Apple is really trying to get into the early majority market of digital audio players, with their recent introduction of some updated models and price cuts. They now have players in $50 increments from $99 to $449 (with the exception of a jump of $100 between the 30 and 60GB iPod photo).

This price slashing does come at a cost. Now, none of the new iPods will come with accessories like a docking station, or even a firewire cable (USB only). This means that they're not really going for the "elite" status anymore. In fact, the iPod mini won't even come with an AC charger (it's supposed to now charge over compatible USB ports), which means that some iPods won't be usable out of the box. Imagine this scenario - a non-technical family with a 4 year old desktop buys an iPod mini for their kid, they come home, open the box, install the software, plug in the mini, and start transferring files. Everything works fine, until 20 minutes later, when the mini runs out of battery power because their USB port on their old computer didn't supply power. The family calls technical support, finds out that they have shell out another $30 for the charger. But wait, the charger only has a firewire port, so they need to spend another $20 for the firewire cable. Bad user experiences like this can seriously hurt Apple's reputation. And Apple, if anything, is known for their good user experience.

It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to the competition as they are the market leader moving from an early adopter market to an early majority market. This is not a position they have not been familiar with in 20 years (having dealt mainly with niche markets and a very loyal userbase).

I think they need to eventually expand into more lines of iPods, including premium lines for power users (for lack of a better word)- just like the evolution of the portable cassette player and cd player - that includes things like the docking station, and more advance feature sets, as well as basic lines for everyone else. They will also need to be able to keep up with production demands. Two to three week waiting periods are find for early adopters, but are not for the majority market, especially during the holiday season. Good luck Steve.

Dave Winer on google's autolink. Some good points were brought up:

• It allows viewers to alter the author's original content (and not even invasive content like javascript or flash ads that can be currently blocked, but text), and there's no way for a webpage to opt-out of autolinking (like they can opt out of google crawling their page for search indexing).
  
• The created links do (like ISBN to book retailers) and will (like street addresses to google maps) generate ad revenue for them. This revenue is purely based on other people's content, and yet they are never paid.
  
• This opens the door for Microsoft to reintroduce Smart Tags (if google can do it, why can't we?).

I think that google really expects too much trust from us, their customers. They request demand us to trust their good intentions, that they'll never do evil, that what they're doing is (will be) good for mankind. Yet they are a publicly traded company, their primary concern will (if it has not already) shift towards the shareholders, and when their do-good attitude begins to conflict with shareholder interests, I wonder what happens then.

I used to think I was more "hip" than my parents, and I didn't care much when they started to watch 24 and Alias three years ago.

But now, I'm hooked.

It's been so beautiful here for the past week. The sun's been out everyday, pink flowers are happily blooming on trees, temperatures are above 10 celcius, it has been painful to stay indoors while at work.

Yesterday we walked around to a couple of parks, threw around a football, caught some frisbees, and visited a cemetery. It's necessary to enjoy this unusually good weather to the max, since we probably won't see it again until summertime.

What do you get if you cross an elephant with a mountain climber?

You can't, a mountain climber is a scalar.

I finally went snowboarding today with Greg and Diana. The plans were made at about midnight last night, in the midst of Benny's pre-birthday bash. Needless to say, getting up at 5 am and riding in a car for 2 1/2 hours after a night of partying had its rough spots. I'll leave out the details.

But the snow was amazing, although still a little thin in a lot of spots. There was a lot of powder in the morning, and I got stuck in it a couple of times. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, the sky was a deep blue, and the clouds were a puffy white. I'd just lay there after a wipe out, stare up at the sky, and watch the clouds move against a blue canvas.

In the afternoon the snow got a little sticky, mainly because it was so warm out, but the conditions were still great. Alas our unconditioned legs started getting sore, and we called it a day at 3:30. I then went a played soccer in the evening. My ankles were still sore from when I sprained it a couple of weeks back, so I could only play goal. I'm beat.

A little prodding around the internet, and look what I found?



Where's that thousand dollar bill now?

In a recent article about Google, Larry Page said, regarding the fact that most of their products are in Beta, that "part of our brand is that we under-promise and we over-deliver, and being in beta is part of that. It's part of our branding strategy."

If you read the circle-jerk that is slashdot, you will see how everyone there loves that bit of sound-bite. In a way, it is their company culture (although as they expand, that culture will undoubtedly change), but it's also the nature of their business that allows them to underpromise in the first place.

Google, like Amazon.com, and many other dot-coms, has no product to "ship". They never make promises beforehand to customers about what features they're adding, and what new products they are coming out with (okay, they probably do to a few corporate customers, but definitely not the general public). By not making a promise in the first place, they won't slip schedules, or drop features, and since their product is always in Beta, sometimes even years after initial introduction, small bugs don't really bother people. Contrast this to software shippers like Microsoft or Apple. They have to make feature promises to generate interest, they have to ship upgrades to maintain revenue, and every time they faulter, it's very public and very damaging to their reputation (just look at the Longhorn fiasco). For the record, we don't even know how many projects were cancelled at Google, because we never knew they existed in the first place.

Aside from not having to make external promises, another advantage of not having shelf software is the fast development cycle. This is the reason websites can put out betas so fast. The mantra can be, put it out there, and if there's a bug, it can be fixed and deployed within hours (of course, this does not preclude good testing, but let's face it, creating bug-free software is virtually impossible). This is especially true for something in Beta like google maps -- they're not really generating revenue from it yet, so let the users report the bugs, and eventually slip in some ads once the hype has grabbed people's attention. On the other hand, in the product-shipping world, there are more rigorous standards set for testing, patching, and releasing, which means a much slower development cycle, and much more focus (and $$'s spent) on testing.

Google has been, and remains a very innovative company, with a lot of services that I use everyday. But they're really on a different playing field than conventional software companies, and it's unfair to compare the levels of innovation between them.

I just hope that when they take over the world, they'll use their powers for good instead of becoming the next Microsoft.

Today is the first day of the year of the Rooster, my Zodiac year. Traditionally, for good luck and personal safety, Chinese people wear something red throughout the year (like a necklace woven with red yarn, or red underwear, or a red belt). But I don't believe that.

If I were in China, I'd get a week of holidays.

Fortune of the day: "Functioning superbly comes automatically to you". More of a compliment than a fortune.

We visited the new public library on the weekend, and while there, I decided to sign up for a library card (even though I work for the book store).

I also took a pamphlet that had the following message regarding the USA PATRIOT Act:

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) became law on Oct. 26, 2001. Under provisions of the act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and law enforcement officials may seek court orders for Library records for investigations relevant to national security or terrorism. Libraries or librarians served with these search warrants may not disclose, under penalty of law, the existence of the warrants or the fact that records were produced as a result of the warrants. Patrons cannot be told their records were given to law enforcement agencies or that they were the subjects of FBI investigations.

(emphasis mine)

I can't wait until PATRIOT II.

This is the kind of story that makes you not sure whether you should laugh or curse.

Synopsis: two girls in rural Colorado made cookies for their neighbours one night, and left it in front of their doors as a surprise (after knocking on the doors and running away). Then they are sued by one neighbour who claims that she had an anxiety attack due to the unexpected cookie bombing.

From the article:

Frightened, she spent the night at her sister's home, then went to the hospital the next morning because she was still shaking and had an upset stomach.

The teenagers' families offered to pay Young's medical bills, but she declined and sued, saying their apologies were not sincere and were not offered in person.

This would make for a good mastercard spoof.

Flour: $2
Chocolate chips: $3
Milk and butter: $2
Being sued by neighbour for medical expenses and punitive damages: priceless.

In most tv shows, when something really exciting happens, just before the cut to commercial at the climax, they know to draw out the moment just long enough to capture the attention, garner enough interest to keep the viewer, and allow you to really get a sense of what's happening.

I think we've come to a consensus that the O.C. needs to hold its scenes longer before cutting to commercial.