misunderestimation

In an effort to generate some blogger buzz on their new Vista operating system, Microsoft has resorted to bribes:

Several bloggers reported last week that they had received Acer Ferrari laptops, which can sell for more than $2,200, from Microsoft. A Microsoft representative confirmed on Friday that the company had sent out about 90 computers to bloggers who write about technology and other subjects (such as photography and, oddly, parenting) that could be affected by the new operating system.

Sweet. A free laptop. What do I have to do in return?

“Microsoft sent out machines loaded with Windows Vista to bloggers to encourage them to experience the product and to solicit their valuable feedback, offering full disclosure that no editorial commentary was expected as a condition of acceptance,” the company said.

So, how is the blog world responding to this giveaway?

Long Zheng, an Australian blogger, was the first who reported about the valuable gifts in his blog. Soon after the reports emerged a controversy has sparked among the blogging community. While some bloggers greeted the machines with enthusiasm, the others said that the software giant is trying to bribe the bloggers with laptops, contending that bloggers are bound by the same rules as traditional journalists, who should not accept expensive gifts from companies they cover.

Long Zheng had over 180 comments on his post about Microsoft’s giveaways ranging from envy to disgust.

So really, what’s all the fuss about? Two questions jump out to me.

• Why didn’t I get one? Bloggers who did not receive the laptops feel slighted and and angry blogger can cause a lot of negative press.
• Why DID I get one and what am I expected to do? Those bloggers who received the laptops now have the responsibility to first report the gift and then consider the ramifications of keeping what may be a bribe. Does the gift change the blogger’s view of Microsoft? If so, is that right?

The fallout from this one is going to have a big impact on the perception of blogger impartiality and really illustrates that savvy marketers are recognizing the true impact of the blog world and discovering new and disturbing ways to leverage their products into our lives.

For the record, I did find a laptop under my tree this year.

More misunderestimation

iPods have set the standard for digital music players; incredible interface, incredibly cool. It seemed only a matter of time before Apple launched itself into the mobile phone market with an iPod/mobile phone of their own. On Tuesday, the iPhone was announced:

The iPhone has arrived, but it’s not made by Apple Computer Inc., which was widely rumored to be working a cell phone-iPod combination of the same name.

Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc. that makes networking equipment for the home and small businesses, unveiled the new line of Internet-enabled phones this week.

The phones use the increasingly popular Voice over Internet Protocol, better known as VoIP, and also allow users to switch over for traditional landline calling.

They also can search the Web and allow users to see when friends are online and ready to accept calls. Several other companies have similar offerings.

Linksys? They make great wireless stuff, but I though Apple had the iPhone name in their pockets:

Turns out Cisco’s had the name since 2000, when it bought InfoGear Technology, which had the rights to the iPhone name.

It’s unclear if Apple will be able to challenge Cisco’s right to the name, which is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. More likely, Apple is gonna have to come up with a snazzy name for its product.

Cisco is capitalizing on a tremendous buzz generated by bloggers around the world on a product that exists only in rumors. ZDNet wonders:

How many people will buy the Linksys iPhone thinking they are getting an iPod cousin? You just can’t buy that buzz–and spark more Christmas giggles for folks following technology companies.

What is Apple to do? I guess we will find out in January. In the mean time, you can read more about the iPhone which looks like a pretty cool product. For more on the Apple phone, check out O’Grady’s PowerPage for some interesting marketing artwork that may or may not be from Apple.

bloggingstocks: This might deter some investors who are with Apple solely for the iPod surge, but it still looks likely that some hardware will still come out. What is likely is that Apple will have to do a last minute name change. But what will that be? The iCellphone? The iCell? What do you think Apple will name it?

Lost Remote: In hindsight, not locking in the trademark on iPhone seems like quite the misstep on Apple’s part.’’

Telecommunications Industry News: if Apple decides to follow through on alleged plans to launch an iTunes-enabled cell phone, it will undoubtedly need to come up with a catchy new brand name that isn’t already registered by another company.

Gen X at 40: Are we that dense that sticking an “i” in front of a noun makes it hipper than eight years ago when everything had an “e” and a dash before it. So what are the opportunities? Some of my favorites in the old era were “e-legal” and “e-literate”. I remember my grade five teacher used to say “iTaly” but that was just sorta sad.

More misunderestimation

Congratulations to my friend, John Little on winning the 2006 Weblog Award for his Blogs of War site. John is a pioneer in the blogging world and has helped many of us start our own blogs. He continues to experiment with techniques to improve the reach of his blog while also refining his writing style.

This award is very well deserved and long overdue!

Congratulations John!

More misunderestimation

Have you ever wanted to see those pictures taken from the moon visits or see the images from the Hubble telescope? How about a 3D virtual trip to Mars? Well, your wish may be coming to a browser near you thanks to a deal announced Monday between NASA and Google:

Google and NASA announced the signing of their Space Act Agreement, which calls for them to collaborate on making it easy for people to find weather visualization and forecasting data, see high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, and track, in real time, the international space station and the space shuttle.

In short, the partnership seeks to make NASA’s work “accessible to everyone,” Google and NASA said in a statement. Although NASA has collected massive amounts of information about the Earth and the universe, this information is scattered and hard to find and is difficult for the average person to understand, they said.

Why is this deal necessary for us?

“NASA has collected and processed more information about our planet and universe than any other entity in the history of humanity,” said Chris C. Kemp, director of strategic business development at Ames. “Even though this information was collected for the benefit of everyone, and much is in the public domain, the vast majority of this information is scattered and difficult for non-experts to access and to understand.”

This latest agreement is just the next step for NASA and Google:

The collaboration marks another step in a partnership announced 15 months ago when Google unveiled plans to build a 1 million-square-foot campus at the NASA center, located a few miles south of the company’s Mountain View headquarters.

Under the arrangement, Ames will feed Google with its weather forecasting information, three-dimensional maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle flights.

In the 1960s, this country was gripped by the “Space Race” and the desire to be the first to the moon. At that time, we wanted to be first to the moon more out of fear than anything else. Almost 50 years later, it looks like we are heading back; and this time for a much better purpose.

Other thoughts:

Blogs Of War:

Another sign of hope at NASA. I can’t imagine this kind of deal happening during my days in and around the space program. Hopefully, it’s just a start.

SFist:

According to a spokesman, all this will “soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars.” And yes, that sound pretty cool. And when the aliens come, this time we’ll totally be able to Google them. The truth can be Googled, after all.

Universe Today:

NASA definitely has a lot of data that needs organizing. They’ve tried working with third parties in the past, but the job was just too much for anyone else to take on. Good luck Google… you’ll need it.

PC Advisor:

Unlocking the access to NASA images and information and making them broadly available is consistent with its mission as a public entity, he said. Currently, many images and information remain stored in NASA databases.

Ogle Earth:

Ultimately, this announcement is not about the client, but about the content, and I for one am very excited about the prospects. The Earth is Square is right, albeit graceless, when it writes, “But let Google spend its millions.. they do the hard work and because the data has to be in the public domain.. it will be in World Wind in no time.” Indeed, and users will then get to decide if they want to view the data on a souped-up atlas with social software skills and high resolution imagery as context, or in a realistic-looking, open-source virtual globe. There’s room for both.

More misunderestimation

Newsday.com and an interesting Op-Ed piece on Sunday drawing analogies between MySpace and YouTube with the rise and and subsequent falls of Napster and Kazaa. Could music sharing on MySpace and Video sharing on YouTube be heading down the same road?

The two differ in fundamental ways from their file-sharing predecessors, but their popularity flows in part from the same source: a supply of free media contributed by users. On YouTube it is video clips; on My Space it is clips and music. In fact, the two sites each show more videos than any Web site except Yahoo.

And now, with both sites drawing flak from copyright holders, the question is whether they’ll follow their predecessors’ rapid path downward, too.

The descent of the file-sharing companies was fueled mainly by their inability to satisfy the demand for free downloads that they had stoked. When the courts ordered the original Napster to prevent users from downloading copyrighted songs, it lost more than 60 percent of its audience in five months. It never recovered.

Could we be on the verge of another attack from the RIAA or Hollywood? Stay tuned.

More misunderestimation

Speculation is growing that a very interesting deal may be in the works:

Google is on the move. The internet giant has held talks with Orange, the mobile phone operator, about a multi-billion-dollar partnership to create a ‘Google phone’ which makes it easy to search the web wherever you are.

According to GigaOM, there is additional evidence of the creation of a Google Phone:

Google Phone, if you think about it is a reasonable speculation. Google has been aggressive in developing location based services, has amp-ed up its local search and mapping services. In addition, it has also been mobilizing its applications such as GTalk and GMail. YouTube, the video arm of Google, is beginning to embrace the mobile ecosystem.

If true, this move may mark a change in the way we use and think about cell phones.

In November, Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, said for Reuters, that he thinks that in the future mobile phones should be free for the consumers. Not for everyone, but for those who will accept to watch targeted forms of advertising. According to Reuters, Schmidt said that the mobile phones are used eight to 10 hours a day for talking, texting or Web access.

“Your mobile phone should be free,” Schmidt told Reuters. “It just makes sense that subsidies should increase” as advertising rises on mobile phones.

What could this new phone look like? CrunchGear has some thoughts:

So essentially, if the report rings true, the pair are planning a relatively vanilla handset. I think, however, that holds some significance. While us tech nerds love devices that have gobs of features, regular consumers want simple, usable functionality—not oppressively complicated technology. It’s a model that has benefited Google immensely in its eight years of existence, and I don’t see why mobile technologies should be any different.

Buzzle.com thinks this move is the way of the future:

Manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola are working to make the mobile internet commonplace. Earlier this year Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice-president of Nokia, said at a product show in New York: ‘In the mid-Nineties I said that if you don’t have a mobile phone you will be making a declaration that you wanted to be outside organised society. People said I was crazy, but now everybody has a mobile phone. Today I’m saying that in 10 years’ time the same will be true if you don’t have the full internet in your pocket.

So, what is the buzz on this phone?

Real Tech News: We Say: The story says the phone would be manufactured by HTC, meaning it most likely would have Windows Mobile as an OS. But if the only differentiating factor will be searchability … I’m not sure. The primary function of even a smartphone or PDA phone is as a phone. Most users still underutilize their smartphones. Still, Google is a big name. We’ll have to wait and see when and if this shows up.

Engadget: Google CEO Eric Schmidt has even waxed rhapsodic about the possibilities of free handsets subsidized by (Google) ads. Even so, releasing a Googlephone would be a HUGE step for them, since ultimately Google’s goal shouldn’t be to have its own phone, but rather to be on every phone, right?

Naked Conversations: I’ve written a lot about phones and price recently, but we all have frustrations with performance. With entries from Apple with its history of product elegance and now Google with its internet software superiority, mobile computing may be headed a significant click up.

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: In an earlier post “Three moves that could topple Google” I suggested that mobile search is one of three search areas that has no dominant leader and could be a billion dollar opportunity for a smart start-up. Better move fast because Google is coming, and not alone. They have the brand and money to partner with their pick of the mobile phone leaders.

More misunderestimation

In a follow-up to a post from last week about the flying Nintendo Wii controllers and the damage they cause, Nintendo made a major announcement today:

Nintendo said Friday it will replace 3.2 million straps for its popular Wii computer game controllers after receiving a rash of reports that the devices flew out of the hands of overzealous players.

Photo from: wiihaveaproblem.com

This can’t be good news for Nintendo who is in a major battle with Sony and Microsoft over their share of the video gaming market.

Nintendo has a remote replacement form on their site.

Lost Remote: What’s the worst thing that can happen to a new toy at Christmas? How about a recall?

Simon Bullen’s Weblog: The problem with the straps, originally reported as a major recall, affects all Nintendo Wiis sold worldwide and almost all units currently on shelves in shops. Nintendo has targeted sales of four million Wii consoles by the end of 2006.

Engadget: Well, how ’bout that… on top of the 200k DS and DS Lite AC adapters being recalled this morning, Nintendo just announced an additional recall of 3.2 million straps for their Wii Remote Control.

Nintendo Gal: Nintendo’s new Wii console has been cracking the charts wide open, along with the walls, furniture, and television screens of hundreds of eager players whose enthusiasm got the better of them.

More misunderestimation

The Nintendo Wii was released last month as a lower-cost alternative to the XBox and PlayStation units and it features an interactive motion-sensing controller. Apparently, the controller may need a warning label:

Nintendo Co. Ltd. has some cautionary advice for players of its Wii video game console: when waving the controller, use the wrist strap, keep your palms dry and, whatever you do, don’t let go.

You hold the controller to mimic all sorts of activities; swinging a bat or tennis racket, wielding a sword to fend off mortal enemies, or anything else the programmers can dream-up. It’s not a new concept, but it is a cool one. There is just one problem:

“Some people are getting a lot more excited than we’d expected,” Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata said. “We need to better communicate to people how to deal with Wii as a new form of entertainment.”

This excitement has lead to controllers flying all over the place. The Wii controller comes with a strap, but many are not being used or are breaking in the heat of the moment. These flying controllers are landing and causing damage. Wii Have A Problem (www.wiihaveaproblem.com) is a web site that has been set-up to capture photos of damage caused by Wii controllers. Here is an example from the site:

Now that’s what I call excitement! The site has some amazing pictures of damage. I guess we all have to learn not to become too excited when holding our Wii controllers…

As always, the blog world is all over this one:

• Hey, watch out how you swing that Wii wand
• Houston, Wii have a problem.
• Getting Wiitarded
• Have Wii Been Hurt in an Accident?
• Un-Nintendo’d Consequences: The Menace of “Wii Elbow”
• Interview with the Toronto Star

More misunderestimation

Incredible news out of NASA on Wednesday, flowing water on Mars:

A spacecraft orbiting Mars has discovered compelling evidence that water has cascaded down the slopes of at least two Martian craters within the past seven years, forming mile-long gullies where the water has frozen instantly into brilliant ice, NASA scientists announced Wednesday.

Water is the basic ingredient for life and where there is water…

“It’s one more reason to think that life could be there,’’ said Bruce Jakosky, an astrobiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who had no role in the study.

Life in the sense of single-celled micro-organisms, not the little green kind with bad dispositions. More importantly, this news could confirm a long-held belief that Mars has water and could support human life. Having water on Mars means we don’t have to bring as much with us when we go there.

This news follows NASA announcement early this week about building a base on the moon:

NASA an­nounced plans today to build a per­ma­nent base on the moon by 2024.

“With such an out­post, NASA can learn to use the moon’s nat­u­ral re­sources to live off the land, make prepa­ra­tions for a jour­ney to Mars, con­duct a wide range of sci­en­tif­ic in­ves­ti­ga­tions and en­cour­age in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion,” the agen­cy said in a state­ment.

Is it just me or is this getting really cool.

More Blogging:

• Water World, I
• Where there’s water, there’s life
• If there’s water on Mars, how about life?
• water flowed on Mars within last seven years
• Liquid water on Mars

More misunderestimation

A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute was released with some very good news for cell phone companies:

A huge study from Denmark comparing records of people who got cancer with 420,000 cell phone users found that people who gab on the wireless gadgets are no more likely than anyone else to get the disease.

Among those scientists tracked were 52,000 cell phone users who have used them for 10 years or more, and some as long as 21 years.

This is great news for those hard-core cell phone users and for the cell phone companies. Can you imagine, a cell phone in every car, in every purse, in every pocket!

Wait a minute, we have that now… OK, 2 cell phones in every car, every purse, every pocket!

More misunderestimation