Whole Foods is being boycotted over this??

I've seen rumblings lately online of social media channels being used to organize a boycott of Whole Foods (so far over 33,000 people organized on Facebook to boycott). Deciding I'd better see what all the fuss was about, I decided to read the Wall Street Journal article written by Whole Foods co-founder and CEO John Mackey which started the controversy.

I won't quote the whole thing here for a number of reasons (1. It's too long 2. the WSJ should get traffic for the article they posted and 3. I won't want Rupert Murdoch suing me - heaven forbid I promote his content) but I will pull a couple of key quotes:

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment.

And...

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.

And...

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

And...

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

UNBELIEVABLE. People are boycotting over this? After reading the article I actually want to go buy overpriced soy nuts just to support this man. While I'm not in 100% agreement with him (be sure and read the article - he suggest eight points of reform) I think he's definitely on the right track: people should accept responsibility, retain power instead of handing it over to the government, and be financially responsible.

I know it's a touchy subject but I love a good debate/conversation - mainly because it helps me look at things from different points of view. Not being all that bright in general (but particularly about politics and economics), I look forward to finding some insight in your comments.

So hit the comments and let's get discussin'.

Apple claims jailbroken iPhones could prove catastrophic, good for drug dealers

  Image courtesy of here.

It's old news by now but if you hadn't heard, Apple is trying to make jailbreaking iPhones illegal because, "In short, taking control of the BBP software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer – to potentially catastrophic result."

As reported by Wired, they imply that jailbreaking iPhones could be a threat to national security. They also say it would be ideal for drug dealers since you can change phone identification to avoid tracking.

The iPhone: threat to world peace, weapon of mass destruction and tool of drug dealers everywhere...

...except that it can't do picture messaging.

The arguments to Apple's "points" about unlocking the iPhone are too obvious to go into here, so I'll let you do so in the comments. I must say, this makes me particularly excited to see what the iTablet is capable of.

Wow. It actually happened. Google announces they're developing an operating system: Chrome OS

The gauntlet? Thrown down. The line in the sand? Drawn. The end? Is near. True to numerous rumors over the last few years, Google announced today that it is developing an operating system, meaning it will join Windows, OS X and Ubuntu in the OS wars. It will be called Google OS Chrome (borrowing the name from Google's browser).

"...The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web," said Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management at Google. Hmmm... think he's talking about Windows?

If Microsoft felt threatened about how much time people were spending in online apps versus their expensive (and bloated) desktop apps, they should be peeing themselves about now.

"We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. ...Most of the user experience takes place on the web. ...Users [w]on't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work."

Think about it: what do you do on a computer?

• Search for things (browser, obviously)
• Email (browser)
• Social networking (browser)
• Listen to music (more and more it's the browser, thanks to sites like Pandora and Last.fm)
• Look at friends' pictures (browser)
• Word processing (possible in the browser via Google Docs and others, although not very popular...yet)
• Spreadsheets (see above)
• Cropping/editing photos (browser - have you checked out Photoshop.com?)
• Chat (available in the browser through Gmail or sites like Meebo.com)

So if we're spending all this time doing things online (for free), why pay Microsoft $500 to upgrade Windows and Office, hmmmmmmmm?

That's exactly the question Google hopes you'll ask yourself.

This also has the potential to (eventually) have an adverse affect on the hardware market. As more and more of what you do involves being online, how much do you care if Intel releases their new Core i7 processor Extreme Edition? Unless you're a gamer or doing processor-intensive work (video editing, AutoCAD which, really, could be done from a server somewhere if we had the bandwidth most of Europe enjoys) a lot of what you do on your desktop can be executed on a server in the middle of North Dakota.

Your computer can just be a browser. Period.

Of course, this is the idea behind netbooks which have proven quite popular (Sprint is even offering a netbook for 99 cents) and is where Google OS Chrome will first launch...just in time to make people wonder if they should pay for Windows 7.

UPDATE: In the words of Michael Arrington: 

Don’t worry about those desktop apps you think you need. Office? Meh. You’ve got Zoho and Google Apps. You won’t miss office. Chrome plus Gears plus Google Wave plus HTML 5 and web platforms like Flash and Silverlight all combine into a single wonderful computing device. The Internet Is Everything. All the OS has to do is boot the damn computer, get me to a browser as fast as possible and then stay the hell out of the way.

Hulu, you're doing it wrong

Dear Alec, Eliza, Seth, Dennis and everyone else at Hulu,

Hulu, you're now the third most popular video site on the Internet and for that I congratulate you. I have to admit that when I heard you were coming I had my doubts - a video site built by the networks? Ha! It would suck, to be certain. I was wrong. I'm sorry.

That being said, I think you haven't quite reached your potential.

Let me begin with the assumption that TV networks want us to watch their shows. They do this so they can sell advertising to put in their shows. The more people that watch, the more the networks can charge businesses to advertise.

So the networks want as many people to watch their shows as possible. Then why, Hulu, are only the last five episodes of current TV shows posted? As was recently the case with Chuck, I wanted everyone to start watching it so it wouldn't be canceled. "It's on Hulu," I'd say. But that wasn't enough.

Very few people are going to jump into a series half way through a season, let alone tune in to watch the season finale of a show they've never seen before. Why watch the most recent five episodes if you don't know what's happened in the previous 15 that lead to that point?

You need to have the entire season posted for, well, the entire season.

Sure, you can watch any episode of the Cosby Show or Night Court and be fine. You know, cheesy TV with a laugh track. Everything else needs background and context. And if it's available, more people will start watching your shows part way through the season and catch up.

Heck, leave them up for the summer when nothing else is on and maybe you'll recruit new fans for the new season in the Fall. Worried about cannibalizing DVD sales? Pull the season from Hulu as soon as the DVDs are out.

So there you have it Hulu. There's nothing to lose by posting entire seasons and quite  bit to gain. So, yeah. Get on that, will you?

P.S. "An evil plot to take over the world. Enjoy." - One of the best taglines I've heard in a while.

Note: I do realize it's probably the networks who are the ones who are holding back, but Hulu's the frontman for everything so I directed my comments at them.

Help save Chuck from being cancelled

Word on the Interwebs is that Chuck may be on the chopping block. From what I read it's finishing fourth in its time slot. Granted, it's only in its second season and is going up against shows like Dancing with the Stars and House but that doesn't mean it isn't a great show. It's one of my favorite shows on right now and, in fact, of all the shows on TV it would be the one I miss the most.

"Blasphemy!" some of you my cry. I know what you're thinking: what about The Office and 30 Rock?

The Office is... I don't know what The Office is anymore. Jumped the shark? I don't know. But what I do know is that I don't care about it like I did a couple of years ago.

30 Rock... Yes, it's well-written and funny. But it ends there. There's more emotion involved with the characters in Chuck (in addition to being laugh-out-loud funny) which is lacking in other shows. (If you haven't seen Chuck yet, think Jim and Pam during season two of The Office - kind of like that.)

Click the image below to get the details on how to best save Chuck:

Missing a golden opportunity

As you may have heard, Apple implemented its tiered pricing structure for music in iTunes: 69 cents for stuff nobody buys, the traditional 99 cents for good stuff and $1.29 for new stuff (that's my assessment of it anyway).

Apple is the worlds largest music retailer. They are the 700 pound gorilla. They are the Microsoft of the music distribution industry. The ones to beat. The king of the hill. (I was going to put additional increasingly ridiculous examples here but I decided against it.)

Amazon and Walmart are the ones competing with Apple in the download music business. And they both just blew a golden opportunity.

With the lack of DRM on all music nowadays (thank goodness) Amazon and Walmart lost their only point of differentiation with iTunes. Now that DRM is gone, why would anyone buy from Walmart's crappy online store when you can get the EXACT same product from Apple and have it automatically work in the beautiful ecosystem they've established?

Then Apple handed them a key differentiator: price.

When Apple was forced to do a tiered price structure Amazon and Walmart had free reign to steal one of the things that made Apple so successful in the first place: any song you want for 99 cents. The simplicity of knowing exactly what you're going to be paying is huge. iTunes used to be the one-stop-shop. Now I can get the songs I actually want cheaper somewhere else - Amazon or Walmart.

But instead of holding onto that point of differentiation and standing on their own, today Amazon and Walmart followed right along and also introduced their own tiered models.

If the tiered model was so great, why didn't they do it before?

Maybe the labels forced them into it like they forced Apple into it, although I find it doubtful since they were making concessions for Amazon and others on DRM.

If the music industry was worried about Apple's dominance and power in the market before they should be losing a lot more sleep about it now.

Thoughts? Did I miss something? Leave word in the comments.

Image courtesy of here.

Branding and social media

Just a quick thought: your efforts in social media should be an extension of your brand. The best brands have emotional connections associated with them. If your efforts in social media are soul-less PR or marketing drivel you will dampen the emotional connection people have with your brand.

Engage people in real converstations and build relationships. Good relationships are emotional and so are great brands.

This time the hippies have gone too far

"People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk."

Apparently the story is a bit old, but according to PETA (known in some circles to stand for the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals), using human milk would, "Lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health."

So getting milk from cows on farms causes them suffering. I'm not a woman but I'm guessing if you asked one what she thought, the idea of rounding up a bunch of lactating women and milking them might be considered a form of suffering. I could be wrong on this.

PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman was quoted as saying, "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best.'" I cannot comment on that statement. At least not with a straight face. Although I think these people would agree with her.

I think Ben & Jerry, despite being hippies themselves, made the right choice in deciding not to switch to human breast milk for their ice cream. Do you agree? Disagree? I can see a huge, passionate debate happening in the comments so...get to it.

Read the full story here.

Verizon backs down - no rate hike coming

 See my original post here. Verizon has decided not to impose the 300% rate hike on text messages sent from short codes. Woo-hoo! According to one article it was because of the strongly worded e-mail I sent to Verizon Wireless's CEO (and other public outcries). Kudos Verizon. Here's hoping it's a permanent decision.

Verizon Wireless triples SMS charges for mobile marketers

In addition to raising their text messaging rates 100% in the last year (along with everyone else in the industry), Verizon Wireless has now taken upon itself to triple the charge it imposes on sites that allow subscribers to receive SMS notifications to 3 cents per text.

For example, you pay $20 per month for unlimited text messaging. So you sign up for CNN to send you a text message any time there is breaking news. Starting in November, Verizon will charge CNN 3 cents for each message they send out, despite the fact that the consumer is already paying for the text message.

This double-dipping on Verizon's part not only comes across as greedy (it costs virtually nothing to send a text message - they were making a profit when they only charged less than a penny per text) but it stifles innovation. Sites like Twitter, Remember The Milk, Celllfire, and others may have to either close up shop or severely limit their functionality if Verizon insists on charging the fee.

I decided to be proactive and sent an e-mail to Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam telling him basically what I said here: it's greedy and it stifles innovation. I haven't heard back from him.

Maybe I should have also mentioned how they're delusional for wanting to be content providers instead of "dumb pipes" for giving people access to information. Verizon, when it comes to creating content it's you verses the Internet. And I think the Internet is going to win.

For more reading on the text messaging rate hike, hit up this link.

Logo courtesy of here.

Microsoft's second ad is out, and it's better

 The second ad in the Seinfeld/Gates/Windows campaign launched last night and hit the intertubes shortly after. I must say I like this one better. It's funnier and ties in better (although still loosely) to the actual product they're promoting. Check the ads out here.

Note: It looks like Microsoft is using Flash to run the ads instead of Silverlight, despite the "Get Silverlight" link next to the video. See below.

Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld aren't gay

Boy oh boy. People sure are reading a lot into Microsoft's new ad. I've heard everything from the phallic nature of the churro and the implication of two men shoe shopping with leather references to outcast minorities.

It's not a typical commercial. It's 90 seconds and doesn't mention the product until the last four seconds. The rest of it is filled with...nothing. And that's the point. Kind of.

What was Seinfeld all about? It was a show about nothing. Bill Gates is shopping at the "Quality shoes at discount prices store" not as some allegory to say that a Windows machine is less expensive than the Mac, but because it's funny that the richest man in the world is shopping for shoes at a discount store in the mall.

It's also funny that Jerry, also very wealthy, knows exactly which kind of shoes are available and their different qualities.

When Jerry is sizing Bill's feet and asks if what he's feeling is Bill's toe, Bill responds. "No. It's pleather." It's a joke. Get it? It actually sounds like something my sister in-law would say. Bonus: Bill isn't even buying real leather shoes.

I don't think the Hispanic folks who are looking in the store window are a symbol of the outcast people in third world countries who don't even recognize these famous, rich people shopping inside. I think it was a random clip to stick in to break up the shots in the shoe store.

I don't think Bill holding up his platinum membership card to the shoe store to earn "big top points" is symbolic of how Microsoft rewards its customers. I think it was a chance to work a joke in, as well as a more subtle bonus joke: the picture on the card is Gates' mug shot when he was arrested for speeding in New Mexico.

I understand, to a certain extent, why people are digging so deep to find meaning in the commercial because it doesn't talk about Windows at all. But the homo-erotic and/or Microsoft/discount shoe store symbolism people are trying to establish is simply ridiculous.

By itself, the ad doesn't work, no matter how deep you look at it. The additional spots in the campaign will shed some light on the direction they're taking and will tie it all together. In the meantime, take it for what it is: a quirky, somewhat entertaining spot.

Moleskine mania

 

Oh, the drama. First, I freak out because I can't get the specific notebook I want. Then my friend/distant relative Erin brings one up from Provo for me. Then I get the one I ordered online (and was too impatient to wait for) so I have two. THEN the one Erin brought up began falling apart, the cover ever so sadly separating from the spine, so I wrote Moleskine and ask/beg for a new one.

Being in Italy (Milan, darling) our correspondence was a bit delayed and with the language barrier a little choppy. However, they very kindly said that, since they're handmade, sometimes these things happen and they'd be happy to send me a replacement if I'd provide my address, which I did.

Long story short, they ended up sending me two replacement notebooks, one with the cover written in Italian and one written in German, in addition to the original one I'd ordered online. While all this was happening, I found some good glue and was able to (mostly) reattach the cover of the original notebook which I'm still using.

I wrote Moleskine, told them they sent me an extra and offered to ship it back to them. They wrote back and told me not to worry about it. 

So now I have four total (three unused) softcover, ruled, pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks when just two months ago there was only one to be found in the entire state of Utah. Crazy how things turn out, huh?

Bill Gates on Windows XP usability

Bill rants as he struggles to download Moviemaker. Here's the opening paragraph:

"I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues."

It only gets better. Click here for the full, internal e-mail which was published by SeattlePI.com.

I must say that reading the e-mail makes me like Bill more. It's nice to know he actually understands (and experiences) things can are frustrating for end users and isn't living on some other planet.

Image courtesy of here.

*cough* BS *cough*

Via CNN.

Will the iPhone soon be on T-Mobile and Verizon?

Something fishy is afoot. One thing I neglected to mention in my overview of the 3G iPhone is that the notorious revenue-sharing deal between AT&T and Apple is no more. (Up to this point, it was speculated that AT&T was giving Apple a monthly payment for each iPhone subscriber.)

So...why is AT&T still the exclusive provider of the iPhone? What's Apple's incentive to stay with them? Seems like a raw deal for Apple because they're still severely limited as to their potential market.

Don Reisinger over at CNET speculates the relationship between the two companies may be over in the relatively near future. He has some good points, so check out the article.

My speculation is that the (rumored) five-year contract isn't quite that long. In fact, I wonder if maybe the contract wasn't based on length of time, but quantity of phones sold. A wacky idea, I know. But it may explain a couple of things:

1. AT&T would be reassured in the beginning that they'd have a guaranteed number of new subscribers from this unprecedented arrangement.

2. AT&T says it will only gives kick-backs for the first year. Apple doesn't hit the 10 million mark in that time frame, so they lower the price and make it more difficult to unlock the phone so they can hit the target number and get out.

For what it's worth, I think T-Mobile may get the iPhone before Verizon (despite the larger Verizon customer base) simply because the hardware is ready to go. CDMA phones suck a lot more juice than their GSM counterparts, something Apple will have to address, especially if a CDMA phone is going to be using 3G and GPS.

Absurd? Possible? Likely? "You're a freak and should write about something else"? Sound off in the comments.

I spoke. And Twitter listened.

Yep. That's the kind of power I wield on these interwebs. Just earlier this week I said, "Twitter, you gotta at the very least stop leaving people in the dark." So what did they do? They opened a Twitter account.

Yes, you can now follow Twitter on Twitter.

www.Twitter.com/Twitter

This is brilliant because now they can let all their users know when something is wrong simply by using their own service!

Wait...

Non-news news of the day: Twitter is down

"Something is technically wrong" is the understatement of the year. It's ridiculous. As Michael Arrington said, if Twitter could keep the site live for 24 consecutive hours that would be news.

It's interesting. I'm reading Getting Real, the e-book from 37Signals (the guys who made Ruby on Rails on which Twitter is built). In it they're quite adamant about launching your product/site quickly and with minimal features - worry about scalability later. The whole time I've been reading it I've had the thought, "Oh yeah? What about Twitter?" rolling around in the back of my head.

I'm the first to admit I know zero about building web apps (I consider myself a consumer geek, not a back-end geek). But I do know that from a user standpoint, if your product crashes this frequently with no explanation as to why or when it will be back up, something's gotta change.

I don't know if the problem lies with Rails' inability to scale or Twitter's. But Twitter needs to figure it out and it certainly seems like they've had enough time to do so.

Apple sued: lied about displays in iMacs

Apple told consumers that both the 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs displayed "millions of colors at all resolutions."

Apparently that's not the case.

"While Apple describes the display of both the 24-inch and 20-inch iMacs as though they were interchangeable, the monitors in each are of radically different technology. The 20-inch iMacs feature 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screens, the least expensive of its type," according to the lawsuit.

What?? Apple produces overpriced hardware amidst hype of it being the greatest thing to ever be produced since the Ten Commandments? I find that hard to believe. But not really.

Full story here.

T-Mobile sues Engadget for using magenta in their logo

Seriously. No joke. See here. Apparently the higher-ups at Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile USA's parent company in Germany) don't want Engadget to use "their" color of magenta because such usage "could lead to confusion in the marketplace."

I'm not sure how many people are confusing Engadget Mobile with T-Mobile. Are people trying to sign up for cell service with T-Mobile through Engadget Mobile? If you are, you're stupid. Almost as stupid as the people who think people are that stupid. Like the higher ups at Deutsche Telekom.

Meanwhile, Engadget Mobile has taken a page out of my father in-law's book by taking it a step further. They changed their logo today to this:

Others have taken up the cause of thumbing their noses at Das Man by trying to get as many people as possible to use the color magenta that has DT's panties in a wad. Here's my contribution to the cause:

Thanks to Veronica for the tip.