Posts: 147

1. 

   Feed the Press

   23.Jun.08, 09:23 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   When Tim Russert died, most media reporters wrote obits or contributed to the endless on-air tributes. But at least one was on a plane en route to a weekend in Las Vegas paid for by the subject of a story.
   
   A reasonable person might wonder what kind of media reporter could take such a freebie. That's easy: a blogger. And would you believe me if I told you that this particular blogger passes judgment on other reporters? Only on The Huffington Post, where a former Republican beard has decided that the glamour to attract writers and the gall to ask them to write for nothing is the journalistic formula of the future. Surprise: You get what you pay for.
   
   The media reporter in question is Rachel Sklar, who doesn't let the fact that she's never done much reporting stop her from judging those who have. This, apparently, is her idea of a story: a report on a Las Vegas junket to promote the Thrillist email list. The fact that the URL of the story contains a reference to the nipple of a fellow blogger pretty much sums up the content. Then again, it also contains the word "exclusive." Hold Page One!
   
   Let's leave aside any questions about how many people are interested in Thrillist. Or, for that matter, how many people are interested in a free trip a few bloggers took on their dime. (I suppose everyone online is interested in a nipple.) How can a media reporter take such a freebie, even if she cops to it? And how come no one else seems to care? Portfolio blogger Jeff Bercovici wrote a post that questioned how New York Post reporters were able to accept a free trip, but he didn't mention Sklar. (Full disclosure: I write for Portfolio, but not its website, and I don't know Bercovici.) Who watches the watchmen, indeed.
   
   Most respectable publications have guidelines that allow writers to accept certain meals, not-so-valuable items they're writing about, and gifts up to a certain point. (A $10 bottle of wine might be allowed, for example, while a $500 trip to a winery would not.) Of course, most blogs aren't respectable. That's why marketing people love them – they're for sale. And not for very much money, to judge by Sklar's excitement about the extra freebies handed out on the plane. Judging from how impressed she is by vodka and a Zune, it's amusing to imagine what she'd write in return for a car.
   
   Or, considering the fact that The Huffington Post has some political influence, maybe it's not so funny after all.
   

2. 

   Weed Racer

   17.Jun.08, 10:00 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   I spent about four hours over the weekend turning a steering wheel that wasn't connected to anything, driving a car that didn't exist through racetracks filled with mushrooms, bananas, and turtle shells that weren't really there.
   
   This particular steering wheel was a game controller – more specifically, a new plastic housing for the "Wiimote" used with the Nintendo Wii. I was using it to play Mario Kart Wii, the newest version of Nintendo's popular series of racing games. And the hours just sort of disappeared.
   
   As you'd guess from my description of the mushrooms and bananas, the Mario Kart series isn't exactly realistic. The tracks are fanciful – castles, jungles, or ski slopes named after the various characters that have appeared in different Mario games. (At this point, there are too many to keep track.) The go-carts and motorcycles share the same demented design sensibility. And the races are regularly interrupted by unlikely items that the competitors can throw at each other – from bananas that make the karts skid out of control to mushrooms that give them bursts of speed.
   
   To me, these are all good things. In fact, every Mario Kart game I've ever played has been my favorite racing game at the time – precisely because it's so unrealistic.
   
   Developers making video games that simulate a real activity – baseball or football as opposed to, say, space combat – face difficult choices about how realistic those simulations should be. Many gamers treasure touches of reality, like the painstakingly re-created cars and tracks in Gran Turismo 4. Others, like me, just look for fun. Realistic driving games have more crashes, since real cars can't take hairpin turns at top speed – much less get a speed boost from a mushroom. And I love that. If I want to drive a car, I don't need a video game to do it.
   
   If I want to drive a go-kart and race against a gorilla, however, where else am I going to go? And Mario Kart Wii does have its own odd sort of internal logic, in that items behave the same way they do in other Mario games. The new title even features tracks from older versions, along with some new ones, which gives the series a kind of connectivity.
   
   All this makes the game as addictive as it is unrealistic. And now, if I see a turtle shell come toward me on the highway, I'll know how to handle it.
   

3. 

   iCame, iSaw, iConquered

   17.Jun.08, 09:58 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   When Apple's iPhone came out last summer, techies had a couple of complaints: It wouldn't work on the fast "3G" networks that make it practical to use the Internet and it didn't have a GPS. The rest of us just had one: The price.
   
   Yesterday Apple introduced the iPhone 2.0, which solves all three problems. The speed makes it practical to download music and short video clips from anyplace within range of a 3G network, not only an open WiFi node. The GPS makes one of the device's killer apps, Google Maps, work even better. It also makes the iPhone an obvious value. Now that it costs $199, or $299 for a version with more memory, it's competitive with high-design phones that don't have GPS, let alone a touch screen.
   
   In the long run, the iPhone may not be such a bargain. As the Apple 2.0 blog points out, AT&T raising its monthly service fee by $10 – $240 over a two-year contract – which wipes out any savings. Since customers care much more about sticker price, Apple will almost certainly sell many more phones – perhaps enough to eventually challenge the BlackBerry.
   
   More importantly, it means that Apple is changing its iPhone business strategy. The initial idea was to create a closed system, then share in the revenue generated by mobile operators like AT&T. Now Apple seems to be more interested in dominating the mobile market, encouraging the growth of third-party software applications and collecting various vigs on the entire business. That's a profound change. As Steve Jobs hagiographer Steven Levy trumpteted, "Today marked the official transformation of Jobs's original vision of the iPhone — from a world-beating product to a contender for the first big operating system of the 21st century."
   
   To grasp how significant this is, keep in mind how much it has in common with the strategy of Apple's arch-rival: Microsoft. The parallels are inexact, since Microsoft never made devices. But it's not as though the iPhones are made in California. Apple really is establishing an operating system, even if it's one that happens to come with hardware. And it may be the only way that an electronics company can succeed. Any device that can easily be copied will be made in China – either by companies that push the price down or outright rip-off artists. There's just not that much profit in making televisions or computers anymore. Only the iPod has resisted this trend, because the code inside the device is harder to copy than its design. The iPhone works the same way. Long after consumers have tired of its slick look, they'll still like the multi-touch interface.
   
   Steve Jobs may have been pushed to the margins of the personal computer business. But he's just become a serious contender in mobile media.
   

4. 

   So Much for the Suburbs

   17.Jun.08, 09:57 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   In the past few months, I've had another reason to feel better about not living in the suburbs. My usual reason is that I grew up in the burbs – Stamford, Conn., to be exact – and I'm still traumatized by its ‘broad lawns and narrow minds.' And now, although New York City can seem like the most expensive place on earth, the suburbs suddenly don't seem like such a bargain.
   
   Sure, I pay $3000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. But my heating bill is zero, my electricity bill is usually about $50 and my transportation costs rarely top $30 a week, including a taxi or two. (I do own a car, but it's more of a hobby than a mode of transportation.) And although my rent and living expenses will go up, as everyone's do, they're not increasing nearly as quickly as those of people who live in the suburbs, who have big houses to heat and big cars to drive.
   
   Fact is, amid its dirt and grime, New York City is relatively green, since most people use public transportation, take taxis for relatively short distances and live in large buildings that don't cost much to heat. Newer fancier exurbs, with their McMansions and SUVs, may be full of gardens and green spaces, but they're environmental disasters. So much energy is required to heat some of those houses – especially those with grand two-story entryways that allow the heat to rise – and they're so far away from anything that the people who live in them have to spend a good deal of money on gas. With houses spread so far apart, bicycles and public transportation simply aren't practical.
   
   In an age of $4-per-gallon gasoline, that lifestyle suddenly looks more expensive. (And if the price of oil keeps rising, who's to say we won't be looking at $5 per gallon by the end of the year?) This couldn't come at a worse time, especially for those who live in the outlying suburbs. In general, those communities have already grown less desirable as cities get safer and longer work hours make short commutes more important. That's why Real Estate prices are mostly falling faster in the exurbs than in cities. (This is obviously a generalization, but I think it's true in enough places to qualify as a trend.)
   
   What happens now? Many families that pushed themselves to buy in the exurbs are already stressed by falling home prices, and in some cases by adjustable rate mortgages. Now they also have rising fuel prices to contend with – especially if they live in colder climates. What happens when they try to sell their houses and potential buyers realize how much their commutes will cost?
   

5. 

   No News - Not Good News

   17.Jun.08, 09:56 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   A little more than a decade ago, when I lived in San Francisco, I used to spend quite a bit of time hanging out in a coffee shop in Cole Valley. (Hey, it was the nineties.) I often ran into a guy from the neighborhood who had the look and demeanor of George Costanza – short, balding, underemployed and full of complaints about the effect this had on his ability to attract women. Sometimes he would tell me about an online project he was working on to keep track of parties, especially the kind with open bars funded by Internet start-ups.
   
   Today that same guy is keeping hundreds, if not thousands, of the country's writers in coffee shops – because they're unemployed. It's partly his fault. Incidentally, he's probably the biggest pimp in the U.S.
   
   By now you've probably guessed that I'm talking about Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist. And I should say that I like the site. I've used it myself.
   
   Newmark's great innovation was to provide advertising without content, then wrap it all in a dubious notion of community. Traditionally, advertising has supported journalism. Classified advertising especially, has supported U.S. newspapers. But Craigslist provides free advertising in most sections; it charges for Real Estate and help-wanted ads. And the money it does earn doesn't support journalism. It mostly serves to support the emission of that uniquely Bay Area pollutant that a "South Park" episode termed "smug."
   
   In a recent interview, Newmark promoted the idea that newspapers should "speak truth to power" and mentioned the important of investigative reporting. But his business is partly responsible for the layoffs that are making that impossible. Tellingly, he says about that reporting that "No one knows how that will be paid for." Well, advertising worked until you screwed that up!
   
   What makes Newmark truly insufferable is the way he stays on message about serving the Craigslist community. (Only in modern San Francisco can a group of people trading furniture and sex be called a community.) This reminds me of nothing so much as the way Wal-Mart executives talk about how they're keeping prices low to serve their customers. Certainly, both are right: Newmark has done a lot for Craigslist readers, just has Wal-Mart has done a lot for its customers. At the same time, however, Newmark has helped destroy the kind of journalism he claims to want, and Wal-Mart has effectively shipped thousands of jobs to China.
   
   Newmark has made much of his donations to "citizen journalism" projects. So far, however, none of them have led to much reporting – much less the kind of investigative reporting Newmark says the country needs more of.
   
   Now that the idea of free classified advertising is out there, it's not going to go away. If Newmark hadn't succeeded with the concept, someone else would have. And maybe it's not such a bad thing after all. But I sure wish Newmark would shut up about journalism already.
   

6. 

   Whee, I'm Fit!

   04.Jun.08, 21:55 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   I spent Memorial Day weekend doing yoga, skiing, and walking across a tightrope – all without leaving my apartment.
   
   In fact, I did all of this in a video game – Wii Fit, to be exact. It's a new game that helps players exercise – an "exer-game," if you will – and it's so popular that it's already sold out in some stores. I can see why: It's a blast.
   
   Nintendo revolutionized gaming with the Wiimote, a motion-sensitive controller that's accessible for neophytes, but fun for experienced players. And it's revolutionizing gaming again with Wii Fit. The game comes with the Wii Balance Board, a rectangular weight-sensitive device divided into quadrants that sits on the floor. It can tell players their weight and body mass index and use them to calculate their Wii Fit Age. Sadly, mine is 46 – nine years older than I am in real life.
   
   Players can set fitness goals and track their progress since the program has an internal calendar. There's aerobic exercise, which doesn't get much more strenuous than jogging in place – better than nothing for coach potatoes, but not much of a workout for anyone in decent shape. But Wii Fit also has a virtual yoga instructor, who measures how well players perform certain poses based on their balance on the board. For beginners, at least, it's a good way to stretch out and relax.
   
   The fun parts of Wii Fit are the balance games, which use the board's weight sensitivity in inventive ways. There's a tightrope game that tests your balance – which, in my case, sent me falling to my virtual death repeatedly. I did better at the skiing game, where you control your movements by leaning forward, backward, and from side to side. I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with fitness, but that might not be the point. The balance board is a great way to control a skiing game – especially compared to a traditional controller with joysticks.
   
   To me, that's the genius of Wii Fit – not the games it has, but the possibilities it shows. Suddenly, the medium of gaming seems to have opportunities it didn't a few months ago. This might not be a truly great exercise game, but it's a step in the right direction – which means that either Nintendo or someone else will make one soon. Same with the balance games. On Wii Fit, skiing is fun but too simple to stay challenging. However, the controls work well enough that someone will use them to make a great skiing game. (There's already one such title, We Ski, but the reviews aren't promising.) Someone else will probably make games based on skateboarding, snowboarding, even surfing. Then I might not have to leave the house at all.
   
   

7. 

   The New Narcissism

   04.Jun.08, 21:52 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Blogs are such a powerful medium that it's a shame their rise coincides with the prolonged adolescence of a self-centered generation.
   
   Think about it: For the first time in history, anyone with a relatively inexpensive machine can share his or her thoughts with the whole world. Some people are using this valuable tool to break news, share their enthusiams, or influence public opinion. But too many bloggers, especially those under 30, mostly write about themselves – a subject with which they seem inordinately fascinated.
   
   A few years ago, I was at a bar listening to a younger friend argue with some of her friends about something that one of them had written in the comments section on one of their blogs. When my eyes started to glaze over, she asked me why I didn't have a personal blog – by which she meant a space for the quotidian details of my life, not a forum like this one, where I sometimes write about my life but only to make a point about something else. I said that, from what I could tell, not that many people were all that interested in my life and those who were could easily call or e-mail me. She found this shocking: Wasn't my life, she seemed to wonder, as utterly fascinating as her own?
   
   It was – which is to say, not at all. While I hope people I don't know personally are interested in stories I write, I would never kid myself into thinking that they're actually interested in me.
   
   This weekend, The New York Times Magazine ran a story by the blogger Emily Gould about how she grew addicted to oversharing on the Internet. She worked for Gawker, and the story dutifully recounts her time there. But the focus of the story is about how she put her personal life online for anyone to see – her job troubles, her romantic life, everything. According to the story, she was chastened by all of the negative attention she received.
   
   Of course, writing a story about one's life for the Times could be a form of oversharing in itself. Gould is a talented writer, wry and incisive. Unfortunately, however, her main subject is herself. In allowing her to drone on, the Times offers an excellent picture of how today's twenty-somethings relate to the Internet. But I don't think it's a very flattering portrait.
   
   Incidentally, neither do many of the paper's readers. The story has drawn well over a thousand comments, many of which seem to say, "Don't you have anything better to write about?"
   
   It's an excellent question.
   

   <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ if ( $("article").offsetHeight < 367 ) { $("article").style.height = 350 + "px"; } $("article_bg").style.height = ($("article").offsetHeight-15)+"px"; $("article_bg_inner").style.height = ($("article").offsetHeight-15)+"px"; //]]></script>

8. 

   The Simple Life

   25.May.08, 22:20 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   On Monday I wrote about my new cell phone, which is as badly designed as a wooden fire door. What really makes me mad is that there's just no reason it couldn't be better. Even a $50 phone could have buttons that are easy to see, a navigation system that's intuitive and an alarm clock that can be set without looking at the owner's manual.
   
   This got me thinking about all the other devices I have that could be designed better. For example, the power supply of my Xbox 360 is nearly as big as a Nintendo GameCube, while the PlayStation 3 has a power supply built in. I'm sure that adding an internal power supply to the 360 would have increased its cost, but the existing solution is just too ugly for words.
   
   Even worse is the portable CD player I bought a couple of years ago. The buttons are near the bottom of the unit, where they're hard to see. They're almost impossible to find in low light. And the batteries can only be replaced by taking out the CD. I'm not an engineer, but I can't imagine that buttons cost the same wherever they go.
   
   The ultimate example might be my parents' DVD player, which has its buttons under the sliding disc tray. That means that it's hard to see the "close" button when the tray is open, especially if the unit is beneath your line of sight – which most DVD players are. Anyone who thought about it would have realized that it's a silly place to put the buttons. So why didn't anyone think about it?
   
   Using any of these items feels like a chore – especially compared to devices that are designed with the user in mind. The Nintendo Wii is elegant, easy to use and pleasant to look at – a first for a videogame console. It looks like something that's fun to use, which is one reason why it's so popular with non-gamers.
   
   I also appreciate the design of my MacBook – not it's looks, but the way the ports are all lined up on one side and the CD-ROM is on the other, without a tray that would intrude into the next airplane seat if you're in the sky. The power supply even has its own plastic extensions to wrap the cord around. It's a great idea – but I can't help but wonder why someone didn't think of it sooner.
   
   Consumers obviously care about these issues. Just look at the enthusiasm for the iPhone compared to the more powerful phones offered by other companies. They may do more, but they're annoying to work.
   
   Why didn't anyone else think of making a smart phone that's easy to use? Perhaps some of the people who design tech devices simply aren't thinking at all.
   

9. 

   Cell Out

   19.May.08, 23:15 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   A couple of weeks ago, my cell phone and I got into an argument and my cell phone lost – violently. It's the only time I've ever gotten physical with an appliance, but a combination of a stressful day, some bad news, and poor reception pushed me over the edge. My immediate reaction was pure, unadulterated joy in my unreachability.
   
   Alas, that didn't last long: I needed a new cell phone. And since my contract with T-Mobile is about as hard to get out of as the National Guard, I had to get one that would work with its service. I called the company – from my home phone, of course – and was offered an array of choices that stagger the mind. Was I interested in phones that were ideally suited for playing music, I was asked, ones that took pictures, or ones meant for checking email? All I wanted was one that made calls.
   
   I'm hardly a Luddite: I'm typing this blog on a MacBook connected to the Internet on my WiFi network. But I have no desire to own a cell phone that does anything other than make calls, and send and receive SMS notes. To me, "features" like the ability to play MP3 files or take digital photos just get in the way.
   
   So I made the predictable choice: I got the only phone that came free with my calling plan. Even that, a low-end Nokia, is larded with features I have no use for, including a lockable keyboard that beeps for no reason and a music player that trills out a KT Tunstall MP3 at random times. If it does this once more, it may share the fate of my old phone.
   
   Why can't mobile companies come up with a simple, elegant phone that only makes calls? I already know the answer: Because the profit margin for such an item would be nonexistent. Handset makers have come to depend on a product cycle in which people replace phones that work perfectly every few years. This encourages companies to create new products that do 10 things badly instead of one or two well. More seriously, it also leads to dumps full of decomposing batteries that leak toxic chemicals.
   
   I'm sure some people want Swiss Army cell phones that take photos, play music, organize their appointments, and open beer bottles. I only wish there were more alternatives for those of us who want to take photos with cameras, hear music on iPods, and talk on phones that don't play KT Tunstall when a call is coming in.

10. 

    What Should Yahoo! Do?

    18.May.08, 16:57 EDT
    
    Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

    Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! opened a can of worms that simply won't close. Although the company officially withdrew its bid, the questions that underpinned it won't go away as easily. How will Microsoft and Yahoo! compete with Google, which seems to dominate new markets every day? And what will Yahoo! do to placate the shareholders who believed that the merger was in their interest?
    
    Carl C. Icahn has one answer: fight a proxy battle to nominate his own board of directors. That would give him effective control of the company, which he could then force into a merger with Microsoft. And he'd benefit by raising the company's share price, which fell since the deal was called off.
    
    The other choice Yahoo! has is to forge a tighter partnership with Google, which doesn't want to face a more formidable competitor. That would help Yahoo! at first – but it would put the company under the thumb of its competition. Google could end up keeping Yahoo! profitable just so the government doesn't decide it doesn't have any competition. This might help Yahoo! executives, but it seems like a bad deal for shareholders, who would almost certainly lose in the long term.
    
    The deal with Microsoft might not be so great, either. Mergers are rarely as simple as they look on paper, and the corporate cultures of these two companies are worlds apart. Yahoo! might not help Microsoft deal with the online software that threatens its core operating-systems business. And Microsoft might not help Yahoo! make its advertising business as good as Google's.
    
    Yahoo! is now in a situation where it has to do something. Last week, shareholders were already impatient to know what that would be. Now that Icahn is involved, the question has only become more urgent.
    
    That doesn't mean this will be resolved quickly. Yahoo! could find a way to make Icahn go away, but that could take some time, and he doesn't give up easily. The situation could drag out for months, during which time Yahoo! mulls its options, key employees browse job-search sites, and important decisions get postponed. For a company that's known for switching strategies, it could be a nightmare. Yahoo! is looking for a way out – but it might not have one.
    
    That would be a shame for shareholders but also for everyone on the Internet. Google shouldn't be the only company in the Internet advertising business – and it already has far too much information about what websites people visit and when. There needs to be competition, and Yahoo! might have the best chance of providing it. The merger with Microsoft might not be ideal for either company – but it might be great for the rest of us.