The Amazon Kindle has gotten a lot of hate from the tech community. I find that interesting juxtaposed with Amazon's claim that the Kindle is selling well.
Personally, it has always been my suspicion that the Kindle would do well, flaws and all.
Now I don't want to be seen as an apologist for Amazon. I spend a lot of time deconstructing user interfaces and thinking about UI issues, and from what it sounds like (I have never used one), Amazon has made some amazing design mistakes.
But that said, I totally get the idea of the Kindle. You read books on it. You can buy books easily. No computer required. And if you can figure out how keep your fingers from tripping over the giant "next page" button, it sounds like it does that core functionality pretty well.
In short, the Kindle makes sense to me if you do a lot of reading. Steve Jobs says people don't, and so there is no market for a book reader. Now Steve Jobs is, admittedly, way smarter than me, but how stupid. I mean come on. Barnes and Noble sells a lot of books. Amazon sells *tons* of books. And since no one has done a viable book reader, if one actually captured some kind of public imagination, there are plenty of Amazon book purchasers to sell one to. Even if books is a shrinking market (I have no idea what the growth rate is), the market potential is substantial because we are dealing with *really* large numbers.
Indeed the music market *shrank* last year, but music players are still selling pretty well. (Thought bubble: did Jobs just *admit* that the iPod's success is tied to the *theft* of music since overall neither books nor music is growing well, or at all? Nevermind.)
Anyway, the point is there are people that read. There are people who'd like to carry less around. There are people for whom location agnostic impulse buying is appealing. And the idea of not having to use a computer is awesome. Personally I hate syncing *anything* to my computer because something *always* goes wrong. I am sure this is even more true for civilians.
So why all the hate?
I think the geekerati, are bummed that the kindle is not... well, a computer. And I get this. But if you are a book reader, you probably don't care about free feeds, or web browsing or any of the other supposedly incredible omissions and errors. You just want a good way to read books. I know many of you may find this shocking, but there are lots of people who don't even know what a feed is!
In any case, what I strongly suspect is that the Kindle does scratch an underlying emotional itch for a significant audience. That itch is the desire to comfortably buy and read whatever you want, whenever you want, and wherever you want. If that desire resonates with you, I suspect the $399 is not out of line.
Update: Amazon just announced they are buying Audible. While obviously you don't need book reader to listen to audio books, Kindle is an audio book reader. It makes total sense to me that Amazon should be the gateway for immediate, comfortable and ubiquitous access to books. With Kindle, they will have a built-in computer-free system for selling books in any format, and will be approaching total vertical integration in the book market.
Showing newest 27 of 36 posts from January 2008. Show older posts
Showing newest 27 of 36 posts from January 2008. Show older posts
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Value Of All IP Is Approaching Zero And We Feel Good About It
Whether it's software, patents, movies, or music, as a planet, we have decided that things that exist only in the form of atoms, or are not offered as a service, have no value.
The most fascinating aspect of this is not *why* it's happening, but the emotional framework that we have built up to make ourselves feel OK about it.
Essentially, we have turned all owners of intellectual property into villains and idiots that deserve what they have coming to them.
Ridiculous.
Of course, I do believe the patent system needs some fixing, and I would not defend historical practices of record labels. But we are demonizing the *idea* of IP. And if we lose the ability to protect intellectual property that is not instantiated in physical form, we will lose huge engines of our economy. I am politically left of center, but the idea of some giant robin hood system that takes all IP and redistributes it for free to those that can’t afford it, or more likely *can* afford it but would just rather buy a 10th pair of sweat shop assembled Nikes, is appalling. (Irony alert! Nike = good, record labels = bad)
As I suspect most of you reading this are in some way involved in economic activity that is tied to the creation of IP, we should all be clear. As the current trend and cultural psychology continues to its logical conclusion, many more of you will be working with your hands.
In the end, I do think there is little that can be done about this problem. What we are seeing now is cognitive dissonance on a massive scale. For the most part we have just convinced ourselves that this is all OK. As a culture, we have developed wacky rationales for why obviously unethical, and more importantly self destructive behavior is justified.
Nevertheless, I don’t think the de-valuation of IP can be stopped. And I would not suggest anyone build businesses based on the idea that it can. Thus, my goals here are modest: If, after reading this, just a few of you feel a little bit uneasy about endlessly fattening your Limewire collections, I will consider it a success.
Perhaps the ultimate form of tilting at windmills. But doesn't someone have to say this stuff?
The most fascinating aspect of this is not *why* it's happening, but the emotional framework that we have built up to make ourselves feel OK about it.
Essentially, we have turned all owners of intellectual property into villains and idiots that deserve what they have coming to them.
- Open source is good. Closed source is evil.
- Patent owners that protect their rights are "trolls".
- The music industry is greedy, so stealing is just.
- Etc.
Ridiculous.
Of course, I do believe the patent system needs some fixing, and I would not defend historical practices of record labels. But we are demonizing the *idea* of IP. And if we lose the ability to protect intellectual property that is not instantiated in physical form, we will lose huge engines of our economy. I am politically left of center, but the idea of some giant robin hood system that takes all IP and redistributes it for free to those that can’t afford it, or more likely *can* afford it but would just rather buy a 10th pair of sweat shop assembled Nikes, is appalling. (Irony alert! Nike = good, record labels = bad)
As I suspect most of you reading this are in some way involved in economic activity that is tied to the creation of IP, we should all be clear. As the current trend and cultural psychology continues to its logical conclusion, many more of you will be working with your hands.
In the end, I do think there is little that can be done about this problem. What we are seeing now is cognitive dissonance on a massive scale. For the most part we have just convinced ourselves that this is all OK. As a culture, we have developed wacky rationales for why obviously unethical, and more importantly self destructive behavior is justified.
Nevertheless, I don’t think the de-valuation of IP can be stopped. And I would not suggest anyone build businesses based on the idea that it can. Thus, my goals here are modest: If, after reading this, just a few of you feel a little bit uneasy about endlessly fattening your Limewire collections, I will consider it a success.
Perhaps the ultimate form of tilting at windmills. But doesn't someone have to say this stuff?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
In 10 Years, Marketing Will Be Taught In Engineering School
Marketing is still primarily perceived as a fuzzy touchy feely discipline. But the Internet is bringing this to an end rapidly. In ten years our current perspectives on this will seem quaint.
Marketing will be much more like what Wall Street quant guys do. Everything will be math. There will be few "soft" taste judgments. It will all be about precisely definable ROI. The good marketers will be the people who can design the tightest systems for adjusting messaging based on the reaction of the audience. The *great* marketers will be the ones who can figure out how to tie feedback to rapid turn product adjustment in real time.
As I have discussed before, technology is removing all friction from the marketplace. Marketing will really be about figuring out how to most quickly and effectively tap the feelings of the market for the benefit of the product. This will go from a process that currently takes months or years, to one that happens in hours and days. All messaging and product feature sets will be rapidly optimized using the next generation of marketing techniques and technologies.
Like hedge fund algorithms, the best marketing systems will be proprietary. And the best creators of these systems will make Wall Street style bonuses and profit sharing.
To be clear, the direct marketers have, in some ways, been doing this for years. The Internet, and things like Google Analytics have brought direct marketing ideas to a wider audience and reduced the information turn time dramatically. But marketing is today still driven more by the creative folks -- the softer side. In the future, creative will be a marketing systems input, not a marketing driver.
The bottom line is, today, it is not uncommon to hear a marketer say, "Oh I'm not technical, I'm in marketing." In the future, when your marketing person says that, you will know that indeed, they suck.
Marketing will be much more like what Wall Street quant guys do. Everything will be math. There will be few "soft" taste judgments. It will all be about precisely definable ROI. The good marketers will be the people who can design the tightest systems for adjusting messaging based on the reaction of the audience. The *great* marketers will be the ones who can figure out how to tie feedback to rapid turn product adjustment in real time.
As I have discussed before, technology is removing all friction from the marketplace. Marketing will really be about figuring out how to most quickly and effectively tap the feelings of the market for the benefit of the product. This will go from a process that currently takes months or years, to one that happens in hours and days. All messaging and product feature sets will be rapidly optimized using the next generation of marketing techniques and technologies.
Like hedge fund algorithms, the best marketing systems will be proprietary. And the best creators of these systems will make Wall Street style bonuses and profit sharing.
To be clear, the direct marketers have, in some ways, been doing this for years. The Internet, and things like Google Analytics have brought direct marketing ideas to a wider audience and reduced the information turn time dramatically. But marketing is today still driven more by the creative folks -- the softer side. In the future, creative will be a marketing systems input, not a marketing driver.
The bottom line is, today, it is not uncommon to hear a marketer say, "Oh I'm not technical, I'm in marketing." In the future, when your marketing person says that, you will know that indeed, they suck.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
The End of the Feature Phone. Market Shifting.
In the last few years, phones have typically been categorized as either "smartphones" or "feature phones." Smartphones are really just better phones. Conversely, the feature phone label is a particularly unfortunate euphemism for "crappy."
Thankfully, soon the category known as "feature phone" will begin to fade away. This is because most of the basic system features in a phone are the same. Most all phones are expected to have an address book, messaging, a camera, media playback, etc. The difference between phones is primarily the quality of the software that drives the features and ties them together. The difference is between smart and dumb.
Smartphones for everyone!
And yet, feature phones have dominated. Why? No one walks into an AT&T store and says, can I have one of those "dumb phones." However, the market *is* price sensitive and so, since smartphones sell at a shrinking, but still consequential premium, adoption has been more limited. However, within the next year or two, after one more turn of Moore's Law, there will be no need to sell phones that don't have basic smartphone usability. Within this timeframe, even the most basic hardware will support a real operating system.
In short, real soon now, all phones will be "smart," because anything else will be, well... stupid.
A battle is coming
As the market shifts, and software becomes the primary differentiator, this will trigger radical shifts in the marketplace.
For example, can Symbian compete, from a quality-of-experience or developer platform perspective, with a Google Android based system, let alone Apple OS X? I don't think so. Over time I don't even think their user experience can best the much maligned Window's Mobile, given Microsoft's Terminator-like indefatigability. And what about RIM? Will they be able to play effectively against the entering titans?
The next 18 months will be a phone OS battle royal. And how the market shakes out in this software battle will really determine who the handset winners and losers are.
Look out Nokia
And so, despite Nokia's newly attained 40% market share, their total dependence on Symbian suggests that trouble is likely ahead. Weak software has been a significant part of Motorola's downfall as industrial design ceased to justify a pricing premium. And though Nokia has better software than Motorola, it is still weak. Today Nokia announced it is acquiring Trolltech, a Linux mobile OS platform vendor. This is a tepid, but at least credible response to the obvious problem with their Symbian dependence. However, much more is needed for them to truly be responsive to the tectonic shifts in the market.
In short, no one's position is safe. Everything is up for grabs. Because I don't care how many phones you sold last year. As Motorola will surely tell you, suck is suck.
Thankfully, soon the category known as "feature phone" will begin to fade away. This is because most of the basic system features in a phone are the same. Most all phones are expected to have an address book, messaging, a camera, media playback, etc. The difference between phones is primarily the quality of the software that drives the features and ties them together. The difference is between smart and dumb.
Smartphones for everyone!
And yet, feature phones have dominated. Why? No one walks into an AT&T store and says, can I have one of those "dumb phones." However, the market *is* price sensitive and so, since smartphones sell at a shrinking, but still consequential premium, adoption has been more limited. However, within the next year or two, after one more turn of Moore's Law, there will be no need to sell phones that don't have basic smartphone usability. Within this timeframe, even the most basic hardware will support a real operating system.
In short, real soon now, all phones will be "smart," because anything else will be, well... stupid.
A battle is coming
As the market shifts, and software becomes the primary differentiator, this will trigger radical shifts in the marketplace.
For example, can Symbian compete, from a quality-of-experience or developer platform perspective, with a Google Android based system, let alone Apple OS X? I don't think so. Over time I don't even think their user experience can best the much maligned Window's Mobile, given Microsoft's Terminator-like indefatigability. And what about RIM? Will they be able to play effectively against the entering titans?
The next 18 months will be a phone OS battle royal. And how the market shakes out in this software battle will really determine who the handset winners and losers are.
Look out Nokia
And so, despite Nokia's newly attained 40% market share, their total dependence on Symbian suggests that trouble is likely ahead. Weak software has been a significant part of Motorola's downfall as industrial design ceased to justify a pricing premium. And though Nokia has better software than Motorola, it is still weak. Today Nokia announced it is acquiring Trolltech, a Linux mobile OS platform vendor. This is a tepid, but at least credible response to the obvious problem with their Symbian dependence. However, much more is needed for them to truly be responsive to the tectonic shifts in the market.
In short, no one's position is safe. Everything is up for grabs. Because I don't care how many phones you sold last year. As Motorola will surely tell you, suck is suck.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Are Apple, RIM, and Google All Infringing This GPS/Cellphone Patent?
Today, MocoNews and Silicon Alley Insider reported that Smarter Agent Raised $6.2 Million in First Round in venture capital. This would not be of particular note were it not for the fact that on their website, Smarter Agent claims several GPS/Phone related patents. The patents seem to be incredibly broad, and essentially cover anything useful one might do with a GPS and a cell phone.
It appears that, in essence, the patents cover a phone providing current location information to a remote database which returns to the phone a collection of location centric information. According to the patent application, this location centric information could include real estate information, such as homes, condominiums, etc, but also parks, restaurant menus, services offered, hotels, hotel availability, and on and on.
This would seem to cover what the iPhone now does with Google Maps, as well as the GPS equipped Blackberry, and upcoming Google Android operating system based phones. If the patents are valid, Apple, Google, and RIM are already infringing.
I have included below a link to the patent as well as the abstract, and claim #1, which is the most broad of the claims in the patent.
Patent # 6,496,776
December 17, 2002
Abstract
A system and method retrieve location-centric information. The method includes providing geographic position information of a wireless device to an information system or database and receiving location identifiers based on the geographic position. Each location identifier has related location-centric information that can be viewed by the user of the wireless device.
Claim #1
A method of retrieving location-centric information, comprising: providing information related to a geographic position of a wireless device to an information system; receiving from said information system at least one location identifier based on said geographic position information, said location identifier being representative of a landmark proximate to said geographic position; and receiving location-centric information from said information system, said location-centric information related to said landmark proximate to the geographic position.
It appears that, in essence, the patents cover a phone providing current location information to a remote database which returns to the phone a collection of location centric information. According to the patent application, this location centric information could include real estate information, such as homes, condominiums, etc, but also parks, restaurant menus, services offered, hotels, hotel availability, and on and on.
This would seem to cover what the iPhone now does with Google Maps, as well as the GPS equipped Blackberry, and upcoming Google Android operating system based phones. If the patents are valid, Apple, Google, and RIM are already infringing.
I have included below a link to the patent as well as the abstract, and claim #1, which is the most broad of the claims in the patent.
Patent # 6,496,776
December 17, 2002
Abstract
A system and method retrieve location-centric information. The method includes providing geographic position information of a wireless device to an information system or database and receiving location identifiers based on the geographic position. Each location identifier has related location-centric information that can be viewed by the user of the wireless device.
Claim #1
A method of retrieving location-centric information, comprising: providing information related to a geographic position of a wireless device to an information system; receiving from said information system at least one location identifier based on said geographic position information, said location identifier being representative of a landmark proximate to said geographic position; and receiving location-centric information from said information system, said location-centric information related to said landmark proximate to the geographic position.
Will Technology Yield An Automated Economy?
As technology gets better and better at providing the basic needs (or more) of human existence, how does that impact the economy? An automated economy would be an economy that operated with very little human input, but satisfied our basic planetary needs.
Consider some scenarios.
Imagine that you could buy a device that could turn any organic matter into a nutrient rich food paste. Imagine that the energy needs for such a device, and other things, could come from solar cells on our roofs. Or perhaps we all have free access to output from neighborhood nuclear reactors.
Imagine that we can generate clothing from machines that download patterns and make our clothes for us, making clothing something like what music is today. Other physical things are provided by 3d printers that sit under our desks. The raw material for these machines is free, or close to it because it is essentially unprocessed.
Imagine that as the velocity of travel increases we will be able to use more of the vastly underused areas of this country, and indeed the planet. This drives down the cost of real estate, as people can live far away and still conveniently access their family, friends and necessary resources. Concurrently, imagine that transportation costs fall as materials improve, engines become far more energy efficient, and costs of energy plummet.
I predict all of this will happen within the next 100 years, and perhaps far sooner than that. But even if you don't buy it at all, play along.
What is the effect on our economy, of a world where all of our basic needs, including real estate, food, and energy are inherently inexpensive or free because we have created technology that removes all of the inefficiency that gives value to these things in our current economy?
Our economy is driven by paying people to apply energy to matter to change that matter's form and/or location for easy consumption. When that conversion can be automated, and when capturing energy becomes ultra efficient, what role do we humans play in our economy? Will large numbers of people be able to just opt out? Is this good or bad?
The thing is, on some level this is already happening. Technology is creating enormous efficiencies that are eliminating many of the manual labor jobs we used to euphemistically call "good jobs." That meant a job that paid well that could be executed by someone with no more than a high school degree.
As a result of technology, the number of things people need to do to keep the economy moving is shrinking. This process will continue indefinitely. Software will continue to get better. Energy production will continue to get more efficient, et-cetera.
How does modern economic theory deal with wringing of all inefficiencies out of the system. Is economic theory more like newtonian physics in that it describes physical behaviors given a certain set of conditions, but not entirely. Will we need the equivalent of quantum mechanics or string theory in economics to explain the behavior of economies and people in a hyper efficient universe?
The current recession is really what got me thinking about all of this. I wondered to myself whether technology is already playing a role in the current economic upheaval. I decided that the current recession is probably just a result of the housing bubble, but I suspect the growing disparity between rich and poor in this country is indeed related. I think the fact that we have had awesome economic expansion for the last three or four years but that major portions of our society have not benefitted may be related to this increase in efficiency, which has benefitted businesses but not yet consumers as my thesis would suggest will happen in the future.
I'd really love to hear what smarter people than me think about all of this. So please speak up. And if you know someone who thinks about this kind of stuff and might have some thoughts on this, it would be great if you would forward this post to them. I am just really curious if anybody has any interesting ideas about how the acceleration of technology plays out economically. How does it affect the rich? The poor? The middle class? Lets talk.
Consider some scenarios.
Imagine that you could buy a device that could turn any organic matter into a nutrient rich food paste. Imagine that the energy needs for such a device, and other things, could come from solar cells on our roofs. Or perhaps we all have free access to output from neighborhood nuclear reactors.
Imagine that we can generate clothing from machines that download patterns and make our clothes for us, making clothing something like what music is today. Other physical things are provided by 3d printers that sit under our desks. The raw material for these machines is free, or close to it because it is essentially unprocessed.
Imagine that as the velocity of travel increases we will be able to use more of the vastly underused areas of this country, and indeed the planet. This drives down the cost of real estate, as people can live far away and still conveniently access their family, friends and necessary resources. Concurrently, imagine that transportation costs fall as materials improve, engines become far more energy efficient, and costs of energy plummet.
I predict all of this will happen within the next 100 years, and perhaps far sooner than that. But even if you don't buy it at all, play along.
What is the effect on our economy, of a world where all of our basic needs, including real estate, food, and energy are inherently inexpensive or free because we have created technology that removes all of the inefficiency that gives value to these things in our current economy?
Our economy is driven by paying people to apply energy to matter to change that matter's form and/or location for easy consumption. When that conversion can be automated, and when capturing energy becomes ultra efficient, what role do we humans play in our economy? Will large numbers of people be able to just opt out? Is this good or bad?
The thing is, on some level this is already happening. Technology is creating enormous efficiencies that are eliminating many of the manual labor jobs we used to euphemistically call "good jobs." That meant a job that paid well that could be executed by someone with no more than a high school degree.
As a result of technology, the number of things people need to do to keep the economy moving is shrinking. This process will continue indefinitely. Software will continue to get better. Energy production will continue to get more efficient, et-cetera.
How does modern economic theory deal with wringing of all inefficiencies out of the system. Is economic theory more like newtonian physics in that it describes physical behaviors given a certain set of conditions, but not entirely. Will we need the equivalent of quantum mechanics or string theory in economics to explain the behavior of economies and people in a hyper efficient universe?
The current recession is really what got me thinking about all of this. I wondered to myself whether technology is already playing a role in the current economic upheaval. I decided that the current recession is probably just a result of the housing bubble, but I suspect the growing disparity between rich and poor in this country is indeed related. I think the fact that we have had awesome economic expansion for the last three or four years but that major portions of our society have not benefitted may be related to this increase in efficiency, which has benefitted businesses but not yet consumers as my thesis would suggest will happen in the future.
I'd really love to hear what smarter people than me think about all of this. So please speak up. And if you know someone who thinks about this kind of stuff and might have some thoughts on this, it would be great if you would forward this post to them. I am just really curious if anybody has any interesting ideas about how the acceleration of technology plays out economically. How does it affect the rich? The poor? The middle class? Lets talk.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
700MHz Spectrum: Not So Great For Internet
Today is the beginning of the 700MHz auction, and it got me thinking about the dynamics of the whole thing, and how it reminded me a bit of the rush to blanket the country with wifi. Remember a few years ago when everyone was thinking how good an idea that was? I remember thinking to myself, "am I missing something, because this sounds like a loser to me."
Wifi barely goes 100 feet with any kind of decent signal and so to light up a city with wifi would mean having a wireless router every few hundred feet.
Ridiculous indeed.
Failure guaranteed.
How could so many people sink so many hundreds of millions of dollars into something that obviously couldn't work? I don't know either. But the idea was so compelling, that huge corporations ignored the seemingly obvious.
Well here we go again with 700MHz. Folks are waxing poetic about the significance of this new spectrum to the future of wireless Internet services.
The problem with the 700MHz spectrum is the opposite problem of wifi. First, a lower frequency signal means it carries less data per second. Second, signals in this frequency range go a long, long way, through walls and across miles. This is great for one-way signals. After all, that's how current analog TV is broadcast. But while going only a hundred feet or so isn't very efficient for Internet signals, going many miles with a strong signal isn't great either.
The technical issue: the farther your signal goes, the more data one needs it to carry -- because it must serve more people. Imagine a 30-megabit Ethernet cable being expected to serve 10,000 people. Good idea? Not so much.
Ok, so you say you can solve that by having more towers in a given area so some people can talk to one tower and some to another, splitting up the load. But the problem is that 700MHz signals are so strong that you can't put multiple towers close too each other, because they interfere.
Don't believe me? In the US, our GSM cell phones already operate in both the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands. Some areas have 850MHz service, some have 1900mhz service. 850MHz is low frequency also, and therefore a close comparison to the 700MHz spectrum (particularly since the 700MHz band really operates at closer to an 800MHz frequency).
Riddle me this Batman. Does any cell carrier use 850MHz as anything other than filler (if they use it at all) in urban areas? Nope, because it carries *less* data and you can't have as many towers. Uh Oh.
(NOTE: if you really want to understand the technical issues, read this article on gigaOM. The best part is the comments from people with radio engineering backgrounds.)
So why would all these non-carrier companies (like Google) be getting all giddy about 700mhz for data? Answer: the same reason people believed they could light up major metropolitan areas with ubiquitous wifi.
In other words: I. Don't. Know.
Actually that's not quite true. Google is a special case which I do understand. Google just wants to shake things up and open up the market (which they've already succeeded at). They *ain't* trying to win. And they aren't trying to be a carrier. They *are* smart enough to know that actually buying this spectrum for anything other that voice traffic filler is a loser.
The bottom line is the 700MHz spectrum works well for the incumbent carriers, for which any spectrum is good spectrum. For the other non-incumbent entrants -- not so much. Actually, the fact that Frontline dropped out is some reflection of sanity around the issue. Of course Paul Allen is still in it so there is still quite a bit of err... potentially misdirected optimism. It will be interesting to watch this horse race.
Wifi barely goes 100 feet with any kind of decent signal and so to light up a city with wifi would mean having a wireless router every few hundred feet.
Ridiculous indeed.
Failure guaranteed.
How could so many people sink so many hundreds of millions of dollars into something that obviously couldn't work? I don't know either. But the idea was so compelling, that huge corporations ignored the seemingly obvious.
Well here we go again with 700MHz. Folks are waxing poetic about the significance of this new spectrum to the future of wireless Internet services.
The problem with the 700MHz spectrum is the opposite problem of wifi. First, a lower frequency signal means it carries less data per second. Second, signals in this frequency range go a long, long way, through walls and across miles. This is great for one-way signals. After all, that's how current analog TV is broadcast. But while going only a hundred feet or so isn't very efficient for Internet signals, going many miles with a strong signal isn't great either.
The technical issue: the farther your signal goes, the more data one needs it to carry -- because it must serve more people. Imagine a 30-megabit Ethernet cable being expected to serve 10,000 people. Good idea? Not so much.
Ok, so you say you can solve that by having more towers in a given area so some people can talk to one tower and some to another, splitting up the load. But the problem is that 700MHz signals are so strong that you can't put multiple towers close too each other, because they interfere.
Don't believe me? In the US, our GSM cell phones already operate in both the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands. Some areas have 850MHz service, some have 1900mhz service. 850MHz is low frequency also, and therefore a close comparison to the 700MHz spectrum (particularly since the 700MHz band really operates at closer to an 800MHz frequency).
Riddle me this Batman. Does any cell carrier use 850MHz as anything other than filler (if they use it at all) in urban areas? Nope, because it carries *less* data and you can't have as many towers. Uh Oh.
(NOTE: if you really want to understand the technical issues, read this article on gigaOM. The best part is the comments from people with radio engineering backgrounds.)
So why would all these non-carrier companies (like Google) be getting all giddy about 700mhz for data? Answer: the same reason people believed they could light up major metropolitan areas with ubiquitous wifi.
In other words: I. Don't. Know.
Actually that's not quite true. Google is a special case which I do understand. Google just wants to shake things up and open up the market (which they've already succeeded at). They *ain't* trying to win. And they aren't trying to be a carrier. They *are* smart enough to know that actually buying this spectrum for anything other that voice traffic filler is a loser.
The bottom line is the 700MHz spectrum works well for the incumbent carriers, for which any spectrum is good spectrum. For the other non-incumbent entrants -- not so much. Actually, the fact that Frontline dropped out is some reflection of sanity around the issue. Of course Paul Allen is still in it so there is still quite a bit of err... potentially misdirected optimism. It will be interesting to watch this horse race.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Does Your Company Have Geek Cred?
It used to be that in the tech entrepreneurial culture, geeks were not prized, particularly in leadership. They were the folks that made the product, but they could not drive your business. You needed an MBA. Or a sales guy. The geeks were little more than the factory.
And I think, among many VCs, that is still the thinking. The strategy is to push the technical founder out of the way and make room for the *real* business people. But an interesting thing is happening in the marketplace. The customers are thinking different. If you look at the companies that are succeeding in the marketplace, the one thing that most of them have is geek cred. They are generally led by a tech focused leader, or the organizational DNA of the company is inherently technical.
This is because the Internet is an incredible truth filter. No slick-haired glad hander, or glossy marketing plan is going to convince a customer that a product that isn’t good really is. Because the geeks will figure it out. Geeks have power now. Email travels everywhere. Blogs are public and easily accessible. Regardless of where they are in an organization, truthful, perspectives can be heard. And so there is less friction preventing the good stuff from emerging. On the other hand, bad stuff is more often than not, smashed instantly. In other words, it is no longer possible to hide bulls**t with a coating of sugar.
If you look at the major Internet properties/companies today, we can draw an almost direct correlation between geek cred, and whether they are on their way up or down. While this is not an absolute because obviously companies can have good runs without any real technology, it is interesting to explore the correlation between geek cred and current success. Below is a review of some of the major companies geek cred factors, on a 1 - 10 scale. Yes there are a few zeros. This is not a mistake.
Have Geek Cred
Amazon / geek cred: 9
Amazon was always considered smart because they made collaborative filtering work, though their geek cred has skyrocketed in the last year as a result of Amazon Web Services (EC2,S3,etc.)
Google / geek cred: 10
Duh.
FaceBook / geek cred: 7
Facebook is led by a programmer. For this reason Facebook’s DNA is inherently programmerish. Releasing the Facebook API solidified that positioning, and exposed it to thousands of programmers. Also, Facebook is putting cool technology out into the open source. We geeks love that.
Apple / geek cred: 10
This is obvious, but Apple is the only real thought leader in consumer devices and computers. Now that their OS is Unix based, Apple has even more geek cred.
HP / geek cred: 8
HP has a geek culture that goes back to its founding, and its history as a maker of testing instruments and RPN calculators. Today, they are in the PC industry, and while they are certainly not thought leaders in that category (because there are none other than Apple), their leadership in imaging, ink chemistry, and the like, along with their heavily geekified storied past give them lifetime geek cred emeritus status.
Adobe / geek cred: 10
Geschke and Warnock were the ultimate geeks. They solved some of the hardest problems available to solve. Adobe calls their programmers "computer scientists." Adobe rocks, and all geeks know it, even if photoshop's UI does suck.
Don’t Have Geek Cred
Yahoo / geek cred: 5
Yahoo never really had much geek cred. They were, after all, initially a human curated web directory, not a software company. They did come out of Stanford which gave them a shot but they never really could pull it off. Hiring Semel as CEO did horrible things to their geek karma. He was the ultimate anti-geek, and so, while he shored them up in the intermediate term, in the long term, having no geek cred may be fatal. The specific embodiment of this problem is their total inability to create competitive search technology.
eBay / geek cred: 2
Meg Whitman is a management consultant, not a geek. They have no significant tech in the company beyond operations expertise (the ability to scale). They have lots of sales expertise. But no hard core tech, and a horrible user experience. And now Meg is leaving and they are probably going to bring in the number two. Another non geek management consultant. The ultimate reflection of their non-geekiness is their purchase of Skype. They thought it was cool, but really had no idea what they were buying. No good geek would have done it.They look dumb.
MySpace / geek cred: 0
No tech at all. Their systems are based on Microsoft servers because Microsoft helped them. That drops you to zero immediately because no other major players are based on Microsoft. But even if they hadn't based everything on MS, MySpace is *painfully* geek free. You never see any MySpace employees on the tech lists I hang out in. I wonder whether any programmers work there :) The company has grown under Rupert Murdoch, but as a long term play, they will suffer the fate of AOL. Still, it was a brilliant cash flow generating purchase for Rupe.
Dell / geek cred: 2
Michael Dell doesn’t believe in tech. He is essentially anti-tech. This worked for a good long while, but now, not not developing *anything* is starting to look like a problem.
Motorola / geek cred: 4
They had great geek cred as a chip maker, and as a phone hardware maker. But they spun off chips, and phones have become about software as the hardware and manufacturing becomes a commodity. They have *no* geek cred in software. As a result they are in danger of shrinking to irrelevancy. The rats are leaving the sinking ship.
Palm / geek cred: 3
When Jeff Hawkins left, this was the end of Palm. It was a long time coming but it is here now. They have demonstrated no ability to do anything technical beyond milking the initial Palm Pilot innovation bone dry. Jon Rubinstein of iPod fame is the new chairman. I fear its too little too late. Like a liver transplant for a 110 year old man. The new rev of Palm’s OS is slated for 09. RIP.
IAC/ geek cred: 0
Barry Diller is brilliant, but not as the leader of a technology company. Barry, and the market, misperceived the Internet as being primarily about media. It isn’t. It is about access, which is about technology. Barry has failed because he thought IAC was going to be a media company. Not. They will continue to generate cash flow but there is no substantial growth there, even as 5 separate companies, as is the plan. He will ride out their incredibly lame tech like Palm, and the companies will all eventually become irrelevant as tech savvy competitors eat their lunch.
AOL / geek cred: 0
AOL never had any geek cred, even when they should have in the very beginning. This was a failure in leadership, because they were in a position to have great geek cred. Their failure became apparent to all geeks when they made it clear they didn’t believe in the Internet. Instead, Steve Case viewed them entirely as a media company. This killed them. Though, for AOL shareholders, the merger with Time Warner was brilliant financial engineering for those that got out in time.
Losing it But Not Lost
Microsoft / geek cred: 6
Microsoft is, perhaps, a unique situation. They have lots of great technology and are incredibly smart. But they are losing their geek cred. Talent is leaving. And they are flat footed in response to the Internet. They will not die any time soon, but it seems they really don’t get the Internet. And Bill Gates’ lionizing of Ray Ozzie I don’t get. Notes? Ugh. Groove. Double Ugh? They do have long term geek cred, but they may not be able to capture any Internet mojo.
Nokia / geek cred: 6
Nokia has the same problem as Motorola, they are just slightly better positioned. Nokia has hardware cred, but no software geek cred. Their handset hardware has been highly valued for many years. But hardware is becoming a commodity. They partnered with and invested in Symbian to gain some software cred. But this failed as Symbian is viewed with disdain by most of the software development community. Now software is key and they are looking down the Apple gun barrel. Though the analysts haven’t picked up on this yet, because Nokia is kicking Motorola's teeth in. But Nokia’s time will come. They cannot become a software company. The die is cast.
And I think, among many VCs, that is still the thinking. The strategy is to push the technical founder out of the way and make room for the *real* business people. But an interesting thing is happening in the marketplace. The customers are thinking different. If you look at the companies that are succeeding in the marketplace, the one thing that most of them have is geek cred. They are generally led by a tech focused leader, or the organizational DNA of the company is inherently technical.
This is because the Internet is an incredible truth filter. No slick-haired glad hander, or glossy marketing plan is going to convince a customer that a product that isn’t good really is. Because the geeks will figure it out. Geeks have power now. Email travels everywhere. Blogs are public and easily accessible. Regardless of where they are in an organization, truthful, perspectives can be heard. And so there is less friction preventing the good stuff from emerging. On the other hand, bad stuff is more often than not, smashed instantly. In other words, it is no longer possible to hide bulls**t with a coating of sugar.
If you look at the major Internet properties/companies today, we can draw an almost direct correlation between geek cred, and whether they are on their way up or down. While this is not an absolute because obviously companies can have good runs without any real technology, it is interesting to explore the correlation between geek cred and current success. Below is a review of some of the major companies geek cred factors, on a 1 - 10 scale. Yes there are a few zeros. This is not a mistake.
Have Geek Cred
Amazon / geek cred: 9
Amazon was always considered smart because they made collaborative filtering work, though their geek cred has skyrocketed in the last year as a result of Amazon Web Services (EC2,S3,etc.)
Google / geek cred: 10
Duh.
FaceBook / geek cred: 7
Facebook is led by a programmer. For this reason Facebook’s DNA is inherently programmerish. Releasing the Facebook API solidified that positioning, and exposed it to thousands of programmers. Also, Facebook is putting cool technology out into the open source. We geeks love that.
Apple / geek cred: 10
This is obvious, but Apple is the only real thought leader in consumer devices and computers. Now that their OS is Unix based, Apple has even more geek cred.
HP / geek cred: 8
HP has a geek culture that goes back to its founding, and its history as a maker of testing instruments and RPN calculators. Today, they are in the PC industry, and while they are certainly not thought leaders in that category (because there are none other than Apple), their leadership in imaging, ink chemistry, and the like, along with their heavily geekified storied past give them lifetime geek cred emeritus status.
Adobe / geek cred: 10
Geschke and Warnock were the ultimate geeks. They solved some of the hardest problems available to solve. Adobe calls their programmers "computer scientists." Adobe rocks, and all geeks know it, even if photoshop's UI does suck.
Don’t Have Geek Cred
Yahoo / geek cred: 5
Yahoo never really had much geek cred. They were, after all, initially a human curated web directory, not a software company. They did come out of Stanford which gave them a shot but they never really could pull it off. Hiring Semel as CEO did horrible things to their geek karma. He was the ultimate anti-geek, and so, while he shored them up in the intermediate term, in the long term, having no geek cred may be fatal. The specific embodiment of this problem is their total inability to create competitive search technology.
eBay / geek cred: 2
Meg Whitman is a management consultant, not a geek. They have no significant tech in the company beyond operations expertise (the ability to scale). They have lots of sales expertise. But no hard core tech, and a horrible user experience. And now Meg is leaving and they are probably going to bring in the number two. Another non geek management consultant. The ultimate reflection of their non-geekiness is their purchase of Skype. They thought it was cool, but really had no idea what they were buying. No good geek would have done it.They look dumb.
MySpace / geek cred: 0
No tech at all. Their systems are based on Microsoft servers because Microsoft helped them. That drops you to zero immediately because no other major players are based on Microsoft. But even if they hadn't based everything on MS, MySpace is *painfully* geek free. You never see any MySpace employees on the tech lists I hang out in. I wonder whether any programmers work there :) The company has grown under Rupert Murdoch, but as a long term play, they will suffer the fate of AOL. Still, it was a brilliant cash flow generating purchase for Rupe.
Dell / geek cred: 2
Michael Dell doesn’t believe in tech. He is essentially anti-tech. This worked for a good long while, but now, not not developing *anything* is starting to look like a problem.
Motorola / geek cred: 4
They had great geek cred as a chip maker, and as a phone hardware maker. But they spun off chips, and phones have become about software as the hardware and manufacturing becomes a commodity. They have *no* geek cred in software. As a result they are in danger of shrinking to irrelevancy. The rats are leaving the sinking ship.
Palm / geek cred: 3
When Jeff Hawkins left, this was the end of Palm. It was a long time coming but it is here now. They have demonstrated no ability to do anything technical beyond milking the initial Palm Pilot innovation bone dry. Jon Rubinstein of iPod fame is the new chairman. I fear its too little too late. Like a liver transplant for a 110 year old man. The new rev of Palm’s OS is slated for 09. RIP.
IAC/ geek cred: 0
Barry Diller is brilliant, but not as the leader of a technology company. Barry, and the market, misperceived the Internet as being primarily about media. It isn’t. It is about access, which is about technology. Barry has failed because he thought IAC was going to be a media company. Not. They will continue to generate cash flow but there is no substantial growth there, even as 5 separate companies, as is the plan. He will ride out their incredibly lame tech like Palm, and the companies will all eventually become irrelevant as tech savvy competitors eat their lunch.
AOL / geek cred: 0
AOL never had any geek cred, even when they should have in the very beginning. This was a failure in leadership, because they were in a position to have great geek cred. Their failure became apparent to all geeks when they made it clear they didn’t believe in the Internet. Instead, Steve Case viewed them entirely as a media company. This killed them. Though, for AOL shareholders, the merger with Time Warner was brilliant financial engineering for those that got out in time.
Losing it But Not Lost
Microsoft / geek cred: 6
Microsoft is, perhaps, a unique situation. They have lots of great technology and are incredibly smart. But they are losing their geek cred. Talent is leaving. And they are flat footed in response to the Internet. They will not die any time soon, but it seems they really don’t get the Internet. And Bill Gates’ lionizing of Ray Ozzie I don’t get. Notes? Ugh. Groove. Double Ugh? They do have long term geek cred, but they may not be able to capture any Internet mojo.
Nokia / geek cred: 6
Nokia has the same problem as Motorola, they are just slightly better positioned. Nokia has hardware cred, but no software geek cred. Their handset hardware has been highly valued for many years. But hardware is becoming a commodity. They partnered with and invested in Symbian to gain some software cred. But this failed as Symbian is viewed with disdain by most of the software development community. Now software is key and they are looking down the Apple gun barrel. Though the analysts haven’t picked up on this yet, because Nokia is kicking Motorola's teeth in. But Nokia’s time will come. They cannot become a software company. The die is cast.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
How To Create Great Ideas
I am a pretty prolific idea generator. And when I come up with good ones, people often want to know how I do it. In the same breath they often lament not being very creative.
My view is that *everyone* can generate good ideas, and that while being able to do so is useful in all businesses, this is particularly so in the fast moving tech world. So this piece is an ideation primer. But keep in mind that though I describe what may sound like a linear, perhaps rigid process, part of being creative is following the idea wherever it goes. In other words, be creative in being creative!
The process is really four basic steps which I will outline below.
Generate
The first step is to free yourself to having ideas. The key to being creative is trying. Write your ideas down. Be reckless. It won't hurt anybody. And keep in mind, Most ideas suck. This is OK. The goal is volume, not precision.
Discuss
Ideas have half lives.
Some of your ideas you will realize suck after a day. For others, it may take a few days. If an idea lasts longer than a few days in your head, it starts to become worth discussing, both to validate it, and, if after validation it survives, to enhance it. Therefore, you must have a circle of associates you can discuss your ideas with. You will quickly discover that some people are good for this, and some are not. There are people who you will want to discuss very raw ideas with, and others that can only add value to more mature, more fully internalized(see below) ideas. I call this group of people you can run your ideas by your "vetting circle."
You should have a variety of types of people in your vetting circle. And though I have named it here, the idea is not formal. You do not need to declare that someone is in this circle. It is good enough that you have people who you can feel comfortable and free to talk to, that can add value. Some people in your circle may add value just by being *observable* recipients of your idea. Often body language and tone can communicate more about someone's reaction than what they actually say. In fact I would argue you can learn more from people's body language than from their words. Of course its also great to have people you can go back and forth with about your idea who can directly help make it better.
Filter
Eventually, you will stumble upon ideas that you like even after a few days. There will be ideas that light people's eyes up. Of course even then, is it practical? Can you do it? Can you give it to someone else to do? The best is when an idea is both great and easy to do. If you are Elon Musk, having a great idea might be building a spaceship. And for him, that might even be doable. For you, a great idea that is doable might be adding a comment button to your home page. Great ideas are relative to who you are and what your needs, interests, capabilities and resources are.
Internalize
By thoroughly exploring an idea space, and living in it, you get to a new place of understanding. From there you can have deeper ideas and extensions that grow from the new understanding. If you keep iterating, you will have ideas that you could not have had before, because living in the new idea space allows you to see things differently. In software it is often helpful to actually build a prototype to maximize your ability to internalize something. In an earlier stage this might just be a drawing on a piece of paper. Creating observable instances of ideas is also great for sharing an idea that others may not be able to internalize as well as you.
This is also valuable for ideas that manifest in physical form. Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm Pilot, built a balsa wood non-working Pilot prototype. Part of the early history of Palm is Jeff walking around with this wood block in his pocket, to feel what it would be like to carry a small handheld computer. However you do it, getting to a higher level of insight is like standing on a plateau. Depending on your spatial visualization ability, and the complexity of the idea, you may need something more or less concretely in front of you to fully internalize new ideas.
Repeat
The most critical element of this process is not stopping. Your goal should be to internalize your new ideas and then begin this process again while standing on your new plateau of insight. Every time you take an idea another level away from where you started, you are more and more likely to be thinking about something novel and valuable. And so, iteration in your ideation is key.
Coda
We all have vast creative potential, and though we are often socialized as we become adults to minimize our own creative potential, I don't think its too late to get some of that back in adulthood. As with most everything in life, practice makes perfect!
My view is that *everyone* can generate good ideas, and that while being able to do so is useful in all businesses, this is particularly so in the fast moving tech world. So this piece is an ideation primer. But keep in mind that though I describe what may sound like a linear, perhaps rigid process, part of being creative is following the idea wherever it goes. In other words, be creative in being creative!
The process is really four basic steps which I will outline below.
- generate
- discuss
- filter
- internalize
- repeat
Generate
The first step is to free yourself to having ideas. The key to being creative is trying. Write your ideas down. Be reckless. It won't hurt anybody. And keep in mind, Most ideas suck. This is OK. The goal is volume, not precision.
Discuss
Ideas have half lives.
Some of your ideas you will realize suck after a day. For others, it may take a few days. If an idea lasts longer than a few days in your head, it starts to become worth discussing, both to validate it, and, if after validation it survives, to enhance it. Therefore, you must have a circle of associates you can discuss your ideas with. You will quickly discover that some people are good for this, and some are not. There are people who you will want to discuss very raw ideas with, and others that can only add value to more mature, more fully internalized(see below) ideas. I call this group of people you can run your ideas by your "vetting circle."
You should have a variety of types of people in your vetting circle. And though I have named it here, the idea is not formal. You do not need to declare that someone is in this circle. It is good enough that you have people who you can feel comfortable and free to talk to, that can add value. Some people in your circle may add value just by being *observable* recipients of your idea. Often body language and tone can communicate more about someone's reaction than what they actually say. In fact I would argue you can learn more from people's body language than from their words. Of course its also great to have people you can go back and forth with about your idea who can directly help make it better.
Filter
Eventually, you will stumble upon ideas that you like even after a few days. There will be ideas that light people's eyes up. Of course even then, is it practical? Can you do it? Can you give it to someone else to do? The best is when an idea is both great and easy to do. If you are Elon Musk, having a great idea might be building a spaceship. And for him, that might even be doable. For you, a great idea that is doable might be adding a comment button to your home page. Great ideas are relative to who you are and what your needs, interests, capabilities and resources are.
Internalize
By thoroughly exploring an idea space, and living in it, you get to a new place of understanding. From there you can have deeper ideas and extensions that grow from the new understanding. If you keep iterating, you will have ideas that you could not have had before, because living in the new idea space allows you to see things differently. In software it is often helpful to actually build a prototype to maximize your ability to internalize something. In an earlier stage this might just be a drawing on a piece of paper. Creating observable instances of ideas is also great for sharing an idea that others may not be able to internalize as well as you.
This is also valuable for ideas that manifest in physical form. Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm Pilot, built a balsa wood non-working Pilot prototype. Part of the early history of Palm is Jeff walking around with this wood block in his pocket, to feel what it would be like to carry a small handheld computer. However you do it, getting to a higher level of insight is like standing on a plateau. Depending on your spatial visualization ability, and the complexity of the idea, you may need something more or less concretely in front of you to fully internalize new ideas.
Repeat
The most critical element of this process is not stopping. Your goal should be to internalize your new ideas and then begin this process again while standing on your new plateau of insight. Every time you take an idea another level away from where you started, you are more and more likely to be thinking about something novel and valuable. And so, iteration in your ideation is key.
Coda
We all have vast creative potential, and though we are often socialized as we become adults to minimize our own creative potential, I don't think its too late to get some of that back in adulthood. As with most everything in life, practice makes perfect!
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dr. Martin Luther King
Today in the U.S. is the official holiday commemorating the birthday, and life of Dr. Martin Luther King.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Friday, January 18, 2008
Comments from the Crunchies Live
Tonight, the web 2.0 oscars, called the Crunchies, is airing live on the web. I have no comment on the Crunchies because, well, one day Mike Arrington might review my future product, and I know where my bread might be buttered. But anyway, Richter Scales, the guys that did the bubble song thats been going through to tech blogosphere, performed.
This is a bit of the live commenting on Mogulus.
23:02 ugal : sucks bad
23:03 bob : i think im going to watch diggnation
23:03 tomi : ,aybe the worse viral in the latest years
23:03 Ben : I'd MUCH rather they be lip-syncing...
23:03 Stk : Im gonna start the Crushies!
23:03 Ben : This is unbearable.
23:03 bob : this is not as fun to watch drunk....
23:03 nemesis : ID RATHER EAT A COCKROACH
23:03 drupal : laughing stock of the web
23:03 TT : LOL
23:03 bob : its making me mad
23:03 u>s : booring
23:03 Type Your Nickname H : ok, i am leaving
23:03 aquas : true
23:03 TT : this is so funny
23:03 lutonMate : anyone know a good site for arsenic?
23:03 TT : i think i want to finish watching this
23:03 bob : wow...
Ouch.
This is a bit of the live commenting on Mogulus.
23:02 ugal : sucks bad
23:03 bob : i think im going to watch diggnation
23:03 tomi : ,aybe the worse viral in the latest years
23:03 Ben : I'd MUCH rather they be lip-syncing...
23:03 Stk : Im gonna start the Crushies!
23:03 Ben : This is unbearable.
23:03 bob : this is not as fun to watch drunk....
23:03 nemesis : ID RATHER EAT A COCKROACH
23:03 drupal : laughing stock of the web
23:03 TT : LOL
23:03 bob : its making me mad
23:03 u>s : booring
23:03 Type Your Nickname H : ok, i am leaving
23:03 aquas : true
23:03 TT : this is so funny
23:03 lutonMate : anyone know a good site for arsenic?
23:03 TT : i think i want to finish watching this
23:03 bob : wow...
Ouch.
No They Can't Make Money Selling Concert Tickets!
If I hear another know nothing Internet a-hole pundit prattle on about how the music industry can save itself by giving the music away and selling concert tickets I am going to shoot someone!
It is amazing to me how the Internet empowers people to build big audiences speaking with authority on things they know *absolutely* nothing about. The blogosphere punditry on the music industry is the poster child for this phenomenon, and it drives me nuts.
Everyone these days is talking about how you can sell other stuff like concert tickets and t-shirts and make money. Thats where the *real* money is they say.
Let me get this straight. Is concert revenue some new concept the Internet invented in 2007? Do you really think people haven't thought about this? First of all there are tons of legal and other issues associated with labels managing artists (which is the only way they could extract a share of concert or merchandise revenue). Beyond that there are also ethical issues. Beyond *that*, when a new artist becomes a big artist, the label loses all leverage, and that sort of "land grabbing" of rights is always rolled back in re-negotiation.
But put all these challenges aside and presume everything can be worked out. Do you really think if music were free, people would suddenly decide to double their spending on live shows and t-shirts? RIIIIIGHT.
Worse yet, for most artists, concert's *lose* money. So you would replace non-money maker with a money *loser*.
You guys are so smart!
The truth is the only people who make money on concerts are the really big artists. And those guys have no interest in giving up a piece of concert sales. Everyone touts the Live Nation deal with Madonna as some kind of example. Newsflash! This is a loser deal. And even if it isn't, the economics are such that it is putting a lot of capital at risk for, at best, a very small return. Its like spending $20 at the amusement park arcade to win the $0.50 plush toy.
Everyone in the music business is *desperate* for someone to demonstrate that some new model can work. These are *not* stupid people. They just don't know what to do. People today believe music is worth **NOTHING**. That is the problem. And no freakin' make-it-up-in-concert-tickets-and-t-shirts strategy is going to save the day. Get over it blogosphere. I don't have the answer and neither do you.
It is amazing to me how the Internet empowers people to build big audiences speaking with authority on things they know *absolutely* nothing about. The blogosphere punditry on the music industry is the poster child for this phenomenon, and it drives me nuts.
Everyone these days is talking about how you can sell other stuff like concert tickets and t-shirts and make money. Thats where the *real* money is they say.
Let me get this straight. Is concert revenue some new concept the Internet invented in 2007? Do you really think people haven't thought about this? First of all there are tons of legal and other issues associated with labels managing artists (which is the only way they could extract a share of concert or merchandise revenue). Beyond that there are also ethical issues. Beyond *that*, when a new artist becomes a big artist, the label loses all leverage, and that sort of "land grabbing" of rights is always rolled back in re-negotiation.
But put all these challenges aside and presume everything can be worked out. Do you really think if music were free, people would suddenly decide to double their spending on live shows and t-shirts? RIIIIIGHT.
Worse yet, for most artists, concert's *lose* money. So you would replace non-money maker with a money *loser*.
You guys are so smart!
The truth is the only people who make money on concerts are the really big artists. And those guys have no interest in giving up a piece of concert sales. Everyone touts the Live Nation deal with Madonna as some kind of example. Newsflash! This is a loser deal. And even if it isn't, the economics are such that it is putting a lot of capital at risk for, at best, a very small return. Its like spending $20 at the amusement park arcade to win the $0.50 plush toy.
Everyone in the music business is *desperate* for someone to demonstrate that some new model can work. These are *not* stupid people. They just don't know what to do. People today believe music is worth **NOTHING**. That is the problem. And no freakin' make-it-up-in-concert-tickets-and-t-shirts strategy is going to save the day. Get over it blogosphere. I don't have the answer and neither do you.
Teachning Computer Science The Old Fashioned Way
There has been some discussion over at Joel on Software and Coding Horror about the state of software development training in college.
The gist of Joel and Jeff's views are that there is not enough practical experience in modern Computer science programs and not enough practical learning.
Jeff from Coding Horror says:
Now I am not here to defend any specific university curriculum. And a diversity in teaching styles is definitely a good idea. Both Joel and Jeff seem to be arguing for more practical training in college to actually teach students how to develop software. And while I do not have a problem with this as an *available* approach, I must say I do not think it serves our brightest students best. I do not believe that you get the most out of our best students by sending them to the software engineering version of Apex Tech. Jeff's statement feels to me like one small step away from suggesting that MIT should have courses in Excel and Word because students need practical tools.
For the most part, I believe college should not be about teaching kids how to do, but about teaching kids how to think. It is always shocking how many of the best programmers I have known studied chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering in college. The reason for this, I believe, is that being a great computer scientist is primarily about having skills at complex symbol manipulation. And while some of that is perhaps an innate skill, I firmly believe that thinking about hard problems is really the only way to learn how to think about hard problems.
Ideally, that "thinking about hard problems" thing is where our great colleges come in. College should not be about practical training, but about exposure to the great but highly impractical art of deep cogitating. In fact, it has been argued that it is not right that the only time students get practical experience at coding is at summer internships. In my mind this is *exactly* where they should get practical experience from. College is where we are stretched to do things that we will never do in the real world. We should not be lamenting the differences between a university curriculum and the "real world". We should be celebrating them.
Personally, I would hire a great thinker who had never seen a source code control program way before I would hire some first class CVS jockey who couldn't keep up with a complex algorithm deconstruction. A university computer science program may be the last place that a future software engineer gets to think about really hard abstract problems. We cannot give that up. We need to give students a few good years of doing the really challenging stuff. They have the rest of their programming lives to discover the mind numbing insignificance of hacking VB.
The gist of Joel and Jeff's views are that there is not enough practical experience in modern Computer science programs and not enough practical learning.
Jeff from Coding Horror says:
If we aren't teaching fundamental software engineering skills like deployment and source control in college today, we're teaching computer science the wrong way.
Now I am not here to defend any specific university curriculum. And a diversity in teaching styles is definitely a good idea. Both Joel and Jeff seem to be arguing for more practical training in college to actually teach students how to develop software. And while I do not have a problem with this as an *available* approach, I must say I do not think it serves our brightest students best. I do not believe that you get the most out of our best students by sending them to the software engineering version of Apex Tech. Jeff's statement feels to me like one small step away from suggesting that MIT should have courses in Excel and Word because students need practical tools.
For the most part, I believe college should not be about teaching kids how to do, but about teaching kids how to think. It is always shocking how many of the best programmers I have known studied chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering in college. The reason for this, I believe, is that being a great computer scientist is primarily about having skills at complex symbol manipulation. And while some of that is perhaps an innate skill, I firmly believe that thinking about hard problems is really the only way to learn how to think about hard problems.
Ideally, that "thinking about hard problems" thing is where our great colleges come in. College should not be about practical training, but about exposure to the great but highly impractical art of deep cogitating. In fact, it has been argued that it is not right that the only time students get practical experience at coding is at summer internships. In my mind this is *exactly* where they should get practical experience from. College is where we are stretched to do things that we will never do in the real world. We should not be lamenting the differences between a university curriculum and the "real world". We should be celebrating them.
Personally, I would hire a great thinker who had never seen a source code control program way before I would hire some first class CVS jockey who couldn't keep up with a complex algorithm deconstruction. A university computer science program may be the last place that a future software engineer gets to think about really hard abstract problems. We cannot give that up. We need to give students a few good years of doing the really challenging stuff. They have the rest of their programming lives to discover the mind numbing insignificance of hacking VB.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Steve Jobs: Petulant Child, Philosopher, Artiste
In the last week we have seen the three faces of Steve Jobs.
The side I like the most is Steve as philosopher. This is the Steve who challenges us to "think different" about who we are and what we are doing. The iPhone represents the philosopher Steve. The iPhone offers us an opportunity to do things that we have never done before and to do things we have done before in a different way. As I have written before, at the MacWorld keynote, Steve offered up an important paradigm shift for the iPhone that went mainly unnoticed. Steve released easy location aware mapping on the iPhone. This is Steve as philosopher because, as with philosophy, the implications of the location technology are more abstract, but in a sense, also far more important. You have to think several steps ahead to fully grok the import.
But while I think that the iPhone and mapping will have the largest long term impact on us as a culture, the highlight of Steve's keynote was the MacBook Air. This is Steve as artiste. The Air is light, thin, and sexy. As with all of Apple's best products, one could be describing a beautiful woman, or a museum worthy piece of modern art.
For me, the Air is not a game changer. It doesn't effect the way anyone will do anything. And yet, it reflects one of the critical drivers of Apple's success. Long before anyone else in the computer game, Steve realized that form was as important as (or perhaps more important than) function. He saw that they are critically intertwined, and that if you can get people to buy something because it makes them *feel* good, you can protect insanely great margins.
And finally, yesterday we saw the ugly side of Steve. Yesterday we saw Steve as the petulant child. First, he trashed the Amazon Kindle. Fair enough. Lots of people have done that. But the reason why was a killer. Because we, his customers, are all too stupid to read.
Then he went on. Google should not make phones. It will just confuse people. And he said, "having created a phone, it's a lot harder than it looks."
I'm sorry but this just makes Steve sound like a whiny, immature, self-absorbed, stupid little twit. It also makes him sound just like Ed Colligan of Palm and Steve Balmer of Microsoft who said exactly the same thing about Apple's entrance into the cell phone game. Apple can't just walk in and make a cell phone. Its hard. We've been doing this for years.
Bull.
There is plenty of room left for innovation on cell phones. Apple just showed us how badly everyone else sucked. Thankfully, I suspect we are done with the petulant child for a while. At least until the next time Steve's PR handler has to take a bathroom break. Please send the philosopher back.
The side I like the most is Steve as philosopher. This is the Steve who challenges us to "think different" about who we are and what we are doing. The iPhone represents the philosopher Steve. The iPhone offers us an opportunity to do things that we have never done before and to do things we have done before in a different way. As I have written before, at the MacWorld keynote, Steve offered up an important paradigm shift for the iPhone that went mainly unnoticed. Steve released easy location aware mapping on the iPhone. This is Steve as philosopher because, as with philosophy, the implications of the location technology are more abstract, but in a sense, also far more important. You have to think several steps ahead to fully grok the import.
But while I think that the iPhone and mapping will have the largest long term impact on us as a culture, the highlight of Steve's keynote was the MacBook Air. This is Steve as artiste. The Air is light, thin, and sexy. As with all of Apple's best products, one could be describing a beautiful woman, or a museum worthy piece of modern art.
For me, the Air is not a game changer. It doesn't effect the way anyone will do anything. And yet, it reflects one of the critical drivers of Apple's success. Long before anyone else in the computer game, Steve realized that form was as important as (or perhaps more important than) function. He saw that they are critically intertwined, and that if you can get people to buy something because it makes them *feel* good, you can protect insanely great margins.
And finally, yesterday we saw the ugly side of Steve. Yesterday we saw Steve as the petulant child. First, he trashed the Amazon Kindle. Fair enough. Lots of people have done that. But the reason why was a killer. Because we, his customers, are all too stupid to read.
Then he went on. Google should not make phones. It will just confuse people. And he said, "having created a phone, it's a lot harder than it looks."
I'm sorry but this just makes Steve sound like a whiny, immature, self-absorbed, stupid little twit. It also makes him sound just like Ed Colligan of Palm and Steve Balmer of Microsoft who said exactly the same thing about Apple's entrance into the cell phone game. Apple can't just walk in and make a cell phone. Its hard. We've been doing this for years.
Bull.
There is plenty of room left for innovation on cell phones. Apple just showed us how badly everyone else sucked. Thankfully, I suspect we are done with the petulant child for a while. At least until the next time Steve's PR handler has to take a bathroom break. Please send the philosopher back.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Apple Announces Tricorder
I always thought they were so cool. In fact, when I was a kid, I wanted one for Christmas. This little tiny thing (well not so tiny by today's standards) called a tricorder that Spock or Riker (for you youngins) would wave around, would tell them everything they needed to know about their surroundings. The seeming impossibility of it all made it sound all the more cool.
Location aware, developer friendly phones are finally here
Well the impossible is becoming possible. Or at least part of it is becoming possible, in the form of GPS (or pseudo GPS) enabled phones and location-based services. Yesterday, Apple announced a new feature of the iPhone that will allow it to determine your location by triangulating from cell phone towers and wifi signals. While the iPhone is not GPS equipped, this pseudo GPS is good enough. All that is left is for Apple to make location awareness accessible via its coming software development kit (SDK) so developers can get jiggy with it.
Additionally, this year the market will be flooded with phones compatible with Google's Android phone operating system. All of these phones will presumably have GPS or pseudo GPS functionality, and their whole purpose is open developer access.
And yes boys and girls, I know GPS-equipped handsets have been around a while. I am ignoring all those old school turds here because they *all* suck.
Now on to the software
Once you've got the hardware, its all about the software baby! And that, I promise you, will come. This despite every sincere effort by the major carriers to keep us in the technological dark ages. In the not too distant future, it will be possible to use your phone to seamlessly find out almost anything you want to know about the environment around you. For example, theaters nearby showing movies you're likely to like, restaurants in the neighborhood your friends like, apartments in the area that are within your price range, etc. should all be findable in a New York minute. In fact the best applications will *alert* you when you are around something you might find of interest.
Location-based services are a revolution that will profoundly change the landscape of our culture in the way that cell phones and the Internet already have. It is obvious, and yet at the same time surprising, that there is almost no piece of knowledge about anything that cannot be easily found by Googling it. I *feel* smarter when I am within a few feet of Internet access. When you marry that instant information access (and its power) to location awareness and pocket accessibility, something indistinguishable from magic begins to emerge.
Changing what it means to *be* somewhere
Being able to find everything you might want to know about the area around you right now, has the ability to change the way we think about *being* somewhere. Because the more you can, in real time, know about where you are, the more significant it is to be there.
And yet, so far, there are few signs that the tech punditry has really picked up on what all of this means. The iPhone story was upstaged at Steve Jobs' keynote yesterday at MacWorld by some lightweight, but essentially innovation free MacBook. It was the the epitome of "incrementalism." And outside the tech blogosphere, the Android thing has been a big yawner. And so the import of all of this is really sneaking up on us. A few years from now, not having location-based services will be as much a sign that you are a troglodyte as is not having a cell phone or an Internet connection is today.
Mark my words, the tricorder *is* coming and you're gonna friggin' want one! Beam me up Scotty!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Never *need* a VC
The worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to *need* venture capital.
I am writing about this because I get asked all the time by aspiring entrepreneurs how to raise money. My answer is always the same. Don't!
Now to be clear, I am not saying you should not take money from investors. If they are throwing it at you, you should think seriously about taking it if you are not cash flow positive. However, particularly for first time entrepreneurs, having in your head that you will start your business by writing a business plan and then raising money is a formula for failure. Even planning to get to prototype stage and then raising money is foolish.
What you need to be doing is figuring out how to get your business operational without venture capital. Now that might mean getting friends and family money. Or it might mean working on the project part time. Or it might mean mortgaging your house (not generally recommended). Or finding partners that will work for free. Or perhaps some combination of all of the above. But whatever scale you find yourself able to operate at without *needing* venture capital, that is the scale you should operate at to give yourself the best shot.
There are several reasons for this. Raising money is hard. Raising money is time consuming. Raising money is a crap shoot. Raising money takes your energy away from focusing on building real value. If you spent today moving your business one step closer to launch, that is much better than spending your mental energy and time focusing on the unlikely possibility that someone will give you money based on some speculative document describing how all your investors are going to make billions.
But the most important reason to structure your business with the assumption that you are not going to raise venture money is that it is *much* easier to raise money when you don't need it. You want to create what I call the "train is leaving the station" scenario.
No one wants to be stuck on the platform when something that looks like it is going to be a success is about to take off without them. Your goal as an entrepreneur is to create that feeling in your potential investors. You want to have enough momentum that they are almost (or literally) coming to you. This will be good for them because they will feel like they are getting in on something, and it will be good for you because you get to raise money without wasting a lot of time on it at the best possible price. With this strategy, everyone can be a winner.
The other benefit of this strategy is it gives you flexibility. If you start small, and don't take *any* venture money, you are also in a much better position to take a small exit from an acquirer. A five million dollar exit would not be acceptable once you have taken venture money because the VC will take all or most of the money. Even if it would be marginally profitable, most VCs would, if they could, try to block such a deal. But for you, A five million dollar exit might be awesome if its just you and a couple of buddies.
But what if your business idea requires lots of capital that you don't have access to? Then change the business idea! It would be imprudent to decide you were going to make the next iPhone when you have never built a website, right? You should scale the scope of your vision to what is reasonably possible for you and what you can reasonably finance, and then build on that.
In short, starting a business is like living life. It is important to figure out how to live within your means. You can start at *any* scale and be successful. Particularly today, small is beautiful.
I am writing about this because I get asked all the time by aspiring entrepreneurs how to raise money. My answer is always the same. Don't!
Now to be clear, I am not saying you should not take money from investors. If they are throwing it at you, you should think seriously about taking it if you are not cash flow positive. However, particularly for first time entrepreneurs, having in your head that you will start your business by writing a business plan and then raising money is a formula for failure. Even planning to get to prototype stage and then raising money is foolish.
What you need to be doing is figuring out how to get your business operational without venture capital. Now that might mean getting friends and family money. Or it might mean working on the project part time. Or it might mean mortgaging your house (not generally recommended). Or finding partners that will work for free. Or perhaps some combination of all of the above. But whatever scale you find yourself able to operate at without *needing* venture capital, that is the scale you should operate at to give yourself the best shot.
There are several reasons for this. Raising money is hard. Raising money is time consuming. Raising money is a crap shoot. Raising money takes your energy away from focusing on building real value. If you spent today moving your business one step closer to launch, that is much better than spending your mental energy and time focusing on the unlikely possibility that someone will give you money based on some speculative document describing how all your investors are going to make billions.
But the most important reason to structure your business with the assumption that you are not going to raise venture money is that it is *much* easier to raise money when you don't need it. You want to create what I call the "train is leaving the station" scenario.
No one wants to be stuck on the platform when something that looks like it is going to be a success is about to take off without them. Your goal as an entrepreneur is to create that feeling in your potential investors. You want to have enough momentum that they are almost (or literally) coming to you. This will be good for them because they will feel like they are getting in on something, and it will be good for you because you get to raise money without wasting a lot of time on it at the best possible price. With this strategy, everyone can be a winner.
The other benefit of this strategy is it gives you flexibility. If you start small, and don't take *any* venture money, you are also in a much better position to take a small exit from an acquirer. A five million dollar exit would not be acceptable once you have taken venture money because the VC will take all or most of the money. Even if it would be marginally profitable, most VCs would, if they could, try to block such a deal. But for you, A five million dollar exit might be awesome if its just you and a couple of buddies.
But what if your business idea requires lots of capital that you don't have access to? Then change the business idea! It would be imprudent to decide you were going to make the next iPhone when you have never built a website, right? You should scale the scope of your vision to what is reasonably possible for you and what you can reasonably finance, and then build on that.
In short, starting a business is like living life. It is important to figure out how to live within your means. You can start at *any* scale and be successful. Particularly today, small is beautiful.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
DataPortablility.org sings kumbaya
Ok, this is getting a little, err, funny isn't it? All kidding aside. All these sworn enemies (Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn et. al) getting together at DataPortability.org to smoke the peace pipe and, err... share. Supposedly they want to allow people to "own" their data and to move it between platforms. SUUUURRRREEE!
But OK lets just play this out for a second and actually take it seriously. Don't get me wrong, I am totally down with the data porters and stuff. But it just seems to me that the idea really shouldn't be about *porting* data but accessing data, *in place*.
Because what I really want to do is ask for stuff and get it, and not worry so much about where it came from. For example, I want to send something to all my high school friends, or all my friends in the New York area - regardless of what "social network" they are on. Yes, I should be able to port my contacts into Outlook. But it would be so much better if Outlook was just a *window* into my broad universe of data, not just some other silo that I can use to store *yet another* copy. Oh, and you semantic webtards, I don't want to hear a freakin' comment about how this done in freakin' RDF. It will never happen. You know why? no one freakin' gets all that semantic web RDF/OWL/SPARQL gobbledygook!
So, unfortunately, I suspect nothing really cool will come of all of this, and that where things are really heading is some giant import/export engine in the sky. And to me, that is just so Milli Vanilli. And yeah, in case you're too young to remember, they sucked.
But OK lets just play this out for a second and actually take it seriously. Don't get me wrong, I am totally down with the data porters and stuff. But it just seems to me that the idea really shouldn't be about *porting* data but accessing data, *in place*.
Because what I really want to do is ask for stuff and get it, and not worry so much about where it came from. For example, I want to send something to all my high school friends, or all my friends in the New York area - regardless of what "social network" they are on. Yes, I should be able to port my contacts into Outlook. But it would be so much better if Outlook was just a *window* into my broad universe of data, not just some other silo that I can use to store *yet another* copy. Oh, and you semantic webtards, I don't want to hear a freakin' comment about how this done in freakin' RDF. It will never happen. You know why? no one freakin' gets all that semantic web RDF/OWL/SPARQL gobbledygook!
So, unfortunately, I suspect nothing really cool will come of all of this, and that where things are really heading is some giant import/export engine in the sky. And to me, that is just so Milli Vanilli. And yeah, in case you're too young to remember, they sucked.
Britney Spears joins DataPortabilty.org as new chairman, Scoble causes turmoil
After an avalanche of new members in the last week, including Facebook, Plaxo, Linkedin, Flickr, SixApart, and Twitter, DataPortability.org made a surprise announcement that Britney Spears would join the organization as chairman. She replaces founder Chris Saad.
Spears, demonstrating her commitment to sharing, arrives at the DataPortability board meeting
Robert Scoble prepares for "Naked Conversations" with Spears.
The Spears announcement was made at DataPortability's first board meeting since its membership surge. But turmoil broke out when mega-blogger, and new board member Robert Scoble handed out copies of his book "Naked Conversations", and insisted that all board members disrobe. Although Spears cheerfully complied, the others declined. As Mr. Scoble stripped to a Brazilian thong, one board member bolted from the room, screaming, "My eyes, my eyes!" Lacking a quorum, the meeting was adjourned.
Spears, demonstrating her commitment to sharing, arrives at the DataPortability board meeting
Robert Scoble prepares for "Naked Conversations" with Spears.The Spears announcement was made at DataPortability's first board meeting since its membership surge. But turmoil broke out when mega-blogger, and new board member Robert Scoble handed out copies of his book "Naked Conversations", and insisted that all board members disrobe. Although Spears cheerfully complied, the others declined. As Mr. Scoble stripped to a Brazilian thong, one board member bolted from the room, screaming, "My eyes, my eyes!" Lacking a quorum, the meeting was adjourned.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Mitch Kapor's Weekend at Bernie's
My last post on Chandler somehow just really doesn't capture the flavor of watching the Chandler design mailing list. It has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion after having had a sip of Scalosian water. Indeed it was incredible to me that so much could be invested with so little resulting usable value.
Hey Mitch, are you watching this s**t?
As background, Chandler is an open source project, and so it has mailing lists. And though there is a corporate office, I get the feeling that most of the discussion between the employees happens through the mailing lists. I never saw Mitch post anything to the lists. I'm not saying that he didn't, and certainly I was not always watching, but I never saw it. And so I kept thinking to myself, isn't there some adult I can call and tell what is going on? I always had this urge to drop Mitch a line and say "hey dude, are you watching this s**t?"
He (me) said
From a practical perspective, perhaps my biggest beef was that the Chandler design team had an apparent lack of understanding of a *really* basic user interface principle.
To encapsulate, what I said on the mailing list was this:
The interface designer's critical task is to support and reinforce the user's understanding of the data model.
The essence of my point is you need to be able to visualize the model of the system, which is the only way a user can predict outcomes of the actions he/she takes.
She said
The Chandler interface design lead responded. Because I don't want this to be personal I will refer to her as DL. DL responded to that statement with the following:
Thank you Hank for articulating this. I think this may be at the core of issues you are running into. [Note: *its my* issue]Excuse me, but I *am* going to inhaleIn my mind, the purpose of design is to understand how people work (which goes hand in hand with figuring out what problem it is you want to solve). 'How people work', the problems they run into and pain points they have in turn drives how the software should function. Usability (which I think of as conceptually distinct, though in practice, hopelessly intertwined with design) is the work of re-presenting how the software works to the user in a way they will recognize as helping them. In other words, usability is the 'language' by which the intent of the design is communicated to the user.Another way to think about it is: The difference between design and usability as the difference between 'use-ful' and 'usable'. Useful is about getting the workflows right and anticipating user needs. Usable is about making it easy for people to figure out how to get the most out of the hopefully 'useful' product.
More often than not, aiming for 'useful' results in concepts and functionality that are 'ambiguous' and 'inconsistent' in the way it works. [Note: you certainly acheived your goal here...lol] I believe this is because user workflows are complicated and full of exceptions. Surprisingly and fortunately however, workflows are often twisted and gnarly in highly consistent ways.[Note: WTF] In the end, I think it boils down to how you're looking at the problem: From the perspective of trying to understanding the inner workings of the tool; or from the perspective of trying to understand the workflows.
First of all, if you understand what DL means I need a hit of whatever you are smokin'. Well ok, after much review I was able to tease out two points.
- I *think* she thinks you can freakin have useful without usable!!!
- She doesn't believe that it is important that the user have a model of the system in his/her head. Instead you can just worry about "workflows" whatever the f**k that means. This is, well, honestly, insane. But don't just believe me. One of the most interesting articles on this issue for a more learned perspective check out Bruce Tognazzini's views on this.
Think of it this way. If you have a tool and you can't predict what the behavior of that tool will be, it will *never* be useful.
I couldn't believe she couldn't understand or didn't believe this. And so I issued a challenge to the entire OSAF team. I challenged anyone to explain to me what the "View" menu did.
No takers. It's so complicated even the designers couldn't explain it.
I made the challenge again on the list because I thought maybe in the email melee my challenge had been missed. Still, no takers. Once again I raised it in a private email with one of the engineers.
No one ever responded directly though I did have a conversation with another engineer who agreed that it was nearly impossible to understand what the view menu did. I understand from other sources that the code that drives the view commands is incredibly hard even for the programmers themselves to follow the logic. That oughta be a clue.
Ok, I just have to say it again because it is so hard to believe: NO ONE COULD EXPLAIN WHAT THE CHANDLER'S VIEW MENU DOES!!!!
Weekend at Bernie's indeed
If you let the fact that no one could explain a core menu bar function sink in, you might get a clue as to why, despite what had to be 10 to 20 million dollars of Mitch's money invested, Chandler still, well, sucked.
And so, the ten Chandler team members remaining will work one more year until the last of the cash runs out. They have propped up Chandler's dead body, put some sunglasses on it, doused it with some Axe body spray/cologne, seated it in the living room, and are pretending that they are all not sitting around the, um... dearly departed.
Now *that* must suck.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The psychology of user interface (part III no freedom without boundaries)
There is no freedom without boundaries.
I read this from Bruce Tognazzini many years ago. It has always stuck in my head. Our politics is obsessed with the idea that freedom is good. The business community is obsessed with the idea that people need more choices in order to get exactly the thing they want. We have infinite sizes, flavors, colors, textures in almost everything we buy.
Freedom schmeedom
Too much choice is bad. In life, in politics, in products, in relationships, and indeed in user interfaces.
People need guidance. People need to be managed... told what to do. If you just hired a bunch of people and said lets make the best PIM in the world, and gave them no guidance, it would suck and fail. In the same way, when you provide a user interface, there is a balance between giving them enough options for them to feel comfortable, and not so many that they have no idea what to do next.
In the old days, this issue manifested itself in a different way than it does today. But this is not because we are smarter today, but because things generally suck so badly that we have a more limited set of ways to overwhelm the user. But somehow, designers still seem to figure out how to do it.
Photoshop. It sucks.
In prehistoric times, apps would have zillions of tools and no mechanism for understanding the context for using those tools. Photoshop is a good example of one of these prehistoric apps, because, from a UI perspective, Photoshop sucks. I know I know you probably love it. But that is just a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome. Trust me, it sucks.
In Photoshop you have a massive array of tools. There are no noobie level affordances. No tools jump out and tell you what you should be doing with them. You are just expected to memorize how stuff works. And damn it, you're gonna like it.
It is the epitome of blank slate design. You must stare at an empty page with a collection of nondescript tools and figure out how use it.
Of course Adobe is in a bit of a jail on this one because the high end users who spend a lot of money on Photoshop at this point know it like the back of their hand. And they *like* that is it hard. Job security. But this means Adobe is vulnerable to someone coming along and making a truly usable image manipulation program with perhaps fewer features.
So now what
Ok, so I know, you say, "my stuff is nothing like Photoshop".
No shit sherlock. If it was you probably would be on a beach somewhere instead of reading my blog. But there is still an important lesson here. I am dumbfounded by the number of websites and web applications that refuse to tell me what to do. If you have a website, I want you to tell me what is important. If you have an application, I want you to tell me what my first steps should be. I NEED HELP.
There is nothing worse than going to a website and spending five minutes and having no idea what the product they are selling is or how to find out. There is nothing worse than going to a web app and finding a sea of command options of seemingly equivalent importance. You see, if you don't tell me what to do or where to go, or what my first steps should be, I am lost to you. And I will just leave your page going, wow, that *really* sucked.
I read this from Bruce Tognazzini many years ago. It has always stuck in my head. Our politics is obsessed with the idea that freedom is good. The business community is obsessed with the idea that people need more choices in order to get exactly the thing they want. We have infinite sizes, flavors, colors, textures in almost everything we buy.
Freedom schmeedom
Too much choice is bad. In life, in politics, in products, in relationships, and indeed in user interfaces.
People need guidance. People need to be managed... told what to do. If you just hired a bunch of people and said lets make the best PIM in the world, and gave them no guidance, it would suck and fail. In the same way, when you provide a user interface, there is a balance between giving them enough options for them to feel comfortable, and not so many that they have no idea what to do next.
In the old days, this issue manifested itself in a different way than it does today. But this is not because we are smarter today, but because things generally suck so badly that we have a more limited set of ways to overwhelm the user. But somehow, designers still seem to figure out how to do it.
Photoshop. It sucks.
In prehistoric times, apps would have zillions of tools and no mechanism for understanding the context for using those tools. Photoshop is a good example of one of these prehistoric apps, because, from a UI perspective, Photoshop sucks. I know I know you probably love it. But that is just a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome. Trust me, it sucks.
In Photoshop you have a massive array of tools. There are no noobie level affordances. No tools jump out and tell you what you should be doing with them. You are just expected to memorize how stuff works. And damn it, you're gonna like it.
It is the epitome of blank slate design. You must stare at an empty page with a collection of nondescript tools and figure out how use it.
Of course Adobe is in a bit of a jail on this one because the high end users who spend a lot of money on Photoshop at this point know it like the back of their hand. And they *like* that is it hard. Job security. But this means Adobe is vulnerable to someone coming along and making a truly usable image manipulation program with perhaps fewer features.
So now what
Ok, so I know, you say, "my stuff is nothing like Photoshop".
No shit sherlock. If it was you probably would be on a beach somewhere instead of reading my blog. But there is still an important lesson here. I am dumbfounded by the number of websites and web applications that refuse to tell me what to do. If you have a website, I want you to tell me what is important. If you have an application, I want you to tell me what my first steps should be. I NEED HELP.
There is nothing worse than going to a website and spending five minutes and having no idea what the product they are selling is or how to find out. There is nothing worse than going to a web app and finding a sea of command options of seemingly equivalent importance. You see, if you don't tell me what to do or where to go, or what my first steps should be, I am lost to you. And I will just leave your page going, wow, that *really* sucked.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The psychology of user interface (part II direct manipulation)
In part I of this series, I discussed the concept of spatial visualization, and proposed that the antidote to problems with interfaces that require too much spatial visualization is a concept called direct manipulation. Direct manipulation is really all about making stuff obvious to the user. Its about making things physical, and almost tactile. It is about making all our software suck just a little less.
But first a little on action-at-a-distance
I sometimes find it easier to start by explaining the negative corollary to direct manipulation which is a concept called “action-at-a-distance”.
Action-at-a-distance is the concept of manipulating something in front of you and having it change something somewhere else out of your immediate view. For example, imagine picking up a fork and having it knock a book off the bookshelf in your bedroom. That would be an unpredictable and unexpected outcome.
So action-at-a-distance is when there is an result that happens some metaphorical distance from the user's initial action. There are two problems with action-at-a distance. The first is the unexpected result of the action. But the second more troubling aspect of it is that even after you might be expected, through experience, to know that lifting the fork knocks the book off the bookshelf, you need to *remember* that the book will be knocked off the bookshelf every time because you will have no cue that it happened.
This is where spatial visualization comes in. Because while some people will be able to remember the linkage between the fork and the book, many more will not remember and even more will *never even understand* that that lifting the fork knocks the book off the bookshelf because they could not visualize it. These people will never understand your software. There are lots of these people, and most of them are not dummies.
And now onto direct manipulation
Direct manipulation is really just a fancy sounding expression for making things as “physical” as you can. When you modify something all of the important effects of that manipulation should be at the surface of your interface. A simple example of this might be a commerce program where, when you change the items in your shopping cart, it immediately recalculates the cost of the items in the basket and displays that on the screen. Better yet, the idea of a scroll bar in a text editor. When you move the scroll bar, the text changes.
Another element of direct manipulation is hinting. This is when the software senses you are *about* to do something, it lets you know what the implications of what you are about to do might be. For example, when a drawing program shows the outline of what you are dragging, and turns the cursor into an X to show that dropping the item there wont work, that is hinting.
But part of the problem with the direct manipulation concept is that until recently, it has been nearly impossible to implement within the web browser. Essentially *everything* in the web world was action-at-a-distance. This is because, what you did was very indirect manipulation. There was no immediate feedback to let you know if you were doing the right thing. You can't have direct manipulation where every action must be sent to the “brain” by clicking the enter key and waiting for a refresh.
The advent of Ajax and Flash with Flex has allowed developers to create applications that can implement very effective direct manipulation interfaces. But we are just at the tip of this iceberg.
I love widgets
One of the things that I most enjoyed doing in my early software writing years, was creating “widgets”, or on screen software objects within my applications, that mimicked some aspect if the information model, to make it easy for people to explore and manipulate the information.
For example, imagine being able to click on a magnifying glass tab in the corner of an icon on your desktop and having a mini viewer instantly zoom open along side the icon that would allow you to browse the document. This kind of thing would feel very physical. It is the antithesis of the web page model.
Suck less
What I am really preaching here is that we have gotten very far away from physical tactile user interfaces that allow manipulation that provides direct logical feedback. This kind of thing is definitely possible now on the web, and some developers are beginning to take advantage of these technologies and techniques. But we are not there yet, because, well you know, for the most part things still do really do suck.
Continue reading part III.
But first a little on action-at-a-distance
I sometimes find it easier to start by explaining the negative corollary to direct manipulation which is a concept called “action-at-a-distance”.
Action-at-a-distance is the concept of manipulating something in front of you and having it change something somewhere else out of your immediate view. For example, imagine picking up a fork and having it knock a book off the bookshelf in your bedroom. That would be an unpredictable and unexpected outcome.
So action-at-a-distance is when there is an result that happens some metaphorical distance from the user's initial action. There are two problems with action-at-a distance. The first is the unexpected result of the action. But the second more troubling aspect of it is that even after you might be expected, through experience, to know that lifting the fork knocks the book off the bookshelf, you need to *remember* that the book will be knocked off the bookshelf every time because you will have no cue that it happened.
This is where spatial visualization comes in. Because while some people will be able to remember the linkage between the fork and the book, many more will not remember and even more will *never even understand* that that lifting the fork knocks the book off the bookshelf because they could not visualize it. These people will never understand your software. There are lots of these people, and most of them are not dummies.
And now onto direct manipulation
Direct manipulation is really just a fancy sounding expression for making things as “physical” as you can. When you modify something all of the important effects of that manipulation should be at the surface of your interface. A simple example of this might be a commerce program where, when you change the items in your shopping cart, it immediately recalculates the cost of the items in the basket and displays that on the screen. Better yet, the idea of a scroll bar in a text editor. When you move the scroll bar, the text changes.
Another element of direct manipulation is hinting. This is when the software senses you are *about* to do something, it lets you know what the implications of what you are about to do might be. For example, when a drawing program shows the outline of what you are dragging, and turns the cursor into an X to show that dropping the item there wont work, that is hinting.
But part of the problem with the direct manipulation concept is that until recently, it has been nearly impossible to implement within the web browser. Essentially *everything* in the web world was action-at-a-distance. This is because, what you did was very indirect manipulation. There was no immediate feedback to let you know if you were doing the right thing. You can't have direct manipulation where every action must be sent to the “brain” by clicking the enter key and waiting for a refresh.
The advent of Ajax and Flash with Flex has allowed developers to create applications that can implement very effective direct manipulation interfaces. But we are just at the tip of this iceberg.
I love widgets
One of the things that I most enjoyed doing in my early software writing years, was creating “widgets”, or on screen software objects within my applications, that mimicked some aspect if the information model, to make it easy for people to explore and manipulate the information.
For example, imagine being able to click on a magnifying glass tab in the corner of an icon on your desktop and having a mini viewer instantly zoom open along side the icon that would allow you to browse the document. This kind of thing would feel very physical. It is the antithesis of the web page model.
Suck less
What I am really preaching here is that we have gotten very far away from physical tactile user interfaces that allow manipulation that provides direct logical feedback. This kind of thing is definitely possible now on the web, and some developers are beginning to take advantage of these technologies and techniques. But we are not there yet, because, well you know, for the most part things still do really do suck.
Continue reading part III.
Last night at NY Tech Meetup
Gomobo
Gomobo was one of the slickest presentations I have seen at a Tech Meetup. Typically the products are presented by techies that cant talk, but Gomobo's founder was slick, fast, and got to the point. I am not saying the product is earth shaking (its not) but it does serve a need. Basically its a service where you can text in your order to a bunch of restaurants via a cell phone. Not that deep. But very nicely done.
Tagiton
I think, I'm smart, I think I'm smart, I know I'm smart, I know I'm smart!
Unfortunately I am not smart enough to understand what Tagiton does. But then again I barely get Facebook which they say they are kinda like, but based around your email contacts. Oh well.
Gilt Group
Luxury brand name stuff sold at sample sale prices online, sold by a hot chick. Nuff said.
Ok well not quite nuff said. It appear they have a few sales a week of specific items. So initially they won't have a great breadth of stuff. They organize the sales themselves, take all the pictures of the merchandise etc. Obviously there is a market here. But I doubt they will ever sell anything I care about as I suspect it will be totally female focused.
Blockles
Tetris + talk. A slick app written in flash. I'd love to know more about the framework they use. He said it was homegrown, and given that they wrote is app in 15 days, I bet there is some opportunity for these guys to leverage their brand with their development framework like the 37signals guys do by making rails available open source, or by maybe even selling it.
Tablexchange
They allow people to sell their highly coveted reservations. I'm not sure this will work but interesting idea. Scott asked who thought this was genius, who thought it was evil, and who thought both. I think the evil crowd won but I'm not sure.
Anyway, I asked if they had Rao's in the system. No one got it so I will explain here. Rao's is the hardest reservation in New York to get. Essentially if you don't know someone you're not getting in. They have eight tables and the regulars have life long standing reservations. Calling five years advance will not help you. One of the regulars has to give you their table. Anyway the place is, as I understand it, kinda mobbed up, and someone was murdered there a few years ago so maybe you just wanna go to Fairway and just buy a bottle of their pasta sauce instead.
US First
This is basically a promotional site for Dean Kamen's FIRST robotics competition for super smart high school kids. They build robots which fight each other. This is a very worthy cause but does not present well at a meetup. Perhaps they could have brought a robot!
Gomobo was one of the slickest presentations I have seen at a Tech Meetup. Typically the products are presented by techies that cant talk, but Gomobo's founder was slick, fast, and got to the point. I am not saying the product is earth shaking (its not) but it does serve a need. Basically its a service where you can text in your order to a bunch of restaurants via a cell phone. Not that deep. But very nicely done.
Tagiton
I think, I'm smart, I think I'm smart, I know I'm smart, I know I'm smart!
Unfortunately I am not smart enough to understand what Tagiton does. But then again I barely get Facebook which they say they are kinda like, but based around your email contacts. Oh well.
Gilt Group
Luxury brand name stuff sold at sample sale prices online, sold by a hot chick. Nuff said.
Ok well not quite nuff said. It appear they have a few sales a week of specific items. So initially they won't have a great breadth of stuff. They organize the sales themselves, take all the pictures of the merchandise etc. Obviously there is a market here. But I doubt they will ever sell anything I care about as I suspect it will be totally female focused.
Blockles
Tetris + talk. A slick app written in flash. I'd love to know more about the framework they use. He said it was homegrown, and given that they wrote is app in 15 days, I bet there is some opportunity for these guys to leverage their brand with their development framework like the 37signals guys do by making rails available open source, or by maybe even selling it.
Tablexchange
They allow people to sell their highly coveted reservations. I'm not sure this will work but interesting idea. Scott asked who thought this was genius, who thought it was evil, and who thought both. I think the evil crowd won but I'm not sure.
Anyway, I asked if they had Rao's in the system. No one got it so I will explain here. Rao's is the hardest reservation in New York to get. Essentially if you don't know someone you're not getting in. They have eight tables and the regulars have life long standing reservations. Calling five years advance will not help you. One of the regulars has to give you their table. Anyway the place is, as I understand it, kinda mobbed up, and someone was murdered there a few years ago so maybe you just wanna go to Fairway and just buy a bottle of their pasta sauce instead.
US First
This is basically a promotional site for Dean Kamen's FIRST robotics competition for super smart high school kids. They build robots which fight each other. This is a very worthy cause but does not present well at a meetup. Perhaps they could have brought a robot!
RIP Mitch Kapor's Chandler
Update: I have posted some of my additional thoughts and critiques ;-) in my most recent post: "Mitch Kapor's Weekend at Bernie's."
Yesterday I received an email that I have been anticipating would arrive at any time. The Open Source Application Foundation, creators of the collaborative PIM Chandler, announced that Mitch Kapor, its primary financial benefactor, is resigning and will be withdrawing funding at the end of 2008. The OSAF staff will immediately be reduced from 27 people to 10, and Katie Capps Parlante, currently the head of engineering, will be leading the project, with the hope of raising money to continue after Kapor's funding ends.
Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and creator of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and former chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, started the Chandler project in 2001 with the hope of building an open source alternative to Outlook and Exchange. However six years later, Chandler has still has not reached 1.0 status. It does appear though that Kapor has been inactive, at least regarding product design and features for some time. In September 2007 they did release a 0.7 "preview" version of the product, though in my view, it is still not yet comfortably usable.
As someone who has spent many years developing PIM software, I have a passion for the category and have followed the Chandler project closely. I have been a member of the Chandler design mailing list for several years and have been rooting for them to succeed. But I recently came to the opinion that failure was inevitable.
From my perspective, Chandler was a rudderless ship. I tried to make suggestions which, though small, I felt could greatly reduce the complexity of the product. But their design process seemed to be insular and, honestly, broken. Even when I suggested they do some user testing, I was told by one engineer that he did not believe in the value of such testing.
The user interface design lead seemed intent on defending design decisions that it appeared few inside or outside the company agreed with, and that were in conflict with basic well understood user experience design theory. Worse yet, and quite amazingly, even as of yesterday on the mailing list, they are still debating who the target market for Chandler is.
Beyond poor design decisions and a seven year old and still incomplete development process, Chandler was hurt by a shift from desktop applications to web applications. Competitively, a slew of applications such as iCal, Google Calendar, and dozens of others also beat Chandler to the punch. And while Chandler does now have a web application companion called Cosmo, it is an entirely different code base from the desktop app, with a similar but different user interface all of which obviously ads substantially to the cost of maintenance and the complexity of the system.
The failure of Chandler is sad. But indeed after six years with no viable product or even strategy, it is finally time to die.
Yesterday I received an email that I have been anticipating would arrive at any time. The Open Source Application Foundation, creators of the collaborative PIM Chandler, announced that Mitch Kapor, its primary financial benefactor, is resigning and will be withdrawing funding at the end of 2008. The OSAF staff will immediately be reduced from 27 people to 10, and Katie Capps Parlante, currently the head of engineering, will be leading the project, with the hope of raising money to continue after Kapor's funding ends.
Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and creator of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and former chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, started the Chandler project in 2001 with the hope of building an open source alternative to Outlook and Exchange. However six years later, Chandler has still has not reached 1.0 status. It does appear though that Kapor has been inactive, at least regarding product design and features for some time. In September 2007 they did release a 0.7 "preview" version of the product, though in my view, it is still not yet comfortably usable.
As someone who has spent many years developing PIM software, I have a passion for the category and have followed the Chandler project closely. I have been a member of the Chandler design mailing list for several years and have been rooting for them to succeed. But I recently came to the opinion that failure was inevitable.
From my perspective, Chandler was a rudderless ship. I tried to make suggestions which, though small, I felt could greatly reduce the complexity of the product. But their design process seemed to be insular and, honestly, broken. Even when I suggested they do some user testing, I was told by one engineer that he did not believe in the value of such testing.
The user interface design lead seemed intent on defending design decisions that it appeared few inside or outside the company agreed with, and that were in conflict with basic well understood user experience design theory. Worse yet, and quite amazingly, even as of yesterday on the mailing list, they are still debating who the target market for Chandler is.
Beyond poor design decisions and a seven year old and still incomplete development process, Chandler was hurt by a shift from desktop applications to web applications. Competitively, a slew of applications such as iCal, Google Calendar, and dozens of others also beat Chandler to the punch. And while Chandler does now have a web application companion called Cosmo, it is an entirely different code base from the desktop app, with a similar but different user interface all of which obviously ads substantially to the cost of maintenance and the complexity of the system.
The failure of Chandler is sad. But indeed after six years with no viable product or even strategy, it is finally time to die.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Silicon Alley Insider says candidates not "Pro Big Business Enough." WTF?
Today on Sillicon Alley Insider, Jonathan Kennedy complains that the current crop of candidates are anti Wall Street, and anti big business.
My question is this. I thought this site was about "Silicon Alley", or at least the technology business. In what way are my interests at all tied to that crowd?
As a technology entrepreneur, I care deeply about the state of the economy, and I am not at all protectionist. But that doesn't mean I think that Wall Street or big business deserves a White House that is "pro" their interests since I do not see me (or us as a technology industry) as having interests that are particularly aligned.
In fact, the most recent excesses on Wall Street that have *horribly damaged* the economy. Like Paul Krugman, I actually *blame* the current mortgage crisis and therefore the state of our economy on Wall Street. Everyone in the food chain got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and now we are all paying. It feels to me like a little regulation, or at least transparency, would have been a very good thing.
To hell with Wall Street and big business.
My question is this. I thought this site was about "Silicon Alley", or at least the technology business. In what way are my interests at all tied to that crowd?
As a technology entrepreneur, I care deeply about the state of the economy, and I am not at all protectionist. But that doesn't mean I think that Wall Street or big business deserves a White House that is "pro" their interests since I do not see me (or us as a technology industry) as having interests that are particularly aligned.
In fact, the most recent excesses on Wall Street that have *horribly damaged* the economy. Like Paul Krugman, I actually *blame* the current mortgage crisis and therefore the state of our economy on Wall Street. Everyone in the food chain got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and now we are all paying. It feels to me like a little regulation, or at least transparency, would have been a very good thing.
To hell with Wall Street and big business.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
The psychology of user interface (part I - spatial visualization)
People often misunderstand what drives good user interface. Certainly graphics is very important in the visceral sense that something is "cool", but in terms of whether someone understand how to do what they want to do, it should be obvious there is a lot more to it than that.
There are a bunch of rules that are worth learning that can greatly improve your product. I am not going to talk about most of those here. There are good books and good websites that will be much more focused and detailed in their process of talking about user interface.
What I do want to talk a little about is the psychology of interface design, because, as I have said in a previous article, much has been lost in the last 10 years in terms of “interface intelligence” that I feel may be recoverable now that the web software tools are improving.
First, I want to start with a concept called spatial visualization. Spatial visualization is the ability of an individual to “see” things in their mind that do not exist in an easily “minds eye visible” form. This could be anything from being able to clearly imagine how an object might look if you manipulated it a certain way to just being able to hold a complex math word problem in your head.
Spatial visualization is one of several components that make up intelligence. But there are many very intelligent people that do not have very good spatial visualization skills. If you think of where people are in terms of spatial visualization skills, as with most distributed data sets it is probably a bell curve. I haven’t done any research on this but I think we can stipulate that it is probably so.
Good interface design is in large part the development of an interface that does not aggressively engage the part of the brain engaged in spatial visualization.
You might argue that what I am saying here is that good interface design is designed to make things easy for dummies. And while this might be true in some simplistic way it really is not the essence of the issue. It is true that more people with more limited spatial visualization skills will be able to use your software if its demands in this area are more limited. But even people with advanced spatial visualization skills are slowed down by the need to visualize the framework of the system instead of the underlying information, which limits their ability to focus on the actual problem the software is designed to solve.
Ok, so how do you make software that requires limited spatial visualization? One answer is a concept called direct manipulation, is covered in part II of this series.
There are a bunch of rules that are worth learning that can greatly improve your product. I am not going to talk about most of those here. There are good books and good websites that will be much more focused and detailed in their process of talking about user interface.
What I do want to talk a little about is the psychology of interface design, because, as I have said in a previous article, much has been lost in the last 10 years in terms of “interface intelligence” that I feel may be recoverable now that the web software tools are improving.
First, I want to start with a concept called spatial visualization. Spatial visualization is the ability of an individual to “see” things in their mind that do not exist in an easily “minds eye visible” form. This could be anything from being able to clearly imagine how an object might look if you manipulated it a certain way to just being able to hold a complex math word problem in your head.
Spatial visualization is one of several components that make up intelligence. But there are many very intelligent people that do not have very good spatial visualization skills. If you think of where people are in terms of spatial visualization skills, as with most distributed data sets it is probably a bell curve. I haven’t done any research on this but I think we can stipulate that it is probably so.
Good interface design is in large part the development of an interface that does not aggressively engage the part of the brain engaged in spatial visualization.
You might argue that what I am saying here is that good interface design is designed to make things easy for dummies. And while this might be true in some simplistic way it really is not the essence of the issue. It is true that more people with more limited spatial visualization skills will be able to use your software if its demands in this area are more limited. But even people with advanced spatial visualization skills are slowed down by the need to visualize the framework of the system instead of the underlying information, which limits their ability to focus on the actual problem the software is designed to solve.
Ok, so how do you make software that requires limited spatial visualization? One answer is a concept called direct manipulation, is covered in part II of this series.
The power of the abstraction
When talking about technology, I often talk about the importance of abstractions, and it recently came to my attention that many people may not understand what I am talking about.
One of the things that makes our "world of technology" work is the concept of the abstraction. An abstraction is where you take some really complicated thing and represent it in a way that simplifies your interaction with that thing and makes it more easily understandable.
Abstractions are building blocks that, once we build them into our world view, are almost impossible to remove.
This concept applies to software and user interfaces, but it is perhaps more important in computer hardware and software architecture.
For example, think about the history over the last 40 years of the semiconductor. When I was in school, we were all issued something called the TTL Data Book. This book, from Texas Instruments, contained a catalog of all of the basic building block chips available at the time. At that time, these chips might have four "and" gates or "or" gates on it. The chips were *really* simple. To put it in context, one of those chips might have had a few dozen transistors on it. Using a breadboard and a soldering iron or a wire wrap tool, we made prototypes using these really simple chips. There was *a lot* of detail work.
Today, chips have millions of transistors on them and (though I don't know) I doubt anyone is issued a TTL Data Book any more. Instead, what kids get today are tools to work in a language called VHDL. VHDL allows you to design a chip with hundreds of thousands or millions of transistors on it by, in essence, writing software! You then can burn the result of that design onto an FPGA from someone like Altera, which by the way you can test for the most part, without physically building *anything*.
This is an abstraction. And an incredible one at that. All the logic is the same, but the tool has hidden a layer of ugliness, actually several layers of ugliness. We no longer have to think about what happens inside the abstraction. Similarly, compiled languages like Pascal and C were great abstractions on top of assembly language. Java is a great abstraction on top of C, and so on.
What is really interesting when you think about all of this is that if some layer of any of these abstractions were to just go away, it would be *exceedingly* hard to replace it. This is because we begin to forget how to operate without the abstraction. And recreating the underlying building blocks from scratch wouldn't be that much easier than it was to create the first time.
This is why, in software design, the idea of refactoring has become such a useful concept. The opposite of refactoring code is the idea of just rewriting the whole program better. But the truth is that the actual process of writing code captures so many nuances that are hard to reproduce from scratch, even if you have the old code right in front of you. So you really want to avoid rewriting large chunks of code, and instead, to refactor it as you go along, modifying little pieces as you go to make it better.
My point here is that we have come to understand that engineering is not really a process of one big insight or achievement as much as it is lots of very little achievements (grunts) strung together. In an entirely different realm, if we destroyed the entire country's interstate highway system, the fact that we understand how to build roads would not mean that we could quickly replace it. We'd still have to redo all the grunt work. Slowly. No matter what type of engineering you are talking about, redoing it is painful.
And so, abstractions package and hide the grunt work so we can reuse it forever, without ever having to think about that old forsaken layer of ugliness.
And this is a beautiful thing. We just keep building new abstractions on top of the old ones. My current work involves what we hope will be accepted as a powerful and entirely new abstraction for creating web applications. We want to provide a new level of grunt work encapsulation, and to make another leap in the simplification of writing web-based code.
One of the things that makes our "world of technology" work is the concept of the abstraction. An abstraction is where you take some really complicated thing and represent it in a way that simplifies your interaction with that thing and makes it more easily understandable.
Abstractions are building blocks that, once we build them into our world view, are almost impossible to remove.
This concept applies to software and user interfaces, but it is perhaps more important in computer hardware and software architecture.
For example, think about the history over the last 40 years of the semiconductor. When I was in school, we were all issued something called the TTL Data Book. This book, from Texas Instruments, contained a catalog of all of the basic building block chips available at the time. At that time, these chips might have four "and" gates or "or" gates on it. The chips were *really* simple. To put it in context, one of those chips might have had a few dozen transistors on it. Using a breadboard and a soldering iron or a wire wrap tool, we made prototypes using these really simple chips. There was *a lot* of detail work.
Today, chips have millions of transistors on them and (though I don't know) I doubt anyone is issued a TTL Data Book any more. Instead, what kids get today are tools to work in a language called VHDL. VHDL allows you to design a chip with hundreds of thousands or millions of transistors on it by, in essence, writing software! You then can burn the result of that design onto an FPGA from someone like Altera, which by the way you can test for the most part, without physically building *anything*.
This is an abstraction. And an incredible one at that. All the logic is the same, but the tool has hidden a layer of ugliness, actually several layers of ugliness. We no longer have to think about what happens inside the abstraction. Similarly, compiled languages like Pascal and C were great abstractions on top of assembly language. Java is a great abstraction on top of C, and so on.
What is really interesting when you think about all of this is that if some layer of any of these abstractions were to just go away, it would be *exceedingly* hard to replace it. This is because we begin to forget how to operate without the abstraction. And recreating the underlying building blocks from scratch wouldn't be that much easier than it was to create the first time.
This is why, in software design, the idea of refactoring has become such a useful concept. The opposite of refactoring code is the idea of just rewriting the whole program better. But the truth is that the actual process of writing code captures so many nuances that are hard to reproduce from scratch, even if you have the old code right in front of you. So you really want to avoid rewriting large chunks of code, and instead, to refactor it as you go along, modifying little pieces as you go to make it better.
My point here is that we have come to understand that engineering is not really a process of one big insight or achievement as much as it is lots of very little achievements (grunts) strung together. In an entirely different realm, if we destroyed the entire country's interstate highway system, the fact that we understand how to build roads would not mean that we could quickly replace it. We'd still have to redo all the grunt work. Slowly. No matter what type of engineering you are talking about, redoing it is painful.
And so, abstractions package and hide the grunt work so we can reuse it forever, without ever having to think about that old forsaken layer of ugliness.
And this is a beautiful thing. We just keep building new abstractions on top of the old ones. My current work involves what we hope will be accepted as a powerful and entirely new abstraction for creating web applications. We want to provide a new level of grunt work encapsulation, and to make another leap in the simplification of writing web-based code.
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