LIVEdigitally

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I saw a post on how most Twitter users do not use the service, and thought I’d expand some thoughts. The majority of my friends do not Tweet. Nor does my family. They do not care about it. They see “follow us on Twitter” during TV broadcasts and don’t know why they should. Further, they are not getting more interested despite an increasing barrage of the service.  If anything, they are even less intrigued to the mystique that is Twitter than ever before.  Note that some of my screenshots contain vulgar language – nothing compared to Xbox Live banter, but you’ve been warned.

Here’s the “first impression” a user gets by coming to twitter:

Independent of all other things, this doesn’t really give any insight as to why people are going crazy about Twitter. If I’ve heard that Oprah and Ashton are tweeting, and my favorite football player, and it’s the latest hottest thing, and all I see is a static page with a bunch of random-seeming terms, I’m not yet compelled.  Further, the major tagline “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world” isn’t exactly right.  If you make a search like “how are things in haiti” you get a very bizarre set of responses that do not inherently answer the question.  Knowing how to search in Twitter is important, yet isn’t taught.  Showing hashtags also overly geeks up the screen, and in a bad way.  To continue this “new user experience”, I clicked on “pregnancy pact” (was curious) and saw the following:

This didn’t really explain anything to me, just showed me, well, the exact type of garbage the average person does not want to be reading.  It’s not even gossip/fun, it’s just *weird*.  Sure there’ll be the occasional clever gem, but for the most part, especially with popular topics, it’s becoming a haven for spam or utter drivel.  Also, as an aside, Twitter should not display foul language to users who aren’t logged in – some people still prefer to keep vulgarity elsewhere. It actually gets even worse if you look at trending topics:

Huh?  No thanks.

Now how about the new user experience from the perspective of following someone they were “told” to follow.  The @CNN account shows recent CNN headlines, as it should.  However, this does not exactly “add value” to someone’s life, as finding CNN headlines is relatively easy to do.  How about mega-celebrity @Oprah?

Not exactly new and interesting, and definitely not “real-time”. All we’ve learned is she seems to like Avatar, uses capital letters inappropriately, and then includes a bunch of things that look like gobbledygook.  Why? Because once you do get “into” Twitter, you start using acronyms, links, and vocabulary that make texting look downright poetic.  What’s a ow.ly? Who’s RT? It looks foreign and daunting.  It’s as if there’s a huge “insider’s” club, and if you don’t get it, you feel awkward and alienated.

Finally, there’s looking at what happens once someone actually does sign up for Twitter and use it.  They are presented a seemingly random list of “suggested” users.  Following these people creates a stream of equally foreign and incomprehensible Tweets, likely about topics that aren’t interesting to anyone other than a small group, and again, in an exclusionary, not inclusionary, manner.  Trying to catch the eye/ear of others is near-impossible, and building a following outside one’s small social circle is unlikely to occur.  More stats:

The average Twitter user has 27 followers, which is down from 42 followers in August, according to the new study. About 25% of users have no followers at all; that’s up from 20% with no followers last August. Upward of 40% of users only have one to five followers.

So what should Twitter do about it?

This is the million billion dollar question.  The company is already in danger of reaching the backlash phase inevitable in modern society (get too big/successful and you become the enemy, deservedly or not – see Starbucks, Google, Wal-mart, etc).  Some say it’s already started.  I don’t think so, as I think we haven’t even come to the point where people care yet.  That said, my non-Twitter “regular world” friends are already telling me they’re tired of the inundation of “follow us on Twitter” they see during TV shows, Web sites, etc.  This is a problem, and Twitter must solve it to get as big as they want to be – otherwise this whole thing will get outed as a “early adopter only” toy, and valuations will come crashing down.  And if it starts to crash, even a little bit, it probably won’t recover – nobody wants to hang out in the club that was cool 3 years ago, but only your dad goes to now.

In my opinion, Twitter needs to thoroughly overhaul the new user experience.  Forget “suggested users” and focus on “suggested uses“.  Part of the reason the media like Twitter so much is it is actually useful for doing their job.  They can publicize their content rapidly and directly, can interact with both readers and companies, and make reporting/blogging/journalism a component of how they use Twitter. For celebrities, be they Web-only or real ones, it’s good for personal branding not to mention a nice ego-feed.  For events which occur in real-time (Hudson plane crash, Haiti earthquake, elections, etc) it’s a good way of finding out information as it occurs (though obviously fraught with error and rumormongering).

Notice how we’ve still ruled out “normal people living normal lives”?  There’s zero relevance to the average person who wants to live in private.  Even as they dabble at lifecasting, there’s no reward, as the game logic to using Twitter is fundamentally broken. Unlike FourSquare, or new site TheSixtyOne, there is no form of achievement system.  If anything, you are measured up against people with millions of followers, a completely unattainable goal.  Here’s the opposite: the very first thing I saw on thesixtyone:

Even though the above shot has some confusion, it’s so much closer to telling me something to do, how to do it, and how I benefit from it.  Twitter could easily do the same: “find 10 sports figures (or bands or politicians, etc) and follow them” or “retweet (RT) three people with less followers than you” etc.  This system could scale up pretty high, and create a much more interesting hierarchy for the “twitterati” as well.

The folks at Twitter are clearly smart (and yeah, they got a little lucky along the way, but that’s part of being smart IMHO), and clearly know they need to do something, and soon.  Twitter needs to be able to positively convert new users into active users, and absolutely must work on the “why do I care what someone’s having for lunch?” reputation the site has.  I believe an achievement type of system that rewards “good behavior” is the right way to do it (not to mention major user interface/experience overhauls).  As it stands now, I’ll return to my prior conviction that Twitter has not proven themselves as a viable platform, and must still navigate extremely well and carefully to be the billion dollar company everyone wants them to be.

Every year I predict, every year I get at least one thing right. And many wrong.  But that’s the fun part, right?  This year instead of categorizing based on the technology area, I’m going to organize based on my own scale of how crazy the prediction itself is…

The No-Brainers
Stuff that is almost definitely going to happen. Except the ones that don’t…

• Twitter growth levels off, though Twitter usage increases. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see the churn rate equal the signup rate as I believe Twitter still has a massive problem with getting new users enchanted with the service.
• A new version of the iPhone comes out that is incrementally better than the 3GS.
• Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future. (repeat from ‘09).
• CES 2010 exceeds expectations, either in the form of interesting new gadgets or industry-wide product/technology launches.
• BlackBerry overhauls their “app store” to make it more iPhone-y.
• Mac OSX market share continues to rise.
• Superslim TVs (like the Samsung LEDs – drool!) become the hot category for displays.  Many of them are “connected” to various Internet services.

Sounds Feasible
Predictions that are a little more “out there” but don’t require any major convincing.

• Zynga files to go public, and the entire “social gaming” category gets even more unbelievably outrageous.
• Yahoo! begins some kind of realistic turnaround. They have far too much foot traffic and too many good properties to continue to fail for so long.
  • Hint to Yahoo! – reinvest in your Flickrs, Deliciouses, and other “interesting” stuff that you are good at, and stay OFF the television and other places that you are not good at.
• One PC maker emerges from the trenches with a really well-designed laptop that actually can stand up against a Macbook enough to make people take notice. (repeat from ‘09).
• “Real-time Web” loses steam as a meme. While I’m personally very bullish on the impacts and possibilities, it’s far too niche and far too unimportant to “regular folks” to care about.
  • Probably same for “Cloud Computing”, but since everyone’s just confusing it with “The Internet” it might have more staying power.
• Apple releases stats on iPhone/iPod/iTunes/app store that are just mind-blowing.
• 4G/LTE networks spread faster than expected, become viably competitive to the mainstream consumer within the year.
• The term “Social Media” finally begins to fade across all industries other than Social Media Mavens, Gurus, and Wizards.  The latter reach level 7 and learn how to cast User-Generated Fireball and Community Driven Magic Missile.
• All non-Apple tablets are craptastic.  Ditto for touchscreen phones.
• 3DTV gets embedded into lots and lots of TVs, much to the chagrin of consumers who don’t feel the need to look like that goofy guy in Back to the Future, even in the comfort of their own living rooms.
  • Note that in my opinion the only thing that really makes 3D “work” in the home is sports. And even that’s a long shot.

Whatcha Talkin Bout Willis?
Stuff that’s probably not going to happen, but ya never know…

• Facebook reveals huge revenue numbers, files to go public.
• Twitter gets acquired by Microsoft.  Yeah, I’m being specific here, but it’s the only logical acquisition, and Microsoft’s got deep enough pockets and have failed at virtually all things Internet.  In a nutshell, Ballmer wants to bring sexy back.
• The Apple Tablet ships in 2010. Sure all the “in the know” folks are convinced this must happen, but most of them said that about 2009 (and/or that Apple would ship a netbook).
• Some kind of flexible-display type of device is announced (might even ship).  If I had to hunch (and I of course do), it’d either come from Apple or as a new Kindle.
• Tru2Way is announced as the new failure of openness from the FCC.
• All versions of Rock Band and Guitar Hero in 2010 fail to exceed sales stats of 2009 or 2008.
  • Hey guys – remember how that Who Wants to be a Millionaire show was super popular? Then they started running it 4+ nights a week?  Then it moved to daytime?  There’s something called a “saturated market”.  Stop with all the specialty versions and get back to improving the base game, which you can sell add-ons to.
• Cisco buys a few more gadget makers and technology providers in their attempt to own the Digital Home.  In each case they continue to exhibit poor timing and overpay for slightly outdated platforms.

Can I get a hit of that stuff?
Things that are just plain unrealistic, but I’m saying them anyway.  This way if they happen I can say I was the first to say them.

• Apple does not ship a tablet. Yes, I contradict the above point, since I do think “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” holds up in general.  However, it is Apple, and this is a terrible device category, and Steve Jobs hates doing things crappily.  BTW, you really should read this piece if you are even remotely following the Apple Tablet news – it’s extremely well written and insightful.
• Facebook buys Twitter.  It’s not really all that out there as a concept (although I’d wager the personalities behind both companies are big forces against it).  Both companies need to continue rapid growth. Both companies need to create lots of revenue.  Both companies want to be “empires”.  There are many overlapping aspects, but the combined entity could realistically “own” the social network.
• A new game console launches.  I put this in the long-shot category because nobody is really incented to create a new console right now.  The Xbox 360 is finally hitting it’s strides; the PS3 has way too much cost to recoup, and the Wii is enjoying it’s ride.  If I had to guess, I’d wager on a 4th party entrant (Samsung?).  If one of the big three, I’d pick the next console as a “Wii HD”.
• A “Lifestreamer” device comes to market.  It’s not quite a phone, but it’s always on, always recording, and has amazing synch with some Web service.  Never takes pictures, only video. Able to “Tag” moments.  Has real-time streaming capabilities.
  • Scoble buys units for himself and entire family.
• Microsoft (or possibly Yahoo!) goes on a major Internet services acquisition spree, picking up companies like Zoho, bit.ly, Adobe (yes, Adobe), Pandora, Evernote, UserVoice, and more.
• The TwitterPeek is the #1 hottest selling device of the year!

That’s all folks, see you in 361 days for the results.

Note that I anticipate much snarkiness in the comments.  Have at it.

I hit about 50% on my 2008 predictions, time to size up my prognosticatory (not a word) skills again. And here’s the original post (though I’ve included all the predictive content again below).

Home Gadgets/Tech

• Microsoft opens the Xbox 360 platform even further, enables an “app store for the home” that spans well beyond games. WRONG – while there are many new features and some openness, it’s not even close to my prediction.
• Blu-ray sputters along, but not enough conclusive evidence (in other words, revenue) happens to either shut down the format altogether, nor to get consumers to adopt it. RIGHT - stats on Blu-ray for 2009 were unimpressive.  It’ll be physical media versus the newspaper industry to see who kicks the bucket first.
• As the FCC-mandated digital TV transition approaches, the hype machine reaches full effect and very convincing pieces try to show the plight of the very few.  After it’s all over, virtually nobody complains loudly. RIGHT – oh yeah, there was a transition last year, wasn’t there…
• One or both of Home Automation and/or Interactive TV returns to prominence in techie chatter, but neither make any additional inroads into actual homes. WRONG – the hype machine stays in neutral
• Pasting from 2008 predictions: Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future. WRONG – Droid came instead…  but I’m putting this back on the list (to-come) for ‘10.

Computers

• Netbook sales grow well, but not astoundingly so.  The majority of users ignore them due to a lack of actual value present in the device (especially those of us with big grubby fingers). UNKNOWN – I left this one too vague and could go either way on it.
• One PC maker emerges from the trenches with a really well-designed laptop with great Vista drivers that actually can stand up against a Macbook enough to make people take notice. WRONG – MacBook sales just continued to climb relative to PC Laptops instead
• A Linux-based computer powered with a really great GUI and OpenOffice comes to market from an established brand. WRONG – although Android netbooks are supposedly coming next year, but that’s definitely not a 2009 thing.
• USB 3.0 launches, causing massive annoyance and confusion to consumers.  I still can’t believe they didn’t give it a different name than USB.  Terrible decision. WRONG – the format launched, but nobody really cared.

Mobile Gadgets/Tech

• More lousy wannabe touchscreen phones ship, none compete 1:1 with the iPhone. RIGHT – so very very right.
• A really good GPS+phone combo device comes to market. WRONG – I shouldn’t have said “really good”
• The BlackBerry Storm is rapidly replaced with some better device from RIM. RIGHT – but then again they did name it Storm again…
• Mobile commerce replaces location-based services as the hot mobile trend. MIXED - they’re both pretty hot, but FourSquare really did charm the pants off the tech bloggers.
• US cellular companies wage a price war, making several features (ahem, texting?) cheaper, along with better priced packages across the board. WRONG – and oligopoly enjoys another year.
• No truly impressive Android phones ship from anyone. WRONG - the Droid and Droid Eris are both impressive (though still no iPhones – and I *have* an Eris)

Events/News

• CES 2009 is notably smaller than 2008, yet the important stuff that goes on at the show is business as usual.  It’s all the fringe people who are absent, and the same who complain about the lack of cool new stuff at CES.  Which won’t be a surprise due to the rarity of cool new stuff actually shown at CES! RIGHT - and ditto again in 2010
• Macworld is just the first of many shows to also announce downsizing, including Streaming Media, Web 2.0 Expo, etc.  2009 will be a bad year for the tech conference industry. RIGHT - Macworld? Streaming Media West was a ghost town. Web what.point.oh?
• Apple introduces only evolutionary products, nothing astounding or revolutionary. Let’s face it, sooner or later the well runs dry, and this is the time for the company to expand its market.  Yes, we’ll get a new phone, laptop, and ipod, but I doubt we see anything as profound as in the past 2 years. RIGHT – although I do very much like my 27″ iMac, it’s not revolutionary.  Maybe in 2010, we’ll see.
• A largish black monolith with dimensions 1 by 4 by 9 is discovered. RIGHT – but I can’t tell you about it.

Web/Online

• Facebook reaches a user base of 200 hundred million users.  It’s growth ratethen  slows and the alarm bells sound loudly throughout the media, regardless of actual success metrics. MIXED – bit off more than I should’ve with that one.
• Twitter finally announces its business model, which underwhelms everyone.  Not that it won’t be a good model, just that it will have been (wow is that passive voice or what?) built up with far more hype than can possibly be delivered. MIXED - they didn’t really announce anything specific, but are making revenue, and the hype train is unquestionably fully loaded.
• Many “web 2.0″ companies face major shrinkage as the funds simply don’t come back to them again.  Companies with huge traffic bases or, more importantly, solid revenue models will be fine, but the rest start fading away (and they take their weird names with them) RIGHT – look around, the air’s a lot thinner these days
• Several “prominent” blogs/bloggers retire due to a lack of revenue, exhaustion, lack of interesting new content to write about, etc. WRONG – was really expecting this to happen, but I didn’t see much of it.
• Web 3.0 does not arrive. RIGHT – duh.

Total count:

• RIGHT: 10 (9 without the monolith)
• WRONG: 10
• OTHER: 4

Not too shabby, not too overwhelming.  I’m still writing the 2010 edition, so hopefully nothing monumental will happen before I can publish it!

Between the family & kids, the job(s), the venture(s), and everything else, I’ve let blogging slip.  For shame.  I’ve been sitting on a few different reviews and other pieces, all 80% written, for weeks and weeks now.  For shame.

But no longer!

And now, in beautiful non-sequitur format, here’s a montage I put together of all the times in the show Arrested Development where they do the “her?” gag. 

Let the great experiment begin!!

When I was a kid we had regular meals at my grandparents’ house. Much of the food was delicious (in my memories if nothing else), with the glaring exception of my grandmother’s creamed spinach. Granted, it wasn’t there with every serving, but when it came, I shuddered. I literally couldn’t stomach it, and played little tricks to “hide” it on the plate, the table, the floor, or, best of all, someone else’s plate.  I hated it, and it’s the only food to stand out in my memory as something so loathed.  But I’m sure everyone has a similar dish, or possibly even an entire food group, they disliked when they were children.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the demise/impending demise of newspapers (an event some people seem almost giddy about), and I’ve come to realize that it does far more than sadden me, I find it pretty scary.  You see, the one thing a newspaper did unique to all other news media is it effectively “pushed” stories on you, like it or not. Sure you can turn the page or even a whole section, but the process of reading the format necessitated people reading content they would not otherwise choose to read.

Online readers and aggregation services do a good job at pulling together the content sources an individual selects, but they do nothing to deliver unasked for content. This is a problem.  As people are becoming increasingly dependent on these tools, they are becoming increasingly resistant to consume any content which does not appropriately hit their filter.  Further, the ability to simply click click click away makes it all-too easy that readers will abandon content mid-stride (how many readers did I lose in that sentence alone).

Analogy time!  Giving people the ability to complete select, filter, control and govern their news streams and sources is like giving children the ability to select the food for their meals. Just as in news people are flocking to gossip rags, trade publications/blogs, and other narrowly filtered selections, children would eat meals consisting of sweets and snacks.  Neither are healthy.  Just as children need their brussel sprouts, cauliflower, spinach, broccoli and other never-selected items, adults need to be exposed to news content other than of their “liking”.

We live in an era with unprecedented access to information, yet at a time when people are considered less informed than in recent generations.  And to be clear, this problem is spanning multiple generations (not just the youth), multiple geographies (yes coastal folks, you’re probably worse off than your “flyover” state cousins), and all other demographics. If I can make one simple recommendation it’s to pick a given news source you might not naturally prefer, on a topic (hint: international news) you might not always care about, and insert it into your news streams.  I may not have liked that creamed spinach my grandmother made, but thankfully my parents had enough good sense to make sure a few bites of it did not get hidden under the tablecloth.

Your home page is one of: TechMeme, Yhacker news, Friendfeed.

You debate the merits of various URL shorteners.

Hearing that teenagers think Twitter is stupid, yet they send ~500 texts per day is somehow disconcerting to you, and challenges some core beliefs you have about the world.

You (a) have a tag cloud on your blog and (b) it actively contains any one of: Louis Gray, Scobleizer, Cloud Computing.  (note: it was pointed out to me that this seems like a possible slam on Louis/Robert – it’s not. Having their names in your tag cloud means you write about them a lot as a topic. So unless you are them, it’s echochambery)

You think you are “good at Twitter”.

You believe that writing a blog on a topic for more than 6 months makes someone an expert at that topic.

You think the iPhone sucks and the gPhone rocks in comparison (note: I may not personally own an iPhone, and I may make jokes about it, but even I know it doesn’t suck).

You tell friends or family when someone more popular than you retweets something you wrote (whether they care or not).

You can easily define the difference between the types of posts written on ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Mashable.

You are surprised to learn that AOL has over 10 million paying subscribers.

You lament over the failure of the “Semantic” Web.

When you hear the following first names, in your mind they have direct associations with specific individuals: Mike, Jeff, Pete, Erick, Marshall, Rafe, Justine, Brian, Fred, Ron, Louis, Robert, Chad, Veronica, Jeremiah, and Gabe. You might also guess at a Paul, a Dave, a Sarah, and a Chris.  And, of course, a Jeremy.

You believe yourself to be “very” aware of news as it happens. But this is specifically because of Twitter trending topics.

You still say “(subject) two point oh”.

You see absolutely no reason whatsoever not to put all of your personal information into sites like Facebook, Google Health, Mint, Dopplr, or LinkedIn.

You can name one (or multiple) competitors to Twitter.

You (a) have more than 500 twitter followers and (b) know exactly how many you have at this moment (+/- 10 people).

You use terms like “Tweeple”, “Social Graph”, “Real-Time Web”, “Microsyntax”.

You look around very carefully before dissing “industry heavyweights” out loud (though rarely ponder why they are so powerful).

You think Spymaster, KDice, and Tap Tap Revenge are “popular video games”.

You know precisely what Google Wave is.

You know how much FriendFeed and iLike were acquired for, but cannot (without research) answer questions like “how much does the war in Iraq cost US taxpayers?” or “in a nutshell, what is the conflict in Darfur actually about?”.

With Snow Leopard set to debut tomorrow (except for all my industry friends who already have it that is), I’ve been pondering a lot as to the true value of new/improved operating systems.  In a nutshell for SL it seems to be $30 to improve the overall performance of existing Leopard installations.  That makes sense as a value proposition (for only $30, my $1000 laptop will perform better than it does today? count me in). Windows 7 is coming soon, which seems primed as a substantial improvement over Vista (insert cheap shot here), and again I ponder as to the alignment between market needs and product offerings.

My basic assertion is we’ve reached a plateau in the cycle of improving computer/OS/Internet experiences, and the investment should be more oriented on basic performance and reliability, as well as dramatic improvements in simple ease of use. As a simple assertion, it’s my belief that the average computer user (PC and Mac) is still challenged to perform tasks as “basic” as locating downloaded files, upgrading software, and virtually any kind of networking function.  And for those of you reading and slowly sticking your nose in the air in a mocking fashion, your snobbery does not benefit those who use computers day-in and day-out, and in the long run is costing you time and money.

Here’s my target list of what fixes would help the bulk of computer users today and tomorrow:

• Expert Mode.
  The steepest challenge in most systems is helping novices while empowering expert users.  When it comes to as big a system as the core OS to a computer, the challenge is close to insurmountable.  As a result, features that many people would want to use are buried into hard-to-find places or unknown keyboard shortcuts (command-shift-3 to screenshot? come on). In the short term, letting a user “flip a switch” to go into expert mode after getting comfortable with basic OS usage could be the easiest way to improve overall usability.  Then, all sorts of helpful tooltips, modal alerts, and more could be used to help new/novice users learn the basics.
• The Download – Save – Install sequence.
  Good examples: Firefox extensions and AIR applications.
  Bad examples: everything else.
  I am still stunned at the complexity of most installers, and I’m not even talking about the poorly designed installation wizards.  The number of ZIPs, SITs, DMGs, RARs, and more that sit on desktops and download folders without getting opened is awful and reflects poorly not on users, but on the developers who built these systems.  I get it that we need protection against viruses and malware, but can’t there be a smarter way to deal with this?  Yes we can.
• Taking Screenshots.
  If making screenshots was as simple for people to use as it should be, my hunch is tech support costs for application developers would drop dramatically.  Instead, it’s a highly buried feature in both Windows and OS X, and it doesn’t look like that’s going away anytime soon.
• Integrated support for removable storage (semi-permanent vs not).
  There are literally hundreds of millions of removable storage drives, both USB thumb sticks and external hard drives.  Yet almost no basic set of applications have native support for the concept of a “semi-permanent” drive (one that sits on your office desk, for example, but not at home).  Sure most apps can use data on these drives, but it’s always in a semi-dysfunctional manner.  iPhoto, for example, retains thumbnails on the local hard drive, but at no point informs the user that the full resolution image won’t be available until the drive is reconnected.  There should be utter clarity to the user, at all times, as to which files are where, and how to properly manage stuff.  For a follow-up example with iPhoto, I should be able to “move” folders/events to removable drives (as my iPhoto Library is the biggest space consumer on my hard drive), and it should act smartly about it.
• Browser speed!
  Okay, this is happening in Snow Leopard anyway, but I still wanted to iterate it.  The bulk of time spent on computers is inside the browser these days, so the more the browser can natively be fast, the more productivity we have.
• File sharing.
  I fundamentally believe that Finder and File Explorer still represent the worst aspect of computing. Watching people try to upload photos to sites like Tumblr is such an easy example of the brokenness of it all. The analog of folders/file folders is simply broken, as is the entire concept of what files, shortcuts, applications, etc are. If tied in to my earlier comment on “expert mode”, then the creation of a “novice” file browser could be a huge step forward.  In the interim, the more the OS can help promote local search, the better.
• Webcams.
  Everybody (and I use the term fairly literally now) wants to use webcams. Whether its for dating, remote working and productivity (disclosure: Team Apart is a client of Stage Two Consulting), or staying in touch with friends or family, the webcam is probably the most useful accessory I can think of.  So why did it take me over an hour to get my father’s working with Skype? Whatever needs to happen in regards to drivers, API, and other common technology components to make Webcams work all the time needs to happen, and soon.
• Backups.
  Both Windows and OS X include backup capabilities.  Both are better than they’ve ever been.  Neither are good enough.  If I had to make a wager on impending individualized technology crises, I’d bet that a lot of good people are going to suffer some serious data loss in the coming years.  Backup should be more than just “an option”, but an annoying, pestering reminder that prevents users from doing much without properly configuring backups.  Further, backup should be enabled on a per-file, per-folder, per-application basis (like Time Machine does, but even moreso).
• Automatic Document Saving & Versioning.
  Technically this really lies within Office applications more than the OS, but it could happen at any level.  The entire concept of “saving” a file is ridiculous.  When you write on a piece of paper, it’s “saved”.  You can opt to discard it, which you’d have to pro-actively do.  If you want to easily retrieve it from a stack of others, you might put some special tag or label on it, or put it in a specific drawer or file cabinet that you have, which you’ve probably organized fairly easily.  Electronic files must work the same way! The entire concept that one could write a document, then accidentally click a single button to destroy hours of work is utterly idiotic. The mere act of typing a new document should save, and every edit you make should also save, and every version of every edit should be retrievable (especially considering apps like Stickies and sites like WordPress do this natively).  Instead of renaming documents, there should simply be a visual timeline and an easy-to-use slider that lets you use Time Machine-like visuals to see prior versions.
• e-Wallets.
  If the computer guys want to stop the mobile guys and social networking guys from owning my transactions, they need to step it up soon.  A built-in wallet to more rapidly enable e-commerce and microtransactions is a logical evolution of the operating system, not a third-party Website.

Unfortunately there seems to be a bit too much energy into “video desktop backgrounds” instead.  Ah well, one can dream.  Any other “basic wants” people have to improve computing, please share in the comments!

Following my theme of recognizing interesting barriers of communications due to technology (well, by theme I mean one post), I thought I’d help rant about another one.  And, just like the previous topic, it’s something I’ve probably been guilty of myself, and am also working on being better about.  Email has created an amazing barrier to communications.

What do I mean?

First, there’s the signal vs noise problem of people getting too many emails.  Newsletters and other mailing lists are partly to blame, as is spam, but a real issue in my opinion is the over-CC-ing.  Whether its large internal groups or other methods of including a lot of folks, there’s a whole heckuvalot of threads people are CC’ed on that are probably unnecessary.  Regardless of the Why, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel they get too much email to properly handle.

Second, people are using email to do things that are better done on the phone.  For example, scheduling phone calls.  It seems like instead of just picking up the phone and dialing people have resorted to emailing each other about the future plans to call each other.  Again, I’ll be totally upfront and admit I do it too, but I’m most certainly aware of the problem and am working on it.

Third, and the real reason I wrote this post, is related to #2 above, and is all about people using email to avoid having meetings.  Here’s a summary of how those emails go, where I’ll use fictitious Bill and Steve as my two personas having a realistic, but purely fictitious dialogue:

From: Bill
Sent: Monday, July 6th at 08:11am
To: Steve
Subject: Nice seeing you at that event!
Steve,
It was fun catching up with you in the halls at that conference.  I wanted to follow up with you on meeting in person to talk about possible opportunities.  How’s next Thursday at your office?
-Bill

From: Steve
Sent: Thursday, July 9th at 04:45pm
To: Bill
Subject: re: Nice seeing you at that event!
Good to see you too.  Can’t do next Thursday, going to be in NYC.  Would love to catch up.
S

From: Bill
Sent: Thursday, July 9th at 06:11pm
To: Steve
Subject: re: Nice seeing you at that event!
No problem.  How about the week following, when you’re back from your trip?  I’m good pretty much every afternoon other than Monday.  Let me know if anything in there works for you!
-Bill

From: Bill
Sent: Tuesday, July 14th at 11:41am
To: Steve
Subject: re: Nice seeing you at that event!
Steve,
Just wanted to touch base again about next week?  I’m still free on Mon, Tues, and Fri afternoons next week.  Anything good for you?
-Bill

From: Steve
Sent: Tuesday, July 14th at 11:42am
To: Bill
Subject: Out of Office Reply re: Nice seeing you at that event!

From: Bill
Sent: Monday, July 20th at 09:01am
To: Steve
Subject: Trying again…
Steve,
Hi, I’m still interested in meeting up with you this week.  I can do tomorrow after 3pm, or Friday after 1pm.  Anything there work?
-Bill

From: Steve
Sent: Monday, July 20th at 07:41pm
To: Bill
Subject: re: Trying again…
Sorry about missing you this week.  I could do something late next week if you can come out to my office.

From: Bill
Sent: Tuesday, July 21st at 08:44am
To: Steve
Subject: re: Trying again…
Sounds great.  Next Thursday, 2pm?  I’m free that afternoon.

From: Bill
Sent: Friday, July 24th at 10:11am
To: Steve
Subject: re: Trying again…
Steve – are we on for next Thursday afternoon?  I put down 2pm if that works for you…

From: Steve
Sent: Sunday, July 26th at 9:44pm
To: Bill
Subject: re: Trying again…
Going to end up on the road for big meetings this week, I didn’t realize you meant this week.

and so on…

Now I am definitely paraphrasing, but it’s not too far off the mark.  In our above scenario (in case it wasn’t clear) Steve just doesn’t want to meet with Bill, and just doesn’t seem to want to say it.  Instead, emails are ignored, meetings are missed, etc. There are certainly lots of excuses and such, but at the end of the day, it’s either time to pick up the phone, or drop it.  He’s just not that into meeting with you.

I’m sure my list of ways email is a pain is far from exhaustive.  But moving to Facebook, Twitter, or other direct messaging platforms is just substituting one leaky ship for another.  My only recommendation for fixing it is to keep your inbox as empty as possible, and to have the good sense about picking the right communication vehicle for the task at hand.  And there’s nothing like picking up the phone and just dialing…

The other day I wrote about my issues with tablet computers.  My general position, in a word, was that they suck.  Now observant readers like Andrew Parker noticed my last line: “if you do figure it out, I’m buying!” My post was about the real-world limitations of tablets, and was written specifically in contrast to the hype and attention the potential of tablets (and I’m definitely not the only one who feels the category has a terrible history and numerous challenges in reaching a wider customer base).  But what sucks more than the tablets was the kind of responses I saw both on my comments here and by a blogger at GottaBeMobile.  It really got me thinking about how easy it is to be a real jerk when there is no potential for face-to-face interaction.

Being a keyboard jerk, in a nutshell, is writing things you’d never have the cajones to say to someone in person for fear of some kind of retribution.  So I write a tongue-in-cheek post about tablets, and as a result, here are some of the “counter-arguments” (from commentors and the blog post in question):

• “Yes, sadly, I think Toeman has revealed himself as yet another critic who sits at a keyboard typing in English all day, someone who would gain no benefit from a tablet, and lacks the imagination to see beyond his condition.”
• “Did you know that the average IQ of tablet users is 1.482 times higher than those who think that tablets suck.”
• “It can certainly reveal how much a pundit’s opinion can suck though.”
• “Tablets make you tired. No, you tire easily because you’re a wuss.”

As commentor “Bob” on the blog pointed out “You have good points to make; there’s no reason to hide them under the blanket of a personal attack.” Wired’s Brian Chen wrote an excellent counter-point, and at no point did he stoop to do so.

There is no debate in my mind that neither Mark (the poster) nor any commentor would have said any of the above statements had we been chatting in person.  They are easy to type, but much, much harder to say.  In person, people have to see each others’ reactions, and in general, don’t like hurting feelings or saying things that might get them, say, punched.  So I could very comfortably talk derisively about a tablet computer because, well, who cares?

Look, it’s easy to type nastily.  Mark lives on the East Coast, he has no fear of me in any way, and I’m not much the punching type anyway.  And commentors tend to do so anonymously, which in my eyes is on a par with yelling at a pedestrian from inside a rapidly moving vehicle, which is why their value/contribution is roughly nil.

The reality is we all do it at some time.  We type without thinking.  We send “nastygram” emails to coworkers, colleagues, or even loved ones.  The keyboard is just so easy to use, and there’s no reason not to move rapidly.  I tweeted about how I “hated” a company’s user interface, which is true, and in fact something I’d be comfortable saying to that company’s CEO (which I ended up doing).  But it was inappropriate, and something better said in person or in a private email, and not for public consumption (which I apologized for).

So I pledge to be less of a keyboard jerk myself, and I hope others read, consider, and follow.  I can’t promise to be perfect, but hopefuly it’ll make my IQ increase, be less of a wuss, have a better imagination, and generally suck less.

I am in the process of signing up for Google Voice (my number ends with CALLJT, now how cool is that??) and had this minor freak-out moment realizing how much I depend on Google.  So I got to thinking about all the places where I really do rely on tech for my day-to-day living. I was wondering on my risk/exposure in the event that the given tech or service provider were to instantly stop working in a very permanent way.

Here’s my “audit”:

Thanks to this site’s HTML table generator!

I’m pretty sure that’s the sum of the list of high tech products and services I feel fairly dependent on.  Sure I could include stuff like a microwave or my car stereo, but I feel these are too commonplace to really be considered “high” tech.  I also didn’t include anything that was only about a specific company (for example if Verizon or Comcast ceased to exist, since their competition offers near-identical replacement services.  ditto for things like GCal, my email client or even office software, as they are so interchangeable).

Potential soon-to-be-added services:

• Jajah (we are considering dropping our US+Canada cell phone package and using Jajah for our calls to the Great White North)
• Google Voice (might use my new number as my primary number from now on, with forwarding rules to cell/office as needed)
• GPS (after my last Nuvi was stolen we went ~6 months before picking up a new one)

Anything you feel dependent on that you’d like to share with the group?

I blogged about “twittergate” yesterday, and it seems like the topic of “was this ethical” continues to rear its head across blogs and publications. LewisPR put up a poll asking “Was TechCrunch right to publish Twitter’s business plans?” – the overwhelming majority as I write this says “no”.  So this post is dedicated to all the “yes”es out there.  I’ll outline parallel “ethical dilemmas” and we’ll see how easy this really is to boil down.

Scenario 1:
You walk into a pawn shop (for whatever reason).  While in the shop you see a car stereo selling for $10.  It’s brand new (clearly) and you pull out your iPhone, google the product number, and learn it retails for $399.  But here it is, in front of you, without a box or instructions, for only $10.  You inquire to the store manager as to its origin, he merely responds that someone sold it to him (along with a briefcase and laptop).  As you inspect the unit for damage, you see some scratches around the edges and some of the wires on the back are broken, implying it was previously mounted into a car dashboard and hastily removed. In hushed tones, the pawn broker says it was almost definitely stolen. Do you buy it?

If you said “yes”, congratulations, you are contributing to the country’s crime problem.  Well done. Scumbag.

A quick analysis of the above scenario should reveal the overall answer to why you shouldn’t buy or otherwise endorse stolen things.  Even emails.

Scenario 2:
The person closest to you in the whole world (old friend, spouse, parent, sibling – you pick) accidentally CC’s you on an internal company email with lots of important sensitive documents.  You run a top media outlet and frequently make/break news.  The documents contain many company secrets. Your friend/spouse/etc informs you that publishing the documents would cost them their job, and possibly hurt their business in a massive way (and probably end your relationship).  Do you publish them (and knowingly cause a person you love to become unemployed based on your direct actions)?

If you said “yes”, my hunch is you’ve formed no close relationships in your life and probably need some help.  Seriously, you’d do something that would cause your kid brother to lose his job? Wha???

A quick analysis of the above scenario should reveal that when your actions can hurt those you love, you think quite carefully about them.  And if that’s true, shouldn’t we have the same respect for those who aren’t necessarily as close to us?

So back to “twittergate”.  We’ve asserted that endorsing theft is wrong.  We’ve asserted that there are times when we shouldn’t reveal secrets, regardless of the means by which we learned them.  So by the transitive property…

Despite the ridiculousness of the headset laws in California, I have bigger fights to fight, and condone to use a headset while driving.  Until a week ago my headset of choice was the SoundID 100.  I love how easily it slips into my ear and the sound quality is great.  My three complaints were unimpressive battery life, a not-so-great pairing with my phone (which I don’t blame on SoundID, but it simply didn’t sound good with my Samsung phone), and a tendency to occasionally make screeching noises directly into my eardrum.  The latter probably being the biggest detriment to the headset.

Now loathe I am to replace a working product, when I had the opportunity to try out the newest Jawbone Primes, I was intrigued.  After all, while I’ve never had a great experience in the past (I think it was a facial hair thing), everyone else seems to love them.  I decided to try the bright yellow model (in the office it’s affectionately referred to as a banana on my head).  The pink and red ones were a little too… pink and red.  The black, silver, and brown ones were all too drab.  Leavining banana yellow as just right!  Plus it adds that touch of panache that I could only otherwise pull off by accumulating a collection of very interesting hats. Here’s a quick vid of it:

Sporting a Yello Jawbone prime. on 12seconds.tv

The Jawbone Prime is the third generation of headsets from Aliph, and this time I think they’ve got a real winner.  Others have looked good, and they’ve generally been accepted as the premium headset (I’d once have said the Cadillac of Headsets, but really, in today’s world does anyone actually want the Cadillac of Anything???), but I’ve felt they’ve lacked on performance.  Not anymore.  The unit pairs extremely well with my phone (your mileage may vary), and the sound quality is excellent.  These are obviously the top factors in considering any headset, but I’ll continue with more.

My favorite physical improvement to the Jawbone is the in-ear loops, which function quite similarly to the SoundID unit.  No more trying to wrap weird things around my ears (which I never do well and makes me feel even more uncoordinated than I am).  I haven’t yet given it the “can I leave it in my ear all day” test, but it’s definitely not uncomfortable. My only issue is I feel I’m somewhere between the medium and large earbuds.

I have no real comment yet on the battery life.  The specs claim 4.5 hrs talk time, 8 days standby, I haven’t yet had the battery die, so I would guess it’s probably slightly lower (since I’ve *never* seen an accurate battery life assessment from a company) – regardless, I keep the USB charging cable in my laptop bag now.  The packaging for the unit is truly beautiful, possibly the best-designed I’ve ever seen.  And now for the zinger – but I wish they weren’t using so much plastic and other unsustainable materials to accomplish such beauty.

Finally, my only real product complaints – the buttons.  While putting the unit in my ear, I tend to push the button that disconnects a call (while the phone is ringing).  Further, there are so many button combinations (push one of them 5 times in a row to activate a feature) that as a result I can’t remember any of them.  Now there’s an obvious, necessitated tradeoff between incorporating so much functionality and only having two buttons, but I have to think there is a better way to handle it.  That said, since I am definitely adopting the Jawbone Prime as my default headset, this is more in the “annoyance” category than anything else.

So there you have it. Definite thumbs-up for the Jawbone Prime.  Get your own not-so-mellow Yello here at Amazon for $129.