July 2010
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“At least my analysis is honest and public. Who are you but another anonymous...”
– My response to a snarky Betanews commenter, late this afternoon.
I oppose anonymous commenting.
Do you have an online community story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
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The Roles We Play
I’m catching some down time in the Press Room at the San Diego Convention Center. Outside in the hall, Comic-Con rumbles on with a crowd I would estimate to be at least three times the size of Day One. The noise and bustle makes taking good photos or conducting video interviews difficult. So I’m shacked up with my laptop in this quiet place, contemplating what Comic-Con is all about:...
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“The Net’s interactivity gives us powerful new tools for finding...”
– Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Do you have a Net story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
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Does the Net Necessitate Social Media?
It’s the question I’m seriously asking in context of Web users’ constant state of distraction and increasing inability to concentrate for long periods. Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains looks at this state of distraction. I’ve blogged posts: “Internet Attention Deficit Disorder” and “Of Course, Technology Changes...
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“Along the eight-hundred-and-fifty mile border with China, everybody knows...”
– Barbara Demick, “Nothing Left: Is North Korea finally facing collapse?”; The New Yorker, July 12 & 19, 2010.
For Americans thinking China is a country of poor people, impoverished North Koreans see something else. Americans’ perspective and that of North Koreans’ go so...
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Journalist Burnout is Symptom of Sick Newsrooms
When I started my online-only news career at CNET (1999-2003), the metrics for success largely extended from print: Scoops (and for me, provocative analysis). Now, as Jeremy Peters writes for the New York Times (“In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger”), the measure is pageviews—and scoops, too, for some news organizations. Journalists are burning out fast and young, and...
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Apple's iPhone 4 Booboo has Etsy Fix
Starting today, Oddly Together will shift more into storytelling mode—and this is the first of many posts pushing the theme. Marketing is all about storytelling and in very few words (for the best marketing even tweets are too long). This little ad—taking advantage of Apple’s so called “Death Grip“—is smart storytelling in just so many ways.
The product is available from one...
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Journalists, Don't Fall for Predicto's Flack...
This morning, I received a PR pitch from social networking survey service Predicto, which existence I had no prior knowledge. I’m simply aghast by the flagrant misuse of data and assertion that based on a Predicto survey, Apple will likely recall iPhone 4.
From the email:
With Apple slated to hold a press conference tomorrow, the most likely topic seems to be how to correct the iPhone 4...
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“The iPhone 4 antenna issue is a scar on a beautiful woman. You don’t break up...”
– TechCrunch’s MG Siegler, responding to Microsoft CFO Kevin Turner’s outrageous statement comparing iPhone 4 to Windows Vista.
Do you have an outrageous technology quote story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
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“It looks like iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m OK with that....”
– Microsoft CTO Kevin Turner during the company’s partner conference in Washington, D.C.
It’s simply an outrageous assertion to make. Windows Vista was a poorly conceived operating system that demanded too much power and delivered jerky performance—and it was a market failure. There is...
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Are Night Owls Brighter, or Just Late-Night TV...
There are some things that really go oddly together, like sleep and intelligence. This week I saw several blog posts and tweets referring to Psychology Today article “Intelligence: The Evolution of Night Owls.” That people are talking about the article demonstrates the distressing power of the social Web. The article posted on Nov. 1, 2009, so it’s not exactly new. Matthew Hutson...
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The Old Man and the 3G
Who says that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks or that older people can’t adapt and change? Not me, or at least not any longer. This afternoon, I got the most amazing shock from my father-in-law, who turned 88 in December. He wants to make some changes, by going all 3G wireless.
A few months back, my father-in-law bought a Sprint modem for one of his sons, who no longer uses...
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TechCrunch and Woot play to AP's Weakness
Some people—heck, some organizations—have no sense of humor. Humorless perhaps best describes Associated Press, which apparently didn’t get Woot’s joke about owing money for a blog excerpt. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler put AP in its place today, that’s assuming there isn’t yet a nasty takedown-notice response coming.
Some quick background: About two years ago, AP...
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“Cash cows are wonderful things to have. But you have to use the revenue to...”
– Steve Wildstrom, “Microsoft at the Crossroads: IBM or AT&T?”
That one statement assesses everything that is wrong about Microsoft today—preserving Office and Windows revenue streams at the cost of everything else. I’ve written extensively about Microsoft as the new IBM (parts...
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Slower Reading on iPad is a Good Thing
I got caught up in the US Independence holiday and forgot to post (three days ago) about Jakob Nielsen’s “iPad and Kindle Reading Speeds.” Jakob is a user experience (UX) expert, who has published usability column “Alert Box” since 1995.
In the July 2nd column, he explains about usability testing comparing book reading to Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s...
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MSNBC.com bets on Readers
I can’t much imagine how MSNBC.com could have designed a news site seemingly more unfriendly to generating static pageviews—unless there is some secret Google gaming formula. The secret sauce is there, and I love it. MSNBC.com’s updated news site pulls readers in rather than sending them out.
It’s a very Web-unconventional approach. Aggregators of the InterWeb game pageviews...
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Coffee Shop Newsrooms →
Doreen Marchionni:
My fantasy newsroom is one where the public comes and goes (within reason, of course) and story ideas flow freely in all directions. In England in the 1600s, news grew out of coffeehouses this way. Decades later in the U.S. colonies, the venue of choice switched to pubs. (I like that journalism in America is tied up with drinking. Explains a lot.)
Here’s a big shout-out to...
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'Is Microsoft Fraked?' Chat II
Late yesterday, one of my journalist friends IMed asking about Microsoft killing KIN, its consumer smartphone, after about six weeks of sales. The chat reminds of another I had with Betanews founder Nate Mook nearly a year ago ("'Is Microsoft Fraked?' Chat"). The friend asked not to be identified, for reasons I understand.
Friend: Joe, what the heck is MSFT thinking? With this KIN thing?
Joe: There is no MS thinking. It's all chaos now.
Joe: The enterprise hawks have killed the consumer and cloud service doves.
Joe: It's all about keeping Office and Windows revenue streams and extending them. These guys--and the analysts consulting them--are lost.
Joe: It's the Brave New World I predicted many times. People care about Apple, Google and Facebook.
Friend: Yeah, that's why [unnamed Apple/Google blogger] is in the catbird seat.
Friend: And gloating like you wouldn't believe.
Joe: Do you see how little I blog about Microsoft? Nobody reads it.
Joe: Microsoft is the utility company. People only care if the power is off. Otherwise they don't care. If Office and Windows work. No one cares.
Joe: But they care about Apple, Facebook and Google because the products are personal.
Joe: The future is now. This movie was shot and edited on an iPhone 4. No PC or Mac used: http://vimeo.com/12819723. That's the future people care about.
Joe: Did you see? I didn't even bother to cover Windows Live Essentials or Office 2010 launches. Pointless.
Friend: Ha. Yeah.
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