That’s all good. Can’t have enough Nashville blogs — and local blog-veteran Bill Hobbs helped out on their launch, so they have a good start.
On the other hand, the paper has also launched something called the e-Paper which is, to put it politely, perhaps the worst publishing platform one can imagine — sorry, guys.
In that never-ending belief print people have that readers want the web to be more “print-like,” the City Paper’s “e-paper” (which uses a platform from Olive Software) ends up being something that treats the user like an idiot. Here’s the idea: flip through pages of the newspaper, so you get to see the ads on the page and the banner ads surrounding the pages you are flipping through.
While I’ve been “won over” to some digital-magazine platforms due to the innovative ways they’ve evolved their user experience and have added features that truly bridge the online and print experience, the City Paper’s “e-paper” is not a good model for any print publication to follow.
There is nothing about it — nothing — that’s the least bit appealing.
Later: As someone from the platform company has asked for some suggestions from me, I will be expanding on this topic later.
Quote: “The sensory experience that print affords — the feel of different paper stocks, glossy photos, beautiful layout, design — simply cannot be replicated digitally.”
After hanging out with about 300 fun folks at the Green Hills Apple Store, I thought I’d head across the street to the AT&T Store in Green Hills where only about 30 people were line — at the time. Mistake. By 6:45 only four people had actually made it out of the store with phones. Rather than merely selling phones, the AT&T Store was running credit checks on non-AT&T customers. They were handling things with all of the efficiency of a cell-phone store. A quick back-of-the-envelop calculation led me to believe I’d be there for another ten hours — so I’ve punted. I’ll order an iPhone online later tonight. It will get here when it gets here. What was I thinking? It’s the phone company.
As I noted during Steve Jobs’ Macworld announcement of the iPhone, the Cingular/AT&T president, Stan Sigman, came on stage and proceeded to spurt out business buzzwords written on 4 x5 cards — the worst canned speech of all time. Jobs responded, “We come from different worlds.”
Having just seen the difference in how iPhones were flying out of an Apple Store and being slowly “processed” at an AT&T Store, I think there are going to be some culture-clashing in the coming months.
Update: I was not the only one who had the ATT Store vs. Apple Store experience. Here’s a quote from author/entrpreneur Steven Johnson: “Tried to be clever and buy at the downtown Brooklyn AT&T store, which was a nightmare and limited me to only one phone. Came home and my wife was so irritated at my having the only iPhone in the house that I got back into a cab and went into Soho at about 10:30, where I bought a second phone at the Apple Store in maybe 45 seconds.”
I’m un-plugging myself from this blog for the rest of the day, but you can catch me on Twitter as I, well, join the other dorks who couldn’t help themselves.
I feel really bad. I cheated on Southwest. I flew to DC earlier this week and the person making the arrangements found a good deal on an American Airline Flight from Nashville to Reagan-National. And so, last evening I found myself waiting for an American Airlines flight to Nashville when, after a two-hour delay, the announcement came that the flight was canceled.
While I started making alternative arrangements via the Internet and a phone-call to American Express Travel, an editor from Hammock Publishing who was traveling with me called the 800 number the AA desk agent provided for us. Via the web and phone, within a few moments, I had us booked on a Southwest Flight for 7 a.m. this morning and two rooms in an economy hotel near BWI airport.
However, here’s what the conversation went like with American Airlines: “The earliest we can get you out of Washington is Saturday afternoon.” (This was Thursday night.) (What about a hotel?) “We don’t have to pay for any accommodations because this is weather related.” (What about a refund?) Sorry, I can’t provide you any information about refunds because this is merely a portion of the trip.” (You’re not being all that helpful.) “I’m 3,000 miles away and that’s the best I can do.”
The weather was bad up and down the eastern seaboard yesterday. That I understand. However, this type of attitude is why I avoid flying on anything but Southwest. I’ve been delayed — due to weather — on Southwest, but I’ve never been insulted or harassed or treated like I was doing them a favor by being their customer.
I would rather fly Southwest to Baltimore — and go through all the hassle involved with getting from BWI to downtown DC — than fly on American to Reagan National, which is practically in downtown DC.
In my experience, Southwest seems much better capable of re-booting their system whenever some major glitch occurs. (Note I didn’t use the word “crash.”)
Still traveling: I’ll be back in Nashville — and online — late tonight. Until then, anything I may have posted on this blog was probably not that interesting, anyway. One observation however: I think the iPhone coverage has entered the Paris Hilton-zone. It’s just a gadget, folks. As a long-time (since 1984) purchaser of almost every Apple product ever produced (except the Newton), I can tell you one thing: In six months, there will be a much better version of the iPhone on the market and everyone who purchases one tomorrow will wish they had one. If you wait until February, 2008 (or maybe November, 2007), you’ll be able to get the iPhone this one should have been.
Or better yet, you’ll be able to get an iPod with all the features except the phone.
Despite my losing battle with a summer cold — what’s with those, anyway — I’ll be traveling to D.C. at dark-thirty on Wednesday and will be there a couple of days. Schedule is pretty jammed, so I don’t know when/if I’ll be blogging.
[Synopsis of the following post: The embargo for the "first reviews" of the iPhone dropped tonight. If you boil them all down, here's what they all say: "The cellular broadband it uses is painfully slow, but you'll appreciate having all that extra time to ponder how envious your friends are that you own the coolest gizmo ever.]
In something akin to election night, I found myself tuning into the web tonight to see if the “early reviews” were trickling in. Sure enough, the two bell-weather precincts have reported and it looks like the iPhone will carry all 50 states. Or, to chase another analogy rabbit, if this were a Broadway opening, those big blub signs outside the theatre would have been rushed into production.
The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and The New York Time’s David Pogue have issued-forth the two most highly-hyped reviews of the most highly-hyped gizmo I can recall. I’m sure those in the tech-punditry who have Mossberg-envy since reading the recent New Yorker profile that says he makes $1 million a year –will claim Mossberg is a dupe of Apple. (For example, in what was surely a joke, surely, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who didn’t receive a review iPhone, suggests Pogue and Mossberg gave positive reviews to ensure “they will continue to receive new Apple gadgets in the future.” Again, that surely was a joke.) However, no matter what is said in the tech press and blogosphere, nothing will change the fact that every CEO in America will be reading one of these reviews tomorrow morning. Gadget envy will set in and that whole “IT won’t support the iPhone” issue will be a distant memory.
The two pretty-much deliver on what every one has predicted: AT&T’s EDGE network sucks. They both agree, emphatically. Pogue even gives some sobering examples to display how sloooowwww it is:
“The New York Times’s home page takes 55 seconds to appear; Amazon.com, 100 seconds; Yahoo, two minutes. You almost ache for a dial-up modem.”
Mossberg’s biggest surprise — and, frankly, this is where he’s at his best — is dismissing the “there’s no keyboard” protests as a “non-issue.” Pogue agrees and says the leaflet accompanying the phone says “trust the keyboard.” Despite the “new-age” sound of the instructions, it’s true, he says.
Quote from Mossberg:
“The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.
On the Mossberg video (embedded), he admits that after the first three days of using the keyboard, he was ready to throw it away — that it took him a full five days before having the breakthrough that caused him to drop his skepticism. I say, this is where Walt Mossberg is at his best because he’s one of the few reviewers I’ve read over the years who spend weeks testing products before issuing reviews. If you test something at your desk for an hour and issue a review — something you’ll be reading a lot of on Friday night and Saturday morning — you miss the nuances of performance that can only be noticed after a couple of weeks.
In my review of the reviews, I’m going to give the nod to Pogue as he threw in a Dizzy Dean quote, something one rarely, if ever, hears in a tech/gadget review:
“But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles. In other words, maybe all the iPhone hype isn’t hype at all. As the ball player Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you done it.”
That’s what reviews need: More Dizzy Dean quotes.
Later, more reviews:
USA Today: “With a few exceptions, this expensive, glitzy wunderkind is indeed worth lusting after.
Newsweek: “One of the most hyped consumer products ever comes pretty close to justifying the bombast.”
Via Hudge (in the comments), the most entertaining review of the iPhone has to be this one from Dave Barry.
Later: When I started out earlier this evening, I thought I’d compare and contrast the reviews. However, they all seem to be written by the same person. Everyone loves the same things, hates the same things, and says the same things. 1. Edge sucks 2. Having one will bring you eternal joy.
Khoi Vinh writes about the limits of his stupidity, which just-about (except for the R.E.M. tickets) sums up my thoughts on when I’ll get an iPhone:
“I’m cringing at the idea of queuing up outside the Apple Store to get my hands on one. That’s about where I draw the line, I think. Standing in line too easily dredges up memories of long spells in line at my local shopping mall trying to get decent tickets to see R.E.M. or some such act when I was sixteen — I guess I’m glad I experienced that kind of extravagant stupidity once, but I’m not about to do it again. Ever. The fact that I’m more or less mentally committed to buying an iPhone at the first reasonable opportunity — regardless of what potentially scathing reviews its touch-based keyboard will undoubtedly receive — is enough, I think. I’m not going to physically plant myself on a sidewalk through heat, rain or multiple mealtimes just for bragging rights. It’s just too much; this personal investment in having an iPhone of my own by Saturday isn’t that important to me. On the other hand, if you have a surefire plan to share queuing duties, let me know.
The 16-year-old volunteered to camp out for me — if I’d get him one. Forget it, I said.
Actually, having been burned in similar ways, I’m a bit like Eric Rice, who says that despite already having AT&T phone service, he thinks EDGE is awful for wireless internet. He also knows of Apple’s consistent record in not getting the kinks out of the first batch of new products. Been there, done that, many times. Eric is going to wait a while.
I will probably order an iPhone online and get it when I get it. Intuitively (I won’t know until I try it), I still think the least impressive thing about the iPhone is that it’s a phone. As Apple is sure to come out soon with an upgrade of the iPod that has all the features of the iPhone, without the phone, I would wait for that if I weren’t so programmed by Steve Jobs to run purchase everything he tells me to. What do I mean, “all the features, except the phone”? Well, watch all those iPhone ads and you’ll notice something. They’re about all the cool stuff you can do if you have an iPod with wifi and accelerometer features — and then at the end, there’s a throw-away line that goes something like, “and, oh yeah, it’s a phone.” Well, frankly, I already have a phone. It’s all that other cool stuff I want.
That said, I reserve the right to be wrong — as I often am when it comes to Apple products. For example, I thought the iPod Shuffle was ridiculous when it first came out because, at the time, a nano cost just a little more and had many times the features and memory. So much for my theories.
Here’s some advice to those who want to upgrade to a newer iPod, cheap. Now is the time to look on eBay for some really nice, used ones — recent models with all the video bells and storage whistles. The early-adopter wave that will be purchasing iPhones all own nice iPods, already — and many will be selling their last early-wave purchases on eBay to help defray the costs of purchasing the new iPhone. The supply will be heavy for the next few weeks, so there will be some great deals. Happy shopping.
I learned that trick from observing the 16-year-old sell old videogame platforms to help fund the purchase of new ones.
Quote: “The exploration of those magazine-website hybrids sometimes called digi-mags is taking a big step toward mass reach this week with the introduction of People magazine’s first entry in the field.” Observation: The term “digi-mag” should be banned i
An annual feature. This year, they also chose five websites from magazines, “that offer something special, something more than the same content we read in print.”
My Nashville friend, Jim Brown, started a new blog today. He’s been preparing for a half-marathon in Virginia Beach on September 2 and his blog will follow his training journey. His blog will also be following another journey. Last Tuesday, June 19, Jim’s wife, Dori was diagnosed with leukemia. She’s now receiving chemo-therapy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Jim is keeping their friends and family up to date using the wonderful blog-like service called “CaringBridge.org”. Jim — who doesn’t believe in coincidences — had already received a solicitation to use his preparation for the half-marathon to participate in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training program. His training now has new and significant meaning. His new blog, called “Run for Dori,” is now more than a training blog.
“What I lay out in this essay is rather disconcerting. Hegemonic American teens (i.e. middle/upper class, college bound teens from upwards mobile or well off families) are all on or switching to Facebook. Marginalized teens, teens from poorer or less educated backgrounds, subculturally-identified teens, and other non-hegemonic teens continue to be drawn to MySpace. A class division has emerged and it is playing out in the aesthetics, the kinds of advertising, and the policy decisions being made.
For students of social media and networking, this is required reading. It’s without a doubt the smartest thing I’ve read on the topic of how (and why) Facebook and MySpace are different. (Admittedly, most of the comments I read on that topic are from teenagers and include words like “sucks.”)
I used to wonder why I was glad to be a human. Then I read the rexblog quote of the day from Dave Winer: “Twitter is all about trivial examples. It’s the stuff of no importance whatsoever that make us feel nice about being human.”
Observation: Despite being in my early 50s, like Dave, I’m a trivial-native.
By the way, Dave is referring to his work during the past few days on creating something he’s calling TwitterGram. It allows you to Twitter an audio message.
The New York Times covers the launch today of Corbis-owned SnapVillage, the latest entrant into the “microstock agency” arena. Like the Getty-owned IStockPhoto, the site allows amateur and “semiprofessional” phtographers to submit pictures and (in the case of SnapVillage) set their own prices.
The site is geared towards selling “royalty-free” rights. Some image rights can be purchased for as low as $1. While not exactly the same, it is similar to purchasing CDs of “royalty-free” photos — except you can purchase the images one at a time. (Downside: photos you use can be used by anyone else, so don’t build an ad campaign around photos that can also be used in your competitors ad campaign..)
Interesting quote:
“SnapVillage will also function as something of a farm system. Corbis editors will scout the site to pinpoint photographers who show potential and may become part of Corbis’s regular stable of photographers. Corbis generates stock photos for advertising and media clients.”
Last week, my friend and fellow photoblographer, Josh Hallett wrote that a photo he’d posted online hit the radar of a photo-editor working on a story for BusinessWeek. In essence, the photo-editor was using Google images or Flickr or however he/she discovered the photo as an auxiliary photo agency. I can understand why Corbis, Getty, et al, would see the threat — and opportunity — of creating a marketplace for the “semiprofessional” photographers.
Still traveling: I’ll be back in Nashville — and online — late tonight. Until then, anything I may have posted on this blog was probably not that interesting, anyway. One observation however: I think the iPhone coverage has entered the Paris Hilton-zone. It’s just a gadget, folks. As a long-time (since 1984) purchaser of almost every Apple product ever produced (except the Newton), I can tell you one thing: In six months, there will be a much better version of the iPhone on the market and everyone who purchases one tomorrow will wish they had one. If you wait until February, 2008 (or maybe November, 2007), you’ll be able to get the iPhone this one should have been.
Khoi Vinh writes about the 
