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Is Apple’s iPad the next big thing, or another Newton?

Posted by Jeffrey on Jan 27, 2010

There has certainly been a lot of digital ink spilled over the last little while trying to determine whether the Apple Tablet would be the second coming or just another device with superfluous hype. Now that the iPad has been unveiled I sense a bit of a letdown – with some justification – from the tech community.

Given the amount of press and speculation feature expectations were bound to overshoot what even arguably the leading consumer device manufacturer could deliver. But in the afterglow of today’s launch I am starting to wonder if we need to look beyond the actual device and features as some have mentioned.

With any new category it firstly is difficult to envisage what the eventual maturation of devices will look like. When automobiles were first starting to be delivered to mass markets, they took a lot of design cues from horse drawn carriages. It took quite a few years for cars as a new distinct category to emerge and people to accept that the two categories were different. What’s also exciting is the potential that cars would promise and deliver in terms of mobility and even urban design and travel.

Now I am not suggesting that Jobs and company have delivered something so life changing as the automobile, but we might want to separate out a few things from the hype to see if indeed there is promise that would justify even Apple’s internal hoopla. If we move past the shiny device itself to the ecosystem then to behaviour, are there any indications that this device would impact developers / users to create new ways to use / interact with the device? Could it then be a new way of interacting with content that is significantly better than what we have now?

I am only asking the question because the iPhone (which isn’t really just a phone, but a most personal computer) and its data plans changed how people interact on the go. Heck, it even changed how I interact in the home! It broke the carrier model of aggregating applications behind a pay-wall and brought more of an ecosystem approach to app creation and consumption. Are there any aspects in the iPad which may break existing content models?

Time will tell, but one thing is for sure: no one ever got rich underestimating Apple’s ability to create interesting new markets.

Tony Lacavera gives an update on the evolution of Canada’s wireless industry

Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 18, 2009

In a presentation that could have been entitled, “Can an entire industry change?” Tony Lacavera, the founder of Globalive and Wind Mobile spoke at the MobileMonday event at MaRS about the current (and potential future) of the wireless industry. In a wide ranging, very frank and interactive presentation that touched on more than a few industry complaints, Tony engaged the audience with Wind’s vision for how the wireless industry could change when they get to launch. Now that they have just been approved by Industry Minister Tony Clement in a dramatic reversal of the CRTCs ruling, Wind can build on the momentum they’ve been building for the past year or so.

But in an industry that is one of the most criticized from a customer service point of view, why would a company try to compete against very established players with deep pockets. The answer is contained in a dramatic slide which showed the veritable duopoly of control of the wireless market between the incumbents Rogers, Telus and Bell. Because of this, Tony made the case that there is a disincentive for the incumbents to be aggressive outside their home territory for risk of retaliation by the other players. Simply stated he believes “…that the root of all or our problems is contained in this slide.”

With a story that many of the audience members could relate to he recounted that when he stared Gloablive in 1998 he needed a cell phone, but he found customer service from the big carriers was lacking. This started a decade-long quest to somehow find a way to bring a customer-centric wireless company to the market. So when Industry Canada set aside wireless spectrum for new entrants for an auction in 2008, he went looking for partners that would provide him the scale to introduce a legitimate challenger to the incumbents. He found that partner in Egypt’s Orascom which is the 9th largest wireless operator in the world.

However, after bidding $445MM and winning spectrum in most of the provinces, the company was put before an ownership review by the federal government. In the first review, both Industry Canada and the Department of Justice approved the ownership structure, but was turned down by the CRTC. After what could only be described as an excruciating delay, the approval to launch was announced on Friday December 11, 2009, clearing the way for the company to begin selling wireless services.

The root of their strategy comes from the thousands of customer suggestions and submissions from their site, wirelesssoapbox.com. Lacavera said that he “talked to so many people and the problem that most of them talk about is the complexity,” of the whole process. “It’s so complicated, it’s like a car lease for 3 years,” Lacavera said, and we “need to make it simple and enjoyable.” To illustrate this, the company recently put together a humorous campaign that pokes fun at the way the incumbents currently sell wireless services.

Lacavera says that taking the complexity out of the business won’t be easy – customer service needs to be at the core of everything the company does. Along with a keen focus on the customer he mentioned a few of the “fun and cool” things they would have at launch including person-to-person mobile top ups; an open mobile application platform and social media and instant messaging integration.

As far as handsets go, Lacavera noted that they will have the “latest Blackberry” devices as well as the same ones which are available on other GSM networks. As for the iPhone, he said that it won’t be available at launch but there is “no reason” why it wouldn’t be available in the future.

In summing up his talk, Lacavera said that Wind Mobile is “in it for the long haul” and has every intention of competing and succeeding in winning business from the incumbent players. As everyone knows, it will be a challenge, but with the right customer focus and strategy the company looks to continuing to challenge the status quo and maybe just push the whole industry to change. And as one audience member later remarked, “It’s about time.”

OECD Broadband Pricing- Is Canada falling behind?

Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 16, 2009

From this data on the OECD site, it looks like Canadian consumers pay the third highest rates per megabit/sec in the world. Statistics show most of the growth in super high speed networks will come from fibre rollouts, not DSL or cable. About one in ten consumers around the world access the internet over fibre.

According to a new OECD paper, government investment could be justified based on even small direct benefits in just four key sectors of the economy – electricity, health, education and transportation. The full paper is available here.

Dishwasher drama – inside the world of dirty dishes

Posted by Jeffrey on Oct 7, 2009

When we were first designing our kitchen we really fell in love with the option that moved the sink over to the other side of the kitchen. Not only would this free up more counter space beside the range, but it would split up the two main work areas allowing more than one person to work simultaneously.

Well, in practice this has worked splendidly! But what this also meant was that the sink and dishwasher was visible from the rest of the main floor. So we would have to deal with potentially dirty dishes and an appliance in full view of company. To minimize the clutter we wanted to have a dishwasher that could take a custom panel that matched the rest of the millwork in the kitchen.

Custom panel hides dishwasher

The problem with this approach is that for the pleasure of installing a panel, most manufacturers charge significantly more than stock appliances. Why? I guess because they can. And, not all manufacturers have this option. So we quickly settled on two brands: Miele and Bosch.

We took a look at both and I honestly think that although each has its advantages and disadvantages, they are both solid machines. What really swung the pendulum in favour of the Miele was the third rack for cutlery (more on that in a moment) and the fact that we could get one that was a “scratch and dent” model for over 50% off the list price from MTC.

So I went to the showroom and ordered one for delivery. When it was delivered, the installer mentioned a few hints because Miele’s have a different installation method than others. As I mentioned previously, it was a good thing we got those tips because it was certainly somewhat less straightforward than I thought.

After first time we loaded it up and turned it on, we were sitting in our living room reading and at a certain point we both looked up and wondered if the thing was still on or if there was a problem and it had stopped. Well, no word of a lie, it was running, but it’s so quiet that we didn’t hear it! What a change from our old machine that was so loud we had to turn up the volume on the TV! The only time you can tell its going is during a drain cycle when the noise from the water rushing down the PVC drain pipes tells you that it’s still on.

It does however have quite a long cycle, which isn’t really a problem if you plan for it. I believe the manual says that the “normal” cycle is about 110 minutes! Additionally, with this type of dishwasher, there are no heating elements at the bottom to dry the dishes. Instead, the stainless walls retain heat which is radiated back into the drum and dries dishes by evaporation. If you open the unit just after it finishes, you’ll be greeted by pretty wet glasses and cutlery. So we typically turn it on in the evening and by morning things are usually pretty dry.

Speaking of glasses, a good rinse agent is mandatory! There is a separate compartment and a red indicator light if the reservoir is running low. Furthermore, its better not to use lots of dishwashing detergent or else the interior begins to smell a bit funky. I had to find that out by following a few online forums.

Three, count ‘em, three racks!

I really like the design of the racks and it has such a large capacity that it takes us a couple of days to fill. I’d rather fill the unit and run it once than run a few half empty loads but the problem with that is the inside starts to smell of whatever last nights dinner was! So I often just run a quick “rinse” if I know that we don’t have enough to run a full load.

It has a filter in the bottom that you have to check and clean manually (rather than an automatic one in most North American units). But its really no problem to get and and a quick rinse every few weeks gets out most things.

Filter is easy to clean

But just a word of warning- if you and your partner have “discussions” about how to load a dishwasher, you could find all sorts of things to argue about with this unit! For example, the third rack is for cutlery and supposedly the fastest method is to arrange all the knives together, the forks etc. so that when you unload, you just grab a handful and dump them into the drawer. So if you like this type of order (and your partner doesn’t) these discussions could degenerate quickly to a battle! Just warning you!

Cutlery rack-helpful or hindrance? Discuss!

Finally the big question: how well does it clean? Sorry to disappoint, but its just ok. Nothing startling, but ok. I eat oatmeal in the morning and not only do I have to scrape (as is recommended in the manual) but I have to rinse and scrub or else it gets baked on to the bowl. Even if I put them in and run it right away, it still gets baked on. I’ve tried a number of different locations and still the same problem. So I’ve learned to live with that because it does the other stuff so well. And it’s built in, so it’s not going anywhere for a while!

So there you have it- good looks, quiet, ok cleaning. And hopefully no more discussions about how to load cutlery.

ThinkFlood’s RedEye iPhone Remote for your stereo

Posted by Jeffrey on Aug 7, 2009

Well lets start off by repeating that as posted on the ThinkFlood website “this is a BETA” product.” I mention this because not only was it available for a significant discount off the eventual retail price (which worked for me!), but because the company is still doing significant development to make the product better.

You might be asking yourself, “What is RedEye and why should I care?” Good question! It is a device coupled with an iPhone app that allows you to control all your A/V  equipment through WiFi . This is a great idea that has been attempted before with IR blasters, but no one has brought in the power of the iPhone application to control all the devices in the stereo cabinet.  Which is why I was attracted to this solution in the first place. I wanted my stereo equipment (Tuner/Amp, CD/DVD, surround speakers) to work in my newly painted and redecorated living room, but didn’t want to look at all the components sitting on a shelf collecting dust.

So I went to IKEA and bought a cabinet with a solid door so that I could close off the components to the outside world. So what’s the problem you ask? With the solid door, I couldn’t get an IR signal to control the devices. Not really a big deal when you consider I’d only have to open the door and turn on the Amp and then close the door; then open the door and adjust the volume and then close the door… Well you get the idea.

So as every good tech enthusiast asks, “Why expend energy when we have a technological solution to throw at the problem?” So I got on their site and ordered it through Amazon. After a few hiccups the product shipped out and arrived at my house a few days later.

First the packaging- really great job on all the design and how it is displayed! It looks top notch.

When I started to do the install I realized that I had some space limitations- it was difficult to get the unit inside the cabinet to send a signal to the devices so I had to jiggle with that a bit. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me explain how it seems to work.

There is a device that sits on or near the stereo equipment which flashes a blue light (looks pretty cool) that is “seen” by the IR receiver on the device(s) and controls all manner of functions. This device has a WiFi receiver built in so it gets the signal from the iPhone and transmits it to the stereo equipment.

The other part of the system is a free app that you download for your iPhone or iPod Touch that gives you a neat, clean interface to control the devices. So I could be sitting in my chair and fire up my iPhone (which of course is more readily available to me than that darned remote which keeps getting lost) and adjust the volume, change the station, flip on a CD or anything I could do with the regular remote(s). Best part? This solution is also a universal remote so I can do it all from one device. At least in theory, and here is where you have to go back to the first paragraph. Repeat after me- Its still in BETA!

So one thing to keep in mind is that everyone sets up stereo components after they’ve been drinking a bit (oh, wait- is that just me?) So the instructions seemed a bit cumbersome and didn’t make sense until I realized that not only could you control something in the living room, but you could control multiple rooms (as long as you are within range of the device). You have to use WiFi, so switch your iPhone to WiFi then initially look for the RedEye device and connect to it. You add your component by name in the setup screen, and add commands by capturing the remote setting by holding the remote to the device. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

So after trying a bit more for about an hour, I gave up and went to bed. When I opened the iPhone app the next day and connected to my home network (as in the instructions) the app looked and looked but couldn’t find the device. So as I do with most electronic devices that aren’t behaving, I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Then I got the stereo to turn on! Awesome!

So I closed the door to the cabinet and tried again. Nothing. I could see the device flashing but no change. So (and this is because of my cabinet door) I taped a piece of silver tape (usually used for HVAC) and it bounces the light off and turns devices on or off pretty well. Except when I get “Network Time out” errors on the application.

The company has been updating the app on a regular basis which is great and making it somewhat more reliable, but I still have some issues with the UI. You set up commands for each “room”, and then group the commands (ie turn on amp, turn on CD, press play on CD) into activities. So I get this, but it doesn’t always work. So I think there might be a way to have more of a step by step system in the app to walk through what would be likely use cases for 90% of the population, then hide the setup stuff unless it is needed.

Also when the app starts it looks for the rooms (I guess it tries to contact the device and read the info stored in RAM) and most times it just looks and never finds the device). When it does find the device, it tells me I have to select the room before I can do anything. But I only have one room! So it should know that and autoselect so I can just go to my activities.

Finally it is a bit slow. In this world of insta-on, it takes a bit of getting used to. What I mean is that you have to wait a bit for the command to get sent to the device, then for the device to respond. If you keep hitting the command it will either time out or eventually all the commands will get sent and the volume will go up, up, up! All in all, I love the concept, and am eagerly looking forward to having some of these small bugs worked out!

iphone 3G tethering on Fido

Posted by Jeffrey on Jul 3, 2009

I spent a few minutes yesterday setting up tethering on my iPhone 3G using Fido (actually Rogers, but that’s another story). It didn’t take that long once I actually realized that you need a few things to make it happen:

• A PC (in my case a HP dv6000 Laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium)
• iPhone 3G with the iPhone 3.0 or better update
• iTunes 8.2 or better
• Either Bluetooth (don’t have it on my laptop:<, or the USB cable from the iPhone)
• 3G or EDGE coverage (not a problem in the city, but maybe in outlying areas)
• A big data bucket!

The reason I set it up is that we are going out of the city and I want a way to check email etc without using (shudder) dial-up.)

So after updating my iTunes on Vista and restarting it was just a matter of going to Settings->General->Network ->Internet Tethering and turning it on. Then I hooked up the USB cable to the port on the side of the laptop and Vista recognized it as another broadband connection in  Network and Sharing Center.

To test it I shut off the wireless on the laptop and found that I could surf at a pretty speedy pace on the iPhone. Pretty neat although I’d want to be careful what I did online to make sure I stay within my data bucket. Well, not really because I have a 6GB limit, but I don’t want to be pulling down too many movies from iTunes!

Plantronics Voyager 855- now working with iPhone

Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 18, 2009

I’ve been looking for a Bluetooth headset for a while but didn’t want to settle for a voice only one- I wanted to listen to music as well. Problem was, my iPhone didn’t do stereo Bluetooth because up until 3.0, it didn’t support A2DP which is the audio standard the devices need to communicate.

So I though I was SOL because I didn’t see how Apple could possible update the device with software. But I was wrong! Imagine my surprise when one of the features announced at WWDC ’09 was stereo Bluetooth! I didn’t even think it was possible but Apple, being clever, built in into the hardware and turning it on became possible with the right software upgrade.

So that solved the biggest problem. All I had to do was wait. And wait. And wait until June 17th for the upgrade to become available so I could download it and install. [I always worry when I upgrade software on most electronic devices about turning them into bricks, especially something that I use as frequently as my phone! But it went pretty smoothly all things considered]

Now a bit about the headset. The Plantronics Voyager 855 comes in an attractive package, suspended in clear plastic within the main outer box. I carefully pulled the headset out and took a look. It appears to be made to a high quality standard and although very light, looks like it will stand up to daily use.

It came with several replaceable ear buds that should help fit most ears. Except of course mine. Now this is not a new issue – I can’t get any ear buds, including the ones that came with the phone to fit. I just have a non-standard ear I guess….

The unit comes with two over the ear clips and I am still fiddling with them to get the headset to sit properly and comfortably.

So when I pulled the phone from the dock all looked good. I paired the two devices really fast (with QuickPair technology, the unit stays discoverable for about 10 minutes and makes pairing a snap.) I made a voice call and the call quality was great- some background noise but better than I was expecting.

But to my surprise when I played music it didn’t play through the headset. I consulted the manual to no avail. I went online to a few sites and quickly determined that I need to restart the phone. Oh yeah! After this I turned the headset off then back on and then off to the races. Stereo music with no wires!

As I write this, I am wearing the unit and its so light I forget I have it on. I have had to experiment with different earbuds and I think I will investigate if I can get custom ones made to fit if I can find a source. So far no luck but I’ll take any leads/suggestions.

And the best part? I got it on Amazon for about $100 off! It came from an Amazon store called shopcell.com and they shipped it out same day. With shipping it came to about $42 which is fantastic and I am looking forward to more testing. Stay tuned!

Not just WiFi, but MiFi

Posted by Jeffrey on May 8, 2009

Here’s an interesting item: have you ever wanted to take your WiFi with you?  I’m new device that runs on the cellular Data Network allows you to surf at broadband speeds and share your connection with up to five other people.  Now it’s not as fast as a cable modem but it does provide an interesting alternative to traditional broadband connections.
Where it becomes interesting is when you have an existing cellular data plan and are able to add this device to that plan.  You can use the device in your home and if your coverage area isn’t too big you can send share it with your entire family.  If you don’t surf a lot, and you’re going to use both a wired connection and this, it might allow you to actually get rid of your current wired connection [and WiFi modem] to save yourself about $50.00 per month.  The device itself costs $99.00 in signing up to a new plan after rebate.
Now it remains to be seen whether the providers of the service will allow you to add to this device to an existing plan.  And the range of the device is only about 30 feet. Oh, did I mention that are runs on batteries?  So it may not be the solution for every one but if you have a small home and travel a lot this might be a great alternative to allow you to surf through out the coverage area and save a bit of money in the meantime.

New iPhone coming out – enough for me to switch?

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 9, 2009

Well, the rumours abound that a new product is due from Apple that will once again tempt current iPhone users to switch to the new device. Is it enough for me to break my contract to get one of these hot little units into my hands?

Let me just say that so far this device has exceeded my expectations on a number of fronts. I call it my mobile window into the world and for the first time since I can recall (basically since I started using a “mobile phone” back in 1987) I don’t feel cut off from the digital world when I am out and about.
The app store has given users the ability to personalize the device in a way that is far more useful than ringtones and screensavers, which were pretty much the limit of customization a few years ago.
So overall I think this is far and away the best handset I’ve ever owned.

That being said, there are a few things that I could imagine are on the radar to be fixed. Number one is that for me, the battery life is terrible. I was at the Mesh conference the past few days and with using Twitter and other apps, the battery was dead at around 2PM. And I didn’t even make any calls!

The other item that stands out may be a bit easier to take care of; namely that the IMAP mail application often cant connect and mail sits in the outbox seemingly for hours which is extremely frustrating. Again this might just be an issue which can be covered in the upcoming 3.0 update, due out this summer.
So the answer to that question is that unless the battery life improves by at least 2x I won’t be switching to a new device.

DEMO 09 – Morning sessions

Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 2, 2009

Even thought I wasn’t able to attend this years Demo conference in Palm Desert, CA (which looks pretty good right now with our wind-chill this morning adding up to a balmy -27 degrees Celcius!).

This year since I wasn’t able to attend I got online and used the live stream and facebook integration to see the presenters and get a real sense from the chatter on the facebook widget, what people thought of the presentations. As usual my hunches were right! There were a few demos that stood out for their value propositions (that is their approach to solve a customer pain point), and some which were not so good. Sometimes its just the presenter which is awkward; sometimes the product/service is something that you’d question the need for;  often a combination of both.

I always like this conference as the pace and structure is different from most that you attend. It goes like this: there are sometimes 80 presenters over the 2 day event and each presenter gets 6 minutes on stage in front of all of the conference attendees to explain their product/service and demonstrate how it works. Hence the name “Demo.”

This year it seemed like the energy level was a bit low compared to my previous visits and I won’t ascribe that to the economy, but maybe to the fact that Demo creator Chris Shipley is passing on the reins after this conference to Matt Marshall, co-executive producer.

Here is a quick rundown on the morning’s sessions-

Pixetel- adds voice and video interactivity to emails, plays in any browser. Users can also send as secure links / email. You can verbally and visually explain spreadsheets, drawings, designs, proposals… anything on your screen. This was something that people online in the chat seemed to think was interesting and even though has been done in other applications, its good to see it brought to email

Rallypoint – End-end Enterprise crisis management platform, but through the demo, didn’t really get a clear sense of the service until almost the end of the presentation.

Vokle-  This company’s service is about adding live communications to the web. It adds an ability to discuss news/submissions live sort of like a video chat room. [Might be good for an enterprise?]

Gwabbit- We’ve all been there: cutting and pasting each line of a signature in an email to put into your address book. This service scans emails and moves contact info to address book with a single click, but isn’t this more of a feature than a service? Shouldn’t Microsoft buy them?

CC:Betty- In an interesting approach to bringing some more innovation to the email application (since Gmail who has really changed the paradigm?) This service brings content and items from email to web interface (They called it Facebook for email). I think this could be a great app from a network point of view.

Citrix-“GoView” – This company wants to make screen recordings so simple your mother could use the service. (Why is everyone so disparaging of mothers?) Its still not that simple to use. My mom would have walked away long ago.

Zuora-  There are lots of Facebook apps and lots of Developers and the “Z-commerce platform” allows them to monetize their apps. But I guess the question is, how many people would want to pay for the apps?

Document Depository Corp –  This application is all about managing important documents like Corporate Governance and legal processes. Important for sure, but didn’t get a sense of excitement from the demo.

Home accounts – If consumers had this service before the credit crisis, maybe we wouldn’t be in such a state now. It gives applicants a sense of the most appropriate (re: money saving)  mortgage for their situation. They are independent and not funded by the banks so can give (hopefully) less biased advice.

Zipadi- A publishing platform to convert paper catalogue to ecommerce site. Hmm, hasn’t this been done before?

7billion people- (weblegend) person sales tactics; can change tactics in real time. Click stream based analysis of behaviour and site customization. Neat and they demo’d using the Amazon site even though Amazon is not their customer. [How’d they do that?]

Liquid media-personalize advertising not sure how it works- is it voice mail only?

So a full slate in the morning and I will try to get a handle on the afternoon sessions as well.

Design and HP- Boosting sales in tough times

Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 6, 2008

I have been a big believer in design and the benefits not only to consumers, but to the bottom line. There are various studies out there which show that there are direct financial benefits to “good” design but its interesting to see which companies are heading down the design path and for what reasons.

In a recent Bloomberg article, HP is focusing on design to help it widen its lead over 2nd place Dell in terms of sales of computers. With an eye to Apple, it has started producing machines in a variety of colors and materials that challenge previous wisdom that computers are “boring beige boxes.”

Taking a page from one of its competitors is nothing new in the PC business but HP is aiming to deliver “lighter, more stylish laptops at prices that beat or match those of Dell. With little to separate the machines’ performance, design may be the tipping point.” As Roger Kay president of researcher Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc. in Wayland, Massachusetts explains, “They’re not charging a premium for design — they’re just doing great design.”

What is really interesting is the way HP is introducing design to its line-up. Since the company started to understand that design is a differentiator, they have made “cultural shifts” in order to foster this type of thinking within the ranks. In an early meeting with designers, PC chief Todd Bradley told employees that PCs should be an “object of desire and possession” and that designers had permission to explore form and function not just cut costs. “Not only did they have the permission to be creative and design beautiful products, it was a mandate,” said Bradley, 49. “We made design a very visible priority.”

The team even has a different physical environment in which to work reflecting the increased focus on design with frosted glass Hermann Miller partitions rather than the grey cubes housing workers in the rest of the company.

The team is challenged to think about all aspects of the value chain, not only the end product. For instance, the company is re-thinking its shipping process, slimming down the amount of packaging used not only to cut costs and get more units on a skid but using less polystyrene is better for the environment. In looking at the way colors and designs are laid down on the laptop cases the company switched to a process called imprinting which is used in car detailing and fuses the designs right onto the material. This has improved the yield of units coming off the assembly line to 90% from 60%. In fact HP is working with BestBuy to offer special edition notebooks to target groups such as students, gamers and women.

This focus on design is estimated in a recent Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. report to help boost sales 6% over its rivals in the coming year as customers in challenging times become more discerning in their PC purchases. Not one to be outdone, Dell has introduced new colors to its laptop line and is rumoured to be completely revamping its line-up within the year.

Millennials and Music

Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 5, 2008

I was at a conference recently (called The Millennials - the generation roughly born from 1982 to 2001) and the most notable session in the morning was chaired by Alan Cross whose “Ongoing History of New Music” really was influential in giving me a new appreciation of how popular music forms around trends and influences. The topic of the session was “Connecting to a New Generation of Music Consumers.” The session focused around how they consume music and other content. On the panel was Jodie Ferneyhough – MD, Universal Music Publishing; Dave Kines- Manager, Music Partnerships, Rogers Media; Daniel Ewing – EVP, Ticketmaster; Dave Jaworski – CEO, Passalong Networks.

Alan Cross posed the first question “How will the Millenniums consumer music?” The response from the panel revolved around how these consumers had access to many devices (phones, iPods, computers etc.) and wanted their content to be more mobile, just like they are. Furthermore, they have also shown that they will not be content to wait for content and wanted it faster than previous generations. The conversation turned to convenience and not only getting the content ‘whenever, where-ever,’ but how this generation appears to want to purchase ‘a-la-acarte’ instead of getting a CD with ‘one or two tracks’ they like.

The next question from Alan brought me back to my youth in that he asked “What happened to broad consensus in music?” It seemed to me that back then, there were a few stragglers who liked country or jazz or new wave, but at a certain time everyone liked Kiss or Cheap Trick and God forbid if you didn’t… One of the panelist mentioned that maybe the format imposed this type of restriction on behavior, but now consumers could customize their playlists so it didn’t seem as relevant today.

 But if this is true, what happens to the ’social experience’ of music? The listening party; the ‘tribal experience’ of belonging to the ‘metal heads’ or ‘new wavers?’ Are we really programming to a listenership of ‘one?’ How then could the industry market to this group? One theory was that it had to be an ‘experience’ that was the actual thing being sold, not just the recorded music and perhaps the expectations of selling millions of copies of a track were not based in this new reality.

This led to a lively discussion on the question of whether music is still a unifying force for this generation. Given the prevalence of protest songs of the 60s and 70s and the rebellion songs of the late 70s and early 80s is this generation still expressing themselves through music? Sounds like the jury is still out on this one as there were several theories floated ranging from expression in different ways (rather than writing songs, Millennials were actually joining NGOs and going to Africa)  to a thought that the songs were out there, but we weren’t seeing them.

So amongst the music execs, there is not a whole lot of consensus, although they did agree that the model of selling hardcopy tracks is in transition and the eventual ‘replacement’ for this model is still not certain. Now where is my copy of Live at Budokan

Search- is interface the new battleground?

Posted by Jeffrey on Feb 19, 2008

I was thinking recently about all the work being done around “natural language” search with several startups (notably powerset.com and textdigger.com) looking to make everyone’s search experience less frustrating. Let’s face it; despite all the work going into algorythms behind the scene, I don’t think that search today is significantly different than 5 years ago.

You type in your word combos into the box and hope and pray that something relevant comes back in the first 10 entries on the page. Or you can repeat with a slightly different boolean combo. And still hope and pray…

But maybe its not simply in the initial search terms that determine how successful the search for information will be. Maybe if we acknowledge that its really really hard to get back the results we want on the first try, that the way to develop a better search experience is how you engage with the results to refine that search.

 That’s why I was interested in Quintura and more recently in silobreaker.com.  In each case they look at related items in a search visually in order to expose connections to the key search term. Don’t think an item is related? Just get rid of it either by clicking the ‘x’ or in the case of silobreaker, dragging it to the trash.

 

It makes refining the search more intuitive but also exposes linkages between items by proximity and size. Which helps you understand what the internet google Quintura/Silobreaker thinks of you.

Note: Another visual search engine was launched in Beta called SearchMe. Techcrunch covers it here

Nintendo Wii – Looking for Innovation

Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 30, 2007

Nintendo has quite a reputation in the gaming industry as video games have been this company’s forte for a long time. Although in the period leading up to the launch of the Wii you wouldn’t know that this company was once a giant in the gaming business. They were suffering from a distinct lack of buzz as other competitors spent more to drive the core gaming experience.

Nintendo is currently in the lead in the $30B game business (and correspondingly still generating a huge amount of buzz). This rather recent development was not anticipated by the other players in the industry: Microsoft and Sony bet on a continuation of better graphics and more processing power to sway core gamers over to their platform.

What made the Wii innovative is their intention to move beyond core gamers to casual gamers, which makes up a far greater sized pie. But first a few stats:

• Nintendo has already sold 13MM of their devices so far (at the end of 2007) and expects to sell 35MM or more by 2012
• In its first month on the market in the US (it launched on November 19th, 2006) retail market watcher NPD said the Wii sold 476,000 units, compared to 197,000 PS3s (launched on November 17th, 2006). It even came close to the X-box 360 which sold 511,000 in the whole month!
• Amazon.com sold Nintendo Wii systems at approximately 17 per second when they were in stock

Here is a sales comparison:

As you can see it appears that the X-box sales have leveled off (have they gone to the Wii?) 

So what happened to the gaming market? As the leading edge moved to move the bar higher and higher on high-res graphics and detailed gameplay, the number of gamers that wanted a less intense (but still engaging) experience was growing. Whether for time reasons (no time to learn detailed combinations/ controllers) or intimidation (I don’t want to feel lame in front of highly accomplished players) the market was less visible (and vocal) than the core gamer community. And here is where it is really difficult to guess what was going to happen.

By listening to their core community, both Microsoft and Sony built some of the most advanced technology to deliver a superb gaming experience to their customers. Problem was that there was this growing (but less vocal) customer group playing Bejewelled and Tetris that felt disengaged from the core. This is where the Wii, with its intuitive gyroscopically controlled gameplay could succeed.

It really lowered the bar on console gaming, bringing casual games that did not require significant effort to understand (uhhh, bowling?) to a larger audience. (They also did a fantastic job at viral marketing. Because the Wii was new and different, it automatically attracted people that wanted to find out what made it tick). All of which drove Nintendo to increase production three times in 2007 . Still the devices are hard to get a hold of…

…Leading to the fact that we are in 2008 (almost 18 months after launch) and I still can’t get a copy of Guitar Hero for Wii!

Joost is interesting and it is like some other things you may have seen.

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 18, 2007

In the Wednesday Keynote Joost CTO Dirk-Willem van Gulik explained a bit about their service. Joost mostly behaves like normal TV. You can “channel up, channel down; volume up, volume down” (as described by a well known Cable Exec.)

We can look at the screen to get an overall view of the service.

The EPG on the left shows a fairly standard line-up which includes My Channels. However you can watch shows like a TV as well scrub back and forth like a PVR. Also since there are content objects you can tune into at any time it also behaves like VOD.

The area at the top displays the content owner’s information and what’s really interesting is that after you click and an overlay comes up the resulting overlay is writable by anyone. Anyone can write, can interact with content or just display it as an overly to sit on top of the content. What this means to content owners I think is still up for debate.

One of the issues they have been struggling with is one which is familiar to all of us-How do you find content? The list just keeps gets longer and longer as more content is added to the network. This is something which they will be spending significant resources on over the next few months as they gear up for a major release in the summer timeframe.

The bottom has a search box anyone can expose on their own site. Every piece of content has own URL and users can comment on parts of the video.
You can save a list as a channel (“Smart Channel”), which you can share with friends.

On the right there is displayed MyJoost where when you click, you see an overlay of widgets on top of video. Once again there are APIs for this and you can pin the widgets to the screen. There are almost limitless applications that can interact with viewers and content.

Interview with Amazon’s Jeff Bezon

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 17, 2007

Jeff Bezos was one of the keynote speakers at the Web2.0 conference and in his eagerly anticipated talk he took the opportunity to highlight some of their initiatives to grow to the next level by providing outside businesses access to their world-class systems and technology. This approach would have seemed completely backwards about 5 years ago. Why provide potential competitors access to key technological assets and speed their time to market? Jeff tried to outline some of their thinking by kicking off his talk using their Amazon S3 internet-enabled file storage system; the same system they use internally for their e-commerce site Amazon.com.

Amazon S3 has grown from about 800m objects stored in the system in July 2006 to over 5 Billion objects today. To illustrate some of the benefits of using the service, Bezos put the site Blueorigin (his effort to build a space vehicle) and all the video for the site on S3 so that they didn’t have to worry about scaling. This ended up being a prescient move as the traffic spiked when someone posted the site on Digg.

In fact on that day in January after getting Dugg, the website and media objects on S3 responded to 3 million requests. There were countless downloads of the video leading to transfer of 758Gb of data in one day. They did this without a contract or any sales contact; it was all done self serve by filling out some forms on the site. And the best part of it was that for all of January it cost $304 dollars, with most of the charges coming for that one day!

On S3s busiest day they were serving 1 billion requests per day and almost 16k requests/ second. Interestingly enough users include a company we may be familiar with; Microsoft. Secondlife and Powerset are also among the users.

Another example of what Amazon is working on with their services involves a service called EC2 (EC2 stands for Elastic Cloud.) If for instance your business needed to process many media files from avi to mp4, you could use their EC2 service to process all these files, which traditionally has been a very processor intensive task.

What would happen is that the raw media files stored in S3 pass messages to a queue service in EC2. EC2 finds a pointer in S3 to that avi file and starts the processing into an mp4.

To maintain quality control when the queue grows long, the EC2 can spawn new EC2s to clone itself to increase throughput of the service. So in effect you have an on-demand virtual server environment, which you only have to pay for when used. After processing the objects the virtual servers are redeployed to other tasks so your business does not have to pay for all those processors 24/7. You can use what they call “pay-per-drink” pricing in order to only use what you need at that time.

But a key question is how did Amazon get from a bookstore to an infrastructure provider? They took learnings from how to scale and deliver Amazon.com to other applications. Once they had this knowledge, they realized that they could then leverage this and open up this on a pay-per use basis so that companies didn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they wanted to create an application or business.

The question then comes to mind whether Amazon is ‘traditional’ Web2.0 business? They have grown up alongside other trailblazing Web 1.0 companies but in contrast to the newer Web2.0 companies, they also have many hard offline assets including huge warehouses. But even thought they have 10 million ft2 of fulfillment space they are trying to again leverage their processes and infrastructure to outside players to create an ecosystem.

They reason that physical movement of goods won’t go away in next few years. So they will take the high cost services that businesses up to now have been forced to build or partner to get and allow businesses to exploit Amazon’s fulfillment network. You could think of this as the ‘programmable warehouse.’

You would simply hook into Amazon’s system and send a message that they should expect to receive items you will send over for storage in their warehouse. And the cost? Only 45 cents per cubic foot of storage per month. Then you can send a message to pick those things and Amazon would send them to an address you specify.

So they look at the future of Web2.0 a bit differently; they don’t just look at what will be the big disruptors, but they also put dollars into what they think won’t change. Interestingly, they feel they can build a strategy around what won’t change rather than what might.

Apple TV installation- A Non-Apple acolyte’s perspective

Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 24, 2007

Forget all the comments about backwards operating systems (PCs) and elegant simple to use interfaces (Mac); I wanted to see for myself if this extremely well-hyped device could do all the stuff that it was supposedly able to do. Things such as levitate objects, create food (“Earl Grey tea hot”; the Enterprise PC had to be Mac-based, no?) and other feats of magic.

Seriously this device had to live up to a lot of hype, not the least of which involved super-easy setup and use. I actually used Macs off and on over the years, from the Mac Classic back in 1991 to PowerMacs in the mid-90s to even a super-powered (at the time) G3 to do video editing and other tasks around 2000. I have also had a bunch of PCs as well (seems like everyone was using them.. and still is). My latest PC is about 5 years old and is in need of replacement, but now I am seriously thinking about going to a Mac. But that’s another story, for another post.

This is about my installation experience with the AppleTV box. When I heard that they were creating this product back in 2005 I thought that this would be a fantastic addition to a home entertainment system. I mean think of it; the ability to play all that stuff that is locked up on your computer without having to physically bring it down to wherever your TV was sitting seemed pretty attractive. I thought that they’d announce it at MacWorld in ‘06 but there was no mention of a product that people had started to call iTV. So still had to wait, and wait and wait.

So when it was announced along with the iPhone I thought that it would be a great opportunity to try finally get to try out something that would make this type of whole home “cross-platform” media experience a reality.

I confess that I was not quite as well informed about the requirements for the product as I thought. In fact (cue the inspirational music) I thought that I could just bring it home and hook it up to the flat panel in the basement with the many cables I have on hand from other devices/installations that I have put in over the past few years. Turns out that after I unboxed the unit, (kill the music), I realized that the only video connections were HDMI (not a chance) and Component. Crap; I didn’t have any of those cables on hand.

So it sat for a day uninstalled and unloved on the shelf on top of my Satelite box waiting for me to go out and get the component cable. Home depot to the rescue. So brought the cable back, hooked it all up to the flat panel and then tried to insert the power cable. Guess what? Due to some sort of manufacturing problem, the cable doesn’t properly seat in the unit. It just falls out. So I had to resort to good old painters tape to hold the cable to the unit so at least I could do the setup.

Don’t try this at home kids

After taping the cable temporarily, I looked in the box for the remote and nearly had to tear the damn box apart to get it out. This remote is so tiny that for sure it will get lost on the coffee table or eaten by a hungry animal out looking for snacks inbetween the cushions.

Finally getting the remote out allows you to choose the language, and pick the resolution. Weird but none of the higher res options work for this monitor, even though it does support higher resolutions. I’m going to to worry about that later….

The tricky part was trying to get it to find the iTunes client running on the network. I had this running but apparently there is an option in the Firewall section to share iTunes that has to be enabled or it won’t find the AppleTV box. (Good to know; I found this on the Apple site.)

But the box does find the network and I can put in the WEP key (slowly using the remote and picking each character one by one), so it does go out and find a short teaser version for Feature Films and TV. [Note that I am in Canada which sucks from an iTunes perspective as we are a third world country when it comes to getting video. The short answer is that we really have nothing, except some trailers and some music videos. Get with the picture Apple/Studios and let us get the content that we want!]

So finally got everything to synch after fooling around a bit with the menus and content looks surprisingly good. There still are some jagged edges and some blockiness in the blacks but in my opinion I only notice this because I am comparing it to higher resolution video. I really like the way I can access the video podcasts on this device to check out the previews for all the upcoming movies, so I can at least pretend that I know what’s going on and delude myself that I’ll actually have time to see them when they come out.

So overall, not a bad user experience for installing what could be a really complicated device. I think Apple has done a few things right: limit the number of options in setup (so as not to confuse the user); use wireless to synch content from the PC as well as connect to the iTunes service for the most up-to-date previews of shows and films (too bad we can’t see them here); made the user interface really simple with a few clicks of the (too small) remote.

I also have hooked up our Media Center PC to this flat panel and will try to get that back online in the next few days… but not really a fair comparison as the AppleTV is a purpose built unit and the MCPC is more of a PC with the TV client grafted on. But I think that the AppleTV unit looks waaaay better anyway.

Update: Last week I finally got the power cable to stay in the socket; basically by shoving it in waaay to hard for my comfort level. So now I am just waiting for Apple to sign more content in Canada…. (still waiting…)

How the web (2.0) is influencing us.

Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 2, 2007

This is a brilliant video, under 5 minutes, on how blogs, wikis, web feeds, social networking sites, and folksonomies are revolutionizing our culture .

Both for the technical person who understands it and also for the digital neophyte / newbie who needs to get a taste for how the web is transforming itself and impacting the way we click to learn and share knowledge. Fast paced, great soundtrack and super thoughts!

Refilling Dog Bowl: For Potty-Mouth Pets

Posted by Jeffrey on Aug 29, 2006

The Refilling Dog Bowl is a pretty good sight gag, and it actually has a practical purpose. Place a 2-liter bottle of water (or your pet’s favorite beverage) in the tank and it will automatically keep that mini-loo full of fresh fluids.


Just make sure your kids know it’s the dog’s bowl and not theirs. Made of glazed ceramic just like the real thing, the $15 bowl is just over 10 inches high, so only the tiniest wee ones will be tempted to wee here.

BlackBerry addict? – Hotel offers detox

Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 9, 2006

CHICAGO (Reuters) – BlackBerry addicts have a crack at freedom when they check into one Chicago hotel: the manager will put the communications devices and others like them under lock and key for guests who want a break.
Rick Ueno, general manager of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel, said the program which began on Wednesday grew out of his own personal BlackBerry addiction. His one-step recovery was switching to a regular cell phone.
“I was really addicted to my BlackBerry. I had an obsession with e-mail,” he told Reuters. “Morning and night. There came a time when I didn’t think it was healthy … I quit cold turkey.”
He believes guests might want to try the same thing for a day or two anyway, so they can concentrate on meetings, business and socializing while at the hotel.
Ueno said he would take personal charge of any BlackBerrys or related devices guests want to surrender and place them in his office locked up until their return is requested. There is no charge.
“I run a hotel with over 900 employees and thousands of guests. I think I’m more effective. I feel better. I sleep better. My family likes it,” he said of his post-BlackBerry life.
The popular hand-held devices, sometimes called “CrackBerries” because users become so reliant on them, are made by Canadian-based Research In Motion Ltd..