DISQUS

I completely agree with you, Bob, and a quick assessment of my CD-buying habits of late confirms that the way to get me to buy a CD is to offer something else of value along with it. If all I'm getting are the songs and a so-so glossy booklet, I'll pass. Particularly when the music is cheaper and easier to get on Amazon or iTunes (Seeing $10 albums on "Sale" at Virgin makes me shake my head), and physical storage space is ever harder to come by.

The last CD I bought (and only one I can remember buying anytime in the last several years) was David Byrne's "The Knee Plays", which came with a DVD containing a phenomenal synchronized photo slide show (1 shot taken every 30 seconds) of Robert Wilson's performance work for which the music was originally written. Talk about worth it. Of course, this was preordered from Amazon...

Wow, that's a good deal. You can't get movies for $10 anywhere, either. Only bummer in the whole thing is that your free DVDs seem to have to be HD-DVDs, which - oddly enough - will end up being less "future proof" than the standard defs.

And the more I think on it, the more I think you and Saul are dead on regarding Blu-Ray's competition. Upconverting will be the way to HD for a lot of consumers who buy mostly on price.

I heard about this this morning and thought of you. I'm honestly surprised Netflix took sides so early. I, too, am hoping for some comprehensive (and Mac-able) streaming by year's end. It'd give me a reason to get on board.

Domenico: You're right, people need to be safer. But companies have an interest in protecting their users (customers, after all!) against their own bad habits. (See: seatbelts, airbacks, antilock brakes, etc - hyperbole, sure, but it pertains). 1Pwd is cool, but not everyone knows about it/can afford it/etc. For companies like Facebook, MySpace, etc, where their users are the single most important asset, failing to protect them in any way possible can lead to serious problems. All it takes is one leak, and the flock will run.

Besides, this is a programming problem that has been solved for years. No one is asking these companies to build a secure login from scratch. Easier, more cost effective to do it in the beginning than to deal with a problem down the line.

Here's something to consider - because I think there are actually two separate pieces to this:

Should the company send you your password automatically when you sign up, or only if you've forgotten it?

Absolutely, Bob. I'm surprised at Mahalo, too, in this case. Emailing passwords (especially when it comes in a message titled "here are your login details") is really bad form. Even though most people don't use separate passwords, this practice makes it super-easy to get into all manner of accounts if one's email account is compromised. Add this to the fact that even security-conscious folks tend to make their email passwords far more insecure (low body image?) than their other passwords, and that most web services require little other than email access to change login details, and you've got a perfect storm.

Amen, Bob. Exactly my feelings. My father is an EBay freak, and I could never understand it. I bought a few things from it in college (like a box of 72 shot glasses), but I never really got the hang of it. Dealing with payments in the early days also pretty much sucked (though that's better now). I guess there are a few odd items that can't be found anywhere else (like an old French printing of a play by Ionesco I bought last month for my girlfriend), but for 99.5% of things worth purchasing, Amazon is the place to go, for all the reasons you mentioned.

It was a snap. Took a couple seconds to find the link (I'd used the customer service stuff before so I knew how to get there), and another couple seconds to type a sentence about the price drop. Hit send, and boom.

Payment was processed this morning, btw.

Thanks for the reminder! Scored a $10 credit (on the Rocky DVD Boxed Set) this morning using the web form on the site.

Got a prompt email response saying I get my money back, but see if you can decipher this part, which came after a couple paragraphs about my $10 credit being awarded:

"Further, I've verified that the $ price you are referring to is actually offered by another seller, . Because Amazon.com does not have a price matching policy, we cannot match the price offered by another seller on our website."

Looks like an orphan of some sloppy copy/paste action, along with an empty form field. :)

I can see where Bob is coming from here - that for the "outside world" things might be a little unclear. But I actually think Google has done a good job in trying to explain with whom Shared Items are shared. The first time I used the feature it told me that things were being made public, and I would argue that those who use the feature to begin with likely have a decent idea of what they're doing - having most likely shared stuff on other social networks and used the "email this" buttons on news sites, etc. in the past.

It's tough to know where the non-tech-savvy users fall on the spectrum of understanding, but my guess would be that by and large they understand that sharing means "make public." Could be wrong, of course, but again, I think Google did what could be reasonably expected of them. If a person doesn't understand the basic concept of sharing to begin with, granular privacy controls are pretty much useless.

That said, the thing that bothers me about this debate is that individuals who throw around terms like "URL Obfuscation" were somehow surprised by this. I have a strong feeling that much of the indignation expressed is not personally felt, but on the behalf of some (perhaps imaginary) users somewhere out there.

As with the Facebook News Feed, I get the sense that the noise is being made by a small contingent of "privacy is dying!" folks, while the vast majority of users think, "oh cool," and the "openness people" trumpet their usual "privacy is dead" horns. Two edges attempting to rile a mass of people who probably don't care.

For me, "Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody’s watching" means "Report Spam."

Oops!

Seriously, though, not my cup of tea, and most of these - even if not taken semi-offensively - are too long, and not clever enough.

My suggestion:

"You smell." - me

Bob - I was just joking, of course, but looking at your list again actually makes me feel great - compared to GigaOM and Gizmodo, I seem to be doing quite well! :)

Isn't it wonderful that Google Reader now says more than 100+?

Hey Bob,

How come my blog has 11 unread articles?!!

Seriously, though, great explanation. I'm hoping that new versions of the big browsers (and the RSS implementation in Apple Mail in Leopard) will start to expose a lot more people to such a great time-saving and really quite addictive technology.

"What time is it? No time to look back."

So said David Byrne in True Stories.

That's when I stopped wearing a watch.

Don't know about podcasts, but it can play audio - mp3 files and the format from Audible.com. These - as far as I know - you can't download over EVDO. You have to plug in via USB, but it does play them, and there is a headphone jack.

Hey Bob, a couple answers for you:

2. Battery can be replaced. It's lithium.
4. E-ink is a great technology. I've checked out the Sony Reader and it's much more like reading a book than looking at a screen. This should be the same.

Some other questions are answered in the Users Guide and About Your Kindle guide, that you can download on the Amazon Product page.

Bob,

This is a very interesting experiment, indeed, and the pricing curve ought to be fascinating.

What other artists should take away from this is less the "let the audience set the price" model than the "hey, you don't need a record label to make money" one. While an established artist like Radiohead no doubt has much better distribution than Joe and His Garage Band-its, the ability to sell digital content (which carries extremely low overhead compared to CD sales) means he can find success that isn't defined in the ways it has been in the past. Getting a record deal needn't any longer be the holy grail (especially since so many artists get pretty well shafted by such deals anyway).

I don't think that this move is terribly significant, either, but it is another visible name setting an example by trying something different (a proof of concept, if you will), which is what it takes to turn the tide.

(One more thing - it is possible to get the download totally free.)

Couldn't agree more (and thanks for the link). This is one of the perils of being a knowledgeable consumer: now, more often than not, we're more "learned" than those who sell the products, and it's hard to get the answer to most of the prosumer- and pro- level questions, because the FAQs are tailored to the lowest common denominator.

Why can't companies provide up-to-date scripts of their phone operators online, so one can check which options he needs before calling? Better yet - offer special 3- or 4- digit extensions (if not specific numbers) that, when dialed, take you to the right person and tell them what you're there for. I'll even take online sales/support chat if they've got it, over going to a store staffed with underpaid and undertrained high school kids there for the employee discount.