This chart is everywhere but I couldn’t help but feel something was missing….
Tag Archive for 'business'
I picked up the March issue of Wired today to read editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s feature on the so-called “freeconomy” that’s been moving a long steadily as the Internet has become more popular: free music downloads, reading newspapers for free online, free e-mail from various web mail providers, et cetera.
The purchase was ironic since I had started reading the article for free online then realized just how long it was and couldn’t bring myself to go through that much text on a screen. So, I went out and paid $5.99 for a copy of the magazine…to read an article about free stuff that I could have read for free.
In a way, I may have made Anderson’s point though. Nothing is truly free. The companies who are giving away their products are making money some other way.
In the case of Wired, by putting the article up for free reading online, they ended up selling an extra copy of the magazine.
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Flickr Resistance Against Microsoft Takeover, originally uploaded by sonicwalker.
But I’ve decided to stop that as I’ve pondered some of the implications.
Oh yeah, and users of the Yahoo-owned photo sharing site Flickr are pissed – as can be seen in the above image.
I guess I have to wonder, if Microsoft’s $44.6 billion deal to acquire Yahoo goes through, what happens next?
Most of what Yahoo does is mirrored by Microsoft products – e-mail, web portals, search, heck Microsoft even has their photo sharing platform (not that too many people use it.)
So, is Microsoft going to consolidate these services? Or are they going to run parallel, in a sense, competing with themselves?
I guess the reason I’ve been ignoring this massive news is because it really doesn’t affect me much. Most of my online data belongs to Google these days but I do still use a few of their services (mostly Flickr and del.icio.us.)
So is my Yahoo ID still going to work to get in? Or are we going to have switch to Microsoft’s passport deal? Or will both work? I guess the merger could leave some kind of weird (but controlled) version of the OpenID project with 2/3 of the major web players being accessible through one account.
At this point, I really don’t know. But those Flickr users, man, are they unhappy about it.
Okay, this being reported as fact on several web sites, but I’m seriously hoping it’s someone’s clever joke and TechDirt and Engadget fell for it.
This is what I hope, anyway.
Apparently, someone has just obtained a patent for a smart phone, that’s a “mobile entertainment and communication device” and is now suing RIM, Nokia, HTC, Sony Erricson, Motorola and um, basically every cell phone and PDA maker you can think of…
Assuming this is true (I’m still clinging to hope that it’s a sick prank) I’m hoping this will be the proverbial straw the breaks the camel’s back and U.S. courts will finally put an end to this twisted practice of “patent trolling.”
If not, I may just have to go out and patent a “system for managing web site content that places posts chronologically on a web page.” That’s right, I’m gonna patent blogging and you’re ALL going to have to pay me! Mawhahahaha….
…sometimes I disgust myself.
For years, Canadians using mobile data devices (Blackberrys and other PDAs) have been getting royally screwed on mobile data fees. Just one year ago, I think most providers base plans included a “generous” 500 kilobytes per month.
That means users could download…five small pictures, per month.
A few months back, it looked like things might be getting better when both Bell Mobility and Telus introduced 1 gigabyte plans for $100. (Previously, $100 got subscribers 250 megabytes per month.)
Following this, Rogers brought in 500 megabytes for Windows Mobile users only priced at $80/month.
But now, things are getting interesting with Bell Mobility firing the first shot.
With their introduction of the HTC Touch (kind of a Windows Mobile version of the iPhone,) they’ll be allowing users to add on their basic $7/month unlimited web browsing plan. On a PDA, not a regular cell phone. Which is, well, insane. Even Americans don’t get their data that cheap – the unlimited iPhone data plan is $20/month.
Telus seems to have countered by offering unlimited e-mail for both the HTC Touch and Blackberry Pearl. Problem is, no web browsing there.
Rogers is also giving unlimited e-mail…for the Blackberry Pearl as well.
While this battle was a long-time coming, it would be nice if it didn’t target only consumer. Users of standard Blackberry devices are still stuck with 4 megabytes per month for $25. And I’ve said many times before, these prices really come off as discrimination against small business owners and the self-employed. Since the better prices are for consumer-oriented devices only, it looks like that’s going to continue.
I got an e-mail today from some company called TrueSwitch informing that someone has a “brand-spanking-new Yahoo! Mail address”
The problem is, I have no clue who this “someone” is. It would have nice if, for example, this e-mail had mentioned at the very least, what this person’s old address was.
Of course, not being able to simply leave something alone, I had to investigate further. From what I learned, TrueSwitch is a service that’s supposed to make migrating from one e-mail address to another easier.
They handle forwarding everything from your old address to the new one, shut down the old one and inform all your contacts of your “brand-spanking-new” e-mail address.
Remaining curious, I sent this person with a new address a message thanking them for the update but also asking: just who ARE you?
No response so far. This has left me wondering, could this be a really ingenious piece of spam? Did I play right into their hands by doing some digging? After all, I’d never heard of this service before and now I know all about them. By sending out e-mails to random people telling them that “someone” has a new e-mail address, they get people curious as to what this is and now looking at them.
That said, I hardly think the $19.95 price tag is worth it given that setting my old address to forward, exporting my address book and sending out a mass e-mail might take me all of 10 minutes to do.
Going to company web sites makes it easier to shop around…sometimes.
I found a notable exception the other day while trying to find car insurance prices. See, all the major insurance companies DO have a system that will generate a quote based on information you enter. The problem is, they also demand that you punch in a massive pile of personal information to use it.
I’d expect to have to surrender this kind of info if was BUYING the insurance – but I’m just looking and frankly, am running hypothetical numbers, including lying about my age to see if it would be more economical to wait until another year to get a new vehicle.
Of course, I can’t enter an inaccurate age at all since they demand I check some box where I swear under penalty of law that everything I’ve entered is accurate.
Come on guys, give us a system where we can actually SHOP and consider options. As it stands, the old method of calling up my broker and asking him for a guesstimate seems to remain the best.
I’ve realized that yet another great thing about working freelance is that I don’t have to go through the job interview process. Because the way it’s performed today is ridiculous.
First of all, the answer to 75 per cent of the questions they ask are in the cover letter and resume I’d assume they’ve read. After all, potential employers tend to look down on interviewees who haven’t done their homework about the company.
Second of all, why is that every job interview consists of the SAME questions?
“Why do you want to work here?” – Because I need money
“Do you have any previous experience?” – Did you look at my resume?
And of course, my favourite: “What is your biggest weakness?” – Seriously, what IS the correct answer to that question? Seeing as the job interview format is completely standardized, I’d assume there are correct answers. That’s where the problem lies, everything is scripted. It seems all one has to do to land pretty much any job is to make sure you know the correct answer to the questions that are always asked and boom, you’re in.