Disqus - Latest Comments for Ron

Re: Apple TV 2.0 vs. Netflix Unlimited: This Will Be Interesting

Ron — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:48:05 -0000

Netflix streaming movies on a gaming console like the Xbox (particularly if it was via the Media Center interface) would be a game changer. And Netflix has said in the past they'd like to partner with console platforms.

The Netflix founder IS on Microsoft's board. And I could easily see them resolving the competing interests of Xbox Live Marketplace and Netflix streaming by positioning the former as premium/HD/downloadable/portable content and the latter as basic streaming content. Give me that and I'm back as a Netflix subscriber within the hour. It seems a no-brainer and a win-win for both parties. Microsoft gets a major compelling reason for people to use the Xbox and Netflix gets instant access to an existing hardware platform with wide distribution.

Re: Ymail And Rocketmail? Sorry, Yahoo, But That’s Not Enough to Thwart Gmail

Ron — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:49:45 -0000

Indeed. Google has some great products and innovates extremely well in some areas. But most of their changes aren't exactly revolutionary, just evolutionary (and even then, a lot of the features are already offered by their competitors.) But they get a ton of coverage and publicity presenting everything they do as ground-breaking mostly because they're a 'cool' brand right now. It's why I always try to put all the stories on Google and Apple on tech blogs in the appropriate real-world context. There's a certain fascination with those two companies among some geeks and bloggers which skews things out of whack much of the time.

Re: 2008/06/19/youtube-hulu/

Ron — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:11:25 -0000

Working at a major ad agency, I've already seen a couple big brands push back from doing fairly sizable ad campaigns on YouTube for fear of having their brand alongside questionable content. Clearly these brands aren't Coke or Nike where those type of concerns would matter. But they do have deep pockets as well and there is a lot of trepidation by some brands to spend in the user-generated content space where editorial control is spotty at best.

Hulu's advertising program is still invite-only, but brands like these would LOVE to put their ad dollars into a space like that.

For every viral hit on YouTube with six-figure-plus views, there's 1,000 other videos that nobody has seen. Bite-sized video content is huge and will be a great fit for certain advertisers. But professional, long-form content isn't going anywhere anytime soon either. It still has much broader cultural appeal and serves as a far greater cultural point of reference for casual interaction. Ask the average joe in an elevator what he thinks about the 'Leave Brittany alone' video. Half the time you'll get blank stares. Ask him about even a semi-obscure cable show and you'll at least get a glimmer of recognition, if not informed feedback.

Re: 3G Apple iPhone has the best Battery Life?

Ron — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:59:50 -0000

I just got a chuckle out of how the chart is cropped in such a misleading fashion. You'd expect the iPhone to get 3X the battery life of the lowest-rated phone judging by the visual representation on that chart (as most people probably will take it) until you realize the chart was cropped so the first 3 hours don't show. I've seen that done on tests for things like video cards, but some geeks actually know to look for that. A person reading a more general publication like PC World likely would never even notice and would conclude there's a massive gap.

Not only did they gloss over (typically) battery-friendly Nokias, they also didn't include EVDO Blackberries in their test as well. Given how many people use Blackberries on Sprint and Verizon (and that they did include some other EVDO-flavored devices in this test) that's not exactly an accurate representation of the iPhone's competition. There were definitely some convenient omissions. But at least they're getting a load of traffic from the article.

Moral of the story is the iPhone's battery life is pretty much in-line with everyone elses 3G offerings. Maybe slightly better in some cases, maybe slightly worse in others. It all depends on your network strength, your apps usage, etc.

Re: Why Microsoft doesn’t deserve Facebook

Ron — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:48:39 -0000

What would I do? Sell to the highest bidder while the Web 2.0 bubble is at its speculative peak and laugh my way to the bank.

From a user's standpoint, I see the potential and use the service daily myself. From an advertiser's standpoint though (my biz btw) I just don't see the revenue potential - at least not at the level to justify the hype/speculation currently raging. People love to compare Facebook right now to where Google was 4-5 years ago. But Google already had a strong, proven revenue system in place that would scale wonderfully with any future growth. Facebook doesn't have anything REMOTELY close to that right now. And all current and emerging ad models just won't scale to match the current speculative valuation. A Google or Microsoft can afford to eat the loss to gain marketshare. But I think going it alone with an IPO will lead to a quick bubble that will quickly burst once actual revenues are realized.

I'm with you on one thing, of all the major players capable of buying Facebook I'd like to see it be Yahoo. Partly to act as a counterbalance to Google in a growing online area (I'd rather see MS get it for the same reason) and partly because I think Yahoo has always been the epitome of a portal - something Facebook could easily morph into. I also like the way Yahoo has not meddled too much with other hot acquisitions. A lot of people complain that Yahoo doesn't do as good a job as Google of folding their acquisitions like Flickr and Upcoming.org under the Yahoo brand. But most of Google's most popular re-branded acquisitions have been utilities, not social networks. It's MUCH easier to slap the Google name on Keyhole (Google Earth) or Writely/XL2Web (Google Docs) than it is to bring a popular, social network into the fold. Notice they still haven't aggressively tried to fold their largest social site YouTube too much under the Google brand? Sometimes it's better to leave a good thing alone and only slowly bring along closer ties.

Re: Watching GigaOm

Ron — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:21:36 -0000

I have no idea how much visuals are involved with the show but booo to Revision 3 for not having an mp3 option. With all the shows and podcasts we have to choose from today there's not enough time to watch them all. I can at least listen to them while working or commuting though.

Re: Top Ten Reasons Bloggers Should Avoid Social Bookmarking

Ron — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:37:18 -0000

I agree, but couldn't help but chuckle at the wry irony - using a 'Top Ten' list to talk about avoiding social bookmarking when 'Top Ten' lists are some of the most common items you'll find on social bookmarking sites.

Re: Twitter: Where Nobody Knows Your Name

Ron — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:06:09 -0000

As a Silicon Valley outsider (but fellow techie) it is amusing to sit back and watch the echo chamber effect of tech media. The world that shows up in my feeds is COMPLETELY out of touch with the world I live in. And while the geek in me loves reading about the latest developments, the pragmatist in me is glad my environment isn't that schizophrenic.

I think the best thing Twitter has going for it (and its best chances for success) is its simplicity and scope. It has essentially one function and it handles that purpose very well (well not counting the frequent downtime.)

The big problem is, so do a lot of other great networking sites/services. Flickr is a prime example. Even though Yahoo (it doesn't get any more mainstream than that) owns Flickr and has pushed it to the forefront as its main image service, it still lies somewhere in that voodoo land between mainstream adoption and niche service. Most people I know of in the general populace have at least heard of Flickr now. But only a small minority of my non-geek real world acquaintances actually use it.

Sticking with the Flickr example, I don't think the uptake on a lot these web 2.0 services is generational either as even my younger tech-savvy cousins often prefer to just upload their pictures to Facebook rather than put them up on Flickr. I could easily see something similar happening to Twitter. When showing Twitter to my txt-messaging crazy brother, he said "why would I want to do that when I can already do the same thing with my Facebook status?" Most here realize the differences between the two services, but the point is not without merit when looking at it from an average joe's perspective. Even a great service may not make the mainstream if there's not enough to differentiate it from an already popular service.