Pixelmator is available now to buy (there is a 30-day trial). This is slightly later than originally projected, but that’s life in the world of software 
I remarked in a previous post that this application looked like a possible alternative to Photoshop for the casual user or designer on a tight budget. I guess it’s time to find out if that’s true.
For $59 you can’t go far wrong.
Here’s hoping some real competition has arrived in the music downloads market with Amazon MP3 (in US-only public beta). It may be another nail in the coffin of DRM. I’ve bought a few tracks on iTunes, but I buy albums on CD because of DRM.
I want to own my music. I won’t join a subscription service like the late Virgin Digital. As for people who don’t want to pay: are you listening record labels?
Apple have too much power right now, and their “my way or the highway” attitude may come back to bite them. I hope it does because a) getting too involved in rights management red tape distracts from making slick devices and b) it leads to mean spirited moves like preventing a previously bought game working on your new iPod.
I’m looking forward to Amazon MP3 rolling out in the UK. Their prices appear to be competitive, and they provide a Mac OS X download client. Hurrah!
A new website by The Foundry went live this morning. Cheeky Monkey Business Solutions deliver “a human approach to innovation and change.”
Designed by our very own Mital Daya and built by myself, we had lots of fun working on this one.
Explore the site and see how many secret animations you can find!
In keeping with our accessibility guidelines, a HTML version will follow soon.
When I saw this quote by Steve Jobs at this week’s London event I had a flashback:
The [iPhone] camera is great. More megapixels don’t make a better camera, the iPhone is actually a great camera especially with great lighting.
Oh good I thought… It’s back to the PowerPC vs x86 days and the megahertz myth. Here’s the problem: I concede the above remark is true, if evasive. All the pixels in the world evidently don’t help most camera phones take a decent picture when the subject is in motion or poor light.
… But it’s not about what a few know, is it? It’s about what most people believe, and the MHz argument pretty much fell on deaf ears in 2001. Simply put, people expect that the numbers marketed to them mean something, and bigger = better.
What’s more, when I had a play with an iPhone recently I thought the camera was poor. Laggy, awkward to use (because of the software trigger on the touch screen). No flash (so “great lighting” might be hard to find – forget about taking it to a gig).
What it needs is a campaign of proving its quality by direct comparison, and upgrade the sensor to satisfy the uneducated consumer. iPhone is expensive compared to a Nokia N95 (£360 dearer over 18 months), and only looks tempting if you consider it a worthy replacement for your phone, iPod and digital camera.
At the moment, it’s two out of three at best.
Ian and I attended a seminar by Blue Skies at Dukes 92 in Manchester last week. Dubbed “the impact of social networking”, the event was summed up like so:
Socialised media such as blogs, wikis and photo-sharing sites have moved far beyond simply a meeting place for techies or a posting board for complaints. It is now a way of reaching key demographics… This brave new world will impact all businesses. Topics will include:
- What the new online universe looks like
- Spheres of influence and shifts in trust
- Changing communication channels
- Future opportunities
Interesting stuff on paper. It must be said however that the presentation wasn’t what we hoped. We expected case studies of how brands had successfully engaged with individuals and communities like MySpace and Facebook to improve their public image and inform product development. Those answers were not forthcoming.
We got a wandering history of how social networking sites have appeared and the potential impact on (the assumed audience) the PR professional. An impact which they went on to say, we may all simply choose to ignore.
The essential message was that it’s all business-as-usual for PR agencies. Their job is still to target their messages to a core of “opinion leaders”. The only difference is who those people may be. The position of trust held by political leaders, celebrities and journalists is being encroached on by the blogger, the Amazon reviewer etc.
I agreed that monitoring discussion on the web and reporting is a PR function. It’s comparable to the current practice of gathering press cuttings. I don’t agree with their definition of “community marketing”. This is a term that I have heard before, and what it means seems to depend on who you ask.
The seminar would have it mean marketing to communities, but I think it should mean being a member of communities, inhabiting and supporting the markets you wish to serve. In the hope of generating sales of course, but also to create an enduring relationship with your customers.
I can produce a case in point from my own site. When Photoshop Product Manager John Nack commented on a post of mine I was both surprised and impressed. I was pleased that an ambassador of a huge company had taken the trouble to personally address my questions. This did more to raise my opinion of Adobe than anything they’ve done for many years.
Truth is, it’s absurd to think that you can manufacture community. People make a community. You can build it, but they will not necessarily come. If you censor it, or assault people with sales messages your efforts will fail.
Seek your customers out where they are. Break down the walls between the product makers and users. Allow your people to talk frankly (under disclaimer if you must). Take criticism on the chin, rather than denying it exists. Answer questions. Listen to requests, even if you don’t act on them. Use this to drive your product development. Rinse. Repeat.
This is how you benefit from the Internet, which was always one big social network. This isn’t PR, this is customer service. In this day and age, I think most would agree that personal service is the weakest link. I’m in the habit of Googling a company before I enter into any kind of long term commitment. The difference can be startling.
It will be amusing to see whether Blue Skies respond to this post
Here’s one for anyone who thinks that the anti-piracy ads we see in the cinema are a bit O-T-T. I remember noting that attempting to copy a film in a cinema carries a hefty penalty. Up to ten years imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
So it seems pirating a film is a worse crime than murder.
So YouTube started displaying advertisements on video clips in the US a week ago. Before long, this will roll out everywhere. The first question on my mind is what took them so long? Backlash be damned, I think this could be a small step towards something brilliant.
Sometimes their activities seem pretty random, but I’m going to go out on a limb and credit Google with having a Grand Plan. It doesn’t strike me as a coincidence that Adobe is adding H.264 support to Flash while YouTube is converting its entire library to H.264 (essentially for iPhone, but I digress).
Higher quality means higher operating costs (ie: storage and bandwidth), which Google will want to pay for somehow…
Call them what you want. Search Engine. Rival to Microsoft Office. Mapper. Google are in the business of selling advertisements. There’s a fundamental difference however with putting ads on YouTube and pay-per-click services like Adwords.
A search result is an abstract thing, a function of the engine which no one website can own. A video however, is the sole property of whoever made it. The current ad approach doesn’t seem to give due respect to the content creators.
Matt Harding, mentioned in the linked CNET article has a legitimate complaint. He should not only be able to choose whether to have adverts in his own content (even if no-ads means settling for low quality), but what adverts to allow. Existing services like Text Link Ads already provide this level of control.
Most importantly, he should get a piece of the action, damnit! His video has been viewed almost eight million times. Even if YouTube got the majority of revenue for providing the platform, as little as a $1 cut on a 1% clickthrough rate should send him almost $80,000. I think he’d feel much better about that.
A move like this could create a revolution in user created content. If an individual could make some pocket money (or even a living) from their creativity, then all sorts of new things are possible, not only in terms of variety but also production values.
Successes like Wine Library TV show us that niche audiences are the future. As Robert Llewellyn points out in his rather entertaining video blog, the missing link is how to make something self-sustaining. WLTV exists as a brand reinforcement exercise for an online wine shop, but ads may be the key for Joe Public.
When a car enthusiast can create his own Fifth Gear, when a gallery can create their own South Bank Show, that future will be here.
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