DygiScape

Consumer Advocacy: Ad Industry Bans Sensitive Demographics

Have you wondered why you see ads on the Web for alcohol when you’re in your 20s or ads for refinancing after you purchased a property or even ads for credit reports when you’ve visited a Web site about credit scoring? That’s called Ad-Targeting. More »

Problem: Social Network Status Discombobulation

Is it me, or is it becoming a chore to do maintain your presence on social networks?

I regularly use MySpace, Facebook, AIM Profiles, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendster, Emurse among a few others. Why can’t all these networks get along and share my status with all my connections?

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Professional Basketball

Professional basketball has grown on me over the years. I’m not much of a sports buff, as it’s been the white noise on the weekends when I’m at home. Many of you might agree that the sport challenges the mind and body of the players. I’d like to share my passion for it, and extrapolate some similarities between the game on the court and the game on the Web.

I’m a fan of basketball because the players exert and push themselves past their limits every game. More importantly than the physical endurance in the game, is the ability to stay mentally focused despite all the distractions. They’ve got the fans, their coach, their peers, and the media coverage (and can’t forget the challenging team) to contend with. I also value the teamwork used by the players — there aren’t any single dependencies, thus you succeed (or fail) as a team.

Same holds true for the Internet. There are a lot of distractions for online companies — you aim to succeed in your niche, continually assessing your performance, adding new features in your product or service, and tapping in on the surge of advertising revenue, all while embracing new technology.

Like with a good basketball game, the underdog team has just as much of a chance of winning if the player’s heads are in the game. An IT company is the same — they must be focused on continual development and adapt to the industry and even disrupt it once in a while to gain industry acceptance. Also, when a basketball player travels or pushes another player resulting in a foul, they get penalized. Same for on the Internet, when a company doesn’t obey the laws and rules, they get penalized (like when Xanga was found to be in violation of COPPA).

I’m not necessarily saying that other professional sports can’t relate to playing on the Internet. More derogatorily, spammers are like football players, always trying to rush the defense (spam filters) to score. Only kidding, I don’t want to upset my passionate football fans … but you see professional basketball balances a variety of the skills needed to bring success.

What other analogies or similarities can you find between professional sports and the Web? Sound off in the comments.

Why Radar Detectors Should Be Legal

In Virginia and DC, the possession and use of Radar Detectors are illegal. I had to give up mine when I moved here back in November ‘06. However, I never had the chance to explain my beliefs on why these devices should be legal.

Myth: Radar detectors reduce speed of drivers.
False. Speeding is usually a conscientious behavior many people make when either late or fulfilling their own need to go faster. A Radar Detector doesn’t grant someone that right. However, I’ll mention that radar detectors do probably aide on one’s decision to speed.

Myth: Radar detectors prevent police from giving you a ticket.
False. Radar detectors only will alert the driver after the officer is acquiring your vehicle’s speed. I would find it very difficult for one to reason with a judge citing that “my detector didn’t go off, so I should be dismissed.”

Myth: Radar detectors danger everyone else when someone speeds.
False. I can think of many additional factors that danger everyone else when on the road. In fact, I think radar detectors keep the roads safer because the driver is generally more attuned to the risks that affect their driving. Many detectors now available offer the ability to detect ambulance strobe patterns, thereby alerting the driver there is an emergency vehicle approaching. This can be especially valuable when the driver has their windows up or their radio’s volume up.

Myth: Radar detectors promote illegal activity.
False. The drivers that choose to speed make an active choice to violate the law. On all the packaging of radar detectors, they always state that you must obey all local traffic laws.

——

Radar detectors receive the signal that is already being blasted at it. It’s a radio frequency (in the 27-38GHz band), so it is nothing special. It is not a police vehicle detector, contrary to popular belief. The effectiveness is greatly reduced when LIDAR (Infrared, “laser”) speed measurement devices are used on a speeder due to their 600-1000nm wide beam.

If a driver wishes to spend their money on these devices, they should be able to. I would suggest a sticker to be placed on packages advising of the local traffic enforcement laws, so ignorance isn’t an excuse.

My conspiracy theory is that the manufacturers of Radar Detectors (Cobra, Bel, Whistler, Escort, etc.) probably share their secret sauce with law enforcement speed measurement companies (LTI, Kustom Signals, etc.) so the police can keep up with the technology.

What do you think? Should Radar Detectors be legal or not? Let me know in the comments.

Why I’m Not Getting an iPhone

For the past two weeks, Apple and AT&T have received a lot of press lately because of the release of the iPhone. I disagree with the hype simply because of my cynical view of popular technology reaching the masses without adequate benchmarking. Hear me out on this, I love Apple products, but I am just not purchasing an iPhone and I explain.

For the longest time (since OS 9 era), Apple has made it very clear they needed to offer compelling features if they wanted people to invest in them. Essentially, they went from almost extinct to a elitist brand that everyone buys. Well, that dramatic transformation has led to their own benchmark — they must meet their users existing needs before expanding into unfettered territory such as cell phones (or Windows if you look at iPod users).

That said, I was disappointed at how Apple sold its contract to AT&T. The telecommunications conglomerate, formerly Cingular/Southwestern Bell/Pacific Bell/Bellsouth/Etc., has never had a positive note in my book. I’ve spent hours with their poor customer service porting my old cell phone number to competitor T-Mobile. This narrow-minded approach in offering proprietary services and features is the primary reason why I refuse to purchase an iPhone with AT&T service. As with any great company, you can usually tell if they’ve got it together if their customers are satisfied and/or at least if their customer service is helpful.

To AT&T’s credit, I understand that cellular service is a tough market to win any satisfaction in. However, their network is not optimal for broadband communication (trust me, even text messages took minutes to receive). The iPhone thirsts for network-intensive tasks such as YouTube and more. Why in the world did AT&T bid on the iPhone if they didn’t intend on making their network broadband-capable.

Much like the cable and [landline] telephone companies — they finally understand that it’s the speed, not corporate acquisitions and takeovers, that win consumers over. Comcast offers 12Mb residential service (which probably no average user would ever really consume). I am doubtful AT&T is not overselling their features.

Apple should understand that users like interoperability. You’ve done it with OS X for Bootcamp, iPod for iTunes, and Safari for Windows. Why not make the iPhone compatible with more than one carrier? The question the Cupertino giant needs to ask themselves is not, “How can we get the most money in the bid,” rather, “How can we split royalties from two or more cell phone networks, leveraging the power of two cell phone networks and satisfy the most people to make even more money?”

I know, I know, maybe the FCC would give push back to the idea of a phone using two telcos. Oh, wait…

Here’s ten more reasons why I am not going to get my hands on the iPhone

1. It’s proprietary (which may or may not be such a bad thing for Apple)
2. It’s ball-and-chained with an activation mechanism similar to that of Windows.
3. Users have reported slow speeds when using the Web.
4. Users reported activation hassles.
5. Spending $60/mo on a two-year agreement with AT&T.
6. You’ve spent $500 - $600 and you can’t avoid the big blue ball.
7. The first generation of anything has its problems.
8. The second or third generation usually introduces price drops and firmware updates.
9. You can count on #8, because Apple historically has been impressive at their keynote events
10. AT&T Customer Service.

Even though I’m deeply biased against the iPhone and AT&T I can respect the folks who did get one. I want to know why you bought an iPhone or why you’re not getting one. Post it in the comments.

Tim O’Rielly, You’re Almost as Bad as Ted Stevens

I briefly created this picture above as a means of stating that the same propaganda that Tim O’Rielly is marching around conferences with is almost on the same terms as Senator Ted Steven’s Internet is a series of tubes gibberish.

From the words of the great Web guru, “Web 2.0 is about controlling data.”

No, it isn’t. If understanding and embracing Web 2.0 attitudes came down the optimizing the infrastructure of storing, transmitting and displaying data; then companies like Omniture, AOL Transit Data Network, Akamai, and of course — big brother himself, Google are all “masters” of Web 2.0. These companies are phenomenal at transmitting and caching data but I disagree that they are masters of Web 2.0.

First, before you can understand what “Web 2.0″ is, you must understand what Web 1.0 was. In all honesty, a lot of these conferences do a poor job of looking back and like to hype up the monetization factor of the Web. Traditionally, consumers would access a Web site where content providers gave it to them. Users had very little in choice, they just got what they received. This also when Dial-Up was at it’s peak or breaking point.

Well, you can call Web 1.5 the “Syndication” era. Providers understood that users wanted variety. Yahoo was one of the first providers to really embrace these challenges, letting users customize their “My Yahoo” service to aggregate news from a user’s choice of providers. Whether you call this “controlling data,” may vary on your interpretation — but it actually focuses on listening and adapting to your users needs.

Listening to your users needs is probably the key to Web 2.0 success. I mean, if a Web 2.0 startup doesn’t listen to their users, how will they get off the ground? MySpace is the exception to the rule. They grew excessively large to the point of allowing spammers to exploit their network. Look at Flickr, Digg, Google Maps, MapQuest: They understand the bottom line with customers, they are ultimately the one that is in control.

Web 2.0 is not about controlling data, it is about handling it responsibly, and enabling users to control the data, not you. I rest my case.

What do you think?

What Holds Us Back From Accomplishing Goals

You’re given two choices: the Easy Way or the Right Way — which do you choose? Most people would like to think they choose the right way in life; but in reality, it’s the easy way.
So, ask yourself before you put something off or never try your hardest: Is it the easy way or the right way? Just some food for thought.

Is Coding an Art?

I was thinking the other day about how coding could potentially be an art. I think art is anything that sparks the imagination in someone. If coding is an art, then there’s a lot of unknown artists around that people don’t know about.

Coding (or for the more sophisticated, Programming) is an art because a project starts with one idea, that expands into a function, a class, a module, or even a user interface. While it may seem small, we all know it’s the little things in life that count; such as where that button goes on a program, or where that setting is found.

Often some higher-level programmers (programming lower-level code) believe that HTML coders are of a lower cast in their own clique simply because HTML is for n00bs. Is it really? I mean, if you take any well-versed HTML programmer and stick them in front of Boxely — are they still just a Web programmer? I’ll leave that up to you; personally, I believe that even novice coders can still contribute as much talent and work as their seniors.

I’m All Twittered Out (or Why Twitter Fails to Engage Users)

The buzz since SxSW (I didn’t go, but the blogosphere wraps it up nicely) is that Twitter is the next “big thing” to hit the Web since MySpace. I beg to differ. Anytime someone says this is gonna be the next big thing, it never is. I created my Twitter account a few days ago and used it as much as I feasibly could and here’s why I already lost interest.

Twitter fails to engage users to connecting by not making it clear how to interact with each other. Even as I joined, I got the feeling I was talking to myself. I even added it on my AIM Page with their widget, but still I couldn’t find an easy way to connect with others. Why not have forums or a spot to find other users?

On the good side, I will say their interface is simple. There is nothing I dislike more in a social network, is a complex Web site. However, I believe the sidebar can be a little more robust. Having the ability to customize the page with simple CSS (it guides you though it) makes it perfect for people who are picky with their digital color palette.

Online versus Real-Life? I’ve yet to convince my girlfriend to create an account because of the “why?” factor. We can classify my girlfriend as the above average Web surfer - she will join a site if her friends are, she downloads music, watches online videos, and occasionally blogs. Not a total geek like me — far from it. So I’ll make a brief case study based on her expectations. Aside from the busy person who does a lot of daily (or hourly) accomplishments, Twitter lacks the “reward” for noting their status. What’s the reward for most social networking users? Popularity. Twitter doesn’t really focus on that probably due to privacy or other reasons.

Judging from O’Reilly’s definition of Web 2.0 online services, Twitter doesn’t build strength based on their user’s contributions or network size. In fact, this evening (Internet-Prime-Time), it appears users killed it. They were pulled down for maintenance — another phrase for “Oh Ish! The Webservers are melting!!1” Twitter isn’t as scalable as once previously thought. Twitter doesn’t build strength from their user-generated content, except for the homepage.

I’m not alone. Many other Web 2.0-aware folks are interested in Twitter and have debated whether or not Twitter will die or have proclaimed this the Web’s diamond in the rough, or are countering both sides and sharing their opinions on Twitter. I concur with the praise of Twitter’s interface. They nailed that one all the way, it’s rather innovative that users can read and post their events on the same page.

Anyhow, I’ll still try to stick with Twitter as long as I can, but frankly, they need to add more features. I’d love to see it track your Instant Messaging status, so I go away on AIM and it posts my away message to my Twitter page. Their verification for my AIM screen name didn’t work either, so they need to work on connecting to open IM services such as AIM more effectively ::cough:: Open AIM ::cough:: Open ID ::cough::

What do you think of Twitter? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[tags]Twitter, Internet, Social Networking, Web 2.0[/tags]

You Know What Bugs Me?

Poor customer service!

Don’t you hate it when you purchase goods from a company and you are treated poorly or as if you even weren’t there? The other day, I purchased a couple boxes of protein bars from a large superstore and the cashier didn’t even even greet me, look at me, tell me my total, or anything.

So I got to thinking, why did I choose to go through this cashier’s line? I chose to go though a cashier’s line because I expect to have a personal interaction as I purchase my products from them. It’s almost involuntary because I’ve been accustomed to cashiers who at minimum, greet you and perhaps carry on a small conversation. While it’s a small gesture, it’s an important one. When it’s lacking, the customer must ask — Why should I buy from you?

So that’s what bugged me. Has anything recent bugged you?