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Author Archives: Jeremy Toeman

14 Ways to use Gadgets More Sustainably

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I had a great “off-the-grid” weekend camping and was reflecting on living life a little less tech-y, thought it would be a good idea to put together thoughts on using technology more greenly (is that a word? doubtful). Over the past year I’ve spent a chunk of time looking into how to change my habits to use less energy, be less wasteful, and I’m a big believer that we can all cut back or think about our impact a little more. So in easy-to-read-everybody-loves-a-list format…

  1. Don’t Need? Don’t Buy! There’s no easier way to live sustainably than to consume less goods. The process of creating a product takes so much energy and resources that this is your #1 way to help the world. An alternate suggestion here is buying used/recycled/refurbished products (you’ll save a lot of money this way as well). As my colleague Pip Coburn says, there’s a lot more “wanting” in life than there is “needing”.
  2. Unplug them at night. Ever notice how your power transformers (the big black bricks) are warm, even if your device is off? Everything uses a trickle amount of power just by being plugged in. It might take you a few extra seconds here and there, but try unplugging your gadgets, or switching off your power strips at night.
  3. Print in draft mode. Not only are printer cartridges pricey, the materials used are very costly in terms of resources. Unless you are printing a “keeper”, you should be printing in draft/low-quality mode (virtually all printers have this setting).
  4. Turn off your displays! While LCDs and plasmas have the earthly benefit of using less materials to produce relative to CRT screens, they also seem to stay on a lot more. Unfortunately, displays use more power than virtually anything else in your home, and the more you can leave them off, the better. This has a second benefit in that it’ll extend the lifespan of your display, which brings us back to point #1 above.
  5. Remove batteries from infrequently used devices. Got a remote control you never use? Take the battery out, as they’ll basically self-destruct after time. Yank the batteries out, tape them to the remote, and you’ll be all set.
  6. Buy rechargeable stuff. Even better than #5 above, try to avoid buying things that don’t have built-in rechargeable batteries. Or, buy rechargeable batteries and stop buying one-time use options. I use Eneloops from Sanyo myself.
  7. Shut down PCs! If you’re on Windows, both Standby and Hibernate are better than leaving a PC on overnight, even if it adds 1-5 minutes to your morning (shameless plug: unless you use a Splashtop-powered computer). If you are on a Mac, there’s simply no excuse for leaving it on overnight.
  8. Lower brightness settings. As I’ve mentioned earlier, screens (TV, laptop, etc) use more power than almost any other gadget/technology you’ll own.  Lowered brightness settings mean less power used mean longer life mean overall less consumption of resources.
  9. Turn down the volume. This is the audio version of lowered brightness.  In comparison, this is a small blip compared to the screens, but more juice is more juice.  Also, you’ll probably annoy less neighbors and keep your ears working properly a bit longer in life.
  10. TV or Laptop, not both. The stats are showing that along with the ~8.5 hours a TV is on during the day, about ~40% of that time is spent with members of the household using a computer.  While watching TV.  Now maybe it’s just my eyes, but I can’t see both screens simultaneously.  Not only that, focusing on one activity at a time will probably be a fairly calming experience anyway, so do yourself (and the world) a favor by turning off the screen you aren’t really paying attention to.
  11. Charge only when needed. I can say with a lot of certainty that you don’t own a single product which truly requires an overnight charge.  Not only will you save some power, you’ll probably extend the life of your battery, as many devices still tend to overcharge, and drain the longevity of use.
  12. Check power consumption prior to buying. Philips won the overall Best of CES award this past year with their eco-friendly plasma, and while it’s still a big power-hog, it’s less of a power-hog than the rest.  If you are ultimately indifferent to the gadget you are getting, do a quick power consumption check (clearly labeled on all packaging) before buying.
  13. Monitor your use. Nothing feels better about a new project than learning you are doing it right. Check your power bill to get a sense of your current consumption, then start looking for differences.  In a bit of an oxymoronic move, you could buy this gadget to monitor electrical use. Well, maybe you can find it used, right?
  14. Support sustainable brands. REI sells solar-powered chargers. IKEA may start selling solar cells. D-Link has a “green” router. There are more and more companies jumping on the “green” bandwagon (hence the watchdog site) and much of it is just marketing hype. But some of it is real, and you should buy products from companies that use better production technologies, ship less goods across the country/world, and use sustainable/recycled materials in their products. Your checkbook is the best possible way to voice your opinion!

As always, this isn’t the “complete list” and I’d love to see some suggestions in the comments to enhance it.  Also, check out the “green gadgets” column at Inhabitat for more tracking of the topic. Or, for funsies, you can read this post from The Onion.

Missed Connection: Seat 8B

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The “missed connection” was invented by Craigslist as a way for two people who “met” somewhere, but were unable to actually exchange names, phone numbers, or emails. They tend to go a little something like this:

You were the cute Asian girl with a beer standing by the side of the stage. I wish I had introduced myself because think you were there by yourself. You caught me looking at you and smiled. Hopefully you’ll see this because I’d love to take you out for a drink.

I had an interesting moment last week on a flight, and I thought I’d do my own little “missed connection” despite the fact that I made no effort whatsoever to get any contact information from the individual at hand. But that’ll probably make more sense by the time you get to the end of this. I may even cross-post this on Craigslist, just for funsies.

United Flight xx, Seat 8B

You were the middle aged guy who pulled out your iPhone as we were on final descent. I was the guy sitting next to you who politely asked you to put it away while we landed. You may recall looking at me with disgust and putting your phone away while telling me to mind my own business. I did assert that it was “my business” since you were taking an action that put my life in jeopardy (well, maybe, but I’ll get to that later), and proceeded to loudly say “thank you” over and over at me until I raised my voice above you, and with a menacing glare said “you are welcome.” You turned away, probably realizing you weren’t really too sure about the guy a foot taller than you who looked like he had had enough of your childish behavior.

I was really quite surprised by the incident, especially considering I was polite, and asked you to turn it off while smiling. Since you were in business class with me, and sported the iPhone, I was under the assumption that you, like myself, might be a frequent business traveler. I was also surprised by your retort of “it’s in flight mode”, considering every flight you’ve ever flown has similarly had you turn off all electronic devices upon descent.

Now I think we are probably in the same boat: it seems so ridiculously unlikely that you and your cute little phone could possibly wreak havoc on an airplane. I mean really, how on Earth could that happen? Seems crazy. But yet, they have this annoying rule, and it’s imposed by the FAA, and well, I guess since I don’t work for the FAA and I don’t know all that much about landing planes myself that I’m going to follow that rule. I’ve even gone looking around the Internet for a “fact” to prove the FAA wrong, and, well, bummer, I couldn’t find one (although there’s a lively discussion a Mythbusters fan site and this article is good too). So until someone changes that rule or disproves the FAA, I’m going to keep following it, because, hey, knock on wood – it’s worked for me so far (100% landing rate, FTW)!

Which brings us around full circle to you – did you have an email you were waiting on that you felt was more important that, say, a safe landing? Again, even against infinitesimal odds it seems like there are very few emails that could be worth it, right? And even so, you’ve made it for almost 6 hours already, what could have happened in that last 4 minutes? Really, we were on the ground a mere 4 minutes later!

So I’ll end my letter to you, fine sir, with the request that you consider the world around you a bit more thoughtfully. I know you are clearly a Very Important Person because, after all, you do own an iPhone and sat in business class. You must be extremely busy with work, because you were willing to endanger us all just to see what emails may have arrived on a Friday night after work hours were done on this continent. I cannot stand on solid ground and assert for a fact that your phone would (or would not) cause any interference with the airplane’s landing systems – but then again, you cannot prove the opposite to be true, and all things considered, I’ll take my safety over your email any day of the week.

In short (too late), just stop being such a grade-A moron, the world already has enough of them.
<end of rant>

Home Renovation: What Tech Do I Need?

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My wife and I bought a house a few months ago, and it needs some renovation work (read: holy crap, we’re practically gutting the place, what the heck were we thinking???). One aspect of said work is redoing the entire electrical system, which gives me the opportunity to put in all sorts of cool new tech.

Things I know I want for sure:

  • Sonos as my distributed audio system of choice. We’ll be putting in-ceiling speakers in a few rooms, and they’ll be wired to Sonos units which we’ll have clustered in two locations. I debated putting iPod docks in the walls, but they’re pricey, we don’t currently use iPods, and don’t allow for multi-room distribution.  Plus this’ll give me a chance to check out their new hardware!
  • NETGEAR/Infrant NV NAS to serve media (this replaces my Maxtor Shared Storage Plus which appears to have just died, gah!). In my current apartment I’m a bit leery of the NV as it’s loud and we don’t have a place to hide it away, but this won’t be a problem in the new spot.
  • Current Panasonic plasma + Xbox + Pioneer receiver all move into “JT’s Cool Room (no girls allowed!)”. But the Bose speakers go “buh-bye” and my Definitive towers return! FTW. I’ll probably also hook up a Mac Mini with Boxee on it for photo/Internet streaming. The only other TV in the house will be a smaller (25″-32″) flat-screen in one of the sitting rooms – yes, we’re actually going to make the living room a place where people don’t watch television!

Things I know I don’t want for sure:

  • Central Vacuum. We thought this would be great, but after a little digging in, seems like they are consistently underpowered poorly designed products. Pass.
  • Video Intercom Front Door System. The day I move into my 15,000 square foot mansion I’ll consider it, but until then, I can run down the stairs to see who’s there. Plus I’m going to try to jury-rig something myself with a Bug Labs setup.

Things I am on the fence about:

  • RJ45 (Ethernet) outlets in every room.  Seems like a waste.  When I ask my friends, the overwhelming reason for it is “to stream 1080p video around your house”.  Now that is really just not a good reason in my opinion, but I do like the idea of future-proofing.  Plus I guess it’ll be easier for hooking up printers or other networked devices where wireless is not built-in… ?
  • Insteon (or other) smart lighting systems.  I’m not a fan of home automation systems (wait, for only $50K I can have my lights turn on and off and I don’t even have to get off the couch?  where do I sign up?), but Insteon is fairly inexpensive and the platform is open enough to hack around with.  From what I’ve read, however, I can always add it after-the-fact, so I’ll probably save the $ now, then do some tinkering down the road.

Anyone have any recommendations here, or notice anything I’m missing?  Would love some thoughts ASAP  as wiring starts in ~2 weeks!

Words the Internet Killed

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Language is a state-based system. By that I mean the language in use by a culture tends to reflect the current needs of society, and shifts along with those needs. Much like our appendix, spleen, and tailbone, words also trail, so they may still be in use long after their need is over. This is natural, okay, and good. In our interesting “information era” society and culture are shifting faster and moving in many different directions. Walk down the streets of a city like San Francisco or New York, and it only takes a few blocks feet to realize that you live in an extremely complex and multicultural world.

Now I’m personally of the opinion that the pace of high-tech development and new products are far ahead of society’s ability to adapt and cope. The concept of the “generation gap” where a generation’s exposure to media and technology created difficulty in relating to the next generation is no longer a 20- or even 10-year cycle, but is at no more than 5 years (and dropping). Those “kids today” are exposed to technologies that I am scantly aware of, and it’s shaping a big part of the way our society is evolving.

We are currently in the midst of a transformation, caused in a large part by the evolution of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc. These networks are clearly here to stay, and will evolve on their own to introduce new features and services as well as adapt to the changing needs of their users. In the mean-time, I’m noticing that a few very common words are losing their meaning, specifically due to their various implementations online (warning: much sarcasm and cynical writing follows, don’t take it too seriously if you are easily offended)…

Word Old meaning New Meaning
Friend Someone you knew, had a personal relationship with, occasionally spoke to, and frequently drank beers with. Someone who found your email address and typed it into Facebook and/or LinkedIN. You may have met said person at a conference once, and possibly even conversed with for 5 or more minutes.
Like Quite a few meanings, but the most common one being a word to describe a person, place, or thing you have a positive feeling about. Two meanings: one is a word used three times per sentence for no apparent reason, the other is an item you (might have) read on FriendFeed and want to let others know they should read it as well. A very cynical variant on the latter is when the item is being liked because you want the author to know you read their content.
Rumor Something overheard and/or speculated, but not substantiated. Fact until absolutely proven incorrect.
Openness/
Transparency		 The concept that an individual or company generally discloses information with little veil, spin, or secrecy. The requirement than an individual or company must disclose every piece of detailed information, regardless of context, personal privacy, or relevance.
Startup A company with a novel idea, service, product, or technology, and a vision on how to build that company into a successful, profitable entity. A college graduate and three friends who have an incremental idea, service, product, or technology, and a vision on how to build that company such that it gets acquired by Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo (in that order), preferably within 18 months for at least 9 figures.
Read To ingest all the contents of a document. To scan a headline for interesting words.
Popular To have many people who like you, albeit not necessarily to you having an outstanding personality. If in high school, gives you the power to make other peoples’ lives miserable for your entertainment. To have many people read your writing, 140 characters at a time, albeit not necessarily to you having an outstanding personality. Transfers no other known benefits.
Social Various meanings, all circulating around various aspects of society. Nothing.
Poke Two possible meanings, one having to do with jabbing a finger in a shoulder, the other NSFW (and generally required being more than just friends). An extremely bored “friend” of yours notices your profile on Facebook and decides to pester you. Often related to them being in need of information/services you may provide that they wish to ask you for, but want to “ease into” an otherwise awkward request.
Gadget An electronic device, typically hand-held, often providing novelty for several hours or even days at a time. iPhone

There you have it, words being killed by the Internet. Please note this list should be current for the next few weeks, but will then require revision.

Stop Trusting the Internet!

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I’m going to summarize this entire blog post in 12 seconds for the attention-span-deprived members of my audience:

The Internet is full of tubes, not facts on 12seconds.tv

As is too-often repeated but still ever so appropriate, “with great power comes great responsibility” (it comes from Spiderman). The Internet, but more specifically user-generated content such as blogs, tweets, and vlogs, allows anyone to become a content source. The more one has followers/readers/viewers, the more ‘power’ one has. When I blogged a few months ago that Macbooks would take a 50% share of all laptops, I had a variety of comments show up here (most of which completely missed the point I was trying to make, but that’s a different story). I have a handful of readers, so this didn’t really go anywhere – but had an a-list blogger written the same story, who knows where it’d end up.

Example #1: an earthquake occurred in Los Angeles today. The news spread quickly by both “official channels” and individuals using blogs and twitter. A story went up over at VentureBeat which included a reference to a video posted on 12seconds.tv entitled “5.8 LA Earthquake Recreation 36th Floor.” I added the bolded “recreation” myself for emphasis here because many people took the video as fact. Despite it not looking very “earthquake-ish” and despite it posting 30 minutes after the quake was over. Now the VB article’s been updated, but it has since spawned a post decrying the video as “fake”.

I’m pointing this out because not only did the VB author miss the title of the video (which is understandable), but the follow-up blogger did as well, despite the fact that he was clearly trying to determine whether or not it’s a fake. The power of the original article was so strong that even the title of the video wasn’t enough to make someone researching the topic realize it was baloney.

Example #2: Urban legends. How on earth do these still circulate??? My wife is on a mailing list with thousands of mothers in the Bay Area, they recently got sent an email talking about McDonald’s play pens and hypodermic needles. A simple google search for “McDonald’s Ball Pit” reveals link after link decrying the story as fake. Yet it continues to circulate to and from intelligent people all over the place. Need a better example? How about one tweet to instantly convince 50,000 people that Jared Fogle (Subway Jared) is dead (he’s not). One word here: snopes.

Example #3: Today I saw the following headline on FriendFeed: “20% of Primetime Television Now Watched Online” with a link to this article. Now I don’t read SearchEngineWatch, so I have no idea why they’re covering such a topic, but that’s not quite the topic du jour. The person sharing the article has now propagated the story, and his followers (and the followers of whomever then reshares it) will all be wandering around on- and off-line sharing the fact that 20% of TV is being watched online. Only one problem: it’s not. I did one more google search for the firm quoted in the article (Integrated Media Measurement Inc.) and one click later found this finding: “IMMI finds more than 20 percent of panel members watch some prime time programming online” (again, emphasis for effect). While this is still an important statistics, it is a far cry different from the headline being shared (one which is, in my opinion, quite hard to believe anyway, but that’s another matter). Updated: it’s sad to say, but Reuters now has the “20%” story, and yes, they have it wrong.

I know it’s a lot of fun to be on the cutting edge of information. It’s also fun to learn a new fact and rapidly share it along to your friends and family. But whatever happened to double-checking a source? Let’s face it, the news is more about entertainment and ad revenue than it is about reporting facts and accuracy. Just because it happened online doesn’t make it real. As they say, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Hasbro Made the Right Business Decision

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It’s probably not a fun thing to do, telling a half million people that they cannot play a game they love, especially when it’s your game.  Only it wasn’t Hasbro’s game they were playing, exactly, it was a copy of Hasbro’s game.  Hasbro actually purchased the US/Canadian rights to the Scrabble brand many years ago, and for that reason alone is 100%, undoubtably justified in their decision to kill Scrabulous.  But, as Mathew Ingram asked, is it right?  I say yes (and I’m not alone).

First, they were protecting their brand.  While this is a highly-scrutinized activity by the public and media, if you own a brand/trademark you must protect it.  This isn’t just about “a cool homage to their game” it’s about the long-term strength of the name Scrabble (TM).  Had Scrabulous been allowed to continue, this would have set a precedent whereby other companies could also mimic the name and board design and gameplay rules. Like it or not, Hasbro has paid money for these assets, has worked hard to promote these assets, and deserves to have them.

Further on this point, Scrabulous has directly shown that derivative works can become popular.  This makes the threat to the Scrabble brand even more visible.  It’s one thing to have the janky “San-Fran-opoly” games sold in Fisherman’s Wharf where the gameplay is not quite the same as Monopoly, and as a result, nowhere nearly as good in quality (if you don’t believe me and actually own one of these knockoffs, go take a look at the dust on it relative to the real Monopoly/variant set you own).  So Scrabulous showed hands-down just how dangerous a good knockoff can be!

Don Reisinger wrote a good article on the topic, but I disagree with this point:

Instead of embracing the past and clinging to its faulty hope that Scrabble will somehow beat Scrabulous, Hasbro should have realized that the latter has over 500,000 active users at any given time – far more than those playing the board game – and could quite easily monetize that game and enjoy an even greater Return on Investment than it will by shutting it down.

I think it’s safe to say that while a few of the Scrabulous users won’t come back to play Scrabble, the majority won’t give a damn about who did what to who.  The people who were addicted to playing will still be addicted to playing.  Further, anyone coming to Facebook who searches “Scrabble” will naturally find it.  I’m not a big believer that the bulk of current users are as concerned about “the community” as other bloggers make it sound.

This all may sound a little funny coming from me, as both a “community guy” as well as a discordant voice when it comes to copyright issues.  But this isn’t about copyright per se, and I just don’t think the Scrabulous guys (whose product I do appreciate) exactly “deserve” anything here, regardless of their attempts to talk to Hasbro etc.  There are plenty of opportunities to go create games, people do it every day (and I hope that those talented programmers take their skills to build something new and exciting).

Just as we must protect individuals and consumers from large corporations throwing muscle around (big media, oil, insurance, healthcare, food production, etc), companies too deserve the right to protect their assets when threatened.  There’s obviously a fine and delicate line to watch here, but I believe in this case Hasbro is on the right side of that line.

How-To: Design a Killer Dual-Screen Laptop

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When I got my original Vaio (the good one, not 2.0 aka “the trainwreck”) I was amazed by the thinness of the screen (even next to an Air it’s a very thin screen). I distinctly recall the day I dreamed up a dual-screen laptop, one that would work inside the existing context of Windows (or OS X) and be extremely helpful for a variety of different types of users. Since then I’ve heard of numerous forays into the Dual-Screen Laptop space, and in each case I simply don’t understand the efforts.

Three out of four of the concepts I’ve read about use one screen as a big “touchpad”, the other as a traditional display (here, here, and here). The fourth has a very bizarre “folding half-screen” approach, which just looks like it should be called the Picasso edition.

I believe the correct approach to a dual-screen laptop isn’t about replacing the keyboard, it just doesn’t seem like a high-want item. I’m a decent typist, but I don’t think I’d do well on an all-touch screen-keyboard (a la iPhone). Instead, I think about how people use both laptops *and* desktops with dual-monitors, and what options would make sense in a single unit.

So, without further adieu, here is my little “Recipe For Success” to built a useful dual-screen laptop (along with my terrible photoshopped prototype image):

Start by thinking of a thin-screened laptop like the (now former) Sony Vaio SZ series. Imagine on the side (left or right – you pick) a hinge, and on the other side a clasp. You release the clasp, then a second screen swivels out (via hinge) to appear next to your original screen. Attentive readers will realize at this moment that the screen is facing away from the user, which means the hinge needs a swivel as well (just like on a tablet PC). That’s the basics, but read on for it to all make a bit more sense. Also, I’m not stating that this configuration is for everyone, but, like a mini-notebook, it should appeal to… some?

First it gives the user an instant two-monitor setup, very familiar to many desk setups. Nothing like extra screen space when you spend your working hours with one. It probably wouldn’t work too well back in coach, but in a Starbucks or at home, would be a great solution.

Also, since there is a hinge/swivel mechanism it can be used to create a second screen facing away from the user. Super handy for anyone doing frequent presentations. If it’s not clear by now, the other fringe benefit here is this second screen works just like a second monitor, so it would be compatible with Windows XP or Vista (if necessary, ugh) with no special/new drivers.

If we want to get fancy, let’s make the secondary screen touch-sensitive, then we have a tablet interface running while we are at it. Not sure what the impact is to cost/feasibility here, but my hunch is it would be the least of the design concerns.

Clearly this isn’t the budget laptop, and this won’t be interesting to quite a few readers. But I have a hunch there’s a few people reading right now who really really want one. Chalk me up on the list.

Wireless HDTV R&D Update: Tons of Spending, Tiny Market

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Saw a thread on Techmeme this morning about wireless HDTV technology. Looks like some big companies are banding together to provide (yet another) wireless HDTV service. Over at Crave I read that while it’s a year away (read: 2-5 years away), it’ll be fairly low-cost, as in ~$100 (read: ~$500) per set to enable the technology. There’s also multiple competing standards, and as MG points out, two of the companies involved are participating in both platforms (updated: now both PCMag and Ars weigh in as well). This is a lot of big companies spending big budgets to build multiple technologies and standards in the space.

I ask “why?”.

Seriously. What’s the point here? So people can one day wirelessly stream video from a hard drive/PC in one room of their house to the plasma display in another room? Really? Don’t get me wrong, it sure sounds like a fun idea, and there’ll be some percent of the market willing to do it, but most definitely not the majority.

The other argument for it is just to have a short range, enabling me to “cut the cables” from my plasma to my HD set top box. Only one catch here: very few people will be willing to upgrade both their boxes and sets just to hide one cable, especially considering they still need the power cord! While the WAF is certainly a powerful force in every home, I don’t think anyone can argue that a plasma should be replaced to reduce a single cable.

I’m sure I’m missing some points here, but having spent the better part of 8 years working with organizations like UPnP and DLNA, it seems like neither the “connected home” nor “interoperability” are initiatives which win (ask Apple how interoperable the iPod is). There’s a lot of money being spent on R&D labs for this type of technology. Whenever it gets out of the labs it will need to go into *massive* testing before any cable company even considers distributing a box with new technology (ever wonder why it took Comcast 3 years to ship a DVR? it wasn’t a lack of technology, it was testing, and even then they still did a mediocre job with it). As a final point on the market opportunity here, just remember how well this must be testing in focus groups…

Would you like it if your plasma display worked wirelessly (not including power), and only cost $100 more?

Golly, sure I would!

Would you be willing to replace your cable box if you could get one that didn’t need any wires to hook up to your plasma?

Gee whiz, absolutely!

Anyone notice that the #1 seller of plasma TVs is not a participant here? Considering how well Vizio’s taken over the market, it seems pretty clear that customers are trying to save $100 by purchasing a brand they’ve never heard of before. But $100 for wifi HDTV streaming to/from nebulous devices with multiple standards? Yeah, that’ll happen.

Kindle Review: Good but I Prefer Books

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JT with Amazon KindleDespite me writing a rather scathing commentary on the Kindle when it debuted, Amazon recently sent me a loaner to try out for a couple of weeks. Without a doubt, I will say I enjoyed using the Kindle in a variety of locales, and it’s a rather well-thought-out product (more eye-catching action photos are all at the bottom of this post). I’ll also state up front I feel it’s overpriced, the content (books and blogs) are also overpriced, and I still don’t believe books are in any danger of vanishing in the short term.

Let’s start with the good. The packaging is great, it has a very “book-y” feel to it, it’s very inviting, and also looks professional enough to go along with the price of the unit. The OOBE (out of box experience) was also well done, as the first “boot” of the Kindle had a nice “Welcome Jeremy” letter from Jeff Bezos (thought I’m pretty sure it wasn’t unique). While there are a few quirks to the user interface, the learning curve was fairly close to zero, I’d be surprised to see someone needing a lot of help to get started.

Glowing KindleBrowsing the Amazon store on “Whispernet” works great, I was able to easily find numerous lists of books that were interesting to me from a variety of criteria (most popular, newest, etc). There’s a well-done integration with my Amazon.com account, so I didn’t need to register anything new to pay for titles. Also, the download speed for content (books, web pages, etc) was much better than I anticipated, definitely fast enough to provide a decent experience.

Reading books was also quite pleasant. If you’ve never seen an e-ink interface, it’s much slower than LCD (think about a second per page – it’s definitely noticeable). That’s the con, the pro is that is looks very close to paper-like and uses almost no power. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t change the font density or size, as it used a spacing that ended up making me feel like I was reading one of my 1-year-old’s jumbo books with 3 sentences per page. There’s also no backlighting (not even Indiglo), which I think is an essential feature for a 2nd Edition.

Funky Kindle!The Kindle is fairly light, and feels nice to hold in your hands. That said, it can be awkward to hold one-handed (ex: on the bus) and I think it should have a strap on the back so you can slide your palm into it without worrying about dropping it. The buttons click well, though I feel the keyboard is in the way a lot of the time, and think it could be better suited as a slide-out or other ‘hidden’ key setup. The primary navigation wheel is nicely responsive, though definitely has oddities in the on-screen menus.

Now for my short list of problems, and they have little to do with the gadget itself. First up it’s a half-closed system. I don’t like Amazon charging for blogs I want to read, especially when they are free on every other platform possible. Secondly is the price for books themselves. While $9.99 is a bargain compared to a $19.99 (or higher) new hardcover, it’s not great relative to $6.99 and less for softcover, and laughable next to used book prices. That plus the sticker price for the device itself and we’re well beyond yuppie territory. At current pricing I’d say the product is really only for those with ready supplies of disposable income.

Kindle at Warp SpeedWhile I believe the Kindle is probably one of the better e-book readers on the market, I am still (very) squeamish about the category. While it’s nice to have the ability to have hundreds of books with you on a long trip, it’s not nice to worry about dropping a Kindle in the bathtub (or the beach, pool, forest, or basically anywhere else). As the “all the books I want” argument tends to be the big point for those in favor of e-readers, I’ve truly never known that as a real issue. I’m an avid and fairly fast book reader, and even on my three-week honeymoon I didn’t run out of books on the trip, and I wasn’t exactly overburdened in my luggage.

Some specific product recommendations for a “2nd edition“:

  • Allow me to customize the font size/weight (will really help users with poor eyesight)
  • One word: backlight
  • Redesign the front to have the keyboard hidden when not in use (slide-out?)
  • Put a strap on the back of the reader that I can slide my hand into for comfort
  • Automatically synchronize my wishlist from Amazon.com
  • Ship the Kindle with samples of books that are currently popular
  • Have the ability to auto-subscribe to certain book ‘feeds’ for sample delivery
  • Offer a subscription model for all-you-can-read pricing
  • Set a precedent with a peer-to-peer licensed and monetized “used eBook” system (use an open market for it, give a %age of the resale price back to the publisher. it’ll work, trust me)

Kindle during a lovely beach sunsetIn summary, I think the Kindle is a good product but trapped inside the wrong price points and business model around e-books. If you are like me, and buy most of your books used, it’s definitely going to seem like a ludicrously priced gadget. If, on the other hand, you buy two or more new hardcover books a month, it’s worth checking out (probably pays itself off in about a year or so). Overall the good user experience combined with the auto-download features with a huge library behind it absolutely make the Kindle a great e-reader. That said, I’m still opting for used books for my personal needs, and I’m still pretty bearish on the whole concept of e-readers.

And now… zany Kindle photos!
Le Kindle
Kindle while rollercoastering
Kindle on the Moon

The FriendFeed Drinking Game

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If you aren’t on FriendFeed yet, it’s understandable, as it really is for a niche (as it stands today – who knows where it goes in the future).  Here’s a link to my profile if you want to check it out.  If you have no interest whatsoever, you should probable skip along to the next article.  BUT, for those of us drinking the yummy FriendFeed kool-aid, here’s a fun little “drinking game” (now my 2nd attempt at one) to coincide nicely with time spent on the site.

Every time…

  • a discussion about FriendFeed has more than 10 comments, take a drink!
  • a discussion about Twitter has more than 10 comments, take a drink!
  • a discussion about FriendFeed vs Twitter has more than 2 comments, take 2 drinks!
  • Louis Gray brings an additional 100 users to FriendFeed, take a drink!
  • you see the same article shared by more than 5 people, take a drink!
  • you refresh your FriendFeed page and see no changes, take 2 drinks!
  • you comment on or like something without reading it, take a drink!
  • pictures of babies make the “best of the day” list, take a drink!
  • you hide an entire service, take 2 drinks!
  • you block someone, take a drink!
  • you use FriendFeed to ask other FriendFeed users about a FriendFeed feature, take a drink!
  • you like something, but the content is something you really don’t “like”, take a drink!
  • you follow someone, comment on something, or like something just so the person notices you, take a drink!
  • you follow someone who you don’t know or have any direct connection to in the non-FriendFeed world, take a drink!
  • you add another service to your FriendFeed profile, take 2 drinks!
  • your FriendFeed home page is 90% content from Scoble, TechCrunch, Loic, Dave Winer, Jason Calacanis or Scoble (worth saying twice), chug it!
  • you share something TO FriendFeed from multiple services (blog, greader, delicious, etc), chug it!
  • you discover a new feature in FriendFeed that’s really cool but hard to find in the murky UI, take a drink!
  • you see someone link to or refer to a FriendFeed thread as “the conversation”, take 2 drinks!
  • you realize you actually are getting a lot less work done due to spending time on FriendFeed, finish the bottle!

Any other suggestions?  Add them as comments.  If you add them on the inevitable FriendFeed thread instead, take a drink.

Customers Speak, Netflix Listens, Everybody Wins

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I am a huge believer in the voice of the customer.  When I was at Sling Media, Blake (CEO/cofounder) made it abundantly clear how important each and every Slingbox owner was, and we built both the marketing and customer service departments around that vision.  When a user had a complaint, we listened and responded, and when they had a suggestion we took it and considered how to include it.  This behavior is generally Not the way a public company reacts.  Typically when a big company gets on the soapbox and preach from on high, we as customers have to take it.  Our usual means of feedback or commentary was through our checkbooks.

When Netflix announced they were removing the profiles feature, many users (myself included) spoke, and spoke loudly.  We didn’t have to unsubscribe right away, because we had a platform for being heard.  Netflix’ blog allows for comments, and everyday people could blog, twitter, post upset messages to their Facebook walls.  The question I wondered was: were they listening, or was the decision a foregone conclusion.

I read today that the profiles feature will not disappear the way of Kozmo this Sept 1.  I applaud the company for having the confidence to overturn a “final” decision.  Some will clearly yell on high about how “social media” made a change, which is neat.  The real instrument of change is something as simple as creating a culture that is open to listening.  The voices were always there anyway.