Richard › Comments

good discussion about "second screen" - Richard

Jim, Dan, Well the iPhone may be used for these purposes too, but as a larger device the iPad has more utility. The iPhone is a bit too pokey to be used as the connector device envisaged, whereas a laptop is a bit too bulky. The iPad is in-between and so it may be just right. And re "Does the author really think that people going to the fridge are going to lug a large tablet when they need both hands free?" -> er, no. As I wrote in the scenario, the iPad would be placed on the kitchen bench or somewhere. Before (anonymously) accusing the post of being "thoughtless," why not read the words first. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Jim, Dan, Well the iPhone may be used for these purposes too, but as a larger device the iPad has more utility. The iPhone is a bit too pokey to be used as the connector device envisaged, whereas a laptop is a bit too bulky. The iPad is in-between and so it may be just right. And re "Does the author really think that people going to the fridge are going to lug a large tablet when they need both hands free?" -> er, no. As I wrote in the scenario, the iPad would be placed on the kitchen bench or somewhere. Before (anonymously) accusing the post of being "thoughtless," why not read the words first. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

"Chinese Internet of things still stays in the concept introduction stage while the market development is limited in its branches such as RFID, sensor and MEMS, etc. There is a long way to go to realize the collaborative cooperation of these technologies to form a gigantic Internet of things. Chinese Internet of things industry will only enter the high-speed development stage after 3-5 years. " - Richard

Michael, to your point (comment #6): "Google constantly weights it’s search algorithms to demerit crap sites." It does, but note that I've never claimed that Demand Media is spam or garbage content. It's always above board and usually 'good enough' from quality perspective. So to be fair, Google has no real reason to penalize it. My point is more that there are other, much better sources of content for most of the topics DM covers - and the danger is that those are getting harder and harder to discover due to the sheer quantity of content DM and others pump out. This has always been an issue, ever since blogs started to compete with each other on quantity. But now it's *much* more of a problem, due to the scale DM and its ilk operate at. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Michael, to your point (comment #6): "Google constantly weights it’s search algorithms to demerit crap sites." It does, but note that I've never claimed that Demand Media is spam or garbage content. It's always above board and usually 'good enough' from quality perspective. So to be fair, Google has no real reason to penalize it. My point is more that there are other, much better sources of content for most of the topics DM covers - and the danger is that those are getting harder and harder to discover due to the sheer quantity of content DM and others pump out. This has always been an issue, ever since blogs started to compete with each other on quantity. But now it's *much* more of a problem, due to the scale DM and its ilk operate at. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Chris, thanks for your kind words, much appreciated! - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Chris, thanks for your kind words, much appreciated! - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Jo, believe me nobody is more frustrated than I that some of the best consumer apps are US-only (I'm based in NZ, but the rest of the RWW team is in US). I am lucky enough to have a Google Voice a/c, although my usage is restricted by not being in the US. Hulu I'd love to get, although frankly NZ's broadband wouldn't cope anyway. When it comes down to it though, these apps are good enough to make the list despite their limited accessibility. We can only hope they go international soon... - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Jo, believe me nobody is more frustrated than I that some of the best consumer apps are US-only (I'm based in NZ, but the rest of the RWW team is in US). I am lucky enough to have a Google Voice a/c, although my usage is restricted by not being in the US. Hulu I'd love to get, although frankly NZ's broadband wouldn't cope anyway. When it comes down to it though, these apps are good enough to make the list despite their limited accessibility. We can only hope they go international soon... - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Dan that's a good question! We have a US dollar a/c in NZ and use the SWIFT international banking system. The latter has been an ongoing pain point, simply because of inconsistent user experience. e.g. some banks (or bank staff) know what it is and how to process things, others don't. Also there are intermediary banks that take a cut for no good reason. The fees are relatively high. Overall though, it works and we can pay people in US dollars from NZ. Companie can pay us the same way or via checks. We also use Paypal at times, although personally I find their fees to be extortionalty high. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Paypal's fees are based on convenience and likelihood of regular usage. They spend a lot maintaining their ease of use and basically forked over their first born to do what they do. It's not extortion at all - you pay for convenience. Look at a bottle of coke in a vending machine vs. a 2 liter in the grocery store. Convenience costs more. - mjc from iPhone

Dan that's a good question! We have a US dollar a/c in NZ and use the SWIFT international banking system. The latter has been an ongoing pain point, simply because of inconsistent user experience. e.g. some banks (or bank staff) know what it is and how to process things, others don't. Also there are intermediary banks that take a cut for no good reason. The fees are relatively high. Overall though, it works and we can pay people in US dollars from NZ. Companie can pay us the same way or via checks. We also use Paypal at times, although personally I find their fees to be extortionalty high. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Bryce, I agree that's an issue. Nevertheless, in terms of their popularity, traffic and brand name - I think they're right up there with some newspapers as a news source. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Muhammad, do you think Digg complies with those 4 points in the book? 1. Diversity of opinion [ummmm] 2. Independence [hmmmm] 3. Decentralization [maybe] 4. Aggregation [check, except it aggregates just a handful of sites, like Ars Technica and a few other ones popular with digg's power users] - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Great points Muhammad. That would indeed be interesting, if Digg hid the submitter name! - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Great points Muhammad. That would indeed be interesting, if Digg hid the submitter name! - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Muhammad, do you think Digg complies with those 4 points in the book? 1. Diversity of opinion [ummmm] 2. Independence [hmmmm] 3. Decentralization [maybe] 4. Aggregation [check, except it aggregates just a handful of sites, like Ars Technica and a few other ones popular with digg's power users] - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Greg re "why this has not been covered by any of the major IT news outlets, whereas they have spoken to length about the ascension of the company." I think that's simply because they dropped off everybody's radar for a while, however a site like RWW picks up a lot of news from other blogs - hence I found out about it via you. Happens a lot in the tech blog world anyway. Re the stats, my reading is that Compete stats dropped 85% odd due to Google indexing issue. So I *think* what Twine is saying is that they dropped 20-25% in actual PV (which they monitor) but they're attributing the rest to Google issues. I haven't seen Twine's official stats, but I'm not sure I really need to. The bottom line is that they're struggling even with 20-25% dip, so version 2 is 'put up or shut up' in product market terms. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Greg re "why this has not been covered by any of the major IT news outlets, whereas they have spoken to length about the ascension of the company." I think that's simply because they dropped off everybody's radar for a while, however a site like RWW picks up a lot of news from other blogs - hence I found out about it via you. Happens a lot in the tech blog world anyway. Re the stats, my reading is that Compete stats dropped 85% odd due to Google indexing issue. So I *think* what Twine is saying is that they dropped 20-25% in actual PV (which they monitor) but they're attributing the rest to Google issues. I haven't seen Twine's official stats, but I'm not sure I really need to. The bottom line is that they're struggling even with 20-25% dip, so version 2 is 'put up or shut up' in product market terms. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Great post Sarah and I agree that mobile apps are an innovative re-working of the LP format. However we shouldn't forget that an album is an artistic package too and so for that reason I'd hate to see the concept of an album of songs disappear. I generally like what Apple is trying to do to keep the album format going, but needs more lateral thinking too - ref what you've written about apps. Excellent stuff. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Great post Sarah and I agree that mobile apps are an innovative re-working of the LP format. However we shouldn't forget that an album is an artistic package too and so for that reason I'd hate to see the concept of an album of songs disappear. I generally like what Apple is trying to do to keep the album format going, but needs more lateral thinking too - ref what you've written about apps. Excellent stuff. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

anon said: "The web has always been real-time, or as close to it as technology would allow." I disagree. With products like Twitter and Friendfeed, we've seen a new class of content producing and aggregation products - and they produce more, smaller and *faster* bits of content than previously. Plus look at the changes Google and Facebook, for example, have gone through this year - which I illustrated in this post. As for Google Wave, that hasn't been released yet. Pete good point re Twitscoop. Would love to know of more products like that, that make use of real-time web data. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

anon said: "The web has always been real-time, or as close to it as technology would allow." I disagree. With products like Twitter and Friendfeed, we've seen a new class of content producing and aggregation products - and they produce more, smaller and *faster* bits of content than previously. Plus look at the changes Google and Facebook, for example, have gone through this year - which I illustrated in this post. As for Google Wave, that hasn't been released yet. Pete good point re Twitscoop. Would love to know of more products like that, that make use of real-time web data. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Ah yes it was probably web clips. However, note that this was placed at the bottom of the email thread, not the top. This help page states that web clips (including sponsored links) should only display at the top of the page: http://mail.google.com/support... "Web Clips show you news headlines, blog posts, RSS and Atom feeds, and relevant sponsored links, right at the top of your inbox." Unfortunately I didn't take a screenshot showing messages above. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Ah yes it was probably web clips. However, note that this was placed at the bottom of the email thread, not the top. This help page states that web clips (including sponsored links) should only display at the top of the page: http://mail.google.com/support... "Web Clips show you news headlines, blog posts, RSS and Atom feeds, and relevant sponsored links, right at the top of your inbox." Unfortunately I didn't take a screenshot showing messages above. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

doing interesting RFID things - Richard

Thanks for all the comments, many noting that cards can be purchased anonymously. I did note that in my post, but perhaps didn't give it enough emphasis. But even if they're anonymous, I assume they have a unique identifier in the RFID chip? That would track your usage habits, and that data alone is worth something to companies and organizations. Interested to hear more thoughts on the privacy issue though... - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Thanks for all the comments, many noting that cards can be purchased anonymously. I did note that in my post, but perhaps didn't give it enough emphasis. But even if they're anonymous, I assume they have a unique identifier in the RFID chip? That would track your usage habits, and that data alone is worth something to companies and organizations. Interested to hear more thoughts on the privacy issue though... - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Tom, Octopus is next on my list :-) - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Tom, Octopus is next on my list :-) - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Andy thanks for that info, I've added that to the post. Michael, Paul, thanks for commenting - I will follow up on those recommendations. - Richard from FriendFeed MT Plugin