Humor: generation gap

Google Search Indicates That Google Wave Is A Colossal Failure

Due to contracts and fine prints I signed, I shall not make public comments about the big G. Instead, I'll just post a funny picture. FYI, I think the Google Buzz is really really great. Buzz is not Wave. I like Buzz. I have no comment about Wave. Zero. Nada. Zip. Nilch. Ling. 0.

LA traffic is sick

Ok this is not really technology related but I really don't have a rant post so I might as well as post it here.

Having intermittently lived in both S Cal (12 years combined) and N Cal (10 years combined), I've always wondered how much S Cal traffic is so much sicker than N Cal. I wrote up a silly page that compares both locations in real time (see sample image to the right). LA is consistently redder and yellower, during every single rush hour. What the hell is going on with LA traffic? Having seen LA for the past 20 years or so, things seem to get worse and worse. You don't need to spend millions of research dollars on stupid data or graphics like this to tell anyone that things are worse. You just need to have been in LA for the past 20 years.

You know what? None of our politicians did anything in the past. Why do Angelinos tolerate this? Are residents simply idiotic or that the politicians are incompetent, or both? It is just SICKENING to see millions of Angelinos endure crap like this. Just look at it, it makes me want to puke.

Click on http://ereview.com/lasf.html to see a larger page

Ideas for success

Creating something new? Does your new product have all the elements listed below?

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/kanter/2009/11/find-the-15minute-competitive.html

For fun, let's apply these elements to the controversial iPad, where 1/3 of the people say it's great, a 1/3 of the people say it's a total dud, and a 1/3 just don't care:

• Trial-able -- can customers try the iPad on a few apps (news, games, videos), and have the option to use it more or not use it at all? Sure. Check.
• Divisible -- can users adopt iPad one app at a time? Can they use it in parallel with current paradigms? Sure. Check.
• Reversible -- if people hate iPad, can they return to whatever they were using? They can use the laptop, computer, or iPhone. Sure. Check.
• Tangible -- does it offer concrete/tangible value? Does it make a huge difference? For iPad, this is very controversial. No one MUST have an iPad, as it doesn't offer 100X better usability or efficiency than laptops. It may offer 10X or 5X better portability, but then again, this depends on who is using it and what that person use it for. No check.
• Fits prior investments -- prior time/money spent applies to iPad? If you bought Apple DRM music and apps, sure. Check.
• Familiar -- very familiar with iPhone UI and laptop. Big check.
• Congruent w/ future direction -- does it align with Apple's other product directs... more apps, more features, better efficiency, etc? Check.
• Positive public value -- does this make the users of iPad look good? It depends. The Zune in many sense was superior than the iPod (more features) but no one wanted it because it wasn't sexy. The iPhone has been built and marketed as a luxury product that increases one's reproductive suitability (like BMW or Armani suit). Does the iPad make people look as smart and sophisticated as the iPhone user? Time will tell.

The iPad gets 6/8 checks (and 1 more may be) on my book. For a controversial product where 1/3 of the people absolutely abhor it, this is not bad. If anything, I'd say if Apple marketing plays the right cards, it'll be as desirable as the iPod and iPhone. The rule of thumb for manufacturing price is that as the production volume goes up 10X, the cost will drop 1/2. I have no doubt that iPod demand will go up in time, and that the cost will drop to 1/2. That's a price that'll surely kill the Kindle.

How about YOU. What are you working on (social web site, B2B niche site, advertising, inventions, etc)? How do these elements fit in the product you're working on? Does your product have all of these elements for success?

Sun + Oracle = Sunacle or OrcSun

Ok this is hitting pretty close to home as I know people who have or had worked at either Sun or Oracle. I didn't slave away few years in Sunnyvale for nothing. What do I think about the Sunacle|OrcSun acquisition?A few years ago the picture looked like this:

Oracle's business viability = [world's greatest sales/marketing] + [mediocre and bad engineering]

Sun's business viability = [really really bad sales/marketing] + [amazing R&D and engineering]

To put it another way, Oracle survives by selling ice-cubes to Eskimos, and Sun survives by making great ice-cubes and trying to sell them in Alaska. You with me so far? So the acquisition means the following:

Oracle + Sun = [world's greatest sales/marketing] + [mediocre and bad engineering] + [amazing R&D and engineering] + [really really bad sales/marketing]

I'm sure the performance metrics driven Automaton (AKA Larry Ellison) will see this in no time, and knowing him, he will drive up his metrics by doing the followings:

Oracle + Sun - [mediocre and bad engineering] - [really really bad sales/marketing] = [world's greatest sales/marketing] + [amazing R&D and engineering]

Now there's a recipe for greater success! Just fire Oracle engineers (esp. the apps/CRM/ERP group that live on 400/600 Oracle Pkwy, Redwood Shores) and fire Sun sales/marketing team. Stock holders rejoice!

Punch the Monkey and Win! Punch the Monkey and Make Money!

Back in the early days of internet when Yahoo ruled the day, companies were trying to figure out different ways to monetize. Many different online ads and models came out waaaaay before Google and AdWords/AdSense became as prevalent as it is today. Ah, the good 'ol mid 1990s, or more precisely, the annoying Netscape+Java Applet+pop-up+spammy ads days. Do you remember seeing those ads with scantily dressed women + spy-cam (X11 ads) and those moving "Punch the Monkey And Win!!!" advertisements? Those were the good 'ol days. Or, I guess looking back, those were simply... the days. Actually, those were probably the dark ages of the internet.

"Punch the Monkey and Win" ads by Advertising.com were basically wide banner ads that you find on top of common search engines (Yahoo, Alta Vista, Lycos, Inktomi... hey do you even know what Inktomi was?). It even showed up on content providers like CNN, etc. The implementation of Punch the Monkey went through countless revisions (it could have been motion GIF or Java Applet and later Flash), but the idea was simple: on the ad, show a monkey that moves back and forth, and you use your mouse to click where the monkey is. When you "punch" the monkey at the right time, the ad brings you to another screen that says something like "CONGRATULATIONS YOU WON! Fill out this form to get free coupons and great deals and super discounts at a store of your choice near you!!!" Ok, I don't know why people out there actually fill out these spammy forms, but in the wonderful world of advertising, amazing innovations happen because of an abundance of idiots filling out these spammy forms.

This is just a sample to show you how annoying it is. It is not a real ad.

Ok fine, so Punch the Monkey is a sleazy ad, BUT IT WORKED and made lots and lots of money! It was so prevalent in those days, it was hard to not see a monkey ad during the day. Advertising.com did a lot of analysis on click-through-rates (CTR). Any sort of color or motion or sound caused more people to click, and that was good news for advertising companies that wanted to spam or just collect lead-gen. In fact, it worked so well, that after a while everyone knew what it was all about, and in time people stopped punching the monkey and that was uber bad news for Advertising.com. What did they do in response? They made the monkey ad MORE colorful. That increased CTR, and they were happy for a while...but then... people stopped clicking again. So then they made the monkey move FASTER, and CTR increased... but eventually... CTR went down again! So then they made the monkey more obnoxious by adding multiple monkeys, uglier monkeys, monkeys that popped out of your browser, so on so forth. This kept going and going for about a year and every time Advertising.com did something different, CTR went up a little. As you can imagine, the ads got very obnoxious, especially the unwanted pop-ups (Javascript became more prevalent). Eventually, people got really tired of the monkey and just said "F*** I HATE THIS MONKEY" and simply went to other sites that didn't have the monkey ad.

Moral of the story? You can run your business on... pure business, and you can try to squeeze money from people, but if you provide something of no value to people (adding Punch the Monkey ad to something of value), it devaluates the product, the user experience, and turns people off. In the end, the product DOES matter regardless of how much monkey you make. People will eventually get turned off by your product and never come back again. I guess this is one of the countless reasons why I'm usually turned off by work that deals with advertising, and how people prioritize short term business gains over value and user experience. By the way, Advertising.com was bought by AOL, so I guess the executives were happy about their exit. Now, WHY would AOL buy something like that is beyond me, but I guess AOL isn't so different from Advertising.com where they are first and foremost, business driven (vs. Apple that is very much "quality experience" driven). I'm sure Steve Jobs would not have said anything kind about AOL and Advertising.com.

How I love Gödel, Escher, Bach. The Self referencing problem. Loop.

I liked this so much, I'm reposting it on the blog. Reference: http://xkcd.com/688/