September 2009
11 posts
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Netbook Plague Kills 1 in 5 Notebooks
The netbook scourge continues unabated, and PC manufacturers are host on their on petard. Could anything be more putrid?
DisplaySearch has ruined the last official day of summer holiday by releasing netbook shipment data. In May, I blogged that netbook US retail share approached 20 percent. Fire all the short-sighted product managers! The netbook scourge advances on the mainstream computing...
August 2009
24 posts
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My Nokia N97 is Gone
Snail pic taken with Nokia N97 smartphone
I’m mad at Apple and Nokia. Apple has the best mobile software and services platform anywhere. Nokia offers the best hardware platform—granted, HTC closes in. This difference has forced me to choose one company’s smartphone over the other, leaving behind dissatisfaction with the compromise.
I purchased the Nokia N97 in mid June, right before...
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Your Next PC is a Smartphone
Last Friday’s Silicon Alley Insider Chart of the Day should scare Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer so badly that he accidentally buys a Japanese car. Sorry, Steve, you missed the Cash for Clunkers program. That’s OK, maybe someday the Obama Administration will offer a clunkers program for Windows PCs.
Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer explains the chart: “By the end of...
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What Good Is RSS Anyway?
Yesterday, ZDNet’s Sam Diaz harped that RSS was “a good idea at the time, but there are better ways now.” ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick responded on his personal blog: “If you think RSS is dead then that’s your loss and a big one.” Their opposing positions go oddly together, and both make some valid points.
The topic interests me—and hopefully...
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The Grey Lady of Lost Dreams, and New Ones
Would you pay a buck to read New York Times story, “A Cul-de-Sac of Lost Dreams, and New Ones,” online? I would. The quality of reporting—over many months—and presentation, which includes photos and video, simply isn’t easily reproducible by most free-content, commercial blogsites.
Perhaps in an alternate universe, the Times charges online for this story, which I saw yesterday...
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America's Health Insurance Cartels are the Problem
Two things that go oddly together: $20 and a quick physical. That’s what my daughter got yesterday so she could try out for the local high school volleyball team. The school recommended the doctor, who was fast, friendly, thorough and cheap. From watching the patients going in and out of the physician’s office, I observed that he provides a valuable service to San Diego’s...
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“If you went down to our cafeteria, [this bagel] costs like $1.25. That’s what...”
– Brian Tierney, ownership leader for Philadelphia newspapers The Inquirer and The Daily News in New York Times Magazine story, “What’s a Big City Without a Newspaper.”
Do you have a news media story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
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Are You a Doll?
In 1978, new wave band Devo asked “Are we not men?” The name Devo comes from de-evolution, the idea that humans perhaps are going backwards, not forwards. I’ve been thinking more about this concept with respect to entertainment and marketing after watching a Fox Network TV show.
I won’t chart any new philosophical ground in this post. But, hey, it’s end of summer,...
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Microsoft-Yahoo Searcher Penetration Doesn't...
Too Many people are making too much about ComScore’s searcher penetration data, which released on August 14. Microsoft and Yahoo executives shouldn’t get their hopes up, nor should analysts, bloggers or journalists writing about the data otherwise be misguided. Similarly, ComScore has overstated Microsoft-Yahoo combined search potential.
It’s no secret that Google is the US...
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Look to 'The Loop' for Good Branding Ideas
IDG laid off my buddy Jim Dalrymple about the time I got the boot from eWEEK. Jim wasted no time starting a new enterprise, and at the right place: The brand. Jim brilliantly rebranded himself, and what he did should be lesson to any person or company looking to launch a new product or service.
It’s easy to dismiss Jim, because of “the beard.” You wouldn’t think he’s...
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Apple, Could You do for Movies and TV Shows What...
I would like to suggest that Apple make something like “Complete My Album” and “Upgrade to iTunes Plus” available for movies, TV shows and music videos. Such iTunes features could revolutionize how people electronically rent or buy video content.
There are occasional iTunes sales and promotions that do some of what I want to suggest ( and hopefully I haven’t missed...
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Can You Charge for News? Ask Google
The pundits opining about Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for his media conglomerate’s online content have missed the forest for the trees. The majority are spouting conjecture about whether or not people would pay and in that context whether or not anyone should charge, considering the abundance of alternative online informational sources. What everyone should ask: Can you put...
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Microsoft, Don't Hang Up Windows Mobile
August is the month of punditry. With many workers on vacation—this year, many are unemployed or on unpaid furlough, too—tech companies tend to hold back big announcements. So news and blog sites have to fill the space with something, seeing as how there is less news. Five minutes before Midnight EDT, yesterday, Business Week posted analyst Jack Gold’s Windows Mobile-ending prediction....
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Microsoft treats Razorfish like Fishbait
Is there some relationship between razorfish and stingrays? About the time I started to blog about Microsoft selling digital ad agency Razorfish to Publicis Groupe, a phone call came that a stingray had stung my daughter. So I raced north to Del Mar beach, where the wonderful lifeguards cared for my wounded 15 year-old. We’re back home, and I am, finally, ready to offer my intrusive opinion...
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Two Tales of Windows 7 Abandon
In the interests of transparency and fair disclosure, I must make two of three confessions. Several people have asked, via comment, e-mail or tweet, whether or not my wife and daughter stuck with Windows 7. There’s appropriateness to responding the day Microsoft released the operating system to MSDN and TechNet subscribers.
On June 8, I asked: “Can my Mac-loving wife say,...
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My Terrible Windows 7 Moment
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Perhaps the same can be said of the right chart. The one below is so wordy I won’t have to write my usual 1,000-post. In reviewing the chart last night, I had one of those dreaded OMG moments.
My realization: After commandingly executing Windows 7 development, Microsoft had run off the track right before the finish line. Suddenly, Windows...
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Bean-Hole Beans
It’s Saturday, and that means baked beans are served throughout much of Maine. Particularly in the Crown of Maine, or Aroostook County, most grocery stores sell fresh-baked beans (no canned stuff) and bread hot from the oven.
Saturday and baked beans appear to go oddly together. There are disputes about the tradition’s origins, with some folklorists attributing their origin to...