December 01, 2005
Customer Service is Dead...
...I'm absolutely convinced.
This post from Randy Holloway describing his experience with Cingular tells an all to familiar story of crappy customer service and reps that appear to have no power to please people.
I wonder how this trend of providing lackluster customer service got started; and I wonder if it will ever reverse.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (795)
October 02, 2005
Dinner with Scoble
I'm taking notice of the methods Scoble uses to communicate with his higher-ups. I will be in Redmond this coming week attending the BPI Conference on the Microsoft campus. I tried emaliing Scoble last week to see if he wanted to get together for dinner, but I haven't heard back. So since he uses his blog to ask his bosses for money, I will use mine to see if he wants to grab a bite.
What do you say Robert? Email me at tkitta AT oakwoodsys DOT com if you want to hook up.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 09:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1491)
September 30, 2005
iTunes Pricing
Slashdot: "Music Industry Threatens to Pull Plug on Apple"
I've been following this story just like everyone else. The music execs have lost their mind (or have never found it). It's no fluke that iTunes was the first venue to offer legit music that people actually want to buy online. There is something to their model.
Jobs is no idiot, and based on the music industry's track record of being complete morons, I will not be surprised when they go through with their threats to abandon iTunes and fail miserably. My thought is that $0.99 is about the top end of what people are willing to pay for a song.
Lesson 1) you cannot and will not stop music piracy. Sorry won't happen. So you need to offer an incentive to go legit. Charging $2.00 for a Britney Spears song isn't the way to go.
Lesson 2) Micro-payments work. If you charged $0.50 or less per song, you'd have people going hog wild. Right now, I'm more of a fan of the subscription model (i.e. Yahoo!, Napster) because of the value I get for my dollar. However, in a perfect world I would like to own the music. If I could pay less than half of what iTunes charges and own my music I would probably go that route, even if I ended up spending more overall than Yahoo! (of which I am currently a member).
The moral of the story is that the music execs are being greedy when they go against Jobs' advice. And let me define greedy. I don't mean greedy in the sense that they want more money. DUH. That's what business is about: making more money. But greedy in the sense that they are willing to make stupid decisions in the pursuit of making more money. They will never get back to the days where people are paying close to $20 for a CD. Won't happen; live with it and move on.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 10:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (768)
September 25, 2005
TiVno
BetaNews: "According to the new service agreement, any TiVo activated after September 6 will require a 12-month commitment. Those who cancel before the end of their contract, or have their contracts terminated by TiVo, will be forced to pay a $150 early termination fee."
What crack has TiVo been smoking lately? I have been happily using my current Series2 for 2 and a half years, but after this one needs upgrading, I can't see myself buying another one.
Question is, what else is out there at a reasonable price point ($1000+ for a Media Center PC is way too much) that is any better? The options are pretty weak.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 01:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (979)
September 24, 2005
Integration & Workflow Blog
Just wanted to point my readers to my new Integration & Workflow Blog.
You can read more about it in my introductory post, but essentially I wanted a place where I could focus the content on some technologies in which I am interested in a condensed fashion.
I hope you check it out.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 02:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (797)
September 20, 2005
An iTunes WTF: Podcasts
I installed iTunes 5 the other day. Until this point I've been extremely happy with iTunes and loved the added support for podcasts added some months back. Well, I just noticed something that is driving me nuts. Some genius thought it would be a grand idea to include all podcasts in the general library. Up to this point, the podcasts were completely separated in to their own area and all the music was in the library. Now when I'm browsing my music I see interesting artists such as CNN and whoever else is listed at the author of the feed item.
Man!! This is annoying.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 08:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (361)
Newsflash: FBI runs out of things to do!
Jeff Jarvis: "The FBI is expanding resources to fight not terrorism but… porn. And not kiddie porn but the good bits aimed at adults. The Washington Post reports today that the bureau is recruiting agents to ferret out flesh and that even people in the FCC are rolling their eyes."
J. Edgar Hoover would be proud.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 08:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (696)
September 19, 2005
Memeorandum
I'm totally digging tech.memeorandum.com. For those of you who haven't checked it out yet, Memeorandum is an easy way to get the pulse of the blogosphere; and it's updated every 5 minutes.
It seems as if there is a "white list" of technology blogs (there is also a politics vertical) which are tracked, and when a particular post starts being discussed it shows up on the main page. This makes for a very high desirable content to noise ratio. Overall, I'm very impressed and will continue to use the site.
Does anyone have pointers to how the site actually works? (i.e. how the white list works, if that is automated or not, etc.)
Posted by Todd Kitta at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1790)
September 18, 2005
Start.com Gadgets
Dare Obasanjo: "The value of using RSS is that even if a client doesn't understand your extensions then the feed is still useful. Start.com currently breaks that assumption which to me is an abuse of RSS."
I agree with Dare here, even though I did not consider this fact until I read his post. I've done some playing with the Start.com gadget's and I think they are awesome. I see this kind of architecture really inspiring some creativity. I mean come on, plug-ins for a web page? That is a pretty huge paradigm shift, and a pretty big deal in my opinion.
I digress... By using the familiarity of RSS for the Start.com manifests, I believe the team made a good effort to not muddle up the schema world, but like Dare said it seems to be a hack and an abuse of an existing format.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 05:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1103)
Zero Mono
Miguel de Icaza: "As some of you know, Microsoft for the second time in a row blocked the Mono Birds-of-a-feathers (BOF) meeting from being held at their Professional Developers Conference. It is their conference, and I understand that a cross-platform .NET implementation might make them nervous..."
I can't read Microsoft on this one. In my opinion, any exposure of .NET to developers is a good thing, even if it is on a Linux platform. Microsoft had the attention of several thousand presumably devoted devs last week, why not let them see what's out there related to the platform? I think rather than being scared of Mono, Microsoft should embrace it (or at least not try to hide it). Mono could not prosper without the success of .NET on Windows, so I don't think there's too much to be afraid of here. Am I wrong, could Mono be a threat? More here.
Wow, I sure have been writing a lot about Microsoft lately. At least I'm writing again. :) Let's see if I can keep it up.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (741)
September 17, 2005
More on Openness
Randy Holloway: "Apparently there is a Google conference coming up where attendees aren't allowed to blog about any of their presentations or discussions with attendees, including Sergey and Larry. Funny, but I attended an invitation-only Microsoft IT forum prior to joining the company and I blogged my exchanges with Steve Ballmer. Interesting, don't you think?"
I'd call it garbage more than interesting. What is that? Kinda strange that Scoble will be there. And Terry Semel?
Very weird. I haven't seen Robert even mention this, unless I completely missed it.
UPDATE: Robert had blogged about this (well, kinda) this morning.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 04:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (657)
September 16, 2005
What's going on at Microsoft?
Man, Microsoft sure is open these days. You have Rory making posts like this, and Dare making posts like this. And of course you have Scoble who, while generally a pretty darn good MS cheerleader, is not afraid to praise Apple and Google or point out MS' own flaws.
And of course you have Mini-Microsoft, who makes all kinds of posts like this.
While Mini-Microsoft is anonymous, Rory, Dare, Scoble, and countless others, are not. These guys (and girls too I'm sure) have the balls (in the guys case) to openly criticize their employer to the rest of the world; and in Dare's case, openly admit that he does not plan to stay with the company for the long term. Talk about open.
I think Microsoft's policy on blogging will help them in the short- and long-term. It is helping the rest of the world to see the human side of the software giant. I have to wonder though, if many of the execs expected such candid views from their own employees. These types of conversations are generally held for internal discussion, if at all. Surely Ballmer can't be too happy about a lot of what is said in the public forum, but I also think a lot of these blogs, etc. will hold feet to fires and get things done. At least that is what common sense tells me.
From what I can tell on the outside, Microsoft is generally a good place to work, and despite what some people say, Microsoft is innovating and putting out great products. Microsoft has 60,000+ employees; the odds tell me that not everyone will be happy and that due to the sheer volume of employees there will be bureaucracy and politics.
However, this openness that we have been witnessing over the past couple years can do nothing but help in my opinion. What does anyone else think? I can also see how this kind of public laundry airing could be viewed as somewhat chaotic.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (887)
IBM Encourages Employees to Leave
Leave to become teachers that is. IBM is starting a program that will financially back eligible employees who decide to leave Big Blue in pursuit of a career in education. The goal is to attempt to fill the widening gap of quality math and science educators in the United States.
Personally, I think this is great. I certainly don't want to see this country decline in the quality of innovation and intellect that we have so much enjoyed over the past century. While this program obviously won't change the world, it's certainly a good step to doing so.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 11:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (2049)
September 15, 2005
Thought you needed to be at the PDC?
You may have thought you actually needed to be in LA this week to get the most out of the PDC. Well, you're mistaken. The good folks at iFilm have the Napoleon Dynamite/Bill Gates video on their site for all of us to enjoy.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 07:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (885)
RIP Windows Forms
Bill writes about the death (or lack there of) of Windows Forms.
He details an encounter he had with "the head" of the Windows Forms team at the PDC. The claim from the Microsoft employee was that Windows Forms is not dead, or even dying, and that Microsoft will continue to invest huge amounts of money in to R&D. This even with the advent of Avalon and Vista.
I find it hard to believe that Microsoft will be putting huge amounts of anything in to Windows Forms in another year or two. Why would they? Windows Forms will not be the go-forward solution for Smart Client development on any platform; that's what WPF/e is for.
With that said, I'm sure Windows Forms will be around for years to come; even in new development. Avalon will not catch on overnight. I just can't see any major advancements in that area after Vista comes out unless there is a major paradigm shift.
Posted by Todd Kitta at 04:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (432)
