Courtesy of Marginal Revolution.
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How stupid are some people?
A new web service is pushing beyond the traditional information-sharing lines found on Twitter, Facebook, and their social brethren (names, hometowns, birthdays, pictures, etc.). Blippy.com intends to show to the world exactly what you purchased through your credit cards. You sign up, enter your credit card details, and choose how much data you want to share to your social network (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
What?
Why would anyone want to do this? What benefit is there from my friends seeing how much I purchase at a given retailer? How is the world better now that it knows that I spent $27.53 at Amazon.com to buy a pack of AAA batteries and the latest Dan Brown novel?
If you think this idea is as ridiculous as I do, and agree that all those people who put their private financial information at risk for absolutely no benefit are incredibly stupid, you’ll be thrilled to know that only one day after “going beta” and being introduced on TechCrunch, the site is now tracking over $1M of sales.
Of course, this information is invaluable for Blippy. Private purchase data, ripe for analysis and resale, all at their disposal.
By the way, this company was founded by the creator of F*ckedCompany, the once-popular 2000-ish website that tracked layoffs across large and small companies alike. At least now you can understand what kind of minds dream up this stuff.
Why Android and Why Chrome
There has been a lot of discussion recently (at least among those who follow this stuff) about Android 2.0, Google Maps adding turn-by-turn navigation, and Google introducing the Chrome OS, it’s new operating system. For those who know me, I have been following Android-vs.-iPhone very closely for over a year now, and have believed from the very start that Android will win. There are a lot of similarities between Android-vs.-iPhone to the Windows/PC-vs.-Mac battles in the 1990’s, from a high level.
Android is open, like Microsoft was open: Any manufacturer or carrier could use the free Android operating system on any of their platforms. Conversely, Apple is closed. No other manufacturer is allowed to use the iPhone OS, and (at least for now) iPhone is contractually limited to AT&T.
However, this article by VC Bill Gurley lays out very clearly why the pace towards adoption of Android will accelerate: Google is sharing search revenue with its partners.
“Google will give you ad splits on search if you use that version! That’s right; Google will pay you to use their mobile OS.”
So, not only is a manufacturer like Motorola able to load the Android operating system without paying a licensing fee to anyone, if they load the Google-versioned Android operating system, they can receive a chunk of revenue from Google search that flows through their handsets. Bill Gurley dubs this “less than free“, and while I don’t agree with that name, the generally brilliant concept is that Google is buying market share for Android.
Now, step forward to Google Chrome. Google representatives have announced repeatedly that they are building an operating system called Chrome, ostensibly to take on Microsoft Windows. For a long time I questioned why, but this article makes it clear: with an operating system that HP or Dell or Acer loads (for free, of course, relative to Microsoft Windows), and with partner search revenue that flows from Google to the PC manufacturers, the adoption of Chrome will be lightning fast.
Small business 401K provider?
Does anyone have recommendations for a 401K provider for small businesses?
We are currently using SurePayroll with Sure401K/ePlanServices. This has been a complete disaster.
- The numbers provided by both companies vary wildly for our Form 5500, and those differ from what our accountant thinks the numbers should be as well.
- There is no single point of contact as these are two different companies.
- For several problems the answer has been “don’t ask us, ask the other guys. We just get the number from them.”
- We had to get our accountant involved as well, which has driven the cost up for this service dramatically, as no one at either company can provide a straight answer.
- Emails and phone calls to both organizations have gone unanswered many times. We have to actively get someone on the phone, or then worry that our phone calls go into a black hole.
Before setting up the 401K, we were very happy with SurePayroll and recommended them to all of our friends. Now, however, that has changed.
Your suggestions are appreciated! Please post them below or email me directly.
PhotoSketch: I can’t wait to try this
A lot of press coverage hit my sources about PhotoSketch, an “Internet Image Montage” research project from five students at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore. It looks like an astounding piece of technology, and a lot of fun to play with. Unfortunately, the site was taken down due to an unbelievable amount of traffic (what’s called being “slashdotted”, named after a site is brought to the attention of the popular technology news site slashdot.com).
With it, you:
- Draw a pencil sketch of what image you want to compile
- Label the items in the image
- Run the image through and get back a photo montage compiled from available online images.
Just let the pictures and video speak for themselves.
Sketch2Photo: Internet Image Montage from Tao Chen on Vimeo.
I wonder what the image in my previous post would translate to?
“Doing” the Lourvre
Tourists who visit city art museums in a day, taking pictures and moving on, may not fully appreciate the art within them, as this New York Times article laments. I suffer from this affliction as well. Well, perhaps “suffer” isn’t the best word – I’m quite comfortable in my low interest level in painted art.
Architecture, however, is different animals. Given the right conditions, I can see how spending a few hours observing a building could be interesting. Especially if it is active observation, as this paragraph from the article suggests.
Recently, I bought a couple of sketchbooks to draw with my 10-year-old in St. Peter’s and elsewhere around Rome, just for the fun of it, not because we’re any good, but to help us look more slowly and carefully at what we found. Crowds occasionally gathered around us as if we were doing something totally strange and novel, as opposed to something normal, which sketching used to be.
I would like to try this someday. As the paragraph suggests, not because I’d be “any good”, but rather to help absorb the building and its environment better. In middle school I would spend hours designing floorplans for houses on graph paper and doing perspective drawings. I contemplated a career in architecture, but the pull of computer science was too strong at the time.
My drawings may not be very good, but at least at the end I can pull out my DSLR and snap a photo before walking away…
Google Voice (today) –> AT&T (1980’s)
This is a great opinion piece by Judy Shapiro at Advertising Age. It draws parallels between the widely acclaimed Google Voice service and the breadth and reach of AT&T’s investments in the ’80s and ’90s. The conclusion is that this is a dangerous path for Google, as it takes it far afield from its core business, and that while the core business may not suffer today, it may (will?) in the near future as a result. From the article:
Much like AT&T did 20 years ago to maintain its growth, Google is trying to do the same — control the data distribution channels. In the case of AT&T, it was all about information delivery to business and residential users. In the case of Google, it’s all about advertising delivery to its “product” — the users of its services.
The trouble with wanting to dominate all delivery channels (whether it be information or advertising) is that you are forced to go further and further afield from your core competency. And while playing in disparate businesses is something a leader brand can afford to do, over time the core business tends to suffer — slowly but inextricably. Then at some point, you are willing to throw out the knitting needles. AT&T did, and it did not end well. Google looks like to be headed in the same direction.
Nerdy Chicago Weather Joke
From Cheap Talk:
Q: How do you prove the existence of Spring in Chicago?
A: By continuity.
In February it was zero Farenheit. Today it is muggy and approaching 90. By continuity, Spring happened somewhere in between. But note that this existence proof is not constructive. It is of no help in telling us exactly when it was that Spring fluttered by. I must have been sleeping at the time.
Podcasts on your Blackberry with Mediafly
Mediafly just released the beta version of their player for BlackBerry devices. For those of you who don’t know, Mediafly is a free service to enable you to manage all of your podcasts and discover new podcasts, across all of your devices (iPhone, iPod, Sansa, Zen, Squeezebox, chumby, PopcornHour, Zune, CastGrabber, and even plain old RSS). That may sound complicated, but it’s enormously useful once you realize how it works.
I listen to This American Life from Chicago Public Radio quite often – at the gym, on the bus, etc. In the past, I would have to remember to sync my iPod to iTunes to ensure the podcast is loaded onto it. With Mediafly Audio Edition for Blackberry, however, I can simply stream new and recent episodes quickly through the application’s interface whenever I want.
When you open the application, you are given a list of channels with default shows within them. Lots of great exploration here. There are a lot of audio programs I recently started listening to that I did not know existed before starting to use Mediafly. I’ve become a fan of Gordon Deal’s dry wit on the Wall Street Journal podcasts. And, the Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business puts out CareerCast, interviews with professionals on various career-related topics. I find these to be excellent as well.
Next, you can customize your own channel list. If you want to customize the list, you can register for free at Mediafly.com and link your BlackBerry to your device. You can then add and remove shows and episodes from both the BlackBerry and from the website.
Finally, there is a version that supports video podcasts as well in the works.
It’s definitely worth trying out, at the very least to see what kind of content you can find. The release is a beta, so please let them know if you encounter any bugs or other issues (you can do so right from the application, it seems).
To install, point your BlackBerry browser to: http://www.mediafly.mobi
Are expensive running shoes a waste of money?
A fascinating article in The Daily Mail about running shoes and whether they are worth their money. If you are a runner or even like to walk a lot, it is well worth the read.
My favorite quote:
Dr Craig Richards… revealed there are no evidence-based studies that demonstrate running shoes make you less prone to injury. Not one.
It was an astonishing revelation that had been hidden for over 35 years. Dr Richards was so stunned that a $20 billion industry seemed to be based on nothing but empty promises and wishful thinking that he issued the following challenge: ‘Is any running-shoe company prepared to claim that wearing their distance running shoes will decrease your risk of suffering musculoskeletal running injuries? Is any shoe manufacturer prepared to claim that wearing their running shoes will improve your distance running performance? If you are prepared to make these claims, where is your peer-reviewed data to back it up?’
Dr Richards waited and even tried contacting the major shoe companies for their data. In response, he got silence.
And also,
Runners wearing top-of-the-line trainers are 123 per cent more likely to get injured than runners in cheap ones.