TECH-fidel

This concludes my Adventures In Facebook blog arc. It's clear- Facebook dominates Myspace in nearly every way. Friends, family, photos, blogs, all well integrated and not obnoxious like Myspace. I do wish you could customize a little, but then again, I have seen pages on Myspace that make my eyes hurt. And I really don't care about the music you like (unless you are the musician).

For networking (business-related), Facebook is way behind Linked In. I suggest that a socio-graph merger of sorts should take place. Hopefully movements like Open Social from google and dataportability.org will bear fruit. Imagine being able to combine and visualize all of your social networks and see the inter-relationships betwen the people in them.

Maybe we are all just data... just kidding. Your network is only as alive as you make, and that requires humanity. And a little pervasive computing.

Posted by Erich Izdepski at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Is this really hard to filter out?

Which part of my body you like the most:) at www.oheather dot com

Apparently it is, at least for Yahoo mail. I wonder which brilliant product they use? I have flagged messages as spam just like this one already this week, yet they still keep coming. I have to assume a thousands or other people have also flagged this style of message as spam, too, so what gives?

I have a theory. Yahoo makes money through advertising. Less spam email seen by users means fewer ad impressions will be seen. I don't know if they make money per impression or per click or per transaction - probably some combination of all three. So some pam is desired to slip through, hence, Yahoo and others are not too motivated to curtail it. And if the filter makers are too good, they are out of business

Posted by Erich Izdepski at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Erich Izdepski at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I work for Sprint. You have probably seen our new ads for the Sprintspeed campaign. Very pretty adds and I like the tech behind it. I also hear consumers have a positive feel for the campaign. I think it completely misses the point. Why?

• Most of our customers have a phone from us (duh #1).
• The number one thing our customers use is voice calling (duh #2).
• The number one concern of any phone user in the world is network quality (duh #3). Battery life is the second concern.

Speed is not on the chart, since irrelevant. It does not help make a call (unless you are using Push to Talk, like Direct Connect).

The campaign would be much better suited to a product line (EVDO Rev A Air Cards and modems) or business unit (Xohm), rather that a phone company. Rev A will not matter much, though, since Verizon is doing the same thing. Xohm has real speed advantages but already has a plan and it is, in a word, "better".

What will Sprint do in its struggles to find a meaningful message to customers? Let's face it, there are very few dimensions to the industry that matter to customers. Verizon and ATT focus on the network (duh #4) and they are winning.

Maybe we should say we give the best care (that's a big lie now, but who knows in the future) or have the best services and make it happen. Speed is just a function of the technology we buy (and hence, not a sustainable advantage) and not much for the employees at large to rally around or impact. 

Posted by Erich Izdepski at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's face it, Microsoft will win. Yahoo will keep making money and maybe save some jobs. I got Jerry's letter (I'm a yahoo shareholder) and was not impressed. I'd rather see a buyout and maybe I'll just keep the microsoft shares.

Besides, anything to improve upon some of Microsoft's services will be nice. Just calling everything "Live XXX" doesn't give life to poor search engines, failed global ID initiatives, email that is routinely hard to log in to, etc. There are some cool mapping services (Virtual Earth)- did they buy those, too?

BTW, good job, Microsoft,  on giving software to students. The fact that java was free is what really allowed the Internet to take off. Bill Gates wrote a lot about education in The Road Ahead- now we see more action on that front.

Posted by Erich Izdepski at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ever try a video conference for business (legit business, mind you) with a $99 webcam? I didn't think so. Is there a reasonable choice for small businesses or people who work from home that works pretty darn well and is better than a phone call? Yes. Watch this: inPerson camera in action

What do you think? I think people have to start embracing the technology for regular use for a variety of reasons: better for environment, adoption will drive improvements faster, improves communication, and kids love it. Kids? Why does that matter? They are the next generation of users (and innovators). My daughter talks to videos of me that I send to my wife's phone. It's only natural. She's 3 and already has set the bar high for her first phone.

The competition: 

Webcams typically have small lenses (and cheap CCD's). They don't get colors right or handle much more than a talking head. Is this the technology of the broadband future- a 320 x 240 window with blurry motion and poor a/v sync before you even send the video over the Internet?

$100K for cisco telepresence is a little much and you still mostly see people from funny angles (oh but they look good from the funny angle- you just can't hardly tell where they are looking).

There are others in-between (duh!) but they are too expensive for a soho or prosumer.

I can't wait til someone figures out how to put the camera behind either a light permeable screen or the processing is so great it recreates what you should look like in real-time. Just like it works on TV- simple, huh?

Posted by Erich Izdepski at 06:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)