Month: August 2005

A Second Opinion

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, the PC Doctor, agrees with me that RSS is fighting an uphill battle for acceptance by the masses.

He cites this survey by Nielson/Netratings that found that most blog readers have no idea what RSS is. If blog readers don’t know what it is, imagine how few occasional internet surfers know. Adrian talks a little about the “chrome” and how the users are hooked on the “shiny stuff.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that, but my take on RSS is that it has two things working against it: that most non-geeks don’t know what it is, much less how to use it (a position supported by the survey), and that a lot of the ancillary content on a web site is left out of the RSS feeds. Many of the hacks on Tom Evslin’s excellent site are designed to address this problem by bringing this extra content into RSS feeds.

One we get the extra content into the feeds, then we have to educate the world about RSS (or whatever we ultimately decide to call it), then we have to teach the average web surfer how to use an aggregator, then we have to…. You get the picture.

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More on Google Talk and IM

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Business Week is reporting that Google is reaching out to the other IM players in an effort to provide interconnectivity:

“Georges Harik, Google’s director of product management, says the company has opened communications with AOL and Yahoo, offering them interoperability on the Google Talk network free, and it will soon contact Microsoft.”

For the reasons I described last night, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft don’t want interconnectivity. This is another brilliant move by Google. One of two things will happen:

(1) these companies will begrudgingly agree to interconnect, fearing the bad press they will get if they say no. In the scenario, Google wins because it seems, based on early reviews, to have a clutter and ad-free interface that people will like.

(2) these companies will say no and continue the battle for the user base. In this scenario, Google wins because there will be a lot of bad press painting the other companies as bad citizens and Google as the great uniter.

Either way Google wins.

Bonus thought: Google would own the internet now if it had bought Flickr before Yahoo did.

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KN on IM

The web is in a tither about the pending release of Google Talk, an IM program by everyone’s favorite company. IM, or instant messaging, programs allow users to text message and share files over the internet more or less instantly. Increasingly, these programs are expanding their features to add audio chat, video chat and even VOIP telephone calls.

I’ve used IM programs a little. I started out with ICQ a few years ago, then migrated to AOL IM (or AIM for short), and ended up using Windows Messenger (now called MSN Messenger to fool the feds into thinking that it’s not embedded in Windows). Yahoo also has a widely used program. Now there’s a new player in the game, and anything by Google will quickly become a force to be reckoned with.

Why did I keep changing IM programs? It’s simple, I was chasing the user base. Since these programs do not communicate with each other, I kept changing programs based on which one I thought most people I wanted to communicate with were using. Let me be clear about this: generally speaking, these programs use proprietary protocols that only allow you to communicate with other users of the same program. If you’re using MSN Messenger, you can’t send an IM to someone who uses AIM, etc. This is why these programs have not and will not be widely accepted by adults and businesses. Some businesses use security risks as the reason not to implement IM, but companies said the same thing about email back in the day.

Why don’t they allow interconnectivity? Because they are competing based on user base and not on features and reliability. AIM has most of the AOL users (though you do not have to be an AOL customer to use it) and a large base of other users. Yahoo (the only company that can compete head to head with Google based on anything other than a large war chest of dollars) has a big user base. Microsoft has a program that is embedded into Windows, a large user base and a war chest of billions it can use to remain in the game. Each of these companies wants to win the user base war. Sharing protocols and allowing interconnectivity would turn IM programs into a commodity. These companies who are competing to become the one-stop internet shop for the masses do not want IM programs to become a commodity.

Kids are better at technology than adults and will go to great lengths to communicate away from the ears and eyes of adults. While this creates headaches for parents, it ensures a regular supply of users for all of the major IM programs. If a kid has to install 2 or 3 IM programs to communicate with her friends, she’ll do it. If the IT department at my firm has to do that, forget it. I’ll be told to use email and forget about the 2 minutes that I might save if I could use an IM program.

Then there’s the over-40 problem. For most people over 40 sending an email attachment or uploading a photo to Flickr is a major technological accomplishment. Trying to get these same people to understand and install an IM program and then to deal with it when they can’t communicate with Aunt Jane, who uses a different program? That’s a recipe for failure.

Until IM programs become like telephones, where the provider and the manufacturer of the telephone have nothing to do with who you can and can’t call, IM will simply not be adopted by grown-ups and businesses. At least not until today’s teenagers grow up and run companies or, more importantly, IT Departments.

So I may install Google Talk when it’s released tomorrow. But if I do, it’s only because I am curious. It won’t be because I think I’ll be able to communicate with anyone I know. To do that, I’ll have to use the telephone.

Dwight Silverman is blogging about Google Talk and Download Squad has a review and some screen shots.

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Duncan Wells' New Website

My friend Duncan Wells has a new website. Duncan is a songwriter, playwright, performer and actor. My kids know him as “daddy’s friend who sent us the CD we listen to all the time.” His Love & Safety Club CD has been in the regular rotation in my wife’s car for years. Duncan has written and recorded some of the best children’s music I have ever heard, and I have heard a lot. In fact, I would rank Duncan and Dan Zanes at the very top of the genre. Duncan also writes and performs great music for grown-ups and is active in the theatre.

The web site is new, and is a bit of a work in progress, but Duncan is an incredibly talented guy who makes great music for the whole family.

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Landscaping Complete

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At long last our landcaping project is finished. We bought the house next door in May. It took us weeks and weeks to get a demolition permit from the City of Bellaire. Then we demolished the house, brought in some fill to level the ground and hired a landscaper to build two play areas, a deck, a fence, a sprinkler system, lights, flower beds and grass. The job was finished earlier this week. We are looking forward to enjoying the new yard, and it is a treat to look out of the kitchen window and see grass and plantings instead of a fence and the top of an old house.

Pictures of the work in progress and the final result on my Flickr Page.

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Jukebox, Uncensored

You know the drill. Open up your jukebox of choice, point the shuffle feature to your entire library of songs and list, without exception, the first 10 or so songs that play.

Starting this week, I am going to add a little commentary about some of the artist, songs, albums, etc.

With Every Wish – Bruce Springsteen (Human Touch) (1)
Walk in the Sunshine – Bob Weir (Ace) (2)
Three Days Straight – Ray Wylie Hubbard (Eternal & Lowdown) (3)
Blue – Lucinda Williams (Essence) (4)
Tonight’s the Night – Neil Young (Tonight’s the Night) (5)
We Won’t Dance – Vince Gill (When I Call Your Name) (6)
Angelita – The Backsliders (Southern Lines) (7)
Already Broken – Hadacol (All in Your Head) (8)
The Hurting Business – Chuch Prophet (The Hurting Business) (9)
Bad Night at the Whiskey – The Byrds (Box Set) (10)

(1) I more or less agree with the horde of reviewers that found this album lacking by Bruce’s standards. The album Lucky Town, released at the same time, is a better bet.

(2) Really a Grateful Dead record released as a solo record as part of the Dead’s Warner Brothers record deal. A fine record with some great songs, including the best studio version of Playing in the Band, Looks Like Rain and the song Cassidy is named after.

(3) Probably my favorite song on one of my favorite Ray Wylie records. I hung out with Ray Wylie many years ago between sets at a long gone in favor of more yuppie townhouses Houston bar. He is a good guy and impressed me as a deep thinker, even though we were totally liquored up by the beginning of the third set (during which I prevailed upon him to play his awesome version of Driving Wheel 3 times in a row). It is both pleasing and not surprising that he has become one of the main voices in the Americana philosophy-in-songwriting movement.

(4) Lucinda recently completed her Nanci Griffith cycle: immense love upon discovery; loyalty through questionable changes in musical direction; frustration; abandonment. I loved her first 4 records. Car Wheels was a much anticipated disappointment. I didn’t like Essence at all. World Without Tears was better, giving me hope that she can avoid a Nanci-like fall into the abyss of artsy-fartsy self-importance.

(5) An almost perfect record by one of the greatest songwriters of our time. If I ever do a Top 25 Albums list, this one would be near the top.

(6) I’m sort of over him now, but Vince and Travis Tritt led the much needed country music resurgence of the late 1980s.

(7) Throwin’ Rocks at the Moon was better, and the live EP From Raleigh, NC (which contains Lexington Avenue, one of my favorite songs) is best. But this is a good record by the last standing member of a NC band that was once compared to Gram Parsons.

(8) Hadacol plays a good, hard-edged version of alternative country. The band is a regular on Rancho Radio.

(9) I was somewhat of a fan of Green on Red, sometimes credited as a forefather of the No Depression movement that spawned Uncle Tupelo and most of my other favorite bands. His solo work is much more mellow and introspective, but it works. This record is perhaps the least accessible of his solo records (start with Homemade Blood), but it’s still a good listen.

(10) Every band I like, every band I ever played in and every song I write is influenced in some way by The Byrds (I Know Better Now, being one example where I strived for their sound). Roger McGuinn has a blog.

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Friday's Link: ReligionFacts.com

Friday’s Link for this week is ReligionFacts.com. I love the idea of an unbiased site where I can read and learn about the world’s religions. This site was created as part of the author’s preparation for a doctoral program in the history of religion. I love this quote from the FAQ:

What religion are you, if any?

I’m not telling and it’s not relevant anyway. ReligionFacts.com is not intended to promote or support any one religion and I have done my best to keep any and all personal biases out of it.

In addition to a lot of factual information about various religions, the site contains links to news stories involving religion and some very well written original articles. I am going to spend a lot of time reading this site. I hope the author writes a lot!

I found out about this web site from Eamonn Sullivan’s web site, which I enjoy and read regularly.

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Jumpy Goes to Moscow

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Gigi and Jumpy at
Star City in Moscow with
Astronaut Doug Wheelock

Cassidy and Delaney’s grandparents, Gigi and Papa, are world travelers. They recently went to London and Moscow. Jumpy, one of Cassidy’s bunnies, went along with them and had a great time. Jumpy got to see some neat places and even got to visit Star City and hang out with Doug Wheelock, one of America’s top astronauts! You can see some more photos of Jumpy’s trip here.

Jumpy is the newest in a long line of Cassidy’s “Traveling Bunnies.” Here’s a picture of the original Traveling Bunny on the cover of Money Magazine.

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Fantasy Football Fairness

I am a huge college sports fan. I watch a lot of college basketball and football. On the other hand, I am not a pro sports fan, as I find the idea of watching a bunch of greedy rich guys playing for teams owned by other rich guys generally unappealing. I am, however, a member of a fantasy football league. We are about to enter our third year.

When the younger guys in my office approached me about starting a league, I wasn’t interested. I haven’t followed NFL football since the Snake was throwing passes to Fred Biletnikoff. But they persisted and I gave in. I spent a couple of hours learning the players the night before our first draft. I went to the Super Bowl the first year, and lost to the other old guy in the league. Last year I scored more points than any other team, but lost in the first round of the playoffs.

This year the league is expanding to allow two new guys in. The members have been fighting like only a bunch of lawyers can about how to structure the expansion draft. The new guys think that the expansion draft is designed to put them in the cellar for years (it’s a partial keeper league). Some of the old members think the expansion draft will result in two new dynasties. One guy is threatening to Kip-out (a term named after one of the founding team owners who left the league last year to play in another league with his “real friends”).

Until today, I have stayed out of the debate, saying only that I will abide by whatever the majority decides. But after reading a few email bombs and a set of proposed rules that make css seem simple, I decided to come up with a set of rules that would be equally ludicrous and brilliant. I think I hit both; the other league members think I only achieved the first. So since my league won’t enact it, here is the Newsome Fairness in Football Plan (the “NFFP”). It is designed for the expansion or revamping of an existing league, but could be modified for use with a new league. It assumes a 10 member league.

1) Put the 30 highest paid players (assuming a league salary cap) in a hat and draw them out randomly, 3 for each team. If you don’t have a salary cap, you could use some other criteria to identify the best players.

2) Then have a 5 round straight draft for 5 of the other players. The order of the draft should be randomized before each round.

3) Then have a four round auction draft with each team owner to have a randomly generated number of points to spend between 60 and 80. This assumes that the typical league salary cap would be 100. You can adjust the number if necessary.

4) Then give each team owner the right to take one player from every other team, with each team to lose no more than one player. Players that have been taken from a team already could not be taken again.

5) Then every player on each roster is randomly assigned a salary of either 5, 10, 15 or 20 points, for use during next year’s draft. Again, this assumes a typical salary cap of 100.

6) After the following season, the league would be a modified keeper league where any player whose total fantasy points for the prior season is an odd number can be kept at the prior year salary plus a number equal to positive difference, if any, between, the last digit of the then current year minus 3 (for example next year it would be 6-3 for a 3 point bump). Any player whose total points for the prior season is even cannot be kept and must be placed back in the draft pool. This ensures that some good players get returned to the draft pool and adds an element of luck in rebuilding that would give the owners of bad teams more incentive to stay active.

7) Prior to future drafts, one team owner to be determined in the same manner as the NBA lottery (worst team gets 10 balls in the bucket, next worst 9, etc.) would have the right to pick one player off of any other team’s roster and keep that player at the same salary as the prior year, plus or minus 5 points to be determined by a coin flip by the commissioner or, if the commissioner is one of the teams involved, by any other team owner. The coin flip would occur after the player has been selected and immediately prior to the draft.

Ludicrous on its face, yes. But if you think about it, it sounds incredibly fun to me.

Too bad my league won’t enact it. If anyone wants to start a league with these rules, let me know. Maybe I’ll Kip-out too.

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