Friday fun: Fake but funny

Even though Snopes debunks this as being completely made up, it's still a humorous read:

At a computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.

4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT', and then added more seats.

6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads.

7. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.

8. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

9. You would press the 'start' button to shut off the engine.

Freeconomics

A couple months ago I wrote that free is the new black. In the latest issue of Wired magazine, editor in chief Chris Anderson has an outstanding article on the topic and how it is redefining the way we do business online. Chris was the author of the incredibly influential book The Long Tail. This article is a preview of his next book, Free, due out in 2009.

Death of the webmaster

Many of our grandfathers built their own houses. And from the foundation to the roof, they knew everything about them. They knew which fuse to pull and replace, how to adjust that squeaky door and how to troubleshoot the plumbing problem.

Today, I have a nice house. I know how to change the furnace filter. But plumbing is not my strong suit and I'm still not sure how to work the gas fireplace. I manage by relying on experts - plumbers, electricians, cable repair guys - when I need to.

Websites have evolved in a similar fashion. There was a time, not that long ago really, when organizations would appoint a single person to "run the website." They were called a webmaster or a webmistress. They were generalists who were expected to be a jack of all trades, having skills ranging from coding and design to copywriting and marketing. It was the era of FrontPage, hit counters, and static web content.

But today's sophisticated websites demand more attention and expertise than one person can manage. Today a team of individuals, representing different business units and different organizational priorities, are often responsible for the website. And just like my call to the electrician or plumber, some functions such as site hosting, application development, or search engine optimization are outsourced to companies outside the organization who have more expertise or capabilities in those fields.

Yes, even for most small organizations, the days of one-person web shop are over. But, despite the title of this post, the webmasters didn't die off like the dinosaurs. They are still around although their titles and responsibilities may have changed. Today they are probably the Director of Web Operations or the Vice President of Digital Media. Just like my Grandfather, they probably catch themselves speaking of "how we did things in the olden days of the previous century" once in a while.

Click free

Here's an interesting experiment with a user interface that requires no clicking. I like it but there's something empowering and definitive about the mouse click that I miss. Give it a try for yourself here.

No credit check required

When was the last time someone looked at your credit card closely and compared it to your signature? It doesn't happen often. It's a flawed security measure anyway. The person at the cash register is more than likely an underpaid college student - not a handwriting expert.

The Credit Card Prank aims to demonstrate this phenomenon with often funny results.

City of Light

A hi-res photo of Paris, France at night. Wow.

Back it up

Let's review some web history:

- First there was the online access battle - AOL, Netzero, Compuserve, etc.

- Then there was the email battle - Rocketmail, Hotmail, Juno and Gmail.

- There was the advertising battle - Doubleclick, Adsense and ValueClick.

- Search was (and still is) a BIG battle - Yahoo, Altavista, Hotbot, LiveSearch and of course Google.

A coming battle I see on the horizon is in the area of storage. The amount of digital assets we have has exploded over the last few years. As our hard drives fill up with mp3s, photos, movies and important documents, how are we going to back all of this data up? The days of copying things to a few CDs is long gone.

External hard-drives are becoming cheaper and easier to use. Sites and services like Mozy, Amazon (S3) and the long-rumored gDrive provide virtual backup space. Backing up your files online is a nice idea since something like a fire could take out both your main hard drive and your external backup.

Data storage is not sexy like search or fun like email. But it is something everyone should be doing.

Friday fun: News feeds

LiveNewsCameras.com gives you all the news that's fit to stream. It's a fun and addictive look inside the world of television news.

The Endangered Product List

As technology continues to change the way we do things, it's interesting to consider the future ramifications. What products won't be around in ten or twenty years time?

I've posted before that my children will never know the joys of the wired remote, the rotary phone, a record player or a dial-up modem. But what will become obsolete in the near future? Here are a few ideas. Feel free to add others in the comments section.

Print newspapers
Pay phones
Public places charging for WiFi
Music CDs
Stamps
Manual transmissions
Coins
Non-hybrid automobiles
DVD players
Arcades

Experimentation is free

I take lots of digital pictures. Mostly of my kids. In the past I would have been more conservative because of the cost of film and processing. But today it's virtually free.

The same can be said for experimenting online. You can easily set up a Flickr site, a blog, or an email account. Build a wiki. Get a Second Life. Set up a store or start your own radio station.

In most cases, you can build these sites, try these new technologies, and learn for free.

Thomas Edison once said "To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." In that sense, the Internet is an incredible pile of free "junk" to power your imagination.

A pause in the action

The group ImprovEverywhere pulled off a cool trick in New York's Grand Central Station. The idea is simple: just stop moving. Stop talking. Freeze as if someone hit your personal pause button. And have a couple hundred other people do it with you at the same time.

The execution is great and the reactions are worth a watch.

Friday fun: To opt out, please opt in

Uh, I don't think so...