You know, I was going to write a great long post, pouring scorn on Vista and how Windows Mail, Calendar, Music Player, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Media Center, Aero, Flip 3D, Instant Search, Gadgets and IE7’s RSS display (to name a few) are all second rate knock offs of features that the Mac has had for ages, some for the last three years or so.
… but I can’t be arsed. Resistance is Futile, and I’ll be using it every day before long. Enjoy!
Apple gets analyst upgrade as iTV features stealthily emerge
Nothing has emerged, stealthily or otherwise. What’s happened is an analyst has raised his share price estimates based on what he *guesses* the iTV will do. This is news?!?
These people get paid to sit around making stuff up! Brilliant.
He also stressed that the iTV video streaming product may have features “beyond streaming video content”. He noted the possibility that the device may have an internal hard drive and employ “advanced user-interface software”.
May have. May have. This clown doesn’t know a damn thing about what it is or isn’t. It’s a brushed-metal hat stand for all he knows. He has no inside knowledge, and if he did, Apple’s ridiculously over-zealous legal dogs would be all over him.
The analyst also observed that Apple will need to release “incremental products” early in 2007 to protect itself against the impact of seasonality on sales.
So a company will have to improve its products in order to compete. Fuck me, that’s revolutionary.
Next!
I’m seriously thinking about going back to Firefox 1.5 until Mozilla have got an update or two out of the door. I prefer FireFox to Safari, but the time is 12:15 and it has ‘unexpectedly quit’ FOUR TIMES already today.
[UPDATE] 1pm. Six times 
Kutaragi steps aside for new Sony boss
A Sony statement explained, “Kutaragi will continue to oversee the entire SCE group as chief executive officer, and will fully exercise his power to reinforce and further accelerate the development of the PlayStation business.”
Why am I reminded of the part in ‘Rising Sun’, where Sean Connery refers to a guy as having been given a “window seat”…? A pity, after doing such a good job establishing PS1 and steering PS2 to sell over 100 million units, the guy has totally lost the plot.
Some of my favourite Kutaragi quotes:
“The PS3 is not a game machine.”
“PS3 is for consumers to think to themselves ‘I will work more hours to buy one’. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else.”
So long Ken, thanks for all the piffle. By the way, you may want to exercise your power to sort out the PS3’s rough-as-a-bear’s-arse interface, pitiful online service and lack of anything worth playing.
There is no competion from Xbox 360 or Wii! We will crush them! There is no Halo 3 or Mario Galaxy!
I’ve been thinking about how best to phase development. Often clients want a project kept tightly under wraps, so that they can do a big “Ta-Dah!” when they’re ready to go live. The Monty site instead went through a process of pre-solicitation before the site went live.
The motivation for secrecy is obvious: to launch with a bang and to minimise the possibility of being copied. Fact is though, if your idea is any good then someone else has probably already had a similar idea - even if they’ve never seen yours. Competition is inevitable and a product will succeed because it’s seen as superior to its rivals, not because it has none. In fact, if you’re operating in completely uncharted territory you’re likely to have a harder time of convincing people that they need your product at all.
The freelance projects for which I have access to web stats have one thing in common. Although they’re ticking over very well, it took about six months before the internet in general really noticed their existence.
The only thing you achieve by being coy about your product is that you set your SEO/SEM, promotional activities and general public awareness back by six months to a year.
Once the design for the site is nailed and I start development work in earnest, I’ll put up a teaser site. It will describe (in broad strokes) what the site is and who it’s for. I’ll also invite people to register their interest to take part in a short testing phase and to be notified when it launches.
After that, the hard work really starts 
I’m going to sit back and shut up after this one, but I was thinking about the idea that the value of a network (or group of people) to its members is proportionate to the number of individuals in the group.
A little playing around and a logo idea later…
One of the best things that’s come out of starting a blog and a project of my own, is that I’ve started to take an wider interest in matters related to the development of a worthwhile service. One such area is marketing - something I’ve typically regarded with an element of distaste, despite working in an industry that’s all about brand perception.
What I, in my uneducated view, see as throwing lots of mud and seeing what sticks isn’t what I want to do. That way is talking at the user, rather than with them.
My NetNewsWire is becoming very busy of late! I’ve recently discovered writers Seth Godin and Tara Hunt.
Some of their writings that may be of interest:
Seth’s Blog - personal blog
How to get referrals
“First, marketers often forget to look at this from the consumer’s point of view. Why on earth should I give you a referral? Yes, I know it’s important to you, but why is it important to me?”
HorsePigCow - personal blog
Why 50% isn’t good enough - a Vitamin article
“Today’s smart businesses can build stronger relationships with customers by unlocking the potential of communities…”
The rules of engagement - a Vitamin article
“Be involved in your community and transform everything from the quality of your product to the audience it receives…”
I’m not about to reduce this blog to a collection of links, but I’m going to add a category for writers whose feeds I regularly read.
Ste and I were discussing logos last night, and he showed me some of the ideas that he’s had so far.
We agreed that there’s something in ideas 2,3 and 5 that’s worth exploring further. We liked the non-techy, natural feel of the graphic elements in ideas 2 and 5. The font in idea 3, while a bit too straight-laced, is the one I liked the most. Ste’s going to experiment further with these aspects. I’m still pretty open-minded about colour, except to say that I don’t like the sky blue - in conjunction with the name it looks like toothpaste.
A couple more rounds and I reckon we’ll have the logo nailed.
… prizes?
It’s funny how a feature of one product might be horribly maligned, while the exact same principle applied to another product (which enjoys rather more goodwill) doesn’t cause the batting of even a single eyelid.
Andy Ihnatko, in an article for the Chicago Sun Times entitled Avoid the loony Zune says:
…the Zune Marketplace doesn’t even take real money, proving that on the Zune Planet there’s no operation so simple that it can’t be turned into a confusing ordeal. The Marketplace only accepts Zune Points, with an individual track typically costing the equivalent of the iTunes-standard 99 cents.
Personally, I don’t like points systems. I think they create a layer of obfuscation between the user and the purchase, making it a little less clear just how much money is being spent. Perhaps this is to make the user feel like they aren’t spending real money. Nintendo is just as guilty of this though.
I’m mulling over a points system in my own project, but as a reward scheme. Direct purchases are made with “goode olde-fashioned” pounds.
Ste’s coming round later to discuss design ideas. He said last Monday that he’d made a start on things, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s come up with so far.
It might even be fun to document the process on here a little - scan some scribbles etc.
I think the site will start to feel very much like a real project once it has a visual identity. Exciting stuff 
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