February 2007 – LIVEdigitally

Roadmaster Lets you Tell Nearby Drivers how you Really Feel

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Anyone who’s ever been in a car with me driving knows I’m always having two conversations: one with my passenger(s), and the other with other drivers as they cut me off, pass too close, tailgate, or drive a “no sale blue” (a phrase that appears surprisingly absent on the Internet, only good reference here) Oldsmobuick. Unfortunately, it seems that for the most part, these other drivers can’t quite seem to hear me.

I heard today that Roadmaster USA is launching two products that allow scrolling messages to display, either in your rear window or on your license plate. Not only that, it’s a customizable message. Sounds like a product made it heaven!

The products come priced at $69, and come with a mounting kit and a remote control. From reading the manual, it seems that the programming process might be a little clunky (obviously, I’d have it work with USB and a simple PC app), but since the pre-programmed messages are things like “Everybody is entitled to my opinion” and “Holiday Opening Hours”, I think I’d need to spice it up a bit. There’s the obvious “LIVEdigitally” but really, how much fun is that? I think my vocabulary would probably include:

Either “Stop picking your nose.” or “, , was that you?”
“No Vacancy” (I don’t know why, I just think it’d be fun)
“Days since last accident… 002”
“In the time it took you to read this message, shouldn’t you have been watching the road?”

From their Web site, it seems like the units go on sale immediately. Since my wife’s current mode of ‘convergence’ is really about getting rid of extra gadgets, I don’t think I’ll be picking one up myself, but if anyone grabs one, come back and share your thoughts!

I’m also looking forward to a second generation version, in which I’d love to see the company add SMS capabilities so I can update the message in real-time. I’m sure that’d be safe, right?

Spotplex – A different kind of Site Voting

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Guest Contributor

A new site called Spotplex launched recently and it has a different way to find highly rated sites different than the way Digg does. Instead of having users rate your site like Digg does, your site is rated by how many views a certain page or post receives. The more views the higher rated your page or post receives. This is done by the webmaster putting a small java script in the page and whenever it is viewed it gets counted by Spotplex.

The results on their site look similar to Digg, showing very popular content, latest content, or by tags or publisher.
The first thing that comes to mind is how they are going to handle the possibility for abuse or mislabeling. Hopefully they have thought this through carefully and have devised some ways to handle it. They also do not have a place to comment on the post, like Digg does To comment you would have to go to the original site and page. This is great for the original site because it forces people to go back to the originating site to make comments. Not too great for the user, most like to comment directly at the post, like Digg does.

They are taking only 1,000 blogs right now, and is still in Beta. I can definetly see a problem with the loading speed of the site. They will need to fix this right away if people are going to stick around and they are going to grow. They also have several different ways sites can create widgets or embed code into their own page to show specific posts based upon a selected criteria. They also have added RSS feeds to the site. But, again the feed is very slow to load.

Explaining Routers, Switches, and Hubs

Posted on February 27, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Does this sound familiar: “Hey, I want to get online, but I don’t know if I need a router or a hub?” or “JT, do I need a switch for getting my office networked?” (well, your version probably doesn’t have the JT in it). I get asked the question multiple times per month. So, in my stint as a guest blogger with Netgear, I decided to get some official answers from Sanjay Kumar (the one who isn’t about to go to jail). Sanjay spent a while with me, explaining a lot of the nuances to how networking works. So, if you’d like to learn more, read on…

Hey, NBC, stop trying to spoil Heroes for me!

Posted on February 26, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

As I’ve posted before, I’m a big fan of the show Heroes, for many reasons. One of the things I really like about it is that unlike Lost/Twin Peaks/XFiles, it’s a quirky show that doesn’t have a huge weird mystery that may or may not get resolved to my satisfaction. It has a plotline, and it clearly has twists and turns, but should it end this season, I won’t be wondering what it’s all about forever.

Also, despite it being so semi-geeky a show, it’s captured the #1 slot for Mondays, and is one of NBC’s highest-rated shows. But yet any time, day or night, that I turn on NBC, there it is, a preview for Heroes, chock full of suspenseful-looking spoiler-ridden clips. And it’s driving me nuts.

See, I’ve got this little problem in that, if I see something in a preview, I tend to remember it the whole time I’m watching the show. So if I see fire in the preview, I’m waiting for fire in the show. Doesn’t matter how quick, I notice it. I’m not exactly bragging here, by the way, that part of my brain could clearly be used for more important things, but I just can’t seem to turn it off.

So please, team NBC, I beg of you: stop with all the footage from the upcoming episodes. You have a huge fan base, and based on the number of fan sites all over the ‘net, you aren’t losing us any time soon. So how about you let us decide when we want to go find a spoiler, and when we don’t? You have plenty of footage to continue to get new viewers without ruining it for the rest of us.

And by the way, this goes for your Web site too! If I want spoilers, I’ll seek them out (probably here – warning, that link CONTAINS SPOILERS!). It’s not like you’re trying to peddle us on a series based on “From Justin to Kelly” or something…

Mobile Porn Industry: No Viagra Needed!

Posted on February 26, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

I read over at CNet this morning that mobile porn today is a $1.6 billion industry.

I read over at CNet this morning that mobile porn today is a $1.6 billion industry.

I read over at CNet this morning that mobile porn today is a $1.6 billion industry.

Furthermore, in the next five years it’s expected to grow to $3.3B, a figure I actually find fairly low, as all the key contributing factors (3G adoption, more smartphones, better quality displays, etc) are all in heavy growth mode. I still can’t believe it’s already earning that much! Ready for the kicker quotes?

“Steven Hirsch, co-CEO of Vivid Entertainment, one of the world’s largest adult film producers, said that mobile distribution currently makes up only about 5 percent of his company’s total revenue.”

and

“The lackluster reception adult entertainment has gotten in the wireless market so far […]”

Only 5%? Lackluster reception? Wow. Mobile porn makes more money than the entire Web 2.0 industry (no source for that, but it’s a safe assumption). Mobile porn is bigger than the entire e-book industry. On the other hand, I guess it’s like saying Mobile Porn is worth about as much as YouTube…

I’m personally not all that turned on by mobile porn (yes, double-entendre, I know), but I’m also surprised at the hypocrisy within US companies on the topic in general. There’s a general “don’t go there” type of reaction from the press (unless it’s scandalous, in which case we must rush out and cover immediately) as well as Wall Street (unless it’s really a lot of money, in which case try to hide it in the books as “services”). I have two friends who work for companies which make a decent chunk of their profits because their technologies get used in the adult space, and in both cases the companies can barely discuss the related income.

NOTE: from this point on, please use your discretion on following links, as many are “not safe for work”.

I wanted to try to figure out what $1.6B represented in terms of consumption of content, so I went looking for some facts and, heh, figures. Now Telus Mobile recently decided to drop mobile porn services but, they were charging $4/video. Adult star Tera Patrick just launched “moistmob” (link) which charges almost $3/minute. Other services can be as much as $25/day for content streaming (source). A quick Google Blog search (term: “Mobile porn”) pointed me to the recent launch of my.iPlayground, a mobile adult content directory with a wide variety of both free and paid-for content, showing similar rates.

At $25/day, that’s 64 million days’ worth of subscriptions (175K years).
At $3/minute, it’s 5.3 billion minutes, or 148K days’ worth of consumption.
At $4/video (2 minutes long each), 4 billion videos were served for 8 billion minutes.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t seem to matter how you want to break it down. With an estimated 400 million 3G subscribers worldwide (seemingly correct source), if 7% are paying for the porn (source, but its buried in other stats on that page), that leaves 28 million people spending an average of $57 per year to get their porn in the palm of their hands.

Sounds like a pretty sizable market. Now let’s be sure to stay quiet about it, because the only safe place for mature content in this country is on the magazines in the checkout stands at groceries nationwide, or on primetime television.

How I Keep up with Tech Topics

Posted on February 25, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

While I am probably not at the utter cutting edge of every bit of news out there, I do tend to stay slightly ahead of the curve when it comes to news in technology. I’ve noticeed recently that quite a few of my friends and peers ask me how I keep up. As I tell them, I don’t really spend that much time reading, it’s more that I’ve found a great combination of sources to use and reuse multiple times per day. Here are my 4 sources, and a bit on when/how/why I use them.

My.Yahoo. If they had a membership card, mine’d probably say “Member Since 1999.” I’ve configured my page to show me sports scores & news, entertainment headlines, and more importantly, a variety of “traditional journalist” tech sources, specifically including the AP and Reuters tech feeds and some industry-specific topics such as “peripherals.” I end up on my My Yahoo! page (that sounds odd) no fewer than a dozen times a day, and I also use it as my primary source for non-tech news. I know there are more “powerful” options like Pageflakes and Netvibes, but My Yahoo works, it’s reliable, it’s fast to load, and it’s convenient. It has the added bonus of being integrated into a variety of services I use already.

Techmeme (pronounced “tek-meem”) is my second-most used site of the day, and I use it to keep abreast of active/current technology topics. Odds are quite good that if something is going on in the high-tech world, it hits the front page of Techmeme within an hour. I’m there multiple times per day, and it’s probably the single best way to keep my virtual finger on the pseudo-pulse of the artifical heart in the technology world. If I had but a single complaint with the site is my inability to filter out topics that I don’t personally care about (e.g. “Second Life”), but my eyes seem to do a good job of that on their own. I also applaud Gabe Rivera (the creator of Techmeme, with whom I spent some time chatting at the ~~IBD Network~~ DealMaker Media event last week), as he built the site himself!

Next up is Bloglines, the first of two different blog/RSS readers I use regularly. I use Bloglines specifically because there are certain authors whom I want to read above all else, regardless of topic, and I find this is the best way to follow them. I know there are other methods of following feeds, but this is my favorite way to consume individual writer’s content on a regular basis. By the way, my absolute top blog reads are (in no order): Michael Gartenberg, Dave Zatz, Jason Calacanis, Mathew Ingram, Thomas Hawk, and Fred Wilson. I read quite a few others as well, and subscribe to almost a hundred blogs total, but something about the quality of content and the quantity of content makes them the easiest to follow (I like 0-2 posts per day per blogger). I hit Bloglines about three times a day.

Last, but not least, is Google Reader, which I use once every day or two to look for interesting topics by other bloggers I like, but who may be either too prolific or focus on other domains from my most-needed content. This lets me scan through sites I really enjoy (like Engadget, GigaOm, Scoble, etc) where I may look for specific topics, but just can’t read all the content they put out. The Google Reader interface is really well-suited for scanning through headlines, and I’ve even added Techmeme as a source to it, just in case I find something through that means instead.

So there you have it, 4 great sites to keep up with the latest news in technology. Use them right, and you’re basically assured to be on top of what’s going on.

As a bit of an aside, the most important “advice” I’ll impart is this: make sure you combine your blogosphere intake with traditional journalists. I just read this great piece by Dan Farber looking back on a decade of blogging, and I couldn’t agree more with the comments regarding citizen journalism. Like everything in life, I try to avoid the utter extremes: the bloggers have a lot to say, but aren’t always right, and same thing goes for professional journalists.

Trying a New Stereo: Pioneer VSX-80TXV

Posted on February 23, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Back before there were many gadgets and gizmos, cool mobile phones and MP3 players, the hot topic of consumer technology centered around audio/video gear. Personally, my first home surround sound setup involved a HiFi VCR and a Dolby Pro Logic receiver. We’ve come a long way from there, with 7.1 (or more) channel digital surround sound, pre- and post-processing, digital filters, and more.

My current stereo is a Sony DA30ES with 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS support. It has a bunch of inputs and outputs, although all are analog. I received a pretty little (well, not-so-little) package in the mail this week with a new Pioneer VSX-80TXV A/V receiver. Oooh, integrated HDMI switch! Ahhh, THX-certified. Ohhh, so many ins and outs. Me likey!

I’m going to make the switch this coming week, although I’m going to have a little ‘guest panel’ come over beforehand so we can do a little comparison testing. It’s a little tricky to test since it’s so subjective and based entirely on short-term memory, but we’ll do our best. Some pictures below, more online here.

Australia's Broadband Drought……. Caused by?

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Guest Contributor

So the broadband problem in Australia is “getting worse”, according to a propaganda message by Telstra yesterday at their ~~Back Telstra – Campaign~~ Don’t-Hate-Us campaign. Which I definitely agree, that our broadband adoption rates are falling that behind of even emerging countries, yet alone against the developed ones.

Now We’re Talking

Some key points to note in the meeting were:

– They said: We’re not a monopoly in the market. I point out:(Telstra has 65% market share)

– They said: There are several hundred service providers in the market I say:( (Yes, and Telstra leases lines to 98% of them)

– They said: Talks regarding broadband de-monopolisation broke down because of the regulators I say:( (Well obviously because you didn’t want to let go of your market share!)

Then he went on whinging about how Australia needs to adopt broadband faster and no one’s doing anything about it. As you can clearly see, if you were the Monopoly, you have to make the first move and stop blame shifting it on everyone else.

And what’s worse! This happened: Telstra Raises Prices- AGAIN

I’m amazed at the irony where a service provider who owns the copper lines, can also compete in the market where they provide products to resellers, and then compete against them. It surely doesn’t separate Telstra’s power to, “Hey! Let’s screw everyone and raise the cost of our Leased Lines so that we can compete”. And they go ahead and compete against these resellers by selling broadband, fixed line services and mobile services.

Well then, if Telstra had a mum, she’d cane him for this nonsense.

Dialing in to the Emerging Telephony Conference

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

ETel logo As any of my regular readers have figured out, I love CES, it’s my favorite technology conference (as opposed to CeBIT, which is my least favorite – ugh, Hannover). The next-most enjoyable tech activities to me are the ones where you get to see upcoming stuff that’s either just reaching the market as well as the stuff that may never hit the market (Wired’s NextFest is a great example). So when I heard about O’reilly’s eTel conference here in my own backyard (SF Airport Marriott), I thought it sounded like a good thing to check out.

Here’s the official blurb:

Opportunity Doesn’t Always Knock, Sometimes it Calls. Have you answered the call yet to attend the hottest telephony conference of the year? The Emerging Telephony Conference takes place next week February 27 to March 1, 2007 in Burlingame, California. ETel explores the strategies for taming disruption and exploiting opportunities being created by web telephony innovations.

You can see the list of speakers here and the full schedule is here. I’m not exactly sure if I’ll make it to all the sessions or just 2 of the days, but if anyone wants to geek out at lunch or something, get in touch.

Also, the kind folks at O’Reilly are giving LD readers a special 40% off discount. Not too shabby, eh? Register today with code etel07fnf40.

Email Overload and Interruptive Communications

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

I try to avoid re-posting content, but this list of ways to deal with email overload was too good to ignore. Original source is CNN/reuters:

Admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every ten minutes.
Commit to keeping your inbox empty.
Create files where you can put inbox material that needs to be acted on.
Make broad headings for your filing system so that you have to spend less time looking for filed material.
Deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.
Set a target date to empty your in box. Don’t spend more than an hour at a time doing it.
Turn off automatic send/receive.
Establish regular times to review your e-mail.
Involve others in conquering your addiction.
Reduce the amount of e-mail you receive.
Save time by using only one subject per e-mail; delete extra comments from forwarded e-mail, and make the subject line detailed.
Celebrate taking a new approach to e-mail.

I’ve actually adopted #1 and #7 in the past two weeks, I must say, it’s been wonderful. I’ve come out against ~~CrackBerries~~ BlackBerries many times before, and I’m starting to really crystallize my thoughts on what it is I don’t like about the most recent innovations in communication technology (especially IMing, SMS/texting, email, mobile email, and even things like call-waiting): these are all forms of communication which are all about being interruptive.

So my auto-email updater is now off. IM is on, but I ignore it a lot when I am focusing on something, and I may soon turn it off more often. I like SMS, but can also easily ignore it. I do try to avoid call-waiting (except when the wife calls) as much as I can. I’m not perfect at any of these things, but I’m trying. I think I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle, it seems as if the world is shifting into a mode where interruption is not just happening, but accepted and even encouraged.

I’d like to hope that we’re at the extreme end of the pendulum on these behaviors. I’d like to think people will shift back toward the middle. A little less phone calls in the movie theaters and at the restaurants. A few fewer Swiss Army Knives mounted to peoples’ ears at all occasions (psst, I mean bluetooth headsets). Maybe the little red blinky light on the BlackBerry can just keep going off throughout dinner? Or we can try to stop saying “hey, hold on just a sec, I wanna grab this call.” Can we please?

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

My name is Jeremy. It’s been 9 minutes since I’ve checked email, and I have 411 unread emails in my inbox.

SMB/SOHO Resources for Useful Technology

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

A friend of mine is putting together a small company (SMB) and I was out looking for some helpful pointers to select some technology, and couldn’t find anything all that impressive. I then did the same type of search for people like myself (SOHO). Again, bupkus.

So over at the NETGEAR blog today, I put up a post with some good tips for anyone who needs a little help selecting some basic technology for their new company. Click to read “Useful Tech Tips for SMB/SOHO“.

Satellite Radio Merger: color me unsurprised

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

They’ve tried before, they’re trying again. Rumors circulate today that XM and Sirius are planning a merger (Updated to include Mark Evans and Ars Technica. Updated again: it’s official). The two companies together would represent about 13 million subscribers (6 million from Sirius, 7.6 million from XM), with a ~$8B market cap ($615/subscriber today), about $2B in debt, and roughly $600M in cash on hand (source: financial stats for SIRI and XMSR). Interesting, as Echostar has roughly the same subscriber base, more profitability (and more room for profitability), yet only twice the market cap.

Another interesting thought is on room for growth. 13 million subscribers represents roughly 6% of the ~240M cars in use around the US, or 10% of households, depending on which model you think is more successful (I vote car). So I ponder how much of a real growth opportunity lays ahead?

Apparently Howard Stern believes 30-40M households in the next couple of years. Bridge Ratings predicts 50 million subscribers by 2020. That’s 1 in 5 drivers paying for satellite service. This sounds high to me, from industry, professional, and personal experience. I don’t see enough factors driving consumers into “dissatisfaction” with standard radio, especially when compared to the option of consumer more of their own content via iPods and other players.

Some predict podcasting and integrated car-iPod adapters may kill satellite radio. That doesn’t really sound right either. Talk to the average XM or Sirius subcriber, they seem quite satisfied with their service. I think satellite radio has a “TiVo effect” where the product is quite good, and once in, you are hooked, but until you get there, you scratch your head a lot about paying extra money for something you seem to already have in your life.

Unfortunately, unlike a DVR, which makes the entire TV experience leaps and bounds better, satellite radio doesn’t have as broad an appeal. If you don’t commute for long hours, you’re hard to hook. If you work long hours at a desk and want more variety in radio, odds are good that Internet services have even more appeal (not to mention the fact that if you aren’t near a window, you aren’t getting a satellite signal).

We’re about 5 years into the satellite radio business. I believe there’s still a little growth ahead, but it’s going to be slow, and may cap out very soon. I believe the companies benefit from a merger, as it leaves less FUD for a prospective consumer. I believe it’s an industry doomed once pervasive Internet services become available and consumers get anywhere-access to services such as Rhapsody, Pandora, Last.FM, and their own personal media collections.