Monthly Archive for December, 2006

Are Six Apart losing it?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 20/12/2006
in Technology
. 4 Comments

Six Apart are the US based company who make blog software TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox.

Loic Le Meur, is the Eurppean head of Six Apart. Loic was also the organiser of the recent Le Web 3 mess and has written a blog post (and emailed attendees) his side of what happened in Paris last week.

The post is one long non-apology and a textbook example of negationism.

For instance, in the post Loic mentions that there was a standing ovation for the politicians - there was, for Shimon Peres, when Loic himself asked the delegates to stand to show their appreciation. There was no standing ovation for either of the French presidential candidates. Why?

  1. They were foist on the audience at the last minute (at least we had 24 hours notice that Shimon Peres was coming)
  2. They addressed the audience in French (Shimon Peres addressed the audience in English)
  3. Unlike Shimon Peres, they demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of the Internet (Sarkozy, yet again demonstrating the mental acuity of a brain damaged slug, even went so far as to say he wants to “control it”!)
  4. Unlike Peres, Sarkozy even refused to take questions from the audience

But it is not just Loic, Mena Trott was at Le Web 3 as well. Mena is the president of Six Apart and, as such she addressed the audience at Le Web.

Mena’s presentation was one of the shortest of all the talks. She got on stage, spoke for about five minutes, and rushed off again taking no questions.

Now, if blogging is supposed to be about conversations, here we have two principals of Six Apart doing old-school, top down, I know better than you and damned if I am going to listen to you or take your opinion into account.

Guys, if you want to seriously damage the reputation of your company, keep this up.
Shel hit the nail on the head when he said:

But if I went to a rock concert to discover the lead off group was a string octet playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I would be confused and disappointed. As so many of Le Web 3 attendee seem to have felt.

On the other hand, if you want people to continue to take you and your products seriously, learn (or re-learn) what blogging is all about. Engage, have conversations, ask people’s opinions instead of ramming your ideas down their unsuspecting throats. Then you will start to earn back all the trust you lost in Paris.

See also Ewan Spence’s excellent response to Loic’s post.

Apologies

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 20/12/2006
in Technology
. 2 Comments

Sorry for the lack of posts, the last few days have been manic both on the work front and on the home front. Hopefully I’ll get a few spare seconds today to put up some posts (apart from this one!).

Gapminder.org’s incredible data visualisation

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 15/12/2006
in Technology
. 2 Comments

One of the revelations for me of the Le Web 3 conference was hearing Prof. Hans Rosling’s presentation.

Everyone I spoke to mentioned his talk as being the highpoint of the event.

I checked out Gapminder.org, the site he mentioned where you can access all the data he presented and it is incredible. The interactive charts there are astounding.

Here is a screenshot of Ireland’s health versus its wealth from 1960 to 2003. Notice how Ireland’s health fails to improve from 1994 onwards despite significant growth in wealth.

Chart of Ireland's health vs wealth from 1960 to 2003

The two countries at the top of the healthcare leagues (as measured here by % childcare survival to age 5) are Sweden and Singapore.

An early, less polished version of the presentation Prof Rosling gave at Le Web (the one he gave at the TED conference) is available here.

“People should just buy a cd and rip it”

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 15/12/2006
in Microsoft and Technology
. 5 Comments

In a previous post on Digital Rights Management (DRM) I said:

DRM is an evil, market restricting, anti-consumer device (why shouldn’t I be able to play DVDs bought in the US on my DVD player in Ireland?)

It seems I have an unlikely ally - Bill Gates!

At a meeting in Microsoft with bloggers yesterday Bill Gates made several extraordinary statements about DRM.

Here is how Mike Arrington reported what Bill said:

Gates didn’t get into what could replace DRM, but he did give some reasonably candid insights suggesting that he thinks DRM is as lame as the rest of us.

Gates said that no one is satisfied with the current state of DRM, which “causes too much pain for legitmate buyers� while trying to distinguish between legal and illegal uses. He says no one has done it right, yet. There are “huge problems� with DRM, he says, and “we need more flexible models, such as the ability to “buy an artist out for life� (not sure what he means). He also criticized DRM schemes that try to install intelligence in each copy so that it is device specific.

His short term advice: “People should just buy a cd and rip it. You are legal then.�

He ended by saying “DRM is not where it should be, but you won’t get me to say that there should be usage models and different payment models for usage. At the end of the day, incentive systems do make a difference, but we don’t have it right with incentives or interoperability.�

These quotes are rough - I was typing fast but it was not an exact transcript. Still, it is interesting insight from a man who is in a position to shape the future of digital music models.

As an aside, Mike also said that one of the highlights of the day for him was:

Seeing the look on Gates’ face when he walked into the room and every single one of us had a Mac open on the desk in front of us

Games console recommendations

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 15/12/2006
in Technology
. 18 Comments

I am thinking of treating myself to a new games console this Christmas. I have an original Xbox and my favourite games on that were Splinter Cell and Halo.

I’m not a huge gamer - the most use the Xbox currently gets is as a (very loud) DVD player!

I have a 3 year old son - it would be nice to have a console that we can both use.

What do you recommend that I splash out for?

Komplett refunds me!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 15/12/2006
in Technology and hardware
. 2 Comments

In a previous post about consumer rights, I mentioned how I had asked Komplett for a refund for a faulty drive they had sent me.

Having read on the Consumer Association of Ireland website that I was entitled to a refund, not just the options of repair/replace which were offered on the Komplett website, I emailed Komplett saying I would prefer a refund.

I received an email from Komplett this week informing me that my credit card had just been credited with a full refund!

Excellent, now I can look to getting a different external storage solution. Several people have recommended Seagate so I may give them a look.

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