Daniel Lyons's Blog, page 18

Amazon buying Palm?

That's the rumor of the day, from VentureBeat. Poor Ruby. He'll need to get all new business cards — again.

Check out what Apple's #8 employee has to say about Kindle Fire

Chris Espinosa is impressed by the Silk browser which will "capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users."

Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they're being offered there. What's more, Amazon is getting this not by expensive, proactive scraping the Web, like Google has to do; they're getting it passively by offering a simple caching service, and letting Fire users do the hard work of crawling the Web. In essence the Fire user base is Amazon's Mechanical Turk, scraping the Web for free and providing Amazon with the most valuable cache of user behavior in existence.

The main target of all this? No, not Apple:

Fire isn't a noun, it's a verb, and it's what Amazon has done in the targeted direction of Google. This is the first shot in the new war for replacing the Internet with a privatized merchant data-aggregation network.

Kindle Fire, and the tricky business of chasing scoops

It's tough work, trying to predict the future. Especially when it comes to technology products.

As I tried to point out yesterday in the post about all the nutty reports about the features that the new iPhone 5 might or might not have, it's really pretty much impossible to guess in advance what some new product will look like.

Nevertheless people keep trying, because let's face it, stuff like this drives page views, and page views are what modern journalism is all about. The problem is, these "scoops" are often wildly wrong. Yet people keep writing them, and readers keep reading them and linking to them and citing them as if they were actual news.

Why is that? I think it's because most people are not dickish enough to go back, after the real product is announced, and compare the actual news to the rumors that were spread around before from people who just knew, based on some source(s), exactly what some company was going to announce.

In that spirit, let's go back to Sept. 2 and take a look at the huge scoop that TechCrunch reported after one of its writers didn't just hear some rumors about the forthcoming Amazon tablet but actually held it in his feverish hands and used it! Its title: "Amazon's Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I've Seen It, Played With It."

The story was tweeted 4,860 times, drew 212 comments and was linked to by Robert Scoble on his Google+ stream where dozens of people debated whether the product would be a success based on the specs that TechCrunch had reported.

Problem is, much of what TechCrunch reported was wrong. Including the name of the product and its price.

Here are some of the claims from that Sept. 2 article about the new Amazon device:

* "It's called simply the `Amazon Kindle.'"

* "So how much will the 7-inch Kindle cost? $250."

* "I believe it is running on a single-core chip (though I'm not 100 percent sure)."

* "I also believe the device only has 6 GB of internal storage."

* "The plan right now is to give buyers a free subscription to Amazon Prime."

* The browser "looks pretty much the same as the Android's WebKit browser."

* "I believe the visual web reading app Pulse will be bundled with the Kindle."

* "As far as the existing e-ink-based Kindles, all I've heard is that they'll continue to co-exist with this new tablet."

* "One source said it doesn't seem likely that Amazon is going to release a touch-screen e-ink Kindle. … But none of that is confirmed, it's simply speculation."

What TechCrunch got right: Seven-inch screen, running Android. And this is a mere three weeks before the actual event, from a reporter who actually used the device.

The point is not to gloat over the fact that TechCrunch made mistakes. The TechCrunch guys are good reporters and in this case they seem to have had a very good source.

The point is that nobody ever really knows what some company is going to announce. So it is futile and pointless to make predictions like this, and it's irrational to believe the predictions you read. All of this predicting new products based on rumors ends up being nothing more than a giant pointless circle jerk, over and over again.

We would all be better off if we waited for companies to actually announce actual products before we worked ourselves up into a frenzy reporting and discussing their specs and features. Otherwise all we're doing is allowing ourselves to be exploited by consumer electronics companies, letting them turn us into unpaid members of their hype machine.

And what do we get out of it? We get page views. So at the end of the day what we have accomplished is that maybe we have squeezed a few bucks out of some advertisers by publishing incorrect information that was of little value to anyone. This is what we are doing with our lives.

Yeah. I know what you're thinking: Stand back from the keyboard, crazy old angry person who doesn't understand what new media is all about.

Great. Fine. Now I will go piss up a rope.

[Photo credit: Engadget]

Holy crap, now Apple is embedding clues and subliminal messages in its invitations

That anyway is what Business Insider now suspects or surmises or infers or reports in the latest bit of foaming-at-the-mouth SEO-bait speculation about the iPhone 5 announcement. See, the number 1 in the invitation that Apple sent out (above) "could be a clue that Apple is only releasing one iPhone," rather than two, or three, or seven, or twelve, BI claims. Or the number 1 could mean something else. Or it could mean nothing at all. But the "there's only one new iPhone" theory is reinforced by the fact that John Gruber has published a one-sentence post saying, "Something tells me there's only one new iPhone." Gruber doesn't say what that something is, but BI figures maybe he means the 1 in the invitation. This then becomes the basis for an article on BI. And now the basis of a post on my blog and yet another reason for me to descend ever deeper into a Slough of Despond for what my life has come to.

It's official: Apple will announce one new iPhone, or possibly several; they will be bigger than iPhone 4, or smaller, or about the same size; and will be radically redesigned, or will look pretty much like iPhone 4

The magic happens Oct. 4 on the Apple campus in Cupertino. Sources say the model(s) will be called iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 Plus but definitely there's also an iPhone 5, although Apple might introduce all of them, and the new ones will boast a radical new look (photo above) and will look nothing like the iPhone 4 unless they look exactly like the iPhone 4, in which case they will. The new iPhone(s) will boast a faster A5 processor from the iPad 2, or maybe a new A6 processor, or maybe the same A4 processor as in the iPhone 4, along with an 8-megapixel camera but possibly just a 5-megapixel camera or maybe a 10-megapixel camera and a full 1 gigabyte of RAM although possibly more or possibly less, not to mention a pico projector that may or may not be included in this year's new model along with a curved glass display that definitely will be featured of this phone unless it isn't.

Tim Cook will do the keynote, but Steve Jobs might make a surprise appearance, or he might not. Likewise for Apple board member Al Gore who may or may not attend the event and might have given away a clue when he said last week that Apple was introducing "new phones" (plural) in October or maybe he was just jet-lagged and he meant they'll be selling millions of phones or maybe he actually said "phone" (singular) but someone misheard him. Apple might also be announcing new carriers for iPhone(s) including possibly T-Mobile but then again maybe not and also on Sprint which will also offer unlimited data plans but again, maybe not as well as China Telecom which has 3 billion subscribers or maybe not that many.The new iPhone(s) will be so-called "world phones," meaning they support both GSM and CDMA, or they might not be, and they will not support LTE 4G, unless they do, in which case they might. Support for NFC will not happen in iPhone 5, unless it does.

Also, Apple might bend the laws of time and space and ship the iPhone 5 in September, before the product is even announced, or it may just start accepting pre-orders for iPhone 5 on Sept. 30, but probably not.

Finally: the iPhone 6 will ship in the first half of 2012, unless it doesn't, but there's already a blog devoted to it which reports the device will have curved glass, wireless inductive charging, and a larger screen with a new form factor, but possibly something else altogether.

Okay. So that settles it. Back to work.

Correction

Turns out that post about Apple admitting to child labor was from February 2010. A friend sent it to me today and I figured it was new and didn't bother checking the date. My bad. Apologies to all who were offended.

Fat shirts and sexy smart phone apps

These are the subjects tackled in this week's episode of the Double D Guys, which you can listen to here, or download from iTunes. There's also some discussion of my own attempts to become the Tony Robbins of tech, a motivational speaker who can inspire hungover nerds and restore their sense of childlike wonder.

All of life has been utterly, profoundly changed thanks to Facebook's new features, and nothing will ever be the same, and all I can do is sit here and weep at the beauty and magic that Mark Zuckerberg has brought to this world

I don't mean to overhype this, but frankly I don't think it would be possible to overhype something as huge and profound as what Facebook introduced yesterday, at least from what I gather reading the reports coming out of F8. Timelines. Open Graph. Apps. Music. Video. Bam! It's all there and it's all amazing and huge and life-changing and mind-blowing and nothing — nothing — will ever be the same again. It's like Mark Zuckerberg is some kind of magic wizard from the future who came out onstage and pulled back a curtain and said, Here it is. Here is the future. I made it for you. I hope you enjoy it.

And now suddenly we are living in that future. That future which only yesterday was the future now today is the present. Just like we mark eras using BC and AD, now we will have BF811 and AF811. Where were you on Sept. 22, 2011, when the world changed? I, unfortunately, was holed up in my grubby little office in a small town in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, I will never forget this day. Never. Ever. How could I? This is the day when Timelines was introduced. Timelines! It is, in a word, profound. Deeply, profoundly profound, in fact. "Facebook Just Schooled the Internet. Again" is how MG Siegler put it on TechCrunch. Which is a pretty amazing feat, coming as it does just a year and a half after "Facebook Just Seized Control of the Internet" as MG Siegler wrote in April 2010. It is pretty amazing, after all, to seize control of the Internet. That was bad-ass enough. But to then school the Internet that you've seized control of? Who but Facebook could do that? Good Lord I have to sit down and just think for a minute because my mind is reeling …

Okay. Back now. Mashable too has explained the whole thing in its typical understated fashion, explaining the huge sweeping changes in an article called "Facebook Changes Again" and pointing out that all of its predictions, which were made an entire day before the F8 conference, had come true! Goddamn, do these guys have ESP or something? How else did they know enough to write, a whole day in advance, that citizens of the world should "Prepare Yourselves: Facebook to be Profoundly Changed." Apparently they'd been invited to see the earth-shattering changes a day early, which enabled them to make a prediction, but nevertheless it is eerie how amazingly accurate their predictions were and how perfect their warnings now look in retrospect.

I for one took to heart the warning from Mashable:

On Thursday, developers will be elated, users will be shellshocked and the competition will look ancient. On Thursday, Facebook will be reborn. Prepare yourselves for the evolution of social networking.

I prepared myself. On Wednesday night I ate a light dinner and went to bed early, in order to get extra sleep for Thursday morning. Nevertheless, 24 hours later, my hands are still shaking. I'm unable to focus. No matter where I am, I am thinking about Facebook and the new, deeper connection that I immediately feel to everyone I know. It's so deep, so rich and personal and dare I say, intimate, that the effect is almost overwhelming. It's like Stendahl Syndrome, where you get overwhelmed by looking at a work of art. I am shellshocked. No, even that is too small a word. I sit and gaze upon the Facebook home page and my emotions begin to sweep and swirl. One moment I am elated. Then I'm struck by anxiety and panic, and want to hide under my desk. A minute later I'm sobbing, uncontrollably, at the beauty of what they've done. Why, Mark Zuckerberg? Why do you do this to me? To the world? You are not a businessman, not a geek, not an engineer — you are an artist, and your canvas is the human race itself, the collective hive-mind of modernity.

And all of the rest of the world seems shabby and dull and boring and ancient – just as Mashable predicted. Google, poor old Google, looks like ass. My brand-new MacBook Air, which only last week gave me joy unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life, now sits on my desk, just a dead, lifeless hunk of brushed aluminum. Everything, in fact, has lost its color. I go outside and stand in the yard and gaze up at the sky and I say, Why? Why, sky? Why do you look like shit? You look just the same as ever, just blue sky and white clouds. Why can't you change the way Facebook changes? And my house, and my dog, and wife and kids — blah. Nothing. Nothing! They are all just the same, just old and tired and ancient and boring and completely lacking in profound beauty. So back to Facebook I go and just immerse myself in the magic. Ahhhh. So much better.

And I keep trying to think this all through. What are the implications when I can now listen to the same piece of music with someone else on Facebook? What does it mean when I can watch an episode of Breaking Bad that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is also watching? How does the human brain begin to rewire itself to accommodate so much change in such a short period of time? Do national borders matter anymore? Can governments still control their citizens? How will science and medicine adapt to accommodate the new reality in which we live? Damn you, Mark Zuckerberg, you brilliant god-man, and at the same time, Thank you. Thank you for not just seeing the future but bringing it to us. My life, at last, has meaning, and I now find new reason to live.

Ann Livermore spotted in her office, with door shut, punching a pillow, shouting "No, no, no, no!"

You may not have heard of Ann Livermore. She's not a big flashy A-list name in Silicon Valley. But Ann Livermore has been at HP her entire career. She joined in 1982, right out of Stanford B school. She has run huge parts of HP's business, and knows the company inside and out. She's a true HPer in the old sense of that word: quiet, competent, loyal to the company. In 1999 she made it known that she wanted the CEO job — but she got passed over for Carly Fiorina, a flashy former sales exec from Lucent who knew nothing about HP and next to nothing about the computer industry, but who made some snazzy ads about Dave Packard's garage. Ann Livermore did not complain. She did her job, quietly and competently.

In 2005, when Carly crashed and burned, Ann was again mentioned as a great choice for CEO — but the job went to Mark Hurd, another slick-talking sales guy, who also happened to have a penis problem. Again, Ann stayed on, and did her job. Hurd crashed and burned in 2010, and they brought in Leo Apotheker. Then, in June 2011, Ann got pushed out of her job running one of HP's biggest divisions, though she remained on the board of directors. After all that, she still would have been a great choice to run HP. But instead the board went with Meg Whitman — a former consultant and failed politician who has been on HP's board for all of eight months.

Friends, if you see Ann Livermore in the halls at HP today, give her a smile. Give her a hug. Do not let her near any firearms.

HP Chairman Ray Lane: A profile in courage

HP board chairman Ray Lane is lashing out at critics who are pinning the blame for HP's mess on the board of directors, who are described in this New York Times article as the "worst board in the history of business."

Now HP's directors are getting heat for making the incredibly blunder of hiring Leo Apotheker as CEO and firing him after 11 months.

Ray says that's not his fault, nor is it the fault of his fellow directors. "This board did not select Leo," he says.

Lane points out that eight of the 14 current board members, including Ray Lane himself, were not involved in selecting Apotheker.

Ray Lane fails to mention that five of those new board members were selected by Apotheker (or at least with his input): Pat Russo, Dominique Senequier, Gary Reiner, Meg Whitman and Shumeet Banerji. And several of those people had long ties to Apotheker, as Bloomberg reported at the time.

But more chilling than that is the fact that Lane and Apotheker are old friends.

And while Lane is accurate in saying that he was not on the board when Apotheker was hired, he neglects to mention that he and Apotheker have known each other for two decades and that Lane joined HP in part because he wanted to work with Apotheker, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In fact Ray Lane joined HP at the same time that Apotheker did, and their appointments were announced in the same HP press release.

In that press release, Lane said: "I am excited to join the Board of this pioneering company, and look forward to working closely with Léo – and the rest of the Board and senior management team – as they capitalize on the changes taking place across the industry. I have known and admired Léo for almost 20 years. He is ideally suited to build on HP's strong foundation, leverage its many assets and keep the company at the forefront of innovation."

Soon after that, Lane spoke to the San Jose Mercury News about his "close working relationship with Apotheker, whom he has known since Lane hired Apotheker as an Oracle consultant in the 1990s."

But how things have changed. Now that Apotheker is out, Ray Lane says he wasn't one of the guys who hired him, so the world should stop giving him shit about it.

In fact, Ray Lane now says Leo wasn't very well qualified at all. Speaking to Kara Swisher at AllThingsD tonight, Lane said: "Leo was very wise about figuring out what HP needed to do to add value. But he did not have more important tools we needed, including operational excellence, people skills and communications skills."

Furthermore, Lane tells AllThingsD that he's been talking to Meg Whitman about taking over since last February — only three months after he and Apotheker joined HP, hand in hand.

Ray Lane says he approached Whitman because "she had the kind of leadership that HP needed and was lacking under ousted CEO Leo Apotheker," Kara Swisher reports.

So, wait. In November 2010 Ray Lane joined HP for the chance to work alongside his old friend Ray Lane, whom he called "ideally suited" to be CEO. But by February 2011, Ray Lane was already talking to Meg Whitman about replacing Apotheker because Apotheker couldn't cut it.

And now Ray Lane — loyal friend, and man of integrity — is angry at critics who question the judgment of the HP board of directors and suggest these folks are perhaps not the best and brightest in the business world.

This after they've just hired a new CEO from among their own ranks without conducting a job search because they didn't think it was necessary and anyway time's a-wasting and they need to fill that CEO job right away because this is, after all, the world's largest technology company, one that does nearly $130 billion a year in revenue, and so why not just pick a CEO from whoever's sitting in the room with you?

Of course, according to Ray Lane, Meg Whitman is an amazing talent who is ideally suited to run HP and has all the qualifications for the job and Ray Lane just totally thinks the world of her. Today.

Two thoughts:

1. Watch your back, Meg Whitman.

2. Stay classy, Ray Lane.