Posts (page 2)
This article sort of annoys me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/weekinreview/02baker.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
They spend a lot of time saying how you have to think you're better than anyone else, want your face on Mount Rushmore, have a god complex, etc to want to be president of a country in such bad shape.
I completely disagree. I think it's more like seeing your mom get beat up, and stepping in to intervene. Maybe you'll get beat up too, but you can't let something you love get trashed, so you jump in.
I don't think it takes an egotist to want to help America right now. It takes an American.
People are treating Obama's staggering fundraising numbers as a problem. I don't understand why. So public financing is dead. So?
He's gotten his money from the people. Gotten nothing from lobbyists. In small chunks. This is great. This is Democracy. This should be embraced, not feared.
When the AppStore was first released, a lot of people were disappointed with the quality of the applications found there. For every solid app, there seemed to be 100 that just weren't very good.
But I don't really care, and that sets me apart from a lot of the articles I've read on the topic. Many people argue that it's the little touches that make Mac software superior, and that the apps we were shown on day one lacked the same polish. And they did. But I think we know why.
It was a new platform, with a very strict NDA, with a fixed release date that no one knew other than Apple, with an app upload process that had to be hand-approved by a human. So all you could do is build your app, make it as stable as possible, post it to Apple, and then hope for the best. Never mind if you made the code 50% better the next day -- Apple had your bits, and was going to release them whenever the store was ready.
So a lot of people had old, outdated, crappy code posted the first day. I know my app wasn't up to par.
But then the dot releases started coming. Slower than the devs would have liked, of course, but they came. And big improvements were made even in the first week.
Well, it's been months now. Apps conceived on the day of launch have had time to launch. And the results are good. In fact, I have several apps that were awful in version one, but have since updated themselves into really impressive pieces of software. Not just impressive for a phone, impressive period.
It hasn't gotten a lot of press or attention yet, but the average quality for AppStore applications is inching higher. Give developers some time and the ability to talk to one another, and they can come out with some pretty great stuff.
To start, I'd like to stress that I'm not unaware of the massive challenges facing America today. I'm not going to claim we're going to see prosperity with a snap of the fingers. But because many of the problems we have today can be traced directly to Bush administration policies, I think we're going to be pleasantly surprised with a few things when Obama is president.
First, the international community loves Obama. The people and the leaders love him for different reasons, but the result is the same. Goodwill towards America will increase the instant Bush leaves. Replacing him with Obama, a bi-racial, worldly, and very intelligent man, is going to help us with our allies and our standing around the world. This has a ripple effect.
Obama is going to right our tax policy. For 8 years, we've given the rich far more than they deserve, and Obama is going to put things back to Bill Clinton levels. Many on the right decry being too politically correct, so here goes. It is patriotic to pay taxes, and it is unpatriotic to dodge taxes. Period. Rich people will stay rich, but they won't be able to dodge their fair share. This will immediately give the US more money. This is a good thing.
We're going to get out of Iraq. This doesn't mean we leave quickly, and this doesn't mean we don't leave bases. But we're going to make it clear to the Iraqis that we're dramatically reducing our presence. They've asked us to leave, we're going to leave. This will immediately reduce the strain on our troops, which will help us when we need to deal with the next threat.
We're going to fund education, green jobs, energy independence in ten years, and health care. Why this is a good thing should be self evident. If it isn't, that's a sign we've been lead by the blind for too long.
I don't expect Obama to win every battle. I don't expect rainbows and ponies. I do expect a level of professionalism, clarity, and intellectual vigor that's simply lacking from mainstream Republican thought these days. Obama may not be perfect, but he won't disappoint us on this front. We might have tough times ahead, but he's a calm, brilliant leader who seems to lead best under great pressure.
This is the guy we've been waiting for. The second he walks into the oval office, things are going to change for the better. I look forward to being inspired again.
First Obama had no bounce.
Then he got a big bounce.
Then McCain got a lead in one poll and everyone freaked out.
Then the same day two more polls came out showing a tie.
It's called a post-convention bounce. It's normal.
And yet even with a bounce, McCain is still not in the lead, judging by the moving average.
Breathe. Relax. Wait a few weeks.
That is all.
I watched the new Microsoft ad with Seinfeld with great interest, and wearing several different hats.
As a consumer, I was confused. What does Bill and Jerry's trip to the mall have to do with Windows?
As someone expecting to be entertained, I was disappointed. I half-chuckled at the churro line and smiled at Bill's ID. But the ad was scattered and unfunny.
As a Microsoft watcher, I was dumbfounded. What is this campaign hoping to accomplish? Are they trying to put a more personal face on Bill Gates, hoping that it will sell more copies of Windows? Is this trying to combat the "I'm a Mac" ads that paint Windows as out of touch? If so, why pick such a bewilderingly obtuse skit?
As someone who loves stand-up comedy, I knew I had seen this before. There's a strange phenomenon with stand-up comics -- they're funny on stage, but then they put out a live concert video and they feel the need to spice it up with lame skits. They're never funny, but I think comedians like to wear the director hat. That might be what happened here.
As an Apple fan, I'm thrilled. The longer Microsoft grasps at straws trying to be cool, the longer it'll take them to realize how to compete. Apple can get a lot done while Microsoft flails.
As a final point, I was amazed that people didn't universally dismiss this ad the way I did. Gruber of Daring Fireball said it wasn't bad, and this is the guy who does bitter scorn (especially against Microsoft) better than anyone online. The first 3 comments on Macrumors were mostly positive.
So maybe I don't represent the mainstream this time, but I think the ad does nothing but solidify suspicions that Microsoft is just as confused, uncool, and stuck in the 90s as the ad itself.
Now that Google is coming out with a browser, there's once again discussion about Google's dominance and what it means for their company's "don't be evil" motto.
I think people are confusing "successful" and "powerful" with "evil". (and while we're at it, when geeks refer to being evil, they really mean Microsoft's mafia-syle tactics in the 90's. Predatory. Monopolistic. Illegal.)
If Google.com ever gets a reputation for having inferior search results, people can just type MSN.com instead. If Google's new browser sucks, it will go from 0% marketshare to ... 0% marketshare. If people don't want Google to know what RSS feeds they follow, they can use feedburner. Google simply doesn't have the leverage to lock anyone in.
The problem with Microsoft last decade is they were illegally leveraging their near-monopoly into unrelated markets, and killing off competition that in some cases was technologically superior because of their incredible market power and their ruthless business style. (for example: "if you bundle Linux, you can't bundle Windows anymore", which is blatantly illegal for a monopoly)
Google may be getting very powerful. But it hasn't locked anyone in. It hasn't threatened any of its competitors' business partners (nor do they have the leverage to try). They haven't broken the law. There's simply no comparison.
In 1997, I worked at an ISP in the Bay Area doing technical support. My boss told me "the customer is not always right. That's why they're calling us, after all." Of course that old adage is referring to customers being treated well because they make your business, not their grasp of technical ISP details. But while his logic was flawed, I still do agree with his central point for a sightly different reason: the customer is not always right, because not everyone is a match to every product or service.
For example, a person making $30,000 a year might contact Mercedes and complain bitterly that Mercedes' are too expensive. And they are, for this customer, because he is not a fit with the Mercedes target demographic. This customer should be politely listened to, his comments filed away, and his opinion taken in stride. Maybe Mercedes should get into the budget market. But maybe not. The customer isn't "right", he just has his opinion and it may or may not line up with corporate objectives.
My company recently started charging money for our service. We had announced for about two years that we were in an open beta, and that we would eventually try to make money at this. (while keeping a free option available with fewer features)
On one hand, I was surprised how many people were level-headed about the change. There was a lot of "Damn it! Ok, I'll pay." or "Damn it! I can't afford that but I understand." And that's great.
But there were still the people that demanded that we keep giving them a free ride. And not only are we not for them, I'm happy to see them go. Our service costs money to operate, so I'm happy to see these "free or die" people go and cost our competition money. Money they will never, ever recoup, because these are customers whose primary metric is how free the service is.
If you decide that you are never paying for software, don't be surprised when your options are limited. Or if some businesses are more than happy to see you go. You're not "right", you're "cheap", and that's not a match with every company.
Apparently T-Mobile is going to make their own AppStore, but it'll be for the entire carrier instead of just one phone.
And they probably think 1000x the phones means 1000x the profit. I see 1000x the complexity. Or at least 5x the complexity considering that's the number of different platforms. Plus some multiplier because dealing with two platforms is more than twice as hard as only handling one.
Imagine the AppStore launch with ten times the delay and ten times the complexity and bugs. With no killer phone.
A new series of McDonalds commercials shows two hipsters discussing McDonalds' new espresso. When the word "McDonalds" is uttered, the hipsters recoil, and then one admits that they like McDonalds. Then the other admits it too, and they riff about how they're tired of being pretentious, and head off to the nearest McDonalds franchise.
I think these ads are fantastic because they're at least partially realistic. In the last decade we've been treated to the "Isn't it hilarious how fanatical our fans are?" ad countless times, but they're never for brands that anyone feels that strongly about. Brands that really do get people crazy like Apple and Harley-Davidson don't run ads like those. So instead it's some Sprite commercial where a guy builds a spaceship out of Sprite bottles because he wants to Obey His Thirst ... in space.
But the McDonalds ad doesn't pretend people are fanatical, or even neutral. They openly admit that McDonalds isn't cool, however briefly, before continuing with their pitch. And allowing this little ray of reality to intrude on what ends up being a pretty generic new product pitch makes all the difference. By making a tiny bit of fun of their bad PR, they look clued in. This is something McDonalds some trouble with, and these ads address it well.
Microsoft?
I am a big time Apple and Microsoft watcher, so Ballmer's quote about Apple a few weeks ago gave me pause. Rather than continuing with the approach that made Microsoft, often referred to as the "ecosystem" strategy, Ballmer openly announced that they're moving away from it. In favor of Apple's "own everything" strategy. Because the ecosystem strategy doesn't work for fantastic user experience.
This is huge. It's like America saying capitalism isn't working well, so they're going to try communism. It's amazing that they're going to pivot to an approach they have always looked down on, and it's doubly amazing that Microsoft, who is traditionally more arrogant than Apple, is admitting the need to change.
It's huge enough that I'm a little scared for Apple and AAPL. There are two reasons that Apple has been able to differentiate itself in the last decade: owning the hardware and the software, and Microsoft's apparent refusal to admit that their strategy needs improvement, allowing Apple to get away with murder without a real response from Redmond.
Now that Microsoft has admitted it has a problem, they might start achieving great things again. Apple should be worried.
