New EVDO card

Finally got around to getting a replacement EVDO card for my laptop. I opted for the USB card from Novatel (Sprint) for a few reasons.

1) Its USB so I can share it with MacBook's in the office that don't have express card slots. This is super handy at trade shows since my MacBook Pro is the only laptop we travel with that has that kind of slot.

2) Being USB, I can use a short extended cable to mount the actual card on the back of my display which is way better than having it sticking out of the side of a laptop for obvious reasons.

3) They actually have Mac software for this card! The previous card needed to be set up on a Windows based machine before I could use it on my Mac. Not so with this one. Sweet!

4) The Novatel card has built in GPS! Way cool. This card also has a mini SD reader which is kinda cool. I don't use mini SD cards (yet), but its nice that it has multi functions.

Its nice to have an EVDO card again. I just got back from a quick trip and it was super annoying to have to go hunt down WIFI - and it pained me to actually PAY for WIFI at the hotel I was at for two nights.

UPDATE - A few readers asked, and yes, I took the insurance option this time. Doh! ;-)

Deep freeze

Last Sunday when we were out snowkiting, I was shooting video with my beloved Sanyo Xacti and within a few minutes of being out of doors I began to notice the effects of the -10 degree temps on the equipment.

First, the LCD display started to ghost. I expected this as I also see sluggish response rates from the display on my Treo in the morning when its been sitting in the truck overnight. But this was severe ghosting almost to the point where the display was useless. Responding almost 2-3 seconds slower, it was impossible to use it for aiming the camera within 5 minutes.

The second, and most crippling effect was on the batteries. The cold reduced the power ability of the batteries from about an hour to roughly 10 minutes. I had to put the batteries deep in my coat against my skin to get them back to producing power, put them in the camera, shoot some video and then repeat the process. Luckily I brought out two batteries so I could do this little round robin and get some decent video.

Of course the video was fine since it was recording straight to SD card - another reason why I'm moving away from tapes. There's no way a tape based machine would have worked. There's a reason Porta Brace makes cold weather housings with heaters!

The last effect was on me. I kept having to take off at least one glove to do the battery swap and in no time my hand was in the first stages of frostbite. Note to self - wear a tight fitting glove on my right hand next time under my bulky glove/mitt that will give me some protection but still enable dexterity. ;-)

Can't touch this

I recently got an iPod Touch - not that I needed another iPod, I wanted to mess around with it as a platform sans the cellular network connection that the iPhone has. With the forthcoming SDK (hold the jokes) from Apple, there's a lot of promise with these handheld computers, but you already knew I think that.

I had blogged about Navizon's locator back when I had my iPhone, and I was impressed with how well it worked. The first thing I did with the Touch when I got it was check out Google Maps ability to locate. Since its only a Touch, all it can work with is 802.11 networks and I have to admit I wasn't thinking it would do very well...

It freakin' nailed it. (see pic) I was actually amazed. Heck, I think I even smiled. ;-)

(that sure sucks for Navizon. Oh well.)

The more I play with it, the more I miss my iPhone. Yeah, I'll admit it. I miss it. Such a elegant device. That said, I don't miss AT&T's crappy slow data network and Mail is still a stinking mess....

...still, when the 3G iPhone comes out - I'm planning to jump on board and ditch the Treo.

I sure hope they figure out how to get cut and paste to work by then....

Almost missed it!

Late this afternoon I was out with the boys snowkiting - actually they were kiting and I was trying to snag some good footage for everyone's egos. ;-)

Darn cold with -2 degree temps and wind chills around -25, but still a ton of fun. As the sun started to set, the light got real nice and then it hit me, the sun was setting just past the point! I've blogged about this before, and this is kind of a milestone as the sun heads out over the water more and more every day.

Nice win for a local company

This morning it is reported that Madison based Sway, best known for its flagship Web tool product, Shoutlet, has been acquired for $30 million. Sway is a privately held company with around $2 million in revenues and employees 13 people.

Its great to see a Wisconsin based company makes moves in the internet space (dare I say Web 2.0 space?) and the 15x multiple is something to note as well. Nice job!

I guess lightning does strike outside of Silicon Valley. ;-)

Monkey see, monkey do

Sure, YouTube cashed out big when Google bought them. Since then, has anyone paid anything for a video sharing site? There's gotta be 200+ YouTube wannabes out there, and all of them are dying on the vine. Revver was thought to be the next YouTube, but CNET reports today that they're on the auction block for $300k-$500k + the assumption of their $1M pile of debt. The picture here is a grab from the bottom of Revver's website. I think its a monkey. After all, monkey see, monkey do. And that's all that Revver did. Copy YouTube. They not only copied, but the business model ended up being the same even though they claimed/planned otherwise.

So, what happened? Nothing. Both YouTube and Revver are doing the same thing - NOT MAKING MONEY.

The problem is that a generic video sharing site that doesn't appeal to anyone makes ad dollars difficult to come by. Sure you can sell on shear volume of impressions, but the real money is in placing advertisers in front of their primary markets. Look at Revver's website - nothing but Google ads. If the network was valuable, you'd be able to see your own ad inventory. But alas, this isn't the case when you have scattered content that's across the board.

Google said they missed their last quarter numbers because social networks aren't monetizing very well. Go figure. I ,for one, am not surprised in the least.

This also relates to Facebook - to which I've blogged about before. Sure they got a $15B valuation, but what's the REAL numbers behind it? Anyone care to guess? Try $150M in ad sales last year. Seems that problems around monetizing social networks isn't isolated to just Google.

Sure the network is huge, but the costs are too. Facebook plans to spend $200M in 2008 just on infrastructure upgrades (ie. servers). The cost to revenue ratio is a little out of whack. The cost of scale isn't working for them. Google has that nailed better than anyone, but they can't build a social network to save their asses. They'll have to buy one. (BTW - an acquisition should be announced soon)

[UPDATE : Don't get me wrong - I don't think YouTube and Facebook (sorry, I should also include Myspace) are doomed. Because they are the big dogs and have proper investments behind them, they'll do just fine. Even if it takes time to work out the monetization issues, they've got the money in the bank to get over the bridge to the promised land. I'm really critical of the wannabe's : Its difficult to breathe when the big guys are eating up all the oxygen in the room.]

So, where is all of this leading? It's leading to the simple fact that being everything to everyone doesn't pay very well (unless you make it BIG). The revenue stream comes from finding a niche/vertical and living in it. This way you can implicitly know your audience and plug in ads that not only pay well, but more importantly, are effective. The advertisers keep coming back and the long tail gives and gives.

Enter stage left - Howcast. Just the sort of thing I'm talking about.

That path will lead to solid revenues, albeit with a smaller user base. (smaller, but still good numbers) But in the end, small fast and profitable beats the heck out of a fire sale any day.

Anyone want a banana?

Sunsets aren't just for summer

Just south of us, parts of Wisconsin are getting more than 15 inches of snow. We didn't get anything, but we did get a heck of a sunset as a consolation prize. ;-)