Paul Jacobson Life, law and other stuff

The demise of Six Apart?Posted by Paul on April 28th, 2005

With the explosive growth MSN Spaces has enjoyed in the last few months, will a relative lightweight like Six Apart survive on its own in the years to come?  This is the question The Blog Herald asks in its article titled "Blog slayer: Microsoft and the future of SixApart".  This touches on a post I published a few months ago which considered the possibility that Yahoo! would buy Six Apart as a way to enter the blog market. 

Microsoft does not enter markets to come second. Microsoft only enters markets with the intention of not only becoming the leading vendor, but the dominate vendor as well. In 5 months Microsoft has gone from 0 blogs to over 7 million blogs and counting. In the same period (29 Nov 04-26 Apr 05) SixApart’s LiveJournal increased their number of registered users by 1.7 million yet its active user count increased by only slightly over 300,000. A potential 1.4 million users stopped using LiveJournal during that period, and potentially went elsewhere. Given the fickle nature of the teen market, the core market that is targeted by both LiveJournal and Spaces, that looks more at popularity and the latest “in?? thing, it’s fair to presume that the growth in MSN Spaces, and the integration with the popular MSN Messenger, is not unrelated to the loss of active users from LiveJournal.

The continued growth of Spaces risks the long term future of LiveJournal. Any blog player that reaches in excess of 10 million users, as MSN Space’s is about to do, will surely reach a point of critical mass in its particular market where it becomes the dominate blog player of choice. Differentiation may work in niche markets, but in the teen market this is not the case. With more and more of their peers signing up, teens through out the English speaking world will be wanting a Spaces blog, just like they want an iPod or a mobile phone.

Even though Yahoo! has launched Yahoo! 360, might it still be a possibility?  The Blog Herald thinks so.

The future for SixApart is in its intellectual property, and its sale to a bigger player. And for this there are two, or maybe three likely suitors. Yahoo! is the obvious choice. Yahoo! has a history of buying companies in areas in which it lacks expertise and wishes to acquire additional users in a particular field (Broadcast.com and Geocities spring to mind). The time period for SixApart to remain attractive to Yahoo! is limited as Yahoo! continued to develop its own blogging platform. The last two potential suitors have the financial backing and brand exposure that would allow SixApart to continue to compete against the big 3.

As much as I love what Six Apart have done with MovableType, TypePad and now LiveJournal, there is no denying the threat Microsoft poses with Spaces.  True Six Apart offers a superior blogging experience with better technology and all that but there is a lot to be said for the numbers Microsoft carries and its growing momentum.  Personally, I would love to see Yahoo! buy Six Apart, it would really bring a few of my personal online services together nicely.

Nokia develops starsPosted by Paul on April 28th, 2005

Consider the phone you have now and then imagine having a phone with a 4 GB storage space; a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack; support for MP3, WMA, AAC, M4A and many other music formats; built in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11b and g; GPRS, EDGE and 3G connectivity; a 2 megapixel camera; series 60 interface and you can make phone calls!  Many would consider that a Nokia dream phone. 

Well, the good news is that you are not dreaming, this phone is real and it is scheduled for release towards the end of this year.  It is called the Nokia N91 and it is already on my acquisition list for some point in the future.  infoSync World has a review of this amazing phone.  Talk about a come back from years of relative mediocrity in the mobile phone world!

Who would have thought: after dragging its feet for several years, Nokia is finally making a jump to the forefront of mobile technology again. Part of the maker’s new N series of multimedia handsets, the Nokia N91 smartphone unveiled here today in Amsterdam is destined to give Sony Ericsson’s W800 walkman phone a solid run for its money - unless it runs out of battery life first.

In addition to all of the above features this sexy number also incorporates all the other applications you generally find on series 60 phones (PIM applications and suchlike).  It looks like the phone also comes with the Opera browser (I am more of a fan of NetFront) and it looks darn good to boot.

But wait, there’s more.  Nokia also released two more souped up models, the N90 and N70.

The clamshell N90 features a Carl Zeiss lens and a 2 megapixel camera:

It’s a bit big and a bit plasticky, but who cares when it looks to become the best cameraphone to grace western shores this year? Nokia’s N90 is a bit of an unwieldy beast, but nonetheless impressive: it’s the first Series 60 smartphone to feature a 262K colour, 352 x 416 pixel display - double the resolution of its venerable predecessors, focusing heavily on imaging with a 2 Megapixel integrated camera.

Relying on Carl Zeiss optics, the N90 flips just about any which way you’ll want it to. Operating in three different modes, the clamshell handset can be used in shape of a regular phone, in a video recording mode - held much like a camcorder - and in a still shot mode with the lens barrel rotating and the external display acting as the viewfinder. At 65K colours 128 x 128 pixels it’s quite a bit smaller than the internal display, but still works well.

Not only focusing on the megapixels, Nokia also included more advanced imaging functionality such as autofocus and a macro mode in the N90. Furthermore, the built-in flash can be set to either on/off, automatic or red eye reduction modes, with users also able to adjust brightness and white balance. Pictures can be taken in resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 pixels, however the N90 is also able to record video in CIF format at 352 x 288 pixels, the quality of which is impressive - and even more so when viewed on the high resolution screen of the N90; it’s a must-see.

It also features GPRS/EDGE/3G capability and all the other stuff you get with a series 60 phone.  It also features an HTML 4.01 compliant browser.

As for the N70 -

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a 6680 in disguise. Unveiled today here at the Destionation (sic) Multimedia event hosted by Nokia in Amsterdam, the Nokia N70 is the spitting image of the Finnish handset maker’s current top-of-the-line smartphone - harbouring a few, important differences that sets it apart.

A dual mode, tri-band GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz smartphone with 3G, the N70 mimics the feature set of the 6680 closely. For instance, it retains the dual camera setup found in the 6680, yet ups the resolution of the main camera to 2 Megapixels as opposed to 1.3 Megapixels in the 6680. The front mounted camera remains unchanged at 0.3 Megapixels, and fortunately so does the sliding cover on the back which protects the lens and automatically opens the camera application when opened.

Also to be found in the imaging department is an integrated flash with anti red-eye, along with a range of applications for editing and processing both still images and video on the N70 as well as on the PC. Similar to the N90 and N91 smartphones also launched today, the N70 is also capable of playing back both audio and video in a range of formats, including MP3, AAC, RealAudio, H.263 and MPEG4.

I like the anti red-eye effect on this one.  As with the other two phones, the N70 features USB 2.0 connectivity and the usual range of series 60 applications.  It also appears to come with speaker independent voice dialling (a huge advantage over phones that don’t have this feature given how long it takes to train a phone to recognise your commands).

My favourite phone is the N91 and I am going to keep a keen eye on this one as time goes by.  Assuming this phone raises the bar, it really won’t be too long before mobile phones truly reach parity with dedicated PDAs and supercede them.

(via infoSync World)

New fictionPosted by Paul on April 27th, 2005

It turns out that Lisa LeDemure is also an amateur writer.  She posts parts of stories she is working on at musings, her writer’s blog.

He had of course noticed her toes in the window, she was quite the
creature. She rarely brushed her mane of wavy brown hair, yet so
meticulous in the care of her feet. She painted her nails red in the
parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Moab while he checked under the hood of
the Volvo in sheer wonder at why the air conditioner had stopped
working. He hadn’t a clue about it, but he looked, no water and no oil
anywhere and no Volvo dealer for another 1000 miles unless they
detoured to Denver. Sure, there were the little mom and pop places
along the way but the car was still under warrantee, he’d be able to
get it fixed at no cost in Dallas. No air conditioning for another 1000
miles and Lucy sat quietly painting her nails. He had to admit her toes
looked so cute up there in the window and the paint actually accented
her thick calves and petite toes quite nicely. He could feel himself
rise just a little beneath his Dockers.

Superman Returns plot detailsPosted by Paul on April 27th, 2005

Businesswire has posted a synopsis of the much anticipated (certainly by me) new Superman movie:

Following a mysterious absence of several years, the Man of Steel comes back to Earth in the epic action-adventure "Superman Returns," a soaring new chapter in the saga of one of the world’s most beloved superheroes. While an old enemy plots to render him powerless once and for all, Superman faces the heartbreaking realization that the woman he loves, Lois Lane, has moved on with her life. Or has she? Superman’s bittersweet return challenges him to bridge the distance between them while finding a place in a society that has learned to survive without him. In an attempt to protect the world he loves from cataclysmic destruction, Superman embarks on an epic journey of redemption that takes him from the depths of the ocean to the far reaches of outer space.

I’m already buzzing!

Deep inside Microsoft’s “funk”Posted by Paul on April 26th, 2005

CNET News.com’s blog has a post about Microsoft’s "funk".  I know the feeling.  We seem to have an annual event where a bunch of people leave the firm and morale drops in the midst of a range of issues that generally upset people here.  Happens every year and eventually passes until the next year.

Microsoft employees are becoming increasingly vocal about the "funk" that the company finds itself in.

A number of blogging company employees have bared their souls, complaining about the problems they see at the software giant.

Lenn Pryor, in explaining why he is leaving job of director for platform at Microsoft for a position at Sykpe, said this: "I just couldn’t go on being an evangelist for a gospel that I don’t believe I can sing."

On Monday, Dare Obasanjo, who works for Microsoft’s MSN division, described himself as one of many employees trying to "find somewhere at Microsoft that isn’t overwhelmed by the current malaise that has smothered main campus."

Do you have the same thing in your business?

Home theatre - redefinedPosted by Paul on April 26th, 2005

Now this is a real home theatre!

Way, way overpricedPosted by Paul on April 26th, 2005

Moneyweb has reported on an independent report commissioned by the South Africa Foundation has found South Africa’s "international bandwidth costs to be 399% more expensive than the average country surveyed".  Wow!

Here is just an extract from the article:

Sarah Truen, analyst from G:enesis Analytics, the body that conducted the research, said the findings on international bandwidth were the “most extreme?? of the product range that it had studied. But, on almost all other counts, South Africa also fared very poorly.

The report was commissioned as part of the ongoing efforts of business and government to encourage the development of the call centre market, an area that has been identified as having huge potential for the country. A McKinsey study recently found that business process outsourcing (BPO), which is predominantly the call centre industry, could generate up to 150 000 jobs in South Africa. South Africa Foundation executive director Michael Spicer said a “range of focused interventions?? had to take place in order for this potential to be reached. One of the most significant barriers was found to be the high cost of telecoms, but due to the contested nature of some of the other research into this subject, it decided to commission an independent study.

In order to obtain a representative sample of countries against which to compare South Africa, Truen said G:enesis had carefully chosen countries with effective telecommunications sectors, constructing an index of telecoms competitiveness including penetration levels in internet and telephony, investment and prices. Best practice peer group countries chosen included Brazil (probably the nearest comparable country to SA), India, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines and Thailand. Countries chosen as examples of international best practice included Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, South Korea and the United States.

On most fronts, South Africa was more expensive, and in most cases the most expensive, of the comparative countries. This included pricing on services like business ADSL (always on broadband), domestic leased lines, international leased lines (international bandwidth), retail ADSL (always on retail broadband), and even retail data (local ISPs, where there is competition, but the ISPs still have to buy international bandwidth from Telkom at retail, rather than wholesale prices).

On ADSL costs, Truen said G:enesis had included Telkom’s latest prices, after cuts earlier this year. But, although Telkom’s prices had come down, South Africa became less competitive over that period because other countries dropped their prices even further.

This study seems to vindicate a recent complaint by the industry laid with Icasa, and around which public hearings were held, into Telkom’s high ADSL pricing. Telkom argued that its broadband pricing was fair.

Anyone surprised?