Some Assembly Required

Thoughts about the Amazon - Audible acquisition

Amazon announced today that they are picking up Audible.com for a cool $300 million. As a customer (and some might say a fan) of both companies I have more than a passing interest in how this will all work out. Clearly Audible has established itself as the market leader in the digital audio book space. It's also no secret that Amazon is looking to scale in all digital media in a big way. This transaction represents a logical tuck-in acquisition that complements Amazon's existing products in digital music and movies.

The more interesting question is how this will impact the brewing competition between Amazon and Apple's iTunes Music Store. Audible is the incumbent provider of digital audio book content on iTMS, and at the very least it represents a major step in achieving competitive parity from a "products offered" basis between the two. Beyond that step, one could envision the deal dynamics between Audible and Apple changing at some point in the future, now that they have another major channel for their products.

In terms of all media, digital audio books are a relatively small component (in the sub-billion dollar range), but reports indicate that over 25% of Americans listen to some form of audio books, and with the proliferation and low cost of digital players this is clearly a segment to watch. After all, if we listen to Steve Jobs we know that physical book reading is on the decline.

Where U Been?

So much for the New Years resolution to kick the blog into high gear. A big ass work project landed in my lap the week before Christmas that required my daily attention for the better part of three weeks. A core team of madmen worked 24X7 only taking the 25th off and delivered the goods to a big prospective client on January 3. It went Really Well. This only meant more crazy work hours and more travel.

Last week I did my annual pilgrimage to Macworld Expo. This was my fifth year in a row, but the crazy work schedule out there meant that I only had an hour or so at the conference. I missed the Keynote, but I did get to browse the Expo floor, and put my hands on a new MacBookAir. Darn sexy machine, but with the throngs of people trying to get at them I only had a few minutes to try one out.

In total, I spent less than 48 hours in the Bay Area - flying in on Tuesday for a quick lunch with my team at Buck's in Woodside, a late afternoon meeting at The Mothership, and a late drive up to SF to meet an entrepreneur friend for a late dinner at the Daily Grill on Union Square. The next day I was up for a 6:00 am conference call that lasted until lunch, when I finally hit the Expo until my next meeting. That night I had drinks with some rockstars, then took a red-eye to Texas to meet my true technology rockstar partners for another presentation to The Big Prospect. Whew...

Next week: Texas, Malibu and more sleep deprivation...

"Mac mindset" claim is more marketing than science

My friends have suspected my Mac fetish was a psychological condition all along, so I hesitate to add to the fodder, but Mac elitism takes center stage in the following article at ArsTechnica:

"Mac mindset" claim is more marketing than science

Image from Mike Krahulic and Jerry Holkins

Merry Christmas

Okay, it's embarrassing how long its been since I posted here. I do have tons of subjects that I have stored away on my Basecamp database, and it's going to be a New Years resolution of mine to turn more of them into content here.

Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

More to come...

iSchmuck

As a longtime Apple fanboy, I should be accustomed to the feeling I get of being on the bleeding edge of product adoption. Today when they announced a $200 price drop on the iPhone a mere 5 weeks after i took the plunge put the bleed in bleeding edge.

I guess the "first guy on the block" syndrome is not without its costs.

Still. Love. My. Toy.

Wired Living Home

I met Steve Glenn a few years ago at a conference in LA. At the time he was the CEO of PeopleLink, a company that created CRM community solutions. Since then he went on to great things including being a country manger for the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative. Steve has most recently founded a company called LivingHomes, where he builds pre-fabricated, sustainable and beautiful modernist homes. As a closet modernist (married to a less-than-enthusiastic spouse), I'm fascinated by these magnificent structures.

LivingHomes has recently paired up with Wired to build the Wired Living Home, a showcase of technology paired with the incredible architecture of a LivingHome. It's currently under construction in LA, and will be open for tours later this fall. I can't wait to visit!

Who remembers filmstrips?

As a devoted gadget-head, I often get nostalgic about what I considered cool technology of my youth. I was just thinking today about filmstrips - more specifically filmstrip projectors; and I wondered what the death of this technology was like. I know I was around as it happened, but they sort of passed into our distant memory without much of a memorial service.

For those of us too young to remember what these things were, they were mechanical contraptions that projected a still image (from a "strip" of 35mm film) onto a screen for public viewing. The filmstrips were educational in nature, and contained photographs and text related to specific topics (history, art, geography, animal husbandry, human sexuality, etc.). Later they incorporated audio narration that was manually synchronized to the different slides on the strip. A beep inserted into the narration gave the projector operator (more about this tasty position later) the cue to advance to the next slide.

Some of my earliest memories of non-printed media being introduced to my classroom were of filmstrip programs. I distinctly remember the dimming of lights, closing of blinds, the hum of the motor and warm air from the projector and above all the voice of the narrator (who I'm sure also did the voice over for the WWII era newsreels). In this environment we saw photographs of the wonders of the world, learned important history lessons with wall-sized images of battlefields and monuments and learned all the nasty stuff we could catch if we didn't listen to our Health teacher.

Being a fledgling geek (way before the term meant anything other than "dork"), I often volunteered to fill the lofty position of filmstrip operator. To me the task fell of threading the filmstrips, starting the cassette player (don't forget to flip it over halfway through) and trying to stay awake so as to not miss a "beep" (which would require enduring the wrath of a class full of kids making fun of you for falling asleep).

Although I don't have any proof as to how this technology died, a bit of web research indicates that they were used as early as the 1930s. I can remember being in classes where we used them as late as the early 1980s, so they represented an amazing lifespan for technology, especially when compared to the quick obsolescence of devices today. You can imagine the death spiral - full motion film as a start (although we used both during the time I was in school); followed by video (reel to reel, then different formats of video cassettes); CD multimedia presentations (remember the late 1990s?), and the PowerPoint and PC presentation technology of today.

It's nice to take a minute or so to remember these cool bits of technology that were so commonplace a couple of decades ago and wonder which gadget sitting on our desk (or in our pocket) today will be just as easily relegated to memory in over the next few years.

Americans: Addicted to Mobile E-Mail

Om Malik reports on a story about American's ever-increasing addiction to mobile e-mail.

uh oh...I am afraid that I have done all of these things. Guess I need a 12 step program.

I want a Chumby

For my entire life I have suffered with a gadget obsession. As early as the young age of three I obsessed over having a portable tape recorder. Such things were not inexpensive back then (think late 1960's) but I somehow talked my grandparents into buying me one. My parents tell stories about my roaming around the house recording my own little radio programs and remember my utter delight upon learning that the machine could be forced into a "public address" mode by pressing multiple buttons simultaneously. I was then able to make all sorts of offensive noises for the whole house to hear...until I dropped the thing. It was only days old and it was shattered to pieces. Did I learn a lesson? No. They bought me a new one.

I never really outgrew this gadget fascination - it only got worse and the gadgets got more expensive. Tape recorders became home stereo components, car audio systems, personal computers, cameras, and has now moved into the big leagues of digital audio equipment, digital cameras and the ultimate gadgets - things that go zoom.

The current object of my desire is a Chumby. If you're not aware of what a Chumby is, it's a compact display device that can act as mundane as an alarm clock, or as advanced as a personal internet station. The software is open source, and it's infinitely hackable. I saw one at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this year and they are way cool. They are just finishing a public beta (I didn't make the list for a free one), and should go on sale in limited production later this month.

They have an interesting form factor. Here is a photo of a Chumby:

They have soft enclosures (think bean bag) so even the exterior is hackable. If you are interested in learning more about them check out the Chumby Blog.

Not quite the first post

Blog. I've been thinking about this for a long time now. I have a reputation as an early adopter of things in general but I've been a happy lurker in the web log world up until now. I also spent lots of time writing earlier in my life but I seem to have put that on hold for a decade or two. I am fascinated by this medium and spend way too much time reading other people's work so I've decided to jump in with both feet. Here goes. Hopefully this won't be an epitaph like "Hold my beer and watch this...".

I would be remiss if I didn't mention an important person from whom I draw blogging inspiration - our great friend Amy, a brilliant writer who is married to my friend and equally brilliant photographer Trey. That they can lead such amazingly full lives and still be creative inspirations is truly awe inspiring.