DISQUS

The full-length previews is a nice concept, but I couldn't get it to work for the life of me. They also tried to cross sell me on a subscription to Rhapsody too. Real just doesn't get it. If I hardly want to shop using their site just to use my free $10 credit then how much do they think I'll want to shop when I have to pay.

GTA4 did move some consoles, but more of them were 360s actually. MGS4 also came out, but it didn't move consoles at all like Halo 3 did, or even Gears of War (oddly enough).

Yeah, 2007 wasn't the year for Sony. 2008 and 2009 aren't looking like they'll be much better either. Honestly, I think the company needs to be split up. They don't realize any synergies from being the monolithic-conglomerate-silo-giant that Sony is right now.

The Wand is an auto form filler and username/password manager. The password manager is pretty normal, but the auto form filler is a lot more sophisticated than other ones like the Google toolbar's implementation. Most auto form fillers will only let you fill the entire form or really just the parts of the form that it thinks are a name, address, phone, etc.

With the Wand if I am in any arbitrary form (like for posting a comment on a blog) and I type "P" it will have a drop down with Paul, Paul Ellis, and paul@notmyrealemailaddress.com. If I type "h" it will pop-up http://www.techconsumer.com. Basically any field can be filled with anything from my Wand information. It even has a few "other" fields for any other information you enter regularly (multiple usernames, alternate address, etc).

It is a lot better than any other implementation I've used, and it comes built-in.

I've actually been trying Opera 9.5 (my first time using Opera BTW) recently, and I think you'd like it. I'll have to do a write-up sometime soon. It is fast, and almost everything I'd use an extension (content/ad-block, Firebug, form autofill, etc) to do in FF is built-in in Opera. Most of the new features in/for Firefox (awesome bar, Weave browser sync, improved file transfer management, session support, full page zoom, etc) were already available in Opera too. Some, like the Wand feature, aren't even really available for FF.

It imported all of my bookmarks (even though I had used Firefox 3 betas :) from FF too.

While I don't think multiple profiles (or any other similar feature) is coming back, I doubt it is as dire as that. Netflix is preparing for (or creating) a future without physical media, but they Netflix doesn't want "to only sell online movies." That is like saying Microsoft online wants to have web properties because they have MSN and Live.

Netflix and the Post Office will (if they haven't already) worked out the mailing situation. You can guarantee that the USPS wants Netflix's business (~$300 Million per year).

It really seems silly that they won't make it possible to migrate the data over to the main account. It really couldn't be that hard. The only issue would be how you deal with duplicate reviews, but that is workable.

I can't understand why they are getting rid of the extra profile accounts. It has been such a long standing feature of Netflix. Was is the benefit to Netflix in getting rid of them? A little less programming time? I bet that there will be a lot of families that will end up downgrading their account due to this change.

I think this is really going to help Reddit even if no significant contributions are made. One of the big problems with Digg is it's lack of transparency. Anytime you lose that sense of transparency people are less inclined to feel that the process is democratic, fair, and something they can actually influence.

Reddit has always been more transparent, and this is just another example of it. On the other hand this is where Digg, and the U.S. political system fail.

Guess I should have followed the think huh? I figured it was for the hack you can do to individual extensions.

I disagree with it being the only the extension developer's problem. Mozilla needs to make the extension platform more stable. Why did extensions break between 1.0 and 1.5, and then again from 1.5 to 2.0, and now with the arrival of 3.0? Honestly, Mozilla is pretty generous with their version numbering, did 2.0 really justify being a major release? IMO 1.5 was more significant than 2.0. FF3 should probably be what they called 2.0. Again, IMHO... :)

Kevin,

I've been tweaking extensions since the 1.0 -> 1.5 upgrade, and I don't know about you, but it is really annoying to have to do that. It isn't like I'm just using one extension that I'd have to hack. Honestly I'd pay $$$ for the 4-5 extensions that are a must-have on my Firefox if they all worked on the first day of each new version of FF.

A few of the extensions (update notifier, image zoom, autoHideStatusbar, etc) I use should really just be rolled into Firefox as new features, but Mozilla is paranoid about that.

Honestly, I'm betting it will be just like TV and movies, where it will be fine most of the time, but there will be no shortage of ridiculous examples of in-game advertising. Dynamic product placement will actually be pretty complicated to do, and probably won't happen much if at all. How could a game have the hero drive a Chevy one day and a Toyota the next?

BTW, the good guys and the bad guys never use the same brand of computer. The good guys use Macs, the bad guys use really really bland looking PCs. Didn't you get the memo? :)

Ads may not work in all games, but there are quite a few that they can work in (sports games, GTA, Playstation HOME, car racing games). Basically any game that takes place in a semi-modern day environment in a semi-developed country. You won't ever see them in Metal Gear, Halo, or Final Fantasy though.

That is interesting that they have assigned seats. I don't think that would work hear unless the bad seats carried a lower price than the good ones. The other problem is how long could it take for some schmucks to choose their seat? I can see it now, the line is 20 people deep and someone can't decide if they want the 10th row or the 13th...

As for me, I'd pay for a good seat. It would actually make me more likely to go to a movie I bet. We usually go on a whim so if we aren't that early we won't even bother because I won't sit in a crappy seat.

I can't remember which ones didn't work me, but my problem was particularly with one plugin, Google Bookmarks Sync. I have my bookmarks sync'd across my laptop, desktop, and my wife's laptop. Due to the dramatic changes in the bookmark system pretty much every bookmark extension is broken.

Are any of the extensions you are using in that list the "beta" ones? Last time I tried to run FF3 I had to find a bunch of beta extensions; it couldn't just upgrade the current ones I had installed. If Mozilla really wants FF to go beyond its current user base it has to make extensions more approachable and maintainable for "average" users.

If you look at Internet Explorer you'll find that add-ons for IE6 still work in the IE8 beta.

Honestly, I bet that retention even after the promotion ends will actually be pretty decent for the people they get to switch. It is easy to switch, but people don't do it that much. That is their whole problem, they need to make people *want* to switch.

I have tried to used Microsoft's search sites over the years but always went back to Google (quite quickly might I add), but recently I changed my default search to Live Search, and am still using in a month later. While Google seems to think their search is basically perfect (i.e. they don't see a need to innovate much anymore), Microsoft is working on actually doing something better. Trying to do a completely different type of advertising model may be something that Google ends up copying.

That is interesting. I'll have to look into that a bit more. Although, personally I have given up on Digg getting their head out of their arse. They don't listen to their users, and spin their wheels on "features" instead of improving the main premise of the site.

Good point, on the web everything is supposed to be free (ugh...) so most people probably wouldn't value it as being worth anything at all. Funny enough though, that is how much/little the DVD is worth to me. I wouldn't pay much more for either.

You know it is funny, I only recently started considering buying digital downloads (with and/or because of Amazon's DRM-free music store). I still like having the uncompressed source so that I can change formats. I'm probably an isolated case though as I still rip my music into Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3/WMA/AAC.

I did buy one disc that had a DVD with it too, and I have never watched the DVD. It doesn't do anything for me. Instead of including a DVD, they could include a code to get into a special website that had all of the same content, but then they wouldn't have to package it in for all of the people who will never watch them.

It sure seemed easy to me. It isn't like a made a conscious choice when I was 10 that I wouldn't support Apple. I just haven't ever liked their products.

I had heard of iTunes, but have never had it installed on my primary computer. I have never purchased a track from iTunes. Funny enough, I did purchase a song at the Real Music Store, which is why I will never by any DRM'd track ever again. I just realized I have never given a single dollar to Apple in my entire life. I have used all sorts of Apple computers (II, IIgs, Mac SE30, various iMacs, MBP, etc), software (Quicktime, iTunes, OS X, etc), and of course various iPods, but I have never owned any of it.

Q: "who are these people that are using Amazon MP3 without having shopped on iTunes previously?"

A: Me :)

I'm not a fan of iTunes and detest having to have the software installed on my computer just to browse/purchase music. Amazon let's you shop without extra software (you know like every other online store in the world except iTMS), and I don't have to use an iPod or iTunes to play the music. So it works on my phone, in my car, on my Xbox, in Media Center, etc.

I know a lot of people use iTunes/iPods but apparently there is a pretty good sized market of people unwilling to be baptized into the church of Apple just to listen to their music. You don't buy music with DRM on it, you lease it.

"game-changing retail concept"? Wow, these guys smoke the good stuff. Let's tie two boat anchors together and see if they float. Blockbuster should start/stop (which ever applies) outsourcing their top management.

And don't even get me started on their supposed set-top box dreams.

That is really interesting Bob. I can't believe stories are making it to the homepage with 33 diggs. Clearly there is an obvious bias of some sort. Just as there is an "auto-bury" part of the algorithm, there may be an "auto-promote" too. That's what it sounds like to me.

Wow, that is crazy. So your HD-DVD bundle only cost you $124 effectively. Can't be too mad at that.