End Noise

The new layout for the NYTimes can lead to some comedy.

Yesterday, I attended a mini-seminar on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is not my favorite subject as a rule since I tend to believe that a well-designed site (coded to standards) with valuable content will always bubble to the top.

That said, a co-worker of mine who also attended the conference said she was annoyed by search engines and their rulesets (i.e. not reading flash, preferring properly coded HTML, favoring content at the top of the page, etc.). She said that search engines were making sites conform to their rules and therefore making the web less interesting.

I don't really agree with her since they are saying you can do whatever you want in your site, just don't expect people to find you if you don't play by our rules. Personally, I think giving up some freedom for findability is a fair trade-off, but I thought it was an interesting point of view.

I realize that fax machines are less and less common, but when I recently had the occasion to still use one, I was reminded of one of their inherent design flaws...the dial 9 first problem. Every time I have been around a fax machine in a corporate setting, someone has always asked the poor person sitting next to the fax machine whether you need to dial 9 before sending.

Fax machines should be either initially set up to know whether or not they need to dial 9 when they call. Then let the machine handle things. If someone unfamiliar with the system dials 9 first, ignore it.

There has been some hubbub raised about the price ($9.99) of the first full length movie released on the iTunes music store. The reason why it is so expensive in my opinion is not because the Disney is greedy (though they are, like any good corporation, a fan of profits) or that Apple is adding their usual Apple markup. It is because movie studios are desperately scared of movies becoming 'cheap' in the eyes of the consumer. They are at a similar cross road as the music industry was in 1998. Ask a teen how much music should be and most will say free. Music has lost most of its perceived value to their target audience. I don't think this happened exclusively because of Napster 1.0 (though that didn't help), it happened because it became ubiquitous. Every computer all of a sudden had more music on it then an average music fan could consume in their life. An ipod could hold more music than even the John Cusack's 'High Fidelity' (or Nick Hornby's for the readers out there) character could listen to.

This mass proliferation of music made it a commodity. It lost its specialness and then its value.

Despite the fact in the digital world, there are few distribution costs. The movie industry isn't lowering the price of the movies. They are keeping it high to sacrifice some sales in order to avoid the association of ubiquity with movies.

While I respect the idea of Zooomr (especially since its the work of one 17 year old), I am left thinking that it suffers from Microsoft-itis.

For those who haven't seen it, Zooomr is described by Techcrunch as 'Flickr on Steroids.' It features maps, multiple sign-ins, zooms, etc. This is cool and all, but frankly the most important element of a photosharing site should be the photo. That is what makes Flickr so great--it highlights the user's photos, without throwing in additional (and only slightly necessary) functionality. The lesson for Zooomr is not to impress by adding lots and lots of features, but to do select things well.

You know I really fail to realize why Amazon's supposed entry into the digital music sphere will be a big threat to iTunes.

First off, Amazon has absolutely no track record of creating hardware. Even if they partner with someone, that someone still has to create a usable product, which few of the competitors has really been able to do. When Apple launched the iPod they had only a thin link with music, but they did have plenty of experience creating hardware, interfaces and software.

Second, the argument that Amazon has a lot of traffic will help sell their product seems pretty thin. Yahoo has more traffic than Amazon and their music service has really failed to gain traffic. Last I checked MSN was pretty heavily visited too and their current music site isn't so popular.

People talk about the strength of Amazon's recommendation system and how that will bolster any offering that they want. That's neat and all but frankly, I think that is inconsistent with the way that people actually listen to music. It is in my opinion the number one mistake of the subscription services in that there is this vast audience of people begging to hear new music. Most people dont perpetually want new music. They have their songs/albums they want. They might buy an album or two a year, but that is about it. There is not an army of people begging for new music. It is a niche audience at best and that is why the a la carte model of iTunes will be quite successful.

Also, out of all of the new 'products' that Amazon has launched recently such as a9, search inside the books, tagging, etc. none has really gained a lot of traction and none of them are especially fresh. Amazon is not really that much of an innovator these days. They succeed on inertia and a relatively decent price advantage. They would have none of this in the digital music sphere