LIVEdigitally

Analyst Misleading People on iPhone switching

Posted on by

Saw this headline “The iPhone Made People Switch To AT&T” then read this article “About 25 percent of iPhone buyers are ‘switchers’ to AT&T“. Here’s a quote:

“We find these numbers impressive, showing that a fair amount of customers are willing to pay high early cancellation fees (~$125-$200) to get out of their existing service contracts for an iPhone,” analyst Shaw Wu wrote in the report.

Now, Mr Wu’s job is to get people to buy Apple shares until it hits the price target he’s set ($165). That is what he is paid to do. So writing a comment like that probably makes sense, again, given his job.

Let’s establish a couple of baselines here, shall we?

  1. Most people who bought an iPhone in week one were unlikely to have “saved up for it” or put it on layaway. A $500 phone is bought by those with enough financial resources to make it a non-decision.
  2. Most people who bought it in week one had to have it. Whether they are “early adopters” or just wanted to be part of the moment in history (and it most certainly was one), it was an entirely deliberate act.

If you accept those truths, then is saying “oh, and about 25% had to spend an extra $200” a big deal? No, it is not. In fact, it’s fairly obvious. To this segment, the act of switching carriers was no bigger than the batch of people who did it to get the first Razr.

This is NOT indicative of the masses, and Mr Wu’s claim of how he “expects iPhone to bring smart phone technology into the mainstream” is another piece of manipulation I find frustrating. There are over 100 MILLION smartphones in use today.

It’s fairly clear to just about everyone right now that the iPhone is exciting, and is a great sign of the power of Apple’s brand as well as what happens when you make good products – people want them. For those who’ve misread my previous posts, I absolutely agree it’s an impressive device, just not the one I want (although my terrible experience with my Sony Vaio VGN-SZ460N is certainly making me open to buying a Macbook these days).

I’ll make two predictions about the iPhone market moving forward:

ONE: If the current rate of switching carriers by breaking contract is 25%, it’ll be less than half of that by the end of the year. People may switch out of contract, but I think the massive wave of this part is done.

TWO: Everybody falls into one of these three categories:

  1. Owns an Iphone
  2. Doesn’t own one, but has already decided they will buy one, are just waiting for some trigger factor (money, end of contract, seeing a friend use it, etc)
  3. Doesn’t own one, but has already decided they will not buy one, for whatever reasons.

I don’t think anyone else is really on the fence anymore, and I doubt that a lot of people who have already decided against it will switch. I was wrong about my iPhone-eBay predictions, we’ll see how I do this time!

Cable companies find new excuse to raise rates (again)

Posted on by

To the best of my knowledge, deregulation of utilities and services in the USA have generally led to price gouging. The cable industry in particular raised rates over 50% in the first six years since being deregulated in 1996 (source). Even with competition from satellite and phone companies, your living room TV is about the biggest cash cow companies like Comcast, Charter, Cox, Time Warner, and others have ever seen. Sure we’re seeing money flow to new services (see my buyshifting articles for more thoughts on that topic), and Joost (and others) are enabling free, or virtually free TV services. But that’s not stopping the cable companies.

The AP reported today that cable companies intend to increase rates by $2-3/month in 2009, blaming the FCC-mandated digital transition for the hike.

Time Warner Cable Inc. spokesman Alex Dudley said the company agrees with the cable industry’s stance that the FCC cable card rule is a “tax” on consumers.

This is a bad thing. Not just because they want to increase prices, which they are entitled to do, despite being either a network of monopolies or oligopolies, depending on how you look at it. Not just because despite deregulation over 90% of Americans only have a single cable service provider option. And not just because the cable companies have seen fit to exploit their entrenched position to impose rate hikes at a rate of over three times inflation.

Chris Murray, senior counsel at Consumers Union in Washington, said it’s convenient for cable companies to blame regulators when they’ve stalled about complying with the FCC rule for years. Cable operators also have had no problem raising rates regularly for various reasons.

“They raise rates three times faster than inflation every year, for more than a decade,” he said. “Cable companies want to have absolute control. We don’t think they should have it.”

Cable companies have known about the digital transition for years. It’s been delayed time and time again. They’ve had ample opportunities to build infrastructure and save the necessary funds to make the transition painless. Instead, they wait to the 11th hour, and then attempt to pass the buck.

Here’s an easy way to do something about it.  Click here to send a simple email to your legislator on the topic.  Note that this is focused on A La Carte cable, but joining into this campaign will most certainly be the best possible first step down a very important road.  Take 5 minutes, it’s worth it.

It's More than Meets the Eye (first!)

Posted on by

Just saw The Transformers movie. Had a grand ol’ time. Kudos to Michael Bay for, well, not over-Michael-Baying it. I’m not doing any sort of review here, I’ll leave that to the pros, but I will say it most certainly stirred all the memories playing with the toys and watching the cartoon as a 13-year-old.

What’s bad:

  • Dialogue could only be worse had George “metachlorians” Lucas written it himself.
  • Way too many characters with way too many mini-plots.
  • Couldn’t always tell which Transformer was which during the action scenes.
  • Did I mention the dialogue?
  • The scene Bay lifted from The Rock (his own movie).
  • Little too much time in the backyard (you’ll know what I mean).

What’s good:

  • Best. CGI. Ever. Seriously, only after walking out did I have that realization of “those weren’t really robots!”
  • Novel action sequences – it wasn’t just one long punch-em-up.
  • Solid(ish) plot. Look, it’s a comic book movie, so you have to start with fairly low expectations. That said, they weaved together a decently credible storyline with only a few “really?” scenes here and there.
  • Not scared of a little violence, but also not gory or nauseating. I think Gears of War actually has more violence in the opening sequence than the whole movie had.
  • Not too ridiculous a use of technology (other than the whole cars-turning-into-robots thing), although “hand me a screwdriver” was a bit silly.
  • Quite a few throwbacks/references to the original cartoon.
  • It’s just plain fun, and doesn’t take itself too seriously!

Considering I don’t get to see many movies these days, I was glad to make it through the 2.5 hour (OMG yes) flick and not do a watch-check or anything else. I had a lot of fun. It’s no masterpiece theatre, but I have a hunch this’ll go down as the most fun movie of the summer.

Happy 4th o’ July everybody!

Marketing Morality is Hard: why the future of music is free

Posted on by

I recently had a lengthy discussion with my Rabbi talking digital media and more specifically on content piracy. One area we focused on was about people’s awareness of right and wrong, and their tendency to do wrong, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Many have conjectured that consumers would stop “stealing music” if there were “better systems” in place to buy it and use it legally. At this point, I think it’s fair to say the systems are there, and they aren’t really working.

First, to stop a counterpoint in its tracks – I know iTunes sells a bunch of music to a lot of people. Even Steve Jobs himself stated that Apple estimates about 3% of music (max) on iPods is purchased, leaving 97% ripped or copied/downloaded. When I did a music survey several months ago, over 60% of the people who completed it acknowledged a peer-to-peer download within the past 30 days. Let me repeat: 2 out of 3 people are actively illegally downloading content.

Over the past month I’ve randomly been asking friends and strangers the following questions:

  • Do you download music that you don’t pay for?
  • Is that wrong?
  • Would you walk into a Best Buy and walk out with a CD without paying for it?

In almost every case, the answers are, predictably, YES, NO, and NO. Interestingly, there’s no reason to ask people if shoplifting a CD is “wrong” – they know the answer to that one. More importantly is the focus of the second question and the corresponding response. People today, in general, do not believe the act of downloading or copying music files is wrong.

Marc Cuban has some excellent thoughts on the future content, including this one (source):

Can the music industry be saved ? Yep. It would be so easy its scary. Make music available anywhere and everywhere.

In my eyes, this isn’t nearly enough.  If people don’t think of it as wrong, then the problem the music industry faces is deeper than availability, access, DRM, synching, devices, mobility, PCs, iPods, or anything of the sort.  The problem is morality can’t be spun.  Morality is exceptionally hard to market.

Consider the cases where the RIAA has prosecuted college students (and others) for peer-to-peer sharing.  Without fail, bloggers and even mainstream media tend to leap to the defense of the sharer, rarely to the side of the RIAA.  Deep in the hearts and minds of modern technology culture, there is a belief that sharing music files isn’t wrong.

My suggestion to the industry at-large is two-fold:

  1. Publishers/Labels: Enjoy sales why they last, but intensely build out ad-supported models.  Figure it out, and do it soon.  There should be plenty of money to keep publishers and producers in business.  Also, while you are at it, stop throwing money at sensationalist acts that are only good for a track or two – it is a model that has led to the problems you face today.  Focus on spreading your promotional and development budgets much wider across many genres and acts.
  2. Artists: Continue to focus on the live shows.  It’s fairly accepted that that’s how you make most of your money anyway, so work on deals that heavily emphasize your touring and live revenue.  Also, figure out how to do live streaming for micropayments, and enable a revenue source from a fan base you can’t otherwise touch.

I could probably come up with another dozen or so models that would work, from unlimited subscription plans to “donation” options.  At the end of the day, when they say “if you can’t beat em, join em” it’s time to realize that there is a massive groundswell of people who do not, cannot, and will not accept the concept that music sharing is wrong.  No number of lawsuits or failed DRM experiments is going to change that, nor cleverly phrased advertisements at bus stations.

Vaio/Vista System Recovery: it woix!

Posted on by

Quickie post here, but I did a full system recovery this past weekend, and now appear to have a working computer. Of course, the initial reaction you should have is: it completely sucks that one would have to do a system recovery just to get their brand new computer working properly!

For those doing their research, I unfortunately can’t recommend Vaios anymore. Maybe this’ll change down the road, but it’s simply ridiculous that the out of box experience I had was so terrible. Granted I’m a power-user and I probably tried doing too many things simultaneously during the first-time setup, but if that’s enough to mess it up, it shouldn’t have given me that much control.

That behind me, I will say that *this* version of my VGN-SZ460N laptop seems to work pretty darn well. I’ve disabled Aero, but otherwise Vista is cranking away. For now.

The restore process I used:

  1. Triple-redundancy backup (yup, 3 different storage locations) for all my Photos, Videos, and Documents. Also copied my bookmarks, my Outlook.pst file, and took screenshots of my email account settings for fast replication.
  2. Had a shot of whiskey then clicked on the System Recovery option built-into the laptop.
  3. Paced nervously for an hour, trying to remember what I might have forgotten to backup.
  4. Watched the restore happen, with only 2 “scary” dialogs during the process wherein Vista informed me it might have had trouble with two of the installs. I chose to ignore them.
  5. Logged into my fresh Vista configuration.
  6. Restored all my stuff

And that was last night, so I’ve had almost a full day of productivity already, and everything is much, much better.

At the end of the day, however, Apple doesn’t need the iPhone to convince people like me about the desktop. Companies like Sony and Microsoft are doing their work for them.

Why Apple will NOT Take Over the wireless industry

Posted on by

In response to the article How Apple Will Use The iPhone To Take Over The Wireless Industry, I’m opening by saying “take over” is a ludicrous claim.  Do you have any idea the sheer volume of mobile handsets sold worldwide?

Further, there are a lot fewer people influenced by style and experience in the phone industry than in others.  The Razr (aka the most successful cell phone of all time) moved 50M units in 4 years.  And that’s been THE trendy phone to-date, and you can get them for next-to-nothing already.

But I’ll keep going, the turnover rate in mobile phones in the US is under two years and dropping.  In countries like Hong Kong it’s hovering just over 3 months.  So Apple has to not only have the “best” phone (already questionable), but they must sustain that position continuously.

Also (I’m on a roll here), don’t forget that the mobile OS industry is much less locked-down than the PC industry, where the only competition takes 5 years to put out a terrible upgrade to their OS.  There are 4 other solid mobile operating systems for manufacturers to choose from, all of which allow for tremendous device flexibility.

Finally, unlike the PC industry which operates on margins so bad that a single tech support call makes a PC unprofitable, there’s plenty of money in mobile.  LG, Samsung, Moto, and Nokia (to name a few) will not bend-over quite as peacefully as Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and Sony (you know Sony, right, makers of my hunk-o-laptop?) have to the competition.

Will Apple be a player in the mobile space? Definitely.  Will they utterly dominate it the way they do the music space? I have to say it’s possible, but I highly doubt it.

I have to remember to write a blog post talking about domain expertise and the difference between the Web world and the device world.

From Creation to Revival or Malaise: the other stages of blogging

Posted on by

First, go read Kent’s great post on the 5 stages of blogging. Don’t continue until you’ve done this, as my post makes almost no sense without it as a baseline.

Second (you aren’t cheating, are you? ok good), go read Jeremiah’s great followup on 5 other stages of blogging. Done?

I think these two have started a great analysis, and I’d suggest a third mini-path to add as well (and would make a pretty graphic if I weren’t in the midst of some very frustrating issues with my new Vaio and Vista). My third path would go right in between the other two, and would have these steps:

3. Ennui – at this point the blogger is neither focused nor disappointed, they are, in a word, bored. Maybe they have some traffic, maybe they don’t, but they find it more challenging to create content on a recurring basis. Writing becomes irregular, infrequent, and spans numerous topics. From Ennui, the blogger will either move on to 4a:Revival or 4b:Malaise.

4a. Revival – something sparks life back into the blogger, either another blog post, a personal or life-changing event, or some huge piece of industry-specific news. The blog regains its pulse and attention, and the blogger’s back on top of his/her game. From here, the blogger moves back into stage 2:Expectation.

4b. Malaise – the blogger posts even less frequently, and the blog becomes more of an afterthought than an activity, and is on its way to out. The blogger doesn’t necessarily go through Kent’s stages of alienation, because based on sheer numbers, most bloggers don’t really get intertwined with “the blogosphere”. In this case, reality sets in for the individual that they just aren’t a writer. I firmly believe that not everyone was meant to blog (or podcast or vlog). Blogging seems like a great idea when we all start it, but let’s face it: blogging is work, and good blogging is hard work. Most people don’t enjoy spending time on activities wherein they aren’t being successful or feeling good about themselves. After this, Kent’s original stage 5:Abandonment is the only spot left to go.
I’m curious to see where the thread goes from here.

Great PC World Article: Worst 20 Windows Features

Posted on by

Ah, wonderful wonderful procrastination. I’m finally ready to do my system recovery, after which my Sony Vaio VGN-SZ460N laptop should finally act like the state-of-the-art computer it’s supposed to be – Sony only makes one ‘better’ laptop, and it seems to come down to the casing materials. In my last scan of links while completing my backup (my third, this one to my Seagate FreeAgent 160), I saw this article over on PC World.

Even now, I still won’t call myself anti-Microsoft or anti-Sony, but it’s amazing to me how two companies, the utterly dominant leaders in their respective industries, can so easily let their customer base slip away. I was told recently by an industry expert that Mac laptops now represent 10% of the laptop market. Personally, I don’t need to see another commercial to know how close I’ve gotten to switching. In fact, if I hadn’t been told by my office full of Macheads that Leopard is worth waiting for, I’d probably consider it quite strongly right now.

I predict that this January (if not sooner) Apple ships an ultra-thin laptop (along with 1-2 more iPhone models – iPhone Nano is a guarantee in my eyes). At the pace I’m going with my Vaio, I’ll
be ready to camp out in line for a few days to get one.

iPhone lines cost US over 10 years of productivity

Posted on by

So I went reading through a few stories of iPhone lines, ranging from Scoble to Engadget to Ars Technica and more (full list to follow). In these posts, stories are shared of lines ranging from 20 to 200 people in cities such as San Francisco, Palo Alto, Cincinnati, Tampa Bay, and New York, and they’ve been there for hours to days. Using just a little bit of math, the 11 cities I tracked represented 8790 person-hours of line-waiting. With 140 Apple stores nationwide (not even counting AT&T stores, by the way), this represents 7.8% of all stores. A tiny bit of extrapolation later and we have 111872 person-hours spent waiting in line (including Zooomr’s Kris Tate in live video, and the mayor of Philadelphia). The totals:
111872 person-hours.

4661 person-days.

12.77 person-years.

Thanks, Apple!
full list of sources:

The 10% of JT rule

Posted on by

First, to get the mandatory coverage out of the way: iPhone line. Ah, I feel better now.

A friend of mine told me he has adopted the “10% of JT” rule to digital “stuff”. I took ~400 pictures in the first 2 days when my son was born, he took 40. I’ve ripped over 600 of my CDs, he’s still not at 60 (but making progress). I think he’s way behind in the video realm, but I’m still just getting started over there.

What it’s really made me think about is the ability I have to truly chronicle the life of my child. I take pictures or video almost every day now, even if it’s just him in the crib or on his playmat. I managed to capture one of his first smiles in video (the real ones, not just the gas). When I talk to my parents about my upbringing, I quickly understand the advantage the digital world gives me. I’ll never ‘wonder’ what my child looked like at 2 days, 2 months, or 2 years.

The other amazing part of it is the ability to share with my family, located around the world. His 94-year-old great-grandmother gets my Flickr updates once a week, and she’s seen a video I made as well (of him sucking on his mother’s nose – quite adorable). My parents and in-laws are able to take the pictures and print them with Shutterfly or other services. I’ll gladly out-digital people by 1000%, it’s worth every megabyte.
But best of all will be the chance to show all these memories to my son when he’s older. And, of course, to every girl he ever dates.

Vaio or Not a Vaio?

Posted on by

So I kinda, well, chickened out today. I did my entire backup – twice actually, once on my office Drobo, the other on my home Maxtor NAS. As an aside, I’d like to give a special big heartfelt “thank you” to the folks at Norton Security Center who found a way to protect me by preventing me from finding my NAS on my home network for an hour or so. The helpfulness and security I now bask in is wonderful. Yes, the sarcasm is at an all-time high right now.

Anyhow, I’m still in my awkward Vista stage, and was trying to get a video I captured yesterday for a friend of mine online. Windows Media Player is crashing on me, so I tried using one of the built-in Sony applications to preview the video clip I made. Here’s the error I saw:not a sony vaio

Ok, fess up. I’m on candid camera, right? Right?

System Recovery, straight ahead

Posted on by

Sometime last week I had come to the conclusion that either my new Vaio VGN-SZ460N is a lemon, or Vista is utterly terrible, or somewhere in between. On Monday night while talking to Michael Gartenberg (who’s spent more time with Vista and Vaios and everything else known to man and computing), he concurred that while Sony isn’t exactly known for high quality drivers, my experiences were, in a word, subpar.

By the way – iPhone.

After hearing enough Apple Geniuses stories (with the exception apparently of when you just walk into the store and try to buy a computer, at which point they no longer retain ‘genius’ status in my eyes, but I digress), yesterday I decided I’d put Sony to the task. Called support, held, held, held, held more, held, talked to someone, escalated, held, held, escalated, held, got on the phone with a specialist. Ahh. Specialist.

This guy (coincidentally named Jeremy – sweet) really did have a good grasp on the situation. Didn’t try to duck and cover. Didn’t have me waste time with a defrag or other clearly unnecessary step. His hunch was one of the following issues:

  1. Bad motherboard
  2. Bad RAM
  3. Bad Vista load

After some diagnostics last night, it’s apparently not the RAM. And while it could be the motherboard, I don’t really want to wait the 7-10 days, nor pay $150 for on-site support. Supposedly some SonyStyle stores will get their own geniuses too sooner or later, but I’m not one for patience. So reloading Vista is the path I’ll try – I actually did have a quirky bootup the first time I turned on the PC, which apparently can knock the self-install for a loop, so hopefully that’s all the fix I need.
So, I’m doing my backup to my Drobo right now, and will follow up with a full System Recovery later this morning.

ps – The reason I wrote ‘iPhone’ above is apparently Congress recently passed a law that stated all blog posts made in the month of June must in some way reference the iPhone. Didn’t want to get in trouble…