There are enough rude, annoying publicists in the marketing field to inspire the creation of the Bad Pitch Blog, which chronicles the field's ugly stories and worst practices. I'm not a formally trained publicist, but I've managed to use common courtesy to build my company's media list from 20 contacts to over 2,000 in about three years. Maybe not being formally trained isn't such a bad thing.
I was asked to provide a list of tips on building a media list through a contact at Peter Shankman's HARO and in the spirit of the season, I thought I'd share.
1. Learn who is interested in what. There are publications serving every interest. Spend a few months getting to know the space, the publications, and the writers. Read the masthead. Read the bylines.
2. Build trust by seeming harmless and offering value. First, seem harmless. It's best if you can get a trusted person to introduce you to your contact. Do nothing to cause a person to believe that, if they even so much as twitch at your bait, you will bombard them with sales-pitchy phone calls or emails. Do this by sending a brief email, 3-5 sentences max. Give a brief intro, and then add value: a brief summary of the benefits of your product to the publication's readers and an offer to send a sample or explain more if the contact is interested. If they don't reply, they probably aren't interested in that product; don't send it. Read their publication so you know what will interest them later.
3. Make a list and track what interests your contacts. Segregate your list into interests and make sure to only send communications appropriate to the publication. Don't stretch it: sending a product that's a little off target almost never works and it risks alienating your current or future relationship with your contact. Put yourself in their shoes, and if the pitch is a reach, shelve it. Track what they respond to, what you send them, and how they react. In their eyes, you'll become more on-target and therefore more trustworthy.
4. Become a journalist. Do as much of the work for the publication as you can. Pitch briefly, but be prepared to send materials that are ready to print within 24-48 hours after the contact replies. If you can consistently offer good, effortless content quickly, the publication will begin to think of you as a resource, as a regular contributor and not a PR person.
5. Respond quickly. Many journalists are under tight deadlines and quick, comprehensive responses will often get the mention. Being prepared makes this responsiveness easier.
6. Control the message by controlling the outlet. Not all publicity is good, but most of it can be. Carefully pick and choose which media outlets to pitch. Vet each media outlet, especially websites and blogs. Figure out how many readers you need to see a review of your product in order for it to be worth your time developing a relationship with that media outlet. Use services like Google Trends for Websites to check on traffic claims for websites and Technorati for blogs.
7. Pitch lightly. Once you have built trust with a journalist, you don't need to hammer them over the head with a salesy pitch. Give them the hook of the story and ask if they'd like to hear more. If they trust you, they will ask for more detail.
8. Prepare your sources. Journalists need sources they can quote. Make sure your sources are familiar with the publication and the context of a story before they are interviewed. Without rehearsing them, let them know the direction the story is going so they can help the journalist get the soundbites they need.
9. Don't call. Most of the wordsmiths I know would prefer to read and write than talk. Talking is for once-a-year tradeshows. In nearly four years of building a publicity program, maybe half our publicity hits came from just two or three emails: a brief pitch or press release and a brief follow up. Email lets journalists read, archive, delete, or respond on their own schedule, without having to tolerate an awkward phone pitch. Do you appreciate sales calls? Return the favor and keep the pressure off people whose trust you want to earn and keep (or else they'll just let you go to voicemail, like this dreadful publicist).
Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
VeloNews Seeking Candidates for Tech Editor Position
AVAILABLE: THE BEST JOB IN THE BIKE INDUSTRYVeloNews tech editor position open to qualified candidate
Boulder, CO, USA - December 15, 2008 - Do you love working on bikes and know them inside and out? Do you appreciate staying on top of the latest tech trends? If you have the right stuff, VeloNews magazine has a career waiting for you.
VeloNews is growing its tech department, expanding on the huge body of work done by Lennard Zinn and Matt Pacocha, the most respected technical writers in cycling. VeloNews is seeking a tech editor to spearhead the department, producing their own work while collaborating with Zinn and Pacocha.
The position requires a thorough understanding of bicycle technology, management ability, professional writing and editing competency, and solid communication and interpersonal skills. The ideal candidate will have bike industry experience, preferably in a bike shop or R&D. Attention to detail, multi-tasking skills and the ability to work under tight deadlines are essential.
Interested candidates can send a résumé, cover letter and three writing samples to: Attn: HR, 1830 55th St., Boulder, CO 80301 or boulderjobs@competitorgroup.com. No phone calls, please.
More information on VeloNews magazine is available at VeloNews.com.
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Sunday, December 14, 2008
Facebook Attracts Narcissists
The web has a long and sordid history of enabling narcissism.
From cheesy personal pages on Angelfire to blogging to Twitter's "what are you doing right now?' and its implied "and who cares?", the web is the world's most giant repository of useless personal content that nobody cares about (this blog included).
And now there's some scientific proof of the vanity of the web: "Shocking research: Narcissists drawn to Facebook".
From cheesy personal pages on Angelfire to blogging to Twitter's "what are you doing right now?' and its implied "and who cares?", the web is the world's most giant repository of useless personal content that nobody cares about (this blog included).
And now there's some scientific proof of the vanity of the web: "Shocking research: Narcissists drawn to Facebook".
Facebook: To Befriend or Not To Befriend?
Webware identifies five common Facebook friend request scenarios and how to react to them in an article, "Five types of Facebook trolls and what to do with them".
One interesting call: ignore people who are hitting you up with friend requests on more than one social network.
One interesting call: ignore people who are hitting you up with friend requests on more than one social network.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Marketing to the Fit vs. the Outdoorsy
Hanson Dodge Creative is a creative agency that serves manufacturers in both the fitness and outdoor industries. The company produces "white papers" (or, as they are known to marketers: advertorials) that highlight distinctions they see while working for their clients.
Their August 19, 2008 release, "Actively Different: Fitness vs. Outdoor Messaging" (http://research.hansondodge.com/), didn't teach me much since I'm familiar with both industries, but the company did leave me with a memorable quote:
[The outdoor-oriented person asks, "What could I do today?" The fitness-oriented person asks, "What should I do today?"]
I suppose that's an accurate description of the motives behind each market: outdoorsy people are in it for enjoyment. Fitness people are in it to compete.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Be a Renaissance Person, Not an Expert
Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike
By JANET RAE-DUPREE
Published: December 30, 2007
"It's a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience."
The "curse of knowledge: In other words, it becomes nearly impossible to look beyond what you know and think outside the box you’ve built around yourself."
"Look for people with renaissance-thinker tendencies, who’ve done work in a related area but not in your specific field."
By JANET RAE-DUPREE
Published: December 30, 2007
"It's a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience."
The "curse of knowledge: In other words, it becomes nearly impossible to look beyond what you know and think outside the box you’ve built around yourself."
"Look for people with renaissance-thinker tendencies, who’ve done work in a related area but not in your specific field."
Give Readers What They Want
The New York Times' guest columnist Tim Egan provides weekend readers with a little proselytizing: people who routinely massacre the spoken word shouldn't write books.
I've got a few problems with opining that Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin shouldn't write a book because they speak poorly. First, speaking and writing are different. Maybe they can write. They certainly are not writing books because they think themselves capable of writing good books. They don't think they can write. Don't be ridiculous. They think they can get a big advance. (They won't write a page of those books anyway.)
Who is Egan to take someone to task for writing a book? Writing should be encouraged, at least morally. Writers are more valuable than readers. Writers read more, read better, and create better reading material than readers do.
What Egan is actually saying is that Joe's and Sarah's stories aren't worth reading. As his column is a guest op-ed, he's entitled to his soapbox.
Also too Egan should instead criticize publishers who agree to bring a Joe the Plumber book to market. Unless, of course, the publisher is correct in believing that people actually want to read that book. And these are my main points: the publishing industry should only judge a book by its sales and should focus on giving readers what they want. The publishing industry pumps out between 170K-205K books each year and most of those are never reprinted because readers don't want to read that many books...
...and because many of those books are not interesting to readers. The industry thinks about the product instead of the customer. Rather than producing what the customer wants, the industry produces the best possible version of the idea that book represents. In other words, the industry is focused on the romantic idea of "the book" rather than on the wants and needs of the customer. In a way, performance arts are similar. Orchestras and operas desire to achieve the highest quality of their art, yet very few people truly enjoy classical music.
And in fiction, no one can predict what will sell. Unless they are fortunate enough to have proven authors, fiction publishers are almost literally guessing at new books. The book's quality is not necessarily relevant (e.g. the Twilight series). To compensate, fiction publishers must toss a lot of product at the market to see what sells. Once something sells, they scramble back to press.
So who cares if Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin write books? The real story is that someone might actually want to read them. Let's focus our attention on those people, the readers, because they are the ones who decide what books to read, not Joe, not Sarah, and not publishers.
I've got a few problems with opining that Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin shouldn't write a book because they speak poorly. First, speaking and writing are different. Maybe they can write. They certainly are not writing books because they think themselves capable of writing good books. They don't think they can write. Don't be ridiculous. They think they can get a big advance. (They won't write a page of those books anyway.)
Who is Egan to take someone to task for writing a book? Writing should be encouraged, at least morally. Writers are more valuable than readers. Writers read more, read better, and create better reading material than readers do.
What Egan is actually saying is that Joe's and Sarah's stories aren't worth reading. As his column is a guest op-ed, he's entitled to his soapbox.
Also too Egan should instead criticize publishers who agree to bring a Joe the Plumber book to market. Unless, of course, the publisher is correct in believing that people actually want to read that book. And these are my main points: the publishing industry should only judge a book by its sales and should focus on giving readers what they want. The publishing industry pumps out between 170K-205K books each year and most of those are never reprinted because readers don't want to read that many books...
...and because many of those books are not interesting to readers. The industry thinks about the product instead of the customer. Rather than producing what the customer wants, the industry produces the best possible version of the idea that book represents. In other words, the industry is focused on the romantic idea of "the book" rather than on the wants and needs of the customer. In a way, performance arts are similar. Orchestras and operas desire to achieve the highest quality of their art, yet very few people truly enjoy classical music.
And in fiction, no one can predict what will sell. Unless they are fortunate enough to have proven authors, fiction publishers are almost literally guessing at new books. The book's quality is not necessarily relevant (e.g. the Twilight series). To compensate, fiction publishers must toss a lot of product at the market to see what sells. Once something sells, they scramble back to press.
So who cares if Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin write books? The real story is that someone might actually want to read them. Let's focus our attention on those people, the readers, because they are the ones who decide what books to read, not Joe, not Sarah, and not publishers.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
A Guide to Lowering Your Phone Costs with VOIP
We switched from a traditional land phone line to Vonage VOIP in January 2005 because Vonage is 1/3 the cost and offers better features. Vonage costs us $19 per month and the call quality is pretty good; worse than a landline but better than a cell phone.
Since then, we've had a few months where the call quality got frustratingly bad, most recently in September and October. Frustrated and suspecting that the VOIP industry had matured enough in three years to offer a better deal elsewhere, we began shopping around.
Here are some options:
1. Go cellular. Ditch the landline completely and use a cell phone for all your calls. Cons: Cell phone subscription plans are almost as pricey as a landline. You're irradiating your noggin. Still, maybe a prepaid plan like T-Mobile's (about $8-10/month) is cheap enough to compensate for the copay on your future brain surgery.
2. Use Skype. It used to be the case that Skype could only call other computers. Now you can buy a "normal" phone number and make and receive calls from traditional phones. And it used to be the case that you needed to have a computer on to use Skype. There are now several phone + router combos that have Skype embedded and which don't require a computer to make and take calls. But they cost at least $160, plus roughly $36/year for a Skype phone number.
3. Use Gizmo5. It's basically Skype, but with less expensive hardware. The call quality is noticeable worse than other VOIP services.
We just discovered a new option through a paid product placement on Amazon. Ooma, a VOIP startup launched in 2007, is offering totally free phone calls. The catch? You have to pay up front for the Ooma device, which is not cheap.
As with all startups, there's a risk to getting involved. Though Michael Arrington has been using Ooma since 2007 and said its call quality is better than Vonage, he's also concerned about the company's future. The company has a few problems:
1. When it first launched, the Ooma device was $400. This price was too high and consumers didn't bite (despite the fact that consumers will wait in line to buy an iPhone and then pay exorbitant monthly fees for the data plan that makes the thing useful). The bottom line is that consumers don't understand marginal cost: subscription plans are always overpriced for all but the heaviest users. For fixed-price goods, costs decline over time, especially if they replace a subscription fee. Ooma responded by reducing its price to $250.
2. This is very likely the first you've heard of Ooma. Few people know about this thing. In fact, few people under 40 know about Skype, either, despite that Skype has over 8 million people online at any given moment.
3. Consumers aren't spending money right now (except us, apparently!). That's bad news for startups struggling to reach critical mass with an expensive product because of a botched launch.
So I can't believe we just coughed up $193.51 at Costco.com, which is offering $50 off the device through December 7. I hope Arrington's right about the call quality, and I hope Ooma can stay in business for just 10 more months, which is how long it will take for our device to pay for itself relative to Vonage.
Since then, we've had a few months where the call quality got frustratingly bad, most recently in September and October. Frustrated and suspecting that the VOIP industry had matured enough in three years to offer a better deal elsewhere, we began shopping around.
Here are some options:
1. Go cellular. Ditch the landline completely and use a cell phone for all your calls. Cons: Cell phone subscription plans are almost as pricey as a landline. You're irradiating your noggin. Still, maybe a prepaid plan like T-Mobile's (about $8-10/month) is cheap enough to compensate for the copay on your future brain surgery.
2. Use Skype. It used to be the case that Skype could only call other computers. Now you can buy a "normal" phone number and make and receive calls from traditional phones. And it used to be the case that you needed to have a computer on to use Skype. There are now several phone + router combos that have Skype embedded and which don't require a computer to make and take calls. But they cost at least $160, plus roughly $36/year for a Skype phone number.
3. Use Gizmo5. It's basically Skype, but with less expensive hardware. The call quality is noticeable worse than other VOIP services.
We just discovered a new option through a paid product placement on Amazon. Ooma, a VOIP startup launched in 2007, is offering totally free phone calls. The catch? You have to pay up front for the Ooma device, which is not cheap.
As with all startups, there's a risk to getting involved. Though Michael Arrington has been using Ooma since 2007 and said its call quality is better than Vonage, he's also concerned about the company's future. The company has a few problems:
1. When it first launched, the Ooma device was $400. This price was too high and consumers didn't bite (despite the fact that consumers will wait in line to buy an iPhone and then pay exorbitant monthly fees for the data plan that makes the thing useful). The bottom line is that consumers don't understand marginal cost: subscription plans are always overpriced for all but the heaviest users. For fixed-price goods, costs decline over time, especially if they replace a subscription fee. Ooma responded by reducing its price to $250.
2. This is very likely the first you've heard of Ooma. Few people know about this thing. In fact, few people under 40 know about Skype, either, despite that Skype has over 8 million people online at any given moment.
3. Consumers aren't spending money right now (except us, apparently!). That's bad news for startups struggling to reach critical mass with an expensive product because of a botched launch.
So I can't believe we just coughed up $193.51 at Costco.com, which is offering $50 off the device through December 7. I hope Arrington's right about the call quality, and I hope Ooma can stay in business for just 10 more months, which is how long it will take for our device to pay for itself relative to Vonage.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Atlantic Records Portends the Future of the Ebook?
From the old gray lady:
"Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group, says it has reached a milestone that no other major record label has hit: more than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products, like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones."
Also noted in the article is that, overall, less music is being sold. Chris Anderson is right, everything that becomes digital becomes free, legitimately or not.
"As a result, the hope that digital revenue will eventually compensate for declining sales of CDs — and usher in overall growth — have largely been dashed." This means that Chris Anderson is also wrong: the web is not spurring sales by making obscure content more findable.
I like Jeff Zucker's quote, the media industry is "trading analog dollars for digital pennies".
To counteract the effect of low pricing on digital products, the music industry is focusing on the "experience" of music: concerts, etc. Where mp3s distance the consumer as far as possible from the musician, concerts bring them as close as the stagehands allow.
Perhaps publishing can learn from this concept of proximity as added-value. If consumers embrace the digital book, maybe the author tour will become more critical.
There's another lesson, too. Atlantic Records is replacing CD sales with "small bits of revenue from many sources: Atlantic Records’ digital sales include ring tones, ringbacks, satellite radio, iTunes sales and subscription services.". Maybe Nolo is ahead of the curve with its repurposing of non-fiction books into ebooks, books on tape/podcasts, and software.
"Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group, says it has reached a milestone that no other major record label has hit: more than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products, like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones."
Also noted in the article is that, overall, less music is being sold. Chris Anderson is right, everything that becomes digital becomes free, legitimately or not.
"As a result, the hope that digital revenue will eventually compensate for declining sales of CDs — and usher in overall growth — have largely been dashed." This means that Chris Anderson is also wrong: the web is not spurring sales by making obscure content more findable.
I like Jeff Zucker's quote, the media industry is "trading analog dollars for digital pennies".
To counteract the effect of low pricing on digital products, the music industry is focusing on the "experience" of music: concerts, etc. Where mp3s distance the consumer as far as possible from the musician, concerts bring them as close as the stagehands allow.
Perhaps publishing can learn from this concept of proximity as added-value. If consumers embrace the digital book, maybe the author tour will become more critical.
There's another lesson, too. Atlantic Records is replacing CD sales with "small bits of revenue from many sources: Atlantic Records’ digital sales include ring tones, ringbacks, satellite radio, iTunes sales and subscription services.". Maybe Nolo is ahead of the curve with its repurposing of non-fiction books into ebooks, books on tape/podcasts, and software.
News for Nerds Roundup
Smart phones are becoming scary-smart. Thanks to Amazon's new "Amazon Mobile" iPhone app, an iPhone user can snap a photo of any product and Amazon will identify it and find the best price available on Amazon.com. Check it out here. The "Google phone" identify and even search book text and also shop your local area for the best prices on a product using its barcode scanner application, but to identify a photo of any old object? That's amazing. Advantage: iPhone.
For Thanksgiving, Lifehacker published a list of free software its editors are most thankful for. I'm happy to say I've used 8 of the top 10 and 24 of all 46, mostly thanks to Lifehacker's useful reviews.
Mozilla's Thunderbird email software is sporting a new add-on "Google Contacts" will sync your Google contacts list with your Thunderbird address book. Jeez, why keep using Outlook 2000?
In other Mozilla news, Songbird is a free, open-source jukebox application. Check it out: it looks a ton like iTunes (which I hate). However, it is open-source and extensible which means it must be better than iTunes. Better yet, the QuickTime Playback add-on lets you play iTunes-formatted songs. After you ditch Outlook for Thunderbird, consider ditching iTunes for Songbird.
I just learned that Google has bought 20 million newspapers. That's a lot of classifieds and car and real estate ads. Google will scan them for posterity and feed them into their search engine, which is good because we'll need something to remember what newspapers looked like once they're gone.
I created a social network over the weekend using Ning.com. Ning lets you create your own social networks, a la Facebook. It took me about 2-3 hours, but only because I was being picky about the color scheme. Ning is intuitive, easy to set up, and pretty full featured, and I think the layout is much more user friendly than Facebook, which I find to be an atrocious mess. Ning might be an upcoming "next big thing"; who wouldn't find it cool to create their own social network? Here's a screenshot:
For Thanksgiving, Lifehacker published a list of free software its editors are most thankful for. I'm happy to say I've used 8 of the top 10 and 24 of all 46, mostly thanks to Lifehacker's useful reviews.
Mozilla's Thunderbird email software is sporting a new add-on "Google Contacts" will sync your Google contacts list with your Thunderbird address book. Jeez, why keep using Outlook 2000?
In other Mozilla news, Songbird is a free, open-source jukebox application. Check it out: it looks a ton like iTunes (which I hate). However, it is open-source and extensible which means it must be better than iTunes. Better yet, the QuickTime Playback add-on lets you play iTunes-formatted songs. After you ditch Outlook for Thunderbird, consider ditching iTunes for Songbird.
I just learned that Google has bought 20 million newspapers. That's a lot of classifieds and car and real estate ads. Google will scan them for posterity and feed them into their search engine, which is good because we'll need something to remember what newspapers looked like once they're gone.
I created a social network over the weekend using Ning.com. Ning lets you create your own social networks, a la Facebook. It took me about 2-3 hours, but only because I was being picky about the color scheme. Ning is intuitive, easy to set up, and pretty full featured, and I think the layout is much more user friendly than Facebook, which I find to be an atrocious mess. Ning might be an upcoming "next big thing"; who wouldn't find it cool to create their own social network? Here's a screenshot:
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Blogs.com Ranks the Best Blogs by Topic
While Technorati tells us what bloggers are blogging about, the site doesn't provide much feedback about which blogs are providing the best content.
Blogs.com is taking the bold step of rating blogs. Blogs.com is part of the company that produces MovableType and TypePad, and they are now employing an editorial staff to rate blogs by topic.
Need to know the Top 10 best blogs about Obama or music or economics? The editors at Blogs.com are hard at work finding them for you.
To get you started, I would have offered my Top 10 Blogs.com Top 10 Lists of Blogs (in no order), but there are just too many Top 10 Lists of Blogs to choose from. Check them out for yourself here.
Interestingly, there are no lists of book publishing or triathlon blogs and only one list of cycling blogs. Oh yeah, and Blogs.com offers user-generated lists. Opportunity, anyone?
Blogs.com is taking the bold step of rating blogs. Blogs.com is part of the company that produces MovableType and TypePad, and they are now employing an editorial staff to rate blogs by topic.
Need to know the Top 10 best blogs about Obama or music or economics? The editors at Blogs.com are hard at work finding them for you.
To get you started, I would have offered my Top 10 Blogs.com Top 10 Lists of Blogs (in no order), but there are just too many Top 10 Lists of Blogs to choose from. Check them out for yourself here.
Interestingly, there are no lists of book publishing or triathlon blogs and only one list of cycling blogs. Oh yeah, and Blogs.com offers user-generated lists. Opportunity, anyone?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Endsheet Blog Review: Lifehacker.com
On July 25th, Google announced via its blog that the world’s most popular search engine has identified at least 1 trillion unique pages on the web.
That is a lot of websites. And with the explosion of free and easy-to-use web services, how’s a person to know which ones are most useful?
For this purpose, I turn to my favorite blog, Lifehacker.com. Run by a software programmer and a small team of contributing editors, Lifehacker is an award-winning blog devoted to online and offline productivity. Lifehacker reviews fascinatingly named web services—like Hulu, Remember the Milk, Jott, and Sandy—explaining their benefits and providing easy walkthroughs. Lifehacker’s clarity and ease of use has made it one of Technorati’s top-linked blogs on the web.
A sampling of stories on Lifehacker.com:
VM-what? Okay, so Lifehacker isn’t for everyone. It is for people who like finding clever ways to do things better, faster, or cheaper. It’s especially for those who get stoked about hacking their wireless router’s firmware with a Linux-based OS to boost their sign—oops! Sorry.
Lifehacker has made my life better, or at least more productive. The blog keeps me up to date on the newest and most useful web services, like Syncplicity, a simple way to my work files updated on my home computer—no emailing, DVD-Rs, thumb drives, or external hard drives required. Or like Jott, which will email me a text transcript of the voicemail I leave when I call from a cellphone. With 1 trillion pages to choose from and web services becoming increasingly powerful, Lifehacker’s insight is invaluable.
As a product of Web 2.0, Lifehacker is free and requires no registration. Just point your favorite browser to Lifehacker.com and enjoy a more productive life! Technophiles will appreciate Lifehacker's many RSS feed options: all stories or top stories, full text with ads or just ledes sans ads. Luddites, fear not. The wisdom of Lifehacker is also available in print. Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker, just published a book of life hacks called Upgrade Your Life (Wiley, 2008), available in bookstores and, naturally, online.
This article was originally published in the fall 2008 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
That is a lot of websites. And with the explosion of free and easy-to-use web services, how’s a person to know which ones are most useful?
For this purpose, I turn to my favorite blog, Lifehacker.com. Run by a software programmer and a small team of contributing editors, Lifehacker is an award-winning blog devoted to online and offline productivity. Lifehacker reviews fascinatingly named web services—like Hulu, Remember the Milk, Jott, and Sandy—explaining their benefits and providing easy walkthroughs. Lifehacker’s clarity and ease of use has made it one of Technorati’s top-linked blogs on the web.
A sampling of stories on Lifehacker.com:
- Use Facebook as a Marketing Tool
- Repair Your Own Books
- Track web site stats with Google Analytics
- Zoomii Browses Amazon Books Shelf by Shelf
- Top 10 Computer Annoyances and How to Fix them
- Rent Books Netflix-Style with BookSwim
- Five Best Note-Taking Tools (yes, pencil and paper made the list!)
- VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 Now Available
VM-what? Okay, so Lifehacker isn’t for everyone. It is for people who like finding clever ways to do things better, faster, or cheaper. It’s especially for those who get stoked about hacking their wireless router’s firmware with a Linux-based OS to boost their sign—oops! Sorry.
Lifehacker has made my life better, or at least more productive. The blog keeps me up to date on the newest and most useful web services, like Syncplicity, a simple way to my work files updated on my home computer—no emailing, DVD-Rs, thumb drives, or external hard drives required. Or like Jott, which will email me a text transcript of the voicemail I leave when I call from a cellphone. With 1 trillion pages to choose from and web services becoming increasingly powerful, Lifehacker’s insight is invaluable.
As a product of Web 2.0, Lifehacker is free and requires no registration. Just point your favorite browser to Lifehacker.com and enjoy a more productive life! Technophiles will appreciate Lifehacker's many RSS feed options: all stories or top stories, full text with ads or just ledes sans ads. Luddites, fear not. The wisdom of Lifehacker is also available in print. Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker, just published a book of life hacks called Upgrade Your Life (Wiley, 2008), available in bookstores and, naturally, online.
This article was originally published in the fall 2008 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
Follow the Reader: How publishers and booksellers can reach new readers
Americans are reading fewer books each year, a fact confronting publishers big and small. Even as publishers continue to ratchet up production, they know that a digital frontier of publishing has arrived, and in order to remain a relevant among the iPhone and Web 2.0 users, they must find new ways to reach their audience. Or as I like to think of it, they have to follow the reader.
Formal and informal, the studies indicating fewer readers are many. Last November, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts released "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," which concluded that our country is experiencing "a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans," and that "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates." Though this study built on the NEA's 2004 report, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," the challenge to publishers remains clear: How do they sell books to people who don't read books?
Or are publishers interpreting the data correctly? At O'Reilly Tools of Change conference in February, Stephen Abram delivered a keynote address entitled "Information 3.0: Will Publishers Matter?" and pointed out a crucial distinction: Americans are not reading less, they're reading differently. To the point, they're reading online, a shift that explains MIT's estimated 25 percent annual growth rate in the number of websites. Abram explained that for today's reader, the Web's authority not only rivals that for printed material-it's beating it. If online information is reliable, convenient, and free, the real question to ask is, how can the printed book compete?
In his closing keynote at the 2007 PubWest Annual Conference, Andrew Savikas spoke to this issue and maintained that the Internet is "rapidly superseding the function of print publishing." Information that, up until recently, could be found only in print is now available online for free, 24/7. Entire categories of books, for instance cookbooks and travel guides, are under seige from websites like Epicurious and TripAdvisor. According to Savikas, book publishers must expand their model of publishing into one that supports and interfaces with digital media, enabling houses of all sizes to divide and repurpose book content into formats that accommodate readers' new reading patterns. Here are a few steps to consider when following the reader:
However, publishers should not move to the Web without care, WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson, best known in publishing for his "long tail" concept, describes the pressures facing digital content in the March 2008 issue in this way: "Anything that becomes digital becomes free."
Many in the industry believe that the printed book will continue to hold value for readers long after publishing has transitioned into the digital era. They also believe there will continue to be a need for distribution, and for the bookstore. Arsen Kashkashian, buyer for the Boulder Book Store in Boulder, CO, is a believer but says that reaching or creating new readers poses a "vexing problem" for independent bookstores. Kashkashian follows his readers by focusing his efforts on retaining his best customers and rewarding frequent buyers for their repeat business. He has also designed the store to be welcoming and comfortable, like "a living room and not a library". To encourage reading, the Boulder Book Store donates pallets of children's books to local schools and schedules a wide range of events intended to appeal to nontraditional book readers.
Kashkashian believes the decline in reading is simply a cultural phenomenon, and feels the problem is exaggerated. "We didn't run around in 1957 fretting about how many people were reading," he says. "Some people were reading and passionate about books, and the publishing industry catered to them. Today, the problems facing bookstores and publishers are ones of competition, with websites and stores both offering an endless array of titles being published in an already cluttered marketplace. Perhaps the anomaly is the explosion of mega-stores, the number of published titles, and the commoditization of books, and not how many people are reading.
The Web is both threat and opportunity. Traditional print-only publishing faces an inevitable decline as the supply of information overwhelms the demand of a book-averse public. Yet the Web offers publishers an opportunity to serve (and follow) readers in new ways. While the Web's short history has shown that digital content eventually becomes free (think Google), the Web brings readers closer to publishers than ever before-and at close quarters, it promises to teach us how to stay connected to our readers.
This article was originally published in the fall 2007 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
Formal and informal, the studies indicating fewer readers are many. Last November, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts released "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," which concluded that our country is experiencing "a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans," and that "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates." Though this study built on the NEA's 2004 report, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," the challenge to publishers remains clear: How do they sell books to people who don't read books?
Or are publishers interpreting the data correctly? At O'Reilly Tools of Change conference in February, Stephen Abram delivered a keynote address entitled "Information 3.0: Will Publishers Matter?" and pointed out a crucial distinction: Americans are not reading less, they're reading differently. To the point, they're reading online, a shift that explains MIT's estimated 25 percent annual growth rate in the number of websites. Abram explained that for today's reader, the Web's authority not only rivals that for printed material-it's beating it. If online information is reliable, convenient, and free, the real question to ask is, how can the printed book compete?
In his closing keynote at the 2007 PubWest Annual Conference, Andrew Savikas spoke to this issue and maintained that the Internet is "rapidly superseding the function of print publishing." Information that, up until recently, could be found only in print is now available online for free, 24/7. Entire categories of books, for instance cookbooks and travel guides, are under seige from websites like Epicurious and TripAdvisor. According to Savikas, book publishers must expand their model of publishing into one that supports and interfaces with digital media, enabling houses of all sizes to divide and repurpose book content into formats that accommodate readers' new reading patterns. Here are a few steps to consider when following the reader:
- Every book should be available in multiple formats: print, digital, and online subscription.
- Publishers should sell chapters individually.
- Book content should be divisible into articles available online for free, both as separately usable content and as teaser for the complete electronic or printed book.
However, publishers should not move to the Web without care, WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson, best known in publishing for his "long tail" concept, describes the pressures facing digital content in the March 2008 issue in this way: "Anything that becomes digital becomes free."
Many in the industry believe that the printed book will continue to hold value for readers long after publishing has transitioned into the digital era. They also believe there will continue to be a need for distribution, and for the bookstore. Arsen Kashkashian, buyer for the Boulder Book Store in Boulder, CO, is a believer but says that reaching or creating new readers poses a "vexing problem" for independent bookstores. Kashkashian follows his readers by focusing his efforts on retaining his best customers and rewarding frequent buyers for their repeat business. He has also designed the store to be welcoming and comfortable, like "a living room and not a library". To encourage reading, the Boulder Book Store donates pallets of children's books to local schools and schedules a wide range of events intended to appeal to nontraditional book readers.
Kashkashian believes the decline in reading is simply a cultural phenomenon, and feels the problem is exaggerated. "We didn't run around in 1957 fretting about how many people were reading," he says. "Some people were reading and passionate about books, and the publishing industry catered to them. Today, the problems facing bookstores and publishers are ones of competition, with websites and stores both offering an endless array of titles being published in an already cluttered marketplace. Perhaps the anomaly is the explosion of mega-stores, the number of published titles, and the commoditization of books, and not how many people are reading.
The Web is both threat and opportunity. Traditional print-only publishing faces an inevitable decline as the supply of information overwhelms the demand of a book-averse public. Yet the Web offers publishers an opportunity to serve (and follow) readers in new ways. While the Web's short history has shown that digital content eventually becomes free (think Google), the Web brings readers closer to publishers than ever before-and at close quarters, it promises to teach us how to stay connected to our readers.
This article was originally published in the fall 2007 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Noticing Less Spam Email This Week?
That's because you're receiving only 112 billion spam emails per day instead of the usual 190 billion.
The Washington Post reports (with some cool graphics) that several internet security firms took a major Northern California spam host offline on Tuesday and that the number of spam emails sent immediately plummeted by two-thirds. McColo Corp. was apparently the host and coordinator of nearly 75% of the world's spam email.
Don't get too excited, though: spammers are expected to have found a new host and to be back to business as usual within a few days.
Interestingly, the San Jose-based company has not yet been charged with any crimes, and the Post is unsure if there is any evidence of unlawful activity. Surely sending 75% of the world's emails about discount pharmaceuticals, designer goods, and porn is a crime.
The creepy thing to think is that you and I and nearly everyone you know is extremely likely to have gotten email from this company and its clients.
UPDATE: The botnets, networks of computers that have been hijacked to send spam without their owners knowing it, have adjusted to McColo's shutdown.
The Washington Post reports (with some cool graphics) that several internet security firms took a major Northern California spam host offline on Tuesday and that the number of spam emails sent immediately plummeted by two-thirds. McColo Corp. was apparently the host and coordinator of nearly 75% of the world's spam email.
Don't get too excited, though: spammers are expected to have found a new host and to be back to business as usual within a few days.
Interestingly, the San Jose-based company has not yet been charged with any crimes, and the Post is unsure if there is any evidence of unlawful activity. Surely sending 75% of the world's emails about discount pharmaceuticals, designer goods, and porn is a crime.
The creepy thing to think is that you and I and nearly everyone you know is extremely likely to have gotten email from this company and its clients.
UPDATE: The botnets, networks of computers that have been hijacked to send spam without their owners knowing it, have adjusted to McColo's shutdown.
Monday, November 10, 2008
REI Wants You to "Bike Your Drive"
REI, which quietly sells a ton of bikes and cycling gear each year, wants drivers to start riding to work. To help them get started, REI offers this article, "Getting Into Biking".
And you know what? It's really a pretty good article. I even enjoyed reading the "12 Cycling Myths", even though it didn't refute my two bike commuting pet peeves: "freezy face" and "helmet hair".
Saturday, November 8, 2008
I'm on Lifehacker.com!
On Friday around noon, Lifehacker.com, one of my favorite blogs and one of Technorati's top 10 most-read blogs, posted my email about how much Windows networking sucks!
It's been read 9,500 times so far. Now to read through all the replies.
It's been read 9,500 times so far. Now to read through all the replies.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Google Phone May Morph Into Kindle-Killer
As Medialoper hints in its analysis of the recent Google Book Search agreement with publishers and authors, Google's Android mobile phone OS might become a Kindle-killer.
Android is more than a phone operating system, it's an OS for mobile devices. With Google soon to have exclusive access to its long tail of over 7 million scanned books, Google will have a strong incentive to monetize that content. The book search agreement includes several ways for Google to profit:
Since Android phones will continue to add usefulness beyond mere mobile voice calls (including zero-charge access to the entire web and all its blogs and newspapers), who will want to pay $300 something to own a separate device that charges for some of that functionality? Only those who care about readability. The Kindle is remarkably readable. Still, what's to stop a mobile device manufacturer from creating a larger format, eye-friendly device that will compete more directly with the Kindle?
Amazon's 190K books won't compare to Google's 7 million and counting. Google may not yet have Amazon's access to best-sellers or Amazon's considerable leverage over print-focused publishers, yet publishers maintain their ability to choose which books to include in both Google's and Amazon's programs.
The Google Book Search agreement offers a way for publishers and authors to get paid to cooperate with Google. With this little sticking point resolved, have no doubt that Google will continue to tear down barriers to information, including Amazon's closed-loop Kindle program.
Android is more than a phone operating system, it's an OS for mobile devices. With Google soon to have exclusive access to its long tail of over 7 million scanned books, Google will have a strong incentive to monetize that content. The book search agreement includes several ways for Google to profit:
- academia will pay for unlimited access to all the content in all of the scanned books
- consumers can pay to see or print an entire book
- once Google integrates the book search program more fully into its current web search program, Google will apply its usual search advertising model
Since Android phones will continue to add usefulness beyond mere mobile voice calls (including zero-charge access to the entire web and all its blogs and newspapers), who will want to pay $300 something to own a separate device that charges for some of that functionality? Only those who care about readability. The Kindle is remarkably readable. Still, what's to stop a mobile device manufacturer from creating a larger format, eye-friendly device that will compete more directly with the Kindle?
Amazon's 190K books won't compare to Google's 7 million and counting. Google may not yet have Amazon's access to best-sellers or Amazon's considerable leverage over print-focused publishers, yet publishers maintain their ability to choose which books to include in both Google's and Amazon's programs.
The Google Book Search agreement offers a way for publishers and authors to get paid to cooperate with Google. With this little sticking point resolved, have no doubt that Google will continue to tear down barriers to information, including Amazon's closed-loop Kindle program.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
We All Suspected McCain and Palin Didn't Get Along
From their awkward interactions during the few televised moments they were together, it was obvious that McCain and Palin made an odd couple. He could barely look at her, and they didn't seem ever to be on the same wavelength, prepared with the same sound bites or with any kind of coherent response to the media.
From this New York Times article:
"The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Ms. Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from Mr. McCain’s campaign.
From this New York Times article:
"The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Ms. Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from Mr. McCain’s campaign.
But behind those episodes may be a greater subtext: anger within the McCain camp that Ms. Palin harbored political ambitions beyond 2008."
Tina Fey joked about Palin "going rogue" at the end of McCain's appearance on Saturday Night Live...
...but the Times reports that Palin wanted to make her own speech before McCain's concession speech on Tuesday evening. Now that's one ambitious pitbull with lipstick. As disgusting as that experience would have been, I'm happy McCain's advisers shot Palin's idea down, like a hunter from a helicopter.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Netbooks: Do You Really Need a Laptop?
Back in July, Michael Arrington and his friends at TechCrunchIT launched an effort to build a "web tablet". Arrington wants a "dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web" for $200 or less. Here's the announcement. His spec list is:
- as thin as possible
- single button for powering on and off
- headphone jacks, built-in camera, speakers, microphone
- wifi, one USB port, battery
- 512 meg RAM, 4 gig solid state hard drive
- touchscreen for browsing and keyboard
- Linux for OS and Firefox for browsing
Here's Arrington's list of updates on the project's progress, including this working prototype.
But Arrington's web tablet has already got some competition, a new kind of slimmed-down laptop called a "netbook". Many companies are selling these things. From the name, I'm assuming netbooks are primarily intended to be used the way most full-on laptops are used now: for checking email, surfing the web, maybe watching videos and listening to music.
As one example, the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 runs Ubuntu Linux using a 1.6 Ghz chip, 512m RAM, 4 gig solid state drive, and wifi for $350. Of all these machines, the Asustek EeePC sounds like the best value at $200 (release expected 2009).
Personally, I'm still pretty happy with the netbook I already own. I use it for email, websurfing, watching online TV and movies, and some light photo-editing. It's got very familiar specs: a 1.7 ghz Intel P4, 1 gig RAM, two USB ports, and Wifi. Oh, and it's got a 20 gig hard drive and a DVD burner.
That's 'cuz it's a used HP Compaq NC6000 laptop that I got on eBay for $275.
FDA agrees its August statement on BPA was wrong
From this Washington Post article (10/31/08):
"A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel agreed Friday that the agency had erred in August when it said that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and other plastic packaging for foods and beverages posed no health risks."
"On Wednesday, a panel of toxicology experts said the FDA hadn't properly assessed the potential health risks posed by the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and developmental delays in children. The toxicologists said the FDA had relied too heavily on studies funded by the chemical industry to make its decision."
"On Friday, the FDA's Science Board, which consists of scientists from academia, government and industry and advises the FDA commissioner, seconded the toxicologists' concerns about the FDA's August ruling."
"The FDA's position on BPA has been controversial because it contradicted more than 100 studies, as well as a finding by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, that there was "some concern" that BPA may affect the brain and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and small children."
"A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel agreed Friday that the agency had erred in August when it said that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and other plastic packaging for foods and beverages posed no health risks."
"On Wednesday, a panel of toxicology experts said the FDA hadn't properly assessed the potential health risks posed by the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and developmental delays in children. The toxicologists said the FDA had relied too heavily on studies funded by the chemical industry to make its decision."
"On Friday, the FDA's Science Board, which consists of scientists from academia, government and industry and advises the FDA commissioner, seconded the toxicologists' concerns about the FDA's August ruling."
"The FDA's position on BPA has been controversial because it contradicted more than 100 studies, as well as a finding by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, that there was "some concern" that BPA may affect the brain and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and small children."
Friday, October 31, 2008
Blogging Now Considered Normal
Well, okay. Maybe mainstream America doesn't consider blogging to be "normal" just yet. However, blogging is definitely within the bell curve of things that are no longer weird.
Back in September, CNET's Webware reported that bloggers are now creating nearly 1 million posts per day.
Webware notes that the mainstream media is using blogging as supplementary and complementary to normal online news reporting. Evidence for this is easily found on my two most visited news sites, nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com. The Times has its own index of Times staffer blogs. The Post even has its own blog subdomain. These news blogs seem to be comprised mostly of not-quite-newsworthy news or, more fascinatingly, subjective analysis of the threads and trends that tie news stories together. They are all themed and just browsing through the Times blog index is a good way to unintentionally double your feedreader's subscription count.
A Technorati survey of 1,000 bloggers found that the mean advertising revenue was $6K per year, with some bloggers making over $75K. Watching blogging mature from pure narcissism to legitimate media has been fascinating. Everytime someone makes fun of Twitter (I have a Twitter account, see left), I think to myself, "Hey, this is exactly how blogging was first received.".
Still, the medium deserves a healthy skepticism. Blogging, and internet-based media in general, have a long way to go before they become sources as trusted as magazines and newspapers. There is no Audit Blog of Circulations. You can't rely on frequency of posting and most bloggers don't post their web traffic.
Back in September, CNET's Webware reported that bloggers are now creating nearly 1 million posts per day.
Webware notes that the mainstream media is using blogging as supplementary and complementary to normal online news reporting. Evidence for this is easily found on my two most visited news sites, nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com. The Times has its own index of Times staffer blogs. The Post even has its own blog subdomain. These news blogs seem to be comprised mostly of not-quite-newsworthy news or, more fascinatingly, subjective analysis of the threads and trends that tie news stories together. They are all themed and just browsing through the Times blog index is a good way to unintentionally double your feedreader's subscription count.
A Technorati survey of 1,000 bloggers found that the mean advertising revenue was $6K per year, with some bloggers making over $75K. Watching blogging mature from pure narcissism to legitimate media has been fascinating. Everytime someone makes fun of Twitter (I have a Twitter account, see left), I think to myself, "Hey, this is exactly how blogging was first received.".
Still, the medium deserves a healthy skepticism. Blogging, and internet-based media in general, have a long way to go before they become sources as trusted as magazines and newspapers. There is no Audit Blog of Circulations. You can't rely on frequency of posting and most bloggers don't post their web traffic.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Counting Calories to Become Law?
The New York Times has reported that "nearly three dozen states, cities and counties have passed or introduced laws that would require calorie posting in some form... Two proposals moving through Congress would make calorie postings uniform nationwide."
"The makers of Coca-Cola and M&Ms will soon print calories on the front of packages...New Yorkers got a harsh dose of calorie reality this summer when restaurants with 15 or more outlets were forced to post the calorie content of food next to the price."
Food makers are jumping on the calorie counting trend by reducing portion sizes and posting caloric ratings on their menus. But are they reducing the price? Don't be silly!
"The makers of Coca-Cola and M&Ms will soon print calories on the front of packages...New Yorkers got a harsh dose of calorie reality this summer when restaurants with 15 or more outlets were forced to post the calorie content of food next to the price."
Food makers are jumping on the calorie counting trend by reducing portion sizes and posting caloric ratings on their menus. But are they reducing the price? Don't be silly!
Chemical Industry Wrote FDA's Bisphenol-A Assessment
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that the American Chemistry Council, a trade association and lobbying organization representing the chemical industry, wrote much of the FDA's August assessment of bisphenol-A.
A day after the Journal Sentinel ran its story, a group of scientists criticized the FDA for allowing this obvious conflict of interest.
The Environmental Working Group has been criticizing the FDA's position on BPA since this spring and offers this brief review of the conflicts of interest involved.
See all Mediocre Polymath posts about bisphenol-A.
A day after the Journal Sentinel ran its story, a group of scientists criticized the FDA for allowing this obvious conflict of interest.
The Environmental Working Group has been criticizing the FDA's position on BPA since this spring and offers this brief review of the conflicts of interest involved.
See all Mediocre Polymath posts about bisphenol-A.
Monday, October 20, 2008
I got to play with a Kindle
I was sitting on the plane last weekend when the late 30-something woman to my left opened her purse, took out a Moleskine notebook, and opened it. I instantly pegged her as an English nerd. I didn't realize how right I'd be; it wasn't a Moleskine, it was a Kindle.
I blurted, "So howww do you like it!?".
"I love it!", she said. "Would you like to check it out?"
"Yes, yes I would."
She gave me the walkthrough, beginning with her list of books, one of which was some sex counseling thing -- little awkward.
After a minute of Kindle network connection troubles, she let me buy Friday's New York Times, which took seconds to download. All the while, she gave me Amazon's party line on battery life, usability, etc. I never thought to ask her if she worked for Amazon, though I did confess to working for a publisher.
I flipped through some pages, noting the reassuring heft of this machine. The screen clarity really isamazon, er, amazing. I found the refresh rate to be a little slow. The screen going black as it refreshes unsuspended my disbelief, and I can see this being a problem for the ebook reading experience. Perhaps one gets used to it as we're all used to flipping pages.
I held the Kindle with both hands, one on either side. I asked her if she accidentally flipped pages.
She admitted to such frequent unintentional page turns that she used the Kindle's "placemark" feature about every five pages just to avoid...something. I'm not sure what, though. Maybe you can fast-forward a Kindle? Either way, it sounds as if the page turn bars could use more than a little fine tuning.
The scroll bar, just right of the right thumb in this photo, needs work as well. The scroll bar is the main navigation device when the Kindle is not in a book. In other words, you choose what book to read, what chapter to open, what newspaper to purchase, etc. using the scroll bar, which you thumb up or down. To make a selection, you press down onto the scroll bar. Many times during my 15 minutes with this Kindle, I accidentally scrolled when I meant to select.
An exacerbating flaw is the slow processor speed. Pages "turn" with reasonable speed, but to do anything other than turn a page -- to navigate between books or to browse the Amazon Kindle store -- the page takes more time to load. So with every click of the scroll bar, I had to wait to see if I'd clicked or scrolled. If I'd accidentally scrolled-then-clicked, I had to navigate back to where I was and try again. The speed is definitely not as quick as, say, browsing the web on a computer. I found it a little tedious.
So hopefully Amazon will eliminate these flaws in the Kindle 2, which seems to be imminent.
I blurted, "So howww do you like it!?"."I love it!", she said. "Would you like to check it out?"
"Yes, yes I would."
She gave me the walkthrough, beginning with her list of books, one of which was some sex counseling thing -- little awkward.
After a minute of Kindle network connection troubles, she let me buy Friday's New York Times, which took seconds to download. All the while, she gave me Amazon's party line on battery life, usability, etc. I never thought to ask her if she worked for Amazon, though I did confess to working for a publisher.
I flipped through some pages, noting the reassuring heft of this machine. The screen clarity really is
I held the Kindle with both hands, one on either side. I asked her if she accidentally flipped pages.
She admitted to such frequent unintentional page turns that she used the Kindle's "placemark" feature about every five pages just to avoid...something. I'm not sure what, though. Maybe you can fast-forward a Kindle? Either way, it sounds as if the page turn bars could use more than a little fine tuning.The scroll bar, just right of the right thumb in this photo, needs work as well. The scroll bar is the main navigation device when the Kindle is not in a book. In other words, you choose what book to read, what chapter to open, what newspaper to purchase, etc. using the scroll bar, which you thumb up or down. To make a selection, you press down onto the scroll bar. Many times during my 15 minutes with this Kindle, I accidentally scrolled when I meant to select.
An exacerbating flaw is the slow processor speed. Pages "turn" with reasonable speed, but to do anything other than turn a page -- to navigate between books or to browse the Amazon Kindle store -- the page takes more time to load. So with every click of the scroll bar, I had to wait to see if I'd clicked or scrolled. If I'd accidentally scrolled-then-clicked, I had to navigate back to where I was and try again. The speed is definitely not as quick as, say, browsing the web on a computer. I found it a little tedious.
So hopefully Amazon will eliminate these flaws in the Kindle 2, which seems to be imminent.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
An Internet without ads?
I remember the first time I logged onto the world wide web. It was back in 1994 in the college computer lab. A friend of mine had returned from the computer lab that week all excited about the world wide web, Internet Explorer, something called "Yahoo", and the Pearl Jam website.
At the time, my total experience with the Internet had been using the Pine email... um, software. I hesitate to call it software since it was basically a command line program: the screen was black and the text was green, a la The Matrix. I was no Neo; checking Pine for email from my three friends who were using email required at least 15 minutes of fumbling clumsily through botched commands and login attempts.
Oh, and I should mention that I was "MUDding". MUDding was the ultimate nerd activity. It was black-screen/green-text Dungeons & Dragons without any extraneous or potentially embarassing face-to-face human interaction. It was also terribly boring after about two weeks.
So I went to the computer lab after dinner one night with hype in my head and very low expectations. I sat down at a terminal, much as I do today when I'm forced to use a Mac, and stared at the screen, not knowing what to do. I opened up the command line and typed "internet". Then "world wide web". Then "yahoo" and "pearl jam". Naturally, a lot of cryptic error messages. How was I supposed to know to double-click on the big, blue, lowercase "e" on the desktop?
I finally tried the "e". It opened and there was Yahoo.com, not terribly different from today's Yahoo portal. And there, greeting me with epileptic glory, were animated gifs (Flash not yet having been invented).
That same friend introduced me to Google.com in '99 or '00.
Since that time, as we all know, the web has been slowly but surely taking over the desktop computer. And the desktop computer is slowly but surely replacing traditional office hardware, like fax machines and phones. With a web browser and broadband internet connection, you can check email, write a novel, create a spreadsheet, design a presentation, touch up photos, assemble a video, phone a friend--all without paying a single penny.
How? The web today, as it was in 1994, is ad-supported. There are two types of ads:
Using extensible web browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera, it is now possible to block image-based ads. Here's how:
Something like 75% of internet users are still using Internet Explorer, which to my knowledge, doesn't yet have any easy, browser-based ways to block ads. Given the drubbing Microsoft's taken from the web 2.0 movement, I imagine it's only a matter of time before Redmond opens up IE to add-ons, a la Firefox. (Google plans to do this with Chrome soon, too.)
This leaves the Internet with 25% of its users able to block ads on the web. And why wouldn't users block image advertising? It can be pretty obnoxious and really slow down the web-surfing experience. If trends continue and more people move to Firefox and Chrome, the web business model might be in serious danger. What happens then?
A few ideas (updating with new ideas as they occur to me):
At the time, my total experience with the Internet had been using the Pine email... um, software. I hesitate to call it software since it was basically a command line program: the screen was black and the text was green, a la The Matrix. I was no Neo; checking Pine for email from my three friends who were using email required at least 15 minutes of fumbling clumsily through botched commands and login attempts.
Oh, and I should mention that I was "MUDding". MUDding was the ultimate nerd activity. It was black-screen/green-text Dungeons & Dragons without any extraneous or potentially embarassing face-to-face human interaction. It was also terribly boring after about two weeks.
So I went to the computer lab after dinner one night with hype in my head and very low expectations. I sat down at a terminal, much as I do today when I'm forced to use a Mac, and stared at the screen, not knowing what to do. I opened up the command line and typed "internet". Then "world wide web". Then "yahoo" and "pearl jam". Naturally, a lot of cryptic error messages. How was I supposed to know to double-click on the big, blue, lowercase "e" on the desktop?
I finally tried the "e". It opened and there was Yahoo.com, not terribly different from today's Yahoo portal. And there, greeting me with epileptic glory, were animated gifs (Flash not yet having been invented).
That same friend introduced me to Google.com in '99 or '00.
Since that time, as we all know, the web has been slowly but surely taking over the desktop computer. And the desktop computer is slowly but surely replacing traditional office hardware, like fax machines and phones. With a web browser and broadband internet connection, you can check email, write a novel, create a spreadsheet, design a presentation, touch up photos, assemble a video, phone a friend--all without paying a single penny.
How? The web today, as it was in 1994, is ad-supported. There are two types of ads:
- epileptic seizure inducers: static images, animated gifs, Flash videos, etc.
- text-based ads: ads that appear to the right of a Google search, for example
Using extensible web browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera, it is now possible to block image-based ads. Here's how:
- use Adblock to block ads in Firefox
- prevent ads from appearing in Google Chrome
- remove ads in Safari
- create your own list of ads to block
- stop ads in YouTube
Something like 75% of internet users are still using Internet Explorer, which to my knowledge, doesn't yet have any easy, browser-based ways to block ads. Given the drubbing Microsoft's taken from the web 2.0 movement, I imagine it's only a matter of time before Redmond opens up IE to add-ons, a la Firefox. (Google plans to do this with Chrome soon, too.)
This leaves the Internet with 25% of its users able to block ads on the web. And why wouldn't users block image advertising? It can be pretty obnoxious and really slow down the web-surfing experience. If trends continue and more people move to Firefox and Chrome, the web business model might be in serious danger. What happens then?
A few ideas (updating with new ideas as they occur to me):
- Text-based search advertising becomes the only viable revenue generation model on the web, Google totally dominates.
- Online privacy becomes impossible as web 2.0 companies demand more information in exchange for their free, non-ad-supported services.
- The web divides into classes. Stone age Americans, poor saps, are left sucking advertising while savvy users enjoy an ad-free web.
- Image ads fade away. Congress legislates against more intrusive privacy policies. Still without any source of revenue, Web 2.0 sites crumble. Broadband fees rise to offset the lack of ad revenue, much like the early days of cable TV.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
John McCain: Family Man (and oh, what a family)
Chastising the media for its intrusions and scrutiny, politicians have long argued that their personal lives are irrelevant to their capability in public office. The American public, which devotes rapt attention to media coverage of personal scandal, obviously disagrees.
Nothing's more entertaining than watching a politician try to wiggle his way out of directly addressing an ethical question, and nothing's more self-satisfying than passing judgment on a politician. Whether personal ethics are relevant to public service makes for a spirited academic debate, but I'll venture to claim that most reasonable, mainstream Americans would agree with this statement: the choices you make in your personal life say something about who you are.
In 2000, I would have been delighted to vote for John McCain. Today, I'd like to bring attention some facts about McCain and his personal life that I've only recently learned, courtesy of today's New York Times and Wikipedia. (Before you laugh at Wikipedia as a source, consider that McCain's campaign has no doubt scoured it line by line.) A timeline of the highlights:
- McCain first marriage was to a model, Carol, who had two kids. McCain adopted those two kids. He and Carol later had a kid together.
- McCain requested a combat assignment during the Vietnam War.
- After his time as a POW, which was highly covered in the media since McCain's father was an admiral, McCain returned to the US and his wife, who had stood by him during his 5 1/2 year imprisonment. Carol had been in a crippling car accident while he was away.
- Three years later, McCain had several affairs.
- Two years later, McCain met Cindy and they began dating while McCain was still married. Cindy was 20 years younger than Carol and daughter of millionaire businessman.
- McCain and Carol got divorced 10 months after John started dating Cindy.
- McCain married Cindy, one month after the divorce become final, one year after meeting her.
- McCain continued to provide some financial support for Carol, who continued to recover from her auto accident.
- McCain brought Cindy to Washington, where she was shunned. Cindy returned to Arizona. McCain spent the week in Washington and flew home on weekends, where he spent time campaigning.
- Cindy had several miscarriages while McCain was in DC.
- Cindy's parents often bought jewelry as gifts to be given "from John".
- During McCain's investigation during the savings and loan scandals, Cindy became addicted to painkillers and stole prescription drugs from an orphanage she was running. McCain claimed he had clue about Cindy's addiction. (And why would he? They were rarely together.)
Some other facts:
- McCain has 7 kids whose ages span 40 years.
- McCain is 71. McCain's oldest kid is 48, 4 years younger than Cindy.
- His youngest kid is 20; she's the adopted one from Bangladesh.
From the Times article: "Some of Mr. McCain’s Washington friends say they have barely met Mrs. McCain, while fellow mothers at their children’s schools say they have little sense of her husband. The two often relax in separate places: Mr. McCain prefers the family’s ranch in the Arizona desert, while Mrs. McCain’s refuge is a high-rise condominium on the Pacific."
On the campaign trail, when Cindy McCain stands by her man, it's no wonder she looks tense and uncomfortable. Scorned by Washington and married to a 70-year old man she barely knows, McCain declines to speak with the media, in part out of fear that someone will ask her a question about her husband.
I admit no one's perfect, including me. I'm also not applying to run the country. Many of these points above aren't necessarily right or wrong, but there sure are some wierd happenings in John McCain's life and family.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Boulder earns highest bike-friendly ranking
Jeez, this took awhile.
You'd think the town that has better maintained bike paths than roads and its own bicycle "driving directions" service would have been top notch already.
Boulder's bike-friendly rank bumped to the highest tier
You'd think the town that has better maintained bike paths than roads and its own bicycle "driving directions" service would have been top notch already.
Boulder's bike-friendly rank bumped to the highest tier
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Basic Computer Tips for Stone Age Americans
I once knew a guy at a previous job who came in to work at 6am every morning. The rest of the office strolled in, coffee in hand, around 9am. One morning, this guy, who was in his fifties, asked me for some computer help. He was having trouble attaching a file to an email.
As I stared at his monitor trying to keep my lower jaw in contact with my upper jaw, it struck me: the two dozen post-it notes framing his monitor were his Address Book. He came in at 6am every morning to give himself enough time to key in all 200+ email addresses that were scrawled on the post-it notes.
At first, I was sick to my stomach. Then I was furious. In today's computer-driven office, how are there still people who don't know how to attach files to emails or copy-paste an address list, or create a distribution list of contacts? As politely as I could, and in as soft a voice as I could muster, I showed him the light.
Please, don't be a Stone Age office worker in Internet Age America. Take a computer class or hire a teenager to be your tutor. There are few better examples of the potential productivity gains from just a little learning than in using a computer.
In that spirit, here are a few tips from the NYTimes's tech columnist recent blog post. Read his post to make sure you're not a techno-dinosaur.
As I stared at his monitor trying to keep my lower jaw in contact with my upper jaw, it struck me: the two dozen post-it notes framing his monitor were his Address Book. He came in at 6am every morning to give himself enough time to key in all 200+ email addresses that were scrawled on the post-it notes.
At first, I was sick to my stomach. Then I was furious. In today's computer-driven office, how are there still people who don't know how to attach files to emails or copy-paste an address list, or create a distribution list of contacts? As politely as I could, and in as soft a voice as I could muster, I showed him the light.
Please, don't be a Stone Age office worker in Internet Age America. Take a computer class or hire a teenager to be your tutor. There are few better examples of the potential productivity gains from just a little learning than in using a computer.
In that spirit, here are a few tips from the NYTimes's tech columnist recent blog post. Read his post to make sure you're not a techno-dinosaur.
- You can double-click a word to highlight it in any document, e-mail or Web page.
- When you get an e-mail message from eBay or your bank, claiming that you have an account problem or a question from a buyer, it's probably a "phishing scam" intended to trick you into typing your password. Don't click the link in the message. If in doubt, go into your browser and type "www.ebay.com" (or whatever) manually.
- You can hide all windows, revealing only what's on the computer desktop, with one keystroke: hit the Windows key and "D" simultaneously in Windows, or press F11 on Macs (on recent Mac laptops, Command+F3; Command is the key with the cloverleaf logo). That's great when you want examine or delete something you've just downloaded to the desktop, for example. Press the keystroke again to return to what you were doing.
- You can enlarge the text on any Web page. In Windows, press Ctrl and the plus or minus keys (for bigger or smaller fonts); on the Mac, it's the Command key and plus or minus.
- When someone sends you some shocking e-mail and suggests that you pass it on, don't. At least not until you've first confirmed its truth at snopes.com, the Internet's authority on e-mailed myths. This includes get-rich schemes, Microsoft/AOL cash giveaways, and–especially lately–nutty scare-tactic messages about our Presidential candidates.
- You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screenful. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
My Wife Got Picked Up at the Playground
One of the challenges of being a new stay-at-home mother is meeting people to hang out with. For several months, my wife struggled to meet other mothers with kids our son's age.
Recently, though, she's been a little more suave.
<warning bell #1: how convenient the brochure>
On Sunday, we took our kid to our neighborhood park, the local hangout and meet market for young families and dog owners. We met a woman at the park who had two sons, two and three years old, who had moved here weeks ago from L.A. They struck up a conversation while my kid shovelled gravel on me. My wife and this woman exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. Her contact info was on a brochure she just happened to have on her. <ring! ring!>
As we walked home from the park, my wife was proud of herself for "picking up" a new friend. "Look at me!", she beamed. We read the brochure. It was a relatively benign piece of "collateral" from Primerica. Some financial planner/life insurance thing. <warning bell #2>
Ring! Ring! The woman called tonight to see if my wife wanted to meet her at the park one day... and also if she and her husband could come over to our place to discuss their financial planning business. <warning bell #3: sales call, anyone?> My wife tried hard to get out of it and managed to relocate our "financial planning meeting" to the park.
Suspicious, my wife hopped on all-knowing Google. First, she found the woman's husband. His high school alumni bio (who has a high school alumni bio?) mentions that they met while attending Brigham Young, where she majored in fashion design. <warning bell #3: from Mormon fashion design to financial planner?>. His bio mentioned that his wife owns a modeling agency. <warning bell #4 !!!>
Naturally, my wife followed the lead. We'll be damned if those models, billed as being "very reliable", don't look like call girls. <warning klaxon: uh WOOOO gah! A Morman fashion-designing financial planner and madam?>
Next, my wife Googled the woman's name. The result? She's a stripper! YouTube? Check - she's on there. Stripping. So now we've both seen entirely too much of our new neighbor and future financial planner. And it's not like this was youthful indiscretion: the photos and videos were dated "2007".
The moral of the story: be careful who you pick up at the playground.
So tell me in the comments: what do we do? Do we call and bail? Do we just not show up? Do we go and see how long we can keep a straight face?
Friday, September 26, 2008
Interbike 2008: USA Crits Finals
We went to the Bicycling magazine-sponsored USA Crits Finals race at Mandalay Bay to support our 8-man VeloNews team. I don't know everyone on the team, but it included Ben Delaney (editor of VeloNews), Sean Watkins (Triathlete ad sales), Dave Walker and Mark Gouge (VN ad sales), Andy Pemberton (VN publisher), and others. Here we are all lined up on the fence, cheering on the team. Me, Jay, Deena, Nate, Lisa, John Duke, Lisa Bilotti, Heather Gordon, John Duke, Chris Dinneen, Jen Soule, and others who were on and off the fence.
Ben Delaney looking tough.
Steve Frothingham and Joe Silva from VeloNews.com.
The pack chases a break, which they caught in one lap of the 6/10th mile course.
The industry race finish. Bicycling mag came in second, Ben Delaney fifth.
While milling about the hospitality tent, we saw Taylor Phinney, Mark Cavendish (who gave Jen a smooch on the cheek), George Hincapie, Henk Vogels, and the ever-present Nelson Vails.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Interbike 2008: the Sinclair party
The Sinclair party is Interbike's notorious soiree. Despite the desperate attempts to score invites, it's really rather tame, as it's 70% married men, 20% unmarried men who report to the married men, 9% women in the cycling industry, and 1% strippers.
Somehow it's still the "cool" event to attend. I've been to a few now, and I report back with the "married men" version.
A few shots from around the Voodoo Lounge which is atop the Rio.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
John Muir Was Awesome
After chuckling through Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, shivering through Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, meandering through Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, and thirsting for more of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, I've decided to build a library of great outdoor books.
Most recently placed into the stacks is The Wild Muir: Twenty-two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures, selected and introduced by Lee Stetson, illustrated by Fiona King, published by the Yosemite Association, ISBN: 0-939666-75-8.
Lee Stetson is an actor who has dedicated his career to the study and reenactment of Muir's life. I imagine he has a bushy beard, and I imagine he's a strange fellow, in no small part due to the fact that he's likely spent many of his evenings in front of Yosemite campfires acting like a crazy Scot who talks to wildflowers. (To an Alaskan wildflower: "Ah! My blue-eyed darlin', little did I think to see you here. How did you stray away from Shasta?")
John Muir's insanity is what made him so effective. Muir was a fearless man, a man so honed into competence by his life experience that there was no situation in which he found himself powerless. Muir did not hesitate to commit insane acts because, for him, they were perfectly rational. A young man who wished to climb a mountain with Muir was told, "These foolish adventures are well enough for Mr. Muir, but you have a work to do, you have a family...and you have no right to risk your life on treacherous peaks and precipices.". Muir would argue, like Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire, that the risk-taking lifestyle of the naturalist is far saner than that of "civilized society".
Muir's tolerance of danger stemmed from his sense of capability, which he forged through years of challenges and misadventures beginning in childhood. Muir grew up in Scotland in an austere farming family. For excitement, the young Muir and his friends would turn to what they called "good scootchers"; games of brinksmanship that would make Johnny Knoxville grin. Muir writes of one scootcher that involved trying to nearly--but not quite--fall off the roof of a two-story farmhouse. When Muir's family moved from Scotland to Wisconsin as homesteaders, Muir's father asked the 19-year old to dig a 90-foot deep well with a shovel, pickax, hammer, and chisel. Muir spent an entire summer moving earth and chiseling through bedrock until he was nearly suffocated by carbon dioxide gas that filled the bottom of the well. Muir later taught himself to swim by rowing into the middle of a lake and jumping in. Danger was the young Muir's calling.
So when he decides to climb the sheer rock face behind Yosemite Falls, we're unsurprised that, upon reaching a pitch "dangerously smooth and steep", Muir "concludes not to venture further, but does nonetheless". When Muir becomes stranded in a blizzard atop Mt. Shasta (without a jacket), he lays flat on some geothermal vents, sometimes holding his breath to avoid billowing clouds of acidic vapors, until the skin on his back scalds and blisters and a set of barometric instruments freezes to his face. We're awed, but not surprised, when Muir hikes off the mountain alive, though badly frostbitten.
The Wild Muir presents 22 riveting adventures in beautiful succession, building to the climax in which it offers two versions of Muir's cliffside rescue of a young pastor in Alaska; one from Muir himself and one from the pastor. The pastor slides down a gravelly slope and barely catches himself to prevent a 1,000 drop off a cliff and onto a glacier. He dislocates both arms. Muir recounts the rescue plainly, pulling the man off the cliff, the difficulty of re-setting the man's arms in their sockets, a long trek back to camp. The pastor's account is not so plain and it is from him we learn that Muir hoisted the man off the cliff by clenching his collar in his teeth.
Unlike many of today's outdoor heroes, Muir reserved his glorious description for his surroundings instead of for himself. Muir is often credited as the father of Yosemite and the American National Park System, but Muir is underappreciated. Muir's towering ability and selfless love of nature was the spearhead that killed the old European view of nature as enemy, igniting a passion in the American West for nature as playground, as source of renewal.
A parting image of Muir the botanist from the young pastor: "With all his boyish enthusiasm, Muir was a most painstaking student; and any unsolved question lay upon his mind like a personal grievance until it was settled to his full understanding. One plant after another, with its sand-covered roots, went into his pockets, his handkerchief and the "full" of his shirt until he was bulbing and sprouting all over, and could carry no more... Then he began to requisition my receptacles. I stood it while he stuffed my pockets, but rebelled when he tried to poke the prickly, scratchy things inside my shirt. I had not yet attained that sublime indifference to physical comfort, that Nirvana of passivity, that Muir had found."
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