iTunes to Hit 1 Billion Song Mark Tonight
02/22/2006 21:00
Apple is on quite a roll with their iPod/iTunes music combo, which has propelled the once "beleaguered" computer company to the forefront of the technology leadership curve. In fact, at one point last month, only a few years removed from Michael Dell's catty comment that he would close Apple and divide up the take among the shareholders, Apple's (AAPL) market capitalization eclipsed that of Dell (DELL) itself. Though the stock has gone down a bit since then, the company's momentum has not.Now, three years into the iTunes Music Store launch, Apple is on the verge of selling its one billionth song. The company announced a plethora of gifts to loyal music store customers, offering a free iPod Nano and gift card for each song sold at a multiple of 100,000 and is ramping up for the big prize -- whoever purchases the 1 billionth song will receive a new 20-inch iMac, 10 60 Gigabyte iPods, and a whopping $10,000 to spend at the iTunes Music Store for any media. I can't even think how I could spend $2,000, but I'm sure I'd find a way, given the challenge.
According to my iTunes library, my "purchased" collection from the iTunes Music Store numbers just under 1,000, at 982, since my first song purchase on April 28, 2003. I purchased 25 songs that day, ranging from R.E.M. and U2 to Traci Lords and DJ Encore. The iTunes Music Store has grown up in a big way since, offering a much greater set of music to choose from. The company's consistent pricing also throws a wrench into any of the retail stores who might otherwise get my money, and I've practically eliminated my spending on Amazon.com since the iTunes Music Store's introduction.
In the next hour, Apple will most likely hit 1 billion, and I'll try to win the big prize. If I do win, you'll be sure to know.
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Keep The Change: Is America that Stupid?
02/22/2006 00:10
I first heard one of Bank of America's promotions for their new "Keep the Change" campaign while on a business trip last Spring in Arizona. The idea sounded preposterous - the bank would help you save money by taking the difference between your debits and the nearest whole dollar and depositing it into your savings account - theoretically helping you create a nest egg for the future. Somehow, they expect that we have no financial planning abilities, and that the nickels and dimes they transfer from one account to another will make us all rich some day, something we couldn't have achieved on our own, through stocks and bonds, real estate, or common sense.Now, the commercials are getting more air time. This evening, during Winter Olympics coverage on NBC, an ad featured a young boy doing the math in his head while his mother paid for groceries. He gleefully spouted off 87 cents if she had been charged $4.13. Oh, what a bright young man, and how lucky we are for Bank of America to come to his family's aid and prepare for his inevitably illustrious college career! Ridiculous. If his parents have to rely on Bank of America to guard their piggy bank, it's not likely that little Johnny is going to make it to a community college, let alone a reputable four-year university.
The "Keep the Change" campaign effectively gives Bank of America the right to overcharge you not just on a small number of your purchases, but EVERY purchase. It guarantees that you will always pay more than the cost of goods. It gives Bank of America the right to take even more money from their clients and invest it as they choose to make even more money for the bank. And what is the likelihood that this campaign will even be around when it's Johnny's turn to brave the SATs? Marketing programs come and go, and with silly exceptions like Free Checking, most don't have much staying power. And what if Bank of America merges or gets swallowed up in some future unforeseen acquisition. Will the program continue?
Bank of America has always annoyed me. They're the IBM or GM of banking. Huge, but not offering anything positively differentiated from the competition. I've used Wells Fargo for the better part of a decade, and I can't remember the last time I stepped into their branches. My online banking does everything, and it doesn't ask me if I want to "keep the change" or get fries with that.
The Site's Secret Sauce
02/21/2006 22:10
There's a myriad of blogging applications out there. The most famous are Web hosted, from Google's Blogger to Six Apart's TypePad and LiveJournal offerings, while other user-customizable applications include WordPress and iBlog. For me, when I was looking to move away from strict HTML, driven by Bare Bones' BBEdit, I needed a few things - the ability to keep my louisgray.com domain name, the ability to post new entries while retaining access to site history and categories, while also not requiring massive SQL server maintenance.After downloading a number of programs, running them, installing them and hoping all would work out, I stumbled upon the answer - RapidWeaver, from Realmac Software. RapidWeaver not only accomplished everything I was looking for, but it easily integrates with Apple's iLife applications, so if I choose, I could post a photo journal, run a podcast, or manage a more global site, beyond the blog.
RapidWeaver is a stand-alone Mac OS X application, which comes standard with a variety of customizable themes, offers comments, powered by HaloScan, and has a very simple interface. It's not perfect - we're still aching for the introduction of permalinks, which they swear are coming in version 3.5 in the next few months, and it's not portable - meaning I can only update from the home laptop. As a result, you'll see a dramatic scarcity in blog entries, say between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Monday through Friday.
If you run Mac OS X (and you should), and want to get started, I'd say give RapidWeaver a shot. You can download a trial here.
Web 2.0: Zazzle Offers Customizable Postage Stamps
02/21/2006 20:40
Much ado is being made these days about "Web 2.0", which loosely refers to both a user-driven, highly customizable Web experience, represented by Blog sites, photo and movie hosts, but also Web-driven applications, like Google Maps and Google Earth. Some companies have tried to rebrand themselves as Web 2.0 companies, even with only minor changes to their product offerings and business model. A great example of this is Zazzle. Like Cafe Press before it, Zazzle offers users the ability to customize everything from T-shirts to mousepads with their site logo or Web address.Last week, I thought I'd muck around with Zazzle, and found myself taking a photo I had of our 16-year-old beagle, and framing it into a postage stamp. I ordered 3 sets of 39-cent stamps with Molly on them, posing on our couch. Two sets will go to my wife, and the third, to my mother-in-law, who loves her little grand-dog. They arrived today, and should start hitting envelopes tomorrow. Cute, but not exactly what I associate with next generation Web apps. Just cute.
NBC "Conviction" Pilot Free on iTunes Before it Airs
02/21/2006 00:40
Dick Wolf, the producer behind the mega-hits Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent is back at it again with yet another courtroom drama, called Conviction. This drama has been said to focus more on the characters than on the cases, in a significant change from the traditional L&O series we've known for more than a decade.NBC is getting behind the show in a big way - offering heavy promotions through the Olympics, and in what's a world first, that I know of, the show's pilot is available for download on iTunes before it airs on TV.
You can get it now: Conviction Pilot: Free
The download weighs in over 200 MB, but the price is right, and it just may be a good show after all, one to add to the TiVo season pass roster, should it rival the originals in quality. The show is set to debut on Friday, March 3rd on your boring old television.
The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR
02/20/2006 17:00
On Thursday, I had the chance to read The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, by Al and Laura Ries. Over the last few years, I've had a lot of opportunities to read technology, business and marketing-oriented books, and while most had some great qualities, there tends to either be too much fluffery without specifics, or dry tales that don't seem to relate to today's business world. In stark contrast, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR eloquently and directly stated its hypothesis and purpose, then went out and backed up the comments with detailed examples covering a wide variety of industries, from foods to automotive, through technology and the Internet.Al and Laura, through a series of company-driven stories, explain how while much of companies' marketing budgets are allocated to wide-spread advertising campaigns that are difficult to support by real business growth, more significant results can be seen through deliberate, focused execution on public relations. They argue that public relations needs to be the first move, followed by advertising to sustain the brand, not to create the brand. Yet, advertising firms are lauded for their creativity, even when it can't be tied to business benefits, and woe be to the CEO or marketing executive who proposes unfocused advertising without first claiming success through PR. They give several examples where those who signed off on the big checks weren't there to collect their own in the end.
If you're in the business of promotion, or any business, really, the book is a great kickoff point for strategy and budgeting. Buy it on Amazon.
Not Moving to Mac Intel Right Away
02/20/2006 13:00
I have a long, sometimes painful, history of being an early technology adopter. I was using the first VisorPhone adapters with Handspring years before they introduced the Treo line of hybrid smartphones, purchased an iPod less than 12 hours after Steve Jobs introduced them, upgraded to Mac OS X Public Beta before it was available to the mass market, and was using Netscape Navigator before it was a 1.0 release.With all that said, people expect I'd be first in line to snap up an Intel-Powered iMac or MacBook Pro. After all, didn't Steve Jobs say the new laptops, powered by Intel were 3 to 4 times as fast as the old model? Doesn't that make my 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 seem like a dinosaur in comparison? Surprisingly, no. I'm perfectly happy with my laptop, power adapter issues aside. The PowerBook has 1 GB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and is plenty fast for whatever I need to do. Also, we understand the issues with benchmarks. Vendors can run a suite of tests and announce those where they play the best. Reviews have come out saying that the new MacBook Pro is not in fact 3 to 4 times faster, and may be slower in some cases for particular activity. Besides, how fast does it need to be to read e-mail, write in Microsoft Word and surf the Web? At that point, the limiting factor with speed is your broadband connection, not the CPU.
So - add it up. You have a lack of demand, and not enough compelling reasons to take a gamble on what so far is an unproven architecture. I expect that version 1.5 and version 2.0 of the MacBook Pro will add additional speed and functionality unavailable in this first version. In fact, Apple announced this week that the first round will be even faster than originally announced. I don't see that as an accident. And this doesn't even take into account the migration of applications by developers of PowerPC apps to a Universal binary that runs equally fast on PowerPC and Intel architectures. I think I can wait until Adobe, Microsoft, and all the smaller developers I depend on for the apps that I use are ready.
Should Presidents' Day Be Canceled?
02/20/2006 10:40
There are some holidays that are huge events steeped in centuries of history and tradition - Christmas and Halloween being obvious choices, with the 4th of July and Thanksgiving making a run for it here in the US. Others are more like Hallmark holidays - you're aware of them, and have some obligation to fill, such as St. Patricks Day, Valentines Day, and Memorial Day.But Presidents' Day is such a hodgepodge. It used to be two distinct holidays commemorating Abraham Lincoln and George Washington's birthday. When I was in elementary school, we got both of the days off, so February was a relatively easy month. Now, with it consolidated and falling on the most convenient Monday available, neither Lincoln or Washington get their due - after all, we will be working on Washington's birthday, and Lincoln's birthday was on a Sunday - where's the fun in that? And now that we're actually out of elementary school, it's not as if anybody celebrates what those two leaders did for us anyway. All it means is that the stock markets are canceled, schools get a day off, and most people don't have to go to the office. But I don't think you've given Lincoln and Washington more than a cursory thought today.
Let's scrap the idea. Either celebrate both men's birthdays individually, two weeks apart, or kill the idea, and make room for other days to be celebrated. I know I could always take my birthday off, or my wife's. That would make more sense.
Sneak Peek: ANtics 2.2 Coming Soon
02/20/2006 00:41
As previously mentioned, the A's pitchers and catchers reported to spring training in Arizona earlier this week, and it's not too long from now before spring training games will begin, and we'll be well on our way to the regular season. It's time to start thinking baseball, and time to start thinking about the ANtics - just a small part of the great community that is Athletics Nation. More to come soon.2005-2006 ANtics Archive
A's Pitching Staff: Armed and Ready
02/19/2006 15:56
When the A's fans saw Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder traded away after the 2004 season, in the space of a week, the feeling was very dire. Two thirds of the "Big Three" had been decimated, forcing Oakland to see its best-known players leave for greener pastures elsewhere, following year after year of more of the same - with losses of Jason Giambi, Keith Foulke, Jason Isringhausen, Johnny Damon and others having already inflicted significant damage on the A's psyche. But in 2005, after a rocky start, the A's challenged their way to a second place finish in the AL West division, scoring 88 wins, largely on the back of what had been left behind - a pretty darn good pitching staff, consisting of the now veteran Barry Zito, Rich Harden, youngsters Dan Haren and Joe Blanton, and fifth starter Kirk Saarloos.Even the competitive cities are giving the A's pitching staff its due. From the Seattle Times:
"The Oakland Athletics have a pitching staff the Mariners can only dream about, as deep in both starting and relieving as anyone except perhaps the Chicago White Sox, the defending World Series champions."
In the 2005 off season, the A's didn't see any significant losses. Octavio Dotel, Erubiel Durazo and Scott Hatteberg were replaced with Frank Thomas, Milton Bradley, and yet another pitcher - Esteban Loaiza. This gives the A's six credible starters, with Joe Kennedy in the bullpen in case disaster strikes, and Dan Meyer waiting in the wings in Triple-A Sacramento after a dismal 2005 campaign.
Now some are projecting Joe Blanton and Zito to each win 20 games, with any kind of run support, with Haren following closely behind. Though Rich Harden's health is somewhat in question, he and Loaiza will give the A's five starters capable of winning 15 to 20 games this year, backed by a bullpen including All Star Justin Duchscherer and Rookie of the Year Huston Street. With the A's offense set to pick up more of the load this year, the pitching staff doesn't show any signs of slowing down. They will throw some serious heat and keep the A's pushing toward the playoffs in 2006.
Great Electronic Music Available for Free
02/19/2006 14:30
It's no secret that my musical tastes lean more toward electronic and techno music than mainstream top 40 nonsense or even what's deemed alternative these days on the radio. Unfortunately for me, that means the radio doesn't have any kind of solution if I'm looking to hear the latest songs from Underworld, DJ Tiesto, Blank and Jones, ATB or Dave Clarke.iTunes is only now starting to archive the best of electronic music out there, making it available for download. In the last few months, I've managed to get early access to some incredible albums on iTunes, including "Far Away Trains Passing By" by Ulrich Schnauss, and "Shivers" by DJ Armin Van Buuren, to name a few. If you're not familiar, click on the links and visit iTunes to preview a few songs. I don't think you'll be disappointed. But it's honestly not enough. Whereas in years past, we used to have a few hours on the radio dial with Subsonic on Saturday nights with San Francisco-based Live 105, even that show has been canceled for more standard offerings.
"Our goal for 2006 is a more unified station," claimed the station's program director. A serious cop-out, abandoning those listeners, like myself, who had followed the show religiously for the better part of a decade.
But all is not lost. The Internet has opened new exposure to new artists. MusicMobs offers you the ability to match up artists to those you already like, while Last.FM chronicles your musical list and shows you other artists or people who share your interests. And some artists have opened up the vault to their music library so you can sample hour-long or more tracks and live sessions. The best of which who I have enjoyed is an artist named DJ Irish. I have nearly 2 and a half days worth of his remixes, from Hard Trance to Assorted Trance and live sets at clubs where he has performed. Best of all, it's free. He posts a new set, and e-mails those on his list to let you go get it.
You can find his sets here: DJ Irish and DJ Nyman Music Archive. I hope you'll enjoy it. For more insight into what I'm listening to, check the MusicMobs and Last.FM links above.
New Site Feature: Subscribe By E-mail
02/19/2006 02:00
Another leap forward on the road to worldwide domination. I've implemented a new site feature, powered by Feedblitz, on the right side of the page, where you can subscribe to the blog by e-mail. Now, rather than visiting with regularity (which I'm not opposed to), you can enter your e-mail address on the right and hit subscribe. Then, you would receive new posts on a daily basis, when updates occur. As with any good service, you opt-in, and can unsubscribe at any time.Cal Hoops Falls to Last-Place ASU
02/19/2006 00:59
Being a Cal Bears fan is a lot like being a Chicago Cubs fan - it always seems like something is going to go wrong, even when things are starting to go right. During my four years at Cal, I expected our quarterback to fumble on the one-yard line in key games, I expected our star basketball player to get injured in the last minutes of a game in which he scored more than forty points, and somehow, they always came up short. And this issue extends to any games Cal plays on a national scale - or when facing USC the last two years.Yet, somehow, I keep holding onto my faith. Today, with Cal basketball tied for first place in the Pac Ten with UCLA, and an NCAA tourney bid looking possible, they took on last-place Arizona State, at home, in what should have been an easy win. Yet we found them in trouble in first overtime.
With a chance to win by making two free throws, Cal missed the front-end and was lucky to make the second to force a second, fateful, overtime period. In that last five minutes, Cal foolishly shot an impossible three pointer when up by four, and gave ASU the chance to come roaring back. With the gap closed to two, ASU had the chance to tie or take the lead, and swished a three from behind the arc, putting the team up by one with seconds left. Cal had managed to shake defeat from the jaws of victory, missing their final attempts and seeing the Sun Devils walk away from Haas Pavilion with a well-deserved win. It was almost what I had expected to happen, but what I had hoped wouldn't. Very frustrating.