The popular micro blogging service Twitter turned 4-years-old today.

A year ago today I documented the third birthday of Twitter by asking when it would finally start making money.  Now here we are a full year later on its fourth birthday … and it still isn’t clear how the company is going to make any money.

There has been a lot of talk about the service possibly starting business accounts which will have more tools at their disposal for the companies to follow the analytics of their account.  This has been discussed for ages now, and still nothing has come of it as of yet.

Possibly with the data it has open up to search engines via its “firehose” for search purposes?  We know that both Microsoft and Google paid them for the access, and while it’s believed to have been in the millions, but it doesn’t come even remotely close to making up the $160 million total the company has taken in venture capital thus far.

Some expected Ev Williams, one of the founders of the site, to announce a Twitter ad platform at the just completed SXSWi conference, but all he did was announce a new system for publishers for further content distribution.  Some think the announcement may come next month now at Twitter’s chirp conference for developers, but it looks like finally, after four years, there might some sort of plan for cash flow.

… I may faint.

The problem is that I want Twitter to succeed.  While I don’t think it is the be-all, end-all that some people out there do, I do think it is a highly useful tool.  I feel some people have blown out of proportion just how important Twitter is, and that they have convinced themselves that nothing more important has ever happened in the history of man, I just see it as an extremely useful tool.  It has broken down some communication barriers in this world, and I think that is  a great thing, but I don’t think the service has quite gotten to point of greatness some of its zealots would have you believe.

At its core Twitter is still but a tool, a tool with a lot of potential, but a tool nonetheless.  As my friend Steven Hodson has begun to be fond of saying, “Twitter is becoming part of the plumbing of the Internet, and plumbing doesn’t go away.”  I have to agree with him, Twitter is with us for a long time to come, it would just like to see them start making some money so we coul dbe sure of the fact that it was indeed going to stick around.

So, happy birthday, Twitter … now start making some money so that you can be here for at least a few more years.

Feel free to follow me at @seanpaune if you are so inclined.

I swear this is becoming like an annual post.

Last year on March 19th I wrote about Why I Left DreamHost, and here we are a year later discussing why I left BlueHost.  Unlike the DreamHost debacle where I was angry enough to spit fire, the BlueHost split has been a bit more amicable.  There were some definite rough moments this year, but overall it wasn’t that ugly.

Over this past year I discovered that I just simply no longer fit in a shared hosting environment.  While they promise you the world in unlimited storage and bandwidth, they really can’t deliver.  At least once over the past year all my sites were shut down and threatened with deletion as I had too many files on the server.  It seems they don’t want you to have more than 50,000 files, and due to a script I was running with Mark Hopkins to test a new site, it had auto generated over 250,000 files.  No problem, we deleted them, but BlueHost gave us no warning we were in violation, they simply shut down the sites and told us to get out.  After begging with them, I got them to turn the sites back on, and we got the files cleaned up.

In general shared hosting accounts simply aren’t going to work any more except for the smallest of sites.  These companies work on an idea of volume, and while departing BlueHost, I did some checking and discovered that somewhere around 1,000 sites were hosted on just my one server.  While servers can take a pounding, that is just way too many sites on any one unit.

So, I have moved over to HostGator … hold on, don’t scream, “But they’re a shared host, too!”  Yes, they are, but they also offer dedicated servers, and that’s what I’m renting now.  Yes folks, I’ve gone crazy and just said “I’m done with this!” and gone for my own server.  HostGator leases their servers from The Planet, and while I could have gotten it slightly cheaper by going direct, HG offered better phone support, and considering how many times I’ve had to call them, it’s been worth the extra money.

While I do feel like I’m paying through the nose, and I don’t make anywhere close to how much this costs me back in advertising, I’m a lot happier.  All of my sites are on this server now (which is nine), plus I am hosting two sites for friends.  One is paying me a small hosting fee each month, while the other gets like six hits  a year, so I’m not charging them.  So, I am much deeper in the hole financially, but if I really want to keep my sites going, this was the only option, and I have to say I love having complete control over the server.  I am nowhere near it physically, but I can reboot it, run diagnostics, the whole bit from the comfort of my desk.

I have no clue how HostGator is as a shared host, but as a dedicated server host, I’m loving them.  All of my technical problems have been handled quickly, my server was set up in no time and I feel you can tell how much faster the site is.  (SeanPAune.com has been on the server now for a few months)  Expensive?  Yes.  Worth it?  I think so.

I know most blogs just starting out have to go with shared hosting so as not to break themselves, and I wish you all luck because all the shared hosts I have been with have ended up driving me insane.  Here’s to (hopefully) never moving again.

In this final installment of my impromptu series about using social media as a weapon, I have one simple question for the detractors: If we aren’t supposed to use it to express problems and concerns with companies, why do they have representatives that monitor the sites?

Prompted by the recent Kevin Smith/Southwest Air dust up (which Mr. Smith has now said he’s tired of it and moving on), I’ve now spent two days exploring why there are still people out there that think we should never use social media as a weapon against a company.  As I said yesterday, social media is a tool, and we should use it.  Why shouldn’t we use a tool that exists?  ”Oh, I need to sink this nail, and I have a hammer, but I should use it, it wouldn’t be right.”  Forget that, I’m swinging that hammer!  (and probably going to smack my thumb with it)

As I told the tale yesterday of how I had a problem with a FedEx delivery last month, I turned to Twitter as a last resort.  I had exhausted the other avenues of what I could do, so I turned to social media, and sure enough, I got a response, literally within minutes.  The first came from one employee, and the next day was his day off, but another FedEx employee was on.  So not only was FedEx taking the possibility of complaints and customers needing assistance on Twitter seriously, they were taking it very seriously.

There obviously is a reason these people are charged with being on Twitter, and that is because the company fully expects customers to use it.  Yes, you could make a “chicken and the egg argument” (which came first. the FedEx employees or the complainers?), but any way you slice it, the situation exists.  And I know I keep bringing up FedEx, but that is because it is the only time I have used Twitter in such a manner, and, hey, it worked.

If companies are going to take these services seriously, and they are going to put resources into them, why shouldn’t we use them?  Are these people to sit there and twiddle their thumbs all day?  They’re there to do a job, to diffuse problems before they get too big, and I say more power to them.

For the first time in modern history, you have a direct path to complaining to a company that is done in public and they can be held accountable.  In the past you would write a letter of complaint and hope for a reply, which more than likely would never come.  If it did, you usually got some sort of coupon and a curt note.

You did have the option of a phone call sometimes, but those also never seemed to be effective.

Writing a blog about it?  You could never be sure that the right people would see it.

Social media seems to be the most direct method to speak with someone from a company with the power to help you, and they are there for that reason.  Reach out to them, stay civil, but do reach out to them, that’s what they are there for.

In closing, I still think what Mr. Smith did was right, and I don’t think it had anything to do with his having 1.6 million followers.  Southwest Air has two employees that monitor Twitter for issues, so they expect people to talk about them.  More and more companies are doing this, and I don’t care what the “social media purity squad” has to say about it, I for one am going to use it.

When you can’t get a company to help you with a problem, why shouldn’t you use social media to goad them into finally doing something about your issue?

As I discussed yesterday, movie director Kevin Smith is locked in an all out war with Southwest Airlines over his being thrown off one of its planes over his weight.  You can listen to the whole sordid tale in episode #106 of Smodcast, and while its lengthy, and full of cursing, I highly recommend it to get a much fuller view of what exactly happened.

While it is easy to say, “Well, he has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, of course he got the attention of the company!”, I’m here to say you don’t need anywhere near that many followers to get something done.

In Jan. I was awaiting for a package to be delivered by FedEx Ground, and when the delivery date came, it was snowing, so I gave them a day’s leeway.  I figured it was forgivable, no problem.  When the next day passed without delivery, I tracked it and saw they said it was a weather delayed again.  Okay, fine, I’m willing to give them one more day.

The next day, now two days late, I tracked it in the afternoon and saw that it was again just driving around my town.  I called FedEx to discover what was going on and was informed that it might not make it.  I took to my Twitter account and posted:

#FedEx just sucks beyond all comprehension. Weather delay my behind

If you aren’t familiar with Twitter lingo, by adding the # symbol in front of a word makes it into a hashtag which makes it easier to search for and will alert people who watch for certain terms that a subject is being discussed.  It didn’t take long for me to be contacted by a FedEx employee who looked into it, and he wasn’t able to tell me much more than the national tracking, but he did call the local office which told him they would deliver if they could.

They didn’t.

The next day, the third day my package was driving around my town, I again called the national number and was told the usual excuses about weather, so I again took to my Twitter account and a different FedEx employee was on duty that day.  She went through the same steps with me and after exchanges both on Twitter and via e-mail, she called the local facility and told them that they had to deliver the package that day.

See, the problem with the weather delay excuse was that UPS, the postal service and the garbage truck were all making it to my property, but yet the local FedEx office was claiming my road was impassable.  After three days of this, the Twitter monitoring employees told them they had to deliver it to me that day, no more excuses.  The driver did finally show up, parked down the road, walked to my building, pounded on the door like he wanted to knock it down, left the box on the porch and stormed off before I could even get to the door.

Yes, I finally had my package, but I had to take my argument with the carrier public to accomplish it.  There are people who consider what I did “abusing Twitter”, and how I used “social media as a weapon.”  You know what?  I did, and I’ll do it every time I feel I have no other option.

Lets go down my options here:

• I called the national service number, and all they would do for me is track the packages and nothing else.
• I could not call the local service center directly because they do not give out those numbers.
• I did not e-mail customer because they say it may take over 24 hours to respond, so what is the point?

I paid for this delivery, it was a gift for someone, and if UPS can make it down my road in their unstable delivery trucks, the small van the FedEx Ground guy drives can make it to me.  I even called the company I bought the item from to see if they could help me, but they were unable to get anything done from their end either.  I was out of options.

So I view Twitter and other social media sites as just another tool in the consumers toolbox to get things done.  There is nothing wrong with using a tool that is at your disposal, and guess what, it got something done.  Yes, the local driver was angry with me, but you know what?  I couldn’t care less.  Oh no, I asked him to do his job, the horrors of it!  I even offered the national number that I would meet the driver somewhere in town to get the package from them, and they refused to set that up.

In the third part of this series, I’ll touch on the subject of if we aren’t supposed to use this, why are they on the networks?

In the age of social media, there have been many pundits that have said it shouldn’t be used as a “weapon”, but the question is: Why not?

Companies are putting customer service reps on to sites such as Twitter with increasing regularity due to users turning to that site more and more as a place to vent their frustrations with a company.  Last night service rep for Southwest Airlines got a definite work out as film writer and director Kevin Smith took his anger with the airline to the masses.

The creative mind behind such films as Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma and others was taking a flight from San Fransisco to Burbank on Southwest Airlines last night.  After he had put his luggage in the overhead bin, and been seated, he was informed that the Captain of the fight had decided that due to his extreme weight that he was a “safety risk” and had him removed from the flight.  As is the way in this day and age, Mr. Smith took to his Twitter account, and what followed was a slew of Tweets, the name for the messages on Twitter, from the director (language left intact for impact):

Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?

Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give

last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my

bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”

So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was

wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t

embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.

Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.

Via @byrneification “save the anger for SModcast” Believe it, Son. @SouthwestAir? You fucked with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!

(1/2) @pigz “I know several people bigger then u who have flown on other airlines” I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t

(2/2) about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like “Please don’t tell…”

Dear @SouthwestAir, I’m on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies.

And, hey? @SouthwestAir? I didn’t even need a seat belt extender to buckle up. Somehow, that shit fit over my “safety concern”-creating gut.

Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw

Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

This wasn’t even all of them, but I shared with you the most important ones to follow the story.

The Southwest employee charged with monitoring Twitter for the evening did reply to Mr. Smith on several occasions, and claimed that calls had been placed to him to try to make amends, but the damage was certainly done by that point to the airline’s reputation.

My question is why is this such a bad thing?  Mr. Smith was being wronged by the airline, publicly humiliated in front of a plane full of people, and he shouldn’t use the tools at his disposal to talk about it?  Mr. Smith has been very upfront about his weight in interviews and on his podcast, Smodcast, and if his weight was such an issue, why wasn’t anything said at the ticket counter?  At the gate?  Why was he let on another Southwest flight after being removed from the first?  He had a legitimate complaint to make, but I am sure the “social media purity police” will wag their fingers at Mr. Smith for sullying their Utopian society of social media tools as a weapon.

I have a dog in this fight as someone who used to need a seatbelt extension on airplanes, but that isn’t why I’m taking Mr. Smith’s side in this fight, and nor is it because I’m a fan of his work: it’s because companies and brands should be held accountable for their actions, and now the consumer has a way to do this.  In the old days you would write them a letter, you might get a voucher if you were lucky, but usually you would hear nothing of substance.  You’d tell your friends about it, and that would be it.  Mr. Smith has over 1.6 million followers on Twitter, and with just a 140 character message, he was able to tell all of them about the situation.He shouldn’t do this?  There is some sort of shame to this?

The shame is that people feel that you shouldn’t, and I plan to explore this more through out this week.

At last the Apple Tablet rumors can die, but was it worth the long wait?

Steve Jobs finally lifted the veil of secrecy around the Apple Tablet today and revealed it as a device named the iPad. The unfortunate name choice aside, is it going to be worth the purchase?

The answer to that depends entirely on what your needs are going to be with such a device.  Unlike other items in the market, the iPad does not solve an existing problem.  The iPhone made smartphones truly smart, netbooks solved size problems for those that didn’t want to lug full sized laptops around, the iPod solved music issues, but the iPad … solves nothing.  There is no doubt that it is intriguing, and the implications of this device could be far reaching for years as other device manufacturers try to come up with their own solutions to answer this new challenge.

What you have could easily be described as over-sized iPod Touch, but at the same time it isn’t.  Yes, it will run the majority of the current 140,000 iPhone/iPod Touch applications, but due to its 9.7-inch screen, it will be able to handle a lot more.  App developers were able to download a new SDK (software development kit) that will allow them to develop for the 1024 x 768 resolution and the 1GHz processor.

Beyond the usual iPod Touch features, the iPad will also run the iWork office suite which means you can do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and although the screen will have a robust touch keyboard, writing a full document that way could quickly get tiring.  That’s why Apple is releasing a keyboard dock that allows you to plug the device into a physical keyboard, and to me that is where this device gets interesting.

Unfortunately no price was mentioned for the keyboard, but as a professional blogger I see where this could have a fairly large impact on journalism.  Yes, laptops are portable, but say you go to a news story, quickly pound out some notes on the screen keyboard, and then get back in your car, plug into the dock, and you can write up your full story on the fly.  You can then transmit the story via Wi-Fi or 3G depending on the model you purchased.

As a blogger, I am really intrigued by the possibilities here.  Could I blog easily from anywhere without carrying around a much heavier laptop?

Where this really gets complicated is when you look at the new iBook e-reader app.  You have a full book store you can purchase from, and while the Amazon Kindle better be quaking in its boots, the true star of this is the potential down the road.

Text books.

The game changer the education system has been waiting for may have just dropped into their laps.  A full-color e-reader that could properly display any type of text book.  Art?  No problem.  Statistics that needs to show all sorts of graphs?  Go for it.  Every college book store better start thinking now about what their futures will be like without … well … books.  There is no way that textbook publishers aren’t going to study the heck out of this thing and analyze that huge costs they will be able to cut in materials, printing, transport and so on.  I would say within 3 to 4 years you will see the first text books that have no print counterpart.

And don’t even get me started on what this could mean for comic books.

So, down to the business part of this:

iPad Specs

So, what is under the hood of the iPad?  What will be powering this newest entry from Apple into the consumer market?

• Memory capacities of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB
• 802.11n Wi-Fi
• 1GHz Apple A4 chip
• .5-inches thick
• 1.5 lbs
• 9.7-inch screen, 1024 x 768 resolution
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Speaker & microphone
• Accelerometer & compass
• 10 hour battery life, one month standby
• 3G connectivity for $30 a month via AT&T without contract.

iPad Price

And then comes the price.  The prevailing rumor leading up to today had been that we would be seeing a price of $1000, which Steve Jobs made mention of on stage at the introduction, and then he floored us with the following price chart.

So, what say you? Is it going to be worth it?

Check out my other posts from today on the iPad:

• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Apple shows the world the iPad – an internet ready Kotex – SeanPAune.com
• The iPad Marks A Whole New Product Category For Apple – StarterTech.com
• Apple finally unveils the iPad tablet – Tech.BLORGE.com
• What’s Missing From Apple’s iPad – technoBuffalo.com

All I have to say is, “It’s about ******’ time!”

Word has been circulating all day today that not only will Apple be unveiling the long-rumored Apple Tablet on Wednesday as its press event, but that it may also finally be announcing that the iPhone will be available on multiple carriers, breaking the exclusivity with AT&T in the United States.

Can I get a, “HALLE-FREAKIN-LUJAH!”

According to BusinessWeek, it would break down as:

• Verizon – summer
• T-Mobile & Sprint – fall
• Clearwire Corp. – Sometime in 2011

Being a Sprint subscriber, I’m over the Moon at the prospect that this may finally becoming a reality, but most of all I am happy for consumers and, yes, even Apple.  As I wrote recently on TechnoBuffalo in “Why Isn’t The iPhone On Every Carrier Yet?“, the continued exclusivity makes no sense on any front at this point.  For the consumer this will spur competition between the carriers to get the iPhone customers to be on their networks, and could possibly result in customers making a mass exodus from AT&T.

On the other hand, Apple is set to make more money than most people can even count.  In the quarter report that just came out from Apple for the three month period ending Dec. 26th, the company sold 8.7 million iPhones combined from all territories, and combined with its record number of Macs sold (and an eight percent decline in iPod sales), it walked away with a profit of $3.38 billion.  Now imagine the iPhone being sold across all four major United States carriers, and it is easy to see why it is time for Apple to cut the exclusivity from AT&T.

The time for a freed iPhone has come, the only question is if Apple will actually follow through with the idea.  My gut tells me this is actually going to happen because it is about the only thing that makes sense at this point for the product.

… and if true, thus will begin my cursing the fact I just bought a BlackBerry Tour this past August.

Are you on Twitter?  Are you following TV personality Drew Carey?  If you aren’t, why aren’t you?

Drew Carey, the current host of The Price is Right, is on a crusade to give $1 per Twitter follower he has by 11:59 pm on Dec. 31st, 2009 to the Livestrong Foundation.  He has promised to donate up to $1 million dollars in the fight against cancer, but the donation is pegged to how many followers he has.  Mr. Carey has even said he doesn’t care if you unfollow him on Jan. 1st, 2010, he just wants to raise awareness of the cancer research being done.

This was all inspired by Drew Olanoff, a well-known individual in the social media scene, auction off his Twitter username, @drew, to raise money for cancer research.  Mr. Olanoff recently had a fight with cancer himself, which it thankfully appears he has won, and he felt auctioning off a desirable four-letter Twitter username was a way to go.  His minimum bid was $10,000, but Drew Carey was the first to bid, and he went right for $25,000.  See, Mr. Carey got stuck with the username @DrewFromTV, so of course he wants @drew.  Well, the problem was that it appeared he scared off other potential bidders, so he said if he had 100,000 followers by Nov. 9th, the end of the auction, he would pay $100,000 for the name.  When he easily beat that goal, he extended it to Dec. 31st and $1,000,000 for one million followers.

As I write this, Mr. Carey is at 307,212 followers with a week to go.

… what is wrong with you people?

When Ashton Kutcher said, “Hey, I want a million followers!”, people flocked to follow him with nothing in return.  When a man is trying to promote the fight against cancer and is willing to give away a million dollars of his own money, people turn apathetic?  All you have to do is click the follow button … that’s it.  Nothing more.  If you don’t like Drew Carey, fine, unfollow him on Jan. 1st, but come on, folks, follow the man for just the next week!

I normally don’t believe in guilting people in to doing things, but come on folks: You click a button, and someone else gives a $1 to charity.  All you have to do is click a button.  That’s it.  Nothing else is required of you.  If you’re a Twitter user, please do it.

MillionDollarDrew has more information and is tracking the progress to the goal.

It’s time to make my annual look back at my goals for this year on this blog, and what I want to do with it for the next year.

In 2008 and 2009 I did this post as part of a blogging project, and while the project went a different direction this year, I decided to keep up the tradition of posting this for my own reference and to maybe get some others to think about how they approach their own blogs.

The Goals For 2009

Measurable

Comments -I wanted to see the number of comments go up this year.  They did increase, but still not at the levels I would like to see, but they are better.

Daily Page Views – I was hoping for a 50% increase in page views this year, to date they are up 282.61% … I’m floored and unbelievably grateful to all of the new readers this year.

Daily Revenue – I wanted to see an increase of daily revenue of at least 50%, and while I don’t have the exact number, it is way up beyond 50%.  Again, thank you.

RSS Subscribers – I hoped to be at 120 RSS subscribers by this time, and I am at 132.  Would love to be higher, but at least I beat my goal.

Social Bookmarking – I hoped I would some day get to the front page of Digg … well, I didn’t, and I just don’t care.  I did, however, have a really good year on StumbleUpon!

Immeasurable

Writing Skills – I wanted to improve my writing skills, and … well, I think I’ve had some success in this area, but they could still use some polishing.

Internet Goals For 2009 – Other

Scattercast – Scattercast is still nowhere near the quality I’d like it be, but its getting there.  I also wanted more iTunes subscribers, and that number has crept up, but very slowly.  You could help by subscribing via iTunes!

Twitter – I hoped to be at 2,000 followers by now, and I’m over 3,000, so I made it!

The Goals For 2010

Measurable

Comments – Would still like to get more discussion going on.

Daily Page Views – I really have no clue how I’m going to continue this stratospheric growth.  I am blown away by the 282.61% jump over last year, but I’m going to keep working at it!

Daily Revenue – Sure I’d like to see it keep growing, but that really isn’t why I run this blog, so if it goes up, it goes up.

RSS Subscribers – I really don’t know what I can do to keep this number growing, but I’m sure going to try!  Maybe 200 by next year’s post?  (Why not help out and subscribe to SeanPAune.com right now!)

Immeasurable

Writing Skills – Going to keep working on them!

Internet Goals For 2010 – Other

Scattercast – Going to keep working on improving the podcast, but I really feel like I need a full-time co-host.  Any time I have a guest on, like when Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins joined me to discuss sci-fi TV shows or the Diabolical Miss M came on the show to discuss journalism, it just works so much better.

Twitter – My opinion of having tons of followers has changed, but they are still nice to have.  Make sure to check me out @seanpaune.

What Would You Like To See?

So what would you all like to see happen on SeanPAune.com in 2010?  What types of posts do you like?  Which do you loathe?  Is there anything you wish to praise or pan?  Tell me in the comments!

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Steven and I have a chit chat about the CrunchPad the JooJoo tablet announced today by Fusion Garage.  If you have no idea what that it, you can check out my historical post from earlier today about the history of the JooJoo, but really Steven and I are talking more about the circus that surrounds the device than anything else.  It boils down to being the Web 2.0 soap opera to end them all … with a $499 hunk of plastic at the end for anyone silly enough to buy it.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

From the “You have to be kidding me” file, rumors are circulating in the British media that Amazon is looking at opening retail store fronts.

According to The Sunday Times, a secret American retailer has been talking to “high street” (the British version of a main street in the USA) landlords about renting retail space.  While no names have been mentioned, the landlords have been hinting that it is indeed the leading online retailer.

Why would such a successful company, that has never had to deal with the headaches of a storefront, suddenly decide to do this?  Some speculation centers on the idea that consumers are really beginning to take to the idea of ordering online and picking items up at a storefront at a time of their choosing.  I could see this being tested in a smaller market such as the U.K., but the overhead this is going to add to Amazon’s operating costs is going to be staggering.

I can see why they would ponder this, but as someone has gone from retail to Internet only operations … you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to having a retail shop.  Sure it had its good moments, but it’s like a giant anchor around your neck.  I hope this does prove to just be rumor, but we shall see.

What do you think?  Good idea or bad?

With the news that Dollhouse has been cancelled, show creator Joss Whedon is examining his options, and at least one of those includes binge drinking.

In a comment on the Joss Whedon fansite Whedonesque, Mr. Whedon came to share the news of the show’s cancellation, but discovered he had been beaten to the punch.

Hmm. Apparently my news is not news.

I don’t have a lot to say. I’m extremely proud of the people I’ve worked with: my star, my staff, my cast, my crew. I feel the show is getting better pretty much every week, and I think you’ll agree in the coming months. I’m grateful that we got to put it on, and then come back and put it on again.

I’m off to pursue internet ventures/binge drinking. Possibly that relaxation thing I’ve read so much about. By the time the last episode airs, you’ll know what my next project is. But for now there’s a lot of work still to be done, and disappointment to bear.

Thank you all for your support, your patience, your excellent adverts. See you again. -j.

Hopefully this may mean he has the opportunity now to do a follow-up to the popular Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog which was a Web only series.

Mr. Whedon has said in previous interviews that he imagined that Dollhouse would be his last foray into television, and he was more interested in pursuing ventures on the Internet and films.  Considering what happened with Firefly and Dollhouse, and some hiccups with his biggest success Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, I can’t say as I really blame him.