Jeff Nolan's Comments

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Stacey's Bookstore Closing, Hand Wringing to Commence

Thu, 8 Jan 2009 19:04:36 +0000

Today I wouldn't bet against Amazon when it comes to obscure books. There is no way that a local bookstore can match the inventory of what's available in print on Amazon and when it comes to technical publications, much of that content is now available online. http://www.amazon.com/How-Shit-Woods-Environmenta...

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Cobra's New Radar Detector Makes Adding Speed Trap Updates Easy

Thu, 8 Jan 2009 16:52:50 +0000

I've seen that product. It needs wifi and you still need your laptop or desktop because the manager software doesn't reside on the camera. As a mac users it's easier to me to plug my USB cable in and have the camera look like another drive on my system. With wimax it could be better but the lack of onboard software still requires you to be virtually tethered to a computer. I'd like to see something like on board EVDO with a cheap data plan that would connect my camera from anywhere anytime.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Why the TechCrunch Economy Will Faulter

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 18:15:48 +0000

"financial and legal reasons" is pretty broad... that's a close cousin to "pursue other opportunities". Occam's Razor would suggest that a plausible reason for their demise is that the advertising business was predicated on the iphone app service, which media companies will never use because of the issues around ad insertion and then the lack of branding and customization options, and their business model quickly fell apart which prevented them from raising capital. It was a mistake to call their self-service iphone app tool a development tool when it was a generic iphone RSS app that could be hard wired to a feed(s) and "logo-ized". Also, it's worth pointing out that between Medialets, Pinch, and Admob, there are some compelling iphone ad networks that make it tough for a new competitor like apploop to get any traction where it counts, with advertisers.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Why the TechCrunch Economy Will Faulter

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 07:45:33 +0000

I think my comment above suffers from a poor choice of words rather than an intent to attack you. Also I was not constrasting paidcontent to your site, even though this is not evident or explicitly stated in what I wrote.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Why the TechCrunch Economy Will Faulter

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 07:25:06 +0000

okay Mike, there's nothing to gain by getting into a pissing match with you and for the record I just checked and this post has no more or less traffic than anything else I have written. The most clicked on post today is, thanks to Google: http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2008/12/31/2009-predictio... I'm sorry you feel like I am attacking you, I went out of my way to write, in my typical longwinded fashion, that I wasn't pointing at you. You seem to be taking exception to the fact your brand has become like kleenex, representative of a category.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Why the TechCrunch Economy Will Faulter

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 06:49:48 +0000

Mike, believe it or not, this post is not about you, it's about a larger issue of the blogosphere not achieving full potential because of the discovery aspect, or more precisely, the lack of discovery of good and relevant content. TechCrunch has the largest presence in this space and for better or worse it was your post on apploop that got me thinking about this in the first place. I've spent a year working on the problem of related content and collaborative filtering with active and passive signaling. It's damn hard but it's a problem worth solving and Sphere/Inform/Zemanta/Daylife are not quite there yet.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Why the TechCrunch Economy Will Faulter

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 00:15:59 +0000

I think Paidcontent.org does a great job at delivering on this promise, and while they are a large influential site, they are a proof point that you don't have to deliver on the lowest common denominator to get traffic. Among blogs written by single authors, Andrew Chen's blog immediately comes to mind as one that over achieves on the promise of methodical fact-based analysis. http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/12/29/freemium-bus...

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Israel's Location Based Warning Service

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 16:14:38 +0000

you still provided them with the information in the first place... and I bet that your registration papers included some documentation about the service.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Israel's Location Based Warning Service

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 05:19:31 +0000

Yes, that was my error.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Israel's Location Based Warning Service

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 01:39:23 +0000

all of the examples provided in the responses are valid but I would point to a distinction about the opt-in nature of them. In all of these cases you are signing up for the system but with the Israeli system they have built it independently of any "consumer" participation.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Blu-ray Format Struggles

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 00:31:41 +0000

For the december period, electronics sales plummeted 27% led by declines in flat screen tvs. In a recessionary economy there is no way home theatre sales will defy gravity and increase. I agree that conceptually one should pull the other but there are plenty of 400+ hp sports cars available at reasonable prices but there isn't a corresponding rise in amateur racing or even speeding tickets. Blu-ray is fantastic but how many people are buying them as a substitute DVD player because they are under $200 and playing old format DVDs in them? Netflix has about 500k subscribers on their blu-ray plan and that's good but it still won't drive the market.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : California is Insolvent, Fiscally and Otherwise

Sat, 3 Jan 2009 06:43:21 +0000

Good point. I don't know what the debt service amount it but CA has over $110b of authorized debt and around $54b outstanding.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : California is Insolvent, Fiscally and Otherwise

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 21:05:20 +0000

238k employees, $1.6b monthly payroll. This leads to further head scratching given your question considering the state budget is $147 billion and payroll is $20 billion. It's a mystery to me as well but I think the pols in Sacramento prefer it that way.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Chrysler Blog, Probably Not a Good Time for "Conversation"

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 15:59:02 +0000

I think this isn't about blogs but rather about a company that has become so reviled that having a blog only accentuates the negative. It would be like Philip Morris or Exxon having a corporate blog (both don't btw, I checked). Of the companies you mention, HP has an extensive blogging initiative, probably on the scale of what Microsoft and IBM do, and Toyota has a blog very much like GM's Fastlane called Open Road. Apple, not surprisingly, does not have a blog. All of this only proves that blogs are not intrinsically linked to success or failure, but blogging initiatives alone can not rescue a failing brand and in the case of Chrysler their blog is reinforcing negatives about the company.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : 2009 Predictions

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:11:18 +0000

Those are some good predictions. Identity in particular is beyond the point of being fragile so I agree with you on that one, as well on microformats and search share stalling, in particular. I'm not so sure we get beyond the mismatch of performance as the benchmark in display advertising. If anything it appears that this is a deficient metric for metrics like brand uplift. The online ad business may well restructure next year because it doesn't have a choice but I'm still not very optimistic about the prospects.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : 2009 Predictions

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:57:13 +0000

Hi Nara, The issue for Exchange users is cost, not functionality and one thing we have learned about Microsoft is that when challenged they rarely lose a segment because of cost. Right now the BPOS is chaotic but that is a tremendous opportunity to confront the cost issue and go head to head with hosted office suite services. Time will tell but the basis for my statement on Google has as much to do with what the pragmatic approach they are signaling as it does with any product issues. In the end I think Google will determine that they have other business segments where growth is more readily achieved.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : The Danger of Picking Your Flavor of Law Enforcement

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:01:19 +0000

Mark, Immigration enforcement is a whole bailiwick of issues and concerns. Proponents make a valid issue about disobedience of unjust laws but it's hard to equate illegal immigration as a fundamental right that impinged upon by the government.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : The Netbook Craze

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:59:31 +0000

I agree with Chris, don't underestimate the appeal of the price point. I would speculate that most of the people that are reading this blog and also have a netbook are not using the netbook as their primary computer but rather a satellite that is use case specific (e.g. travel). Amazon is a mass market retailer, the fact that cheap netbooks dominate the top 20 list is not being driven by geeks.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:30:12 +0000

that's splitting the hair pretty finely... FASB is indeed a private sector organization but one that operates in close cooperation with the SEC. In sworn testimony the SEC acknowledged that they alone have the authority to set accounting rules but that the function was being performed by FASB. http://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/051402tsrkh.htm

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Ubikwiti - DIY Business Processes

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 02:07:30 +0000

Tim, with all due respect I don't think I'd be using "SAP" as an example for good corporate branding. :)