I read an interesting blog posting today from a guy who’s visiting Switzerland and 
he’s noticed that all the watch advertisements he’s see has the time set at 10:09. It’s kind of eerie when you see all the ads.
Check out his blog post here .
Author: Mike P. Lewis
Gmail Chat Is Awesome
I think this flew under the radar for a few days for me before i fully appreciated how great a move this is for Google. I figure it will take about 6 months or 1 year before there’s an article in Time/Newsweek/Fortune about how great Google is for things like this (and maps, search, etc). First off, after search, Gmail is the only real application that i really like from Google.* It’s a great application – they really thought through how people use email and introduced some very nice features that i hadn’t seen on webmail services before, such as 1) threaded email messages – which appear that way in your inbox, 2) labels instead of folder – others still haven’t caught on to the subtle difference, 3) unlimited storage, 4) Unlimited session time – no need to sign in every 20 minutes.
The last point, which i always took for granted, is the key to their new Google Chat. I didn’t know the power until they started building for a me a buddy list on my left-hand side. Then i started receiving IM’s from them (Google IM’s, that is). Whoa!
I’ve been using AIM for a decade now and although other IM clients are far superior, i didn’t think i’d see anyone overtaking it because of the network effect. What i didn’t realize is that Google is doing the smart thing by leveraging the fact that there’s a huge user base logged into Google all the time. Why not convert GMail into an IM client? AIM is adding on email.
Think how many companies could have done this before? Outlook knows everyone’s email. It could have built a buddylist in the side and allowed you to IM (using MSN Messenger technology) anyone in your address book who is also using Outlook or using MSN. That would have been huge.
My prediction is that Google Chat/Talk will become the #2 IM Network in 2 years. AIM will hang on b/c it has all the youngsters already.
* Note: I have a bias against Maps because of my past relationship with Keyhole (which Google bought to make Google Maps).
Google vs. MS: Web Terminals Will Win
I was looking at Intel’s new core, and i heard about Sun’s new Sparc. It’s clear that microprocessors continue to get faster and better, and seem to be mostly utilized on the server side. Laptop and desktop machines don’t need more power because there aren’t that many applications pushing that envelope. For instance, i have a wimpy 1.2 Ghz machine and it does fine. But browser applications are becoming more and more demanding and Operations centers need more and more power from their boxes – which they will be getting with these new chips.
In my opinion, this foreshadows Google and Yahoo’s besting of Microsoft. MS has been very successful for years at making desktop applications, and have ridden the proecssor advances accodingly. There is a fundamental change going on today. All the new applications being build, all the new tools people are using, they aren’t desktop applications. They are browser applications. Compare MS applications Word, Excel, and Outlook (Email/Calendar) to Writely, NumSum, Gmail, and CalendarHub. These new browser applications are still new but you can see how they are just as powerful and networked in ways that MS apps aren’t.
What’s interesting is that this is not a new vision or direction. Sun was there 10 years ago when they touted the Java terminal. They were just 10 years too early
Snowboarding in the Olympics? I Don't Like it
I was watching the snowboarding tonight and i just couldn’t help feeling that it just isn’t right. This should not be a sport in the Olympics. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be a sport, at least not right now, i’m just saying don’t put it in the Olympics. Anyway ,here are my main complaints:
- Hasn’t been popular long enough. In almost all the other sports in the Olympics, they’ve been around for decades. They’ve ironed out all the rules, they’ve tailored the games to be the most exciting and competitive, and they’ve established some tradition and records. The 100 yard dash has always been 100 yards. They didn’t start with 90 then go to 120 and then settle for 100. It’s been this way for a long time. Snowboarding is so new, it is in the larva stage of production. It’s like the inside of a tomato – it just isn’t quite developed yet. Wait a couple more X-Games, wait for it to be understood by some more folks – then if it is really played across the world, you can bring it in. There aren’t even world-record holders yet, are there?
- Too popular. To me, the Winter Olympics is all about letting the folks who have really put their sport above sex shine. You look at the speed-skater, the nordic skier, the bobsledder or the luger and you see a guy who, for the first time in 4 years, is being noticed. I can feel them thinking to themselves “I’m finally here in the Olympic Village – my one chance to get some ass.” And i say let them get ass – let the entire world watch them – let us applaud their dedication and devotion to being the best in the world. This ins’t the case for the snowboarders. They are already the cool kids. They already have groupies – this event does not make or break them, and you can tell. There isn’t the same passion, the same level of excitement or dispair. Maybe this is because the X-games is on every year so this is just a side-show that that. Maybe they should only allow X-Game winners to participate in the Olympics – that’d make it more prestigious wouldn’t it and provide a good feeder system. It runs the risk of being like tennis or soccer where you already have Wimbleton and the World Cup so Olympics is pointless. It just seems like it doesn’t fit in yet.
- Too American. America dominates snowboarding. I see snowboarding’s addition an Olympic sport as a shameless attempt for the Olympic committee to try to get more marketing dollars from the US. One of the good things about the Olympics is that it is a global affair. These are sports that all countries play. Why introduce one that is mostly done by Americans? That just doesn’t seem fair.
- Too fun. All other sports seem grueling and painful and tough. There’s not another sport i can think of in any Olympic Games that people would want to get up off the couch and do in their free time (with the exception of beach volleyball – and i have the same complaint there). Snowboarding on a half-pipe is just too fun – it can’t be a sport. It’s like wakeboarding, water skiing, or tubing on a lake. That’s a blast and some people can do some amazing things, but that doesn’t mean it should be a sport in the Olympics, does it? Check out Shawn White’s post victory interview – is he even taking this seriously?
- Drugs. I’m sure they’re not all stoners, but they’re not doing a good job of shedding that stereotype. Especially when even the announcers are saying things (and i seriously heard this), “I bet she’s pretty stoked she landed that one.” Come on.
- Judges. I hate it when a sport has to be defined by other people giving scores. It sucks during the slam dunk competition and it sucks here. I want to know, and i want the competitor to know, immediately whether they’re in first or last place. I fully back downhill races and/or any race because you have a clear winner and you are the fastest. In snowboarding competition – a winner is what, the best jumper? trickster? i just don’t buy it.
It makes you wonder why skateboarding isn’t an Olympic sport. It’s been around longer, has just as many people do it, and is just as dangerous. Oh well, that’s my rant for the night.
But, before i go. Toby brought up a completely random good point tonight – we never see a zamboni while watching speed skating. But yet the ice is always incredibly smooth which means that they must zamboni between every race. Those things can take a long time. Can you imagine how boring that is?!
Milan to Minsk? How about DC to NY
Sure it’s not an erotic journey (a la Seinfeld), but it is still quite an adventure. As
someone who has lived and worked in both DC and NY and gone back and forth regularly, i’m very familiar with the various travelling options. But this weekend was something special. As usual i explored my options:
- The train is usually the best as it takes you right into the city (no cabs) and isn’t delayed as much as a plane.
- Driving can be convenient if you need to be flexible, but you can’t do anything on the trip, so it’s just wasted time. If i have some good tunes or a podcast, it’s fine, but i rarely have enough material for the 4 hour trip. Plus there’s always
some parking hassle. - My latest love is the Chinatown Bus, or what i like to use is the Eastern Shuttle. This amazingly cheap and takes you right from Chinatown to Chinatown (or Midtown). We’re talking $30 round trip and you can just relax, get work done, watch a movie, whatever. For the money, my favorite.
This past weekend i took the bus and had a pretty good trip. However, what i wasn’t counting on was 26 inches of snow!
I woke up Sunday morning to quite a scene. What i love about NY snowstorms is that the cars disappear and the streets become filled with walkers. I reminds me of movies after the apocalype occurs or zombies take over and everybody’s just on foot fending for themselves. Think of the movies 28 Days Later or The Stand except with a crapload of snow and without the mass destruction. That’s what NY is like today. Pretty great actually – just a serene scene of beautiful NY in the snow.
Jim Croce Rocks
I’ve always loved Jim’s music. It’s a great mix of sappy, cheesy love songs (Operator, Have To Say I Love You In A Song) and great folk rock (Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Mess Around With Jim). But, given that we have all these VH1 specials and full-featured movies about great music legends (Ray, Walk the Line), I can’t understand why there isn’t more press, specials, or movies about Jim Croce. I mean his career is phenomenal. Let’s just look at what went down…
- Didn’t even care about music till he got to college, graduated in 1965
- Met his wife when she was a sophomore in high school and he was a junior in college (scandalous!)
- After college he recorded an album with his wife and they tried to make it happen, but that didn’t really work out. Moved out of the city without even enough money to pay the toll
- With his wife, he moved to the country and lived on a farm (Lyndell, PA) and regularly jammed with other rock stars while making money working construction jobs
- When he heard his wife was pregnant, he decided to give it one more shot and released his first album in 1970, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim. The album went on to be ranked #1 on the pop charts. It had 3 songs crack the top 40 (Time in a Bottle, Operator, Don’t Mess Around With Jim)
- His second album, Life and Times, came out almost 6 months after his first and kicked ass on the charts too. It had 2 songs crack the top 40 (One Less Set of Footsteps, , Bad Bad Leroy Brown)
- Just 2 years after he released his first album, he released his 3rd album I Got a Name. The album went to #2 on the charts and had 3 songs in the top 40 (I Got a Name, Working at the Car Wash Blues, I’ll Have To Say I Love In A Song)
- Unfortunately, after releasing his 3rd album he died in a plane crash on September 20, 1973
I find his music to be very sincere and frank – a folkish and simplistic manner that you can’t really find in music today. There’s an interesting bio written in 1973 of how he had a bunch of construction and jackhammer jobs before his first album. Also, there a good story of how the process a having a baby made him get serious and finally put his music out there. Here’s to you Jim…
Ideas, Observations & Questions
Just some things i’ve noticed over the past few months:
- Why is NY the only city that’s implemented the cascading street lights? One light turns green, then when you get to the next – guess what? It turns green. Genius. I can’t stand waiting at a stoplight for 5 minutes, only to go 20 years to the next light which has just turned red. Mass Ave is killing me!
- What is the deal with women’s pointed shoes. People’s feet aren’t shaped that way, why do they make shoes that way. Is it supposed to be sexier? I always find myself looking at them and thinking – “man, shoe designers are dumb.”
- On ABC’s show Lost, John Locke is clearly the most interesting and coolest character. Wouldn’t a spin-off called “Locke’s Cave” be the best spin-off show you can think of. Each week, they could have an episode run parrallel to the regular episode but just follow what John’s doing the entire time. Sometimes i’m watching that show and thinking, “I would rather just watch John have awckward conversations with Charlie or Echo.” I mean they did a Joey spin-off, it couldn’t be worse than that.
- A Reality TV Show idea that P-Walk talked about a few months ago goes like this….You gather some very attractive women from very poor areas of the country. Each episode you offer them large amounts of money to disfigure themselves. For instance, first episode you offer $30 grand for them to get a horrible nose job. Maybe for the season finale you offer $10 million for a full sex change. The winner gets something like $200k a year for as long as she remains a man. It’d be a battle to see if the women are willing to live a completely new life, filled with riches and luxury, but they have to live a lie, live as a man. It’s such a horrible idea, a total trainwreck. I just might watch it.
- Often, when i’m driving around town -maybe stuck in traffic- think to myself, “I wonder what is Axl Rose doing right now?” I’m just curious. What could he be doing? He is one of the biggest rock stars in the past 20 years – came out with 4 amazing albums – and now i wonder, is he now just playing pool and boozing it up with his buddies in LA? Seriously, i couldn’t see him doing anything but partying. It’d be kind of cool if he, Vince Neil (Montly Crue), Bret Michaels (Poison) and Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) formed a bowling team and just bowled like 4 days a week. I did hear that he just turned 44 this past Monday.
Dead On (Quote)
Flatter me, and i may not believe you. Criticize me, and i may not like you. Ignore me, and i may not fogive you. Encourage me, and i may not forget you. – William Arthur
If you’re out there, you know who you are – you hate being ignored, don’t believe flattery, and are not easily forgotten.
Movie Update
A few notes and tidbits i’ve collected from around the internet:
- They’ve selected more actors for the new Harry Potter movie The Order of the Pheonix. (Got this from this post) They are below. I have no idea who any of these people are, but i had never heard of the chick who plays Hermoine either and she rocks. So hopefully these will be good.
- Bellatrix Lestrange will be: Helen McCrory (don’t know her)
- Professor Umbridge will be: Imedla Staunton (whoever that is)
- Tonks will be: Natalia Tena (had a small part in About a Boy)
- Mrs. Figg will be: Kathryn Hunter (again, no idea)
- This video on YouTube combines the music of Brokeback Mountain with Back to the Future and is HILARIOUS. Video is embedded below
- Bon Jovi’s guitarist Richie Sambora and his wife of 11 years, actress Heather Locklear, are going to divorce. Heather is still smoking hot, especially if you saw her great guest appearance on Scrubs. So you’re saying there’s a chance….
- Another good mock-trailer on eBaum’s world that shows the movie Big as a child-molestation flick. Pretty funny
- Read this (on Ebert’s site) about the Don Haskins, the coach at Texas El Paso in Glory Road:
- Thought you would be interested to know that Mr. Haskins received roughly $375,000 for the movie. The players received about $7,500 apiece. When Haskins found out how little the players received, he insisted that his portion be divided evenly amongst all. Everyone then received roughly $37,000, including Mr. Haskins. What a man.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfODSPIYwpQ]
AOL's State of the Union
Time Warner just announced their quarterly numbers. Although TW profits went up, AOL subscribers continue to drop down to 19 million. Just a few years ago they were over 35 million and now they’ve shed around 16 MILLION members. Why is this? Could it be that all the areas they were once dominant in they are now not even second tier? In this new world of social media and collective intelligence AOL is nowhere to be found. As a former employee (2000-2004) at both AOLTW Corporate and AOL Broadband i’ve seen some things. Here’s my take:
- Social Networking & Blogging. Currently being dominated by MySpace, thefacebook, and others such as Friendster, yahoo 360, etc.. AOL plans to launch something with AIM soon (AIMspace), but i’d say they are about 3 years too late. Why would anyone swi
tch from MySpace to AIM? Tied in closely with this is blogging. So many people, novices and professionals are looking for a place to put their thoughts, rants, and memories. So, while Google is buying Blogger and Yahoo is partnering with Moveable Type, AOL is sticking with their AOL Journals which is very limited in custimization, doesn’t have RSS, and can’t be hosted. I think they either need to get serious or get kill it. - Music Services. There are several viable music services out there. For the moment, let’s ignore the fact that everyone and their mother is using iTunes. What else is there? There are music subscription services such as Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Napster, Mus
icNet, and eMusic (description of each below). AOL has rested on MusicNet for the past 4 years and last year bought up MusicNow for around $10 million. They had roughly 250k-300k MusicNet subs and i doubt they have anything close to that with MusicNow. At least with MusicNow they are building in community features (i think with MusicStrands), but does it tie into the AIM social network – doubtful. Does it tie in to AIM? Probably not. Is it featured on AOL anywhere? No, not really. When you’re this far behind, the best thing you can do is call in the community. This is what Yahoo’s done with the YME. They know they’re behind in terms of features and functionality, so they made a robust plug-in architecture so the rest of the world can help them catch up. This is why i think Yahoo will be the biggest player after Apple.
- Rhapsody has been around the longest, is the most web-based and gotten in bed with MS. They have some interesting radio features but for the most part is somewhat klunky. It will be interesting to see what happens with this once MS gets their paws all over it. Supposedly, all MSN music will be powered by Rhapsody.
- Yahoo Music (with Yahoo Music Unlimited) is slick. As i mentioned above, iIt has some great API’s and ties in well with Y! Messenger. The subscription service is cheap ($60 a year). Unfortunately it has very little subs, but that could change if the WMA issue gets better.
- Napster is getting better and better, but still has relatively few social aspects. It has a good library and great branding but not much else.
- eMusic is differentiated with an mp3 library. It’s not all-you-can-eat but it is ipod-compatible which makes a HUGE difference in this world 45 million iPods. They don’t have any mainstream artists but have almost all the indie artists.
- MusicNet has the largest subscription library but it is simply a fulfillment engine. It powers services such as Virgin, Cdigix, and even Yahoo!. But there is no community here.
- Advertising. This is when i realized that AOL will always be the JV squad in the internet game. Yahoo was serious about music and went out and bought MusicMatch for $500 million in 2003 and Launch Music (good article) for $12 million in 2001. AOL waited 4 more years then invested $10 million for a MusicNow library. Then advertising emerged as a viable and powerful revenue stream, Yahoo! spent 1.6 billion on Overture and AOL spent a few hundred million on Advertising.com – forever relegating them to minor league ball. Not that they’re doing incredibly poorly, but will they approach anything like Google’s Adsense? The old AOL would have bought whoever it needed to stay on top.
- Mail. AOL’s golden nugget is the screenname. Users won’t switch because they don’t want to lose their email address and they pay $24 bucks a month for it. Meanwhile Gmail comes out with (basically) unlimited storage – for FREE. Then Yahoo and Hotmail counter with equal storage. Gmail and Yahoo continue to make their services better and better with slick javascript (gmail is the AJAX gold standard) and the new Yahoo Mail Beta is supposedly amazing. What is AOL doing? They make mail the most click-intensive application ever. You need 3 seperate windows to just send a message. And to make it even worse, your mail still expires after 28 days. Wtf? When will they wake up and realize that on a scale of 1-10, AOL is batting about a 3. Let’s break mail down even more:
- Authentication. AOL requires you to sign on each time you come to it’s site. Sounds reasonable. However if you go to check your mail multiple times a day, it gets annoying. Neither Yahoo nor Gmail makes you do that. Even if you check “remember me” – it doesn’t.
- Session Time. Gmail lets you stay signed in all day (and actually b/c of this launched a slick app – check out my future post). AOL signs you out after 15-20 minutes. Why are they making it such a pain to read your mail? Should services try to delight the customer?
- Inbox. Time to bring in some AJAX. The interface is slow and ugly.
- Integration with other services. No AIM, no real precense, no easy to access address, nothing.
- Video. This is one space where AOL is doing ok. If you look at the types of video becoming available on the web from amateur (caught-on-tape) on one end to amateur narrative films (iFilm) in the middle to professional content on the other end. AOL is focussing directly on the far end of professional content only. They have deals with many major players to stream the video (NFL, CNN, E!, NBA, WB, etc.) however they make it hard to find the video or to use it anywhere outside of AOL. Their new hi-Q initiative using Kontiki is very interesting because it downloads and dramatically improves up the quality of the video, but the there isn’t much content available in Hi-Q yet – it’s currently only trailers and music videos. My question is where’s the focus on short video clips? There’s an explosion of content coming from short clips such as SNL’s Lazy Sunday that is being distributed through YouTube, Veoh, and now MySpace. This is where the eyeballs are. This is what users are passing around and looking for on the internet. However, AOL is focused on bring TV to the small internet screen. IP might be a delivery mechanism for that someday, but eventually it’ll be viewed on a big screen. I’m much more optimistic about Tivo/Netflix or MS Media Center applications. They have made some big investments in video search. But i don’t know any users to use video search. Basically there are only a few players that host a lot of video (YouTube, Google, and iTunes) and users go to them and search. If something isn’t there, they’ll check one of the others.
- Instant Messaging. AOL just released Triton, a much needed upgrade over the AIM application that hadn’t been changed for over 4 years. It is still cluttered with Ads, doesn’t integrate blogs or music. Also, check this out: there’s an AOL address book, but now there’s also an AIM address book (powered by Plaxo). And, to make their AOL Mail even more insignificant, there’s now AIM mail which is the exact same thing, but for free. How could you not expect users to be confused when you can’t even integrate AIM with AOL? I’ve started using Yahoo Messenger lately and found it to be just as full featured but with less bugs and easier to use. Google Talk is simplier and easier to use too. Obviously all the users are on AIM so that’s going to be the dominant player for years to come, but it’s horrible how they’ve failed to extend the AIM platform – no API’s, no major improvements, and increasing more cluttered with shameful attempts to suck cash out of it (games, voice, ads, etc.)
This is a long synopsis of a large multi-faceted company but it pains me to see how each step of the way they continue to build creative and useful applications to benefit their members.
Thoughts?