Want to know why the iPod is so popular, when other mp3 players with more features lag so far behind?

Here's Steve Jobs on the role of technology in modern life: "'We're both busy and we both don't have a lot of time to learn how to use a washing machine or to use a phone - you get one of the phones now and you're never going to learn more than 5 per cent of the features.' He's talking much faster now, accelerating in frustration. 'You're never going to use more than 5 per cent, and, uh, it's very complicated. So you end up using just 5 per cent. It's insane: we all have busy lives, we have jobs and we have interests and some of us have children, everyone's lives are just getting busier, not less busy, in this busy society. You just don't have time to learn this stuff, and everything's getting more complicated.'"

Yep.

Do we REALLY need all those beeps and interruptions?

Marketing's been turned on it's head with the advent of permission marketing, why can't the beeps and buzzes of everyday life follow suit?

360 Electrical.

This, my friends, is what's known as good design.

A photographer I used to work with had the idea a few years back for "Frame zero", a collection of found images from people loading their 35mm cameras.

This takes that idea and applies it to collector cameras. Fantastic stuff.

All your (Google) Base are belong to us. Looks like this will be My Yahoo! on steriods.

Looks like google-bombing has a dead-tree equivalent.

Target's nobody's fool when it comes to marketing, and so teaming up with Flickr, the hottest thing in digital photography right now, makes all kinds of sense right now.

As if I needed another reason to visit Target...

Wired magazine looks at the current and future state of music on mobile phones, and it doesn't look good.

Rampant greed has a way of screwing things up.

So much for that whole convergence thing.

Viral marketing, that is.

I think this is definitely something Apple should look into.

A friend of mine has been emailing me some mashups, and it's my first experience with this type of music. Having grown up with Prince Paul and The Bomb Squad turning groups like 3rd Bass and Public Enemy into stars due to their mixing capabilities, this stuff is a natural for me.

Inspired. If only copyright law were up to the task of making this more widely known.

So we fear collaboration.

Why?

Look, when your client hires you, they're not just hiring you. They're hiring your assistant(s), your lab, your stylist(s), your accountant, every single person you use to keep your business running. If one of those links fails you, your relationship with your client is damaged as much as if your strobes didn't fire.

So why are we afraid to bring in another shooter to do lighting? Or hire a fashion shooter to direct a model? Is Martin Scorsese threatened by his cinematographer? Was Miles Davis quaking at the thought of having to play with John Coltrane? Who's more important to The Mote In God's Eye, Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle?

I can understand there being some issues with stealing the client when you bring in another shooter, but that can be overcome with the right words on the contract. And any worries with your client about seeming inadequate to the task can be overcome by couching it in terms of bringing in the right people to make the picture better. The client understands you're not a makeup wiz, they can understand you wanting to bring in a specialist in another area.

It can be done. I've seen it done. Don, Daniel and I shot a couple of skating competitions this way. Who was most important to the shoot? We all were. If one of us left, the whole operation would fall apart. So why doesn't it happen more frequently? Are our egos that fragile that we can't learn from each other without being threatened? Do we think our fellow shooters are all out to stab us in the back? And do we think this is something our clients don't notice?

You are not more important than the photo. The photo is not more important than you. What IS most important is the client gets the absolute best photo for his money.

I've been brainstorming with Don as of late, trying to think of ways photographers can benefit from Web 2.0 (though I agree with Don, it's really Web 3.0. Web 2.0 was Amazon.com, pets.com, et al. Unless 1994 was the beta. I digress...), when I was struck by a fundamental truth of how photographers work.

We suck at collaboration.

Quick: Name me a successful photography team.

*crickets*

Now, that's not to say that photography isn't a team effort. You need a crackerjack art director and the best support team possible to do your best work. But there are some top-rate shooters who work alone, with no assistants. And at the end of the day, one hand alone is on the shutter release.

Writers collaborate. So do musicians. Robert Rodriguez insisted that Frank Miller be credited as a co-director for Sin City (a fact that drove the Director's Guild mad). Why must shooters (along with painters and many other visual artists) insist on going it alone? It's not like we don't shamelessy steal gain inspiration from the work of other shooters.

Making photographers work together is truly like herding cats. And making them realize they can be better if they ask for help and then give help in return is a mighty high mountain to climb.

Make the customer part of the conversation, and your ad is more popular.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Your backs are still first-rate, but your CaptureOne software might have some serious competition now.

Aaaahhhhh!!!!!!

My eyes!

Thanks, Jon. :-)

"The notion that good jounalism and good business are inherently at odds is a canard propagated by those that suck at both."

The simple truth of that statement is mind-blowing, yet it's one that journalists are loathe to make. The first journalists were story-tellers, depending on the donations of their audience for a living. Why do reporters think things are different now?

The New Times is one dead-tree paper that's been proving that good reporting and good business need not be at odds with each other. I don't always agree with what they say, but their reporting routinely eats the other local paper's lunch, and they've been successful enough to spread to ten other cities.

Does it matter that iTunes videos are only 320x240?

Nope.

What matters is that the content is consistently there, easy to obtain, and that it's want we want to see. No one expects to download DVD-Audio from the iTunes Music Store. What we're paying for with iTMS is convenience. Ditto with iTunes videos.

It's the content, stupid.

You'd think that 10 years after the 'net started growing, we'd finally be beyond the stage where pages are coded for only one type of browser.

But of course, you'd be wrong.

W3 schools.com shows 25% of the websurfers out there use something other that IE to surf the web. Why is that number important?

Because that's the Early Adopters. The people leading the charge. So if you want to write your site for the AARP crowd, by all means, use IE-specific code.

Just don't complain when you're eventually ignored by your users.

I think Mark Cuban's a jerk. But he's a really, really smart jerk. As the man behind audible.com, he knows a thing or two about the online delivery of media. So his thoughts about iTunes selling tv episodes online are especially insightful.

Update: And Robert Cringley's damn smart, too.

I'll admit, when the iPod was first announced all of 4 years ago, I thought it was nice, but why was it needed? I had a 256mb flash player that I loaded every other day or so thru a USB 1.1 connection. Ok, so it took an hour or so to fill. And had a sucky display and UI. And no real way to automatically fill up when plugged in. But $399 for 5 gigs? Ok, I had 4 gigs of music on my Lombard Powerbook back then (a DARN good computer for its day), but still, $400?

Then I got one via educational pricing, and nothing's been the same with my music since then.

Now Apple's changed the way I look at TV (and probably movies, too). Jobs' connection to Pixar certainly gives him some gravitas in negotiating with the studios and networks for content with this, but what's interesting is how quickly Disney's joined on. Disney was into the iTunes Music Store early on, making their whole catalog online, and now they've made ABC and Disney Channel content available via the iTunes store. Disney understands what the RIAA and the MPAA don't: The choice for the consumer isn't buying music or movies online at the prices Apple sets or not, it's buying online from Apple or pirating the content for free. The instant the cost/benefit equation for legal purchases shifts against the consumer in even the slightest way is the instant the consumers deserts iTunes for BitTorrent.

With darn good reason.

Happy birthday, Dylan.

a silver lining.

Via adrants.

.5% of your ad buy drove in 29% of your site traffic?

Yep, blogs are here to stay.

(So I like buzzmachine. Sue me. :-) ).

"The Internet isn't a medium, it's a means."

Hell. Yes.

Nice little semantics game, Dell.

Dell got marketshare by pricing, availability and service.

You can get a MiniMac for $500.

Their service is sucking.

So they're left with availablity. And they've nowhere to go but down on that.

Innovation, in the long run, is the only way to go.

An Oregon mother wrongly sued by the RIAA is countersuing.

I. Like. This.

Go get 'em, lady. Godspeed.

The deer now have guns. And lawyers. And money. (iTunes link. Miss you, Excitable Boy.)