Author Archives: Richard

About Richard

Product manager and complete gadget geek

Apple Tablet…

Posted on by
Reply

Been a few days since my last post, and all the news and blogs sites seem to be talking about is the official unveiling on the iPad / iSlate. I am actually looking forward to see what it looks like and what it is capable of. As a Kindle user, I am not sure if it will ever replace the simplicity of the eReader… It will have a colour screen…thats great for graphical novels, but not really a concern for reading a novel. Would be great if there was an app, like Instapaper for reading blogs offline. I guess it depends on how big this thing will actually be. 10 inches seems a little big to trawl around with me on the train, etc.

I wait with bated breath…

Seesmic Look

Posted on by
Reply

Seesmic today released what techcrunch is calling a Twitter Client for the Oprah crowd – “http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/21/seesmic-look-tablet/”

Robert Scoble has given the product a quick review  (http://scobleizer.com/2010/01/21/review-how-should-twitters-design-shift-seesmic-gives-us-a-look-at-how/) and as suspected and indeed marketed as it is a twitter client to the masses.  Its pretty, and allows the user to view what the latest trends without having to have a twitter account themselves, so I guess it can be seen as a trend timeline for the uninitiated twitter user. Loic Le Meur – founder of Seesmic, described it as for people who had no idea what a #tag or RSS is and never will…

I think it would took fantastic on a tablet pc, or even on a game station, like the Xbox and PS3 or even a default / screensaver screen on an internet TV.  Its a pity that it is not supported on Mac, as it would have looked super on my 21.5 widescreen! Also it would have been great to have an iPhone app, but the good news on that is that it would be available in a few weeks!

Advertising and the web…

Posted on by
Reply

So the company I work for is going through a transition that I guess many companies are these days…a former online subscription business now trying to make sense and money on the “open” web. I sit through powerpoint after powerpoint and all that seems to be being discussed is advertising products and how important they are to the future of the organisation. This is fair enough as at the end of the day your business has to turn a profit or it wouldn’t exist for long…but when you have declining UV & PV’s on your sites, how can you possible hope to draw in the premium advertisers???

Sometimes I think that companies are in so much of a panic in gaining as much advertising revenue as possible, that they forget about attracting the users to the site in the first place! In this day and age you do need original / relevant content to draw in the crowds, but the first step is to identify what customers you are trying to serve…being all things to all groups cannot be a strategy. A strategy has to have a compromise of sorts – it has to have implications on the non-target market…

I think I will read more about this and see what I can learn…maybe I am missing something.

Calibre

Posted on by
Reply

I have to say that I am very impressed with calibre for the kindle.

Being an international kindle owner it has been disappointing that amazon have left us off the experimental track with the blog subcription, but calibre has come to the rescue! Yes I have to plug in via USB, but that takes 5 seconds in the morning and away we go.

The support available at mobileread is fantastic also…well done guys!

Amazon – stop alienating the users outside the US! It took you long enough to allow us to even buy the kindle! Don’t limit our services…

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Raeburn Ave,Kingston upon Thames,United Kingdom

Housekeeping…

Posted on by
Reply

So here I am, on a rainy Saturday afternoon in front of the iMac, the wife and mother in-law have disappeared to go shopping and I have been left to look after my baby daughter (she is sleeping right now…thank god) and left in charge of selling the baby clothes that are either too small or have never been worn on Ebay. Rugby playing on the TV, though Spotify is now playing Bran Van 3000 (drinking in LA – reminds me of summer 1998 in the US).

I have a further list of todo’s to get done today, like reseal the kitchen sink and getting rid of the excess cardboard that has been building up in the garage – not to mention go up to the loft to put the xmas decorations away…live is soooo exciting!

Hopefully I will have a change to read some blogs / news sites later to see what is going on in the world and see if there is anything I feel like commenting on in my blog…

BlogPress

Posted on by
Reply

So I have just downloaded BlogPress for the iPhone so that I can blog on the move. It seems thus far to be a good product, very intuitive and thank god it allows me to type on lanscape mode otherwise I would be swearing at my phone by now!

So let’s see how many “on the spot” blogging opportunities will come my way…

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Raeburn Ave,Kingston upon Thames,United Kingdom

Kindle…now anyone can be be a publisher

Posted on by
Reply

Interesting news on the Kindle digital text platform being made accessible to budding authors outside of the US (at last!): http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/15/amazon-kindle-digital-text-platform/

I guess we will see if this turns out to be a viable way for budding authors getting their books to the world without going through publishers, or if it turns out to be the same type of effect as when WISIWYG programs were created so that anyone could publish a website online…lovely animated graphics and impossible navigation…who can forget that part of our “web culture”.

The most interesting facet for me will be whether published authors will take this route and effectively cut out the middleman, just like Stephen King did recently when he released a book exclusively for the Kindle. Whatever the outcome of this I think Amazon should really take the opportunity of creating an iTunes for ebooks, with proper ratings and reviews, etc. An interesting space to watch…