Organized Individualists: August 2009

Another nail in the heart

8.26.2009 by Kevin Creighton

Jeff Jarvis continues to document the slow, painful death of print journalism. I used to spend hours devouring all the sections of the newspaper, now I have NetVibes and dozens of RSS feeds.

And yes, the title is a Squeeze reference.

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Take a MacBook, a digital camera, a cheap inkjet printer and some Ikea shower curtains, and what do you have?

A DIY photobooth for wedding guests.

How many event shooters and wedding photographers could benefit from doing this themselves (and charging a modest (or immodest) fee) rather than having a guest/attendee show up and do it for them?

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C. Ignore it until it goes away

8.07.2009 by Kevin Creighton

"Hollywood studios are split over Redbox, the $1-per-night DVD rental kiosk company: They could supply it with cheap wholesale discs and ride its massive growth, or starve it in the hopes of preserving higher-priced purchases."

The question isn't whether $1 rentals will starve purchases, the question is how long will $1 rentals of physical products last once other available options become more widespread.

Choosing between cheap DVD rentals or higher-priced DVD sales in today's world is like choosing between Maxell XLIIS or TDK SA in 1992: A change was coming that would make such choices completely irrelevant.

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Searching for bias

8.06.2009 by Kevin Creighton

Uh-oh, Microsoft, not a good way to build confidence in your newly-revamped search engine.

A search on Bing for the phrase, "Why is Windows so expensive?" returned this as the top link....
"Why are Macs so expensive."
That's right. You're not hallucinating. That was the top response on Bing to a question about the price of Windows.

I was tempted for a few weeks to use Bing as a backup to Google results, but not anymore.

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The straw that broke the carrier's back

8.01.2009 by Kevin Creighton

Does Apple/AT&T's rejection of Google voice signify the beginning of the end of mobile phone service as we know it?

Maybe.

I don't use Google Voice, but I do love me my iPhone. With the FCC looking into this, it could finally cut the subsidized phone/expensive service model we're looked into here and open up the mobile phone world to real competition.

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