December 2004 Archives
Just wanted to wish all my family, friends and readers a happy and healthy New Year (that includes Jean-Pierre and Jean, who I found out have been keeping up with me here). Thanks to everyone for everything (I know it's general, but hey). For those new friends, it was great to meet you, and for those old ones, it was great to stay in touch. (For those of you who are readers and don't personally know me, drop me a comment or an
email and say hi.)
I hope everyone, has as good a 2005 as I had a 2004.
Be safe and have fun!
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I've been talking about the potential for Apple to get Windows users to make the big switch for a while. A recent rumor makes it seem as though Apple is giving this some serious thought (and how could it not?). According to
Think Secret, Apple is going to
release a $500 barebones G4 with no display to compete with inexpensive Windows PCs. The article points specifically to targeting Windows users who own an ipod (and love it).
"Think of your traditional iPod owner," said a source. "This new product will be for a Windows user who has experienced the iPod, the ease of use of the iTunes software, and has played around with a Mac at an Apple retail store just long enough to know he'd buy one if it were a little cheaper."
Apple executives announced on October 13 that 45% to 50% of its retail store customers bought a Mac as their first PC or were new to the platform in the fiscal fourth-quarter. The company has refused to divulge more exacting figures on iPod buyers who also buy a Mac, for competitive reasons.
According to sources, internal Apple surveys of its retail store customers and those buying iPods showed a large number of PC users would be willing to buy a Mac if it were cheap enough, less of a virus carrier (which all Macs already are), and offered easier to use software solutions not available on Windows-based PCs. Now, Apple feels it has the answer.
I love this idea. There's obviously a huge market of iPod users who are in love with the device and a huge portion of those are Windows users. While I don't have an iPod myself (I have an
iRiver, which I prefer for it's recording function), I have decided to make the switch to Mac myself. However, for me it's the money keeping me away. I want a Powerbook, but I simply can't plunk down the cash for one at this point (and I am wondering when a G5 powerbook will come out . . . anyone have any insights?). Given this new $500 option I imagine I would buy it as a second PC, just as the article says. Why not? For $500 I could leave the computer in my bedroom and have my laptop for my coffee table (where it has been a fixture for the last month-and-a-half anyway). I already have a display and it's currently just sitting on my desk looking lonely, so why not hook it up to a nice, cheap G4? Come on Apple, give me something to work with until I can afford to buy myself a shiny Powerbook.
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This morning there was an article in
The Washington Post about the
Facebook. The article was titled
"Click Clique: Facebook's Online College Community" and discusses the impact of the Facebook, especially at GW. Much of the article talks about how people on the Facebook use their number of friends to figure out social standing. "You can compare the number of "friends" you have listed in your profile to the number of "friends" your roommate has, to calibrate how good you should feel about yourself," the article says. Overall the article is interesting, but nothing extraordinary. A while ago you might remember that I asked anyone who used the Facebook to explain how they used it. Well, lots of people responded and I've decided to bring a second round of questions based on those responses. You'll see someone's comment indented followed by my own comments/questions. If you could post answers in the comments section that would be great.
This whole project comes from my trying to understand why the Facebook is so much more successful than Friendster. Of course, I don't have the numbers to back this up, but this seems like a very serious trend in colleges and I want to understand. I suspect much of the reason is that the Facebook takes social networking and makes it local. It actually adds some useful elements because everyone who uses it is in the same place. It's also interesting that entire school communities are open to viewing, in comparison to Friendster where you can only view profiles of friends.
Without any further ado, here are you comments and some more questions to answer (I pulled certain sentences from some comments and did minor editing such as correcting spelling):
Ben:
The way he explained it to me, he used it to promote parties, study groups, bowling outings, breakfasts, etc. While I've never used it, it seemed to me like he was using it as a more local Craig's List (where you can see pictures of people) or some type of interactive Evite.
The Evite comparison is interesting. What makes Facebook better/worse than Evite? Does anyone use both?
Laju:
(if you register your cell phone, everytime you get "poked" it's an obnoxious text message on your phone) . . . the Facebook does work well for sending out invitations about events, but then again so does Evite.
There's that Evite comparison again. What about the cell phone thing, is that useful? Do you find it obnoxious? Do you think having your cell phone number on there is dangerous in any way?
Chris:
I think that “the Facebook� gives college students the much needed ability to communicate with their old High School friends, and keep a constantly updated list of their “new� friends. When many students venture away from the comforts of their structured homes, some for the first time, and leave their friends behind staying in touch becomes hard. “the Facebook� allows them to send messages instantly without the hassle of dealing with finding e-mail addresses. I find that it also helps, more towards the beginning of the year, to keep track of your new friends. Meeting 30 people in a day can be changeling, but compound that every day for the first week and it is impossible to remember everybody’s name and room. By going and “friending� people it provides an accessible list of this information as well as other interesting things (i.e. favorite movies, music, books, and home town). Another widely used feature of this innovative site is the “group� part of the site which allows people to create a blog-like forum that people from the same university can join to meet people with similar likes and dislikes. This feature is widely exploited by promotion companies who advertise their parties by sending messages through the “groups� or by posting to the message board. On a whole the usefulness of “the Facebook� is just beginning to be seen, as more schools are included and integrating into the network the potential is exponential on many levels.
The email point is very interesting. How much do you use email? How often do you check it? I've been reading recently that young people are increasingly moving away from email, often seeing the technology as antiquated. Is there anyone else who uses the Facebook instead of email?
Do you use groups? If so what groups and why? Is this useful? Also, what about these promotion companies? Are they students? Have you gone to parties of theirs?
Finally, speaking of this potential, where do you see the Facebook going? What would be good features to add?
BJ:
Well I personally use the face book as a tool to help me waste time when I'm trying to get some work done. But for others that I know it has become an addiction;
people are on it for hours searching random things and people.
What is it that's addicting? Why do people enjoy this? How have you avoided it?
Beth:
Ok heres how it works... Its basically like an AIM profile with a picture. You post your likes/dislikes, etc. and then everyone on Facebook can look you up and ask you to be their friend. After gaining a few friends you can see which friends you are connected to through other friends. You can also join groups within the site to find people with similar interests as you. The whole thing is kind of pointless, but its fun to look at when your avoiding homework/studying. I guess the whole point of it is to connect people from high school and college. I actually found a guy from elementary school which was kind of funny.
I think the AIM comparison is interesting, I know it's easy to get obsessed with checking away messages. Are there other people who see these similarities? Any other comments on them?
Any other stories about meeting someone you haven't talked to for a while through Facebook?
Matt:
The biggest comparison i can make is that its like AIM, its just a more elaborate and detailed form of checking away messages and AIM profiles. People can waste lots and lots of time just checking away messages, the Facebook is the same thing, instead with the Facebook I can waste time and be like, "oh, Matt's favorite movie is so and so . . . huh never knew that". . . or "that movie sucks" . . . thats basically it. I hate The Facebook, but yet i must admit ive kinda gotten addicted to checking peoples profiles, and different kinds of groups, but i could live without it.
AIM profile comparison comes up again. What about the favorites section? Why is it fun to find out people's favorites? Also, anyone else not like it yet find themselves addicted?
Travis:
As far as the Facebook goes, I agree with everyone’s comments that it is addicting and a big time waster, but it provides a way for meeting people other than a party, bar or class. As a relatively shy person myself, and since I am friends of people who don’t like to go out to big parties, its hard for me to meet girls, and with this facebook thing, I have been poked and messaged by a handful (which is a few more than I expected). Now some of these girls I didn’t even think twice about but last year I met two in person after they contacted me through the facebook and it has lead to some interesting experiences. Neither of these worked out but I did learn a lot and it presented me with situations I wouldn’t have been in otherwise. It was weird to think that I could end up dating someone I met on the internet and it ran through my mind how it would sound explaining that to people I know, but I think it is a wave of the future and there is no harm in having some fun meeting new people.
So I guess to me the Facebook is an online community where you can meet people at your own school easily, and at a large school like mine it gives you a chance to meet people you may never see otherwise. It also allows you to put a face to a name when a friend is telling a story, or asks if you know some one, you can “facebook them� and see who it is.
What do other people think about meeting dating partners on Facebook? Is this a weird idea? What about compared to internet dating in general? Has anyone else dated someone they met on the Facebook? What happened?
What about this idea that it helps provide community to large schools? That's fascinating because I know at NYU it was incredibly hard to feel any sense of community. Do those of you that go to large schools feel the same way? How and why does it achieve this?
Here's a quick recap of the questions:
1. What makes Facebook better/worse than Evite? Does anyone use both?
2. What about the cell phone thing, is that useful? Do you find it obnoxious? Do you think having your cell phone number on there is dangerous in any way?
3. How much do you use email compared to Facebook messages (or just in general)? How often do you check it? Why is Facebook better/worse than email?
4. Do you use Facebook groups? If so what groups and why? Is this useful?
5. Also, what about these promotion companies? Are they students? Have you gone to parties of theirs?
6. Where do you see the Facebook going? What would be good features to add?
7. What is it that's addicting about the Facebook? Why do people enjoy doing this? How have you avoided it (if you have)?
8. Are there other people who see these similarities between the Facebook and AIM? Any other comments on them?
9. Any other stories about meeting someone you haven't talked to for a while through Facebook?
10. What about the favorites section? Why is it fun to find out people's favorites? Also, anyone else not like it, yet find themselves addicted?
11. What do other people think about meeting dating partners on Facebook? Is this a weird idea? What about compared to internet dating in general? Has anyone else dated someone they met on the Facebook? What happened?
12. What about the Facebook helps provide community to large schools? Do those of you that go to large schools feel the same way? How and why does it achieve this?
Thanks for the help.
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Lawrence Lessig is really cool.
For those that don't know him, he's a Stanford law professor, author and the man behind Creative Commons (the new copyright system with "some rights reserved"). In his latest move of coolness, Lessig has decided to take his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace and open it up for revision. Lessig explains the project in a recent post:
Beginning in February, we'll be posting Version 1 of Code to a Wiki. "Chapter Captains" will then supervise updates and corrections. Depending upon the progress, sometime near June, I will take the product and edit and rewrite it to produce Code, v2. The Wiki will stay live forever (under a Creative Commons license). The edited book will be published in the fall. I have donated my advance for Code, v2 to Creative Commons. All royalties beyond the advance will be donated as well.
. . .
My aim is not to write a new book; my aim is to correct and update the existing book. But I'm eager for advice and expert direction. If you're interested in volunteering, email me at this address.
For those that don't know what a wiki is, it's a space where people can collaborate on a project. Anyone can write or delete what they want in order to create a better document. It's a great tool that's only beginning to be used effectively.
Wikipedia is probably the best example of a wiki successfully at work. Here's
the Wikipedia definition for wiki:
A Wiki or wiki (pronounced "wicky", "weekee" or "veekee"; see pronunciation section below) is a website (or other hypertext document collection) that allows a user to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows that content to be edited by anybody.
So Lessig is going to use the technology to revise his book. Since I haven't actually read Lessig's book (though I own it and have been meaning to), here's the
description of the book from Amazon:
"We, the Net People, in order to form a more perfect Transfer Protocol..." might be recited in future fifth-grade history classes, says attorney Lawrence Lessig. He turns the now-traditional view of the Internet as an uncontrollable, organic entity on its head, and explores the architecture and social systems that are changing every day and taming the frontier. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace is his well-reasoned, undeniably cogent series of arguments for guiding the still-evolving regulatory processes, to ensure that we don't find ourselves stuck with a system that we find objectionable. As the former Communist-bloc countries found, a constitution is still one of our best guarantees against the dark side of chaos; and Lessig promotes a kind of document that accepts the inevitable regulatory authority of both government and commerce, while constraining them within values that we hold by consensus.
Lessig holds that those who shriek the loudest at the thought of interference in cyberdoings, especially at the hands of the government, are blind to the ever-increasing regulation of the Net (admittedly, without badges or guns) by businesses that find little opposition to their schemes from consumers, competitors, or cops. The Internet will be regulated, he says, and our window of opportunity to influence the design of those regulations narrows each day. How will we make the decisions that the Framers of our paper-and-ink Constitution couldn't foresee, much less resolve? Lessig proclaims that many of us will have to wake up fast and get to work before we lose the chance to draft a networked Bill of Rights.
I think this is an amazing and pioneering project. Lots of people are talking about citizen journalism, but this is citizen publishing. Lessig is effectively using the democratizing power of the internet to democratize publishing (at least in a small way). It take a lot to get published and Lessig is leveraging his name to help your average netizens get their thoughts into print. I think the day Code V2 is released will be an important day for the web. What will all the librarians say about internet research after that book is released? All of a sudden there's this book that will have been written collaboratively by all these random people that (most likely) is far more authoritative than most of the other books on the subject (and the whole thing will be available online . . . for free).
I wrote about librarians threatened by Wikipedia in August and in the entry I included these thoughts:
The idea of socially collaborative software, like Wikipedia, is one that stands in opposition of what a library stands for. Libraries are the home of a whole bunch of books whose authority tends to rest in its binding, rather than the information inside it. All the information found inside Wikipedia is up for revision; if anyone finds incorrect information they can go ahead and correct it. What happens when someone finds something incorrect in a book? (Dare I mention that some books are imperfect?) They are left to try to find a publisher to print their retort? In the end I guess should never expect a librarian to get along with a tool like Wikipedia, but it upsets me that these people guard the connections to information for America's children.
Part of this entry was based on some of my personal experiences with librarians (and teachers in general), who are intimidated by the web (I know my mother, a school reform consultant, has also run into these issues). I really wonder what my old high school librarians would think about this project. Would they blow it off? Would they be scared of it?
In the end, I doubt the average librarian who scorns the net will think about this, but I really hope everyone else will.
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My good friend Jimmy has gotten engaged (congratulations) and he needs to pick a best man. He's narrowed down his groomsmen to three fine choices (with yours truly included), however, he can't decide who should be his best man. As a possible solution, I suggested we have a best man competition, with events, points and everything else that comes along with it. This idea then turned into a decathalon and we began to talk about some event possibilities. We can't come up with everything, however, so we're going to open up the voting to the world. So if you've got any ideas just leave them in the comments section or, if you really want to, email me at
nb@noahbrier.com. (After we come up with a list we're going to do some voting.)
Here are some possible event ideas we came up with:
Video games
Eating
Drinking
Floor excercise (ala Old School)
Trivia
Potato sack race (thanks for that one Kim)
We need at least ten, so start thinking.
Let the competition begin.
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This was a little too good not to post. Check out
this video mashup of Pulp Fiction and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer made by some people I know, it's great.
Even got a mention on Boing Boing.
Happy Holidays!
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I'm reading
The Cluetrain Manifesto at the moment and I ran into something I just had to post. (I know I'm a few years behind on the book, so forgive me if this has already been said. Or, for that matter, is said later in the chapter.)
In Doc Searls' chapter "Markets Are Conversation," he writes:
So the customers who once looked you in the eye while hefting your wares in the market were transformed into consumers. In the words of industry analyst Jerry Michalski, a consumer was no more than "a gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash." Power swung so decisively to the supply side that "market" became a verb: something you do to customers.
That got me thinking (as most of the book does), and I came up with this:
The best kind of marketing is the kind you do with customers, not to them.
It's hardly revolutionary in the context of the rest of the book, but I haven't read it in those words, and they seemed very appropriate. That why companies are embracing viral marketing and should be doing the same with blogs: both make customers a part of the marketing process. You're not talking to them (or at them), you're talking with them.
I wrote about this a lot in my "Buzz Giant Poster Boy" story.
While I'm here, let me give everyone the links to my other American Demographics stories, should any of you be interested:
"Move Over, Prime Time" (July/August, 2004) is about an emerging at-work daypart online.
"This Way App" (September, 2004) is about RSS and its marketing ramifications.
"Coming of Age" (November, 2004) is about mobile technology and its effects on youth culture.
Enjoy!
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This site has brought me a fair amount of stress over the last 24 hours. Following the
advice of Six Apart, I installed Movable Type 3.14. The upgrade was not a very big deal, it was really just a matter of overwriting a few files on my server and running an upgrade script. Of course, the transition wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. When I tried to sign back in, I was greeted with a long error that included lots of words I didn't understand (well, I guess I understood the words, just not the context). So, after punching a few things I
posted a question on the Movable Type forum with my error and began my wait. After about 24 hours no one had gotten back to me and I was starting to get worried. While I had backed up all my entries, I still had very little desire to have to reinstall the entire piece of software. Anyway, after I got tired of waiting I decided to start searching around Google for similar errors (there was nothing exactly matching mine). On one webpage someone mentioned that a file might be corrupt. So, as a shot in the dark, I re-downloaded MT 3.14 and overwrote the CMS.pm file.
And that was all it took.
One stupid file had to be uploaded again.
As I wrote on the Movable Type forum, it just proved that in the end, I am dumb.
It's sometimes amazing how the simplest answer is often the last we think of.
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Has anyone noticed a new trend in
The New York Times in the last few weeks? It seems that the Times has taken quite a liking to made up holidays/traditions. First it was last week's article
"Twice the Annoyance, but a Tradition Emerges," about The OC's Chrismukkah celebration. Next it was
an article on Festivus, the holiday everyone believes was made up by Seinfeld (the title of that one was "Fooey to the World: Festivus Is Come"). Then, yesterday, The Times threw us another bone (pun intended), with
"Today He Is a Dog; Acually, He Always Was," about 13-year-old wheaten terrier named Admiral Rufus K. Boom's "bark mitzah."
Religious fundamentalists must be up in arms. But I wonder if this is this a sign of something bigger? The Festivus article is the most serious of the three and includes this bit of history:
The holiday evolved during the 1970's, when the elder Mr. O'Keefe began doing research for his book "Stolen Lightning" (Vintage 1983), a work of sociology that explores the ways people use cults, astrology and the paranormal as a defense against social pressures.
Festivus, with classic rituals like familial gatherings, totemic-but-mysterious objects and respect for ancestors, slouched forth from this milieu. "In the background was Durkheim's `Elementary Forms of Religious Life,' " Mr. O'Keefe recalled, "saying that religion is the unconscious projection of the group. And then the American philosopher Josiah Royce: religion is the worship of the beloved community."
So are all these holidays reactions to mainstream religion? Chrismukkah grew out of a need for Seth Cohen on The OC to deal with having one Jewish and one Christian parent during the holidays. What he did was create his own holiday with bits and pieces from the other two. In doing so, he made a holiday that would most likely be disregarded by both religions. However, the holiday does bring to the forefront how children deal with their parents religion (especially when it's different). It's hard to imagine that this kind of interpretation would have been allowed fifty years ago (for that matter, I would imagine there were many fewer inter-faith marriages at that time). So as religious and racial lines continue to be blurred are we re-creating pseudo-religious traditions to deal with our shifting identities?
Much of what all these so-called traditions are about is bringing people together. In a country where religion has become such a point of contention, maybe there's a need to create new traditions that exist outside those traditional boundaries so that we can interact without the prejudices that have become associated with religious identities (thanks primarily to fundamentalists). It's kind of a fun and interesting idea.
What is also interesting is that in one way or another all these holidays remind us of our consumerism. Festivus throws away the traditional Christmas tree and decorations for a metal pole. Chrismukkah is Seth's super-holiday that allows him to get all the presents of both (eight days of one present and one day of many presents). The "bark mitzvah," while a joke, was a response to the rampant showoffism in Jewish culture (I don't know what word goes there), that can be seen in real Bar Mitzvahs. Mark Nadler, whose dog was honored, saw the chance to make a statement.
Mr. Nadler, who had his bar mitzvah years ago, said he was not unfamiliar with entertaining at bar mitzvahs at "high holy places like the Hard Rock Cafe." They sometimes seemed to be expensive productions that helped parents raise their social radar rather than sacred coming-of-age ceremonies for 13-year-olds. So Mr. Nadler thought he would give a bar mitzvah for his wheaten terrier and watch the eyebrows rise.
People are reacting to the fact that religions have all been taken over by their marketing possibilities. It's hard for Hallmark to take over a holiday where the only decoration is a metal pole (though Home Depot has some branding opportunities).
In the end, these traditions are fun responses to mainstream religion and it will be interesting to see if any of them become anything more in the future.
It's also completely possible that there's too little real news going on during the holiday season so The New York Times chose to fill their pages with articles about fake holidays.
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For those of you that read my web page via RSS and actually, anyone who knows what RSS is, I have two questions.
1. Would you mind if I switched my feed to Feedburner? Would it bug you to have to change the feed address in your aggregator? Would you stay subscribed? I would still post on the regular feeds as well, it's just I'm really curious about just how many RSS subscribers I have (all I know is that there are eight on Bloglines).
2. What do people think of the pulldown menu on the RSS feed button on the right side of the page? Is it worthwhile? Has anyone actually used it? I'm thinking of getting rid of it, but can't decide. A little feedback would be great. If you could leave a comment or email me at nb@noahbrier.com, I'd appreciate.
Please at least one person leave a comment on this, I hate to beg, but this post will be pretty sad if it's left naked in the comments section. Thanks!
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In Mitch Wagner's new article on
del.icio.us, titled
"It's Delightful! It's del.icio.us!", he made the mistake of ending with this:
I'm interested in learning more about del.icio.us. If you're using it, or if you're one of the developers, or you have developed an add-on or plug-in, or you're Joshua Schacter, drop me a line.
Now I can't possibly not respond to an offer like that when we're talking about one of my very favorite things on the net. As a result, Wagner has quite a long email to read and I've got a post for today. Here's what I wrote to him (and for those of you not using
del.icio.us yet, go do it and if you have any questions, just ask me, I'm happy to help just email me at
nb@noahbrier.com):
I'm sure you've gotten a ton of emails from people who use and love
del.icio.us, but here's one more. I've fallen in love with the service
in the 6 months I've been using it. As a journalist I found that it
was a great place to get ideas and bookmark future ones. As a blogger
it was a great place to find new links and new things to think about.
It also became the bookmark bar on the right side of my site (
http://www.noahbrier.com ). It's amazing just how essential the
service has become for me. I find myself frozen when the site goes
down. I don't know what to do with this new fascinating page I've
found. It has also changed the way I think about everything I read.
Now when I find something new I think about it in terms of whether or
not its del.icio.us worthy (and I know that I'm not alone in this). I
subscribe to 10 or 15 RSS feeds from different del.icio.us users and I
love the inbox (which, if you haven't messed around with, allows you
to add tags or users feeds to one page and subscribe to the feed). The
service is so simple and yet so useful. I've gotten lots of people
hooked on it (including my mother who uses it to create annotated
bibliographies for her research). I'm currently working on
implementing it at my new company as a way for people to share links
in a better way.
Anyhow, just wanted to get that off my chest. I expect I'll put this
up on my web site as well, now that I think of it (maybe even bookmark
it too).
Finally, if you're interested, here are a couple things I have written
mentioning del.icio.us:
http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2004/08/delicious_relia.html
("del.icio.us reliance")
http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2004/10/content_creatio.html
("content creation and organization")
Thanks for the interesting piece and the invitation to give you my thoughts.
Best regards,
Noah Brier
PS - Writing del.icio.us over and over again is kind of fun, no matter
what anyone says
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I suspected something like this would happen when the
iPod photo came out. Today I read on
The Unofficial Apple Weblog that
the iPod photo is not selling close to as well as its non-color cousins. This information comes from an article on AppleInsider that says:
According to a recent analysis of shipping data conducted by sources close to AppleInsider, Apple Computer's 20GB and 40GB iPod digital music players have been met with increasing demand in recent weeks.
. . .
On the other hand, the recently introduced 40GB and 60GB iPod photo models appear to be in ample supply, indicating a lesser demand for the higher priced players. Both models are available to ship to all channels within a 24-hour time period.
From the very beginning I felt as though the iPod photo wasn't revolutionary enough. I mean seriously, what's the big deal? It doesn't have a memory card slot (which would be very useful) to allow you to download your pictures off your camera. So basically you've got this thing that can play music and if you want you can show off your pictures on it (or use it for album art . . . big freaking deal). I expect much more out of Apple. If they had given some thought to how people use iPods (and MP3 players in general), I suspect they would have found that people throw them in their bags or pockets and play music, avoiding any interaction with them during that time (hence the overwhelming use of random for iPod users).
Knowing that, why would people really care about photo capability? Then on top of everything else Apple charges $100 extra for the color screen and photo capability. I know I would never go for that, there's just no point. It's a waste of money if you ask me.
On a separate note, how long is it until Apple begins doing more limited edition iPods? They've begun with the U2 special edition, but I expect that this could become like customized shoes. Imagine if Apple got together with very stylistic boutiques and made up 100 units of specially designed iPods which sold for $100 more. Without adding any functionality, I guarantee these units would sell and sell quick. People want limited edition stuff, they want to feel special and in the know. If Apple figures out the right partners I bet they could make a killing.
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[Editor's Note: I wrote this a while ago and submitted it to McSweeney's Internet Tendency's "Open Letters to People or Entities Who are Unlikely to Respond." Unfortunately, the McSweeney's people didn't think it was funny enough to post. They're probably right, but luckily the editorial process at NoahBrier.com is far less stringent. So, here's my letter, if it's not funny then tell me (and if it is funny, that's nice to hear to).]
Dear Pickles,
What have you become? You used to be so bright and crunchy; but
somewhere in the pickling process you changed, I barely recognize you.
As a cucumber you used to hang out with the healthy crowd. You sat
proudly atop salads, hanging out with your friends tomato and lettuce,
and blended so perfectly with yogurt in tzatziki.
Now you run seem to run with a different crowd. Whenever I've seen you
lately, you're relishing your role as divider on the plate with a
greasy burger, helping to keep the juices from reaching the crisp
french fries. Sometimes you even bathe yourself in the mayo-drenched
cole slaw. Is this any way for a self respecting vegetable to act?
While I must admit I appreciate the willingness to share that you seem
to bring out in people, don't you ever worry that you're polarizing the
country? I've been hard-pressed to find another subject upon which so
many people disagree. With you, there's no grey area, it's either love
or hate. Does this make you happy? Why are you doing this to yourself
and to others?
In the old days, you held a prominent place in the vegetable aisle,
huddled with your other green buddies. Now what have you become? You
swim around in a barrel of brine all day, just waiting for someone's
dirty hand to fish you out. I refuse to believe that this is a happy
life for you.
While I know it's too late to save you from a life of pickledom, I can
only hope that you'll wise up and help keep all those young cucumbers
off the brine.
Thinking of you,
Noah Brier
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I left a fairly lengthy comment on
Renee Blodgett's post titled
"Internet Archiving & Engaging in Knowledge". Go read the whole entry, but here's an excerpt that really got me thinking:
Clearly, the Internet has opened up a whole new paradigm for learning and communicating. Today, we can participate in television, share news with others and put our own spin on it, and be part of a larger creation. We can edit and build something and engage in what's happening in the world. Hell, we can even be in an Internet library if we choose to.
Obviously blogs are an extension of this empowerment to participate in life rather than have 'life happen to you.'
Yet with so much knowledge out there, we have to choose where to focus our energies and our time. Should we edit some of this stuff out.....who decides what should be available and not available? Do we really want a detailed account of how to build a landmine available to everyone? Who's decision should that be in a democratic society that values free press and unlimited speech?
This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately (and not so lately). So I left this comment:
Just wondering if you ran across this blog entry on the "digital photo effect" hitting all parts of our digital life. Specifically how because it's so easy to have access to every album out there, it's hard to pay a lot of attention to any of them. The article is here: http://www.rootburn.com/2004/12/too-much-of-good-thing.html.
This has also made me think about something I wrote about a while back which related "The Long Tail" to all parts of our digital life (that entry is here: http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2004/11/the_long_tail_o.html). In that entry I talk about how digital technology allows us to finally archive the long tail of our lives. Now we can keep track of that once missed 80 percent of our time because space constraints no longer exist. I think this is incredibly exciting.
As for the landmine diagrams, anyone could probably take a book out of their local library with the same information. I understand that now they don't even have to leave their houses. But on the other hand, the first site you find when you search for "landmine" on Google is The Landmine Survivors Network (http://www.landminesurvivors.org). Maybe some misguided person will run across that and be swayed.
Just some thoughts.
It was kind of a long comment, and I don't think I articulated myself all that well (I just started writing what I was thinking and posted it). So here's a little more.
First, the entry I was talking about at the beginning of the comment is titled "Too much of a good thing?" and appears on rootburn. Here's an excerpt from that entry:
Back in the day, I'd get a CD and I'd listen to it. A lot. A CD was a considered purchase - if I was going to make the effort to go to the store and spend my hard earned money on it, it was going to be worth it. In the car, at the gym, at work, at home - I'd listen to it everywhere. The first few listens usually couldn't be at work, because I'd be listening. Once my brain knew the album, then it could become soundtrack to whatever else I was working on.
Now, the time between when I think that I might be interested in hearing, say, the new Bjork album and when I can actually have it is minutes. Transaction cost can be as low as free (depending on if I use something like iTunes or something like BitTorrent). Assuming I used BitTorrent, it's cost me nothing and taken me no time, so there's no inherent pressure to listen to it. Repeat this a bunch of times, and all of a sudden, my hard drive is full of music that I've never heard, and the DPE starts to kick in. So what do I do? I listen to the same old albums over and over (lately Akufen), because I know I like them and that they won't disturb me while working. Most of the time these happen to be albums that I've ripped myself, after having listened to the CDs a lot. So having more music available has made me seek the comfort of what I already know. Do I just need more time so that I can "catch up"? Do I need a mobility solution so that I can leverage non-PC time? Do I need a curator like Activaire? Do I need to raise my transaction costs so that I feel a need to get my money's worth?
Having all this information available at such a small cost has changed the relationship one has with the information. I know for myself collecting music has become a bit of an obsession (I have over 200 albums from this year alone). It's absolutely true that I listen to each less than I would without access to the internet. However, I don't know that this is such a bad thing. I feel much better informed, as though I'm honing my music listening skills by listening to this vast collection. I am better prepared to get a good idea of what I think of an album after first listen and I enjoy the act of listening and critiquing music, as well as the music itself. There's a whole other 80 percent of the world that's been opened up to me and I'm trying to take advantage of it.
I'm not exactly sure how much this relates to what Renee wrote in the entry (I suggest you go read the entry and her blog, both are quite good). However, I get excited when I see the long tail showing up in new places and being spoken of in new ways.
I guess I'm just a dork.
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Just noticed that
Renegade Marketing (the company I now work for) is looking for an "Office Manager/Recruiter." They have
posted the opening on Craig's List. If you're interested, go check it out. In my first week here I can certainly say that it seems like a great place to work and it's definitely a great group of people.
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About a week ago I ran across this
iPod Mini ad. It's a great looking commercial and definitely worth checking out, but that's not the whole story. Actually, the whole story is that this was made by no one at Apple or associated with the company. In fact, it wasn't even made by an agency at all. It was made by a fan who had some time on his hands.
Since seeing the ad, Wired has picked up the story and today David Pogue picked it up on his New York Times Blog "Pogue's Posts".
I think it's pretty amazing that a company is creating products that customers love so much they actually want to create advertisements themselves. Apple should be proud that they have customers as happy as George Masters (the creator of the Mini ad).
If you ask me (and I know you haven't), this is what the internet is all about. What's more, this is what blogs should be all about for companies. More companies should attempt to forge honest relationships with consumers and maybe one day they'll find that people are making ads for them. (Once people do make ads for the companies, don't squash them by the legal department. That's a biggie.)
Next, why doesn't Apple have a blog? I expect that this is what Apple is experimenting with on its Student Blog. But Apple should invite more people to tell their stories. There are so many blogs dedicated just to the company (take Wired's "Cult of Mac" for example). Why not invite these people in the door? Give them a say and see what they create. Clearly there's some talent in the pool and maybe Apple can find themselves some new employees. But at the very least, they will be reinforcing a brand image of forward thinking and openness (which just happens to be the opposite of the brand image that most people have for Microsoft).
On another note, I'm very impressed by Wired. I think I realized today that if there was only one website I could check, that would probably be it. While Wired is a little behind, they move much faster than nearly any other mainstream news institution. They are closer to the cutting edge than any other mainstream Magazine I can think of. They have a good mix of mainstream and tech news with the occasional random interesting article thrown in. If you're not at least reading Wired News every day, you're missing out. So get on it.
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COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO USE THEFACEBOOK SHOULD READ THIS ENTRY!!
(everyone else should too).
As you guys may or may not have guessed, I've been pretty busy lately. The whole starting a new job thing has taken up most of my time. I apologize for the lack of posts, but those regular visitors (all five of you) will notice that my new bookmarks on the right side of the screen have not slowed, so not all is lost. For those of you that read the site via RSS, can I suggest that you subscribe to my del.icio.us feed? That's what I run my bookmarks through and you will be updated every time I add a new link (many of which are funny and/or strange). The link for the RSS feed is: http://del.icio.us/rss/nrb210, so go subscribe now.
My second piece of business is a call for comments. I have been thinking a lot about social networking sites after this weekend. You see, I was down in Washington DC visiting my sister at The George Washington University when she informed me that in a survey of students, iPod was the number two used piece of technology (correct me if I'm wrong Leah -- and also provide me a link or forward me the email about that if possible). Guess what number one was? TheFaceBook was.
Essentially TheFaceBook takes Friendster and puts it on a more local level, connecting students at the same college to each other. In fact, you can only sign up if you have a .edu email address. I've known about this for a while (and been signed up since May or so), but I didn't realize just how popular it was and I want to understand more.
That's where you readers come in. Tell me how you use the facebook (that means you Leah -- send this address to your friends and have them tell me too). I'd love it if you'd leave it in the comments but if you don't feel comfortable with that just email me at nb@noahbrier.com. Tell me anything about it. Tell me how it works. Why you use it. How much you use it. What you like. What you don't like. Who you do or don't talk to. What color your socks are when you add friends. Anything at all. Help me out with this please, I really want to write about this but need some more firsthand knowledge. Thanks!
Just a warning, when you submit a comment it will say "CGI Error," however, the comment has gone through. Sorry about that, I'm working on the problem.
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Today was my first day at my new job. I am now a writer at
Renegade Marketing Group (go check out the website, it's very cool). It was exciting to be doing something with myself again, after my month vacation from American Demographics.
I came upon Renegade first when I interviewed Drew Neisser, the president and CEO for my June article "Buzz Giant Poster Boy". Drew is quoted throughout the article, but my personal favorite quote is when he differentiated "truths" and "trends." "'Trends come and go,' he says, 'truths survive. Trends can provide color. Truths, substance.'"
After my time at American Demographics ended I contacted Drew about possible opportunities at Renegade and after a two-hour interview with at least 15 different people, I was offered a job. I'm incredibly excited to be working at a hip and forward thinking company and I must admit that the idea of doing something completely different sounds like fun.
Renegade also has a blog called Saw a Good Idea. Go check it out, it's got some very cool stuff (I hope to be contributing to it at some point). Anyhow, to everyone that helped me out throughout the entire job process, I appreciate it very much.
This blog became a very important piece of my job hunt. Not only was it a place to send potential employers to get an idea of my writing in a more unfilitered way, but it also showcased my ideas and thinking. I'm very glad I had a site like this to send people to. So thank you, NoahBrier.com.
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I have a rule in life and that is: once the New York Times covers a trend it is officially no longer a trend. The newspaper rarely takes chances and once its written about something it's officially at least six months old and is on the verge of tipping to the mainstream.
Well, in the New York Times Magazine "Year in Ideas: A to Z," blogs as a marketing tool can be found under B. In an article titled "The Blogo Ad," the author, Seth Stevenson writes:
From a marketing perspective, blogs make perfect sense. They are cheap to produce, immersive and interactive. It's easy to measure their readership and response rates. For small companies, blogs are a quick and dirty promotional tool that cuts out the middleman; for big companies, blogs are a tool of humanization -- an informal, chatty, down-to-earth voice amid the din of bland corporate-speak.
I agree. Blogs provide an honest change to the form-written press release so common from huge companies.
In the future if anyone asks me why we have to get into blogs now, instead of six months from now, my answer will be a link to this article. I've been running into articles all over the place lately about blogs and RSS and I have little doubt that we will see this tip in the next four months. I guess we'll all have to watch and see, but if there was any question that blogs in the corporate world will be big, I think The New York Times has answered them.
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I've been getting emails lately about the need to register cell phone numbers on the national do-not-call list. Well, folks, it turns out that this, like most email forwards, are simply not true. I'll explain in a bit, but here's what the forward looks like:
Starting Jan 1, 2005, all cell phone numbers will be made public to telemarketing firms. So this means as of Jan 1, your cell phone may start ringing off the hook with telemarketers, but unlike your home phone, most of you pay for your incoming calls. These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run.
According to the National Do Not Call List, you have until Dec. 15th 2004 to get on the national "Do not call list" for cell phones. They said that you need to call 1-888-382-1222 from the cell phone that you wish to have put on the "do not call list" to be put on the list. They also said you can do it online at www.donotcall.gov
Before continuing, it's important to note that it can't hurt to register your cell phone number, however, this December 15th deadline is absurd. This according to
Snopes.com:
Some versions of the exhortation to cell phone users to add their names to the Do Not Call Registry erroneously state there is a 15 December 2004 deadline for getting listed. Says Lois Greisman, the Federal Trade Commission official who oversees the anti-telemarketing registry: "There is no deadline; there never has been a deadline to register."
It's most likely that this email is somehow related to a cell phone 411 directory that is being developed by most of the major carriers. According to the
Washington Post [registration required]:
The distress appears to stem from a plan, unveiled this fall, by several cell phone companies to set up national directory assistance, a 411 system, for cell phone numbers. Sprint Corp., Cingular Wireless, AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Nextel Communications Inc., Alltel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. have hired Qsent Inc. to develop the directory; Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless provider is not participating.
Next spring, each cell phone company will begin asking its customers if they want their numbers included in the wireless directory, according to Qsent spokesman Jeff Fishburn. Inclusion is free, but customers have to choose, or opt in, to have their number in the directory. The directory is not expected to be activated until next fall at the earliest.
Putting your number in the do-not-call registry will not keep you out of 411.
In the end, this doesn't matter that much. It can't hurt you to include your number in the registry, but it's creating a lot of unnecessary worry. (Also, if you haven't learned it yet, before you forward anything, go to Snopes.com and look into it. They're an urban legends reference page and they cover practically everything.)
This has been a public service announcement from your friends at NoahBrier.com.
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It's been a while since I discussed politics, but
Rolling Stone has posted an article titled
"The Aftermath" where "Jon Stewart, Al Franken and Tom Wolfe reflect on the race for the White House." This is very similar to what I did on the site, by giving some people space to look back and write about how they feel about what happened on November 2. I'd like to think that Rolling Stone got the idea from me, but I doubt it. Go read the whole thing, each reflection is very short. Here are some excerpts for your reading pleasure:
Jon Stewart
Now I will confess that as a Jewish man living in a city -- New York -- where eighty percent of the people voted for the loser, I could feel a touch disenfranchised, perhaps. But at what point did Jewish people from New York ever feel overrepresented? So I don't feel angry. Oddly, there seems to be more anger and disenfranchisement in the enfranchised. I don't think I've ever seen a time when the party that controlled the Senate, the House, the White House and the Supreme Court was so out of sorts about how little respect they get. At a certain point you want to say, "OK, Goliath. Stop pretending."
Al Franken
There's a lot of comfort we can take in what we accomplished. We did very well in a lot of state legislatures. That's no small thing -- it's building a farm team. In Minnesota, for example, the Republicans had a twenty-eight-seat margin in the House, and it's now only a two-seat margin. We created a base of activists. We created a fund-raising base. We're a lot further along than we were two years ago. Now we have to keep going and apply our energies toward the midterm elections in two years.
Tom Wolfe
Not that many people in America who are registered to vote want to be lectured to by Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi and P. Diddy. If you're living in southern Ohio, and you're against gay marriage because you're religious, these guys make you feel like you're being treating like an idiot . . . worse, like a primitive. Bush, on the other hand, is very good at feeding the impression that "I'm one of you. I can hunker down with you anywhere you want." He's acquired a kind of rural accent. But Kerry is incapable of doing that. Simply as a public speaker, he badly needed a change-of-pace voice, as do all speakers. Even Muhammad Ali, who was a very funny guy, was not funny for fifteen minutes in a row, because he had no change of pace, and the same is true of Kerry.
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Expect to see fewer entries this week. Smack in the middle of my unemployment, my computer has decided to crash. This works perfectly in my laptop's six month plan, where it refuses to work for more than six months at a time without a reformatting. I saw this coming too, which is what bugs me the most. Luckily the hard drive is not fried, however, and all I have to do now is wait for my 2.5" external USB box so that I can pull the hard drive out of my laptop and grab whatever I need before reformatting.
I must admit, though, that I am pretty damn annoyed. Why in 2004 should I still have to reformat a computer every six months to keep it running? Shouldn't we be beyond that point? I keep my computer clean, keep virus definitions up to date and still, it refuses to keep running. Why? Someone needs to tell me why I should stick with a PC. I don't know whether the problem here is with Microsoft Windows or Compaq (now HP, the maker of my Presario 1500 laptop). Whatever the case, I've been thinking about it for a while and now I think I'm ready to go to a Mac. Why not?
After spending some time with a Mac I've gotten comfortable with OS X. I found it much more reliable and I loved how customizable the whole thing was. Most importantly, though, I'm sick of my PC. I'm tired of having to deal with all the problems and, although I'm not sure it'll make a difference, I'm willing to take the chance to prove my point (and independence). I'm not quite sure when I'll make the big switch because unemployment is probably not the best time to make a large investment in computer equipment. I also am wondering if Apple is planning on introducing a G5 laptop. Is there any news on this? I was searching for it today on Google but didn't really run across anything.
On another note, I found it interesting that when I gave a lot of thought to just how much I had on my hard drive that I really needed I could only come up with one folder of pictures that I didn't have backed up. I started to think about how much is backed up all over the place today and it's amazing. All my music is on my iRiver MP3 player. All my links are saved on del.icio.us. My photos are mostly saved on an external hard drive that I try to back everything up on. All my documents are pretty much in my GMail. I've got a blog that holds my thoughts and other writings. If it weren't for that one damn folder of pictures I don't have backed up anywhere else, there'd be no reason not to just have formatted the hard drive already.
Beyond that, life has been fairly uneventful. Bears won on Sunday against the Vikings and still have a bit of hope to make the playoffs. Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and I'm going to see Yo La Tengo. I'm working on my year-end top 50 albums list as well as my list of my top 10 songs of all time. Oh, and I should have some job info by the end of the week.
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By Barbara Rubin Brier
Editor's Note: My mother was inspired to write something and asked me to post it on my site. I am doing this for her for two reasons: first, because she's my mother and second, because I think it's very interesting. Hope everyone enjoys the guest entry and if you've got something you'd like printed up here shoot me an email at writing@noahbrier.com.
Having spent an increasing amount of time, of late, reading this blog
(my son's) and following the links he posts – many about the internet,
blogs, and the way the world is changing – I've been inspired to post
my thought on how and why education has to change as well.
This is not a new subject for me. When this same son reached middle
school, I discovered that the progressive Bank Street magnet school
he'd attended from Kindergarten through 5th grade was not the norm,
but a rare alternative to the same old lousy public school education
I'd received. I went back to school. Having spent the 80's in a
retail buying office dealing with the thorny theme of industry
consolidation, I wanted to know this: Why am I not seeing anything
I've learned about organizational change in my kids' schools? In
fact, my 214-page master's thesis is entitled, "Applying
Organizational Change Theory to School Reform." But I digress. My
point here is that I went back to school, got my masters in
Educational Change, and now work as consultant in the field. So I
think about this stuff a lot.
But every once in a while, a personal situation arises that
crystallizes my irritation at the system. This week, there were two.
Here's the first one (and in this case, it's not even a public school,
but a private college.) My daughter, a freshman at George Washington
University, just got a 67 on an astronomy test. Before you jump to
conclusions, this is not about the grade. I could care less about
grades (although she was beside herself.) This is about GWU's School
of Arts & Sciences requiring students to take 3 lab science courses in
order to graduate.
My daughter does not want to be an astronomy major. She doesn't even
want to be a science major. She reluctantly took A.P. Physics and A.P.
Calculus in high school because she knew she needed them to get into a
decent school. But her strengths are in liberal arts, music and the
social sciences. She knows that, I know it, and it works for us. It
just doesn't work for GWU.
I'd been promising her for years that school would be better when she
got to college. It was definitely better for me. In fact, I've often
said that I didn't know education had anything to do with thinking
until I got to college. I thought it was all a matter of memorization
and regurgitation. Of course, in my day, NYU had very few course
requirements and you could take one course per semester pass/fail. I
made it through geology and some prehistoric computer course where I
learned a program that created a Snoopy outline on a punch card. So
much for my science and math background.
Noah, host of this blog, also went to NYU. Against his mother's
advice, he applied to the School of Arts & Sciences. (I vividly
remember a conversation about 'needing more structure' – but I got my
master's at Goddard -- yet another story.) Anyway, it took Noah one
semester to transfer to Gallatin, NYU's school of individualized
study, where he had no requirements, hungrily pursued his interests in
media and culture, and left school with a passion for learning that
inspires me.
I WANT THAT FOR HIS SISTER! I don't want Leah to feel bogged down by
requirements. Believe me, I understand and applaud the philosophy
behind a broad-based liberal arts education. I think of anything else
– business, pre-law, even pre-med – as trade school. But don't bog
kids down in lab sciences just because it's the only way to pay the
science professors. It does an immense disservice to students who
should be finding themselves intellectually, not cramming for endless
tests and quizzes on the physical principles of the universe. (I
looked it up.)
Require one lab science, if you must, but offer it pass-fail to
non-majors. And tweak the curriculum! I've never taken astronomy,
but I'm quite certain that a creative teacher could find any number of
connections between the science and art, literature, history, poetry,
drama, religion. That is what makes a liberal arts education
worthwhile – recognizing that no field exists in a vacuum. You have
to make those connections, create that web of knowledge, realize the
extraordinary dimensionality of what it means to understand something.
Only then do you want to know more. That's the secret to that
'lifelong learning' catchphrase to which so many school mission
statements give lip service.
I learned a lot of what I understand about education on the internet.
I learned it because I enjoy what I call tangential thinking (and
others sometimes see as always changing the subject.) I just like to
start a search and see where it takes me. Sometimes it lasts for
weeks. At one point, I actually got into the habit of copying every
search phrase I entered, and every address I visited, into my notes,
so I wouldn't lose my trail and not be able to return. (Bless
del.icio.us for making that so much easier.) But there I go again. My
point: this is what I think education is for.
Which brings me to my second source of education irritation. Just
this week, my doctor mentioned that her son is not enjoying a very
competitive, suburban high school here in Fairfield County. I asked
if he was interested in anything. "Sports," she said. "Just sports."
I asked if he spent any time researching sports on the internet and
she said yes, that he spent a lot of time participating in fantasy
football, fantasy baseball, looking at player stats, and so forth. My
advice to her was simple: Encourage him to write about it. If he's
reading and writing, and thinking about statistics, he's got literacy
and math skills. Gently nudge him into following the Barry Bonds
steroid scandal, and you can add science to the mix. Left to his own
interests, with a little encouragement to question what he sees and
reflect on what he's learned, he'll be as prepared for college as
any of his peers -- maybe even more so.
Wouldn't it be something if high schools and colleges actually
encouraged this sort of thing. Imagine your high schooler seriously
pursuing personal interests. What a concept. There's a lot to learn,
but once you get beyond the foundational math and literacy skills, you
can't force feed it. Fortunately, young kids' brains are designed to
accept tons of input, so you can really crank it up in those magical
and concrete developmental learning stages. But once a kid's achieved
abstraction, you're into that whole 'leading a horse to water' thing.
I know you won't be hearing this here first, but please, to GWU and
all those promoting unnecessary and/or pedestrian required curriculum:
you can't even imagine how fast you're falling behind, now that kids
have gone digital. No more sympathetic niceties: FIX IT!
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In my reading today I ran across a few distinct, but interesting quotes that I had to post. The first is from Joe Gillespie at
Web Page Design for Designers. In his
December Editorial titled "Stop the Web, I Want to Get Off," Gillespie writes:
I remember seeing an 'art' film once where someone painted a piano using time-lapse cinematography and a boogie-woogie soundtrack. The paintbrush never appeared in shot but the paint gradually covered the piano, stroke by stroke, in all its psychedelic glory. At the fresh edge, the paint was wet, bright and glossy. Further back in time, and space, it gradated to dull, matte and dry. As the fresh edge moved forward, the dried paint inevitably followed behind at a more or less constant distance. It was quite mesmerizing to watch.
I have always seen the Web as being like that paint. The fresh edge is wet and fluid, and maybe a little unstable as it can still run and drip. Trailing way behind that fresh edge is the dried paint. Solid. Static. It still has a job to do but it's no longer alive.
I have always relished that fresh edge – almost as much as my love for the overwhelming potential of an empty page! But, to keep a wet edge, you have to be constantly moving.
Next up is a quote from Gary Petersen's
About Product Weblogs: How to Use Weblogs for Product Support. Petersen works for Maytag and writes on the
Skybox by Maytag Weblog. In an entry titled
"Bad Information," Petersen writes:
Every product has some negative aspects about it. And I mean every product. The moment you start ignoring them, you start down the path of deceiving your customers. Marketing is not about putting a set of blinders on your customers so they want to buy your product because they wrongly believe it is flawless. It is about educating your customers so they want to buy your product because they understand what it can do for them. Coupled with that is the understanding the the negative aspects of a product will be manageable for them.
The third quote is from a 2001 Forbes article titled
"Internet II: Rebooting America" by Michael S. Malone [via
Functioning Form entry titled
"Digital Technology Cycles & the Web"]:
The Internet isn't dead--it's molting. And what will come out of the chrysalis will be gigantic. Once again, let history be our guide. Every important digital technology over the past 50 years has seen an initial explosion of entrepreneurial activity, followed by a 90%-plus shakeout of the competitors (although only a small dip in revenues). But what is generally forgotten is that after the shakeout, the few remaining survivors enjoy exponential growth. Within a couple of years they are joined by a new generation of savvier young competitors. Meanwhile, over the subsequent two decades, the industry itself typically grows 100 times bigger.
Chips crashed in 1974. Semiconductors are now a $200 billion industry. Processors went down in 1984. They are now a $60 billion industry. Enterprise software had its Waterloo (at least for market leader Oracle) in 1990. It's now a $44 billion industry.
If history holds true, the Net, following this current shakeout, will be a $20 trillion industry (nearly twice the current Gross Domestic Product) by the year 2020. But even if it is only one-tenth that size, it will still constitute an economic revolution.
Two thousand four is the year it all comes together.
The last quote comes on the heels of
Microsoft's introduction of blogging services from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a
Detroit Free Press article titled
"Ballmer Talks Up Links to the Net":
"Blogging is huge," he said. "It brings together the three biggest Internet trends: communicating, sharing and socializing. It started with e-mail and instant messaging and music sharing, and it's getting bigger each day."
I do a fair amount of reading online every day. I have over 200 feeds coming into my aggregator and even on the very busiest days I check 10 or 15 of my favorite feeds. Since I've been unemployed, I've had a bit more time for this (and other activities, including listening to a lot of
Mike and the Mad Dog). Along with thinking about sports issues (which today is heavily tilted towards the
steroid situation in San Francisco and the
Urban Meyer situation in South Bend), I've been thinking about the future of my employment. I've been asked a number of times on interviews what I want to do (in the larger sense of the question) and the truth is that I'm not exactly sure, except I know it has to have an online aspect. I spent the last five months writing for a magazine and spent the four years before that studying media, culture and postmodernism at NYU. It was at NYU (and Gallatin specifically) that I developed a serious interest in digital culture and began imagining the effects it could have on our world. Since then the internet has become my passion. I have bought into its webbed design and interconnectedness as the answer to the traditional top-down, hierarchical world. I believe in its constant evolution as an answer to so many institutions, from government to education, that remain sickeningly stagnant. I'm proud to be publishing my thoughts in a database that is returning the written word to the people. I enjoy being a member of the internet community personally and hope to be part of it professionally.
The net has become such an amazing entity (and I believe it’s got a lot of growth left in it). Look at what Ballmer said, ignoring the fact that he was promoting a new Microsoft venture. Blogs combine “communicating, sharing and socializing� to help the internet realize some of what people saw in 2001. Blogs have helped to create a constant “wet edge� on the net, a constantly moving wave of information that leaves a wake of archived information behind it. People often forget to talk about the huge wealth blogs leave for the world, instead focusing on their ability to stay on top of relevant information. Blogs are storing away vast amounts of information for the likes of Google to make completely searchable for the world. By combining the wet edge of constant movement with the static archive, blogs are helping to show people just what the internet can be. Of course, blogs are not the end all and be all; rather they are just one piece of a larger puzzle. What they have become, though, is the most visible piece and one that is helping individuals and business to understand that this is not your grandma's internet (you get my point).
What bugs me, though, is that too often people focus on the medium. When they do that, they miss the fact that McLuhan was right, the medium is the message. In his 1964 book Understanding Media, he explains just what he means by this oft-used (incorrectly) statement. "This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium -- that is, of any extension of ourselves -- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology." McLuhan used to say that he didn't watch television, instead he watched people watching television. That's where you learn the lessons. It’s about seeing how a medium changes the way the user interact with their world. The blog phenomena is not about four-plus million blogs, it's about what these blogs are teaching people about conversing with one another and about returning the power of the written word to the world. One thing blogs do, for example, is teach people that traditional institutions are not the only source of information. Down the road, when these ideas really sink in amongst the mainstream population, I believe there is hope for these regular citizens to digest what they've learned and take back these institutions that once belonged to them (business, politics and education are only a few that are not safe from this group of interconnected individuals). This is what happened with the Dean campaign and its fundraising magic and it's what we're reading when Gary Petersen of Maytag says, "marketing is not about putting a set of blinders on your customers so they want to buy your product because they wrongly believe it is flawless. It is about educating your customers so they want to buy your product because they understand what it can do for them."
What Petersen understand, is that he's dealing with consumers who are different. He's looking at the message. It's an important distinction, rather than just lowering their prices so that when people comparison shop online their product comes up first, they are attempting to befriend the consumer in an honest way. Maytag is trying to get on consumers' real-life buddy list or blogroll, if you will. Businesses will need to increasingly need to attempt to develop a dialogue with their consumer base if they hope to survive the massive shift we will see in the coming years. Just look at what the internet has done already to get an idea of the net's power to substantially change business. Music downloading has forced the big music companies to rethink their entire strategy (although they've chosen to just sue to maintain the status quo instead, eventually they will have to change). The access to information and interconnected nature of the internet helped to speed up the whole Atkins craze that eventually shut down a number of food companies and practically destroy others (here's looking at you Krispy Kreme).
My point, get a clue now and try to get a head start (even though you're already late) or try to hold on (unsuccessfully) and see what happens. My other point, and I guess my bigger one, is that I want to be in on this. I want to be involved with a business that understands what's going on here. One that knows that consumers are people too. One that believes in honesty and openness. To truly believe in those two things, in my mind at least, requires embracing the internet.
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I was reading
Wired this morning and I ran across a promotion between HBO Video and F.Y.E. The link to the promotion was deep within the Conde Nast site (
http://www.condenet.com/promo/hbo). With the prices of domains today, is there any excuse for promoting a domain that is any more than one level deep? Come on HBO, I just looked it up and you could have purchase HBOatFYE.com and made everyone happy. It only costs $7 or $8 for a year nowadays, isn't that worth it? It's not that difficult to point a domain to a site you already created and it doesn't take that much time to register it, so what's the excuse?
Don't be stupid, buy a domain name!
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Well, it's about that time of year again. That's the time when I prove that I spend entirely too much of my time listening to music and come up with my top 50 albums of the year. For those interested in best of lists, make sure to go check out
Fimoculous' Best of 2004 list of lists (while you're at it, check out
Amazon's Top 100 Albums of the Year and
largehearted boy's top 11.)
All these lists have made me realize I need to start working on my list. As a preliminary measure I've compiled a list of my 68 favorite albums of the year in alphabetical order. I'll start working on ranking them as soon as possible, but without any further ado, here's 68 good albums if you're looking for something to listen to:
A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
Air – Talkie Walkie
Annimal Collective- Sung Tongs
Asobi Seksu - Asobi Seksu
Bebel Gilberto - Bebel Gilberto
Broken Social Scene – Beehives
Chromeo – She’s in Control
cLOUDEAD – Ten
Death from Above 1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Robot
Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands
Erelend Oye – DJ Kicks
Feist – Let it Die
Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
French Kicks – Trial of the Century
Interpol - Antics
Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
Jason Forrest - The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post-Disco Crash
Jim Guthrie - Now, More Than Ever
Joanna Newsome – The Milk-Eyed Mender
John Vanderslice – Cellar Door
Joy Zipper – American Whip
Kanye West - The College Dropout
Kings of Convenience – Riot on an Empty Street
Lali Puna - Faking the Books
Lambchop – Aw C’Mon/No, You C’mon
Madvillain – Madvillainy
Magnetic Fields - I
Maritime - Glass Floor
Mellow – Perfect Colors
Mirah - C'mon Miracle
Modest Mouse – Good News for People who Love Bad News
Moonbabies – Orange Billboard
Murs - Murs 316 The 9th Edition
Of Montreal - Satanic Panic in the Attic
Panthers - Things Are Strange
Phoenix – Alphabetical
Prince – Musicology
Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance
Ratatat – Ratatat
Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous
Robbers on High Street – Fine Lines EP
Saturday Looks Good to Me - Every Night
Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters
Snow Patrol - Final Straw
Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake the Streets
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Bad Plus - Give
The Beta Band - Heroes to Zeroes
The Cardigans - Long Gone Before Midnight
The Delays - Faded Seaside Glamour
The Donnas - Gold Medal
The Elected – Me First
The Fever – Red Bedroom
The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
The Futureheads - The Futureheads
The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives
The Killers – Hot Fuss
The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
The Roots - The Tipping Point
The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come for Free
TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
Wagon Christ - Sorry I Make You Lush
Walkmen – Bows and Arrows
Wilco – A Ghost is Born
Zero 7 – When It Falls
I've got a couple more left to listen to:
1. U2 - How to Dismantle an Atom Bomb
2. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
3. The Go Find - Miami
4. Annie - Anniemal
5. Brian Wilson - Smile
6. Green Day - American Idiot
7. Juana Molina - Tres Cosas
8. Junior Boys - Last Exit
Got a list, send it to me at writing@noahbrier.com.
Also, for your enjoyment (and since it's not up anywhere on this site), here's my top 50 albums of 2003.
1. Postal Service – Give Up
2. The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
3. Broken Social Scene – You Forget It In People
4. Stars – Heart
5. Sufjan Stevens – Greetings From Michigan The Great Lake State
6. Rachael Yamagata – Rachael Yamagata EP
7. TV on the Radio – Young Liars EP
8. Holopaw – Holopaw
9. Deerhoof – Apple ‘O
10. Yo La Tengo – Summer Sun
11. Jay-Z – The Black Album
12. Metric – Old World Underground, Where Are You Now
13. Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
14. Wrens – Meadowlands
15. Ms. John Soda – No P or D
16. Juana Molina – Segundo
17. Fruit Bats - Mouthfuls
18. Evan Dando – Baby, I’m Bored
19. Viktor Vaughn – Vaudeville Villain
20. The New Pornographers – Electric Version
21. Decemberists – Her Majesty The Decemberists
22. Four Tet – Rounds
23. White Stripes – Elephant
24. Cat Power – You Are Free
25. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Hearts of Oak
26. Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts
27. Basement Jaxx – Kish Kash
28. Mates of State – Team Boo
29. Stellastarr – Stellastarr*
30. Guther – I Know You Know
31. Madlib – Shades of Blue
32. Rocky Votolato – Suicide Medicine
33. Saturday Looks Good to Me – All Your Summer Songs
34. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
35. Athlete – Vehicles and Animals
36. Adam Green – Friends of Mine
37. The Darkness – Permission to Land
38. Belle and Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress
39. Outkast – Speakerboxx/Love Below
40. Kings of Leon – Youth and Young Manhood
41. Long Winters – When I Pretend To Fall
42. Russian Futurists – Let’s Get Ready to Crumble
43. The Sea and Cake – One Bedroom
44. Jason Collett – Motor Motel Love Songs
45. Iron and Wine – The Sea and Rhythm EP
46. The Books – The Lemon of Pink
47. Jet – Get Born
48. Architecture in Helsinki – Fingers Crossed
49. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
50. The Strokes – Room on Fire
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Hi, I'm 