Endopolis

Last night I had a bit of a disturbing epiphany of sorts -- if such a thing exists -- surrounding my use of social media.

I went to the 10th anniversary/reunion party for TechTV, in San Francisco at CNET's HQ. TechTV has been defunct for about four years (it's now part of Comcast as G4TV). I left for Yahoo News in 2004, right after the acquisition with Comcast was announced. And from time to time, I've seen ex-TechTVers around town, at conferences and mixers, on TV, on their own web shows, etc. 

But I also see a lot of them on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, etc. So last night when I walked into the party and saw quite a few faces I hadn't seen in a few years, despite not having seen them in a few years, I knew exactly what they had been up to.

Sure, there were some blanks to fill in, but for those I've kept in touch with via social networking, there were few surprises. There were others I hadn't seen or heard from in a while, all the conversation was good and the party was fun. But the "catching up" part of any normal conversation you'd have after not having seen a person for a few years had already been done online. I knew where people worked, where they lived, how many kids (or dogs and cats) they've had, and where they've been on vacation.

Anyway, it was all a bit weird. The same has happened with colleagues I work with in Santa Monica, but there's always plenty of work conversation to fill any void. Still, as I drove home last night I wondered if we'll come to a point in time where people won't get together anymore -- they'll just hang out at home and tweet to each other. I guess we're already doing just that.

Posted by senders at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've always loved Portland - the city is amazingly great and getting better all the time. While we were there, the weather went from 55 and rainy to 95 and sunny in the span of two days. That was during the west coast spring heatwave that cooked everyone from Seattle to San Diego. Either way, the sun was out and, it seemed, so were all the people.

In Portland, we lounged around for a lazy lunch at Laurelwood brewery, wandered up and down 23rd Ave., then went into the Pearl District for afternoon cocktails and dinner with a friend. People were everywhere in both neighborhoods, just hanging around. Restaurants had opened their doors and windows, and tables, chairs and patrons were spilling onto the sidewalks. Everyone looked relaxed and not bothered about anything. The next day, we went back into town for a short hike into Forest Park. Joggers and hikers were all over the place.

Coming from Silicon Valley, the land of go-go-go and work-work-work, when the weather is nice people don't flock outside. But as we wandered around Portland, we wondered: What do people do here? On 23rd, it's always full of loitering hipsters. In SiliValley, the only place the hipsters (or anyone else, for that matter) seem to be is in their cubicles. Perhaps it's cultural, or perhaps it's the weather itself -- it's almost always nice in the bay area. If everyone went outside when it was warm then nobody would get anything done, and that wouldn't be very Silicon Valley, would it? Honestly, I'm not sure which is better.

Posted by senders at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't have too many readers here, and I don't get too many legitimate comments either. However, I've been getting deluged with comment spam, so I'm trying to do something about it. I've installed the TypeKey authentication service here, so you have to sign in if you want to post anything. Registering with TypeKey is easy and free but isn't ideal. Until I can figure out a way to install a better system, this is what we're left with. Sorry about that -- I hope it won't drive anyone away and I'll try to make this easier. You can also leave comments for me on MyBlogLog.

Signed,

The Management 

Posted by senders at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been trying to find a reason to use the new music download service offered by Amazon.com, and this weekend I finally had an excuse. I wanted to download a handful of random dub reggae tracks from a new album, then remix and mash them up on my Mac for a friend using Garage Band. You can't do this using AAC encoded tracks when they're bought from iTunes.

So when Amazon's service was announced last week, I thought it sounded interesting yet somewhat odd. You have to download and install a special client (Mac and PC versions are supported), and then you can surf the site, pick the songs you want, and get DRM-free MP3s that work on just about any devices and music players, including iPods and iTunes.

Sounds great, until you use it. I have both mainstream and eclectic tastes in music, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the somewhat obscure tracks I was looking for amongst its 2 million song catalogue. On the other hand, I couldn't find some more common mainstream reggae I wanted. ITunes had both.

But the problem with Amazon's new service wasn't the availability of various songs, it was in the purchase flow itself.  Even if I had wanted to download an entire album, there wasn't a single button to click that would initiate the purchase. I would have had to select "Buy Track" on each and every song. What's worse, is that I couldn't find a way to select multiple tracks to buy in one click, either. Instead, Amazon seems to force users to select single tracks and purchase them individually, going through the full credit card validation routine with each song you want to buy.

In short, you have to click through multiple screens in order to buy a single track. If you want more than one track, this gets really annoying. I wanted a few tracks of an album, and so I found myself going back to iTunes for convenience, and easily getting the songs I wanted. Maybe I missed something, but the Amazon service was a pain in the ass.

Also, I'm not sure why I needed to install and use the download application that Amazon forces you to use. If the tracks are MP3s, why can't you just click on the song link from the website and save-as?

To Amazon's credit, the service is the most robust download mechanism online that I've seen for MP3s. The service is advertised as in beta. I hope it improves, because I'm only tied to iTunes because it's my music management service. I have no real ties to the music store itself. If Amazon can make it easier to simply buy the tracks  you want, then I wonder why it won't gain broad appeal. On the other hand, if Amazon can offer 2 million songs as MP3s, why can't iTunes. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Apple ups the ante.

 

Posted by senders at 08:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Jo and I found ourselves in Palo Alto on Saturday evening for dinner. Naturally, we had to stroll down the street to check out the Apple store, to see if there was any leftover pandemonium from Friday, when the iPhone went on sale. I was really beginning to hate the hype over this thing. As Walt Mossberg said, it's been unlike any event ever surrounding consumer electronics. Ridiculous.

Still, I had to see it. I wasn't expecting to actually play with it. 

The store was heaving, easily 100 people inside. The store itself has been totally rearranged from the last time I was at this particular location (granted, it's been a while).  But, a whole table just to the right of the door was set up for people to oogle the iPhone. Another shelf behind the checkout counter had another three or four units on it.

I spent a couple of minutes chatting with the Apple employee manning the front door who said, amazingly, that the opening event was less chaotic than they thought it'd be. I guess they were ready for riots, and people were generally well-behaved. That's so Silicon Valley. How boring!

After a few minutes, we wandered behind the counter to take a look. A kid was using one, playing with Google Maps. The interface looked really slick, the way you can zoom in and out using your fingers to pinch and pull the screen. Someone next to him stopped playing with a phone, so I was able to step right up and take it for a spin.

In short, the phone is unreal and to call it a "phone" isn't even quite right. It's unlike anything I've ever seen or any gadget I've ever touched. The touchscreen is incredible. The software's UI is unbelievable. It's smooth, and not overly sensitive to the touch. It does what you want it to do. The phone itself feels very solid and well-built. The form factor is really nice - it's small enough not to be a brick. The touchscreen was not really intuitive, though I could imagine getting it down after just a couple of days. Surfing the web was a little difficult because of the touch commands. I was really impressed with changing the aspect ratio of the screen, by turning the phone horizontal or vertical. The iPod functionality was really great, and scrolling through a music list was also... fun.

I only had a few minutes with the iPhone, but I nearly walked out of the store with one. I'll wait -- a 3G version will no doubt be coming, and surely Apple will be making other modifications. Hopefully the price will come down a bit. I'm sure there will be a few first-gen bugs.

I overheard someone at the store say: "you can make a call with it!" So, I did, dialing my parents who live near Portland, Ore. Surely the call plan doesn't discriminate between local and long distance on weekends, right?

Anyway, I was surprised that the call went through and my dad picked up on the other end.

"Dad, I'm calling on an iPhone."

"Nooooo!"

"Yeah, it's pretty cool. Don't worry, I didn't buy one."

"Wow!"

"Anyway, you sound really good." I truly was impressed -- the store was loud and I could hear dad crystal clear.

"You sound terrible!" he said. "Turn down the treble!"

"Alright, well I'll tell the employee standing next to me to do something about that. Although, I don't think it's Apple's fault. The phone is perfect, after all"

"Yes, definitely blame AT&T."

 

Posted by senders at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)