TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Your Printer Needs the Patch

I’m sure after a nite of beers and mexican food I emit more dangerous microparticles than a laser printer. Even with that disclosure, Australian scientists still chose to study laser printers and their death dealing air pollution instead of my eating habits, comparing the health effects of laser printers to cigarettes.

According to the study:

“The health effects from inhaling ultra-fine particles depend on particle composition, but the results can range from respiratory irritation to more severe illness such as cardiovascular problems or cancer.”

Arrrgghhhhh. Everyone immediately retreat under your desks and inhale bottled oxygen only.

printers

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Textango - Music purchases by Cellphone - a new label-less distribution model

In a Nutshell: Textango offers music purchases and free promotions by text message. Send a code (like “bbq”) to a number (23333), and you’ll get a redemption code to enter on the site which will download music to your PC.

IMHO: There’s something here in providing a unique promotion and avoiding credit cards (for consumers) and labels (for bands), but communicating its proposition is a muddled affair due to the multistep nature of the Textango process.

Textango has identified a real need: that of record labels and indie bands to promote their music in new and attention grabbing ways, and do so in a relevant context - i.e.: at a concert venue, on campus, at a skate shop. They’ve also twigged to the credit card-less nature of the key target demographic (teens), by using cellphone text messages as a payment vehicle.

FACT: Only 13% of teenagers ranging in age from 12 to 18 have credit cards.

FACT: Over 76% of teenagers ranging in age from 12 to 18 have cell phones. Considering that the 12 to 18 age demographic makes up literally half of the music industry’s target audience, that gives you an idea of what Textango’s Affiliate programs earning potential is.

[from Textango Affiliate Program]

To that end the Textango system lets artists sign up to offer fans downloads of either tracks of albums, either free or paid through your cellular provider (via a premium SMS charge). Presumably, then an artist can poster up messages along the line of “Text MatchFinger34 to 23333 to download our single for free!” They can poster up their gig venues, blog, local record store, or wherever, and drive downloads or sales, as they see fit.

One other disruptive element: Textango lets bands bypass labels for sales and distribution. I don’t know enough about the music industry to guess at the impact it might have, but in such a crisis-prone industry, its an interesting entrant.

Caveat: I haven’t tried the service, as I’m in Canada, where it doesn’t yet reach (recv’d an error message from ai-na.com). Textango apparently works with all major US carriers other than T-Mobile.

It sounds like a great service; however, it comes with a complicated use case. Consider the steps required to purchase an album:

1. User send the initial text as described above.
2. Textango replies with payment authorization text.
3. User replies “Y” to authorize payment.
4. Textango replies with download code.
5. User, later at home, retrieves download code from phone.
6. User heads to Textango site and enters code.
7. User downloads requested music.

[See this page, for example]

Its a complicated way to complete a simple transaction, particularly for free promotional downloads. One wonders how actual conversion rates would compare (measured by download volume) between a Textango promotion and a band simply directing audiences to their website. Or how album sales would compare between selling CD’s for cash at a venue and a Textango promotion.

That being said, for paid downloads, Textango presents a way for credit-less teens to make purchases, and text message inboxes can provide a convenient means of storing download credentials for later use.

Additionally, it provides a unique vector that adds buzz to a band - a fact that hasn’t been lost on a number of bands, indie labels, and sites, found via Technorati, that are taking advantage of the service: Raining and OK, IndieHeaven (label), Negative Progression Records, Bleed the Dream, AbsolutePunk.net, John Frusciante, Bayside, Ignition, 3MS, Glassjaw Boxer, Corporate Punishment Records, Drag Citizen, The GoStation
, etc. Many more on the Textango website too.

Incidentally, that’s too many horrendously formatted MySpace blogs to look at in a lifetime, much less an afternoon.

Business Plan & Management Team

Pat Phelan has a good round up of the Textango revenue model and management team. The key points are diversified sources of revenue (commission on sales, eBay-style promotional options, keyword registration), and a team that includes some seasoned entrepreneurs.

Depends on the Bands

So - all of that being said, I find Textango to be an awkward, if interesting way to get at music… but I’m way out of the target demographic. Cellphone using, indie-band consuming teens may very well glom to the concept, as the right bands can add credibility to a distribution system very quickly. To that end, Textango’s success largely depends on their ability to get bands signed on and promoting their service.

More thoughts at KOAR and Collaborative Web Services.

itunes, mobile, mp3, music textango

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Ballmer & Microsoft: “Does everything move to the cloud? I think that is wrong-minded.”

From the NYT:

He rejected the notion that in the future all software would be based in what computer industry executives refer to as “the cloud” — computer hardware and software reachable over the Internet. “People tend to get weird and extreme about this,” Mr. Ballmer said. “Does everything move to the cloud? I think that is wrong-minded.” [Steve Ballmer in the NYT]

Microsoft seems firmly married to the software model, committing only to “the addition of a Web-services component within 3 to 10 years” to core software products.

Now, compare and contrast to Jeremy Zawodny’s experiences last week:

It was at that point that a shift took place in my thinking. I’m simply not going to bother with the hassle, trouble, expense, and complexity of desktop applications when an online substitute will do the job anymore. Life’s too short already. [Jeremy Zawodny]

Zawodny’s laptop died. Getting his apps back up and running in his preferred state and documents restored from back-up was a complicated, time consuming, and bug ridden PITA. In frustration, he turned to the cloud - and was rewarded with always consistent settings, no need to back-up, no multiple-pc configuration inconsistencies, etc. etc.

In the age of near-ubiquitous broadband, the cloud is making more sense all the time. 10 years from now, I firmly believe cloud applications will be taken for granted as desktop apps are today. Microsoft appears to have lost its risk taking edge in its addiction to gluttonous desktop application profits; Ballmer & Ozzie are consigning Microsoft to a slow death.

ballmer, cloud, google, microsoft, webos zawodny

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

6 more pownce invites

Yup. I gave away six in my first thread; now I’ve got six more. If you’d like one, post your email addy as “soandso (at) something (dot) com” in the comments and I’ll send one your way. First come first serve!

invites pownce

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

UpcomingDiscs.com: WordPress conversion complete

4,620 DVD reviews, Blu-ray Reviews, HD DVD Reviews, Hardware reviews, Blog Posts, and Game Reviews have been (more or less) successfully converted to WordPress blog posts, and are now live on UpcomingDiscs.com.

If you have a moment, stop by the site - I’d love to hear you’re feedback.

The switch was made for a number of reasons:

- SEO - better page formatting, URL’s, etc etc.
- Consistent platform maintenance (as opposed to the cobbled together nightmare that ran the sight before
- Easier writing and editing (for the reviewers)
- Better commenting and community-esque features (this isn’t fully realized yet)
- Plugins!
- Themes!
- Trackbacks, easier RSS management, automatic link pinging!

Basically, a million and one awesome things. I’m loving it already, and the UpcomingDiscs team is coming around to it quickly too.

I’ve written two posts about the conversion experience so far:

Part One - Category Hierarchies in the WXR Import/Export format
Part Two - Custom Fields

…with more to follow.

That’s it in a nutshell - a big relief to get done! I’ll be resuming more regular posting here on TechFold in the next day or two as the last of tweaks are made to UpcomingDiscs.

-R

upcomingdiscs wordpress

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Google: new unavailable_after meta tag

From funny blog Liam is Big comes news of a new meta tag that Google indexes and uses: the unavailable_after tag. This will apparently take stuff out of Google’s index after a certain date so that limited-time pages (like contests and promotions) won’t clutter up the tubes with 404’s after their done.

google, meta tags

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

WordPress Expert - Part Two: Doing cool stuff with Custom Fields

As part of the ridiculous effort to transition UpcomingDiscs.com from custom CMS to WordPress, one thing I’ve had to do is figure out to replicated a bunch of custom coded functionality - things like DVD Review Ratings for instance - UpcomingDiscs rates discs across a number of criteria (audio and video quality, film quality, etc.) - how to get those to show up in WordPress?

Here’s how the ratings look on UpcomingDiscs right now:

Option one is to just hand code the rating graphics into every review posted on WordPress. But that seems like a colossal PITA, and will add time and complexity to the process of posting a review. Given that the UpcomingDiscs reviewers are not a specifically technical bunch, this isn’t really an option.

Continue Reading…

customization wordpress

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Phozi.com Update - not viral yet

Just noticed a press release about expanded offerings from photo-booth website Phozi.com, which I reviewed a few months back. From Compete, it doesn’t look like Phozi is going viral yet.

Phozi’s new offerings include seasonal graphics and the ability to order physical prints and stickers of your created photos. Phozi’s also announced plans to build a community around the capability to upload user-contributed graphics.

I’d make one immediate suggestion for Phozi: create some mature-themed graphic sets for the college community, and build a Facebook platform version of the Phozi tool. The right college-humour graphic sets could drive all sorts of Facebook adoption.

phozi

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Merchants of Death: FuneralHomes.com, or “everything has a vertical”

Here’s a pretty uninspired vertical, that looks to be built for search engine rankings: FuneralHomes.com. Say what you will about “directory” sites of this type, FuneralHomes.com does have a surprisingly comprehensive list of funeral homes, though their resources are sparse. Oddly enough, the site seems to have a real advertising model, as opposed to the endemic AdSense placements.

Anyway, the point of this post is that “everything has a vertical.” Its a strange quirk of search engine algorithms that has created this republishing ecosystem; whether its in consumers best interests is a matter of perspective - a vertical like FuneralHomes.com may quickly connect users to relevant listings — but lacks the true credibility of purely organic search results or the agnosticism of phonebook listings.

Earlier today I was rambling on about the ability of Recommendation and Discovery services to supplant search engines; if that indeed came to pass many verticals would be cut out of the new search ecosystem.

sem, seo vertical

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I have 6 Pownce Invites

I have (apparently) 6 Pownce invites. I asked to join the beta and was accepted a week or two ago, but haven’t had a chance to even try out the service yet.

Anyway, if you’d like to get in, comment below or trackback this post with your email address in “soandso (at) somethingorother (dot) com” format.

invites pownce

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!