webconomist.ca

Pontificating on How the Web is changing our world.

Do We Expect Everything to Plug In?

January 3rd, 2011 Posted in Social Change, Uncategorized
Jan, 03 2011
7 Comments »

There was my daughter, trying on her funky new ear warmers for skiing yesterday, the snow bunny read to bound over moguls. They did look very nice and so I said, naturally, off the cuff, “where’s the iPod jack?” She looked at me a bit odd. It was then I realized how we just expect not only devices to connect with other devices, but our clothing as well. My own favourite winter jacket has a rather unique system for routing ones iPod and headphones and another route for easy access to a mobile.

Gloves come with heater pockets to put in little hand warmers. Trainers from Nike that enable you to integrate with an iPod to track your running. TV’s connect with receivers, a range of HDMI devices and anything else that broadcasts some form of digital content. Car’s have flash memory now, CD players allow MP3 formats. We are ever so tethered today. New devices are made to enable faster, easier creation of digital content, such as the new range of DSLR camera’s like Canon’s that have video and photo’s – in super quality. Or the simple Flip by Cisco that uses USB to connect to any computer and has simple editing and sharing mechanisms.

Is that good? Is it too much? I keep asking that question, yet devices continue to become increasing interconnected and content creation and publishing ever more easier…and as consumers, we keep gorging on them in some crazed digital gluttony.

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Wikileaks and What We Really Want to Know

December 1st, 2010 Posted in Social Change, Social Media
Dec, 01 2010
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Anyone missing the explosion of WikiLeaks most recent dump of data is likely living in a very remote part of the world. And decidedly so. Although I believe in transparency, sometimes too much information puts peoples lives at risk – and this has done just that. And it isn’t the first time.

But what has struck me most is the largely deafening silence of the masses across social media channels and in general. Or perhaps we’re not hearing something. Sure, there are the far left, far right and center citizen pundits and bloggers with various views and opinions..hey, I’m just an average fella as well spouting an opinion and really, who gives a damn?

So what struck me was really, that very fact. The media’s pumping out the stories as fast as they gleefully can, right-wing, left-wing and wingnuts.

Maybe really, we just, I mean the average folk, just don’t care. Maybe most people would rather not know. I suspect the majority of us out there know that there’s all kinds of stuff going on behind the scenes that we don’t know and well, frankly, maybe we don’t want to know.

As a Canadian immigrant citizen, when I read about CSIS’s saying Canadians live with an “Alice in Wonderland” view of the world and tend towards “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” I thought you know what, that CSIS guy was right. He made a damn good point. Canadian television productions poke unfairly at America. I think it’s childish and irresponsible and incredibly short-sighted of Canadians to behave that way. Grow the fuck up Canada.

But overall, I wonder, maybe people just don’t want to know really, the gritty details of banter between diplomats. Maybe, really, it’s not all that important. What I care about is information that needlessly puts American and other national citizens at risk from wingnuts who can’t put things into perspective.

The social web is relatively silent, considering. That in itself is a statement.

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Enough With The Social Browsers!

November 7th, 2010 Posted in Mobile, Services, Social Media
Nov, 07 2010
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The bravest, semo-succesful yet failed attempt at the “Social Browser” was Flock. Now, the old Netscape crew and some newbies are about to launch RockMelt (what? What does melting rocks have to do with being sociable? At least “Google” has some sense of meaning even if the word “Yahoo!” will never reside, thankfully, in a dictionary…)

So…RockMelt, wants to be the “social browser”. I think operhaps these developers are spending a tad too much time nattering like nannies in a tired old coffee shop off the High Street. The coffee is tasteless and people are stuck in their ways. Lets face it, way too many people are barely catching up to IE7 and FireFox isn’t catching on near as fast as it should, or Chrome either. Switch to yet another bloody browser? Not bloody likely.

It’s user behaviour 101. And we’ve done enough research to show that of our test group of “low-level Internet users” of 3,500, they barely know they can use multiple tabs in browsers today…so RockMelt might, perhaps, appeal to the under 30 group…but since they’re so mobile focused I doubt it.

My wager? RockMelt will fly off into the horizon of anonymity just like Flock ended up flockin off elsewhere…nice idea but way to much. Most people use no more than 3 social media channels, Flock integrates and RockMelt, way too many as well. Even if it is just Chrome with glorified extensions…the average Joe or Jane (and for ad dollars or any monetization strategy that’s who matters) doesn’t want to be “that” connected.

Of course, I dissed Twitter in 2006 and well, I flopped on that prediction. But for RockMelt, yup, I’ll try it…but all my Chrome and FireFox settings are done, as is my address book in other apps. Sorry RockMelt, but I suspect you’ll melt into Web anonymity within 6 months.

You?

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The Air Piano and the Future of Music

October 13th, 2010 Posted in Services, Social Change, Social Media, Uncategorized
Oct, 13 2010
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OK, I’m a fan of Sigur Ros and so on their email list. They pushed out the debut release of artist Jo Hamilton. She has a haunting voice and crosses a new genre of folk music, perhaps the evolution of folk music. I like it, others won’t, but what caught my eye researching this talented artist was the Air Piano that she pioneers on her new album.

It made me realize that we are likely to see some significant advances in music via this Digital Age. When Apple brought GarageBand to the game it launched, arguably of course, a whole new genre of musical talents. When one sees that only 3% of over 1.5 Million songs uploaded to iTunes in 2009 sold, it says something about the glut of music out there now.

Leveraging technology like we see in the Air Piano and then a talented artist to push it, will undoubtedly lead to some incredible innovations in music. Which also makes one realize, in ones early 40’s, that what I’m listening to in my 70’s will make those in their early 20’s cringe…

Don’t you remember those drives home sometimes in the 80’s with your parents listening to AM radio and the associates AM hits? And you’d think, oh man, they are soooo old? I know you do. Well, at some point Sigur Ros and artists like Jo Hamilton are going to be like that and those in their 20’s are going to wonder why we just don’t plug in the neural jack and remix stuff in our own heads as we go…which makes one wonder, will there be any rock bands, country bands or orchestra’s in 60 years? What do you think?

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Stop Thinking of Apple as a Hardware Company

September 16th, 2010 Posted in Products, Social Media
Sep, 16 2010
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Yes, they make the iPod, iPad, iPhone, MacBook and some wickedly delicious monitors…when are the great speakers coming? That aside, Apple has done what no other media company in history has done…figure out how to create the “whole media experience” through the delivery device.

By controlling the hardware, you can control the management and form of the content. That started with iTunes and the iPod. Where I see them taking their launch point from is the television set. It’s so simple to operate. Given the media forms available today, a few more keys are needed…but Apple is brilliant at concentrating on what works and what features are necessary. Zen simplification.

If the rumours are true (wow don’t we love Apple’s rumour mill?..there’s a whole doctorate in public relations right there…) that Apple is going to deliver news via iTunes (it makes sense) then well, they’ve become the new version of a broadcast channel. Avec some “social networking” tools via Ping (thankfully they didn’t call it iPing.)

Apple will be the worlds largest media channel corporation. They aren’t concerned with content. They don’t do content. But they do understand the tools to create, manipulate, manage, deliver and view content. Every device they make is simply a container for content. That’s it. It’s why I’m glad I own 1,500 Apple shares.

OK Apple…think you can give Bang & Olufsen a run for their money on speakers? Or Harmon Kardon? or middle-of-the-road Bose even? Meh. This jury of 1 is out on that score.

So to me, Apple is simply a creator of media containers. Let the Telco’s and such mess with the pipe for bandwidth cause that’s well, boring. How sexy can you make a coaxial cable look? One thing we don’t say to our neighbour is “Ooohh, check out my sexy new network cable…”

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The 3 New Internets?

September 8th, 2010 Posted in Services, Uncategorized
Sep, 08 2010
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Three Internets? I’m just postulating here. Stick with me a moment. Or not. I see three versions of the Internet or “Web” evolving;

1. The Open Internet: Anything goes here, it’s the World Wide Web. It’s filled with websites, blogs, videos on various sites (except YouTube), 4Chan type stuff, newsgroups, forums and as yet to be invented apps. It’s a breeding ground for services to be taken over or bought out.

2. The Channel Internet: This is the domain of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Hulu and those who can afford massive server farms, high-bandwidth pipe access and “stream” content to their various devices (mobiles, TV-set boxes, laptops etc.) They’ll own the content and well, you’re going to pay for it. From $0.99 to $9.99 as I think $9.99 is going to become the top price people will pay for digital content…kinda like those cheesy TV offers at $19.99 right now for the Slap Chops of the world.

3. The Nasty Internet: Viruses, spam websites, phishing sites, scams, get-rich-quick schemes and the like. They’ll keep popping up on blogs, Twitter-like microblogs and similar such services. Lots of juicy viruses and malware hangin about there. They’ll be so profligate the only way to manage it all will be to shuffle them aside rather than delete them. Whole servers and RAID arrays will be compromised and so they’ll just shunt them aside and cover them over. Notice how most virus protection software today simply “quarantines” them to some remote part of your hard drive? Yup, just like that. Not deleted, simply gurgling about the sewers of the Internet.

That’s the three “macro-level” versions of the Web or Internet that I see. After all, we can access the Web a number of times already without ever touching a laptop or computer.

What do you think?

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Gotta Hum That Sweet Google Apps Tune

August 5th, 2010 Posted in Products, Uncategorized
Aug, 05 2010
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I just have to sing the Google Apps tune of joy. I have no idea what that would sound like, probably strange beeps and bongs that would drive any sane duck loopy. Nonetheless, some merry tune dances in my noggin over Google Apps.

Our clients are all over the world; Iraq, Jordan, Norway, USA, UK and such. Flying there constantly would be slightly more than ridiculous and rather tiring on the arm flapping. Over the past year we’ve applied more and more, Google Apps wherever we could think to.

We do research, analysis and then sometimes strategy. So we have our own tools to do that with and that’s coming along rather swimmingly. But even so, we need to collaborate with clients. At the start of a project there’s an exchange of a lot of information for our digital media research, then sometimes during (clarification type stuff, those anal questions analysts must ask but are annoyingly sensible) and of course after delivery. Here’s an idea of how that shakes out for us;

GoogleDocs: Collaboration on terms, keywords, phrases, people and any kind of text. When we shared a Word document we’d get back all these Track Changes bubbles, lines and squeaks. When we switched to Docs and real-time collaboration, using the chat capability on the side. Wow. Because we’re anal on these things we compared pre-Google Docs input and noted a 61% increase in the content. Clients must’ve hit the caffeine zone I guess.

Surveys: Using Google Forms we can craft quick and dirty (well, snappy not dirty) surveys for clients to gain consensus quickly and easily. Sometimes before a meeting. Suddenly we have this spreadsheet with some nice infographics and the client “ooh’s” and “aah’s” and we can quickly find the theme and main points. Meetings are snap quick and shit gets done. Nice.

Toss in video chat and the instant messaging capacity, well, it’s done us quite well. We’ve used a lot of the templates available; expense reporting, project management, time tracking and more. I’ve tried SharePoint and well, it’s like the garden snail next to the industrious high-speed ant on steroids of Google Apps.

Some call it “Cloud Computing” which is a bit silly cause it’s not really anything more than a sophisticated network of computers and databases tied together, really, if we want to be honest about it. But hey, marketing names accepted, it works. Our productivity has improved and our clients are happier. That’s hard and soft dollars in the cloud. Brings me to earth. Minus the broken bones.

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Drinking The Cloud Pundits Punditry

July 30th, 2010 Posted in Products, Services
Jul, 30 2010
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Yes, according to the pithy pundits of productivity online we are all moving into The Cloud. We’re going to soar to new vista’s in bright sunny skies with tethered only to the Cloud our creativity unleashed and our collective wisdom of Cognitive Surplus will run rampant, propelling humanity to a golden new age.

Until then I and many other suffer with the inconsistencies of technology…I’m tethered to a laptop with lots of cables hangin off it when in the office and the standard smoldering frustration when out of the office trying to find a WiFi connection for free or that has anything more than a dribbling stream of a swollen prostate.

So here’s my wee take of a technogadget flunky who spends much of the day, uhm, in the Clouds;

FireFox: It’s become my workhorse for the apps I use heavily. Gmail, Basecamp, KarmaCRM (a great new CRM I’m in beta with), Wordpress, HootSuite and a few others. It’s smooth, uncluttered and speedy with Web apps. It’s a foxy browser and I can dance over the cloudlets any time.

Chrome: It’s just clunky with the apps like Wordpress and frustratingly, Gmail. HootSuite suffers when any of the extensions are active. But Google is super nice if you’ve got lots of little tools to use. In some of my work validating online presence and stats, I use a ton of extensions. So many I kinda sink to earth with analysis paralysis…clouds just can’t support a dripping brain pan.

Forget IE6,7,8 whatever. I’m a Mac, IE is slow. Ponderous and rather than just tethered to the clouds it’s solidly anchored, hooked, roped and bungie-corded to the bloated beast of Mothersoft. Does Balmer have Oedipus Rex Complex?

Yeah, I’m a Machead and I haven’t touched Safari here. I like it. It just doesn’t really have any extensions or add-ons of any significance. I just use Safari for well, not really sure. I just kinda click there and wish Apple might do a wee bit more with it…it just kinda hangs out there. Lonely, hated by Flash and loathed like a Leper in ancient Rome by developers.

So pundits are you dazzled by the sun or a bit too much Kool-Aid? We here in Unperfect Land well, we’re kinda hangin around waiting for a faster, larger Wide Area Network, oh sorry “Cloud” to come along.

In the meantime, if you want apps to run smoother, my take is FireFox. I say that with absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever cause I’m not a scientist.

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What Can Apple Possibly Add As A New Product

July 20th, 2010 Posted in Mobile, Products, Services
Jul, 20 2010
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I’m a MacHead, MacAddict, Appleista…whatever, for the past 15 years. In that time I shortly suffered 2 Windows machines and poking around Windows 7 lately, meh.

Apple announced stellar results. Again. No surprise…

What caught me was Jobs statement “we have amazing new products still to come this year,” Really? What else can they possibly add in gizmo world?

1. Apple TV Revisited: A whole new re-work of the foppish Apple TV? I never bothered investing in one. I have Time Machine and Apple Base Station for my wireless network and satisfied. Can they have dreamed up a new set-top box? That’s where my money is.

2. TV Set: An Apple TV that includes a HardDrive and synching with both your iPhone and Mac computer/laptop? Perhaps I’ll put a few more dollars here. They’ve always excelled at premium LCD displays.

3. Apple Home: The Apple home server. Load all your digital media assets (i.e. crap) on here…from pictures to songs to movies. Accessible from any any HDTV or network device, including Xbox, PlayStation or Wii or, yikes, Windows PC. Connect it to your home security service and some cool iPhone apps to control heating or webcams at home…a delicious all-in-one home server. Meh. Perhaps, not likely.

4. Home Phone: Perhaps a new home phone that also connects to your WiFi network and iTunes to enable central control of all media devices and VoIP phone capability punching Skype and others right in the gut? Would at least be a nicely designed phone for the kitchen.

Whatever it is, if it’s a “new” product that means something it’s adding to its line-up, it must therefore be not an enhancement of an existing product, but something truly new.

What do you thunk?

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The Web is All Squares and Right Angles: My Rant

July 15th, 2010 Posted in Services, Social Change, Social Media, Uncategorized
Jul, 15 2010
No Comments »

Design is fluid. Our world is made of many shapes and much of them are not angular, but spiral, circular and well, wiggly. Right? There’s a lot of chaos out there in the real world. Trees growing oddly, flowers are round. Meandering rivers and well, the whole bloody planet is round isn’t it?

But the World Wide Web, The Internet. It’s square. Our desktop and laptop screens, the iPad, iPod and every bloody mobile phone…they’re all square, or okay, bleedin’ rectangles if you insist. Right bloody angles. All of it.

OK so we make some designs with some semblance of “round” or “curve” in the website. Yeah. OK. But the screen is still a big frickin square isn’t it? Right?

But then paintings in the real world end up on squares don’t they? Yet so much in nature, even our own bodies, has no straight lines. What is this preoccupation with straight lines, squares and angles?

How does “organic” tie into that and is it limiting creative thought or design in Cyburbia?

What do you thunk?

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