Technologizer » T-Poll

Your iPad Plans (Assuming You Have Any)

Harry McCracken — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:45:33 +0000

It’s been a while since our last T-Poll. And with only a few days left until the iPad shows up, we’re entering the equivalent of a political campaign’s final stretch–if you’re going to have an opinion of the iPad based on pre-release information and speculation, you’ve probably formed it by now.

So here we go:

Have You Been Entertained and Informed by a Ford Lately? Should You Be?

Harry McCracken — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:41:23 +0000

Earlier today, I lounged in the passenger seat while a Ford employee sat behind the wheel and showed me MyFord Touch–the upcoming radically upgraded version of the digital entertainment/information platform that the company began offering a couple of years ago as Ford Sync. The new version has a speedometer that’s flanked by two LCDs, and a jumbo color touchscreen, and it lets you do a gazillion things–from listening to music to getting directions to adjusting mood lighting in the car to turning your auto into a mobile hotspot. I loved it. And the chances of the Ford rep getting distracted and causing an accident were…well, nil, because we were sitting in a fake car interior inside a conference room in the Las Vegas Convention Center here at CES.

I’m impressed by MyFord Touch, which will start to appear in cars later this year–price TBA–and which Ford plans to roll out to eighty percent of its line within five years. It–and/or stuff like it–will be a factor the next time I plunk down money for an automobile. But this New York Times story reports on concerns that the new generation of Internet-connected car computing systems simply demands too much attention from drivers. One of the naysayers is U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who’s presumably in a position to do something about them if he so chooses.

Your opinion, please.

3D: Gimmick? Breakthrough? Both? Neither?

Harry McCracken — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:56:13 +0000

First, a disclaimer: I’m instinctively skeptical about 3D. I’ve seen my fair share of 3D movies over the last three decades or so, and they always leave me squinting, adjusting my glasses, and generally not enjoying myself. It seems like a lot of effort to go through for an effect that’s less like real life and more like a humongous View-Master. Your mileage may vary (I’ve always assumed that the fact I wear glasses in real life is an issue).

All 3D reminds me of this (no, I haven’t seen Avatar yet):

Anyhow, as you know, we’re in the midst of a sort of 3D renaissance. It started in theaters, but is in the process of coming home–or trying to, at least. Over at HDGuru.com, they’re reporting that DirecTV will be announcing an all-3D channel next week at the Consumer Electronics Show. It’ll be compatible with new 3D-capable TVs that’ll be announced at the show. And yes, you’ll need to wear special glasses.

Me, I don’t think I’m going to love 3D until it’s (A) closer to true 3D than the 2.5D effect you’ve always gotten; (B) doesn’t involve glasses; (C) isn’t used by moviemakers for pointless “HEY, THIS IS 3D!” effects. I expect all three points to be resolved by oh, 2050 or so. But I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised when I head to Vegas for CES in a little over a week.

This seems like a good excuse for a T-Poll:

How Big Should a Tablet Be?

Harry McCracken — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:04:28 +0000

The Boy Genius Report has a post up with the title “Apple tablet definitely coming in 7″ size?” Seems to me that the uses of “definitely” and a question mark in the same headline cancel each other out. Either Apple is doing a 7-inch tablet or it isn’t. We just don’t know yet. (Boy Genius says the source of the rumor has been amazingly accurate; oddly enough, nobody ever publishes an Apple rumor and says that it comes from a source that’s erratic and unreliable.)

But the “news” does present an opportunity to ponder what size an Apple tablet–or any tablet–should be. I think we can definitively say that it needs to be enough larger than the iPhone and iPod Touch (which have 3.5-inch screens) to be a distinct beast, and that it needs enough resolution to handle modern Web pages without excessive zooming (let’s say 1024 pixels of resolution, at least on its longer side). E-readers like the Kindle are in the right ballpark, but their displays are a tad on the cramped side if you’re going to be using an on-screen keyboard much. So yes, seven inches sounds logical enough.

But you can feel free to disagree with me:

Should Google Get Into the Hardware Game?

Harry McCracken — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:22:38 +0000

With the exception of a search appliance for internal use by businesses, Google has stayed out of the hardware business. Now rumor has it that we may see a Google-branded phone shortly, and maybe even a Google netbook late next year. My friend Jason Hiner says that Google needs to be cautious if it plans to go into the physical-object biz in a big way.

T-Poll time:

Which Browser Would You Vote For?

Harry McCracken — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:38:23 +0000

More news about monopolies and governmental action against them: The European Union has ended its antitrust case against Microsoft over Internet Explorer after Microsoft agreed to give European Windows users a ballot screen which will let them choose between IE and eleven (!) other browsers.

A hundred million Europeans will get this feature next year, and at least a few of them are reading this post. But even if you’ve never set foot in an EU country, how about taking this quick poll? The browsers listed are the ones that Microsoft will offer when the ballot screen rolls out.

Should Microsoft Abandon Phones?

Harry McCracken — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:10:46 +0000

Over at the New York Times’ Bits blog, Steve Lohr is reporting on a shocking recommendation from tech analyst/writer Mark Anderson: Microsoft should abandon the phone business. Anderson says that Microsoft doesn’t get consumers–with the exception of game-playing consumers–and it’s time for the company to focus on business customers.

As Lohr says, the chances that Microsoft will give Windows Mobile a respectful burial and move on are slim. Very, very slim. If I were Steve Ballmer, I sure wouldn’t: Even if the company’s phone strategy is in crummy shape, some chance of getting back on track is better than no chance. Phones are the future of personal computing: To exit the business would be the equivalent of Warner Bros. giving up on TV in 1950, or the New York Times shuttering its Web site in 1998 or so.

So I’m not advocating for Microsoft to give up–and in fact would be happy to see Windows Mobile 7 turn out to be something worth getting excited over.

What say you?

Is the Cloud All You Need?

Harry McCracken — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:42:03 +0000

When you think about it, every netbook to date has been misnamed: They’ve run traditional operating systems, and worked just fine even when you didn’t have an Internet connection. But netbooks based on Google’s Chrome OS will be different: At best, they’re going to have very limited functionality when you’re not online. Whether they turn out to be wildly popular or a legendary flop, they’re something new. They’re…netbooks!

So let’s keep this T-Poll short and sweet:

What Would You Pay For News?

Harry McCracken — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:54:45 +0000

The New York Times is reporting on a new survey that says that 48 percent of Americans would be willing to pay something for online news. The Times’ story begins with a tsk-tsking tone: We Yanks are less likely to say we’d pony up than people in other western countries. But a lover of ambitious news reporting–and, I hasten to add, someone with a selfish desire to see the media business continue to provide paying work–I found the figure sort of encouraging. In a world in which everybody except Wall Street Journal readers get to be happy online freeloaders, I would have guessed that considerably less than half of respondents would have had their head around the concept of paying for news.

The Times says that the survey’s respondents would pay $3 a month for online news, which means they’re tied for Australians for that place. (Italians, by contrast, would for over $7 a month.) It’s not clear just what Americans would expect for their three bucks, or whether we’re talking about a scenario in which there’s still plentiful news available for free, or one in which freebies suddenly go away and your choice is between paying or getting no online news at all.

Anyhow, let’s try a mini-replication of the survey right here. For the sake of the following question, assume that every general-interest news site in the nation suddenly builds a pay wall, and that what you’d be paying for is some sort of pass that would give you access to multiple news sources for one monthly fee.

Mr. Murdoch, Build Up That Content Wall!

Harry McCracken — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:31:23 +0000

Like many media moguls, Rupert Murdoch keeps accusing Google of unfairly monetizing his sites’ content by indexing and selling ads next to search results that contain links to it. Now he’s talking about fighting back, by taking the simple step of instituting fees for access to News Corp. online properties and then blocking Google from indexing them.

As Staci Kramer of PaidContent points out, it’s not entirely clear what Murdoch is talking about, or even that he knows what he’s talking about. He says this strategy would be similar to what the Wall Street Journal does, but while the Journal does indeed have a pay wall, it actually lowers it for visitors who arrive from Google.

As far as I know, no major media sites are currently actively preventing Google from crawling their content or otherwise trying to prevent the company from helping people find stories and making money along the way. (A half a decade ago, some publishers–including IDG, where I worked at the time–checked to see if visitors were arriving from Google and told ones who were to come back via the home page–but the experiment was futile, self-destructive, and short-lived.)

I’m probably in the the minority among my media-industry peers here–and it may be a minority of one–but I (A) think Murdoch’s plan is a silly, self-defeating idea, and (B) hope that he does indeed put it into action.

Here’s why:

I’m tired of hearing media executives whine about Google without doing anything about its alleged misconduct. It’s extremely easy to configure a Web site to prevent Google from crawling it. So why don’t these sites that are so nonplussed about being in Google’s index opt out? If Murdoch blocks Google, he’ll at least be safe from charges of inconsistency and/or hypocrisy.
I’m in favor of multiple business models for content sites. Technologizer is doing fine as a mostly ad-supported enterprise, thank you very much, but the media business will ultimately be healthier if there are multiple potential revenue streams–ads, monthly subscriptions, maybe even pay-per-use for some stuff. You know, kind of like TV. If News Corp. goes through with this, I’ll at least give it credit for experimenting rather than dithering.
I’m willing to pay for some stuff. Yes, that attitude is colored to some degree by the fact that I’m in the media biz myself, and no, I can’t think offhand of any News Corp. properties I’m dying to shower in money. (I don’t even have a WSJ subscription at the moment.) But I’d rather live in a world in which some consumers get used to paying for some online content than in one in which sites are doomed if they can’t make a go of things based on advertising alone.
Watching other people gamble is constructive. If the Murdoch paywall flops as spectacularly as most folks think it will, it’ll be a useful confirmation that everybody was right in the first place. If it’s disappointing, but less so than everyone expects, that’s useful information, too. And if it somehow pays off, other media sites can claim they knew it would all along, and rush to imitate the News Corp. approach.

But enough about my reaction to Rupert’s ruminations. You?