Stardust Global Ventures

The other day I posted 2009 – Ken’s Year in Review and promised I’d follow up with this requisite annual blogger’s rite, my look ahead. There may be some bumps in the road and unexpected twists here, so hang on dear reader. Put your tray table in the upright and locked position, raise your seat back and make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened. I’ve never been particularly shy or softspoken about my look at the future, and I probably won’t be now.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions alone. They don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of any employer past or present, my lovely partner Sheryl, the companies named herein, or anyone else on the planet. Your opionions and mileage may vary widely. Cheap shot comments will be tossed into the abyss, but open conversation and debate is always welcome.

Disclaimer 2: This is not only an opinionated post, it’s a long one. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Early in 2009 I predicted it was going to be the year Cisco took a big black eye. I agree, that didn’t happen. Instead they’ve taken a light bruising all year long. 2009 was a year when Cisco excelled at absolutely nothing that mattered in the market in my view. They were vanilla custard and simply didn’t matter in the market. They got off easy, and in 2010 they won’t. I said a black eye in 2009. I’ll predict a savage beating in 2010, the likes of which they’ve never felt before. I bet you’re curious where, aren’t you?

First in unified communications and VoIP space. I’d say Cisco is going to get their lunch eaten by multiple players. The Cisco solution set is pretty decent (Call Manager and the like), although their phones are forgettable. It won’t matter. I think they’ll get beaten repeatedly by Lucent, Asterisk, Mitel, and others. Even IBM, yes IBM, will cause pain for Cisco. 2010 will be the year Cisco learns how much they don’t know about telecommunications. It will be a bitter pill to swallow.

They bought Pure Digital for the Flip and they’re about to get a bunch of hype for the new Flip with built-in WiFi. I give that buzz six weeks and then they’ll take a good old fashioned, bare knuckles ass whuppin from the likes of Kodak’s Zi8 and a handful of others. More importantly, the current generation of cameras built in to mobile phones, notably iPhone and Blackberry, are likely to shift up taking another huge bite out of the whole dedicated camera market.

Then there’s Cisco’s core business – switching and routing. Coupled with some repercussions of the recent Starent acquisition and Juniper getting serious about the market, I expect some big moves in this space. Juniper will play big and strong. The big dog, Cisco, is going to get rocked back on their heels in some major networking deals in 2010. People will start to think about other options more often before simply choosing Cisco.

Oh, and John Chambers, the Rupert Murdoch of networking, will finally move on. I’ve seen his leadership at Cisco as ineffective in recent years and I expect him to move on, flying off with his golden parachute.

Then we have Yahoo. The worn and beleaguered Yahooligans will continue trickling out the door at every opportunity. There’s still a lot of talent at Yahoo and they are ripe for the picking. They don’t have that many execs left from the old days. Jerry Wang’s departure was really good for Yahoo. Replacing him with Carol Bartz was, IMHO, not a good move. Other than trying to prove her balls by swearing, she’s done nothing that I’d expect from a CEO leading a company. She needs to go. I believe in 2010 she’s out the door. She can take the flying monkees with her too.

Of course there’s Microsoft, the Gorgon with more snakes in its head than Medusa. (Yes, the irony of Gorgons being female is intentional, for a reason…read on). I expect more layoffs at MS. Significantly more. Microsoft is still a very fat company, with plenty of trimming to do. In 2010, I think they’ll do some in the right areas. They’ve missed the mark a time or two with cutbacks, and some course corrections will happen this year. OCS will do well, especially against Cisco. Momentum will gain there.

Most importantly, I think Steve Ballmer will depart. He isn’t good for MS. I think many people feel that way, but nobody says it. I expect him to leave MS and land somewhere equally visible. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s somewhere near either Redwood Shores or Pleasanton in California. ‘Nuff said.

Oh, and MS in an effort to prove they’re not evil and soften their image will place a woman in a very visible leadership role, perhaps Ballmers. We should hope it won’t be Carol Bartz, although she certainly seems to cast a flirtatious eye toward Redmond every now and then.

Yes, there is plenty more if you’re still here. Continue reading “2010 – Ken’s Look Ahead” »

We’ve been big fans of location based services for quite some time now. We both think they’re a vital part of the future, but we’ve also had plenty of reason to think about the reality of LBS in our world, privacy concerns, and a number of factors that tie into the general concept.

We were early adopters of Brightkite a long time ago.  We had a few moments of “do we really want the world to know what restaurant we’re at” thoughts. While it’s a bit of a no-brainer for me, as a woman, Sheryl has the random whackaloon stalkers that show up every now and then. I remember an instance in particular that gave us pause to think about how we use those services, and how public to make the information. Brightkite never gained enough critical mass to really catch fire. I was seriously frustrated with it on our recent trip to DC, and have pretty much lost hope for its ongoing success at this point.

Before we move to the others, there’s a sidenote on privacy to consider. The devices we carry, from iPhones and Blackberries, to those we drive, and many we carry are all easily trackable. And these tracking devices can be used for a number of purposes beyond what we’re sold as consumers. For example:

• Did you know your EasyPass toll booth token can easily be used to issue speeding tickets? It tracks the time you pass toll gates, and if you exceed the speed limit, this information is easily passed to law enforcement. Yes, I’ve actually been in conversations where law enforcement agencies talked of this in terms of fully automated revenue generation that the consumer pays for.
• Your cell phone is a GPS device, and it tracks to a pretty fine granularity on the planet. And while the paranoid of the world rant about the boss knowing they’re on the golf course when they’re claiming they’re working, other uses have been explored. The automotive insurance industry has invested a great deal of consideration into mobile phone tracking for the purposes if dynamic insurance rates. Imagine exceeding the speed limit and having your coverage costs go up because your carrier monitors your location in realtime.

Privacy. It’s an illusion. You have no right to privacy. It’s not in the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. We have no right to privacy. It is an illusion. It’s a courtesy, non an inalienable right. The question with this sort of privacy, and Internet privacy in general is not whether or not we can be seen. We can absolutely be seen. The Internet sees all. Whether or not we’re being watched is a more interesting question that I’ll leave for the conspiracy theorists among us.

The reality is, our location provides good information to the world about us, and sharing it opens the door to the world giving us good information in return.
Continue reading “Mainstreaming Location Based Services” »

A few weeks ago I wrote about The Yamaha PSG-01S – USB Speakerphone for Skype. After some ongoing use, I’m as satisfied as ever. It’s turning out to be a great tool for conference calls, and lately I’m spending hours every day on those.

In some conversations with other folks testing this, there are some other differentiators that warrant brief mention here -

• The PSG-01S is the only Skype-certified Speakerphone that has a client interface to the hardware supported by Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 at this point. Given early popularity of Windows 7, that’s a point wirht noting.
• The PSG-01S delivers four microphone array for full 360 degree  participation in a call. This speaker array makes it nice for around-the-table calls. And they contribute to echo cancellation and background noise reduction.
• The PSG-01S supports 300 KHz to 20KHz audio for not only local music and voice recording but also for listening to music, podcasts and other audio. On a Skype call, the microphone is spec’d to 7KHz, sufficient for support of wideband audio – but the speaker continues to operate over the 300Hz to 20KHz range. 

On of the points I made in my post was that at a US$249/€199 price point, it was just a touch pricey for many potential customers. That point was taken seriously as many of us made similar comments. Now there’s promotional pricing for the holiday season to December 31, 2009: US$199.90/£179.90/€179.90. Keep in mind that the pricing includes shipping and VAT/sales taxes. .

For those of us testing this unit, it’s been the personal experience and real use in the filed and on the road that’s caught our attention. Many people I’ve talked to find themselves just using it so often it’s become a habit. Sheryl and I sometimes fight over it, moving from one PC to another.

As a result of the positive feedback, In Store Solutions wants to encourage user trials and is extending its return policy so that anyone purchasing during this promotion can return it, shipping prepaid but no questions asked, for a full credit until January 31, 2010. This gives purchasers a chance to make their own mind about the value with no risk.

If you were on the fence, now’s a chance to try one of these out for yourself. You’ll find it under Phones at your local country Skype Store.

Truphone- the next generation global mobile operator- is giving mobile users something to be thankful for this year with its offer of FREE, unlimited calls with Truphone on Thanksgiving day.

The promotion will run on Thanksgiving Day ONLY from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST or noon to midnight UTC. Mobile users can download the Truphone application for free at www.truphone.com.

Here’s the Truphone press release Continue reading “Truphone Gives Something to be Thankful For” »

Every year bloggers around the world write two posts – the year in review and projections for the coming year. Thanksgiving seems an appropriate time to join in the annual event, and this year has some interesting areas to address.

Last year I expressed a lot of disappointment with Truphone. I still think the company has a long way to go. This year, I like many of the things they’ve done, which pleases me greatly. They’re friends and it was disappointing to see them struggling. They’re finding their way and I expect to see them continue to rise in 2010.

Twitter is everyone’s hot topic. I was very pleased to see the success of our friend @shelisrael‘s book Twitterville this year. I’m far less bullish on Twitter itself. Just yesterday @biz held the annual news conference to announce that next year we’ll have a revenue model and make money. I think I’ve heard that announcement every year since I joined Twitter, and I’ve been using it longer than most. The people I think it’s important not to listen to when it comes to Twitter’s direction are the Twitter leadership team. They don’t eat their own dog food, don’t understand Twitter, and really seem to simply have hung on to the tiger’s tail this far. What they, and much of the design team at Twitter do well is break things. I still love Twitter and use it every day, but in 2009, Twitter was a boring yawner for the most part. There was zero innovation, reinvention and precious little progress of any kind. Not incremental change, but barely noticeable change. Chainging “What are you doing” to “What’s happening” simply isn’t innovation. It sends a message that says to me, we have no clue what we’re doing. If ever a service was more overvalued that Skype at the eBay purchase, it’s Twitter. Fantasy and delusion reign supreme when it comes to this simple service that simply hasn’t approached mainstream after nearly four years. No matter how wild the growth or how phantasmagorical the hype, Twitter is simply a niche tool for communications junkies.

Location based services saw some shifts. Brightkite finally did a release 2.0, but I fear it’s release 2.end in the long run. Unremarkable in every way, and broke much of the functionality. Brightkite has simply failed to ever achieve any critical mass. Google Latitude remains another fizzle. Google seems to be stuck in a half-decade development approach that’s served well enough in the past, but may raise problems for the future. More on that in another post about the GOOG later on.

Foursquare hit the scene pretty hard and is doing well. It’s on the rise, and I expect that will continue into 2010, and beyond if the trio behind it keeps moving. As LBS go, it’s the big winner with the most potential ahead. I think the game aspect of Foursquare is something that will have to be eliminated, but with the right advances, this simple service can easily lead the future in mobile LBS for mainstream adoption in the future. Monetization for this one is easy, lucrative and huge. Foursquare will be worth a fortune. Foursquare will surpass Twitter in value and popularity by 2011. More on that in another post.

There’s a sleeper company in the unified communications space that’s been on the rise for years – Voxeo. They recently got $9M in funding, and that was a good investment. While I think Twitter was ridiculously overvalued, I think the absolute reverse is the case with Voxeo. I think they’re on track for a billion dollar valuation and an enormous acquisition when the time comes. That’s right folks, there’s a $1B sleeping giant inside this little company. One with value in a trillion dollar industry that keeps doing all the right things. Watch Voxeo. Continue reading “2009 – Ken’s Year in Review” »

I have something on my mind, and you get to read about it.

This morning scrolling through twitter and google reader I came across several posts/comments all surrounding who the influencers in social networking are. What’s implied is that there is a set group of influencers and they are all that matter. I think that’s hogwash. Seriously.

We all live in this world, and are surrounded by a myriad of people. Some we come into contact with daily, some we see on special occasions, and still others we may never meet in person but due to social networking and media we invite them into our lives in some form or fashion. These people, all of the above, are our influencers. That doesn’t negate the reality that we are also influenced by the big screen or tv ads, but in our network those we communicate with are our influencers. I don’t care who influences my pal in Ottawa. Who he is influenced by may not be the same as who I am influenced by and it doesn’t change our relationship that we have other people in our network influencing us. it simply means we are a diverse grouping of people with a variety of influences.

But I took offense at the idea that there are a select group of people influencing the greater numbers of us. Is that true? Possibly, but it isn’t the whole story and that’s what I want to talk about.

I really do have a friend in Ottawa. He’s so incredibly special, and it’s reciprocal. Outside of Ken and my kids he probably has more impact in my life than anyone else. Most people who have paid attention to me know JP is not only special to me, but he influences a great many people in my world. JP is friends with many of my friends. JP and I go back to my days in Canada. He pre-dates Ken. Still, we live miles apart and live very separate lives, so why is he able to influence me? The same reason anyone is. Because I acknowledge him in some way to be worth listening to and value his opinion even if we disagree.

JP is not the only person who influences me. I would suggest there are a great many people who influence me. Every single person I have a conversation with has influence of some sort. This past week is a great example of that. I was in Washington DC. I arranged meetups with a number of people. Each of them was an influence on how I spent my day. Dinner Monday night with Chris Abraham gave me an opportunity to go to a restaurant another influencer suggested. Tuesday I took my first metro ride alone to visit with Michael Sanders down by the Capitol. Wednesday night dinner at Vapiano’s with Shashi Bellamkonda, a place I would never have found on my own, and an added bonus meeting with Mike Holden. Thursday lunch with Glenn Manishin, getting to see where he works and his prized bonsai. (I spelled it correctly, Glenn!) Friday traipsing around Adams Morgan where a friend suggested we would see ethnic diversity, he was right. And finally, Saturday morning coffee with Jim Long, someone I’ve known for a long time online, had many great thoughtful conversations with, but never met in person.

All of these people have been influences in my life or I wouldn’t have made plans to meet them. Jim is who suggested many of the places I wound up, from Georgetown to Adams Morgan. Chris showed me a Sculpture of Einstein that I probably would not have seen otherwise, Michael pointed out the proximity of the Library of Congress to the Capitol, and with so many huge government buildings I might have overlooked it. Dinner with Shashi brought us in contact with yet another person, Mike Holden. I had only recently come across Mike on twitter so he wasn’t on my radar but he’s doing some great things and well worth paying attention to. Glenn shared himself very personally, touring us through the inner workings of his law offices, and then took us to lunch at the Hotel Monaco, where the lunch conversation was wonderful, dessert was FABULOUS, the company incredible. Coffee with Jim was a long overdue meeting with an old friend. Comfortable. We shared pics from his recent tour of Asia with President Obama, I shared some of my pics, (I hear the song Copacabana playing in the background – her name was Lola)  and in general it was just a special time laughing, catching up and enjoying each other.

I had another encounter, one I haven’t shared yet, but I think is important and indicative of the diverse set of people influencing us. I met a homeless man. His name is Montana. Ken was in the hotel and I had gone down to the pharmacy. Montana was offering help to someone who was trying to get into the pharmacy but the doors were closed. It’s a 24 hour pharmacy and one set is closed after a certain hour, so Montana was directing this person to the other side. Montana made a comment to me and I responded. I am a bit ‘gabby’ after all.

Being gabby, I started asking him questions. He answered and before long he was telling me his story. Montana has been on the streets for a while. One of those people who got nailed with the economy falling apart. It doesn’t matter why so much, what mattered to me was hearing how he lives today. He had all his ‘stuff’ in a bag which was stolen from him. Then some group in DC was handing out blankets and he got one, but the rain came and his blanket got soaked. He was trying to find a way to dry it out because, as he said, ‘it got that mildew smell.’ He told me how he figured out a way to get into a public washroom and lock it so he could get cleaned up. He talked to me about his struggles to find any sort of job that would pay him something so he could eat. He was very happy because one of the hotels let him do some sweeping and paid him. He was a nice, articulate, funny, considerate man who fate or whatever brought him to a life he certainly never envisioned for himself. Yes, Montana influenced me.

I went upstairs and went through my purse. I found all my 1′s and my only 5, and grabbed Ken. We went down but Montana was gone. I walked around the building and there he was. Moving on, because he can’t stay in one place or he’ll get tossed off the property. He said to me, “Did you come looking for me all the way around here, really?” And I told him I had. He influenced me, yes he did. You see, I could see myself in Montana. oh, I’ve never been homeless, but I’ve certainly had struggles not shared with anyone other than closest friends. I’ve walked the streets alone, trying to access my situation, wondering what to do and how to do it. His walking is forced on him for reasons only he knows, but we’ve both done it which makes us the same.

All of these people influence me. They aren’t the only ones but I am clear on who they are. Nobody telling me there is only a select group of influencers will change the fact that these men have influenced me. It’s time we stop looking to the outside world to tell us what we think and start using our common sense to make up our own minds. Who influences you may be people who influence me. They also may not be. And that’s ok. I don’t want you to be just like me, influenced only by the people I am influenced by. I like our differences. That’s another reason you’re in my influencer list. People I am influenced by teach me.

Technorati Tags: shashi bellamkonda, mike holden, jim long, newmediajim, chris abraham, glenn manishin, sheryl breuker

We spent the past week traveling to Washington DC for work. During that time we took the opportunity to use a new popular service called Foursquare. We’re big fans of location based services (LBS) and think they have huge potential for the future. Huge potential, but not for today in the mainstream.

A week of using Foursquare has me firmly believing that Twitter’s “What are you doing? question (recently degenerated to the 70′s “What’s happening?”) is pretty worthless until you add the “Where are you doing it?” component. Where you’re doing it leads to serendipitous meetings with friends and colleagues, old and new. More on that in yet another post.

Before I continue, I need to give a hat tip to Gartner, an organization I’m often highly critical of. Gartner has two concepts that I think fit very nicely in the analysis sphere. First is the widely acknowledged Magic Quadrant series of reports. The other is referred to as the Hype Cycle. While I think highly of the methodology in general, I’m critical of Gartner’s very narrow view. I understand they focus on the market their clients are in, and that’s appropriate. Too often people take a market segment report and apply it to the industry as a whole. Gartner simply doesn’t cover the innovative start-ups doing magical things in the tech sector, and to accept their reports as fact overlooks a myriad of facts and realities in the industry.

But in keeping with some of the hype in my reading lately and the Gartner philosophy, I give you my own personal hype cycle as it pertains to Social Media, VoIP, and mobility. It’s not complete. It’s not comprehensive. It’s a glimpse of how I see things going on today.

Let me elaborate a bit. These are simply my opinions based on thirty years of watching the tech sector and a boatload of criteria that may or may not be enumerated here as I ramble through some of my observations.

We’ll start on the right at the plateau of mainstream or very close. One might even say passe in some cases. Blogging, Skype,  YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. These are technologies that have arrived. In some cases, peaked or nearly peaked, but they are spreading into the mainstream. With the exception of SkypeHype, an uncertainty, they’re well known and predictable.

There are some you’ll disagree with, so I’ll get them out on the table. These are simply things that I see as fading from the scene or I believe they will prior to ever achieving mainstream adoption. Look for the red Xs – MySpace, Digg, Brightkite, and of course Jaiku. The surprise may be WiMAX. I see WiMAX as too expensive, too cumbersome, too light in coverage, and on the way out. Personally, I don’t think it will achieve mainstream penetration. I think Clearwire is going to continue in a one-horse race. They’ll win the WiMAX race, but I fear they’ll lose anyway because they’ll be too far behind with too much sunk cost.

There are at least two others that will rile up emotional folks. The iPhone is, in my view, past the hype and on the downward slide to disillusion. No let’s be clear, it will cycle back up and achieve solid mainstream adoption for years. It’s a winner and will be around for a long time. But in the hype cycle it’s sliding. That slide will continue before it turns a cornet at the bottom of the trough. We all have to hit bottom after a big win. The iPhone hasn’t done that yet and simply can’t plateau in the mainstream until it does.

Android is a mixed bag. I like the OS. I think it has potential. I think the hardware, those phones, peaked the first weekend on the market. I think the hardware will be the greatest failing of the OS. Android may well be another OS like BEOS, destined for  the dead media pool. That’s it’s a wonderful OS is irrelevant. That developers love it also. If the hardware sucks and isn’t adopted by the mainstream, there won’t be an audience to develop for. At best, it may live a life similar to the Sharp Zaurus – a spectacular device with a tiny niche and couldn’t ever win the major markets.

For me, the location based services are particularly interesting. Rather than elaborate here, I’ll bring those thoughts back in another post.

Keep in mind, these are just my own thoughts based on my experience. Your mileage may vary. Your opinions certainly will. If you’re especially passionate about something, leave a detailed comment or post in return and we’ll discuss it for the world to see.

We’ve been big fans of location based services. We use Brightkite and Latitude. Lately Foursquare is in the rise.

We’re in the air at the moment but. This quick post is a prelude to thoughts I’ll write later about where this is all headed and why it matters.

Since I started using Twitter over three years ago, I’ve stayed pretty focused on keeping the people I follow to a group I actually engage with. I’m very mobile and most of my tweeting is done from my Blackberry. I have long used the SMS interface. This means the more people I follow, the more likely my phone buzzes constantly because of the messages. SocialScope definitely changes that, but I have struggled at times with following people who tweet in high volumes, that I’d like to follow to read some of what they say, but don’t quite know how to deal with the volume of tweets in my stream.

Thanks to Twitter lists and an approach @stoweboyd described, I have an answer. My pal @Phoneboy and I spent the very early days on Twitter talking to each other and he asked me to explain, so this is for you Dameon.

I’m in the process of creating lists of people I don’t follow, but who I often want to read. I’ve even taken to working through my following list, and one by one moving some off to a list like EverybodyReadsThem, then unfollowing. It’s a great place for people like Michael Gartenberg, who I like to read, but don’t have any relationship with. It means I can list someone like BJMendelson who has almost a million followers, and I do engage with now and again, and not necessarily have everything he tweets in my live stream of primary contacts.

It makes lists a prioritization scheme that works. I often use the term signal-to-noise ratio in describing what happens to your Twitter stream when you follow too many people. As humans, we can only really engage with so many people. At some point, our stream gets so noisy we can’t pay as close attention to the people we really want to engage with because the stream is rushing by too quickly. I find for me that following and engaging with about 200 people is easy enough, but if you scale that up to 500, you start losing conversations and missing things you might want to see. That’s my number. Your mileage may vary.

Lists let me still follow the people I’m interested in, but in a different way. And my primary following list can be what I’ve tried to make it all along, the people I truly pay closest attention to. Lists let me organize how I receive the messages from the people I pay attention to in a more granular fashion. That doesn’t lessen the value of anyone on any of my lists. It’s just my personal tool for managing my streams into tiers of activity.

Anyone on any of my lists is indeed someone I follow and pay attention to. I just do it in a way that works for me.

I found this fascinating quote today:

Much has been made over Twitter’s new “lists” feature they have been rolling out over the past several weeks. Instead of the tyranny of Twitter’s own “suggested user list,” users can feel free to create their own, add whomever they want, and share the list with others. A nice feature long overdue, if you ask me.phoneboy.com, Not Following The Crowd, Nov 2009

You should read the whole article.

This morning I was reading an article posted on a fairly well known web hosting blog. That set things in motion with regard to this post. Why? Well the article was about Jeremiah Owyang‘s discussion on the future of social media and business. A piece of that was how important it is for businesses to listen to the conversation, instead of pushing their sell message. Jeremiah has a list of 8 objectives I don’t want to detract from, but there is a bigger picture here.

Jeremiah is a well known analyst. I’ve had a couple of interactions with him, all online and he always struck me as incredibly bright and thoughtful. Just lately I’ve noticed a couple of things, not just about Jeremiah, about the bigger names in this social media world, and it occurred to me they reach a point where they no longer listen to regular people, no longer engage in typical conversation, no longer participate in collaboration with anyone in the ranks. Occasional evenings with a glass of wine may inspire a bit of open conversation but that seems to dissipate as they reach the peak of what I call the place where the snowball effect happens.

Picture if you will, a hill that is very steep and requires quite an effort to climb. Once you reach the very top, obviously you sort of hang out there for a while to catch your breath, putting on your ski’s, preparing for the steep decent, and there it is ahead of you. You move toward the edge and push off, slowly at first, gaining speed as you go leaving a wake of snow dust behind. Part way down the hill you realize you aren’t really in control anymore, your speed is at a rate you weren’t prepared for but you can’t do anything about it but try to stand up and stay in the tracks of those who went before. And then it happens. You hit a clump of ice and down you go! You’re not stopping because your momentum propels you forward, instead you roll and become a human snowball, moving faster and faster, bowling over everything in your path, so fast you don’t even care what is in your way you only hope you get to the bottom soon and that you haven’t injured yourself or anyone else too badly. Your goal, to survive, and survive well.

This is how I view the Social Media Moguls. The big names in the world we’re all creating and moving around in. The Leo Laporte‘s and Robert Scoble‘s, or Jeremiah Owyang’s. There are quite a few I could cite, and many may take issue with my plunking Robert into this category but hear me out. Robert is a nice guy, I’m taking nothing from him for putting him here. What he is, and he owns it, is elitist. He pays more attention to us minions because that’s his job, but he rarely heeds us heading off in his own direction stirring the dust behind as he pushes through. Is he engaged? Certainly to some extent he is, but he many times spews his message, and then rushes off leaving everyone to fight amongst themselves. It’s a bit macabre, almost puppeteer like. 

You see what these men, and others, have in common is they’re speeding down the hill and haven’t yet recognized they are headed for a collision. They don’t equate themselves to the monster media companies that have died out from past era’s. They don’t see the correlation between how they started to the newspapers that are dying today. They’re still enjoying the swooshing they hear as they race down the hill at breakneck speed. They still believe they have control, and they definitely don’t think they’re broadcasting a message instead of engaging in conversation.

Broadcast. It’s an interesting word. Most of us have been seeing that word used for old media, and why it’s failing. We now have choices and we don’t want to be preached to. We want to get facts, sure, we want details, sometimes, but what we want more than anything else is to be involved in the conversation and feel like we make a difference too. The people racing down a hill, well they can’t even see us as anything more than a blur. Sad really. Sadder still that they have to hit something to stop their out of control plummet.

At some point, what our social media moguls have in common with each other is they stop listening. They can tell others what to do and how to do it, but at some point they no longer heed their own words. They’ve reached such a state of speed they simply don’t have the ability to hear what their audience has to say. They become insensitive to those around them and are surrounded only by similarly positioned people. It happens to them all. When did you last see Brian Solis talking to a regular person on the street? And he’s mister nice! How about Mike Arrington? Never happens. Soon, Robert Scoble will be like that just as Leo Laporte has become that. Their occasional forays into their audience to provide perceived reciprocity simply isn’t enough.

Just something to think about. That’s all.

 

We sometimes get the opportunity to test the most interesting new devices hitting the market. A few days ago we received a new one that we’re growing more impressed with as we use it. We’re using the new Yamaha PSG-01S SoundGadget.

We’ve both been active Skype users for years. We’ve used it on every computer and mobile device we have. Some days we simply live on the phone, and Skype is our office choice for conference calls, podcast interviews and more.

I’ve used more Skype speakerphones than I can count. Most have been mildly interesting, but not much more. I’ve tried them, tested them, then set them aside or given them away. They simply haven’t been much better than the speakers and mic in my laptop.

That all changed with this Yamaha product. It is simply the best speakerphone for Skype I’ve used. This SoundGadget is marketed for the small room environment, and it’s perfect for our home office. Yamaha has already announced an awesome looking small conference room solution coming soon, but for the typical home office or small office use, this device is fantastic.

It’s got solid echo cancellers built it. They’re tuned for Skype and it does a great job of eliminating echo and dropouts.

Setup was simple – Plug&Play that really works. It’s powered via USB so no extra power adapter cord to tangle up our limited desk real estate.

One feature we found absolutely delightful is the wideband stereo playback. there two embedded, high-efficiency speakers with the new surround formats that provide powerful wide-band stereo audio. Being highly mobile laptops users, audio quality for listening to music or podcasts while we work is always an issue. The volume obtainable from laptop speakers is always a limitation.

Yamaha has a history of delivering audio gear with the highest fidelty and superb quality. The PSC-01S SoundGadget delivers everything we might have hoped for from Yamaha’s reputation for quality. And the physical quality of the device are apparent too.

One interesting feature that I’m still trying to figure out is the embedded acceleration sensors that detect the position of the unit and automatically switch the mode by itself. When the unit is positioned vertically, the unit is ready for Skype communication as a speakerphone. When it is placed horizontally, it is ready for music playback as a stereo speaker. In my case, it works as stereo speakers standing up. When I lie it horizontally, it seems to shut all audio off. I need to play with it a bit more as speakers for music. I suspect there’s even better quality than I’m getting right now in this little box.

Here’s a picture to give a sense of scale.The PSG-O1S is sitting next to a coffee mug with a box of Kleenex in behind.

What is clear is the feel of quality. It has a metal case, and some weight and heft. This is clearly not a plastic toy.

Two points aren’t as positive. It has buttons on the side to initiate and terminate a Skype call. I can’t make them work. I don’t know that I’d use them, and I will fiddle around until I figure out what I’ve done wrong, but a button to hangup a call should just work and it doesn’t. I’ll RTFM. I suspect user error in some way.

Where I think Yamaha will struggle with this small room speakerphone is in the US$249/€199 price point. True audiophiles may be inclined to spend that kind of money for a speakerphone device. I’m not one. Skype users tend to be people looking for convenient solutions that don’t cost much money. I think it will take very focused marketing to a specific target market that will spend that kind of money.

While it’s a small room device, we took it out on the patio while talking to a friend. It worked great. The speakers made him easy to hear. The mic picked up voice just fine, and it did pick up the furnace pump sounds across the yard. According to our friend, it worked great on the patio. He could hear background noise, but it was clearly in the background with our voices in the foreground.

All in all, from a couple of days testing, we’re pleased and impressed. Several of our friends and colleagues are also reviewing the device, and we’ll be watching to see what they think. If you’re looking to buy one or learn more you’ll find it under Phones at your local country Skype Store.

Amendment – After a quick peek at the manual, the call and hangup buttomns work perfectly. And now I have to change my view and say I probably will use them. Interesting handy feature.