Well done Netflix

On June 19th Netflix announced that they were dropping the Profiles feature. The Profiles feature made it possible for a single account (family) to support multiple Ques - at least that's how I used it. The decision to drop the Profiles feature was met with a pretty serious backlash online - almost 1,300 posts on the Netflix blog post related to the announcment. Netflix announed today that they're going to keep the Profiles feature and that's a good thing. Kudos to Netflix for listening to customer feedback and more importantly; reacting to it. Well done.

Tag Galaxy - a new way to search Flickr

Tag Galaxy provides a very visual tag-based search tool for Flickr - check it out. IMO Google really needs to start working (they probably already are) on more visual search tools like this for the Web. Browsing search results like this provides a better, or at least more interesting, user experience. If Google is working on this kind of thing - they should start releasing some of the work as Google Labs projects. DIGG also sports cool visual search tools. WARNING: Tag Galaxy was built by Germans so watch out for David Hasselhoff avatars.

Puppet Interviews - Dove Deeper

During the lunch break here at the Webvisions event I dove a little deeper into Loren Feldman's "Puppet Interviews" series and discovered this gem. - The Mike Arrington Show (embeded below). Man, my stomach was in knots by the time I finished watching this.



and now compare it with the real deal

Puppet Interviews

More puppet interviews - a Loren Feldman thing.

Yahoo! IM for MAC

I just noticed that Yahoo! IM for the MAC (v. 3.0 BETA) has a built-in active spell checker. Awesome. I don't think this is available in the PC version.

TransferBigFiles

TransferBigFiles - another cool way to quickly transfer a large file.

Obama Ads

I really don't like the fact that Google Adsense is dumping "Obama Exposed" ads on my blog. I'm an Obama supporter and I'm about to pull Adsense from my blog because of this. Is there anything I can do in my Adsense setup to solve this problem? Maybe the new Ad Review Center will do the trick for me. Maybe I can switch out the "Obama Exposed" ads for the "Impeach Bush" ads ; )

Drop.io

Drop.io looks like a really cool tool for simple large file transfers. File transfers up to 100mb are free.

Drop.io enables you to create simple private exchange points called "drops."

Searching Gmail

Great tips on using search operators to improve your Gmail searches. Now if I could only remember a few of these.

Lists of Twittering journalists - good people to Follow

Thanks to my-creativeteam.com for lists of Twittering journalists part 1 and part 2. I'm following a few of these now.

Viewzi

Viewzi, a new visual search engine, looks promising. I'm surprised Google isn't playing around with visual search more - text heavy search results aren't going to last forever.

My money is on Craigslist

eBay Vs. Craigslist - my money is on Craigslist

firefly demo on scripting.com

Wow, take a look at the firefly demo Dave Winer has up on scripting.com - neat. firefly makes it easy for you to interact with the other people viewing the web page you're on.

New Google Reader for iPhone

Cool new Google Reader iPhone interface available at http://www.google.com/reader/i/ Big improvement over the previous version.

R2-D2 Projector / Awsome

R2-D2 projector featured on Gizmodo. Awesome. Watch the video.

PC World Reviews Email Center Pro

PC World just reviewed Email Center Pro. Email Center Pro is a new SaaS we launched last week that helps small businesses manage shared inboxes like info@ and press@. Read the review.

Applause: Blaine Cook

I'm clapping for Blaine Cook, x lead architect for Twitter, and I'd like to thank Blaine for all the hard work he put into making Twitter what it is today. Twitter may be experiencing some growing pains but I think Blaine is catching more flack for the problems this week than he deserves. Throw out a Tweet for Blain and thank him for all of his hard work - attach the hash tag #thankyoublainecook. Blain's website - includes phone number and email address if you're looking for his contact info.

Related: Silicon Alley Insider: Lead Architect Blaine Cook Out at Twitter

Charlie Rose Interviews Charlie Rose About Technology

Charlie Rose interviews Charlie Rose about technology in this short interview. Pretty much captured the current state of things.

Creating Infectious Engagement

The Stanford d.school is hosting a free mini-conference on Creating Infectious Engagement May 6th from 3:30 to 6. The event is open to the public and it is a great opportunity to connect with smart people and benefit from everything the Creating Infectious Engagement team is working on. I will be attending the Stanford Managing Teams for Innovation and Success Executive Education program June 1 - 6.

Our Stanford d.school class on Creating Infectious Engagement is holding a conference next Thursday May 1st from 3:30 to 6:00 that is open to the public.  We have some great speakers lined-up who will talk about what it takes to spread good ideas. Please RSVP to Joe Mellin at ciersvp@gmail.com if you will be joining us, as we need to plan for food.  The conference is in the new d.school space in building 524 in the learning theatre. A big thanks to Joe for designing this wonderful poster.  Please send it along to your friends!

NOTE for the Creating Infections Engagement class: I discovered this event in Guy Kawasaki's Twitter stream.  Lot's of streams (Twitter, Flickr, Blogs) feeding the rivers (FriendFeed, Facebook, TechMeme) which feed the ocean (national media) these days. Interesting stuff.

Email Center Pro Launch Week

In March, I blogged about a new product we're working on at Palo Alto Software called Email Center Pro.

I’m happy to announce that we’re officially launching Email Center Pro (ECP) this week. You can read more about the launch in my recent post on the Dead Simple Software blog. Or here, and here, and here.

If you missed the chance to grab a beta account, don’t freak out, you can still kick the tires by signing up for a FREE account. We're all very excited about this launch - so come on over and check it out.

Internet Tubes Plugged by 2010 Says AT&T

U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010.

c|net AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

Prediction: Google launches GoogleNet in 2010. GoogleNet eventually replaces the Internet as we know it today. GoogleNet and SkyNet are basically the same thing. Google Bots start walking the streets for real - tatooing ads on our foreheads.

image from: Google Blogscoped

Soocial Hassle Free

Soocial, a new service that can sync your contacts for you, did a great job with this promotional video. I got a laugh out of it. David Hasselhoff always makes me laugh.


Hassle Free from Soocial on Vimeo.

South Park Internet Stars Massacre

Internet Stars slaughtered in South Park episode. Farewell Tron Guy.

Update: Bummer, they pulled the video.

iPhone - Wallpaper

I spent some time over the weekend personalizing my new iPhone - new wallpaper was 1st on my shopping list. Here's what I picked up.

Flickr iPhone Wallpaper Group: Almost 10,000 iPhone ready wallpaper images - I'm sporting Ininja on my walls.

Iconfactory : Freeware : Desktop: A great collection of illustrated iPhone ready wallpaper images - click the iPhone icon to download.

Getting the wallpaper up on the walls of my new iPhone took no time at all. Syncing photos to an iPod or iPhone is easy. 

iPhone - Got one

I picked up an 8g iPhone from our local at&t store on Friday and three days later I'm glad I did. I love it and I can't believe I waited this long.

Homer - is that you?

 

pixeloo, a Photoshop professional, answers the question - what would Homer Simpson look like if he was real? This pretty much freaked me out completely. Want more detail?

Email Center Pro

Palo Alto Software, the company I work for, is getting ready to launch a new product called Email Center Pro (ECP) next month and we're all very excited about it.

For more than a decade we've been focused on our business planning software product, Business Plan Pro, so some people will think ECP is a bit off course for us. So why did we decide to build it and take the chance? Simple. We think it can help people succeed in business and helping people succeed in business is what we're all about - it's our mantra. Business Plan Pro, for obvious reasons, has helped a lot of people succeed in business and we feel really great about that. ECP does it in a less direct way but it will help you improve the way you run your business and increase your chances of success.

Email Center Pro helps you manage shared email addresses like sales@yourcompany.com and info@yourcompany.com. It provides your team with easy access to these email accounts by creating web-based shared mailboxes that the whole team can access. You can assign messages, track conversations, add notes to messages, and use templates to respond to messages in consistent ways. You can efficiently manage more email and deliver better quality responses to your customers. See - it will help you improve the way you run your business. At Palo Alto Software, our customer services teams use ECP every day and our business is better for it.

You can learn more about the product by visiting the Email Center Pro website. If you're interested in a Beta account - leave a comment explaining why you need the product and I'll hook you up. 

twhirl

Noah pointed me towards twhirl - an Adobe Air Twitter client. Pretty cool implementation. I'm still a big fan of the Firefox Twitterbar add-on for its' simplicity.

Vista Ultimate Dreamscene

I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate at home and bumped into a cool new feature available to Ultimate users as an Ultimate Exclusive. The feature is called Dreamscene and it makes it easy to replace your boring static wallpaper with exciting dynamic wallpaper - apparently, without taxing your system resources too much. If you're an Ultimate user and good about downloading updates (even the optional updates) it's probably already installed; if you don't already have it installed, you can use Windows Update to download and install Dreamscene. While you're updating - grab the Dreamscene Content Pack as well.

Instructions for activating Windows Vista Ultimate Dreamscene:

1. Right-click the desktop
2. Select Personalize from the menu that appears
3. Select Desktop Background on the Personalizaton screen
4. Select Windows Dreamscene for Picture Location on the Desktop Background screen
5. Select a Dreamscene, your background will update, click Ok after you settle on a Dreamscene for your background. NOTE: If you don't have the Content Pack installed, you will only see one Dreamscene in the list of available Dreamscenes. The Content Pack brings the number closer to ten.

Dreamscene is working pretty well for me on my modestly equiped Lenovo laptop so far. I like the liveliness it brings to the background - I have a rainy day scene running for my background. Oh, Dreamscene is also smart enough to go into a static state when the laptop is running on battery power. If you are a Vista Ultimat user - it's worth a look.

 

BigDog. My next dog?

Boston Dynamics is working to build my next dog, and DARPA.mil is funding it. Not really.

But check this crazy thing out - it's called the BigDog and it got BITE. You can see why the military is partially funding the project. Imagine how scared you'd be to sit around a fire with all of your buddies from the axis-of-evil club in the middle of the dessert if you knew a bunch of BigDog units with laser guided guns and titanium teeth were running around looking for you with infrared eyes and super sniffers. [via]

Google Apps - Sneaking up on MS Office?

I'm a big fan of Google Apps. If you check my browser history you'll see a lot of action around docs.google.com. I think Google Apps is sneaking up on the flank side of MS Office for the sneak attack - but I'm an early adopter and smart enough to realize that I don't represent the masses. MS Office still owns the lion's share of the office productivity market. Bernard Lunn, a self described "later early adopter," writes today on "Why Google Apps is a Serious Threat to Microsoft Office."

This is the perspective of a “skeptical, later early adopter”; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don’t spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze. [continue reading]

In his post, Bernard does an excellent job of summarizing some of the key reasons more and more people are logging into docs.google.com. Collaboration, and mobile access are two of the key reasons.

Microsoft managers, patting themselves on the back for cooking-up a nice marketshare pie chart, need to keep one thing in mind - a lot of current Office users are dabbling in docs.google.com - at some point, the tipping point, they'll stop adding Office to the cart when they're configuring a new machine because docs.google.com is good enough. I have Office on both of my machines at the office and I spend more time in docs.google.com than I do Office.

Gotta DIGG! - The Song - Viral Promotion Tactic

Kina Grannis' music video, "Gotta DIGG!" , is getting some attention in the blogosphere - TechCrunch pointed me towards it. Kina is a finalist in the Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" contest - the winner will get a music deal with Interscope and airtime for their music video during the Super Bowl. Targetting DIGG users was a very smart way to spread the word on-line. The contest is a smart way for Interscope to to find new talent for their label - I think we'll be seeing more of this kind of thing in 08. Social networks, like Facebook and Myspace.com, are providing record labels with a very effective tool for developing new talent.

Microsoft Auto

Microsoft Auto will team up with Ford in 2008 to bring us Ford SINK. I got a laugh out of this video that spoofs the service. Learn more about the real deal on the Windows Automotive site.

Office Live Workspaces Beta Announced - Snore

 

Scoble posted a video interview yesterday with a couple managers from the Office Live Workspaces (OLW) team - they talk about the service, the future of the service, and walk us through a demo. Microsoft announced the BETA for (OLW) yesterday. Sign-up here if you're in to this kind of thing - Windows Live ID required. Personally, I have very little need for a service like OLW.

Office Live Workspaces is an improvement over previous versions of Office Live which were more small business oriented and very SharePoint like but the service has a huge anchor tied to it - it requires Microsoft Office.

I have multiple copies of Office 2003 and 2007 so I'm by no means an Office hater but I use Word and Excel less and less as the months pass. Instead, I'm using services like Google DOCS and Google Calendar more and more. Why? Primarily, because I can access the services from almost anywhere without any system requirements other than a decent internet connection and a browser. Access from anywhere is important to me because I use multiple computers on a daily basis - I simply can't afford to spend time keeping client-side software current on all these machines.

Collaborative functionality is another major reason why I'm using services like Google DOCS more and more. If I need to collaborate on a document with a team, I'm going to use Google DOCS. I'm done passing Word and Excel files around in e-mail - constantly trying to track changes and a mess of files with files names that get more and more creative as the collaborative process continues.

Microsoft is losing the ability to provide me with products that work the way I want to work. I understand why they have to protect Office - it's a cash cow and all that - but that huge anchor is going to really screw them up in the long-term if they can't put it down and move Office forward at a faster pace and in a revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary way. How hard would it really be for Microsoft to offer the Office suite as 100% web-based solution? I'd pay for that and they'd probably get more out of me over the years than they do currently for Office.

Office Live has been in the works for two years - a good decisive strategic decision to make Office available in the cloud two years ago would have Microsoft in a better position today. Make the decision and implement guys before it's too late. Office Live Workspaces - Snore.

Joel Spolsky and Fog Creek Send 37Signals Passive Call For Help

Joel Spolsky, CEO of Fog Creek Software and author of the popular Joel on Software blog, wrote a post the other day that would piss me off if I was Jason Fried - Jason is one of the founders of 37Signals which publishes a bunch of very successful web-based software applications.

In Joel's post, Where there's muck, there's brass, he starts off talking about how everybody has a "gnarly problem" - spending way too many words talking about bread and his childhood; which he apparently spent making bread.

    Work that makes you unhappy is what I mean by "a gnarly problem." - Joel

He goes on to say that the market pays for solutions to "gnarly problems." Apparently, one of Fog Creek Software's gnarly problems is getting their bug tracking product, FogBugz, to run on their customers' own servers. FogBugz is available in hosted and "serve yourself" configurations. Fog Creek deals with the "gnarly problem" of getting FogBugz to run on their customers' own servers because apparently the market is willing to pay for it. This is where Jason and 37Signals come in.

Earlier in the week Jason published a post titled Installable software? - a response to a question re: whether or not 37Signals had plans to produce installable versions of any of their applications. Jason's response - unlikely. You can read his post if you want to know the details of the why. Here's a summary of the why.

If we built installable software we’d have to spend a lot more of our time on technical support, write a lot more documentation, slow down our development process, and lose a fair bit of control over our customer experience. For some companies this wouldn’t be a big deal, but for us it would be a real drag. - Jason

I think Jason did a great job of summarizing the benefits of a centrally distributed application with cross-platform capability. I think this is the future of software. I think Jason and 37Signals made a good strategic decision to NOT offer installable versions of their applications. I make my living developing software for Windows systems and we spend a ton of time just making sure it's going work on all the different available flavors of Windows - it's a huge time suck. 37Signals thinks they have better things to do with their time and I agree.

Joel on the other hand, IMO, thinks 37Signals is making a mistake. That 37Signal's customers want an installable version. That 37Signals isn't going to grow significantly if they don't try to solve the same "gnarly" problem Fog Creek is solving by offering installable versions of their products. Joel also seems to think they could start offering installable versions if they simply hired one extra employee - wrong.

So unless they (37Signals) deliberately want to keep the company small, which is a perfectly legitimate desire, they might eventually lose their reluctance to do things that seem gnarly. - Joel

Joel is wrong. Jason is right. 37Signals doesn't need to produce an installable version of their product to grow. I think 37Signals can grow at a healthy pace selling subscriptions to their very functional and useful web-based software.

Joel makes a number of other comments that I'd find insulting if I was Jason. Yes, he throws in a few complements re: Jason's design skills but doesn't give 37Signals credit for producing software that works - there's a major technical accomplishment here above and beyond the great design accomplishment.

The one thing that so many of today's cute startups have in common is that all they have is a simple little Ruby-on-Rails Ajax site that has no barriers to entry and doesn't solve any gnarly problems. So many of these companies feel insubstantial and fluffy, because, out of necessity (the whole company is three kids and an iguana), they haven't solved anything difficult yet. Until they do, they won't be solving problems for people. People pay for solutions to their problems. - Joel

FogBugz began it's life as installable software. Today, FogBugz is available as a hosted solution. More people still buy the installable version over the hosted version but that's starting to change. I think Fog Creek will see more and more of their customers moving to the hosted solution. I think Fog Creek developers will start to favor the hosted version over the installable version. The installable version will eventually go away.

I'm sure Joel - like a lot of software publishers is feeling vulnerable. Maybe that's why he lashed out. Technical barriers to entry are coming down - it's getting to the point where it's pretty easy (and inexpensive) for a few kids and an iguana (Joel's words) to reverse engineer a software application and drop it on a server somewhere. Fog Creek is better off if their customers think "installable" is a requirement - that's harder to copy - there's a barrier there. These days, it's less about the software and more about marketing. That's a hard thing for some software publishers, especially the veterans, to get their head around.

Joel should probably be taking advice from Jason as opposed to sending it in the other direction. I'm in FogBugz (the installable version) and Basecamp hours per week and FogBugz could use a little love from 37Signals. Oh and we're still trying make time to upgrade our FogBugz installation - it's becoming a gnarly problem for us.