Category Archives: communication

communication

MySpace on the Decline while Facebook Continues to Grow

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Here’s a link to a little article about it.  Haha!!! I’m not surprised since I hadn’t heard or even thought about MySpace in months (maybe even years).  The same will be happening to Facebook, too, soon enough.  I had some relatives and friends who signed up for Facebook who say that it’s too much trouble to deal with Facebook.  Here’s are the complaints I’ve heard:

1.  I receive nothing but “Friend spam” — they end up feeling that Facebook is a scam because of this

2.  I don’t have enough time to have an online life so my page is empty and I don’t use the services

3.  My friends and family don’t use Facebook or they refuse to use Facebook, so there’s no point.

4.  I can’t keep away from my parents or adults who try to Friend me.

5.  “Jailbait” keeps trying to friend me.

I guess, when I look at the numbers, I take the huge numbers with a grain of salt.  I think the more interesting numbers would be to see a breakdown of activity — how many users get on more than once a day, once a day, once a week, once a month, or have basically idle accounts.  Yeah, Facebook may boast 276-million accounts, but how many of those accounts are active?

As for me, I’m a LinkedIn person.  The things I like about LinkedIn are:   I don’t have to worry about “children” friending me and the service has established a professional tone.   Because it’s professional tone I don’t have to worry about being exposed to explicit images, explicit language, explicit gossip, and defamation.  I can keep track of the people I care about on a very comfortable level for me.

Twitter, well, the verdict still out on that for me.  Most of the messages I have received about people wanting to follow me are spammers or Jailbait.  I’ve blocked nearly everyone who’s tried to follow me and I contacted Twitter customer service about the Jailbait.  Sadly enough, that leaves me with two followers ;p.  Haha!!!  But I’m cool with that :).

Advertising, communication, Digital Entertainment, Printing Ideas, self publishing

I Heard an Interesting thing About Newspapers

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I live in a city where my newspaper is in danger of being no longer. I can’t say I’ll miss the city newspaper because I haven’t subscribed to it in over 5-years. So what happened with me and the newspaper? Well, I ordered the Sunday newspaper only because getting the newspaper 7-days a week was too much for me to read and created too much trash for me to deal with. Unfortunately, the newspaper, obsessed with selling advertisements, ignored my desire and sent me the newspaper 7 times a week. I then canceled because my house became filled with newspapers I didn’t read. Our house and garage used to be littered with stacks of unread papers. It’s a fire hazard and they attract bugs and vermin that like to hide in the folds. I really only wanted the front page, the Sunday comics, and the Sunday coupons. The newspaper, actually didn’t stop coming, though, because my Dad signed up for the newspaper using the same phone number I did and the newspaper came to me instead of him. Hahaha!!! It was a frustrating experience. Needless to say, it got straightened out and I have been newspaper-free for years.

My problem with the newspapers is that they come on a ridiculous amount of paper. That’s why I turned to the Internet once it became a valid source. The newspapers are kicking themselves for not selling the news online at the start. The big problem though is hyper-linking. I heard some guy on KPBS’ “Editor’s Round Table” mention this, but I don’t think he completely grasped what he was saying. The problem is even if a newspaper charges people to access the news, there are ways to grab information and rebroadcast it that can’t stopped. Sure people can link to the information and then those that follow the link can pay whatever is charged to read the full article. But as a blogger, I have found myself cutting and pasting content from paid content because somewhere in the back of my mind the idea of the news being property is absurd — sorta like paying for flowers, unprepared food, water, air, and health care. (BTW: I have stopped cutting and pasting entire articles and I cleaned my blog to link the articles). I imagine most people feel this way, so it happens all the time. Anyhow, to sum it all up, because print is giving away to the internet, the newspapers can no longer control the distribution of their content. Continue reading I Heard an Interesting thing About Newspapers →

communication, Gadgets

“Tweetie” to Twitter on iPhone

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I’ve decided to use the “Tweetie” application to Twitter on the iPhone.  The application is pretty straight forward.  You can post to multiple accounts, reviews replies, get messages, save favorites, search, see global Twitter trends, and see the Tweets of folks nearby your location.  I get a lot of joy out of looking at the trends and the Tweets of the folks near me.  As for the value of Twitter in my life … it’s the same as blogging.  I’m happily expressing myself to who ever cares.  It’s a nice way to track my thoughts and activities for the day, but so far I’m not using it as a means for “useful” communication of status.  As for following and followers — so far I follow NPR and CNN and I have two followers.  I don’t personally know my followers and that’s cool.  Others have tried to follow me, but all of them have been Twitter spammers and I’ve blocked them or Twitter has banned them before I get the chance to block them.  The spam is annoying, but anywhere there’s a crack, the scamsters will squeeze their way in.

I’m not looking forward to the time when Twitter sells our Tweets to advertisers so we can be Tweet spammed every 5-secs …. sigh …

communication, connection, Digital Entertainment, Gadgets, Gaming

Consumers Want More Home Networking

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Here’s a little article from InformationWeek about consumers’ desire for more interoperability and networking options for their various personal gadgets.  Hahaha!!!  Well … in terms of networking, WiFi, Bluetooth, TCP/IP are just that.   All of the devices I have that use these protocols I can see on their respective networks.  When I remove DRM and other barriers I can push and pull data between these devices over their respective networks, too.  However, I would imagine for those that are not inclined to explore or are technically challenged, all of this networking stuff is daunting.

Because the electronics manufacturers want to lock consumers into their product ecosystems, the manufacturers are not inclined to make their products open to consumers.  Of course this never really works.  Successful products like the iPod work with a great many accessories and other non-Apple products and crafty people have come up with ways to “crack” the iPod so users can get around  DRM and reclaim the music they have purchased.  These products also tend to have a bunch of third party companies that make accessories and software for the devices.   Of, course it takes market dominance to begin with to have cottage industries pop up around a product.  iPod can thank the mp3 format, USB, and great product design for their success.  The glue, though, for interoperability are the mp3 file format and the USB hardware interface.  iPod took advantage of protocols that were already well established as universal.

So it seems to me that the foundation for device interoperability already exists.  It’s simply a matter of making it such that ordinary people can communicate with their devices over the common networks.  Centralized network devices like home servers and the third generation consoles like the xBox360 come close, now, to knitting everything together.  The problem is that these devices are not accessible to the lowest common denominator of consumers.  The wii comes closest to a device that is very accessible, but its hardware and software are not capable.  Continue reading Consumers Want More Home Networking →

communication, Digital Entertainment, Gadgets, Stupid

Developers Whining About Apple’s 99-cent Store

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Developers wrote an open letter to Apple complaining that the 99-cent and free price points of the software available through the iPhone Apps Store is prohibiting them from making compelling software.  They claim they cannot recuperate the development costs of a complex program at 99-cents.  While reading this article, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing hysterically as I imagined a bunch of “entrepreneurial” programmers coming to grips with what “open source” truly means.  They got what they asked for and now they are whining!  OMG!!!  Heheheheh!!!  I’m still laughing.

Okay, let me stop and wipe the tears from eyes and say this:  there is a perceived value to iPhone applications.  People associate programs made on an open platform with free ware — programs made out of the goodness of a developers heart and not for profit.  This has nothing to do with ringtone pricing.  So how do the developers make money?  Obvisiously this open letter shows a serious lack of creativity, marketing, and business sense, which is not surprising — these folks are programmers.  I am unwilling to call these folks developers because I think “development” implies the whole ideation, programming, business, marketing package.  Anyhow, here are some ideas:

  • If developers want to sell their wares for more than 99-cents, then they need to convince customers that their products are worth more.   If they can’t put a good demo on the apps store, then link to a website and show a more in-depth demonstration or simulation — it is an iPhone after all ;p .
  • Developers could get together and create a clear tiered structure of applications and agree to pricing based on complexity and man hours.  Of course, the iTunes Apps Store is a very pure form of capitalism, so it’s possible that another developer will undercut the agreed upon pricing structure.  Yes, they are competing toe-to-toe with International developers who can do the software cheaper in their own country.
  • Developers could get together and make up some sort of certification that in essence states that the software is not “crapware”
  • They can also turn to the deplorable world of advertising to subsidize the cost of the program.
  • They could also do the application concept and architecture in the US and outsource the programming to a cheaper country or hire high school and college interns.
  • They could work with the service provider to get a separate marketplace with some form of certification
  • They could tier the applications, such that basic functionality is offered at 99-cents and additional functionality can be obtained with the “full version” — or the usual “basic”, “professional”, and “ultimate” type labels.
  • They could show a comparison table between their product and the competing “crapware” and point out the clear advantage that justifies the increased cost.
  • They could make iPhone applications to bridge existing services, say,  in the model of Pandora.  Or they can make iPhone apps for established companies — in other words, shop the basic concept around before going to the iPhone store.
  • Get the applications in front of some prominent bloggers and tech reviewers who will get your message out for you.  After all, Apple and techy people do whatever tech evangelists say is cool.

I have an iPhone and I’m wary of putting any willy-nilly application on my phone.  For the most part “Free” and “99-cents” don’t catch my attention.  It only took one piece of crapware for me to change my attitude quickly.  My iPhone is precious and I don’t want to litter it with programs I will not use.  I’m very selective about what I put on my phone.  It has to match activity that I’ve tried doing with my phone or be something that I, myself, thought would be neat to have.  As for pricing, it depends on the perceived value to me.  If I wanted a “quote of the day” generator or a lighter simulation, then I feel that should be free or 99-cents.  If its a  multi-level game, then I expect to pay $5- $10 based on complexity and replayability.   If I want location based software to find product and services around me, then I expect to pay no more than 99-cents or for the software to be free because I understand that I will be advertised to in a very micro-targeted fashion.  Anyhow … the whiny programmers that wrote the open letter to Apple need to get their heads out the sand and get creative.