City Living

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a friend and I met up downtown to get some dinner and see a movie. We were blanking on food ideas, so he whipped out his phone and started browsing a list of restaurants. It wasn't just any list - his phone knew his location, and gave him a list of his friends' favorite nearby restaurants. Browsing through them was easier than browsing through songs on my iPod! We settled on Union Restaurant, and he clicked once or twice to "call ahead" for two.

Dinner was great. As we were finishing up, he whipped out his phone again and got a list of movies playing near the restaurant. We settled on Serenity and he clicked a couple more times to buy two tickets. Before we left the restaurant, he gave the restaurant an 8 out of 10 star rating, and got some driving directions to the movie theater. As we pulled into the parking garage, the navigation system on his phone directed him right into an open spot someone had just pulled out of on the first floor. How perfect!

Serenity rocked my socks, and after the movie, we decided to head down to Belltown and grab a drink. It was good time, but unfortunately he had a meeting early the next morning and decided to take off pretty quickly, leaving me all alone.

It was still early, so I decided I'd stay out a bit longer. I pulled out my phone, and started browsing through profiles and checking out the pictures of other people in the bar, the bar next door, and a few other bars down the street. Profile surfing was as quick and easy as channel surfing on my tv (pre-digital cable lag if you know what I mean).

I came across a few cool people at the bar, and we texted, then decided we'd meet at the bar for a shot. What can I say, I'm a lush! All of a sudden, I got a text from a coworker at the W hotel bar. He must've found me while browsing his friends, or friends-of-friends, or list of people who work at Microsoft - on HIS phone!

I texted him back, then ended up stopping by the W for a bit. But before I headed over, my new drinking buddies and I bookmarked each other and promised to do it again sometime. I set my phone to vibrate if they ever happen to be within a few block radius.

So yeah, by the time I got out of the W I was stumbling around like a silly fool and in no shape to drive. So once again.. I whipped out my phone.. and clicked once to order a cab to my location. After a few minutes of fiddling with the keys, I staggered into my apartment, clapped twice to hit the lights (c'mon, phones can't do EVERYTHING!), and hit the sack.

How Fast Can You Type?

How fast can YOU type?

Restless.

I'm getting restless.

I love working at Microsoft, and I'm lucky to have fallen in with an excellent group, but it's a far cry from some of the cool stuff I was working on at the University of Michigan.

I'm passionate about search, social networking, presence and chat, recommender and reputation systems, and most of all location aware software. I love building software that incorporates these concepts, pushes the limits of technology, and will be used and loved by millions of consumers.

Unfortunately, this isn't what I'm doing at Microsoft, despite everything else about my job being great.

So, I've decided it's time to start coding for hobby again. I have some kickass ideas, and it's time to bring them to life.

The plan is to put down the books, lay off the TV and Netflix, and start building something great. I'll still be giving Microsoft 100%, but I'm still young (well, somewhat young), and can afford to resist becoming complacent just yet.

More info to come...

359.33.9.234

In CSI Miami land IP addresses can start with '359':



Doh!

Hey CBS! Need a technical advisor?! I'll do it for free!!

The Long Tail

The saying goes "you learn something new every day." For me, today was the day of The Long Tail. The term came up recently in a presentation I saw on the future of television. It was glossed over -- thrown into the middle of a sentence. So, truth be told, I didn't really grasp the point that was being made at the time. It would've been like hearing someone talk about something "tipping" without having read The Tipping Point.

Then today, I came across a post on Dare's blog about Web 2.0 companies, which referred to "leveraging the long tail through customer self-service". I quickly MSN Searched (ok, not really) for the term, and came across this Wikipedia entry (whenever Wikipedia's in the top ten, I tend to assume it's a great place to start reading).

Wow. What a cool concept. No, like so many great ideas, it isn't revolutionary. But it's a great formalization of something we might already inherently know, and a great guiding principle.

So, I went on to read the great Wired article that started it all: The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, Editor In Chief of Wired Magazine. Wow! Wow! Wow! Chris has a blog too, which I've now subscribed to.

Chris's book on The Long Tail is due to come out in 2006. I'm looking forward to reading it. To a few of you, The Long Tail concept is old news. To the rest of you, I strongly suggest reading up on it. No doubt this'll be one of the next big (and eventually annoying and played-out) buzzwords of 2006. ;-)

Cheers!

Jeff's lab

Oh man. My buddy Jeff is video blogging a series he's calling Jeff's lab.

Jeff, you rock. But what the heck are you gonna use that board for??

"Screw The Nano"

"Screw the nano," said Zander. "What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs? People are going to want devices that do more than just play music, something that can be seen in many other countries with more advanced mobile phone networks and savvy users," he said.

... says the CEO of Motorola.

I love CEOs that just don't get it. It's not about listening to 1,000 songs. It's about having 1,000 songs to choose from. And judging by the number of high capacity iPods that have sold, plenty of people want more than 100 songs in their pockets. Not to mention the ROKR's lack of sex appeal.

The carriers that carry his phones are his #1 customer, and the users that use them are his #2 customer. In one sentence he manages to diss his #1 customers' for having less advanced networks than their European counterparts, and his #2 customers for being less savvy than their European counterparts -- all the while, completely missing the ball.

It doesn't matter whether or not people want devices that do more than just play music. It matters whether the ROKR is that device. We'll see how ROKR sales measure up to Nano sales (or even Windows Mobile sales!), and let the numbers do the talking.

Creating Passionate Users

Who can argue with a post called "Subvert from Within"? ;-)

Love it.

Kevin Speaks

Kevin Schofield, whom I respect greatly, has some thoughts on the recent Business Week articles.

Kevin writes:

Enough already.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Microsoft

Right on, Kevin. I'm glad you took the time to blog your thoughts.

Tuesday fun

I'd have to say it was a good day.

Woke up around 8am and decided not to go into the office. Too much work to do. Office is too distracting. Was 300% as productive working on my couch for a few hours.

Went into the office around 1pm for 2 meetings. Both very productive. Lost about an hour afterwards chatting with people in the hallway. Went to the bank. Drove through Taco Time. Came home.

Did about another 1.5 hours of work at 300% productivity level. Went to the gym. Went to Del Rey with my housemate for some food and drinks. Met up with coworker at Del Rey, then stopped by Viceroy for another round of drinks.

Was playing with my phone at Viceroy, when a cool chick was like "I have that phone too, but when I go out I put my sim card in my Razor instead". I don't blame her. Met her and her friends who also work for Microsoft (Windows & Windows Media Marketing & Bizdev). Fun kids.

Apparently we had a re-org today. I didn't go to the impromptu company meeting or watch the webcast yet. Honestly, it's just another distraction from the real work. I hope this is a step in the right direction for these people getting their shit together, but in the meantime I've got real work to do and since we're talking about my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss, it doesn't directly affect me much.

A friend who works for MSN Mobile convinced me to try Dodgeball. It rocks. Why is my friend in MSN Mobile convincing me to try Google products?

All in all, I'd have to say it was a good day.

Place Shift For Free*

Earlier today I wrote about the Slingbox for place shifting TV.

A few minutes ago I came across WebGuide 3, a free place shifting app for Media Center.

No, it won't let you place shift live TV, but it will let you place shift all of your recordings. It's software, so it's easily upgradeable. Who knows what other cool features are on the way. It's also web-based, so it's available across multiple platforms.

So why the '*'? Media Center is expensive (I don't have one yet either) - much more than the $250 Slingbox appliance. But, in the long run hardware prices will fall, Media Center will become affordable for the average consumer, and its capabilities as a platform will beat out the competition. We've seen this with Windows powered desktops, laptops, and servers. We're starting to see this with Windows powered phones. Next will be Windows powered TV, and following that will likely be Windows powered automotive systems (like car nav-systems on steroids).

Drinking the kool-aid? I think so!

The Slingbox looks neat.

Check out Sling Media. Their Slingbox product looks pretty sweet!

I totally buy into "place shifting". Tivo pioneered "time shifting" by allowing you to watch TV when you want. Sling allows you to watch TV where you want.

There are 2 things stopping me from buying one of these today:

1. No support for HDTV

2. No support for multiple tuners (I don't think my housemate would be very happy when I remotely change the channel through an IR blaster)

Ideally though, I'd also like to see:

- Place shifting integrated into existing devices (cable boxes, Tivo, Media Center) as a feature rather than requiring its own additional hardware

- Wireless support (I'm lucky that my wireless AP is near my cable box, but most people probably aren't in this situation)

- As little 3rd party software as possible (Content available via a web server, etc - also leads to platform independence)

- An API

Also check out this interview with Sling's CEO.

And while we're on the topic of TV technologies - why is there still no decent recommender system in place for TV? Why hasn't anyone tied TV into social networking apps? I want to see what my friends, family, and people with generally similar interests are watching. Every interview/demo I've seen of the future of TV talks about these features as being in the pipeline, but isn't it possible now? Why is TV still completely isolated from the Internet -- not just in terms of distribution (IPTV) -- I'm talking about the metadata. There is no technical barrier standing in the way of enabling these scenarios today.

Windows Presentation Foundation demo

Here's a preview of the type of applications you're about to experience thanks to the new Windows Presentation Foundation (Avalon). [To watch it, click the little square icon just under the video]

It's a very neat demo - you don't need to be a developer to enjoy it. Minute 3 is where the action starts.

I had a chance to play with Avalon C# and XAML capabilities during my last 4 months of school. It was super-cool stuff. Can't wait to see more apps taking advantage of it.

Business Week on Microsoft

Business Week did a whole series of articles (including a cover story) on Microsoft. Mini, subject of much attention, has got something posted on it here.

I'm a bit conflicted about Mini's blog. He makes some great points.. and I think his intentions are in the right place... but in the end is it really good for the company? He claims to care so much about the stock price.. but is the Business Week coverage he's generating going to positively affect the stock price? Will it help or hurt Microsoft's recruiting efforts? Its public image? The morale of its less-jaded employees?

Airing your dirty laundry in public certainly has consequences... I guess Mini's betting on his public criticism achieving positive change that could not be achieved through internal feedback mechanisms. But in the meantime, he's doing quite a bit of damage. It's high risk, and so far, I see little evidence that it's working.

My Hero

From an interview with Blake Ross:

10. What are some lessons learned from developing Firefox that you can share with my readers who are working on their own projects?

The things you never think about are the ones driving users nuts. For example, a developer making an e-mail client might spend 6 hours designing the compose window, and 5 minutes hooking up the "Attach" button to the Windows Browse dialog. But it's that Browse dialog that'll give people gray hair over time.

The fact that the dialog is a standard part of the OS is no excuse. In fact, software is often weakest where its developer settled for something prepackaged. Consistency is important, of course, and should always be a factor. But it's your responsibility to make the best software you can, and if you're delegating to the OS without question, your competitors already have a leg up on you. In Firefox, we threw out the Find mechanism applications have used for decades because, frankly, it sucked.

This is the coolest, most insightful comment I've read in a long time. I love it.

It especially strikes a chord with me because where I work, we're seldomly allowed to re-invent dialogs that are standard parts of the OS. On a macro level, I understand why. It makes more sense for us to push off those requirements to the people responsible for the sucky OS dialog in the first place. But on a practical level, such requests get deprioritized very quickly -- people want to build new features, not improve sucky dialogs.

This is why we need Firefox -- and competition in general. Challenge the status quo baby!