LIVEdigitally

Borat Staged? Seems doubtful!

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Last week I saw and reviewed Borat, and mused on which scenes were real or staged.  Turns out this is a fairly popular topic out there, and I’ve got a few quick updates:

  • Pam Anderson scene: Probably staged (although not definitive).
  • The prostitute: staged and is a known actress.
  • Frat boys: real, and they are suing.  Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, boys.
  • Rodeo scene: frighteningly real.  This article (from Salon) has a ton of in-depth commentary on the “is Borat staged?” topic, and was a great read.
  • Dinner party. real, chock full o Southern hospitality, ‘Bama-style.
  • Etiquette lesson. real, although apparently the teacher had her doubts.

Incidentally, for the least useful source of material on the topic, head on over to Yahoo! Answers.

Gartenberg's tips to build better music phones

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For those of you who don’t know Michael Gartenberg, he covers the consumer electronics space (and a whole lot more, sorry if I’ve oversimplified Michael) for Jupiter.  More importantly, he gets it.  Lots of people in this industry are good at marketing, or good at engineering, or good at products.  Not all of them get it when it comes to making outstanding products that consumers love.  Read his “three laws of consumer electronics” before you go on.

I know Michael gets the chance to play with most new/unreleased phones (yes, even before me!), and I have a hunch he was recently trying out some new “music phone” and had a lousy experience.  Probably one of those cases where the company pitched him on this unbelievable sound quality, “replace your iPod”, etc etc.  And it didn’t.  At all. And if I know Michael, it got him a little riled up.  Riled up enough to write a blog post on “how to make a music phone good enough to use.”

While I agree with all his sentiments, the one that struck me the most was #1: real headphone jacks.  Unless Shure or Bose starts building wireless headsets with the exact same sound quality of their current lineup, there is no way mass consumers will drop their Nanos. 

I’m going to add a few thoughts of my own to his list:

  • Integrated music.  All my MP3s/WMAs should also be ringtones, alarms, etc. 
  • Simple album art. This is a “frilly” feature, but if I had a flip phone with top-panel playback control buttons and the outer LCD screen showed the album art, it would nicely round out the experience.  Remember: the goal is to make a great experience, not one that is worse than the Shuffle!
  • Easy USB synch.  Michael mentions WMP and iTunes, I’d probably add that it should also appear to Windows as USB mass storage.  Furthermore, the USB part must be standard mini-USB, not a proprietary connector (getting that, Moto?)
  • Smart power management. Give me plenty of notice before I run out of juice while listening to music.  Put in an option that auto-stops music playback with a certain amount of talk time left.
  • Internet radio services. Whether it’s Pandora, Last.FM, Rhapsody, or anything else, since it’s pretty likely this new phone has 3G support, give it some Internet radio access as well.

The key thing about both mine and Michael’s tips is this: none of them require significant engineering work by the manufacturers.  That’s right, you could make a Chocolate 2.0 without a major redesign.  In the meantime, I’ll stick with the chocolate I love right now.

PC guy outlasts Mac guy, isn't it ironic?

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I read today that “Mac guy” (aka Justin Long) from the recent Apple commercials is not invited back to the next round of advertising.

A rep for Long confirms that his days as an Apple pitchman are over: “Every ad you see Justin in is for that previous time period only,” she tells Radar. “There’s no long-term deal with him.” She adds (somewhat implausibly, perhaps), “Justin’s a movie star, not a commercial guy.”

It seems that people didn’t really care for Mac guy. I like this theory over at AdJab:

Hey, maybe they’ll make HIM the new Mac guy (JT: him?), and show how a PC guy can become a Mac guy? (there it is)

Both TUAW and Gizmodo are polling readers to find new Mac guy. I’m with Angela and picked Zach Braff, but I think it’d be funnier if they picked that albino dude from Firewall (which was not only a poor movie, but had nothing to do with firewalls of any kind).

I myself am not “a” Mac guy (not even close to “the” Mac guy), but I do think there’s a bit of irony that he’s getting sacked.  Even if the campaign was unbelievably alienating to us PC folks, you’d think they’d just kill it entirely and start fresh. 

While consulting with a company this week, we got into a long discussion of the Mac/Apple brand and personality.  The iPod brand, for example, is cold. Its better than us.  You are, in fact, priveleged that you are permitted to buy an iPod.

I think of the Mac brand with terms like excellence, perfection, and detail-oriented.  As a person, Mac is not, in my opinion, unshaven and mocking. I like my Vaio, but why couldn’t Sony add an automatic light-up keyboard like the Macbook?  I recognize that many of the Mac faithful through the years includes the design/arts community, but I don’t see a shiny new Macbook Pro and think of a struggling artist.  To me, the Mac itself is the art they are creating (I just don’t want one as my computer, personally).

At the end of the day, Mac guy was smug, and smug is not cool or popular.  Smug gets punched in the face, or, like today, fired.

Like.com: great concept, if they can market it

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As is becoming more and more of the case these days, a new site or service launches, and it’s all anyone is talking about.  And here I am, following in the footsteps.  Sigh.

Over the last couple of years I’ve met senior executives from virtually every major electronics (and mainstream) retailer, and have learned a tremendous amount about consumers and how they shop (both online and offline).  For example, did you know that in traditional, married households the so-called “head of household” (read: man) makes less than 5% of all major purchasing decisions alone, whereas almost 90% of the decisions are made solo by the wife?  And I’m not being sexist here, I know there are tons of people and lifestyles that don’t fit this pattern.  But in the majority of US households, most spending in the home is done by the woman, without consulting the husband. 

Want another neat data point?  Men buy things based on features, descriptions, etc.  Women buy things visually.  You know how most online retailers work today?  Lots of descriptions, text, features and benefits, complemented with a few pictures. So what does this all add up to?  Most online shopping sites today are missing out on the majority of buyers.  What’s missing? The visuals.  Welcome to like.com.

Like.com (from Riya) is a visual shopping system.  There are a few hands-on reviews and commentary you can read (pick your favorite: ZDNet, GigaOm, TechCrunch, BusinessWeek, Robert Scoble, Thomas Hawk).  I’m going to skip the usual rigamarole of anaylizing how good their algorithms work, go check out one of the others’ for that.  Whether it’s perfect or not today, I generally have enough faith in engineers and entrepreneurs that they’ll continue to improve it to the point where it works as promised.  And if they don’t, well, someone else will come along instead.  Instead, I’m a bit more interested in the launch itself.

Right now, they have focused on fashion (a move Don Dodge likes).  If you go back and read above and recall that the biggest category of shoppers in the US is women, I think this is a phenomenal move.  I’ve seen other newfangled attempts to launch online stores, with wikis and whatis and kiwis and whatnot, but at the end of the day, in my opinion there is no opportunity for doing this in the tech market.  If you want to buy a digital camera or a Slingbox or a plasma, buy.com + amazon.com + cnet is sufficient for 90% of the market. 

But if a woman wants to buy shoes or purses online, the current offerings are in every way unsatisfactory.  Yeah, there’s some pictures and all, but it’s not enough.  It approaches the sale from a male perspective.  Like.com is the right approach to this huge, untapped market.  So now the question is, can they market the service correctly?

Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington give them praise for their methods of swamping the blogosphere (more details from the CEO himself).  I agree with them, they did hit the bloggers and hit them perfectly.  But my question is – did they hit the right blogosphere?  They sure got the Web 2.0 and technology bloggers abuzz.  And I’ll bet they got a ton of guys to hit the site today.  But I have a hunch their sales numbers are going to be dismal compared to their traffic.

Like.com needs to do some very aggressive viral and traditional marketing, and they need to do it to the right audience.  The traffic from today’s spike may well diminish to nothing very very quickly, unless all us technophiles are out there telling their wives and girlfriends about the site.  I’m sure they’ll own the term “visual shopping” in Google for a while, but who cares?  It’s not as if there are flocks of women googling that term right now (otherwise you’d already see different results from that term than you do today).

So congratulations on the launch, team Like.  You have built a potentially huge success.  Executing on it is a big challenge, and hopefully you’ll set your sights on the right market, because the one you are after did not hear about your site launch today.

UPDATE: Robert Scoble pointed out that in his interview with Munjal Shah, Like.com/Riya’s CEO, Munjah mentions an extensive press tour with fashion and consumer magazines.  Scoble also did a video demo of Like.com which you can check out as well.  But unlike Maryam, my wife does buy stuff online (and sells stuff too), however she didn’t have a great Like.com experience today – but I’m sure I can get her back to try again… 

Shure E500PTH Review: Headphones + a Microphone!?

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Microphone on/off switchWant a surefire way to make the best headphones on the market even better?  Easy, add a mike.  Confused?  Well, Shure (the makers of my favorite E4c and runner-up E2c headphones) did just that, and believe it or not, it all makes perfect sense.It turns out you can divide people into one of two camps when it comes to headphones: innies and outies.  Innies are the people who enjoy wearing in-ear headphones, the ones that go inside the ‘lobe and pump the sound right into your brain.  Outies prefer on-ear headphones, such as the Bose QuietComforts, which sit on top of your ears.  I’ve tried quite a few of both, in a variety of situations, and am quite certain of the fact that I’m an innie.  I like being able to fall asleep with the buds in my ear, I find the Bose set makes my head get a little, sweaty, and I find they simply can’t block out the sounds of a wailing child three rows behind me.

Until a short time ago, the Shure E4c’s were my favorite headphones.  I’d even tried the E5c’s, and while the sound quality was stunning, they just weren’t comfortable for a 13-hour flight to Hong Kong.  The E4c’s were the king of the innies in my world, with only one major nag: the process of removing/inserting them is unpleasant to repeat on a frequent basis.  Welcome to the Shure E500PTH’s.

Shure E500 inner packagingPackaging
As with all Shure products, the headphones are nicely packaged inside a small box.  The box has an inner metallic shell with a very nice finish, and inside that shell is a molded foam case to hold all the pieces.  Nice, simple, luxurious, and not overly wasteful.

Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 inner packaging Shure E500 internal packaging Shure E500 in packaging Shure E500 in foam Shure E500 carrying case in the packaging Shure E500 carrying case in the packaging Inside the Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 carrying case

Shure E500 package contentsContents
When you buy the E500PTH’s you receive:

  • The headphones
  • The microphone
  • A mini-extension cable
  • A 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter
  • Oval carrying case
  • Lots of extra earbuds

Shure E500 package contents in carrying case Shure E500 headset Shure E500 carrying case Shure E500 headphones

Headphones
I’m going to stay a little light on discussing the headphones themselves this time.  Others like Gary Krakow have already reviewed the overall sound quality of them (here’s Gary’s take on the E4c’s, and he’s about 100x a discerning listener compared to me) and CNet made them an Editor’s Choice.  Suffice it to say – they sound as good, possibly better, than the rest of the Shure lineup.  You’ll have nothing to complain about when it comes to the sound quality, be it at home, on a plane, or anywhere else you are using the E500PTH’s.  They sound great.

Shure E500 ear pieces Shure E500 ear piece 

Jack for headsetMicrophone
Now this is where the E500PTH’s get interesting.  Their noise-cancelling capabilities are tremendous, but as I said above, taking out and shoving in little rubber buds in your ear every time the person next to you wants to share some little detail of their life and why they love their home town can get, well, annoying.  And I have a hunch quite a few of Shure’s customers shared that sentiment with the company, since the E500’s specifically address that situation. 

Through some quite clever ingenuity (in my opinion), Shure added a microphone and a little on/off switch to the headphones.  When switched “on” (which does require a single AAA battery), the E500’s effectively mute the incoming audio source, and amplify the microphone.  This translates to: when you turn them on, you can hear the outside world again.  There’s actually a little volume control dial to adjust the level of amplification, and while it took me a little tweaking and a lot of getting used to, I finally got it right.

The next time the flight attendant walked by my seat (my original fiddling with them was on a plane), I was able to order my drink (and, of course, thank her for it), without whispering or screaming at the top of my lungs.  Again – it takes some getting used to, but once you’ve tried it for a few minutes, you’ll find yourself hitting the switch and carrying on a conversation as if you weren’t wearing the headphones at all. Very very impressive!

Microphone part Jack for headset Warning sticker Volume adjustment Battery holder Microphone clip Battery for the mike 

Shure E500 with iRiver ClixOverall
I have only a single annoyance with the Shure E500PTH’s, which is the size of the carrying case.  Granted, I was spoiled by the “fits in the palm of my hand” size of the E4c’s, and it’s still nothing compared to the mega-case which carries the Bose QuietComfort 2’s (forget the 3’s, they make ya puke).  So chalk that up as the only negative thing I have to say, otherwise, the E500’s are a winner.  Another nice touch is if the microphone battery dies, the headphones still work (unlike most over-the-ear noise reduction headphones).They are now, in fact, a permanent addition to my laptop case, and should be in yours as well.  However, they do cost over $400 (Amazon link), so if you already have headphones you like, you can opt to purchase the “push-to-hear” component instead (Shure site).

I did, in fact.

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Vote, that is. Spent last night making some last minutes notes, finishing off my research. I felt very prepared. Went in with my list of choices, stood in line for far longer than need be, and did the deed.

I’m not sure how it’s been going other places, but they didn’t seem too organized at my site. I felt bad for the workers because it really wasn’t their fault. They had four machines, but only two of them were operating. In addition, the magnetic electronic whatever-the-heck card they had us sliding to access the ballot went a little fritzy sometimes. It would say that people’s numbers had already been used, which makes no sense.

To me, it is no mystery that people don’t vote. Not only do they have to THINK, but they have to take the time, deal with the lines and the problems with the machinery, and our incentive? A cute little “I voted” sticker, and I wonder if some people even get THAT! I’m taking a class right now on constitution reform and one of the issues is elections and voting. Does anyone have any ideas? We’re considering a national holiday for voting (so people don’t have to skip work), possible tax benefits, etc. Let me know what you think!

Where are the other 56,000,000 blogs?

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When I first registered with Technorati (the de-facto standard service for tracking the so-called blogosphere), I had about 1 incoming link, and my ranking was about 1 millionth.  David Sifry, Technorati’s CEO, gave his “state of the Blogosphere” report today, in which he claimed the site is now tracking roughly 57 million blogs, and revealed the following statistics:

  • The blogosphere doubles roughly every 230 days
  • As of October 2006, about 100,000 new weblogs were created each day
  • The total posting volume of the blogosphere is showing about 1.3 million postings per day

My first reaction: holy freaking crap!  Where are all these blogs?  Does this count every new entry into Vox, MSN Spaces, MySpace pages, and all the other “quick havens” where people get their feet wet blogging?  What are they writing about? 

I also noticed another stat in the report: About 55% of all blogs are active, which means that they have been updated at least once in the last 3 months. Which means, if I do my math, that my blog (with a Technorati ranking of ~22K at the time of writing) is in the top 1% of all tracked, active blogs. 

Here’s where it gets crazy: my traffic and links don’t even come close to 1% of the Top 100 ranked blogs.  Maybe I don’t post enough (thoughts on post frequency here and here)?  More thoughts on Sifry’s post over at IP Democracy.

My second reaction: Really now, where are they?  According to Sifry’s stats, about 40% of blogging is in English (more on language here), which means I should have the ability to discover about 40,000 new blogs every day.  But I don’t see em anywhere.  Sure, every now and then a new blog appears to gain some momentum and link traction, but at the end of the day, the discovery process for new blogs is pretty bad.

Maybe Technorati (or someone else) should introduce new services to get new blogs “on the radar?”  It’d be nice if there was a way to gain some attention, other than hoping/praying that Robert Scoble reads (and links to) one of your posts. Sifry does make a variety of points on the notion of a blogger’s “authority” but, other than by writing some Top 10 list, it ain’t easy to get noticed these days.

Some simple tips for participating in the voting process

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Tomorrow, I’ll go to my local balloting place which is conveniently located 2 blocks from my apartment.  I’ll walk there with the “prep” ballot I’ve already put together, which I’ll carry mostly due to an increasingly poor short term memory (yes on 87).  And there I’ll likely meander through lines, fill out some form incorrectly, then eventually find a place to fill out my ballot.  I have a lot of confidence that I won’t accidentally follow the wrong dotted line, and I predict no hanging chads.

But that’s just our civic responsibility.  That’s what we’re supposed to do.  David Cohn over at NewAssignment (a new web site dedicated to citizen journalism) put together a list of how we can go above and beyond our basic responsibilities, and actually participate in the process.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

  • Video The Vote is an organized effort, using camera phones and video, to cover any mishaps voters encounter this Tuesday.
  • The The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism to capture, post and share photographs of democracy in action by documenting the local voting experience. NewAssignment.Net consulted on the project.
  • Along with independent live blogging networks news organizations like the BBC, CNN and others are relying on citizen journalists to get full coverage of this years election. They can’t be everywhere, but we already are.

I’m bringing along my digital camera, and I look forward to doing my job as a citizen.  For newer readers, I only became a US citizen earlier this year, and I’m glad to have my chance to fulfill the commitment I made.  I hope you do as well.

Take a look at David’s list – it’s even in an easy-to-consume “Top 9” format!

UPDATE: if you are one of the, say 95% of the mobile phone owners in this country whose phone is capable of storing or sharing video, take a look at the “Veek the Vote” service.  Read the comments below by Kemble and Rodger for more info, or skip that and just go check out the site.  Just be sure to vote tomorrow!

Finally someone, somewhere has a good experience with TSA!

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SNL TSA skitI was reading Brad Feld’s blog today and saw his post with a photo from La Guardia airport.  I am stunned at the amazingly poor state of things with regards to flight and TSA policies.  I am more stunned that it seems to be status quo, and not changing for the better.  On Saturday Night Live last month, there was a great skit wherein they portrayed a TSA training session.  When presented with rules such as “no liquids over 3oz” a trainee asked the (obvious) question, “what if two people get together with 3oz each?  Is 6oz dangerous?”

No carryons allowedWhen the liquid ban came into effect a couple of months ago, I was on a trip to Europe.  I flew home via Stockholm airport, where they told me to put all my carry-ons in a clear plastic bag, otherwise they’d get confiscated in Frankfurt en route to the USA.  Sure enough, I was the only guy walking around Frankfurt with a huge baggie full of my personal effects.

However on virtually every trip I have taken since that flight, my carryon bag contained multiple containers with liquids or gels (yes, I admit to grabbing shampoos from hotels, but only one per stay).  My secret?  Well, I’ve mastered the security system.  Here’s what I do: when asked “got liquid?” I respond “no” and move along.  Try it out, it works pretty well.

Last week, as my wife and I entered security in SFO and we placed our bags on the security belt, to my extreme chagrin she separated her makeup bag.  Big no-no, but I couldn’t stop her in time.  Sure enough, the TSA employee picked up the bag, and went through it.  She found some makeup and lotion, and gave her three options: check it (nope), put it in a Ziploc bag (huh?), or chuck it out (gee, thanks).

I tried reason.  I tried logic.  To no avail.  I politely (then again, slightly less politely) asked how the TSA could operate such a policy without providing a reasonable solution.  Her oft-repeated answer: “all this information is available on our Web site” (not the official link).  I must say, I felt quite a bit like Arthur Dent (the only hint for such a reference is it involves a bulldozer, the rest, dear reader, is up to you).

Kudos to Wal-Mart, US Airways, and whatever supervisor at La Guardia who did not actively prevent such a common sense solution to a stupid, self-imposed problem.  Although I must say, knowing that mascara and facial cream can only be carried aboard a triple-7 inside a see-through Ziploc bag makes me feel safe, and I can only imagine it really drives fear into the hearts and minds of the terrorists.

I’m voting in the USA for the first time in my life this Tuesday, but it appears my ballot (yes on 87) doesn’t have any option to vote out such incompetence.  Ah well, maybe in ’08.

links for 2006-11-06

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New blog to bookmark: Jason Dunn

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Saw over at jkOnTheRun this morning that Jason Dunn is blogging now.  Jason runs the “XXXXthoughts.com” series of blogs.  No, the XXXX isn’t for porn, it’s for:

I have no idea how he’s going to find the time for it, but I look forward to reading his new personal blog.  He’s certainly earned his stripes with the others! 

Only question is, shouldn’t his blog be JasonDunnThoughts.com?  😉