LIVEdigitally

How Blu-ray Can Avoid Failure

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Just read David Carnoy’s piece on “9 reasons why Blu-ray will succeed“.  I like David, but I couldn’t disagree more with his post (though not the individual points, as you’ll see below).  And since (as of yesterday) it’s feeling like we’re in a free country where I can say what I want (again, at last), I’ll run through my counterpoints really quick:

  1. “Digital downloads will not eliminate the need for discs anytime soon.” – I agree, but this doesn’t point to Blu-ray success.  Despite the rise of downloadable/streaming content, people are still buying disks.  But for how much longer?  I think even people who’ve never heard of things like Hulu are aware that the inevitable next step of content acquisition is file/stream based, not physical media (though they’d probably not use those words).
  2. “Having one clear standard is a big advantage.” – agreed, it’s called “DVD”.
  3. “Blu-ray isn’t going to be replaced by another disc format anytime soon.” – agreed.  In his post, David references a piece that compares early complaints of DVD to current complaints of Blu-ray.  In this example, the more apropo statement is “just like CDs, DVD isn’t going to be replaced by another disc format anytime soon.”  Er, wait, hang on – I’ll go fire up my SACD player!
  4. “Prices for large-screen HDTVs will continue to drop.” – agreed.  But with an estimated third of the country already on HDTV sets, their amazing-looking upscaling DVD players aren’t about to get replaced.  Key here – there is not a dissatisfaction problem, in the slightest, with current content.  There was with VCRs.
  5. “Prices for Blu-ray players will continue to drop.” – now we’re talking!  Buuuuut, I still don’t see people rushing out to get them, even at $99 or $49.  There’s no incentive to do so, and (as I’ve said before) consumers do not purchase new technology just because it’s cheap.  In fact cheap Blu-ray players might cause as much negative enthusiasm as positive (“this thing was, like, $399, like, only last year!  they must be, like, doing badly, like, or something. dude. like.”)
  6. “Prices for Blu-ray discs will drop to near DVD price levels.” – see previous point.  Plus, people just aren’t into replacing their existing DVD collection.  Check the Amazon Blu-ray home page. I see deals for… wait for it… The Scorpion King 2.   End of Days.  Miami Vice (ooh, director’s cut!).  I think I’ve seen these titles in the $6.99 bin at Walgreens.
  7. “Sony will sell lots of PlayStation 3 game consoles.” – will they?  Not from what I’m reading…
  8. “Sony can’t afford to have Blu-ray fail.” – they also can’t afford to not be the #1 plasma vendor.  Oops, too late.  They also can’t afford to make terrible terrible laptops that have industry folk lamenting about constantly (yeah, I went there, but you kinda knew I would).  Oops, too late.  They also couldn’t afford to have UMDs fail.  Or memory sticks.  Or mini-discs.  Oops too late.
  9. “Sony and its partners will figure out a way to have Blu-ray resonate with the public.” – and, no.  Sony’s being run by a team stuck in the 1990s, still hoping somehow Morita’s coming back.  He’s not.  And his replacements are just utterly out of vision.  They let Samsung, LG, and a suite of other no-names take over the consumer electronics industry, and the best branding they can come up with today to sell me a plasma is based on deception.

So what’s to be done for dear old Blu-ray?  Is it as dead as I prognosticate, or no?  I think the best step is to change our expectations and mindsets on it.

People are buying buckets full of Blu-ray disks.  They are available for rent by every major company, and all the new top films are coming out on Blu-ray.  So if the definition of “success” changed from “Blu-ray will replace DVDs as the dominant format of physical media and we will have Blu-ray players in every home” to something more like “Blu-ray will be the last form of physical media consumers adopt, it will get adopted by enough of the population to show profitability, but will always be perceived as an also-ran” then we’re doing okay.

More than 80% of US homes have DVD players.  Put the target for Blu-ray around a third of that, tops, and then we’ve got a win on our hands.

How To Fix CES in 2010

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I agree with my friend Harry McCracken that CES 2009 was definitely smaller than past years. But I vehemently disagree with Dean Takahashi’s assesment that this is a “grim” stat.  In my opinion, the show had swelled well past the breaking point over the past few years.  This is what killed shows like Comdex and E3 (though for differing reasons of course).  Any industry dealing with excess bloat must find a way to trim its own fat or it will sooner or later get overtaken by it.  I think the smaller show, you know, with only 110,000 attendees (that was meant to be read aloud with a highly sarcastic tone and some eye-rolling) is a good thing, and I think there are a few other changes that should come with it.

In no particular order…

  • Make a limit on booth sizes. The biggest booths (and I use the term lightly) are over 20,000 square feet (Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, etc).  From some fairly reliable sources I’ve been told these companies are spending over $15,000,000 each on the show (I was told over $20MM for one of them).  This is not money well spent.  While I’m all for capitalism, if the CEA takes proactive measures to help curb these kinds of spending, they will be less likely to have these budgets questioned in future years (think about it – would you rather see a downsized Panasonic, or no Panasonic???).  Also, it’d be hard to argue that anyone is really “losing” anything by being “constrained” to a 100’x100′ booth.
  • Get rid of the Sands. As much as I’ve enjoyed demoing from the Sands over the past few years for various companies, it’s unquestionably the poorly cared for stepchild of the show.  The hours are worse, and so is the traffic.  There’s plenty of room in the LVCC for everyone, and if my predictions on a smaller ’10 show are right, a fully packed show will “feel” a lot better than trying to do a little “combover” to hide the thinner regions (trust me on that one).
  • Move the event back two weeks. I’m filing this one in the “I’m right, but it’ll never ever happen” category.  The current schedule is utterly painful for everyone involved in the show, and causes strains on personal lives for the tens of thousands of families who don’t get to enjoy December vacation times because they are prepping for this show.  Also, it always overlaps with other events, such as Macworld and the NFL playoffs.
  • Embrace Showstoppers (and Pepcom too, I guess). The CEA treats these media events as if they are parasitic, but they are not, they are symbiotic.  As a guy who has successfully brought multiple no-name companies to the forefront of the show, I can tell you even the best contacts in the world still won’t guarantee decent press coverage with all the surrounding noise.  This year alone, the 4 clients my firm brought to Showstoppers generated literally dozens of extra articles written, all of which reflect CES in a good light.  It’s a clear win-win, and even if it’s not a direct profit generator, it should be welcomed.
  • Improve the press list process. I wrote a guest post over at Technosailor trying to share my insights into “the CES pitch” from both perspectives. The process from both the pitch-or and pitch-ee is terrible.  I received hundreds of pitches, of which at least 1/2 were about products that I’d never write about, ever.  On the other hand we pitched about 400 writers, of which I’d assume no more than 1/10 (probably more like 1/20) would’ve found our clients uninteresting (which I can say with confidence based on the coverage they did receive at the show).  The problem was many of those 400 had already received so many other pitches, their “CES” filter was in high gear.  The press list needs more “rules” about how it is used, specifically to help the right stories find the right audiences.  I’d suggest that both exhibitors and press must pick specific categories to send/receive pitches, and the list be database-controlled by CEA.  If anyone is listening at all, get in touch and I can outline my thoughts in much more constructive detail.
  • Clean up your database and registration system. My fellow Canadian Saleem Khan reminded me of this one.  Even though I pre-registered with my media credentials in August (or so), somehow my email address continued to receive biweekly reminders that I needed to sign up to attend CES 2009.  Further, once I had registered, I needed another account for the MyCES portal, and I think a third account for another subsection of the site.  While the first step was clean and flawless, the entire rest was messy.
  • Prep the net. By 2010, I’d wager a strong majority of the “interesting” demonstrations will show fully connected devices.  We already saw the Yahoo TV widget system on numerous sets (my prediction: nice try, but no adoption – more some other time), and that’s just the beginning. The topic of my session during Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle was “The Convergence of CE and Social Media” and it’s all about IP-enabled consumer electronics.  Internet connectivity in booths and at the show in general was spotty.  That was okay for CES ’99, but was disappointing during ’09.  Fix it (and the WiFi) for ’10.
  • Figure out the social media integration. There were a lot of “social media folks” hanging out at the show, or more to the point, kinda near the show.  I’m not exactly sure where the integration was, but it’s weird to me that the “famous social media video wine guy” was a sought-out “internelebrity” for the show.  No offense to Mr Vee (or any other of my colleagues from the social media scene), but considering the founders of Engadget and Gizmodo were there, not to mention all the rest of us whose actual jobs sit at the intersection of the gadget world and the social media world, it seemed a bit… forced.  This should be spearheaded by CEA, and built from the CE-side up, not from the social media side down.  As a result, the grand majority of the 110,000 attendees and millions who followed the event online had no awareness of things like The Ultimate Blogger Dinner, the miscellaneous TweetUps, and other endeavours which had potential, but just poorly integrated to the show.
  • Fix up the Innovations Awards system. While the judges do a dandy job every year, there are way too many awards being handed out.  For awards to have merit, they need to be limited, it’s simple supply and demand.  Modernize and reduce the categories from 34 (yes, 34) to 20 or less.  Integrate some method of public voting and commenting (you could use uservoice.com to do it) to complement the judges (definitely don’t do away with the judges.  for reference, check out what happened to this year’s NHL All-Star voting!).  And less finalists per category – five would be plenty.
  • More Monoliths.

Well, I’m sure I’ll come up with more 15 minutes from now, but I think that’s a healthy start.  If anyone from CEA would like more details, I’ll happily provide.  I’m looking forward to next year’s show, though hopefully I won’t get sick this time.  Yes, even after all my own advice, I somehow picked up the CES Flu this year, and it was a doozy.  I guess some things don’t stay in Vegas after all.

eStarling is Startlingly Cool

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eStarling makes several WiFi connected digital photo frames, and I’ve been playing with their Impact V for a bit.  I’m impressed.

From the moment you open the box, eStarling does a pretty good job holding your hand and making use of the frame pretty simple.  You have all the usual options for displaying pictures that past digital frames have lead us to expect, including memory card slots that accommodate a couple different card types (SD, MS, MMC.)  But what’s way more interesting to me is the wireless and social mechanisms for displaying pictures.

When you pull the device out of the box, a greeting card immediately invites you to plug in the frame and connect it to your wifi connection (beware: this frame is much cooler if you have a wifi network.)  Once you’re connected, the frame prompts you to visit their website and activate your account.  Once you do you will get an email address dedicated to your frame, and you (or your friends and family) can email pictures to your frame.  You can also log into your account on their website to upload pictures from your computer to your eStarling account – these will then appear on your frame (it took my pictures about 15 minutes to show up.)  One of the neatest features is the social component – you can link your frame to a variety of social websites and services, including Facebook, Flickr, Phtobucket, Picassa, Twitter (not sure about this one), YouTube and more.   In addition to these services, you can also subscribe to RSS feeds – popular ones like National Geographic or even a user-designated feed.  You can also post small videos to play on your frame if you so choose.

I did have some issues with some of the social services.  For instance, I linked my Flickr account to my eStarling frame.  It was a pretty simple, one-click connection which presumably links up eStarling’s service with Flickrs API.  Two issues presented themselves though:

1. After clicking through the Flickr to link up the accounts, instead of a “Success, awesome job, well done!” screen, I was presented with a page full of gibberish.  There was no message to tell me whether I had successfully linked the account.  I didn’t know for sure until photos started appearing on the frame.

2. When those photos did appear, they weren’t mine.  They were photos of friends mine, people to whom I am linked on Flickr.  But none of my own photos made it into the frame.  Now, I like my friends and all, but I don’t need their photos on my frame.  Whether it’s going to sit in my home, or in my parent’s home, I want my own pictures on my frame.

Ultimately I was forced to use the “custom RSS” feature and take my Flickr account’s own RSS feed and manually link that with my frame.  Even after doing that, only my most recent set (about 20 pictures or so) showed up on the frame.  I don’t really know how to pull specific sets or additional photos from Flickr into the frame.

The frame has an eight inch display (800×600 pixels) and the clarity is pretty darn sharp. (Any blurring in the images in this post is due to the photographer, not the frame.)  It’s a touch screen interface, and there are light-up touch screen buttons along the right side.  You must use the touch screen in order to connect to the wireless network, but almost everything else can be accomplished through eStarling’s web portal.   The touch buttons let you skip through photos, or jump back to menus to select specifc photos, or access settings for the frame.  But I found the touch buttons a little finicky to use – fortunately the included remote also allows you to control action on the frame.

Lastly, there’s packaging.  In the unboxing I discovered very little wasteful or non-recyclable material.  There was one small piece of closed-cell foam for padding, and a foam sleeve for the frame.  Everything else was cardboard, including the majority of the boxe’s padding.  5 gold stars for being conscious of the environment.

Overall I was impressed with the frame.  The picture clarity, the simple setup, and the social components were all fantastic.  I love that it’s wifi, and I dig the fact that I can update the photos remotely, up to and including if the frame is in another state (or country.)  However, I do think the web interface and tools need a little refinement.  They are feature-rich but lacking in the fine points of usability.  Some improvements could include better feedback to user actions (letting you know if you succeeded in linking an account), and better fine-tuning of services (to include / exclude friends’ photos, etc.)  They don’t need more options, they just need to refine and improve the ones they’ve got.

eStarling Wireless Digital Photo Frame on 12seconds.tv

Daniel Lim at Slashgear also wrote a nice review of this frame.  If I were forced to give this frame a numeric rating, something which I am loathe to do, I would give it an 8 out of 10. They did a good job.  I just hope they keep improving the little sucker, especially the web interface and options.

This post is also available on 1TO10REVIEWS.

15 Tips to Surviving CES 2009

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JT at the LVCCI guess it’s time to call it a recurring theme, but with only 3 days left to go, it’s time for my annual “how to survive CES” post.  As per my disclaimer last year, I am copy-and-pasting anything that is still relevant (and with so little time I don’t think I have a lot of the funny in me right now).

  1. Wear comfortable shoes. It was #1 last year and is again. Even if you are the guy wearing the $6500 suit (come on!), put on your Adidas or Reeboks or whatever to go with it. Few will notice, and if anyone questions, saying “yeah, I decided it’s smarter to be comfortable than look pretty at CES” probably trumps any kind of rebuttal. It’s a BIG show and you’ll end up walking a few miles every day. Freebie bonus tip: while walking the show floor, try to walk on the booths as they tend to have better padding than the walkways between booths.
  2. Leave your remote control where it belongs – at home. There is absolutely zero upside to pranking booths. Don’t do it.
  3. Bring Purel and some chapstick. Wash before eating, because CES 2009 is also International Germfest 2009. Also, Vegas is in the middle of a desert, so having chapstick (and some moisturizer) will help.
  4. Go counter the traffic flow. I’m not the only one with this theory – the Sands Expo is opening at 8am on Thursday, while the Convention Center only opens at 10am.  Skip the huge taxi lines and head over to the Sands on Thursday, then save the LVCC for the rest of the show.The worst thing that can happen is you won’t get your hands on some crappy t-shirt you’ll never wear. Which brings me to
  5. Skip the swag. Do you really want a Panasonic pen, or a Sony plastic bag, or a brochure from TiVo? Really? My wife has actually forbidden me from bringing home anything, period. Also, for those of you into conservation (which should be, you know, everyone), no better way to send a message than to leave LG with an extra truckfull of mints.
  6. Don’t harass booth workers. They all have jobs to do (booth babes included), and just because they are there doesn’t mean they are the right person for you to give your 30 minute lecture as to why you are unhappy with your DVD player. It’s also not fair to beat up on some marketing guy who doesn’t have a uber-techie-detail question (although if they don’t help find you the right person, well, then they’ve asked for it). Also, if you see 12 people from CNN trying to set up a video shoot, you should probably realize you’ve become a lower priority, try to grab a business card and head out rather than wait for that awkward moment…
  7. Don’t hide your badge. First, it’s just a nuisance. Second, people like me train all our booth staffers to ask people like you who you are. Third, good booth staffers will treat you the same as anyone else, although they might just filter you to the right person. If you are an important member of the press or a senior guy at a huge company, well odds are you shouldn’t be talking to the 23 year old QA person who was roped into coming to CES to help with some booth shifts. Flip side comment here: if you are working the booth and someone comes up that is a competitor, don’t be rude or glib. Treat them the same as any random booth visitor. It’s just stupid to tell them they can’t see something or take pictures, when any random schmo can do exactly that.
  8. Hydrate yourself and your hotel room: If you carry only one thing (and you should – more later), it should be a bottle of water.  Also, since your hotel room will be quite dry, leave the bathtub 1/4 full of water overnight, you’ll feel better in the morning.
  9. Plan ahead. If you have not registered for the show, you aren’t getting in (this happened to a commentor here back in 2007). If you forget your badge, you are paying a fee to get it back. Pick up your badge at one of the non-primary locations (Sands, several hotels, Hilton, etc). Traveling between any two destinations could easily take an hour, even as early as 8am. Despite “CES is sounding light” stories, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised and adjust accordingly than be late for anything.
  10. Need Connections? Figure it out ahead of time. Every year it gets better, but every year it’s still bad. Internet connectivity is unreliable anywhere in the convention center. Even the press room’s Internet service went down last year. If you MUST be online for a call/meeting/briefing/WoW session, have a place in mind to do it.
  11. Use SMS to coordinate. Texting is the easiest and most reliable means of communicating across the extremely loud and busy show. Forget any “advanced” types of technology and go with something that works.
  12. Bring business cards. I would say roughly 97% of the people that I’ve met at CES over the years who don’t have cards regret not having them. Maybe it seems cool now not to carry them. Maybe you think they are so 1990s. The truth is, there’s almost no reason not to carry cards, and even looking at it from a potential loss vs potential gain perspective says: carry the darn things! And Moo cards don’t count, people.  Updated for 2009:  Still true.
  13. Pack lightly. My recommendation is to walk the floor with either nothing or a near-empty backpack. Forget shoulder straps, you’ll be aching by the end of the day. Bring nothing you do not need during the day. Also, try to dump your bag prior to dinner, so you can spend the night on the town without having to remember anything later. What happens in Vegas…
  14. Check the live coverage. Engadget puts up a post every 3.8 seconds during CES (this is not a fact, I am just guessing). Make sure you tap into theirs (or Gizmodos or your own favorite gadget blog) during the course of the show. They might find something you hadn’t heard of before, and you might miss it otherwise.
  15. Lower your expectations. If memory serves, the last time a company introduced something that was genuinely new and interesting at CES was Moxi, about 6 years ago (which was about the last time they were really interesting, unfortunately). The show is rarely the place where a company will launch newly innovative products, although it is a great place to see the ones that were announced in the past. Expect bigger/flashier screens, cameras, etc, but don’t expect something new and amazing.
    Expect some cool stuff. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this year will be a cooler one than expected at CES.  First, the way mainstream media is positioning it sounds like there’s only 4 companies left demoing and about 17 attendees at the show.  Sure, the count is down from last year, but so what?  The truth is we’ve seen more, and pardon the phrase, “riffraff” come to CES than ever before.  This is an industry show, not just some random tech meetup or Web conference, and major manufacturers and retailers are here for business.  I’ve received tons of interesting pitches so far, and I think we may be pleasantly surprised with CES 2009.

Lastly, for a moment of brash self-promotion… I’m working with five cool companies at CES 2009 (several of these have new stuff coming just in time for the show!), and would love for y’all to get some time to see them at the show.  They are: Boxee, Bug Labs, DeviceVM/Splashtop, TuneUp Media, and a new startup who’s actually launching a new gadget at the show. Yup, it’s going to be a very exciting CES!

And it’s not an HD Video Scuba Mask (yes, that’s a genuine product being pitched at the show)!

Twitter Scam Proves Early Adopters Don't Know Everything

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I visualize technology adoption like a huge wave crashing to shore.  At the tip of that wave’s crest are the newest of new technologies, such as FriendFeed and Plurk.  As the wave advances, they’ll either gain usage amongst a wider audience or dissolve into nothingness.  Below the tip are still new technologies that are trying to “cross the chasm” into the mainstream, such as Twitter – they might make it, or also just fade away.  Next up we have technologies that spreading to the masses, like Facebook and blogging.

From my time here in Silicon Valley, I’ve noticed a tendency that the “higher ups” on the early adoption wave tend to look down upon the rest.  Sometimes the smugness is so thick it’s as if those users who don’t microblog are busy using whiteout on their monitors while wiping a lingering trail of drool off their chin.

Over the weekend, it turns out someone tried to “phish” Twitter users, and achieved enough success to warrant widespread coverage by bloggers and online media. The official Twitter blog stated:

It looks as though this particular scam sent out emails resembling those you might receive from Twitter if you get email notifications of your Direct Messages. The email said, “hey! check out this funny blog about you…” and then provided a link. That link redirected to a site masquerading as the Twitter front page.

If you didn’t look at the URL of this false Twitter page, then you might not have noticed that it was actually just a page on the domain access-logins.com which was also faking Facebook’s front page. We immediately reported the offending domain (and warned our friends at Facebook). The site is now on OpenDNS’ and Google’s reported phishing lists.

So if you’ve ever had someone make fun of you because you aren’t using the beta version of an operating system, don’t lifecast yourself while making potty, or still have to push multiple buttons on your cell phone, this is your time for a Nelson-ish “haa-ha”.  Now I certainly don’t wish success to anyone using malicious activites like this online, it’s truly bad for everyone.

But maybe all the “I’m-so-cool-and-you’re-on-MySpace” attitudes of so many echo chamberites, maybe your horse ain’t so high after all?  Maybe a few of the people who got suckered in can help build better interfaces to their technologies so our less technically savvy friends don’t have to feel stupid when trying to adopt new stuff?  I have three “what I hope we all learn from this” statements:

  1. Being an early adopter doesn’t make anyone “better” than anyone else, and clearly not smarter.
  2. Product/interface designers need to do better jobs at making their technology more approachable.
  3. Internet companies, as a whole (Google – I’m calling you out here – you need to make spammy search results go bye-bye), are failing to protect consumers from those with malicious intent.

CES 2009 Countdown: Getting Scobleized and Some Booth Tips

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I’m roughly shoulder-deep in CES prep now, with 5 cool clients at the show (Boxee, Bug Labs, DeviceVM/Splashtop, TuneUp Media, and a new startup launching a gadget at the show), plus ShowStoppers, and also figuring out the booths I’ll go visit.  It’s a lot of work, and I’ve been at it for quite a few years now.  My friend Robert Scoble came up to San Francisco this past week, and we had a chance to sit down and chat about CES planning and strategy.

Robert refers to me as “The Three-Time CES Champion” (blush) as I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in three different products worthy of Best of CES distinction.  All three times were utterly exhilirating, all for different reasons.  At the end of the day, I completely enjoy the entire process of demoing products at CES, and can’t wait for CES 2009!

By the way, for those of you who manage or staff booths at the show, I put some suggestions up on the Stage Two blog.  Read the full post for details, but here’s the cheat sheet:

  • Ignore the anti-hype.
  • Wear comfy shoes.
  • Bring supplies.
  • Know your audience.
  • Funnel your traffic.
  • Emphasize the team spirit.
  • Don’t mistreat competition.
  • Ignore nobody.
  • Expect to be on the record.
  • Adapt your script.
  • Engage in discussions.
  • Give no schwag.
  • Be neighborly.
  • Take and give business cards.
  • Be on time.

Technology Predictions for 2009

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I ran about 50/50 with last year’s technology predictions.  Some were fairly safe, some a little more “out there”.  Here’s my thoughts for what’s on the docket for 2009…

Home Gadgets/Tech

  • Microsoft opens the Xbox 360 platform even further, enables an “app store for the home” that spans well beyond games.
  • Blu-ray sputters along, but not enough conclusive evidence (in other words, revenue) happens to either shut down the format altogether, nor to get consumers to adopt it.
  • As the FCC-mandated digital TV transition approaches, the hype machine reaches full effect and very convincing pieces try to show the plight of the very few.  After it’s all over, virtually nobody complains loudly.
  • One or both of Home Automation and/or Interactive TV returns to prominence in techie chatter, but neither make any additional inroads into actual homes.
  • Pasting from 2008 predictions: Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future.

Computers

  • Netbook sales grow well, but not astoundingly so.  The majority of users ignore them due to a lack of actual value present in the device (especially those of us with big grubby fingers).
  • One PC maker emerges from the trenches with a really well-designed laptop with great Vista drivers that actually can stand up against a Macbook enough to make people take notice.
  • A Linux-based computer powered with a really great GUI and OpenOffice comes to market from an established brand.
  • USB 3.0 launches, causing massive annoyance and confusion to consumers.  I still can’t believe they didn’t give it a different name than USB.  Terrible decision.

Mobile Gadgets/Tech

  • More lousy wannabe touchscreen phones ship, none compete 1:1 with the iPhone.
  • A really good GPS+phone combo device comes to market.
  • The BlackBerry Storm is rapidly replaced with some better device from RIM.
  • Mobile commerce replaces location-based services as the hot mobile trend.
  • US cellular companies wage a price war, making several features (ahem, texting?) cheaper, along with better priced packages across the board.
  • No truly impressive Android phones ship from anyone.

Events/News

  • CES 2009 is notably smaller than 2008, yet the important stuff that goes on at the show is business as usual.  It’s all the fringe people who are absent, and the same who complain about the lack of cool new stuff at CES.  Which won’t be a surprise due to the rarity of cool new stuff actually shown at CES!
  • Macworld is just the first of many shows to also announce downsizing, including Streaming Media, Web 2.0 Expo, etc.  2009 will be a bad year for the tech conference industry.
  • Apple introduces only evolutionary products, nothing astounding or revolutionary. Let’s face it, sooner or later the well runs dry, and this is the time for the company to expand its market.  Yes, we’ll get a new phone, laptop, and ipod, but I doubt we see anything as profound as in the past 2 years.
  • A largish black monolith with dimensions 1 by 4 by 9 is discovered.

Web/Online

  • Facebook reaches a user base of 200 hundred million users.  It’s growth ratethen  slows and the alarm bells sound loudly throughout the media, regardless of actual success metrics.
  • Twitter finally announces its business model, which underwhelms everyone.  Not that it won’t be a good model, just that it will have been (wow is that passive voice or what?) built up with far more hype than can possibly be delivered.
  • Many “web 2.0” companies face major shrinkage as the funds simply don’t come back to them again.  Companies with huge traffic bases or, more importantly, solid revenue models will be fine, but the rest start fading away (and they take their weird names with them)
  • Several “prominent” blogs/bloggers retire due to a lack of revenue, exhaustion, lack of interesting new content to write about, etc.
  • Web 3.0 does not arrive.

That’s all I can really muster up for 2009, guess I’m having clairvoyance block.  Regardless, I’m pretty excited for the year.  Have the new house coming.  A little family expansion planned for Q1.  Oh, and I’ll be involved with some other cool new startups.  But I guess that’s getting to be par for the course, eh?  🙂  I sincerely can’t wait to tell y’all about one of them, it’s my own little brainchild in fact.  All in due time, though, all in due time.

10000 followers won't get you a free latte

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Guess how much attention the following tweet garnered from MUNI (the San Francisco transportation organization)?  Answer below.

A lot of bloggers worked each other into a bit of a tizzy this weekend as they debated the merits of a Twitter feature that would allow one to sort search results in the order of users who have the most followers.  The debate wasn’t really about the feature itself, which is completely innocuous conceptually (Twitter search should allow tons of different sorts).  The debate was about Loic Lemeur (the original poster) using the term “authority” to define his request.

I’ll be as blunt as possible: the number of online “followers” (including Facebook friends, blog subscribers, and all the 19-year-olds on Friendster who genuinely want to meet old dorks like me) one has is not a measure of authority.  It is not a measure of power.  It is not a measure of intelligence. It is not a measure of capability.  It is not a measure of quality.  It is a measure of reach/audience, and if one wants to put a label on it, it’s called “popularity”.

In high school I ran for class president.  I lost.  The winner went to all the cool parties all year long, I went to few.  The winner was on lots of teams and associations, I was on several.  During our speeches, the winner talked about how great the school was and how much pride she had.  I spoke about getting the class to volunteer with a local in-need youth group.  In truth, little of this all mattered in the election, since I wasn’t a very popular kid in high school (yeah, that’s right, the guy who programmed C++ and ran an online BBS in the late 80’s wasn’t super popular, can you believe it? have no fear, I blossomed).

I really like something Robert Scoble wrote this morning:

Here’s why I’ve been saying for the past year that it is far more important who you follow than who follows you: if you follow people just to get followers you’ll end up being overworked, deep in information overload, and superficial to boot. You won’t have a philosophy. It +will+ show. You might be able to fool most of the idiots most of the time, but eventually they’ll see the difference between the “collect follower” types and the “surround yourself with smart people” types like Tim O’Reilly or Jay Rosen.

I can smell the “follow me” types a million miles away, can’t you?

I’m an idealist at heart.  Ideally one wouldn’t even be aware of quantity of followers.  Ideally one wouldn’t know their blog subscriber count.  Personally, my favorite “stat” is seeing responsive blog posts externally or comments on my blog posts and/or friendfeed entries.  Comments imply I’ve done something interesting enough that someone else chose to interact with it.  And that’s what excites me about being a content creator online.

ps – the question at the top of the blog post was rhetorical, sorry about my clever ruse.

Scoring my 2008 Tech Predictions

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I’m about the least unopinionated guy I know.  362 days ago, I made a whole bunch of predictions.  Let’s see how I scored…

TV Technology

  • Every major cable company will increase it’s rates by more than 3%. Nobody will complain, and our government will (again) fail to protect us from them.  — Well, I don’t really have the time to review all the packages from all the service providers, but I know my rates went up.  I’ll score this a Yes.
  • A resolution above 1080p starts appearing in demos and labs, I’d predict a bump up into the 4000 vertical lines space.  — Yup.
  • Bluray and HD-DVD continue to duke it out while consumers continue to not care.  — Well, HD failed, and Blu-ray is still in the doldrums.  But, since my prediction was they’d be fighting through the year, I guess this is a No.
  • One of Hulu, Joost, etc get integrated into the Xbox 360 and/or PS3. — Netflix on Xbox for the Yes.
  • Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future. — Nope, didn’t happen (though I still believe they are working on it).
  • Anyone who is not a telephone company that tries to launch an IP-streaming set top device has a very rough year. — Vudu, Sezmi, etc.  Yes.
  • Despite near-constant predictions of their demise, TiVo makes it through another year, possibly getting acquired (by DirecTV, Comcast, Netflix, Blockbuster, or someone out of the blue like Amazon or eBay). — Yes.

Portable Devices That Are Not Cell Phones

  • Zune 3.0 launches. It’s very very good. Further, iPod’s market share dips, although they still have an increase in overall unit sales (in other words: the pie gets bigger faster than their sales do). That said, a new iPod is even more betterer than all previous versions, making everyone who recently bought a prior generation a wee bit annoyed, but gosh that Steve Jobs is so charming they just don’t care. After all, that’s technology! — No, pretty much completely wrong (though there is a rumor for a new Zune at CES 09)
  • At least two major camera vendors introduce integrated wifi cameras, but no more than one uses an open service, the rest have some proprietary, closed, annoying-to-use system. Ideally one of them buys Eye-fi. — Correctamundo (but still waiting on the Eye-Fi acquisition)
  • Digital picture frames continue to grow in market share, but still don’t “tip” into the mainstream. — Anecdotally I’d say I’m right (duh), but I can’t find any stats either way.  That said, there were enough units sold to get some malignant pusbag to put a virus on one. I’ll leave this one unresolved for now.
  • More companies introduce e-book readers despite general malaise in the category. Kindle II is launched with mild improvements. — Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Even if I don’t “get it”, apparently Oprah does, so it looks like the category’s doing fine.  Probably one of the biggest surprises to me this year…

Enterprise Services

  • I have no clue, I don’t follow the space. Hello, this is a consumer tech blog!  — This statement certainly wasn’t enough to prevent clueless PR flacks from pitching me on their enterprise technology products.

Computers

  • Apple’s new laptops will include an ultramobile, a tablet, and a “desktop replacement” OR a “gaming model” (they may combine the first two). Enhancements will include a card reader, 3G access as a built-in option, and new gestures. Market share continues to climb.  — Other than the market share comment, I’m quite wrong again.  I should’ve just said “one solid piece of aluminium” and left it at that.
  • Microsoft continues to spin about how amazing Vista is. Michael Gartenberg’s observations are probably the most poignant as to why it isn’t. — Right, and with a huge budget to boot.
  • Asus or Dell acquires or merges with one of HP, Acer, Toshiba, or other “meh” PC maker.  — Wrong.
  • Sony continues to make subpar Vaio laptops. And for the last time (I think) in 2007: don’t buy the Sony Vaio VGN-SZ4xx series laptops, they are just plain terrible. I’ve now had the chance to voice my discontent directly to the Vaio PR team (at Ruder Finn) who have yet to write me back on the topic. — Completely right.  If I’ve had the opportunity to cost them some sales, I feel like I’ve accomplished something.  And a note to that PR team – how about dropping me a note one day?  Since you pitch yourselfes as being good at this “social media” thing, maybe you’d like to show your prowess?
  • Nobody makes my awesome dual-screen laptop concept, thus leaving me the opportunity to make zillions one day.  — I have the pleasure to say that I’m wrong, and Lenovo owes me zillions.

Social Networking

  • Facebook continues to get backlash from the media and tech community, meanwhile its user base continues to skyrocket. Further, they hire another 1000 people, yet only make modest improvements to the site itself. I’d add a 33% chance that they “pull a Netscape” and go after the desktop or the browser or some other place they really don’t belong.  — Re backlash: right; Re growth: right; Re staffing: close; Re improvements: right; Re target a weird space: right (Beacon).  Cmon, I get extra props here!
  • Randomly pick some names from the huge list of other social networking sites and some of them merge. — AOL bought Bebo, but that was about it for the year.
  • Adults who didn’t grow up with social networking services experience burnout of being bitten by zombies after a few months, and many stop checking in four times per day. Those who went to school during the Facebook era continue to complain about all the old fogies (like me) polluting their sacred resting ground. They also continue to put radically inappropriate pictures of themselves online, blissfully unaware of the interviewing process. — Right on all counts.

Mobile Tech

  • A few Android-powered phones ship, but not as many as the tech community would like to see. Again showing why the Razr can utterly dominate the market despite a closed architecture and terrible user interface. — I guess I should’ve said “One or more” instead of “a few”, but I’m gonna go with a yes here.
  • Apple launches the iPhone 3G, the iPhone nano, and the iPhonePro. Ok, I’m not 100% sure on the third, but I am betting on the first two. Also, one of these new phones comes unlocked OR on a carrier other than AT&T.  — Mixed, so for the count I’ll have to say wrong.
  • Some major lawsuit occurs between a carrier and either a cable company or a broadcaster, all about mobile video rights. All parties involved appear as nothing but greedy to outsiders. — Wrong (it’s still brewing, trust me)
  • Something new comes out in the phone space that’s more astounding than the iPhone. It’s possibly: uber-small, has a radically better battery life, does something funky like synchs with the Wii, or works with all US carriers.  — Wrong, instead a bunch of lousy, boring, poorly built touchphone replicas come to market.  Fail.

Gaming

  • With lots of stealth, a new console comes to market. It might only be a moderate shift from a prior model, or possibly be a whole new entrant. — Nope.
  • Rock Band 2 and 3, and Guitar Heros 4, 5, 6, and “Eddie Van Halen” editions come out, however nobody licenses the Harmonix engine to make “Jazz Trio”. — N/A, was just sarcasm.
  • Someone comes up with a really impressively new concept for the Wii. Good odds, however, that they wrap it inside a crappy game. — Don’t know, didn’t pay enough attention to the Wii.  Anyone?
  • More really amazing HD gaming occurs, continuing to drive HD adoption faster than the meager channels the cable companies try to placate us with, despite the fact that they raise prices again. Did I already say that? — Yup.

Web Services/Misc

  • A wide swath of “Web 2.0″ companies will go dark, primarily out of an inability to either figure out a business model for their product, or an inability to successfully market their service outside of the Bay Area.  They will quickly be forgotten and replaced by new ones with even goofier sounding names like Froobooloo.com. — I guess this has to be a “not quite yet”, but it’s-a-coming…
  • No major Wimax deployments occur.  — Right-o.
  • The digital transition date looms, starts creating a lot of media hype a la Year2000 mania. — Very right.
  • RFID continues to be a fun topic for the media, but all that happens is Walmart continues to make small vendors spend loads of money for the privelege of selling there. — Goes under the not enough information to make a call category.
  • Bloggers fret about not being recognized as “press”, yet continue to spend too much time/energy gossiping about other bloggers, an activity the general public remains disinterested in and doesn’t give extra respect/credibility for.  This circular logic is baffling, I know. — Right.
  • We lose even more rights to big media, because few Americans are willing to take even the tiniest steps to do anything about it.  PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG (start here)! — Right.
  • I still don’t Twitter.  — 1005 updates at the time of writing. Complete and utter fail. I’m so lame.

The verdict… 16 correct predictions, 13 incorrect ones, and 3 with insufficient information.  Not too shabby, but I’ll try to do a little better next year!

David's Jawbone II Bluetooth review

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I’ve been thinking about a bluetooth headset for a long time.  Since I got my iPhone, I’ve almost exclusively used the included iPod headphones / speakerphone to talk with other people.  But it tangles often and it’s starting to get worn out – the rubber on the earpieces has rubbed off completely.  🙁  That combined with the California headset law (and the joy of playing with new toys) convinced me to try to go blue.  Eric Benderoff’s review of several top bluetooth headsets gave me a little background, and the pure sex appeal of the Jawbone II gave me a starting place.

There are a lot of different possible categories from which to assess a gadget like this: form factor, simplicity of use, pairing ability, sound quality, battery life, durability, cost…  I don’t often write really analytical reviews which numerically asses and assign rankings to devices, but this time I plan to for the sake time and conveneience.  Elsewise this review will ramble, extensively.  Long.

I will rank each of the above categories with a numeric ranking between 1 and 10 (naturally) and then average out the scores.  By doing this I am essentially saying 1.) that each of the chosen categories have equal weighting, and 2.) that other possible categories (say, color) do not factor into my assessment.  Those are both true things, so take my review with the appropriate grains of sodium hydrochloride.

Form Factor: 10 (this is a sexy looking gadget, slim, black, ribbed and fancy)

Simplicity of Use: 7 (as bluetooths go, it’s pretty easy to start, pair, adjust and figure out what’s happening)

Pairing Ability: 7 (turn it on, and turn on bluetooth on your phone – they just seem to find each other)

Sound Quality: 6 (I can hear people OK.  When I need to turn the volume up high, it seems to get a little fuzzy.  People can hear me OK.  Not great, but OK.  This might be due to poor pairing, or simply the nature of the device. )

Battery Life: 6 (battery life seems to be about what you’d expect, or just a hair better.  I seem to get about 2-3 hours of active talk time.  If it sits idle on a full charge for a couple days, I can still use it.  If it sits idle after a full charge for 5 or 6 days, not so good. )

Durability: 4 (the device body seems to be fairly compact and well made, I expect it will last as well as anything else out there.  The ear pieces are another issue.  As you’ll see in the pictures below, one of my stems broke.  Jawbone is kind enough to package multiple stems [for differently sized and shaped heads / ears] so I had a backup, even though it’s a suboptimal size.  I did NOT mishandle nor manhandle the ear piece – just rotated it as it’s designed to be rotated, and the little sucker just snapped.  Boy was I irritated. )

Cost: 4 (this is a pricey little sucker.  I’ve seen it at the T-Mobile store for as little as $99, and at a Verizon store for $129.  If you shop around you’ll find it for somewhere over $100.

If we assume that each of the above categories carrie an equal weighting, then the score on the Jawbone II bluetooth headset comes out to 6.29 (10+7+7+6+6+4+4=6.2857147)

I like this device’s style and simplicity.  It’s elegant, pretty, fairly easy to use, and the it sounds good.  Not “oh my god holy crap” amazing, but it sounds good.  The cost of the unit, and the fact that the stem broke in the manner it did are both very offputting for me though, and they are the biggest limiting factors in my estimation.  That particular pair of issues (high cost with questionable durability) is expecially disagreeable.  I’ll be interested to see if/how the company responds to my customer service request.  If they do, I will update this post.

Forced to give a numeric rating between 1 and 10, this device averaged out to a 6.29.

This review is also available at 1TO10REVIEWS.

Thoughts on Sending & Receiving CES Pitches

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After a series of interesting tweets, comments, discussions, and drunken ramblings with a variety of Internetters, I really came to notice how different the perspectives are from those attending CES.  Aaron Brazell of Technosailor asked me to write a post on his blog to try to represent both sides of Pitching and Being Pitched at CES.  Here’s the opener, and you can read the rest at Technosailor:

2009 is rapidly approaching, and as a 10 year veteran of CES I’ve seen it from many different angles. I’ve been there as a tiny underfunded startup using a hotel room to do all demos and I’ve taken center stage in a multi-million dollar booth. I’ve attended as press and I’ve pitched the press. From virtually every perspective, CES is an exhilarating and exhausting process. I love it. With the massive surge in blogger registrations at this year’s show, I’ve also noticed more than usual complaints about the pitching process, so as someone who sits on both sides of the fence, I thought I’d share some observations and suggestions.

…

Thanks, Aaron, for raising the discussion and inviting me to participate in your digital turf!

Holiday TextExpander Giveaway Contest

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You may remember our post showing how to automate Bit.ly using AppleScript
and TextExpander. Since then, TextExpander has been bumped up to version 2.5, and in doing so SmileOnMyMac included our bit.ly URL shortening script in the new release.

To celebrate we’re having a holiday contest and giving away two TextExpander licenses!

Contest the First:

TextExpander has one of the cheekiest registration screens around; it offers up data on how many times you’ve triggered an abbreviation, how many characters have been replaced, and how much time you’ve saved typing. The first license will go to the reader who guesses the number of characters (as of the time of posting) that TextExpander has spared me from typing. The Price is Right rules apply: closest guess (without going over) wins.

TextExpander Register Screen

Contest the Second:

This started off because I came up with a new snippet; now it’s your turn. The second license will go to the reader who suggest the best idea for a new snippet, as judged by the LiveDigitally team. Extra points for contest entries with working code snippets. (You can download the trial version to get started.)

Submit your guesses and ideas in the comments (you can link to a blog post if your idea is too long to fit.) The contest deadline is midnight on Wednesday, December 31st, and we’ll announce the winners in the new year. Good Luck!