Good Morning Boston
Day one...or two, depending on whether my cousins wedding in Essex counted. Great pics off Nana and Mere to be uploaded later. It is a gorgeous morning in Boston... If you're here, go for a run or something. I'm walking over to the car now to install the portable XM radio. You cannot imagine how psyched I am for this trip.
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Sent from my Helio Ocean
Sah-weet... My Voki has a car... props!
Ok, so its not a Mustang, but now some of our characters (and soon all) will have probs. Check out his little convertible. Vroom!
Informal iPhone survey
I just pinged a bunch of random non-techie friends... you know, the other 98% of the world... and asked them the following:
1) Are you likely to purchase the iPhone in the next week? Yes/no
2) Are you likely to purchase the iPhone in the next three months? yes/no
3) Are you likely to purchase the iPhone ever? Yes/no
Responses:
Next week? 16 no's. A clean sweep.
Next three months. Another 16 no's.
Ever? 3 yes, 6 no, 7 maybe.
Ok, first of all, maybe wasn't a suggested answer, but besides that, here's what people wrote on the "maybe" side:
maybe if cheap enough, sometime! But it would have to be drop-proof...and waterproof!
i could be persuaded if i didn't have to switch my plan (because i'm really happy with verizon), if it becomes significantly cheaper and only after they get out the inevitable first generation bugs.
iPhone’s only available currently with AT&T, and I have a contract with Verizon.
No, but only cus I'm poor. If I were rich, then yes.
Point and Laugh Friday - iPhone, MySpace, Facebook Apps
My favorite radio show, Opie and Anthony, has been doing a "____ day" gimmick to make fun of other radio stations. Yesterday was "Phone call Thursday" and it just featured listeners calling up with absolutely nothing to say just because it was Phone call Thursday. Hilarious.
Today is "Point and Laugh Friday" in addition to being "Mispronunciation Friday" and a few other things, and I think I may just make Fridays into Point and Laugh Friday on this blog as well.
So feel free to point and laugh...
...at anyone at the front of the iPhone line. Including professional line sitters.
...for MySpace for thinking that developers would spend time building apps for them after Facebook has already said anyone is free to make money there and MySpace has a history of bullying the very applications that made the service what it is today. Chris DeWolfe thinks the Facebook platform "is interesting."
...at Yankee fans, who think there's any shot whatsoever of the Yanks making the playoffs.
...at Facebook app developers for thinking that all they had to do is throw any kind of crap up there and get 7 million users, plus have their business plan solved for them as well. Oh, so wait... you still need a marketing strategy, a compelling and viral app that provides utility, AND a business model??
Point and laugh, folks. Point and laugh.
Plaxo: Shiny and new, but doesn't quite work
Spam issues in the past aside, I've usually found Plaxo to be a pretty useful service. Having moved companies a few times, the process of moving address books around and keeping up to date with people has been made much easier because of it.
So when they announced themselves as the place to sync everything, I was psyched. Their new interface is terrific. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work.
First off, it somehow triplicated all of my calendar entries. That's ok, though, because they have a premium feature that includes de-duping. Ahh... I see their business model now. Screw up your calendar and than pay to fix it. Clever!
In addition, they sync with GCal, which is fantastic, because GCal couldn't understand the CSV file that I had exported from Outlook. Plaxo told me that I had too many calendar entires (about 3x too many, perhaps?) and that it would sync everything for me in the background. That was yesterday. Is it still working? I have no idea if the feature is broken, it just didn't work that time or if its halfway done.
Perhaps I should wait for Plaxo 3.5?
Trip Updates
So we made a little change on the front end... the Cooperstown day ends with a few hours to Ithaca, NY. That will give us 5 1/2 hours to trek across Western NY on our way to the Tribe game in Cleveland.
So here's the map now. Remember, all those west coast stops aren't actually stops.. they're just a way to get Google Maps to drive on the right road.
So, in terms of cities, stops and opportunities to meet folks...
We have a free day in Seattle on 7/11, both day and night. Suggestions are welcome and we'll prob do some sort of happy hour type thing for the handful of folks we know in Seattle.
We're also free the night of 7/14 in San Fran. We might stop in if anyone is hanging out after CommunityNext, but also, @caroliiine is going to be headed into the Bay Area that same night, so we were thinking of maybe doing a NYers invade the Valley thing, too. Up in the air...
I also just ordered my radar detector. That should come in by the end of the week... vroooom.
We picked up a few audio books as well, and I'm thinking of dusting off my XM radio and resubscribing. Does anyone have the car adapter for it? Does it work? I was pretty disappointed with the performance of the adapter for the iPod.
We also managed to avoid camping entirely... Mere called Yellowstone again and found a hotel cancellation, so we don't have to sleep in the woods. That would have been a lot of extra gear to carry around for just one night.
Tickets purchased for Royals game on 7/4 and for LA Dodgers on Monday the 16th. Most expensive seat at Kaufmann was $32, not surprisingly. At least I'll get to see Ichiro, b/c the Mariners are in town. I hope King Felix pitches.
danah boyd on Class and Social Networking
Wow... thoughtfulness in the blogosphere...
I'll read this kind of thing any day over that ridiculous "people ready" flap that killed off a couple of million collective brain cells over the weekend...
From danah... The part I liked best about this essay was the part that had nothing to do with social networks...
Link: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.
People often ask me if I'm worried about teens today. The answer is yes, but it's not because of social network sites. With the hegemonic teens, I'm very worried about the stress that they're under, the lack of mobility and healthy opportunities for play and socialization, and the hyper-scheduling and surveillance. I'm worried about their unrealistic expectations for becoming rich and famous, their lack of work ethic after being pampered for so long, and the lack of opportunities that many of them have to even be economically stable let alone better off than their parents. I'm worried about how locking teens indoors coupled with a fast food/junk food advertising machine has resulted in a decrease in health levels across the board which will just get messy as they are increasingly unable to afford health insurance. When it comes to ostracized teens, I'm worried about the reasons why society has ostracized them and how they will react to ongoing criticism from hegemonic peers. I cringe every time I hear of another Columbine, another Virgina Tech, another site of horror when an outcast teen lashes back at the hegemonic values of society.
I worry about the lack of opportunities available to poor teens from uneducated backgrounds. I'm worried about how Wal-Mart Nation has destroyed many of the opportunities for meaningful working class labor as these youth enter the workforce. I'm worried about what a prolonged war will mean for them. I'm worried about how they've been told that to succeed, they must be a famous musician or sports player. I'm worried about how gangs provide the only meaningful sense of community that many of these teens will ever know.
Given the state of what I see in all sorts of neighborhoods, I'm amazed at how well teens are coping and I think that technology has a lot to do with that. Teens are using social network sites to build community and connect with their peers. They are creating publics for socialization. And through it, they are showcasing all of the good, bad, and ugly of today's teen life. Much of it isn't pretty, but it ain't pretty offline either. Still, it makes my heart warm when I see something creative or engaged or reflective. There is good out there too.
The Facebook Problem? Huh? (Scratches head) People, the same rules still apply!
The web is talking about the "problems" with the new Facebook platform.
Last time I checked, customer acquisition was a real benefit, no? Don't people usually pay for customer acquisition? As far as I'm concerned, the main reason why I suggested that Oddcast build a Voki app for Facebook was exactly that... to get more users. That's a phenomenal benefit for developers. Oh, wait.. is Facebook also supposed to invent a business model for you, too. That's like saying that AdSense sucks because it doesn't promise you customer conversions too, just traffic.
The problem of not making money with your app is not a Facebook problem. Its your problem! It shouldn't be up to Facebook to figure out your business model, too! Figure out a way to monetize your audience. If no one wants to pay for the Where I've Been app or you can't figure out how to stick relevant travel ads on it, then it shouldn't exist. If the Where I've Been app existed at whereivebeen.com, it would have the same exact issues. Facebook is not a parallel universe where the rules of needing a business model don't apply. This is real life, folks... and if you can't figure out a way to get the bills paid, well, sorry... This isn't Facebook's fault. Don't put your mouth in front of the firehose and than complain that the water comes out too fast and that you have a small bladder.
I don't really think this is a Facebook specific problem either. In fact, its actually a testament to how pure the signal usually is on Facebook. Right now, I have 25 posts in my newsfeed. Of the 25, 8 of them are notifications related to my friends adding or subtracting applications. The rest are actual usage of those apps, like Twitter updates, or people adding photos or friends or whatever they usually do on Facebook. That might be a lot, but compare that to my e-mail inbox. Of my last 25 threads in Gmail, 14 of them were not from humans. They were confirmations from purchases, notifications for folks joining the nextNY mailing list, ads, etc. On top of that, 4 more were blog comment notifications, which were initiated by humans at least, but not direct conversations.
I'm sure Facebook will adjust this issue, though, but it's not a huge problem. At some point, there will be equilibrium in the app world and people won't be adding or subtracting nearly as many apps. Plus, I don't really need to know when someone took something down... and maybe I shouldn't need to know that someone added something. If you invite me, fine... but I don't need to see that people are just playing.
In any case, I think the same basic rules of needing a business model, needing to be compelling enough to stand out from the crowd, needing to scale, etc. still apply in Facebook. Let's not forget that. It's still the web, people, not Fantasyland.
nextNY Social:Rooftop 2.0 This Wednesday!
Want to meet cool folks in the NYC Tech and Digital Media scene? Signed up on the nextNY listserv but haven't met us in person yet?
Come to the LaQuinta rooftop this Wednesday night (6/27/07) at 6:30PM and hangout under the NYC sky. It promises to be a great time.
Let us know that you're coming... RSVP here.
Business Tools for One
I've been really fortunate. Since I announced the fact that I was leaving, a bunch of interesting projects and conversations have come up.
And I've been keeping them all on a Google spreadsheet.
That's ridiculous... but does anyone else have any other solutions?
Basically, I want the Salesforce-like ability to attach e-mail conversations to people. I could actually get Salesforce, but I didn't really like it. Plus, I don't think I can attach e-mails to people unless it's with Outlook, and I've been using Gmail a lot lately. Do any consultants use Salesforce just for themselves? Anything else useful?
LinkedIn's Outlook plugin doesn't quite do it, because I can't add any info to it. I may owe someone an e-mail, but I may have a reason to wait, which I can't add.
And while we're on the subject of Google apps, why on earth doesn't Gcal provide IMAP compatibility so I can sync it with my Mobile phone or Outlook cal? This is a nobrainer and I think a ton of business folks would convert to Gcal fulltime if they could add and view appointments using their mobile phone.
Anyway, it just amazes me how, once you get out of the Outlook/Salesforce world of enterprise focused apps, how poor the tools are for organizing the professional lives of individuals are.
Breaking open Experiential Learning: An opportunity?
On Monday, two people asked me what I *really* wanted to do, and both times what I can up with was to be the head of Career Services for Fordham. (At Fordham just because that's my alma mater and the school I have the closest connection to... not because it needs the most help... seems that most schools are on par with each other in this area.)
That's not really realistic, though, for a number of reasons. First, I don't want to run the current implementation of career services at any university... The whole thing needs to be completely reinvented and its unlikely any university would allow that without a serious change in its approach. Too harsh? Take a poll of current students and graduates...ask them how helpful career services has been to them. Ask graduates how satisfied they are with their current job and whether or not career services even helped them get a job in the first place. Find out how many graduates undergo a complete career change within the first three years of graduating. It's just a broken model. A career staff of 5 can't help 2000 graduates all find their dream jobs without seriously scalable educational structures.
I have no doubt that the numbers are sorrowful, but I also have no doubt that most schools don't even come close to keeping these statistics. I teach. I talk to students all the time and right now, especially right now, they're overwhelmed by the task of career fulfillment. I'll write more later on this, but its not a quality issue in career services personnel. They're dedicated, hardworking people. Its a structural issue with the way these groups interact with students, employers, alumni, and information technology that creates serious inefficiencies.
You've got alumni with a tremendous knowledge base that goes relatively untapped. Counselors get tasked with the impossible task of helping a student get into book publishing one day and mortgage backed securities trading the next. Plus, you've got all these fantastic information and networking resources online like blogs and social networks that the students aren't being taught how to use professionally because most schools don't actually have a career class.
What I realized, though, is that the problems with this kind of education are not limited to the college career office. In general, structures for industry specific learning, particularly when it comes from learning from the accumulated wisdom of successful and experienced professionals, is horribly inefficient. This occurs to me when I compare the success of grassroots efforts like nextNY and BarCamp to the conference industry at large. As nonprofit, community driven organizations, they are often able to attract better, or at least more passionate, participants than their pricey, more capital intensive counterparts in a more open and intimate setting. Many times, conferences amount to members of a community paying hundreds of dollars to talk to themselves--a tax on poor self organization. Plus, you often wind up with industry newcomers having the material go over their heads and veterans finding the content relatively pedestrian. And don't even get me started on how hard it is to find the three people you absolutely should meet.
One of the issues with these grassroots organizations is that the second you turn on the money part, it needs structure, oversight, and it sort of loses its authenticity.
What of this all? I dunno... but what we have now in terms of how I connect with likeminded folks, or how someone learns about a career and makes contacts... is just poor. The amount of work I need to do to accomplish anything the least bit efficient on this front is ridiculous.
MySpace, Yahoo Swap? Worst. Deal. Ever.
Link: Report: Murdoch ponders MySpace, Yahoo 'swap' - CNN.com.
"Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is discussing swapping social networking Web site MySpace for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo, The Times newspaper reports."
Remember when East Germany and West Germany merged and they set the exchange rate at 1:1 and it wound up crushing the German economy to the point where it became known as the "Sick Man of Europe"? That's the kind of effect Yahoo buying MySpace at a valuation of $9+ billion would be.
Thought exercise: Facebook ad network driven by users
Here's a thought exercise:
Why doesn't someone build, as an app, a Facebook ad network.
Facebook sells advertising that puts ads on our pages and in our newsfeeds. Could you build an ad app that people would ad that could become like AdSense for Facebook (or, in fact, an actual AdSense for Facebook app). Conceivably, it could use some of the data of the signed in user to tip off the engine to get more relevent results, and you could pay the person who added the app. Imagine that, an advertising network that never has to pay a dime for the platform itself... you wouldn't even need to cut Facebook in.
Of course, there would be downsides. People might not like you selling stuff within their feeds and bringing a commercial feel to a social environment, so they may turn you off in their feeds... or join you and ad the app themselves so they can make money, too.
I would imagine that if such a thing was successful, Facebook would adjust its policy on ads in apps.
The First Weekend of the Rest of My Life
One thing I'm going to really love about having a little bit of time is the opportunity to meet more people. I'm a sponge for new people and their projects and being able to schedule things during the day is very exciting... so these next two weeks before I go will be very busy.
However, I'm also making some time for play. I spent a good chunk of this weekend dragging Mere around my life, which she was able to document.
Seems to me that any offspring would be genetically predisposed to large smiles...
Keeping a watchful eye over the kayakers... and yes, that's my softball jersey. No reason to change if I was just going to get it dirty later.
Concentration...
Samara almost got lapped... but she did get on with a nice outfield single.
I think I can... I think I can...
Sweet action shots... and yes, I totally popped the ball up to center, but it looked nice, no?
Four of Us Had Lyme Disease goes to 7-0, winning 21-12 even though we only had 8 people.