An interesting new experiment by Microsoft, Ms. Dewey, offers a truly original search interface. Using heavy Flash design, a fully animated, photo-realistic librarian responds to your typed search requests. What gives the site even more of an edge is that the librarian is a sexy young woman in an outfit that is both alluring and business-like, and that she responds to requests with pre-programmed sarcastic comments related to the search terms. (Try some terms at the sexier end of the spectrum…) Even while you are idle, Ms. Dewey remains animated… sighing at you, rapping on the screen to get your attention, pacing around on her cell phone…
Oct 282006
Oct 282006
Despite the mind-numbing frequency of political ads in our TV market, Apple is still establishing a lot of views for its amusing series of commercials featuring the Mac Guy and PC Guy. Naturally, the Mac guy is cool, laid back, and clever, while the PC Guy is a stiff, bumbling, nerdy doofus. These are some of the more entertaining ads on TV, and a welcome relief from moveon.org attack ads and the like. Even if you disagree with the basic premise of this Apple ad series, you can’t help but be amused. After my recent post about iPod style being the key ingredient in the success of that device, I began to wonder if Apple was targeting Microsoft’s impending Zune device and music service, at least for collateral damage.
Oct 242006
ZDNet blogger David Berlind made an interesting post, iPods vs. everything else: An audio quality arms race? More like a fashion arms race, about why the iPod has succeeded and why everyone else in the market is an also-ran. He thinks Sony’s attempt to gain market share from iPod by offering better audio quality is doomed from the start. Sony’s newest music players incorporate noise cancelling technology to deliver better sound. Berlind has no problem with that, but doesn’t think it will dent Apple’s share because most users either can’t tell the difference or the perceived difference isn’t big enough to matter. Unfortunately, he’s probably right.
Oct 212006
A few years ago, Krispy Kreme went public and began moving into northern markets. Then, they nearly imploded with an accounting scandal involving padded sales and a near-default on corporate debt. Now, according to It’s North vs. South in doughnut civil war, Dunkin’ Donuts is counterattacking by moving aggressively into the South. Dunkin’ Donuts has more outlets, as well as a broader product line.
Oct 202006
Just in time for Halloween! Amidst all of the gushing in the press over Web 2.0, a dark side is emerging. One issue that may not be too startling is that while having users add content to sites is indeed wonderful, it also lets users add stuff that site owners don’t want – spam links, slanderous statements, false reviews, phony identities, etc. Discussion forum operators have had to cope with these issues for years, but I’m sure a few starry-eyed Web 2.0 fans will be shocked when they find that some portion of their visitors aren’t there to improve the site and benefit humanity. A related threat is that of security issues, as described in Web 2.0 Security Scares, a blog post by Richard MacManus: Continue reading »
Oct 192006
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting article by Julia Angwin, “Boston Globe Doesn’t Deliver For the Times.” It’s a cute title, but the content of the article may be a harbinger of what awaits traditional media: loss of revenue to Web-based media. The article notes that the Boston Globe will show its first loss in recent years, and much of the problem is attributed to advertising business fleeing to the Internet. Free Web classified ads, for example, cut into lucrative newspaper classifieds. Boston is believed to be on the leading edge of this shift due to its high level of broadband Internet connectivity: 76%, third highest in the nation after Honolulu and San Diego.
Oct 182006
A couple of days ago, and odd announcement hit the Web: Reuters, the big news agency, has opened a “virtual news bureau” in the online community, Second Life. We scanned a few versions of the story from MSNBC, Editor and Publisher, and Reuters itself, and we’re still trying to figure out whether this is mostly the PR move du jour or whether there’s actual substance in it. In case you aren’t familiar with Second Life, this description is from the Reuters story: Continue reading »
Oct 172006
One of the more bizarre concepts to come down the Web 2.0 highway is PayPerPost.com, which links up advertisers and bloggers. Bloggers can earn money when they post about a product that an advertiser is paying to plug. The concept is interesting, but the execution and ethics are in major deficit mode. Advertisers can require that comments be positive for the blogger to get paid, and PayPerPost apparently encourages bloggers NOT to disclose that their post is sponsored. The firm recently garnered $3 million in funding, which apparently indicates that venture capitalists have no expectations of integrity by bloggers and few scruples of their own.
Oct 122006
Shortly after we reported that Web productivity suites aren’t ready for prime time, Google has upped the ante a bit by integrating their word processor and spreadsheet programs into the awkwardly-named Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Computerworld reports in Google gives Writely and Spreadsheets a common platform, Continue reading »
Oct 112006
I’ve been travelling for a few weeks, and have been catching up on stuff I missed while I was gone. One interesting article from last week was a detailed experiment by Infoworld writer Oliver Rist, Can Web-based applications outwit, outplay, outlast the desktop? Rist’s challenge was to operate for an entire week without using any desktop applications – he’d have to use only web-based apps accessible via a browser. This sounds fairly simple – Google, Zoho, and others have been developing Web apps, and many pundits believe this model of computing will spell doom for traditional desktop applications. Certainly, a few Web apps have prospered in the face of desktop competition, notably Salesforce.com. This CRM application has done very well against high end competitors like Siebel as well as lower end software like ACT!, not to mention Microsoft’s continued attempts in the area. But are we ready to forsake our desktop apps, notably Microsoft Office? Rist’s story provides some of the answers.