Loving Widgets

I recently got a new laptop with Vista and discovered widgets or gadgets as they are called in Vista.

I have four gadgets in my Windows sidebar that I can't live without now: the clock, a sticky notes, a RSS feed box and a personal pictures slideshow.

Excited after some weeks of using the gadgets I tried adding a few to my blog (and promptly removed some of them). Yahoo!, I found, has a widgets channel, which is great except that when you try to download one widget you get a whole Yahoo! widget taskbar on your desktop. The Yahoo! taskbar itself is annoying since I didn't want it (I am looking to get just one widget!). It was difficult to move around on the desktop and I ended up uninstalling it along with widgets I had downloaded from the channel.

Anyway, I found on the Yahoo! Widgets channel that most widgets are variations of the four kinds that I already have on my desktop.

Meanwhile, Engagdet has Niall Kennedy write a column called Enwidget. So far it has a grand total of two posts.

Is the widget fad over?

More Mainstream Media Bashing

Roger Ehrenberg, who has an excellent blog that I read regularly, has a post today about what he sees as the reasons for the "decay of mainstream media."

I left this longish comment in Roger's blog responding to some of the reasons that Roger has listed about "why mainstream media (MSM) sucks."

Roger>>>A giant portion of what's created is not original, either the ideas or the commentary around them.

I think it is unfair to say that a large portion of what MSM creates is not original. I would say percentage of original content in MSM is much larger than blogs. Most of the blogs I read are either linking to MSM content and adding some context/analysis. MSM drives original reporting and I seriously doubt the blogosphere would be so riled up or have much to comment about if the MSM didn’t do the original reporting in the first place. What blogs do very well is add perspective/analysis but lets not forget that very few bloggers are on the phone everyday or talking to other people with the intention of finding new information.

>>>>It is hard to separate the good from the garbage, as such a high percentage of MSM content is, in fact, garbage.

The same can be said of any content. A lot of blogs are garbage but there are a few very good ones out there. A lot of software programs are garbage but there are a few very good ones out there. A lot of movies are crap but a few good ones keep up the joy of watching movies. I am not sure if MSM is any different.

>>>>The medium is not designed to have a conversation, an exchange of ideas that is dynamic and has life and can help readers achieve greater understanding.

I think MSM, at least online MSM is changing there and introducing comments/communities etc. Tech sites like CNET have very vibrant communities, the big MSM papers from the NYT to the Post offers a place for comments. Sure, the pace of change has been slower than it should be and it could be more interactive but I don’t think MSM has completely closed itself out.

>>>>It is not by the people, for the people. It is by a small group of individuals for a small group of individuals. And that is ok - but then don't call yourself "mainstream" and purport to be serving a higher purpose. Mainstream is now the blogosphere.

That seems quite contradictory to what we are seeing and hearing about the blogosphere. The blogosphere works best because it targets niche interests very well. MSM works well to serve the largest common denominator—maybe that’s why it is called “mainstream.”

The reason MSM is under so much pressure has more to do with the delivery models than with the media itself. The online arms of most MSM organizations (even those under pressure) are flourishing, while the print business is fighting to hold its own. I see this not as a problem with the content itself but more as an issue of how the reader’s consumption habits are changing. Software companies face a similar distribution challenge. Packaged retail software is giving up to online subscription services. Does this mean the software itself is bad or not working for the customers? Not really. It is just that they want access to the product in a different, simpler way.

I think mainstream media bashing could be fun but serves no other purpose. What could work better is a discussion on what the blogosphere does better and what MSM does better and how the two can learn and work with each other. I don’t think this is an either-or situation. There’s no clear lines drawn between the two. MSM and the blogosphere feed off each other and this debate about which one is superior is best retired.

Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

Los Angeles Times' bureau chief, Megan Stack, has written this amazing piece about her experience as a woman living and working in Saudia Arabia, a country where the sexes are completely segregated.

The first-person story is so powerfully written that I could feel her every emotion as I read the story--the rage, helplessness, frustration, and bewilderment.

The part that resonated with me the most was this:

The same U.S. government that heightened public outrage against the Taliban by decrying the mistreatment of Afghan women prizes the oil-slicked Saudi friendship and even offers wan praise for Saudi elections in which women are banned from voting. All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines. U.S.-owned hotels don't let women check in without a letter from a company vouching for her ability to pay; women checking into hotels alone have long been regarded as prostitutes.

I understand that corporations don't want to get involved with the cultural nuances of every country. But making women stand in separate lines is outrageous.

Don't American businesses have some responsibility to not be a part of something if it doesn't feel right to them? Or can everything be just explained away by saying: It's nothing personal, it's just business.

In the quest for profits, where do you then draw the line?

Palm Defends Its Deal

Palm sold 25% of its stake to Elevation Partners on Monday and did a cash distribution of $8.50-a share.

The deal itself was a little unusual because it had a private equity firm buying just a quarter of the company, while Palm paid out a huge sum (a total of $940 million) to its shareholders.

I spoke with Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, and Roger McNamee, one of the founders of Elevation Partners yesterday. After my discussion with them, I thought the deal was a great move on part of Palm.

Here's my story from TheStreet.com explaining why:

Palm may have just bought its freedom.

The smartphone company, in selling a 25% stake to private-equity firm Elevation Partners on Monday, got the one thing that its core management has fought hard for over the years: the ability to be an independent player and control its destiny.

The $325 million deal will also buy Palm the two executives it hopes can help revitalize its business -- Jon Rubinstein, former senior VP of hardware engineering and head of the iPod division at Apple , and Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO.
...

Now, with happy shareholders, potential predatory moves thwarted and some of the sharpest minds in Silicon Valley on board, Palm believes things can only get better.

Read more here.

A Different Way to Play the Wii

Nintendo has created a huge hit in the Wii. Clearly, the company's investors are very happy with its performance. But there are other ways to play the video game cycle. Chip makers like Analog Devices, Qimonda or Broadcom, whose components power the Wii, are some other interesting bets to make for those who would want to capitalize on the Wii's success.

From my article in TheStreet.com:

Chip Stocks Win With Wii

Inside the box were names such as Analog Devices and ST Microelectronics, both of which supply the sensors in the console's remote that enable and interactive feeling when playing the game; Broadcom, whose Wi-Fi chips connect the Wii remote (wirelessly) to the screen; and memory chipmaker Qimonda.
...
The Wii could eventually account for 40% to 45% of all hardware sales for this generation, Nintendo executives have said. That could translate into 40 million to 50 million units sold throughout the life of this console cycle, says Roger Ehrenberg, president of financial intelligence firm Monitor 110. Ehrenberg, who follows the games sector closely, does not own stocks in any of the gaming or chip companies mentioned in the story.

"As sales of the Wii kick in, I am sure these other companies will benefit either in terms of a near-term bump in EPS and/or an intermediate-term increase in market cap," says Ehrenberg.

Pirates of the Caribbean III Rocks

We saw the movie on Saturday night and loved it. At nearly three hours long, I feared the movie would get boring in parts but they managed to pull it off.

I love the Pirates series and I couldn't wait to see how it was all going to end. When the reviews came in mixed, I was disappointed. But I thought the movie rocked. It was well paced, and tied up all the loose ends well, at least when it came to the key characters.

I am going to miss Captain Jack Sparrow!

On another note, what's up with Metreon in San Francisco? They weren't showing either Pirates of the Carribean III or Shrek 3 on any of their screens on Saturday!!!!!

And I thought it was one of the best theaters in the city.

Well.. at least we got a chance to hang out at the really cool Sony store.

A new laptop!

I bought a new HP dv2000 series laptop this weekend! It came with Windows Vista, an OS I was apprehensive about when I bought the laptop. Much has been written about how buggy Vista is and how many users have been asking for XP on their computers instead of Vista.

So far, Vista is doing well for me. The user interface is very slick and I love the gadgets feature. I also have Office 2007 on my computer.

My only complaint with the new laptop experience is that it comes with so much bloatware! Removing all that and getting the programs I want (including Firefox etc) took nearly two hours. Thanks to R. who did all that

I am so excited about my new laptop!

The Sharesleuth.com Experiment isn't Working

Sharesleuth.com, Mark Cuban's investigative journalism website, had its first update after three months on Wednesday.

The site started about a year ago to offer "independent Web-based reporting aimed at exposing securities fraud and corporate chicanery." I was pretty intrigued then and have been a regular visitor to the site--well as regular as a site that updates once in three months can have.

The most interesting thing about Sharesleuth.com was its editor and sole reporter, Chris Carey, positioned it as a new-media investigation journalism venture, while suggesting that the site's patron, Cuban, would be shorting stocks to benefit from the stories on the site.

That seemed like an outrageous conflict of interest to me. But over the year, Sharesleuth.com did just three stories and at least two were a huge yawn. The articles were dry, and rather dull.

Now Gary Weiss has a post pointing out that Cuban's short efforts based on Sharesleuth.com stories aren't working out either.

I think the Sharesleuth.com experiment is dead and its time to acknowledge that.

I would love to hear Chris Carey's perspective on what he thinks of the venture and how it has worked out so far compared to his expectations.