The Otterman Empire @ work

I heartily endorse #3 ,and the rest,but are the audience doing their part?

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:35:41 GMT

Zadi Diaz,new media producer and more erudite than most at explaining what she does,posted several interesting theses, little short of Cluetrain's 95,but not a million miles away in spirit when dealing with those that buy eyeballs for people that appear to still be conducting business from back in the 1960's.

Zadi Diaz - Home - Advertising is FAIL. Communication is WIN.

3. STOP calling people consumers!
People are not mindless drones waiting to consume. We are all people hoping to
connect and you are hopefully facilitators of conversation. As soon as
we change the language we will change the action.

I'm wondering if we are missing out on a large part of the problem here,and that's with those "consumers" Oh hell I'm being contradictory
but if you can give me a few seconds to work out my confusion I'm sure it's all going to be OK in the end.

There clearly are consumers, though not self-identifying and maybe it's better to remove this learned behavior at the source? Would it not be more useful inoculating those on the receiving end of the advertiser's missives, at least giving a framework for understanding what's going on would be a start?

Take iPhone3Gs and Video as an example. Youtube saw a huge increase in videos that were posted. Does this strike anyone as creatives all having a new tool or the marketed-to masses waiting to be told that video online is indeed cool and they have Apple's permission? What was stopping them before?

In other words are people using what's fed to them?

Yes it's an issue complicated by data plans and that most decent phones for video,aren't subsidized but it's not been hard to avail yourself of expression via video in the last two years but even that didn't appear to be easy enough. Seriously most of the article makes very good points for trying to sell to those whose lives are interwoven with the net, but as long as there's more and more people from the old-school getting on line I fear we're stuck with this until it's no longer a viable audience to talk at rather than talk with.

Where the wind blows. An EU "competition weenie" speaks anonymously of course

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:21:19 GMT

I really need to get my browser to display "anonymous coward" whenever it quotes those paid by a state,with public funds,that wont use their real name while they go about their day protecting their investment, er consumers especially when they spout crap like this.

"The essential point of our case is consumer choice," said the spokesman. "

Really?

I never had an issue changing the browser, adding different grips to a gun, upgrading the lighting on my vehicle etc. There is no choice in which nanny superstate you live in, other thanby leaving which I didn't find that hard to though it was a lot harder than swapping IE for Opera.

I wish MS had gone further and just told Europe to sit on a Mac/ Penguin or come up with it's own OS? You can't win a war of appeasement with anyone that sets themselves up as a monopoly on competitive practices.The one part of mercantilism via corporation that annoys me is their acquiesence rather than withdrawal from hostile markets.

It's the old joke

Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Windows 7 pricing gets unveiled

A Commission spokesman dismissed Microsoft's claim that it was taking the action to comply with European laws.

Apparently there’s no heard-immunity for communication skills.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:20:41 GMT

Over the past months I have made fewer posts than usual.There are several reasons for this but mostly it’s been negative reinforcement that anything that I write only gathers negative comments based on the formatting,length and typos rather than on the merits of the ideas contained within.

Via Robert Anton Wilson’s creations “Hagbard Celine” I believe truth often comes from fictional sources, cartoons and even cereal packets,is the belief that communication is only possible between equals and is contained within the explanation of his second law

"Accurate communication is only possible in a non-punishing situation."

How many situations like that arise?

That may explain the planet a little better but it’s not helping me. The question that I would like to have answered is this.At which point do I benefit from everyone else's communication skills? E.G.; it seems like addressing the correct audience is a one-way-street.

In other words I can haz herd immunity ?

Rushkoff's take on the eating the Apple from the Jobs tree of consumer knowledge.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:00:55 GMT

Douglas Rushkoff takes a look at how training consumers doesn't always work out the way you planned.

Apple’s Army of Whiners - Page 1 - The Daily Beast

No it's not just for the title ,which I like, it's an interesting reflection on many of the "old" Apple sticker-ed cars of activists I see that excoriate corporations but can't seem to apply it to those that make their pc. It's double-think different with those infinitely loopy types

We're from the government we're here to install Windows:)

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:37:19 GMT

Why would this make depressing reading for some? For some reason the left leaning always assume a person that doesn't use,own or even have a desire to do either. Health care is another such 'must-have' regardless of the wishes of those that have it thrust upon them.

Being online is not a requirement for a happy life and the thought of millions of new,uncared for computers dropping hazardous waste in terms of viruses,trojans and other mal-ware onto the net just fills me with joy.

The internet doesn't have to look like a computer and if the idea of getting people online is so that they are more efficient citizens, wait a minute aren't we meant to be in charge of those expense-forging vermin? It would make sense to approach the issue by either using some kind of inbuilt device to a phone or TV either that or cheaper to wait for them to die-out

BBC NEWS | Technology | Free broadband won't entice all

Some 43% of adults who currently do not have internet access would remain disconnected even if they were given a free PC and broadband connection.

Oh another video camera with audio as an afterthought.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:44:00 GMT

You can read all about the new iPhone 3gs on other fine sites such as MobileCrunch. New phone, same old network. I love the iPhone but it's a co-dependent relationship that I'm ready to move on from.

The big news? While some have touted the ability to buy or rent movies over the air this is hardly worth noting.Oh ok note away. Using an iPhone to watch movies designed for the large screen is something I just can't do. Hell I believe we should divide up society by those that buy pan and scanned ( e.g., full-screen) movies and the rest of us.

Video creation is by far the most interesting addition,that and a the removal of the POS lens / imager they've had the balls to call a camera in the current incarnation. iPhone is the most popular source of images on Flickr and it's likely that we're likely to see the same effect on video sites though I can't imagine the sound quality making this a pleasant device to produce anything on.

However using a neat bit of sound / timeline syncing tool that was demoed a while back at the New Media Expo this could be very interesting as a video camera with the sound synced to the source. E.G., think of 100's of people in the same space being able to knock an ad-hoc conference video together.

Heck I can think of a Matrix like bullet-time effect if you could get 20 or so of your friends together with iPhones and an app to sync their shutters. Production , not consumption would really be thinking different my little corporate f(r)iends

You Tube XL. eXtremely Laughable. Pay no attention to the pixelated man, with out of sync sound , on the screen

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:42:18 GMT

You Tube XL, the merging of the living room set with the Oh wait, that's not at all what it is. It's a skin that looks pretty when shown on a large screen. Yes it shows You Tube content on a large screen, like having a really big monitor.

Shame the compressed video and even worse audio depredations on most of the content make this a non starter. Small crap x screen size = larger crap.

The digital TV transition has been "traumatic" enough for people but I'd like to see it go further.There's a lot of spectrum going to waste,off hours, 24-7 on religious channels, and I am wondering why we can't use that as a channel to record our programs in advance for later watching. Yep it's Tivo but not as we know it.Seems odd to limit the transmission to real time recording for most content that really doesn't need a full HD stream.

This waiting for 10pm PST to come along to release a show that was tweeted/ spoiled by many on the East coast viewing is reason enough to do away with the idea of scheduling and appointment TV. Oh then the networks get to control their own DVR channel rather than adding in the add skipping joy of a Tivo. Maybe they can charge too? Seriously if you are paying $10 or so for Tivo I bet you'd pay $10 each a year for major networks, $10 more than they get at present from OTA broadcast.

Will Anyone But Marketers Read It? thoughts on "Web 3.0"

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:33:17 GMT

MY god it's full of douchebags! </Dave> Social marketing types anyway. That's the fate the below entry from the Readwriteweb blog posits as being the likely result of our aggregate life-stream data.

Web 3.0 Might Be Really Stupid

The patterns of activity in that data offer a unique opportunity to learn about ourselves - individually, in groups and as a society. Unfortunately, that opportunity may not be taken advantage of. A better title of this post might be If Web 3.0 Is Poetry, Will Anyone But Marketers Read It?

Oh we'll be taken advantage of , as much as we allow anyway, for the chance to stick yet another piece of bling on our profile.Yet the "good" use of this aggregation as a kind of silicon mirror of introspection poses larger questions.

I want software that will tell me: "On Wednesdays you tend to post messages a lot in the morning, despite the fact that you have a lot of meetings. You post a lot about your health,too. Is work making you feel unhealthy?"

Fan as I am of tech, sign me up for some dsp in my eyes and ears please, having the web look out for you as K.I.T.T would do for Michael Knight,is a service I wasn't looking forward to.Why? Abuse potential seems the most obvious. Want to get paranoid?

"Hey look at the angry posts from Citizen 23 better bring them in for a nice chat and medication" I'll take no thank you Alex, my droog, for $300.

At a loss why they can't replicate decade old satellite technology ? GPS could get flaky

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:02:08 GMT

The title may be a little too strident.E.G.,close is 2010 until you realize just how long these jokers have taken to produce a copy of decades old tech.The Internet and GPS could possibly be too important to leave to the State?

At one time Europe was asked to back off making a GPS replacement for civilian use due to the USA's need to be all snug and cozy even going as far as to say that they'd down the birds if a hostile power was trying to use it. Europe went ahead with Galileo and should be fully operational in 2013. Russia and China have their own systems, GlONASS and COMPASS respectively, so it's not like the world would end if the US one ceased being useful. I bet that just pisses a lot of people off.

Most stories appear to neglect that there's more than one solution available.. and they call this news.. ha!

GPS system 'close to breakdown' | Technology | guardian.co.uk

It has become one of the staples of modern, hi-tech life: using satellite navigation tools built into your car or mobile phone to find your way from A to B. But experts have warned that the system may be close to breakdown.

Search me? A funny recommendation ocurred on the way through the forums.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:56:23 GMT

I probably only learned one interesting thing at the Phoenix Social media club , before my distaste for the balance of people wanting to sell you on things outweighed those that don't want to be sold too. I.E., those on my side of the fence.

That interesting thing was a statement as to the fragility of Google's hegemony and the likely source of their decline.It's not an other search engine but more a negation of the need to have a search site as a destination but we'd be utilizing the search features within our forums and online-communities. While he did not single out Google specifically the bold phrase "search is dead" certainly didn't sit well with the SEO crowd.

What if I decide to follow someone on twitter or facebook who is a guru on the types of cars Im interested in buying ? Could I not just query them and get a response and referral to a site that gives me the information Im looking for ? Mark Cuban's blog

An idea that I've been prattling on about to any that would listen ( not a large number) over the last year has been the community as the search engine. Google is,for the most part, great when it comes to locating information of a static nature, books, maps, quotes,reviews etc. Where it totally sucks is in the area of commerce. Try searching for car parts. In my case for a great little car that no one likes, Suzuki Aerio SX , and you will see many results claiming to have the parts, then you drill down through the model, year, maker and whoops just kidding. They'd gamed the request to create a page with crap info.. WHY? Why the hell would I think oh you don't have Suzuki parts I'll just buy one for a Dodge instead.? It's moronic and it's why I believe I am right on this

There's a forum for the Aerio owner called Aerio style and a search of that gets you info on which people really have parts, have good service, prices and occassionally both Yes that's a specialized case but it's what we've been doing since markets first formed. Ask the person that you trust with experience. Trust? Google's really not too good at that part judging by the dodgy autoparts friends it wants to introduce me to.

Ironically I found Aerio Style via Google I never said they'd die just that search as we know it today isn't serving us well and when that happens? Search Altavista , Hotbot and lycos for answers.

De Ja vu.It's going to be the future soon.. just not mine:)

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:36:31 GMT

Let's just say that it's nice seeing ideas come to fruition.Less so when it's a third party.

Mid Hockey season I submitted this idea which gained as much traction as the Coyotes. On the bright side I do get to use it for free and see if it really was that good an idea.

iPhone users to walk and read at same time • The Register

iPhone users can now walk the streets safe in the knowledge that upcoming letter boxes, errant children or dogshit can be easily avoided, without interrupting the more important act of reading email.

Me Me MEme it's all about me! That's maybe what the social engineers want you to think.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:48:36 GMT

The porn-star name meme cometh.

That people like to help people and will give out all kinds of information that they shouldn't is fairly well established. What's not so well established, at least by the common usage of marketing and SMD types is the term "viral meme" which has been denigrated to include just about any tell a friend promotion or user generated content that's been slapped together.

For once the term viral meme may be appropriate in the case of the porn star name meme that's going the rounds on Twitter.

Security Alert: Twitter Porn Names Scam - PC World

It could be simple human error, but it's also possible that this security hole is an example of truly sneaky social engineering.

In short people are being asked to provide biographical data such as the name of the street they grew up on,your mother's maiden name, place of birth or your favorite pet for the grand payoff of concatenating your porn star name for you to post proudly to Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else you think this ephemera will soon be forgotten. Except that it wont be.

A virus, ( let's leave Mimi out of this for now) can't reproduce itself and to survive it transmits it's message using the resources of the host cell or in this case the message that wraps it up. Seriously would you just send that out onto the web if you had no payoff?

Memes are ideas, concepts, beliefs and thoughts that are transmitted verbally or by repeated action and can move through a ‘culture’ in a manner similar to a virus.

Do you see why most items masquerading as "viral marketing" are bullshit? You know what the marketer wants and are often better able to identify it than they are That's not viral it's an ugly bug that needs to be squashed once and for all.

Paging DR Moron: Maybe some people use both sides of their brain?

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:02:18 GMT

I didn't need to get far into this article before I was annoyed enough to toss up a little blog spitball. The idea that programming is not a creative art and can be tossed at any person is far from reality, at least it is were I work.

The implied insult to Asia re being good for that kind of work further ruffled my fur.So much for the advancement of the human race it appears you have to be in the USA to really be the kind of wacky right brained story teller to get the big picture.

Then again this article from the same woman that gave a platform to anti-science nit wits like Jenny McCarthy which is about as far right brained as it gets. An appeal to get away from engineering and rational thought is probably not the best message to be spreading around but hey she's Oprah why let reality get in the way of a good story.

Why right-brainers will rule this century - CNN.com

during which right-brained skills such as design and storytelling will become far more crucial than traditionally left-brained skills such as accounting and computer programming.

Another tired Wired post trying to Kindle some interest but generating little in the way of heat or light.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:16:51 GMT

Now this is speculative "journalism".

If Amazon announce a device, a large scale e-reader this would be defeated in the marketplace by Apple should they create a larger iPhone.

I'm not sure that's the case. Without some significant weight loss I wouldn't like to have a device x3 the size of an iPhone hit me in the face if I feel asleep reading. The heat generated from illuminating that large a screen could be interesting too. With Kindle if I leave the USA it's pretty useless, heck move to Montana and it's useless which is not the kind of behavior one wants from their reading material. This is one early adoption I think I'll pass on.

Large-Screen Kindle Won’t Mean Squat if Apple Tablet Arrives | GadgetLab

I'm sure that I'm about to use irony correctly. Fred Pryor infomercial, er seminars.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:09:31 GMT

How to Communicate with Tact & Professionalism —

I've been in a training seminar two days this weeks with the below goal in mind.

"Become a polished, persuasive communicator and express your thoughts and ideas with clarity and diplomacy"

The diplomacy part likely occurred during my single restroom break,three minutes long, on the second day.

While I'll address the material covered by the class in a future post I have concerns with the intrusiveness of marketing within the curriculum.

Anyone that's read Professor Cialdini's book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials),or Rushkoff's Coercion may have been amused, as I was, that a seminar designed to teach you more effective methods of persuasive communication seemed to be using similar techniques to sell future conferences, audiobooks and training subscriptions.

I have no problem with selling during the breaks, displays within the room ,fliers in the course material. What I'd like is for them to restrict this solely to those areas. In what could be considered a mildly coercive environment the ethics of this practice are questionable. Cheaper dictionaries refer to coercion only in terms of physical force and I can see my usage of this term being confusing in that light.I'm referring to an environment that is engineered to trigger as many of the six principles of influence within the first few hours.

Social proof.(people come forward to buy in breaks)
Scarcity. (have to order by end of seminar)
Authority (The obvious one
liking. (Dr was likable, really good at what he does)
Commitment and consistency ( writing in the prices, and additions to the advert in the same format the rest of the class takes)
Reciprocation(Starts out with hey, schedule runs to 1630 but can get you out by 1600, next day 1530) To many that's doing them a favor)

I can live with all the above, I may even be misinterpreting the above weapons of persuasion. Twenty minutes were taken up with Evelyn Wood's speed reading course,and many other products,in the time preceding lunch on day one which to me seemed rather inconsistent with the stated goals.

Looks like I'm not the only one with this concern.

http://www.viewpoints.com/Fred-Pryor-Seminars-reviews

I seriously recommend both books to anyone that engages in commerce , eg every adult, in the USA.

pwned or not? Streaming music , last.fm and getting your music from a cloud

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:05:12 GMT

Why Spotify may spell the end of ownership - Times Online

I'm up for a good tech utopia as much as the next person but here's the main stream media take on a new music site that's the next-celestial-jukebox
One of the older ones, last.fm, have started to charge a free outwith the UK, USA and Germany and boy did their "fans" come off like entitled children.

Three euros a month beats any satellite or TV subscription I've ever had. Seriously the EU crowd are such whining bitches to the point were they will use terms such as "racist" to describe a business choice that's almost guaranteed to be externally enforced.

Case in point. You're not making money from us so we'll leave and not pay you money! I think Sun Tzu missed out that chapter on how to win battles by issuing illogical threats.

Here's a far more detailed take on with some excellent supporting comments.

It's a nice idea but in the end there's an adage from the survivalist world that 1 of something is nothing , and 2 is something = 1

How many clouds are we getting here

Finally an answer to what bears do in the woods. They use their Iphone of course

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:05:28 GMT

A few weeks back I showed people a site www.mizpee.com which aims to find you a nearby public restroom, a clean public restroom. Seemingly I work with people that have impeccable bowel movements scheduled to clockwork precision because it questioned as to it's overall usefullness. I have a toddler and a love of foodtypes that promotes the 100yd clenched run ( no hurdles) so have found these both quite useful. I'm not the only one to see the value though.

Turns out the Charmin bears use the in built GPS and Google maps to find a comfy place to crap in the forest.Charmin have sponsored sitorsquat.com
talk about targeted advertising

Charmin sponsors iPhone toilet finder app - FierceMobileContent

Thunderbird 2 , the Eagle from Space 1999 and what they have in common with my dream pda / phone / recorder/ light dimmer and toddler amuser.

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:22:22 GMT

How many all in one devices do you own that really fulfill their multi function role adequately? I’m guessing it’s less than 1. Likewise the iPhone as a recorder, camera and mobile office are a pretty poor substitute for dedicated solutions to each task.

We’ve reduced picture taking to the Polaroid level again with cell phone cameras. Taken video back to Super 8 and sound recording to the cassette deck all for convenience and for what? All to capture that which wasn’t deemed worth capturing when you had to bring along a brick.

Yep it’s never been easier to make jerky, pixelated videos with sound quality to match and we’ve called this ability progress and have built entire empires around it.

Note nearly anything remotely good isn’t shot on a hand held with no post and just tossed up on You Tube so by all means cite successful shows but I am pretty confident I can pull up more people than can comfortably fit in a Fiat 500 as being involved with it. *

Knowing this though how does one set out to design “good enough” or is that just a happy accident?

Why the models? Both represent the idea of a central vehicle capable of transitioning roles to suit the expected usage which is what I’d like to see my iPhone become the device that controls my other interests. E.g recorder interface, camera screen/ transport control.

The iPhone as the brains/ controller for better cameras, recorders, audio, presentation systems seems to make sense to me.The touch surface is way better than anything my car has to date and for control of recording audio / video or being able to knock up quick ad hoc views of the features I want from a device at any given time would be most useful. My three year old can work the photo albums on it that’s a good sign that older people get it too. What’s going to ruin this for everyone? Patents on what gestures one can carry out while you can argue for the technical merits of the screen, and the software to decode it, it’s frustrating to see gestures defined as original work. In the latter case the Kid’s in the Hall need to get a check from Apple re their “crushing your head” forerunner of reducing an image in size

side bar:

I’m frustrated with how little enthusiasm people have for being alive in a time were our choices and powers way exceed that of the ruler’s of the world had a few centuries. Hell, we have powers that transcend most fictional magicians and yet we still have people bored with it all.

*It’s a trick there’s no such thing as comfort in a Fiat 500

Quote of the day is about a quote:)

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:11:36 GMT

Gary Vaynerchuk Can’t Help You

He can entertain the hell out of you for 45 min to an hour though

Gary Vaynerchuk cannot help you bring about real changes in your life. Not even if he slept on your couch and pushed you in an epic “Biggest Loser/The Apprentice” countdown. Why? Because real change starts with a recognition of deficiency and a no-holds-barred desire to improve.

That being said does this stir anything in you ?

[If] you live for the weekends and vacations, your shit is broken.
– Gary Vaynerchuk

Version three iPhone. It's now good enough to replace by the next one:D

haltse@gmail.com (Hal-Tse) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:09:24 GMT

The iPhone OS 3.0 Announcement Scorecard

Good news. All of the native iphone apps will work in landscape mode within version 3.0 of the software. MMS*, Copy / Paste and the ability to forward SMS are also included. can send more than one photo at a time, quite a bit more including blue tooth stereo*.

Release date to public Summer, yep they are that vague. iphone 3g

*iPhone 3g only!