false precision

I don’t like Facebook

2009-12-10T16:45:11-07:00

It's not popular to say and generally makes you sound old, but I really don't like Facebook. Really.

Once in while I check out the timeline, almost always on my iPhone when I'm a little bored. I get a lot of messages through facebook because I have my twitter feed going into the facebook so people I know comment on my tweets. That's all fine. Some of my cousins are on Facebook so I find I know more about what they are doing which is interesting. One of my daughters is on Facebook and Lura is on Facebook which is interesting.

Outside of those corner cases, I get no value from Facebook. In fact, I find it super annoying. Part of why I find it annoying is its incessant need to connect me to people I don't care about. Just because I 'know people' doesn't mean they are my 'friends'. I once worked with a guy who was one degree away from being a total psychopath. He lied, cheated stole things, misrepresented everything and was generally an immoral turd of a person. He would always name drop about how everyone was his friend. Literally everyone he met was a "Friend".

Some people are "people collectors". They are connector type personalities who enjoy meeting lots of people and connecting them. I'm not a people collector. It seems a little militant to say, but on average I generally don't like people. I like the small group of people I like, the others – I have no need for them. I probably put 30 people in my entire life into the 'friend' category. Some people put thousands of people in that category. I think Facebook is designed for people like that.

I like Twitter but it's because I almost never read it. I tweet because it's kind of fun, but frankly it's just for me – I have no expectation that anyone reads my tweets. I only have my follower list dialed into people who are interesting. Not usually my "friends", although some of the 30 are in there. With twitter it's more about interesting concepts and thoughts.

Facebook constantly crams stupid shit up my ass.

I don't want to play games, I don't want to connect with a dude I once met in Missouri, I don't want a message from "Danny" about the Denver Zombie Crawl (whatever the hell that is).

I'm pretty sure I don't care about ROCKtober !

AND, no IM not Todd Vernon that lived in San Antonio..

Why not just bail out?

Because it's kind of like a phone. You can disconnect the phone but it doesn't serve you well to do so.

Facebook is like a phone that won't stop ringing. No matter how many stupid calls you get.

People tell me, just don't friend anyone. Good advice, I "thin" the friend herd all the time. But Facebook hates that. Facebook wants to talk about my day and won't let me watch TV while I eat dinner. Facebook is like a bad wife who just sits around talking about senseless dribble all day long. "You know what Annie did today?", "Jimmy just posted a photo of his Kitty".

Now Facebook wants to change the privacy settings everyone so it can send more senseless bullshit into the crap-o-sphere.

That's enough, I have to Tweet this post so it will go into Facebook now.

MacPro Windows 7 Install Success!

2009-11-30T15:13:38-07:00

I had a nice week long vacation over the Thanksgiving Holiday. One of the many things on my list was to settle once and for all the illusive Windows 7 install on my MacPro at home.

I have bitching about it on my blog for several posts. I tried without success to upgrade the Vista image on my Bootcamp partition several times. Over the break I bit the bullet and did a fresh install on the Bootcamp partition AND – no luck. Realizing I was over my head (or at least past my interest level) I called my neighbor Tom over to help. Tom is my goto IT support for home issues that need a level of commitment that perhaps I lack.

We tried several things that didn't work. We ended up reading the installer log that shows you everything that worked, but failing to tell you what did not work. A more information dialog at the end of the unsuccessful install simply said that "Installer failed". Hmm?

Armed with that information we hit the Interwebs and found a reasonably long dialog about unsuccessful installs on MacPro hardware. It seems that Windows 7 runs fine on a MacPro, but the installer crashes. Really?

Two solutions were outlined on the web. One, install windows on the drive installed in another machine then boot the image and hope you can correct the drivers and get the install to boot. The Second, download Parallels the PC virtual machine software for MacOS and use it to install windows into the Bootcamp partition. After you get Windows 7 running off the Bootcamp partition in the emulator, then boot the image natively and fix up the drivers with the Snow Leopard drivers disk.

Tom opted for number 2 as number 1 was a lot moving disks around and involved some kind of drive slot number magic that we viewed as higher risk than the high wire act we chose to perform.

We downloaded a trial copy of Parallels, installed Windows 7 into the Bootcamp partition, rebooted AND Viola.. Installed the Snow Leopard Drivers and I'm off the races.

Ok, that was a big deal. But Windows 7 runs perfectly and the machine seems faster to me now. If you need Tom to install your Windows don't count on it – he's busy constantly bailing out my family.

You kids get off my yard!

2009-11-19T15:03:36-07:00

I swear down deep I'm a technology lover. Some stuff is so retarded though…

I think the Mac is great at editing video and making DVD's and surfing the web. Once beyond that it becomes PAINFUL for me to use it. Back when I was more of a programmer, it was a cool platform because of all the Unix like stuff but now I need more traditional things like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. I sometimes imagine how much it must suck to be a programmer on the Apple "Numbers" team. You go to a party and someone asks what do you do? Well I'm a programmer for Apple and I work on "Numbers". The person says, "huh"? And you have to say, "You know, Excel but for the Mac". Rewarding.

This weekend I copied some photo disks to give to Marlo's friends after they went indoor skydiving for her birthday. I did this on my Vista machine and took the disks upstairs to the party still underway. Lura's Mac laptop was on the counter so I thought I would just throw the disk in and start a slide show. Wrong, after 10 minutes of dicking around I never did figure out how to do it. I even imported everything into iPhoto. Still no go. On Vista you just double click a photo and click slideshow. That's a pretty easy and common use case, WTF Apple?

I have been trying to upgrade to windows 7 for a week or so now. Nothing works. The Upgrade assistant says all is good, it does literally everything and in the final minute it says, "This version of Windows could not be installed". Ahh, thanks - that's very helpful.

Today I took a few minutes to Google the error to see what I need to do. No real help was found but I love the advice given by this dude.

I feel silly I didn't think of this myself.

I did finally make it over the hump with the Apple Martini phone. It took a few weeks to give up the stuff on Blackberry that just works SO much better. I think if I had to boil it down to the thing I miss the most about the Blackberry it would be the red LED on top that says I have a message. With the Martini phone I have to wake it up, unlock it, goto the email thing, ahh – no message, put it back to sleep. I do that about 100 times a day, stupid. On the flip side, the voice mail is genius. It took a company with the size and influence of Apple to put enough pressure on the Telco's to make voice mail logical. Telcos hate logical and easy to use stuff. Just goes against their DNA.

Do I sound old? This stuff makes me feel old.

Comscore U.S. Search Market Share

2009-11-17T16:33:50-07:00

Wow, the chart of the day on Silicon Alley Insider.

How long till Bing crosses Yahoo (or are they asymptotic)?

And when it does happen will anybody care? I know people who use Yahoo but I don't know any human on the planet that uses Bing.

Next time you're in a room with a group of people ask them 1) Have they have ever tried Bing, 2) If they have, do they continue to use Bing.

Based on my observation you may get 10% on the first question, but pretty universally you will get 0% on the second. In my observations about 60% have heard of Bing.

Day 3, Upgrade to Windows 7

2009-11-10T21:34:47-07:00

Yes, Microsoft does seem to have gotten it right this time…

WTF?

Just another day in the Airforce

2009-11-08T16:49:56-07:00

I'm sorry but I have to call bullshit on this Airforce commercial.

I've never been in the Airforce but I was a contractor to NASA for about 10 years and worked with a lot of Airforce people, in a lot of Airforce places.

I can't recall seeing or hearing of a commission with the Airforce Space command where anyone got to maneuvered a giant transformer style space craft at a moment's notice, in a room with a giant holographic projection of the earth, eerily hovering above a projected battlefield while controlling the entire thing with hand gestures on a giant tablet.

If you see all this after you enlist for the Airforce Major Tom, you may want to take a look in your frosted flakes.

Thoughts on Real-time Search

2009-10-22T15:36:11-06:00

Several companies have entered the arena of what has become to be known as Real-time Search. I've had a bit of problem really getting my head around what real-time search is and how it would weave its way into my behavior patterns. For me, Search is just one part of how I find out about stuff:

DISCOVERING: Something is happening, it may or may not be something I care about, and I don't know it's happening. I usually find out about it via some source, personal network, facebook, twitter, dig, CNN, etc. I don't have a specific mission to know it before I find out about it.
ALERTING: Something is happening and I knew ahead of time I wanted to know about it when it happens. I usually find out about these things via some source such as Google Alerts or Filtrbox. Alerts behave a little like a broad based search with asynchronous results that come back some day.
SEARCHING: Something is happening or has happened or simply exists. I want to know more about it. I generally want the best answer, or the most recent answer. I may want the best recent answer, but that's highly subjective and generally defaults back to my trust in the source as the tie breaker.

For the record, I think Google does a pretty good job of real-time "search". You have to know how to apply date bias to the search but they index very quickly and have larger reach than anyone else. Of course, I have to know that I wanted to know which means the actual SEARCHING has to be paired with ALERTING or DISCOVERING.

It appears that most of the specific Real-time search services seem to combine SEARCHING with DISCOVERY. For me this moves the combined activity into an entertainment arena, rather than a fact finding arena. It's like buying a magazine about Coffee, now Milk Dudes, now Bottled Water – interesting but not entertaining.

It seems a lot of real-time search services are paired with Twitter. For me this makes a little more sense, first because twitter is largely entertainment (at least to me). I'm really not there to learn anything except what the people I'm following are doing. Twitter is however heavy in ALERTING as was witnessed in my last post.

Twitter (ALERTING) and SEARCHING seems like a more natural combination than DISCOVERY and SEARCHING. For instance, when I get a Tweet about something, it would be cool tap the tweet in my iphone and return the most recent 5 items from the web that match that Tweet. For instance, "Michael Jackson dead", would return the top results with date bias from Google or another search engine.

Another use case that makes sense to me, "Michael Jackson dead" returns the latest news from the online sources that just people I follow read, sorted by date. In other words, I got the alert from my network – I want the most recent news from my networks sources. This is the Lijit spin on how to find information.

My takeaway is that there are combinations of the three activities DISCOVERY, ALERTING and SEARCHING that I can make sense of in certain situations. I just can't get my head around the combinations being a "task" that I perform on a destination web site.

It only makes sense when they are combined organically in another place where DISCOVERING or ALERTING is happening.

Is Twitter Real-time Search?

2009-09-28T21:45:45-06:00

I've made my piece with Twitter. I kind of like it, especially when I travel.

But, I don't think it's really my news source. How many people in this thread know who GNIP is, what the company is trying to accomplish, or why they are even tweeting this?

How much real information is really contained in this thread? I hear the hype of real-time search, but is this the output?

Startups continually adapt what they are and how they go to market. If you aren't doing this in the beginning you are either a genius or a dolt.

I can't find a tweet in this entire thread that likely even knows who the hell GNIP is.

Thanks for relevant real-time results @SVstartupjobs, @smashingfeed, @swwtel_links, @technologynew, @Geekeez, @leahsoleil, @NeilAshworth, @helpfulCCA, @TechnoTweets, @tpviews, @tesed, @dnewstep, @techfeedsEN, @jakepolo, @ianborwnCC, @windwest, @ronincycle,@tosumitgupta,

Slow “Know”

2009-09-28T20:32:45-06:00

Anyone who is an entrepreneur knows about the "slow no". Generally this term is associated with Venture Capital Firms that never seem to make up their mind if they are in your deal, or not. Brad Feld has talked about the slow no before in his blog. With Venture Capitalist I can almost understand the slow no. If you never answer, then you don't have to decide. If the deal heats up later you can jump in and look like a rock star. If the deal doesn't heat up you just say, "ahh, yeah we could never quite get our head around it". It's weak, but all too common in the industry.

Slow no's also exist out in the free range world of business. This is where you make a pitch about a product or service. The guy you are pitching listens intently, maybe through a few meetings. All the while saying, "Yes, I get it", "Ah, huh that makes total sense". At the end of the second or third hour of your involvement he says, "Send me over a proposal, and I'll get back to you". So, you spend 4 hours or so on a custom pitch that really addresses the business need. You send it, the feedback is thanks, let's follow up on a call in a couple weeks. Four weeks later, after the 3^rd email and you ask for a "fish or cut bait", he responds, "No interest thanks".

Really, after about 8 hours of my personal time, after 8 hours of the CEO's time – you send me back, "No interest thanks". That's very useful. Thanks for giving me that feedback to help with the business.

I'm constantly amazed to the great extent people will go-to to avoid conflict.

Don't be a big pussy, say no – say it early – say if often.

OMMA Conference and Madison Avenue Blues

2009-09-24T16:21:37-06:00

I was out at the OMMA Conference in NY this week. It was a pretty good show that completed the connection for me about how Brand advertising buyers communicate with their Agencies, how Agencies communicate with their publishers and network ecosystems. It's a beautiful thing when you go to a conference like this and already know everything you heard. It means you finally got it – at least mostly.

Another cool thing was getting to watch my friend Terry Kawaja present "Madison Avenue Blues" during the lunchtime keynote. Terry has a wickedly smart mind and has been around Wallstreet for nearly his entire carrier. Terry ran Global M&A at Citigroup and Credit Suisse and in 2000 stepped away to be the CFO of Raindance, my last company. During that time I understood why it's a good idea to hire a Wallstreet guy to be your CFO as negotiating the public process is to say the least, ambitious.

Terry is now at Savvian Advisors in New York helping large companies understand what other companies they should be partnering with or buying. Last spring, Terry put together "Madison Avenue Blues" to help everyone understand how the online ad game was changing. Many have seen this already, but after watching again it deserved a second look.