePress storefront that you can see here.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Dow Jones Wireless Innovations
Thanks for having us out to present at Wireless Innovations. The parts of the conference I saw and participated in were excellent and I thought they brought together a great crowd. My personal highlights were getting to hang a bit with Sam Altman from Loopt, watching the captivating CEO of Spark Parking Cooper Marcus (we shared a room - use his service!) and especially getting to meet and spend a chunk of time with Andrew Graham CEO of Bones In Motion, my favorite LBS application.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Intercasting Speaking
Tomorrow I will be speaking at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations, providing a company overview in the LBS track. The same day Shawn will be speaking at the EconSM event in Los Angeles.
Attention Article on Cnet
I was quoted in an article on Attent.tv here at Cnet. I love this part of the title, "an eerie sport".
Monday, April 23, 2007
Location Free Software for the P990.
I did my monthly check for the P990 Location Free player last night around 230 AM and was happy to see that it was finally available. I have been waiting for something like 7 months. I downloaded the SIS and later this AM did the install. Registering my service with the Location Free server took all morning and I was unable to do it as I kept getting a refused to register message from the media server. Grrr. I sent an email to customer support to see if my model of the Location Free device is in fact supported. I am guessing since I have one of the early models they may not support it and I may have to get a new device which is looking like a $199 purchase.
Mowser - Russ is back
When I first started blogging and reading blogs 3 years ago, the strongest voice in mobile was Russ Beattie. Russ wrote great posts that were very thoughtful and comprehensive. Whether or not you always agreed with him was another story. ;-)
I struck up an online friendship with Russ and have kept in touch with him over the last year or so of blogging silence.
Last week he unveiled his new project Mowser which is a fresh take on mobile browsing, i.e. making websites readable on phones. The even better news is that he is keeping a company blog that you can find here.
It will be great to see what he comes up with in terms of the business and it will be extremely fun to see how he tempers his great editorial now that he is blogging in the context of a business. Best of luck to him, now go subscribe and try his product!
I struck up an online friendship with Russ and have kept in touch with him over the last year or so of blogging silence.
Last week he unveiled his new project Mowser which is a fresh take on mobile browsing, i.e. making websites readable on phones. The even better news is that he is keeping a company blog that you can find here.
It will be great to see what he comes up with in terms of the business and it will be extremely fun to see how he tempers his great editorial now that he is blogging in the context of a business. Best of luck to him, now go subscribe and try his product!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Personal Exploitation
When I was in New York this week I had lunch with one of our company advisors who was one of the pioneers in interactive advertising. We were talking at length about user generated content, fame, and personal exploitation. My thesis is that there are two things driving the current generations expressive behavior, 1. The idea that entertainment requires a persons direct involvement to make it personal and worthwhile and 2. A desire for fame or status.
We talked around the topic a bit and he said something to the effect that it is fascinating that people both appear driven to and desirous of exploiting themselves. That is, they either don't understand or in fact don't mind exploiting themselves if they gain some kind of recognition, fame or notoriety. I don't like to think of it that way necessarily but I think a lot rings true to those words. I brought up the Jackass films and he said that although that was exploitation, it was brilliant and what we are seeing is a broad commonness to self exploitation on some of these websites. It was an interesting talk.
That evening as I sat in my hotel in Boston, I sat dumbstruck as I watched the footage broadcast by NBC of the Virginia Tech killer. I couldn't believe that NBC felt compelled to release something that not only provided no real value or insight, but also at some level validated the actions of the killer, at least in the eyes of others who would pursue similar actions in the future.
One of the most interesting things about user generated/edge of the network/consumer media is the potential for media that originates outside of the center of the network to be able to harness the massive reach and distribution of mainstream media. At it's best you have the Adam Stacy subway bombing pictures which provided a haunting and visceral image of news as it happens, at it's worst it is a news organization taking advantage of it's selection by a killer to broadcast his rants and insanity. I have great respect for NBC Universal as a company and I can only hope in the future that they make the decision to avoid these sorts of missteps.
We talked around the topic a bit and he said something to the effect that it is fascinating that people both appear driven to and desirous of exploiting themselves. That is, they either don't understand or in fact don't mind exploiting themselves if they gain some kind of recognition, fame or notoriety. I don't like to think of it that way necessarily but I think a lot rings true to those words. I brought up the Jackass films and he said that although that was exploitation, it was brilliant and what we are seeing is a broad commonness to self exploitation on some of these websites. It was an interesting talk.
That evening as I sat in my hotel in Boston, I sat dumbstruck as I watched the footage broadcast by NBC of the Virginia Tech killer. I couldn't believe that NBC felt compelled to release something that not only provided no real value or insight, but also at some level validated the actions of the killer, at least in the eyes of others who would pursue similar actions in the future.
One of the most interesting things about user generated/edge of the network/consumer media is the potential for media that originates outside of the center of the network to be able to harness the massive reach and distribution of mainstream media. At it's best you have the Adam Stacy subway bombing pictures which provided a haunting and visceral image of news as it happens, at it's worst it is a news organization taking advantage of it's selection by a killer to broadcast his rants and insanity. I have great respect for NBC Universal as a company and I can only hope in the future that they make the decision to avoid these sorts of missteps.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Soil
I thought this was a pretty cool picture. Tate wanted to keep his "wormy" friend out of the garden but we ultimately convinced him to let the worm snack away on the soil.
Gardening
For the last three or four years, Tate and I have planted a garden around Mother's Day which we would take care of over the summer and enjoy the tasty vegetables as the reward for our work. Interestingly, gardening can both be a therapeutic experience as well as a proxy for your state of mind. More on that later.
Over the years I have tried to focus on planting things I particularly enjoy or things that cost a lot in the store. The best example of that for me has been Heirloom tomato's. I started with a couple and I think that last year I was up to seven varietals. Last year the startup, but more importantly the young children took a toll and I was unable to keep up with the garden. In years past, the morning watering and weekend trimming sessions were a part of my summer ritual which I both love and missed last year. For some reason the combination of things was bad for my garden. By mid summer I had the most amazing overgrown garden you can imagine. Things were rotting on the vine beneath the overgrowth.
This year as a family we resolved to pitch in together and, frankly the little ones just continue to get easier(if we could just get them to stop picking on each other). Jessica took a big role this year and really helped to plan out the whole garden in a thoughtful and methodical way. The three of us spent a good chunk of yesterday doing the initial planting which was a real blast. I decided to scale back my "quest for the perfect tomato" this year and am giving it a go with three varietals (Purple Cherokee, Mortgage Lifter, and Brandywine). The coastal coolness just doesn't get the right amount of flavor development that you get in hotter climates. I am hoping that I can get some good combination of soil treatment and aggressive sucker trimming to make an inprovement over the last couple of years. But even if mine aren't as good as other areas, I was planting in shorts while parts of the country were in a snowstorm. Everything is relative. At any rate, pictures here and on my Flickr page.
Over the years I have tried to focus on planting things I particularly enjoy or things that cost a lot in the store. The best example of that for me has been Heirloom tomato's. I started with a couple and I think that last year I was up to seven varietals. Last year the startup, but more importantly the young children took a toll and I was unable to keep up with the garden. In years past, the morning watering and weekend trimming sessions were a part of my summer ritual which I both love and missed last year. For some reason the combination of things was bad for my garden. By mid summer I had the most amazing overgrown garden you can imagine. Things were rotting on the vine beneath the overgrowth.
This year as a family we resolved to pitch in together and, frankly the little ones just continue to get easier(if we could just get them to stop picking on each other). Jessica took a big role this year and really helped to plan out the whole garden in a thoughtful and methodical way. The three of us spent a good chunk of yesterday doing the initial planting which was a real blast. I decided to scale back my "quest for the perfect tomato" this year and am giving it a go with three varietals (Purple Cherokee, Mortgage Lifter, and Brandywine). The coastal coolness just doesn't get the right amount of flavor development that you get in hotter climates. I am hoping that I can get some good combination of soil treatment and aggressive sucker trimming to make an inprovement over the last couple of years. But even if mine aren't as good as other areas, I was planting in shorts while parts of the country were in a snowstorm. Everything is relative. At any rate, pictures here and on my Flickr page.
Planet Earth
A couple of weeks ago I was hiking with a friend Mike Blake and our respective children in the canyon behind their home. While talking about the various shows we were each watching he told m about the Planet Earth HD series on Discovery. It sounded really interesting so I set it up for my Tivo subscriptions on my HDDVR. The really cool thing they do is to run a bunch of old shows on Sunday night so it is really easy to get all the episodes.
The shows are thematic like, The Poles, The Deep Ocean, The Jungles and they cover some breathtaking scenery all in HD with a particular focus on the animals in each setting. This is the reason you have a big screen television (ok, that and football). I would highly recommend checking this out asap. The link to the website from Discovery is here.
The shows are thematic like, The Poles, The Deep Ocean, The Jungles and they cover some breathtaking scenery all in HD with a particular focus on the animals in each setting. This is the reason you have a big screen television (ok, that and football). I would highly recommend checking this out asap. The link to the website from Discovery is here.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Zannel
Zannel is a new mobile/web user generated content site. I don't usually say much about mobile stuff that is in related areas as us as I have a huge bias about the awesomeness of what we do. ;-)
However, in this case I have to make an exception. Zannel is founded by a bunch of former Infospace and Moviso guys. While checking the site out before they launched I submitted a picture of one of my many kids. It was I have to say an exceptional photo. You can see it from their homepage as it is a featured picture. My kid is the one who is knuckle deep...
However, in this case I have to make an exception. Zannel is founded by a bunch of former Infospace and Moviso guys. While checking the site out before they launched I submitted a picture of one of my many kids. It was I have to say an exceptional photo. You can see it from their homepage as it is a featured picture. My kid is the one who is knuckle deep...
Monday, April 09, 2007
Apple TV for families
Late at night several months ago I was scheming about taking a Mac Mini and turning it into a DVR. After a bit of research I decided that it just wasn't worth it and I ended up picking up my Tivo Series 2 box, which I use primarily to load up my PSP for long trips as well as to burn the occasional DVD.
With this meme out of my head I went on my merry way until the Apple TV launched. I read the gushing reviews as well as the criticism of the picture quality. I didn't really care but the noise was pretty loud. In our office we have the Mac guy. He loves Macs and carries on in the way the real die hard evangelists do when they speak of their technology the same way others speak of their religion.
For a week or two I kept looking at the technical specs on the Apple TV and I scratched my head. Why would I care? I was particularly perplexed by why I would want to buy content for Apple to show on my HDTV when I have a bunch of Tivo's and other devices that work just fine. One day when the noise was unbearable I decided to confront Mac Guy. Why would I buy an Apple TV?
His first argument was that it was a great way to leverage his insane home entertainment to listen to his itunes. Buzz. Not for me. Although I am a big music fan, I have yet to buy the mother of all surround sound systems for my house. The best audio equipment I have is a pretty sad little kitchen desktop unit with an iPod dock.
The next argument was that I could network the box with my computer at stream shows to the TV. Buzz. I have a Series 2 Tivo that can in concept do that although I don't ship movies around the house because of the war between Directv and Tivo. But anyway, you get the point.
The 3rd argument was that I could watch video blogs and other content that isn't available over pay per view. While not a buzz, I didn't see this as a big win. I was mildly intrigued by watching some videoblogs and the ability to watch Dora on demand or Power Rangers would make me a big hit with my kids.
The deal sealer for me was the following. I could rip my CDs, stick them on a hard drive and then stream them or store them on the Apple TV. When I consider the number of destroyed DVDs from fingerprints, bending or other physical abuse, the Apple TV is a cheap way to avoid that pain in the future. I strolled across the street and bought my little Apple TV box.
As all the gushing Apple fans continue to say, the UI is just amazing. You plug it in and it works. That's it. This is the difference between them and so many other companies.
So now that I have had one of these devices for a couple of weeks what do I really use it for, what do I like, and what do I dislike?
I use the Apple TV for three things. I do rip DVDs and store them on the hard drive. It works like a charm. I have become a fan of some of the videoblogs that I never could get into when I am looking at them on my laptop but on a 42 HDTV I am sold. Three, the feature that everyone in my family loves, is the photo screen saver that shows pictures from the last five years in a random fashion. Seriously, this alone is worth the price and I venture if you were to see this with your picture collection you would buy one for each TV in the house.
As far as likes, I really like that I can watch a variety of programming that I could never get into on my laptop. I will do a post soon about my favorites but know that this really gives power to videoblogs. I like the UI and I like the small size.
Dislikes? The video quality on certain clips does blow, especially flash clips. The size of the hard drive is way too small but with the help of a hacker you can beef it up for a pretty low price.
All in all a big thumbs up. For families this is a no brainer AV life saver. My kids can watch pictures of themselves for up to a half an hour without a break.
With this meme out of my head I went on my merry way until the Apple TV launched. I read the gushing reviews as well as the criticism of the picture quality. I didn't really care but the noise was pretty loud. In our office we have the Mac guy. He loves Macs and carries on in the way the real die hard evangelists do when they speak of their technology the same way others speak of their religion.
For a week or two I kept looking at the technical specs on the Apple TV and I scratched my head. Why would I care? I was particularly perplexed by why I would want to buy content for Apple to show on my HDTV when I have a bunch of Tivo's and other devices that work just fine. One day when the noise was unbearable I decided to confront Mac Guy. Why would I buy an Apple TV?
His first argument was that it was a great way to leverage his insane home entertainment to listen to his itunes. Buzz. Not for me. Although I am a big music fan, I have yet to buy the mother of all surround sound systems for my house. The best audio equipment I have is a pretty sad little kitchen desktop unit with an iPod dock.
The next argument was that I could network the box with my computer at stream shows to the TV. Buzz. I have a Series 2 Tivo that can in concept do that although I don't ship movies around the house because of the war between Directv and Tivo. But anyway, you get the point.
The 3rd argument was that I could watch video blogs and other content that isn't available over pay per view. While not a buzz, I didn't see this as a big win. I was mildly intrigued by watching some videoblogs and the ability to watch Dora on demand or Power Rangers would make me a big hit with my kids.
The deal sealer for me was the following. I could rip my CDs, stick them on a hard drive and then stream them or store them on the Apple TV. When I consider the number of destroyed DVDs from fingerprints, bending or other physical abuse, the Apple TV is a cheap way to avoid that pain in the future. I strolled across the street and bought my little Apple TV box.
As all the gushing Apple fans continue to say, the UI is just amazing. You plug it in and it works. That's it. This is the difference between them and so many other companies.
So now that I have had one of these devices for a couple of weeks what do I really use it for, what do I like, and what do I dislike?
I use the Apple TV for three things. I do rip DVDs and store them on the hard drive. It works like a charm. I have become a fan of some of the videoblogs that I never could get into when I am looking at them on my laptop but on a 42 HDTV I am sold. Three, the feature that everyone in my family loves, is the photo screen saver that shows pictures from the last five years in a random fashion. Seriously, this alone is worth the price and I venture if you were to see this with your picture collection you would buy one for each TV in the house.
As far as likes, I really like that I can watch a variety of programming that I could never get into on my laptop. I will do a post soon about my favorites but know that this really gives power to videoblogs. I like the UI and I like the small size.
Dislikes? The video quality on certain clips does blow, especially flash clips. The size of the hard drive is way too small but with the help of a hacker you can beef it up for a pretty low price.
All in all a big thumbs up. For families this is a no brainer AV life saver. My kids can watch pictures of themselves for up to a half an hour without a break.
Atten.tv
While away at CTIA a couple of weeks ago, the annual eTech conference took place in San Diego, which I of course missed. One of the people unveiling a product there was Seth Goldstein who announced Atten.tv. This site and software builds on some of the earlier attention work such as the badge on this blog from Root.net, and now has an alpha software client for the Mac that is sort of like a television screen that shows you the various pages that someone is viewing or has viewed while recording their attention with tools like the Attention recorder. The alpha is very alpha in my book and I am anxiously awaiting the full beta.
As mentioned in my previous post, I cleaned up the various widgets on my blog and switched to a new template. Over the weekend I realize that I forgot to include urchin analytical tracking and the root.net badge that I have added now. I don't visit urchin as often as sitemeter but it is definitely another tool that I spend time with when trying to understand my audience or accidental visitors.
If blogging is a fame based or attention seeking medium, then one of the critical pieces to measure the effectiveness is the inclusion of analytical tools to document what is happening as well as tools to share that data with others. I personally like the root badge as it is a way to share at a high level, your activity with others, to the degree you feel comfortable. The development of the viewer (called the Attentron), is a vivid way to demonstrate that aggregate data in a more meaningful way. I have no doubt that this is yet another step in the development of rich tools that will form around the concept of attention going forward.
As mentioned in my previous post, I cleaned up the various widgets on my blog and switched to a new template. Over the weekend I realize that I forgot to include urchin analytical tracking and the root.net badge that I have added now. I don't visit urchin as often as sitemeter but it is definitely another tool that I spend time with when trying to understand my audience or accidental visitors.
If blogging is a fame based or attention seeking medium, then one of the critical pieces to measure the effectiveness is the inclusion of analytical tools to document what is happening as well as tools to share that data with others. I personally like the root badge as it is a way to share at a high level, your activity with others, to the degree you feel comfortable. The development of the viewer (called the Attentron), is a vivid way to demonstrate that aggregate data in a more meaningful way. I have no doubt that this is yet another step in the development of rich tools that will form around the concept of attention going forward.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Spring Cleaning
If you have been here before more than a couple of times, you may have noticed I cleaned up my blog. Three things happened to make this so. 1. I am approaching my 3rd anniversary of blogging next month and it seemed like a good time for a change, considering I have been using the same template for over 1000 days. 2. I really wanted to see what you can do with the new Blogger infrastructure (I am a bit of a creature of habit and if I were to start all over again today I would look long and hard at six apart and word press) 3. Some guy who writes a post about good blog design singled me out as an example of widgets and links gone bad.
The last one cracked me up alot. I saw the link sometime around 6 months ago and I finally felt like I should address his holding me out as a junkyard dog of blogging. When I find the link I will post it. Technorati couldn't help me tonight to find it.
So, the new Blogger templates...Very nice. I like the ease of adding javascript/html. No more scanning a template. This is a big reason I didn't get rid of things. Other than being lazy, it felt like a big risky undertaking. No more. Add a piece/delete a piece fairly easy.
Aesthetically I think the new look is much cleaner as well. Nice and structured. A little plain but I am sure I can fix that with some thought.
As for widgets and add ons other than archives, profile and blogroll, I added three things. 1. A cool Flickr flash badge. Very tricky. My friends and family mostly come to my blog to go to the pictures so I hope they like the improvement. 2. My ad words. I am getting my first check. Woot! Don't spend that $100 too fast. Hey can you guys please click on my ads sometime? I guess I deserve that since I don't click on yours. 3. Sitemeter tracker. Given the low volume of comments on my blog, if I didn't have the stats to secretly track you, I don't think I could carry on with my blogging.
So there it is. Hopefully I will post a similar post in 3 years when I go to the immersive virtual reality template from Google, but who knows. I will be adding more blog junk shortly so enjoy the Spartan look while it lasts.
The last one cracked me up alot. I saw the link sometime around 6 months ago and I finally felt like I should address his holding me out as a junkyard dog of blogging. When I find the link I will post it. Technorati couldn't help me tonight to find it.
So, the new Blogger templates...Very nice. I like the ease of adding javascript/html. No more scanning a template. This is a big reason I didn't get rid of things. Other than being lazy, it felt like a big risky undertaking. No more. Add a piece/delete a piece fairly easy.
Aesthetically I think the new look is much cleaner as well. Nice and structured. A little plain but I am sure I can fix that with some thought.
As for widgets and add ons other than archives, profile and blogroll, I added three things. 1. A cool Flickr flash badge. Very tricky. My friends and family mostly come to my blog to go to the pictures so I hope they like the improvement. 2. My ad words. I am getting my first check. Woot! Don't spend that $100 too fast. Hey can you guys please click on my ads sometime? I guess I deserve that since I don't click on yours. 3. Sitemeter tracker. Given the low volume of comments on my blog, if I didn't have the stats to secretly track you, I don't think I could carry on with my blogging.
So there it is. Hopefully I will post a similar post in 3 years when I go to the immersive virtual reality template from Google, but who knows. I will be adding more blog junk shortly so enjoy the Spartan look while it lasts.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
My Current Media
Music - Brand New, Neil Young, Fall Out Boy
TV - Friday Night Lights, 24, Lost
Radio - NPR, Jim Rome
Videoblogs - Ask A Ninja, Crooks and Liars
Blogs - Digg.com, Techmeme
TV - Friday Night Lights, 24, Lost
Radio - NPR, Jim Rome
Videoblogs - Ask A Ninja, Crooks and Liars
Blogs - Digg.com, Techmeme
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The Difference Engine
At the beginning of the year one of my silent resolutions was to read a book of fiction each month. I read a ton but over time I have found that I read fiction less and less. For better or worse, I decided to complete my entire reading of everything written by William Gibson, by reading The Difference Engine which he co-authored with Bruce Sterling.
The premise of the book is that Charles Babbage's inventions (The difference engine and the analytical engine) were actually built in the early 1800s and accelerated the computer revolution by over 100 years.
I LOVED the premise and I think I would have been more excited by the book had it dwelled more on the historical implications in an overt fashion. That said, it was a good read even though I did it in bursts over a month or two. It is certainly not my favorite Gibson book (Neuromancer, Burning Chrome, Pattern Recognition) but if you are interested in possible historical alternatives I would say it is time well spent.
The premise of the book is that Charles Babbage's inventions (The difference engine and the analytical engine) were actually built in the early 1800s and accelerated the computer revolution by over 100 years.
I LOVED the premise and I think I would have been more excited by the book had it dwelled more on the historical implications in an overt fashion. That said, it was a good read even though I did it in bursts over a month or two. It is certainly not my favorite Gibson book (Neuromancer, Burning Chrome, Pattern Recognition) but if you are interested in possible historical alternatives I would say it is time well spent.
Adware? Spyware? Paying Attention
With my Firefox browser I have been running the Attention Recorder for almost nine months and have recorded almost 65,000 clicks. This doesn't include my home computer usage, but it is a pretty impressive number. I continue to noodle over the value of this data but one recurring value is my ability to track spyware when new delivery vehicles pop up. This weeks spyware offender is dg.specificclick.net. Thanks to the Root badge on my blog I realized that my number one most visited site has been dg.specificclick.net. Funny though, I don't ever recall seeing that site. Add to blocklist for browser cookies. Delete from attention recorder. Delete all 7 of the cookies from that domain.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
San Diego Breweries
San Diego isn't a place that I think many people would think of when they talk about craft beers or micro brews. When I think of those words I think of Seattle and Red Hook, Pyramid and others. In fact though, San Diego has a great tradition and has some outstanding beers including beers from Ballast Point, Port Brewing and Stone Brewing.
A couple of weeks back a friend of ours invited us to a dinner gathering of a local slow foods group that was being held at Stone Brewery in Escondido. I can appreciate the style of beer produced by Stone, which is really hoppy. Think IPA on steroids. Not my thing as I prefer lagers, pilsners and similar beers, but I get why some people really like that style. I had heard that their brewery was amazing and that it was a must visit. I wasn't sure what it would be like having taken tours from great macro breweries like Rainer and Henry Weinhard's to prestigious craft brewer Unibroue in Montreal.
The Stone facility was simply amazing. This was only outdone by the menu that is out of this world. I happened to miss the tour of the brewing areas but I will certainly be back as soon as I get a chance. If you are in San Diego or visit San Diego, add Stone to your itinerary. How can you not visit a place that makes the Arrogant Bastard Ale?
A couple of weeks back a friend of ours invited us to a dinner gathering of a local slow foods group that was being held at Stone Brewery in Escondido. I can appreciate the style of beer produced by Stone, which is really hoppy. Think IPA on steroids. Not my thing as I prefer lagers, pilsners and similar beers, but I get why some people really like that style. I had heard that their brewery was amazing and that it was a must visit. I wasn't sure what it would be like having taken tours from great macro breweries like Rainer and Henry Weinhard's to prestigious craft brewer Unibroue in Montreal.
The Stone facility was simply amazing. This was only outdone by the menu that is out of this world. I happened to miss the tour of the brewing areas but I will certainly be back as soon as I get a chance. If you are in San Diego or visit San Diego, add Stone to your itinerary. How can you not visit a place that makes the Arrogant Bastard Ale?
MR 40
Michael Robertson, who many of his friends refer to as MR, had his 40th birthday party at his ranch east of San Diego this last weekend. It was a complete blast. My pics can be seen on my Flickr page from the pictures below. Do click on the images to read some of the comments and notes. On Saturday I went for a run (which was brutal given the hilly terrain), played tennis with a former MP3.com co-worker and then spent 4 hours playing paintball with a motley crew of executives and other friends of Michael. The paintball games were certainly a highlight for me as I was simply put, a killing machine. I can't recall a time recently where I felt like a child and just literally played all day. It was a really good time. For those MP3.comers who read my blog Michael and Michelle's birthday is tomorrow so send them a birthday hello.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Orlando No Mas
CTIA was good. Lots of meetings. Lots of progress. I mistakenly thought I was flying out at 6AM this morning and I left the MTV party a wee bit too early. When I got back to the hotel I checked my flight and had a moment of regret before I realized that getting a good night of sleep was probably in my best interest. I didn't see anything earth shattering but I did see a lot of friends. I have some thoughts and observations about Orlando but I think I should just keep those to myself. For better or worse, CTIA is going to be there again next year...
Monday, March 26, 2007
CTIA - Mobile Entertainment Live
Orlando? I get Vegas, New Orleans, even Atlanta. Orlando is a place for theme parks. I flew across country yesterday and got in somewhere in the middle of the night. I missed the first part of Greg Clayman's keynote but did catch the second half. I probably won't blog much here as I am mostly in meetings. Hopefully there are some really interesting/products or announcements this week.
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