random thoughts

Trying out the Yahoo! Media Player

I really haven't use this blog to write about music, but with this I might have to start doing it more often.

Just testing it out here with a good song from The Doves....

There Goes the Fear

Note: it only supports .mp3 files. This can be a bit annoying if you are like me and have lots of music in different formats. Hopefully they work through this in the near future.

If Hillary is Rocky, is Obama a Jedi Knight?

Regardless of who you support in the presidential election, you got to appreciate this video for its impressive production value.

Okay, okay. I guess if you support Hillary, then you probably aren't appreciating the production value that much ;-)

Karl Rove: right-wing conservative or political junkie?

I've never been a fan of Karl Rove. He's been rumored to be a part of many a nefarious act (see Plame affair, US attorney dismissals, and the Siegelman conviction) and he also once called GW "one of the most intellectually gifted presidents we've had."

So when I saw earlier this week that he had written a public letter to Barack Obama I was immediately dubious about his intentions. I figured he was going to roast Obama for his "liberal" views and politics. But to my surprise, instead I found a very insightful analysis on what has gone wrong in Obama's campaign and how he can fix it.

First, he described in detail what has gone wrong:

Saying small-town voters cling to guns, faith and xenophobia because of economic bitterness hurt you; it reinforced the growing sense you don't share Middle America's values. So did asking about the price of arugula in Iowa, dismissing the "true" patriotism of people who wear a flag lapel pin, being "friendly" (as your chief strategist, David Axelrod, put it) with a violent, unrepentant '60s radical and having a close relationship with an angry pastor who expressed anti-American sentiments.

You argue the son of a single working mom can't be an elitist. But it's not where you start in life; it's where you end up. After a prestigious prep school, Columbia and Harvard, you've ended up with the values of Cambridge, San Francisco and Hyde Park. So you're doing badly in Scranton, Youngstown and Erie, where ordinary Americans live.

As for fixing it, I agreed with all of his recommendations.

When explaining your position on Rev. Wright, explain your position and then stay consistent. Focus on "doing" and making things happen in the Senate even while you are campaigning. Stop attacking Hillary. It is unnecessary and you do better when staying above the fray.

He sums it all up quite well:

You have talent, intelligence and tapped into something powerful early in your campaign. But running for president is unlike anything you've ever done. You're making mistakes and making people worry that you're an elitist. So while you'll almost certainly win the nomination, Democrats are nervous about the fall. You've given them reasons to be.

Wow, I never thought I'd be agreeing with Karl Rove, but his take actually makes sense to me. Perhaps Karl is not as right-wing as he's led me to believe. Maybe he's just a political junkie that is always trying to figure the best way to win, regardless of whether he is helping a Republican or a Democrat.

Twitter: just a dumb pipe?

So I've been experimenting with Twitter a bit more over the last month - not a obscene amount like a number of tech geeks out there (I've posted only 7 times since Mar. 30), but definitely a ramp in usage for me (during the 10 months prior I posted only 4 times).

In any event, my experimentation has lead me to come to two conclusions:

Observation #1:

People are no longer using Twitter just for broadcasting "what they are doing" despite what Twitter's home page says. To prove my hypothesis I looked at the most recent 20 "tweets" from the people that I follow (this is what the home page displays by default) and classified them into the three primary use buckets that I've observed: (1) status message (i.e., the original use case for Twitter), (2) 1-to-1 messages, and (3) random thought/linkblog/microblog (i.e., everything else that is not a 1-1 message or a "what you are doing" status update). The end result was:
- 40% status messages
- 10% 1-to-1 messages
- 50% random thought/linkblog/microblog

Obviously this is a small sample set, and one that is heavily skewed to the heavy Twitter users that I follow. Nonetheless, it gives some sense for how people are using it. Interestingly, if I look at the last 20 tweets from everyone (not just the people I follow):
- 60% are unknown (i.e., I don't know because they are not in English)
- 5% are status messages
- 5% are 1-to-1 messages
- 30% are random thought/linkblog/microblog

What does this all mean? It means that Twitter is evolving from a single type of communication into a mode of communication. If you are Twitter, this is all very good news. Their addressable market is expanding.

Observation #2:

Twitter is becoming a dumb pipe. Both on the authoring and receiving ends, it seems that many people are using end points other than Twitter.com (see here and here and here). Once again looking at the last 20 tweets from my friends, I see the following distribution of "authoring" end points:
- 35% twitter.com
- 30% twhirl
- 20% blog it (facebook app)
- 10% text/mobile
- 5% twinkle

Of course, using a limited sample data set from my friends only is even more problematic in this context as compared to the "message type" context described in observation #1. In this context, there are many more end point options than message types, and as such you need a much larger data set to make meaningful conclusions about which are most used. That being said, the last 20 tweets from everyone (not just my friends) indicated a similar pattern (i.e., only 45% of tweets were made via the web on Twitter.com). So while I'm very likely way off on the popularity of the various third party applications vs. each other, I'm probably not that far off on the popularity of Twitter.com vs. all of the third party applications combined.

And what does this mean? Not good for Twitter. Over time I will not be surprised to see some of the end points generate more value than Twitter the company. The end point is where users interact with the service. That is where companies can serve ads, bundle toolbars, include search boxes, etc. There is no doubt that opening up the network to third party developers was a huge driver of growth for Twitter the network. But if Twitter doesn't invest in their own front end applications they might find it very difficult to ever generate significant value for themselves in the future.

Jon Postel may have been the driving force behind the SMTP standard, but he never achieved the same commercial success of Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, or even Gmail. Developing a standard can generate lots of value for users and developers across the Internet, but it's not necessarily a good recipe for commercial success.

Friday Night Lights: if you aren't watching, it's time to start

Slate just came out with a post calling Friday Night Lights the best show on television and I could not agree any more. For a long time now I've been telling pretty much anyone that would listen that this the case. The writing, the acting, the storylines, the complexity...unlike most of the rest of television (see Deal or No Deal) these elements are both intelligent and entertaining on FNL.

I wrote about it once already here after buying the first season DVD. At that time I didn't know if it would live up to my high expectations, but I can now definitively confirm that it did indeed (and then some).

If you don't want to buy the DVD, no worries. You can catch full episodes from both season 1 and 2 on Hulu for free.

And the best news of all? The Dillon Panthers will be coming back for a third season. Please watch it so I can be saying the same thing again a year from now about season 4.

Waiting for the 3G iPhone

I got my first taste of 3G mobile browsing over a year ago when I bought the RAZR v3xx and I absolutely loved it. Combining 3G with an unlimited data plan ($20 per month on AT&T) changes your life. Pages load in a snap, and all of a sudden using a WAP browser is actually enjoyable - so enjoyable that I found myself going to WAP sites (e.g., Yahoo! Mail) even when java client versions of the product existed (e.g., Yahoo! Go). The ESPN WAP site is also particularly good if you are constantly checking sports scores like me.

Anyways, my phone died over a month ago and ever since I've been falling back on an old RAZR v3 that was collecting dust. In a few words, it's been brutal. It's so f'ing slow, which basically makes it unusable. Luckily I also have a corporate Blackberry I can use to connect to the web when on the go, but I don't bring this phone with me all the time. This means that there are now lots of times that I have no access to the internet, a predicament that wouldn't be a big deal for some people (e.g., my mom and dad), but is a major problem for a hyper-connected geek like me.

I thought about getting the iPhone right away after my v3xx died, but with all the rumors of a 3G iPhone on the way soon I decided to tough it out until June. Why get a device with such great Internet browsing capabilities (i.e., the large screen and the Safari browser) if you can't surf on the 3G network, and you'd also find yourself coveting the new iPhone just a few months later?

Thankfully June is approaching quickly. And now there is more news about the impending iPhone reported first on Times Online, and later referenced by Silicon Alley Insider. The speculation this time around is about a "radically different" appearance (e.g., a flip phone version or one with a real QWERTY keyboard). It seems strange to think about an iPhone that doesn't look like the iconic version we are all used to. Of course if they do come out with something radically different, something tells me that Apple will nail it - just like they did when they came out with each subsequent version of the iPod.

June can't come soon enough.

Surprising revelation about Facebook news feed

After reading this post on Techcrunch I had a mix of emotions.

First, I felt stupid for never figuring this out before. Like many others, I have deleted a number of items from my mini-feed in the past, and every time I had assumed that those items would then promptly be deleted from my friends' news feeds. Evidently this is not the case. Shame on me I suppose, for not testing and figuring this out on my own.

Then again, was I really being careless and stupid? Is it really that unreasonable to assume that a message indicating that "hiding will remove the story from your Mini-Feed and prevent anyone from seeing it" means that you are indeed preventing "anyone from seeing it"? Considering these two features (i.e., the new feed and the mini feed) were released at the very same time, it does not seem like that far a stretch to me. Techcrunch calls it "a poorly worded notification". I call it blatantly misleading.

Finally (and most importantly!), it is just a bad product experience. Searching on Facebook's help pages for "news feed" I came across the following question and answer:

Q: How do I hide my News Feed and Mini-Feed?

A: At this time you cannot turn these features off completely. Facebook allows you to prevent certain types of stories from being published about yourself. From the Privacy page, just click on the link titled "News Feed and Mini-Feed Privacy." Unchecking one of the story types means that there will be no News Feed or Mini-Feed stories generated about your account for that particular action...

What this means is that it is either all or none when it comes to publishing particular actions in your friends' news feeds. So for example, if I say it is okay to share events, then I have to be comfortable sharing all of my events. I can't selectively choose which events are okay to share and which are not, which is really what I'd like to do.

The future of San Francisco

Not too far from my place is the San Francisco Transbay Terminal. If you've ever been by it before then you know what a total disaster it is. It's dark, ugly, and smells like urine whenever you walk under it. Thankfully, that is all supposed to change in the coming decade.

Check out this video to see what the future looks like.

Hulu is awesome

So with some of the TV shows coming back on the air this week for the first time since the writer's strike, my DVR finally woke up from its long winter hibernation. Getting home late on Thursday night, I missed The Office at its regular time. Of course this was no problem for me because I knew that my trusty DVR got it all.

When finally watching the episode the next day (which by the way was absolutely brilliant), my eye was caught by a promo for 30 Rock. It's a show that I really like, but since I've only seen it a few times, most of which were right before the strike, it never made it into my DVR recording list. So what did I do? I went to Hulu. Sure enough, right there waiting for me was "The MILF Island" episode of 30 Rock (nearly as brilliant as The Office). Once mocked by Google employees as "Clown Co.", these guys are now bringing it. The video player is f'ing awesome. Turn down the lights for a more cinematic feel. Go full screen and still have great video quality. Embed or share the whole episode, or easily grab just the clips (you pick the starting and stopping time) that you want to share. And most importantly, they have great content (screw buying the A-Team DVD, you got it right here). Bottom line, this is what watching television on the web should be.

As a random side note, I stumbled on this this clip below, and am now convinced that Angela from the office (whose real name is evidently also Angela...who knew?!) is one of the greatest actresses of our time. Seriously, is this the same person? You can tell that Pam basically plays herself in the show, but Angela is like Jekyll and Hyde.

Ignoring the facts...

Yes, I'm an Obama supporter, but I'm not a Clinton hater like some other Obama supporters. If she some how pulls the nomination out I'll likely vote for her vs. McCain. But stuff like this doesn't help.

Very specifically...

Barack: "I've said for the last three days that I think that Senator Clinton should stay in the race as long as she wants. ... She has every right to compete and I'm looking forward to competing against her."

Clinton: ""Now, this is one of the most important elections we've ever had. There is so much at stake. But just as it's getting time to vote here in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama says he's getting tired of it."

Does she think we aren't going to be able to see that this is blatantly not true?!

It's going to be a long season

when your ace is topping out at 84 MPH....
when you can't put up a single run...
when you are 0 for 2 on the basepaths....

...it is not looking good.

Some more lowlights:

• A light collision involving rookie shortstop Brian Bocock and Roberts that left Roberts on his knees, his glove flung into left field.
• A dropped popup by second baseman Ray Durham, leading to a run.
• A couple wild pitches.
• A passed ball.
• Two missed cutoff men by center fielder Aaron Rowand.
• A man (OK, the rookie Bocock) getting picked off first in the eighth inning, in a five-run deficit.

Full story here.

Obama supporters taking the NH loss personally

I woke up on Tuesday expecting Obama to run away with it in NH as the polls were predicting. Two days later we all know that this did not happen. Instead of steamrolling her, she got the early lead and never looked back. As the results poured in I couldn't help but get that eerily similar feeling that I had back in 2004 when the results turned against Kerry, despite the exit polls indicating that he had the election locked up.

Thankfully there is one big difference this time around vs. 2004. This time around the race continues on. After the 2004 election there was nothing we could do. It was over. But now I can look forward to voting myself on Super Tuesday. I can spread the word. I can donate to the campaign, as I did the very next morning (yes, I really hate losing!). I remember convincing myself of this "silver lining" yesterday , hoping that there would be others just like me. That they would come out in record numbers in every primary going forward. That they would not allow another Clinton comeback. That they too will donate like they have never before. That they will spread the word. Basically, that they will refuse to let our guy lose again.

And thankfully I wasn't the only one. There was this group from New York and they were not alone. All in, the Obama campaign had had more donors on Wednesday (>20K) than any other day of the entire campaign! F yeah!

Obama wins Iowa!!

....in very convincing fashion. Next up: New Hampshire. I have a feeling that Obama will catch up and beat Hillary there next week, and then start to run away with the nomination. Or perhaps that is just wishful thinking.

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, check out the victory speech....