Cyber Monday Hype Pays Off

Rob Hof

A lot of stories have been explaining that Cyber Monday, supposedly the kickoff of the holiday shopping season online, isn't really all it's cracked up to be. In fact, I had written about this a year ago, shortly after the notion was launched by Shop.org, a unit of the National Retail Federation, as a way to match the Black Friday tradition.

One online retailer, however, turned the hype to its advantage. Pinny Gniwisch, founder and executive VP of Web jeweler Ice.com, explains in an email to me:

With all the talk about Cyber Monday, Ice.com used heavyweight search engines like Google and Yahoo to help drive traffic to our unique Cyber Monday page. Ice.com was the only retailer who bought keywords related to Cyber Monday and Black Monday, which drove an excess of 12,000 clicks, generating an above average conversion rate on those words and terms. We generated over $50,000 of sales from those keywords.

The truth of the matter is not about whether Cyber Monday is all it’s cracked up to be, but rather about who was able to use the hype to generate more sales.

News Rating Service NewsTrust Launches Beta

Rob Hof

When I first wrote about NewsTrust, an online news rating service, I wasn't sure about how well a rating system for stories would work given the subjectivity about what's good journalism and the potential to game results, as we've seen with Digg and other sites. I'm still not sure, but now the world can check it out, in beta at least. As founder Fabrice Florin explains in an email to me:

NewsTrust is our next-generation social news network, devoted to good journalism. Our free website and email/RSS feeds feature some of the best news and opinions from hundreds of trusted online sources. NewsTrust members rate news stories based on journalistic quality, not just popularity.

This will be an interesting experiment to watch.

The Wii Really Is an Updated GameCube

In comments posted to my column on the PlayStation 3, many readers took exception to my statement that the Wii is basically an updated GameCube. I'm going to fall back on no less an authority than gaming legend Shigeru Miyamoto, general manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development. In an interview with the Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream (original Japanese version here), Miyamoto said: "The hardware is basically a GC. We’ve upgraded our development tools to new versions but, you can still use GC programs as they are. With that in mind, I thought we could remake GC titles for the Wii and modify them to work with the Wii remote so that they’re more fun to play." (Thanks to Gamebrink.com for the translation.)

The motion-sensing Wii Remote controller is definitely something new in the world of gaming (and a lot better than the lame, at least as used in the games I've seen so farm PS3 Sixaxis.) But the Wii itself is very much built on the same platform as the GC, with a faster processor and more memory, while the PS3 is a technologically exciting, new platform. Of course, the Wii could still be more fun.

Vonage: Making Calls to Santa

Olga Kharif

I have been slamming Vonage in posts for months now, for various good reasons. But now, I want to praise the Web-calling company for a really innovative new service. Parents buying presents for your kids, listen up: Vonage offers you a direct line to Santa.

Here's how this service, called CallSanta, works: Kids can use a Vonage line to dial 1 (700) CallSanta. There, they can listen to a recording from Santa and leave a message reciting their long gift lists. Those voice mails to Santa are then forwarded to their parents' e-mail boxes, so the Vonage account holders know exactly what to put under the tree.

To me, this is a prime example of the type of cool services Web-calling can offer. So far, we haven't even tapped into Voice over Internet Protocol's (VoIP) amazing potential. Most Web-calling companies have simply offered the same boring services that telcos have offered for years. Now, that's slowly starting to change. CallSanta is just the beginning.

In the future, I imagine using Vonage to leave a voice mail shopping list, which Vonage would then forward to my neighborhood grocery store, which will fill out the order. My doctor might phone a prescription into my pharmacy, which will e-mail me when the prescription is ready. That e-mail might contain a voice file, in which my doc explains exactly how to take the pills. I can think of a million cool services like that. Indeed, VoIP is about to become much more than a substitute for traditional phone service.

PlayStation 3 Revisited

Over the holiday weekend, long after my Technology & You column on the PlayStation 3 had been published, I finally had some extended time to play games and also watch them being played by some younger, and more game savvy folks. What I am about to say will probably win me even fewer friends in the gaming community that the original column, but I found that while the action is exciting enough, the games tend to suffer from a boring shallowness.

The problem for me is a lack of any real strategic elements to the games. I'll generally exclude the sports games from this judgment, especially the better ones like Electronic Arts' Madden NFL 07, which really do require some solid understanding of the game to play well. The problem I have with these is the sheer complexity of the controls. And I don't expect a lot of strategy in racing or martial-arts games.

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Second Life's First Millionaire

Rob Hof

Anshe Chung, the virtual land baroness that I highlighted in my cover story earlier this year, My Virtual Life, has apparently become the first millionaire in Second Life. That's millionaire in real U.S. dollars. Her real-world persona, Ailin Graef, figures her net worth based on her substantial in-world land holdings, cash in "Linden dollars," which can be converted to real cash, as well as virtual shopping malls, store chains, and even virtual stock-market investments in Second Life businesses. As the release explains:

Anshe Chung's achievement is all the more remarkable because the fortune was developed over a period of two and a half years from an initial investment of $9.95 for a Second Life account by Anshe's creator, Ailin Graef. Anshe/Ailin achieved her fortune by beginning with small scale purchases of virtual real estate which she then subdivided and developed with landscaping and themed architectural builds for rental and resale. Her operations have since grown to include the development and sale of properties for large scale real world corporations, and have led to a real life "spin off" corporation called Anshe Chung Studios, which develops immersive 3D environments for applications ranging from education to business conferencing and product prototyping.

I relate this all with a straight face, but I still find it rather hard to believe that someone can become a millionaire through virtual-world creations. No fun and games, indeed.

Shoveling on Digg

Rob Hof

As much as I like the idea of Digg--a site where a community chooses the most interesting or relevant news--I must confess that I just don't use it that much. The reason became obvious once I started using Google Reader, which streams new RSS posts from all my chosen feeds as they come in. And in that context, most of the endless new posts on Digg look like junk, geek tabloid fare, or spam. I mean, I can imagine a post entitled Police Officer Tasered in Testicles in Training Accident (video included) might be entertaining in a Friday-night beer-bash sort of way, but when I'm working, I don't need that in the way of real news. Even on Digg's tech news page, headlines like Bored System Admin makes an arch from old Monitors aren't doing much for me.

Apparently I'm not alone. Jeff Nolan says he's done with Digg for much the same reason: "far too much crap." In fact, Niall Kennedy thinks socially driven Web 2.0 sites are on the verge of becoming spam farms:

I believe social media accounts are currently available for rent or for sale, rewarding active users with paid placements or account resells in much the same way as a World of Warcraft character might be resold on eBay. Social media sites and search engines need to stay on top of this new form of content creation, continually analyzing data and scrubbing out the dirt. Sites overrun with web spam quickly lose their utility and might be banned from search engines.

Meanwhile, Techmeme, which doesn't use the wisdom of crowds (or as I prefer, the power of us), instead driven by an algorithm that correlates links in a way I don't yet understand, continues to draw me in many times a day because of the quality of the stories or posts and the associated links to other blogs. I hope Digg, which clearly has managed to create a vibrant community--no small trick--can turn the talents of that community to more useful ends.

Social Networking's Cable Television Era

Rob Hof

That's what I'm calling the crush of social-networking upstarts who are either aiming at ever-narrower communities, such as Dogster or the karaoke and photography groups on Multiply, or letting people create their own personalized social sites, such as Ning. I thought a lot about that metaphor--but do you think there's another one that works better?

Monster.com: Readying to Rumble?

Olga Kharif

Jobs site Monster.com just dismissed its general counsel. The official reason: options. But the timing of the announcement is interesting: It comes just after Yahoo announced its game-changing agreement to power up newspapers' classifieds sections.

A lot of analysts believe that thanks to the announcement, Yahoo's HotJobs.com site will now go up the online jobs market share charts. That's clearly bad news for HotJobs' competitor Monster which, it seems to me, has become less aggressive in fighting off competitors like CarreerBuilder.com, HotJobs.com and local jobs sites in the past year. I certainly don't see its TV ads as often anymore.

Monster had better start making aggressive moves now, or its competitors will eat its Thanksgiving dinner.

A new Techbeater

I have resisted blogging for a long time since the weekly Technology & You column keeps me busy enough. But it's time to catch the wave of the future.

One thing I hope to do with these postings is to talk about some of the products and services that cross my desk but that for one reason or another don;t make it into the weekly column. I'm going to start out with a couple of interesting products from Etymotic Research, a specialist in in-the-ear audio gear.

The ety8 is an in-the-ear Bluetooth headset. The basic earphones have in-the-ear tips--you can choose from a variety of silicone rubber and foam styles--mounted on little plastic panels the size of postage stamps, and linked by a cable just long enough to fit comfortably behind your neck. The right panel includes volume controls and a play/pause button. For an extra $100, you get a little adapter that adds Bluetooth capability to any iPod with the standard universal dock connector.

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Tired of Unwanted SMS Messages and Cell Phone Calls? Help Is On Its Way

Olga Kharif

Like many others, I often receive unwanted SMS messages. What's frustrating about the experience is, my phone doesn't offer me an option to block a sender, or to refuse to receive SMS messages altogether. Doesn't offer it yet, that is.

Today, I talked to Martin Dunsby, general manager of global services at Openwave, which provides software for the majority of the world's cell phones. And Dunsby believes that U.S. carriers will start implementing software allowing cell phone users to better manage their presence, contacts and incoming and outgoing calls and SMS in 2007.

What should you expect? If you are a user of a VoIP phone, allowing you to check voice mails on your PC, send certain callers directly to voice mail, and get Instant Messenger notifications of incoming calls, you won't be surprised to find the same features on your mobile. Such services for cell phones are already implemented in Europe. It's about time they came to the U.S.

Is Yahoo! Spread Too Thin?

Rob Hof

Everybody's talking about the "peanut butter" memo from Yahoo! Senior VP Brad Garlinghouse, which Paul Kedrosky posted and the Wall Street Journal wrote a story around Saturday (behind a subscription wall). In the memo, Garlinghouse says Yahoo! has spread itself too thin, like peanut butter on bread, and doesn't have a strong vision of where it wants to go.

It's a strange memo in the sense that, as Mike Arrington points out, it doesn't appear to be one of those memos purposely leaked to galvanize the troops or investors to reposition the company. It's too strong for that.

But as the Sunday New York Times article, as well as several other commentators point out, Yahoo!'s plight doesn't look as dire as the memo may imply. It continues to lose ground to Google in terms of how well it makes money off its traffic, but Yahoo!'s still in front on traffic and it's still growing. Better, in other words, to have the traffic in the first place and then at least have the potential--even if delayed--to make more money off it.

Indeed, some folks aren't impressed with Garlinghouse's memo, though it certainly does nail some key challenges at Yahoo! in surprisingly stark terms. John Furrier calls it a "fantasyland" memo because it "felt nothing like leadership or innovation to me. Sorry but if I were a peer or coworker of Brad I would not have been inspired. It offered nothing tangible other than ‘generic’ process management jargon and concepts." Dave Winer's take feels the most on-target to me:

First, Yahoo's stock is doing okay, the company is growing and profitable.

It's also diversified, which is another way of saying everything that the memo complains about.

They have turf battles and they duplicate each others' work. In other words, Yahoo is a big company.

There is no way to make them lean and focused, that's not how big companies work. Sheez, some small companies have a hard time being lean and focused.

Yahoo should continue to buy their innovation from outside, because that's where innovation comes from.

What Yahoo may need is someone who can speak for them, who can give an exciting speech, who can lead all the external forces, and internal ones too. What they may be missing is an eloquent founder-type who, when people need to settle a difference, can come in and make the choice. At Microsoft, in the old days when Microsoft worked, people could ask themselves What Would Bill Do? Google has Larry and Sergey. Yahoo may need a leader. But they've got a pretty good foundation to build on. And they could probably go a long, long way without great leadership, since most American companies don't have that.

And come on -- bleeding in purple and yellow? Garlinghouse is a bad ripoff of Guy Kawasaki.

In any case, it's clear that such advice can only be addressed by the top dog. So if nothing else, CEO Terry Semel needs to step up on the leadership front.

Real Threat to Virtual Goods in Second Life

Rob Hof

The many people who make real money by selling virtual clothing, houses, and much more on the online virtual world Second Life aren't real happy right now. A program called CopyBot, which lets anyone copy virtual goods without paying for them, got loose on Second Life, angering the folks who have made the place not only their second home but their main business. Linden Lab, Second Life's creator has banned the program, but it's not yet clear if and when it will be able to stop it, now that it's available. Cory Ondrejka, Linden Labs' chief technology officer, said it could take some time for the company to provide tools to deal with it, beyond filing an abuse report to Linden Lab and suing copyers under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Apparently, some Second Life residents got so incensed that they mobbed a CopyBot vendor, "shouting that she was ruining their Second Life," according to the news site Second Life Herald. It's getting more real all the time in the virtual world.

Valleywag: Bye Nick, Hi Nick

Rob Hof

Nick Douglas is out at Valleywag, the gossip site that has alternately entertained, infuriated, and bored folks in Silicon Valley with its posts on everything from old romances at Google to, yes, digs at BusinessWeek. Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, of which Valleywag is part (apparently too small a part), is taking over for now, but he's looking for a replacement:

To helm the site, we're now looking for someone with, ideally, some background in reporting. An old-media career, useful in the sparkling new world of blogs. Who would have thought?

Whoever takes over will have a slightly new mission:

I suspect we're going to tone down the personal coverage of civilians, because they haven't done anything to seek out attention, and their personal lives aren't that interesting. Unless they are. Anyway, more money, a little less sex: that is Valleywag's new gossip mantra.

Uh-huh. If anyone is heaving a sigh of relief here, they're not as smart as they think they are. While I found some of Douglas' posts entertaining, even useful sometimes, it too often careened into the gutter. Which isn't as interesting either to folks here or to outsiders, who don't even know enough about business leaders here to care that much. The challenge for the new Valleywag will be to remain fun as it adds more substantial reporting.

As for Douglas, Matt Marshall at VentureBeat thinks he may land at Wired.

Web 2.huh?

Rob Hof

The survey service Zoomerang says 79% of marketers aren't even aware of the term Web 2.0. On the other hand, some clearly do, judging from a definition offered by one marketer:

"Hot air used to describe a massive technological leap in how the internet is used."