web | business week article

Rob Hof of Business Week interviewed me for the Best of the Web Special Report, issue date September 26, 2005. An online extra features a quote I gave him concerning the over abundance of information on the web and the amount of web services available to collect and use the information. I was hoping there may be a little more content featured, but it’s better than nothing.

Article

tech | msft launches design studio

Here is yet another example of Microsoft having absolutely no business focus and relying on their name to compete in another market it’s trying to catch up in. They are reportedly releasing a design studio to allow designers to work better with developers using Visual Studio .NET.

The idea is nice, but also stupid. First of all, any web interface designer will not use this because there’s a fairly solid chance it won’t be standards based (css, xml, dhtml, javascript). Secondly, for those who are still building desktop applications most likely have UI designers who have adapted to the limited possibilites of Visual Studio IDE’s over the last 5-10 years.

And how do they think they will fair against the Adobe/Macromedia combination in the graphic designers niche market? I guarantee it fails in this market.

Hopefully the market they are targeting is geek developers who have no concept of design. Because someone with a concept will not use this product, they will choos Adobe/Macromedia.

Article

web | google blog search

google blog search is launched

And, it doesn’t pick up mine. It claims to run off of weblogs.com, which is kind of a tracker of sorts. Regardless, I ping it every time I post. Not to mention I use Blogger (owned by Google). You’d think they would index that first. I can’t even search my blog when I explicity point here.

If anyone has a solution for this please let me know.

web | searchfox

It sounds like searchfox has finally figured out what I want in an RSS aggregator… filtering Too bad I can’t use it yet because I haven’t got an invitation. By the way, their invitation system also sucks. You have to email a request… no automated process. I hate how some web2.0 companies jumped on gmail’s invite-only bandwagon. I get the point… it’s an easy way to stress test a beta. But you may as well keep it private so I don’t sit around waiting for confirmation.

they also have other products

biz | microsoft has lost it

7 versions of Vista…. 7!!!

Way to go Microsoft. As a techie, I don’t know if i need the Professional Edition or the Enterprise Edition, or the Ultimate version… How the hell is the average PC user supposed to know. I guess whatever you decide to have Dell bundle with their pc’s…

Regardless this is absurd. Either marketing has gotten their dirty hands on this or someone has done some insane market research on versioning and found that if you throw 7 versions of a product at a consumer they will just give up and buy the most expensive.

Starter Edition, Home Basic Edition, Home Premium Edition, Professional Edition, Small Business Edition, Enterprise Edition and Ultimate Edition.

see what everyone else is saying

biz | ebay’s purchase

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted as I have been quite busy. There has been a lot of issues I have wanted to comment on, but am trying to cut down on any “content transfers”, which is my technical term for reporting on something that’s already been reported. Therefore I am strictly restricting my content to original analysis. My content will, in the future, be restricted to reviews of tools (software/hardware), stuff that annoys me (ie: enterprise server software), and analyses of business and technology situations.

Now, on to the content of this post. Why did ebay buy skype? Granted this is one of those “content transfer” issues, but I am not announcing it. Thousands of people have already discussed it. But, this is one of those things that annoys me. I read the powerpoint presentation (which was hideous) that describes ebay’s motives on the acquisition of skype. They claim it creates a new medium for their community to communicate. I think that’s stupid. That should not constitute a $2+ billion purchase.

Who are they fooling? They want the user base. Anyone who’s kept up to date on ebay and their business model know that ebay is making a significant plunge into the global marketplace, setting up offices all around the world to cater to local marketplaces. And, as most analysts realize, Skype’s giant user base is primarily European.

Coincidence? no… Added feature to ebay? no… Procurement of a significant global user base? yes…

techcrunch details

my comments on rob hof’s blog post concerning this issue:

Skype was not acquired for its technology or business model. First of all, it doesn’t really have a great business model (as far as revenue generation). Secondly, the technology isnt’ something that eBay could not have built in-house or acquired for much, much cheaper elsewhere. The Skype acquisition also does not add value to ebay or paypal. There are several communication mediums available that are used by the ebay community and an additional one would definitely need to prove its merits to be adopted in mass.

What eBay was really after was the global (mostly european) user base that it has been coveting and pursuing over the last few years. No need to rely on marketing/pr or creating global markets. Just buy the users you need… This is a good plan I guess, if you have the money to play with.

It won’t be how ebay uses Skype technology that proves its worthiness… it’s how eBay will use their newly purchased users to its benefit. Adding value to these new users, not ebay’s existing community, will make this a profitable deal.