Thursday, May 1, 2008
LIP SYNC VIERNES EN LA CASA!
Not a lip sync, but my favorite pop song - and some amazing dancing...alas I am cursed with two white feet.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
On this the 44th anniversary of my birth, I thought I'd focus a post on how the world has changed in that time. At first I thought of comparing 1964 to 2008, but as my media world in '64 consisted of a mobile over my crib, I instead decided that 1968 to 2008 would be a better comparison.
In Surburban Philadelphia in 1968, there was ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and three UHF channels. Remember, dear reader, that at the time Philly was the third largest city in America. And it had 7 channels. As I recall, one broadcast 24-7, while the others went off air at some point in the middle of the night. It actually mattered what night it was TV-wise. There were good TV days and bad ones. Cable -- ha! Cable was a line under the ocean that could transmit a phone call to Europe for about $5 a minute.
There were FOUR major daily newspapers in Philly at the time. Now there are two, but really one as they are owned by the same company. One is just a broadsheet, the other a tabloid.
The news was Walter Cronkite, and he gave us new info about the war every night, with film, and death toll. No coverage of who got knocked off Idol, though, as Idol didn't exist. There was no happy talk, no food fight commentary, and everyone knew someone fighting in Vietnam. Heck even I knew someone and I was 4.
Gasoline at the time cost 15.9 cents per gallon, and you got green stamps with it. S&H, the good green stamps.
In our house we had a Ford station wagon (a Torino as I recall), and a Plymouth Barracuda. Japanese cars, at the time, were oddities that were perceived to be crap and low quality to boot. Foreign cars generally were oddities -- there was the counterculture VW Bug and of course Mercedes, which only Doctors could afford.
The nearest McDonald's from our house was 26 miles. This was less than 40 miles from Philly BTW. For our dining out, we went alternate Fridays to The Charcoal Pit, a sit down burger joint, or Pappy's, a local chain of pizza that I loved because they gave free Pepsi refills. One a month we went to Howard Johnson's for Fried Clams.
For a treat we went to Woolworth's for a hot fudge Sundae at the counter, which was about $0.80, $1 with tip.
In any era there are improvements and roundabouts -- some things get better, some things worse, and some things disappear entirely.
But as I look at the world today versus then, one truly amazing improvement I can point to with certainty is the web. It's the only force that flies in the face of total media control in the US by 5 companies. It is a way for millions to speak their minds. It allows tiny media voices to have the same potential impact as CBS -- ask Matt Drudge, who was once a tiny little blogger until Monica Lewinsky got her internship at The White House.
Gas may cost more, Detroit may no longer sell much iron, newspapers have died, and Woolworth's is no more. But we have the Internet, and for that I am very thankful.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
In Surburban Philadelphia in 1968, there was ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and three UHF channels. Remember, dear reader, that at the time Philly was the third largest city in America. And it had 7 channels. As I recall, one broadcast 24-7, while the others went off air at some point in the middle of the night. It actually mattered what night it was TV-wise. There were good TV days and bad ones. Cable -- ha! Cable was a line under the ocean that could transmit a phone call to Europe for about $5 a minute.
There were FOUR major daily newspapers in Philly at the time. Now there are two, but really one as they are owned by the same company. One is just a broadsheet, the other a tabloid.
The news was Walter Cronkite, and he gave us new info about the war every night, with film, and death toll. No coverage of who got knocked off Idol, though, as Idol didn't exist. There was no happy talk, no food fight commentary, and everyone knew someone fighting in Vietnam. Heck even I knew someone and I was 4.
Gasoline at the time cost 15.9 cents per gallon, and you got green stamps with it. S&H, the good green stamps.
In our house we had a Ford station wagon (a Torino as I recall), and a Plymouth Barracuda. Japanese cars, at the time, were oddities that were perceived to be crap and low quality to boot. Foreign cars generally were oddities -- there was the counterculture VW Bug and of course Mercedes, which only Doctors could afford.
The nearest McDonald's from our house was 26 miles. This was less than 40 miles from Philly BTW. For our dining out, we went alternate Fridays to The Charcoal Pit, a sit down burger joint, or Pappy's, a local chain of pizza that I loved because they gave free Pepsi refills. One a month we went to Howard Johnson's for Fried Clams.
For a treat we went to Woolworth's for a hot fudge Sundae at the counter, which was about $0.80, $1 with tip.
In any era there are improvements and roundabouts -- some things get better, some things worse, and some things disappear entirely.
But as I look at the world today versus then, one truly amazing improvement I can point to with certainty is the web. It's the only force that flies in the face of total media control in the US by 5 companies. It is a way for millions to speak their minds. It allows tiny media voices to have the same potential impact as CBS -- ask Matt Drudge, who was once a tiny little blogger until Monica Lewinsky got her internship at The White House.
Gas may cost more, Detroit may no longer sell much iron, newspapers have died, and Woolworth's is no more. But we have the Internet, and for that I am very thankful.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
YOS: MICROSOFT LIVE REDUX?
I understand the comments of many who think Yahoo is simply replicating Microsoft’s Live strategy. But I see it differently. First of all, because Yahoo has, in my opinion, always been better at creating consumer experiences that Microsoft. Second, that Microsoft;’s actions always seem to have at their center retaining and enhancing the competitive power of Office.
Of course, for Microsoft, that makes sense. Office is in for a rough several years, what with Google Docs and other free web-based document platforms biting its heels. I think it is going to remain dominant – scratch that, COULD remain dominant – if they start putting consumer needs at the center. And fix bloody Vista.
The other major assets that Yahoo holds versus Microsoft are a broader array of more successful environments. Yahoo Mail is of course healthier than Hotmail, and MSN, which has always centered more on content, has largely outsourced activities like online dating.
If Yahoo can do more than cobble together all of its pieces into a single, cohesive environment, then it will indeed be much much much more than Live.
I encourage you to go HERE to see the YOS presentation from last week’s Web 2.0 Conference.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write
Of course, for Microsoft, that makes sense. Office is in for a rough several years, what with Google Docs and other free web-based document platforms biting its heels. I think it is going to remain dominant – scratch that, COULD remain dominant – if they start putting consumer needs at the center. And fix bloody Vista.
The other major assets that Yahoo holds versus Microsoft are a broader array of more successful environments. Yahoo Mail is of course healthier than Hotmail, and MSN, which has always centered more on content, has largely outsourced activities like online dating.
If Yahoo can do more than cobble together all of its pieces into a single, cohesive environment, then it will indeed be much much much more than Live.
I encourage you to go HERE to see the YOS presentation from last week’s Web 2.0 Conference.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
DOES ANYONE ELSE HEAR A SIMILARITY BETWEEN ANDY GRIFFITH AND JOHN DURHAM'S ACCENT?
That means that the rest of us are Opie, Goober, and Aint Bea. So perhaps I shouldn't have brought it up... I refuse to be Aint Bea. Being accused of being like Charlotte from Sex and the City was bad enough.
The best part of the second ad is Aint Bea's Sankagasm when she first takes hold of the new easy to handle jar. Watch for it. I think I hear a run on Sanka...
The best part of the second ad is Aint Bea's Sankagasm when she first takes hold of the new easy to handle jar. Watch for it. I think I hear a run on Sanka...
YOS AND AN OPEN SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT ACROSS THE SITE
As a baby boomer, I always take a little longer to understand why people like social networks so much. I LOVE the social aspect of the web, but have little interest in knowing that someone in my FaceBook friends list is eating bacon for breakfast. Just when I begin to see the value of FaceBook, I get ANOTHER Zombies invitation. Honestly, how do people conduct business in this?
Yahoo’s social plan is to connect people to those they care about within the context of context. So, the thoughts and ideas people I play Fantasy Baseball with are most available to me when I am on Yahoo Sports. I can still connect with them in yahoo Finance, but the idea is that each of us has different relationships for different contextual areas.
The YOS model also recognizes, however, that context is not the only predictor of what I will want from people socially. I will, in this totally open environment, be able to connect with and leverage my relationship with anyone at any time. But the contextual overlay seems rather valuable.
And thank the stars above that they are not creating another social network. This puts them at odds with AOL’s recent purchase of Bebo, but the world of social media is so transitory that relying on the possible success of one social network over another seems rather inappropriate to me.
So it appears that Yahoo is taking the central core of Yahoo as an information and entertainment resource and simply adding additional layers of sociality to it. I like that.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
TOMORROW: IS YOS JUST MICROSFT LIVE REBRANDED?
Yahoo’s social plan is to connect people to those they care about within the context of context. So, the thoughts and ideas people I play Fantasy Baseball with are most available to me when I am on Yahoo Sports. I can still connect with them in yahoo Finance, but the idea is that each of us has different relationships for different contextual areas.
The YOS model also recognizes, however, that context is not the only predictor of what I will want from people socially. I will, in this totally open environment, be able to connect with and leverage my relationship with anyone at any time. But the contextual overlay seems rather valuable.
And thank the stars above that they are not creating another social network. This puts them at odds with AOL’s recent purchase of Bebo, but the world of social media is so transitory that relying on the possible success of one social network over another seems rather inappropriate to me.
So it appears that Yahoo is taking the central core of Yahoo as an information and entertainment resource and simply adding additional layers of sociality to it. I like that.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
TOMORROW: IS YOS JUST MICROSFT LIVE REBRANDED?
Monday, April 28, 2008
YOS AND THE DEVELOPER
Yahoo has wisely recognized that the future viability of the Yahoo world relies on getting lots and lots of developers to create apps for it. And what they are doing to encourage that practice is to create a common development environment so that an individual application can be created for one world of Yahoo that can be easily migrated to another.
In his speech, Balogh mentioned the idea of an app that seamlessly imported Yelp reviews into any area of Yahoo, so that the consumer could get ratings of places, things, and events that enrich her experience wherever she is on Yahoo. This will have tremendous value.
Yahoo promises to create a very simple and intuitive application platform.
A keystone of this YOS effort for developers is the uniting of all of a person’s profiles into one, so that information available in one area of Yahoo can be leveraged in another. They say that the consumer will be able to choose to what extent he wishes to share that information with applications, which is a good thing. Since FaceBook has already gotten us very used to letting it all hang out online, I don’t believe this will be much of a barrier.
Yahoo is already part of Google’s Open Social, which is also a wise move. There is no reason to create another proprietary standard – it’s the last thing a company that needs developer collaboration should do.
The question to me is whether Yahoo can create new Yahoo environments that enable this sort of application environment without disrupting the experiences its users already like about the site. I for one dislike the new Yahoo Mail, which is essentially the Outlooking of Yahoo Mail.
Only time will tell. But it’ll be an interesting watch.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
In his speech, Balogh mentioned the idea of an app that seamlessly imported Yelp reviews into any area of Yahoo, so that the consumer could get ratings of places, things, and events that enrich her experience wherever she is on Yahoo. This will have tremendous value.
Yahoo promises to create a very simple and intuitive application platform.
A keystone of this YOS effort for developers is the uniting of all of a person’s profiles into one, so that information available in one area of Yahoo can be leveraged in another. They say that the consumer will be able to choose to what extent he wishes to share that information with applications, which is a good thing. Since FaceBook has already gotten us very used to letting it all hang out online, I don’t believe this will be much of a barrier.
Yahoo is already part of Google’s Open Social, which is also a wise move. There is no reason to create another proprietary standard – it’s the last thing a company that needs developer collaboration should do.
The question to me is whether Yahoo can create new Yahoo environments that enable this sort of application environment without disrupting the experiences its users already like about the site. I for one dislike the new Yahoo Mail, which is essentially the Outlooking of Yahoo Mail.
Only time will tell. But it’ll be an interesting watch.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
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