Disqus - Latest Comments for Michael_Markman

Re: The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone

Michael_Markman — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:18:01 -0000

Great post, Robert. But the Win 3.1 vs Mac comparison isn't instructive—unless you flip it. Mac didn't lose out to Windows. Far more humiliating, Mac lost to DOS long before Windows 3.1 ever showed up in the marketplace. The goal for Win 3.1 wasn't to supplant Mac (that game was over), but to replace DOS. Mac was and remained the challenger brand.

If you want to compare the relative market success of Windows vs. Mac to Droid vs iPhone... then the more apt analogy is to say that iPhone has the market clout of Win 3.1 vs. the challenger brands of Droid and Mac.

Re: The myth of perfection (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:19:35 -0000

I'll second Jay's wish for editing. Edits to existing tweets should propagate to other sites that display them (blogs, FF, FB, etc). I have deleted and reposted tweets n the past. But the echoes of the previous revs never die.

Re: There must be some way out of here, revisited (Scripting News)

dave — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:02:22 -0000

Neither -- he just tapped into the flow of the universe.

Re: There must be some way out of here, revisited (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:14:48 -0000

So, given the BSG timeline... does that make Bob Dylan a plagiarist? Or does it make him God?

Re: Squelching the editor

Michael_Markman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:33:57 -0000

The most liberating thing I've read since... I can't be bothered to remember. (oops that got through uncensored.)

Re: Where you were when...? (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:45:10 -0000

I was in my college radio station, WKCR-FM when the teletype let loose with an unheard (by most of us) five bells. There was a progression. Shots fired at motorcade... President rushed to hospital... president dead.

We were stunned. Assumed we had no audience as people turned to TV or network radio. Switched to somber classical music like some state-run station behind the iron curtain.

Scrambled to convene a panel of professors from the history department, and went back on the air with a round table discussion.

That night. a bunch of us tried to escape reality by attending a screening of Walt Disney's Fantasia at the Loew's Tower East at 3rd Avenue and 71st Street.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/apple-iphoto-to-integrate-facebook.html

Michael_Markman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:36:05 -0000

Would be? Apple has already stepped back from forcing you into MobileMe. iPhoto '09 shipped with buttons to upload to Facebook and Flickr as well as MobileMe.

Re: Another day banging my head against OAuth (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:53:35 -0000

Yes I did watch BSG. The intensity of this season is off the charts. An old Star Trek TNG was also on last night. By comparison, a total snooze. Our media tempo has accelerated enormously.

Re: Identity and Image

Karoli — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:42:07 -0000

Exactly. If I sounded critical of that particular meme, it's because when someone asks me to do something, my first instinct is to do it. But hey, I could like shamelessly and tell people 25 things that are utter nonsense. Me being me, I'd be more likely to do the opposite and disclose too much. The point is that those memes are an opportunity for some to shape a persona, an image, that's either more or less than who they are.

Re: Identity and Image

Michael_Markman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:32:52 -0000

I never take memes such as 25 random things to be requests for an essential summary of who you are. it's just another topic to write about. Some people do well with these topics. Most don't.

I take the memes as opportunities to broaden your online self-portrait with a collection of non-essential details that you might not otherwise have a context to write about.

I take them as opt-in. Nobody's forcing you. And whether you do or not won't make much difference to anything.

Re: I'm in heaven (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:52:57 -0000

Fred is really a singer. All the top names who composed the Great American Songbook loved having Fred sing their songs. Really.

Re: Schvitz Etiquette…We Have Chaos!

Michael_Markman — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:16:33 -0000

So, then. behavior in the Schvitz is in no way predictive of success in business.

Re: Schvitz Etiquette…We Have Chaos!

howardlindzon — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:39:14 -0000

No its directly correlated smartypants

Re: Tech News for Everyone? (Scripting News)

dave — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:18:50 -0000

My concern has been a long time thing, not just the holidays. Can't speak for anyone else.

When TM first appeared it was love at first sight, I wanted to buy full page ads in the WSJ and just run TM headlines on it, we were beating them so regularly. But it has descended into a few voices and a choir and the judgment they rely on isn't particularly good, imh, ymmv, ianal.

Any moment now Gabe is going to comment and bat his eyelashes and dismiss the concern. Doesn't matter to me -- I want better news. If he doesn't want to provide it then I have to figure out how to get it.

Re: Tech News for Everyone? (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:08:28 -0000

Could this just be a seasonal issue? Remember the crazy weekend meme-wars of yore? (My memory may be off, but I recall Scoble and Arrington were usually in the thick of them then as now.) At the moment we're in a two-week news drought because so many tech companies have forced vacations over the holidays. The simplest solution may be just to wait it out. Memeorandum seems to be doing much better than Techmeme at the moment.... because there's some actual news (mostly dreadful) to spin up.

Re: My brother Om (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:56:17 -0000

Bud Colligan once said something to me that resonates with Michael's notion of rubber balls and glass balls: "No matter how much you love your job, your job will never love you."

Re: My brother Om (Scripting News)

dave — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:00:09 -0000

That is SO true Michael.

Re: Singin in the Rain (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:06:37 -0000

If we're opening the whole decade, I could be here for years. ;-)

Re: Singin in the Rain (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:05:57 -0000

Generations FTW.

Re: Singin in the Rain (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:04:58 -0000

Also Ninotchka, Wuthering Heights, The Shop Around the Corner (remade as "You've Got Mail"), The Rules of the Game, The Roaring Twenties, and--saving the best for last--His Girl Friday.

Re: The space between Twitter and FriendFeed (Scripting News)

dave — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:51:21 -0000

Perhaps I should have said "the spirit of the Macintosh" was the eventual winner. It's a very very small distinction now, 15 years later. Or some would say "the spirit of the Xerox Star." :-)

Re: The space between Twitter and FriendFeed (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:30:37 -0000

It wasn't Mac that kicked DOS's ass. It was Windows. (except in a few specialized fields and market segments).

I wouldn't place a bet on the niche you're describing. Simple text retains enormous appeal. Even teens and twenty somethings who speak fluent-audio visual and who live on Skype, YouTube, iPhones, and various live video streams remain loyal to SMS. They're arriving on Twitter by the minute. And they're quite content to use Twitter as an alert system to their various rich media presences.

IMHO the gap you see between stripped down Twitter and kitchen-sink FF isn't likely to draw much of a crowd.

Re: $7.7 trillion (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:37:36 -0000

Here's another way to think about that enormous number. A bloomberg article this morning pointed out that this is about half the total GDP for 2007--half the value of all the goods and services produced in the United States last year.

Re: louisgray.com: Introducing Exchange Rates for Blog Comments and Interactions

louismg — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:38:17 -0000

Michael, the only downside of making CNs as virtual currency is that
this market has been tried and failed in the Web 1.0 timeframe.
Remember Flooz or Beenz and all those silly "fake money" companies in
the late 90s? The second I start implementing real exchange rates, CN
is bound to hit rock bottom, and I want to avoid that to preserve
Allen's reputation.

As for exchanging 10 likes on FriendFeed for a single blog comment, I
often will go through my FriendFeed lists and make likes because I
know it expands the exposure of people who wouldn't otherwise be seen.
It's interesting after a particularly active run to go back into my
own discussion list and see the additional likes and comments that
have surfaced in the wake. Often, I'd bet folks go back to the
original site and participate. FriendFeed is among my top referrals
every day, trailing only Google much of the time.

Re: louisgray.com: Introducing Exchange Rates for Blog Comments and Interactions

dpritchett — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:06:30 -0000

10 likes on FF can mean hundreds or thousands of additional eyes seeing your headline if not the first few comments on FF. Engage those users where they are most comfortable (i.e. FriendFeed) and then you can post a followup later if something great grows out of the comments.

Don't assume those hundreds or thousands of people would have read your post and commented on it had it not been shared to begin with.