September 6th, 2010

10 Web Trends That Should Die0
JR posted in Web news on December 30th, 2005

Great article about 10 Web Trends That Should Die in 2006.  The first item alone warrants spreading the word about the article.  Combine this with the mentioned item 5 (treating the mobile web as a different entity) and it encompasses a couple of my general gripes on the web.  I have a great fondness for simple, straight-forward presentations of information on the web.  It has the additional benefit that doing so makes setting up a separate CSS for mobile devices easy.  Fancy and elaborate web sites that rely on very complicated layout often leave me cold.

In conjunction with that, I’ll nominate Macromedia’s Flash as the best application that is all but useless to the general run of web readers. Flash is an excellent way of integrating a rich user interface into web pages, but instead, it is used almost exclusively for delivering useless on-screen toys or advertisements. In both cases, of limited use to the reader.

I’ll quibble about a couple of the other items included in the list (item 4, “Let’s spam everything…”, and item 6, “Let’s do a traditional homepage…”).  Both are so old that they shouldn’t warrant an appearance on the list, but I didn’t write the article.

Welcome to E-Books0
JR posted in Writing, Devices on December 31st, 2005

I’ll admit that, as a life-long reader, I’ve always been looking for some way that I can conveniently take a book or two with me during my commute.  Paperbacks have filled that role for almost all of us since their introduction almost a century ago.  However, as a heavy and rapid reader, I was regularly faced with the dilema of determining what book to take with me as a backup when I approached the end of the current novel.  And, if I had a particularly productive day of reading, I would sometimes find myself without reading material for the commute home.  While not an onerous choice, sometimes I wished that it was one I didn’t have to make.

BusinessWeek has an article about Sony’s upcoming e-book reader slated to debut at the Consumer Electronics Show.  They report that it is to be priced at $300-$500.  Learning from Apple’s success with the iPod/iTunes close integration, they will be offering books via their Sony Connect web store.

I have some severe doubts about the appeal and success of this device.  First, Sony’s previous attempt at such a device, the Japanese-only Librie, while promising, turned out to be a failure in the market.  Overpriced, required a proprietary formats for e-books, and, as a result, little in the way of content.  Nor was there any easy way for readers to get their own material onto the device.

Sony attacks these issues in multiple ways.  It has content deals with major US publishers (Random House, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins).  They have included the nearly universal PDF as a readable format and, as previously noted, have embraced the common USB standard for connecting the device.  Further, it will reportedly use the standard SD memory cards rather than Sony’s less popular and proprietary Memory Sticks.

Missing from this advance notice is any indication of what the price of an e-book will be or if there will be any way to get publications to the reader outside of Sony’s web store (though with PDF as an allowed format, one would hope so).  Though Sony may have learned lessons from Apple, my guess is they aren’t likely to have noted that a lot of what is driving the success of the iPod is people placing their own existing music library on the device without paying another dime to the content owners (something that Sony-BMG despises and tried to do away with via their recent rootkit fiasco).  This won’t be possible for the e-book reader unless people are willing to scan their own books to PDF.

Sony has a penchant for creating some great hardware and then missing the opportunity to make it a standard.  I expect that to happen here.  Also in early 2006, the BusinessWeek article reports that iRex Technologies (a Philips Electronics spin-off) and Jinke Co. (a Chinese device maker) will also debut similar devices.  I doubt that either will be compatible with the Sony store, and Sony will lose any chance of setting a standard that will benefit themselves.

Lastly, and an objection that may readers will note, why does this need to be restricted to being an e-book reader only (and especially at that price).  The e-ink screen is the real value of the product.  That screen can display any black/white text with remarkable crispness and with a miserly use of power.  Couldn’t this be mated with something like Nokia’s E770 web tablet which is already available for $350 and able to read web pages, PDFs and more?

Pundit Gets It Almost Right!0
JR posted in Windows on December 31st, 2005

In John Dvorak’s December 21 article, he examines Microsoft’s onrushing venture into software subscriptions as a revenue source.  What he is missing is the reason that Microsoft is doing so.

Dvorak points out that Microsoft built a large part of its fortune on selling software directly to consumers and that this flew directly in the face of the previous paradigm which was licensing usage on a “per seat” basis for a fixed period of time.  He notes that he doesn’t understand why they would now decide that the previous model was so good that Microsoft needs to get into that business.

Dvorak then goes on to say that Microsoft should instead invest effort into improving the Office suite and points to PowerPoint as needing particular improvement.

Dvorak is so close to answering his own question, but doesn’t see it staring him in the face.  The problem that Microsoft wants to fix with a return to a software subscription model is that they are having trouble improving the Office suite at all.  It is widely acknowledged that users don’t use even 10% of the capabilities built into Office (and, if my experience is any guide, that may be as little as 2% (still hitting two returns to space paragraphs?)).  Why try to improve the software if no one is using all that is already there?

In conjunction with this is the Microsoft monopoly problem.  They already so dominate the Office space that their real competition is from previous versions of their own suite.  Why upgrade from the nicely working version of Word 97 when you are already not making use of any of its outdated ‘advanced’ functions?  Microsoft has successfully created a near monopoly in the Office suite.  How can they make more sales when the existing stuff is still doing everything and more than the users need to do?

If you want to get a revenue stream for something that isn’t changing and isn’t likely to change in general, a subscription model is a great idea.  No problem with doing any more work on the software, just keep it working properly in the core functions.  Any bells and whistles added are “giving increased value” to subscribers and can be done without risking a revenue stream.

There is plenty of reason to test a subscription model for software.  But I have to agree with Dvorak, it will ultimately be a waste of money.

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