July 2009
29 posts
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“We have low share, by the way, in the investor audience. I can see the Apple...”
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, observing how many financial analysts attending his annual event for them used Macs.
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My Comic-Con Gear
I spent the last two days at Comic-Con 2009 here in San Diego. I sacrificed Day 1, and not happily, to cover Microsoft’s fiscal fourth-quarter and year-end earnings. Several big Microsoft stories broke on Friday, but I refused to give up another day at Comic-Con; it’s 40th show.
Here’s what I carried to the show:
Timbuk2 Commute Backpack
Nokia N97
Olympus PEN E-P1
Sony...
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Audience vs Traffic
patriciahandschiegel:
One of things you rarely hear spoken about in internet business is traffic. I don’t mean traffic numbers — those are everywhere. I mean traffic itself. What it is, what it means, what constitutes value, etc. You don’t see blog posts talking about how page views can be (and very much are) gamed to create the appearance of more page views. Or, that one million uniques means...
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Process Journalism and Original Reporting
On July 17, I posted, “The Michael Arrington Matter,” where I came down hard on the TechCrunch cofounder for publishing stolen, internal Twitter documents. I wouldn’t have done it. But in fairness, TechCrunch is successful—and for a reason. TechCrunch publishes lots of original content, as much in the comments as the stories. Readers participate in the process.
In my last...
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It's Original Reporting or Nothing
Ian Betteridge has blogged a couple times recently about the value of original reporting. He’s at it again—and spot on in his assessment:
One of the things that I’ve been pondering lately is whether it would be possible to do a news site devoted to a small, niche market which didn’t follow the usual norm of “cover everything in little depth.”
Instead, it might be possible to do...
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Social Networking: Everyone is Doing It →
Mashable:
comScore has a report on the state of social networking in the UK, showing that social networking is a mainstream activity among all age groups, and the second online activity when it…
[Joe adds: As I will further explain in an upcoming post: Social networking is the future of the news media. The most popular social networking tools available today came to market within the last three...
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The Michael Arrington Matter
There has been quite the ethics flap over the last 72 hours or so about TechCrunch’s handling of leaked Twitter documents.
Bottom line: Michael Arrington was wrong to distribute any of the leaked material, which was stolen by a hacker. The posting of the documentation is unconscionable. There is no journalistic excuse, or justification for it. The disclosure:
Likely is legally negligent
...
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iTunes Brings Back the 45
Double-sided singles and digital music are two things that go oddly together. They seemingly don’t go together at all. Apple has got them. But not in vinyl, of course. The iTunes Store now offers D45s, with A and B side tracks, priced from $1.49 to $1.99.
I’m old enough to remember 45s, and I still feel warmly about vinyl. Audiophiles insist that vinyl (analog) is truer to the...
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Reich's Right: No Economic Recovery in Sight
U Cal Berkley prof Robert Reich astutely and concisely sums up the prospects for economic revival in commentary “When Will the Recovery Begin? Never.” I saw it today at Salon, but Robert posted to his blog on July 9.
Other economic observers who talk about a recovery underway go oddly together with reality. There is no recovery now, and there isn’t going to be one in the...
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Clever Silicon Alley Insider
Now here’s a siren call to geeks: A post titled “What Do You Know, Anyway?” and picturing a seeming babe in glasses. It’s a quiz, over at Silicon Alley Insider. Can you say, “Clickbait?”
Quizzes are hot, hot, hot. There are seemingly zillions at Facebook. But this one stands out for enticing the geek to click through to an even bigger picture of the...
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'Is Microsoft Fraked?' Chat
Late this morning, BetaNews founder Nate Mook and I IMed about Google's Chrome OS announcement. Our differing positions somehow fit oddly together.
Joe Wilcox: Microsoft is seriously up shits creek.
Nate Mook: Eventually.
Joe: The Q is when does Google become like Microsoft. Trade one for another.
Nate: I don't know anyone at this point that is ready to drop desktop apps for Web apps. It'll happen eventually, but it's not there yet. And Google knows it, which is why it's focusing on netbooks.
Joe: And why Google is announcing now.
Nate: A lot of progress has been made on the Web, but it's still so vastly behind. Using Google Docs is like pulling teeth. Zoho is even worse. Clearly it'll happen, but I wonder when.
Joe: Right, but who really needs Docs? Or Office?
Nate: How much has Gmail really improved in the 5 years since it left beta? The web has iterated really, really slowly. We're still on HTML 4.1 for the past decade. The past couple years have seen a lot of change, but I think it'll take a lot more.
Joe: True. But always connected handsets will drive fast change.
Nate: Yeah, not everyone needs productivity tools, that's true.
Joe: Most nobody does.
Nate: But do you use an IM client in a browser, or do you use Trillian/Adium?
Do you listen to music in a browser, or do you use iTunes?
Joe: Brower IM sucks. Music I would do if there were good options. But those things have nothing to do with content creation. That's what Office is for. How many Word docs do you read a week. Compared to e-mail, IM, RSS or Twitter? Flickr, YouTube, etc.
Nate: Oh, totally. I spend 80% of my day in the browser. It's an inevitability, and that's why Google is getting going now. But I still think we're looking at 5 years at least.
Joe: Microsoft has got no good mobile OS or browser. How stupid is that?
Nate: Microsoft has time to respond, if it can get its act together. But it probably won't
Joe: There's no will. And the economy is sapping profits. It's defensive mode now, and that means lots of bad decisions. Like IBM before Gerstner.
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“Steve Jobs doesn’t want your love. He wants you to buy his stuff.”
– David Carr, New York Times Story: “Unhealthy Fixation on Jobs’ Illness.”
Do you have a Steve Jobs story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
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It's Not the Myth, But the Fight Over the Man
“Decoding Steve Jobs: Trust the Art, Not the Artist,” is shit hitting the fan. Today, for some strange reason. Steve has got to be one of the most controversial chief executives of modern times. Beloved by the Mac faithful, praised by Wall Street analysts and cursed by many others, he is Mr. Love Him or Hate Him.
Yesterday, Pete Mortensen (at Cult of Mac) posted “Fast Company...
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How Does 'Incremental' Define Apple?
I’d like to discuss how Apple innovates, which I understand very well. I posted about Apple’s incremental product strategy last September at Apple Watch: “Apple Demands a High Price to Be Cool.”
The pattern is consistent: Apple launches a “one more thing” product with modest hardware features but something else nevertheless killer—something people want. During...