Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Innovation, Disruption and The Economics of Free

  Hank Williams managed to stir up quite the controversy with his recent post lamenting the rise of free and blaming the VCs . His assertion is that the venture capitalists have made free, ad-supported businesses the norm and effectively "ruined it for everyone else" (my words). I believe it should be possible to start a small business and to have a small number of profitable customers, and to earn a living. From there, it should be possible to work hard, and to grow your business into something substantial. Until recently, this was the American way, and it applied to technology as much as to any other business. But no more. In today’s “free” world, in most online business categories, it is inherently impossible to start a small self-sustaining business and to grow it. This is because in the digital world, advertising, the only real revenue stream, cannot support a small digital business. If businesses were based on the idea that people paid for services then small... Posted Apr 08 2008, 10:41 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Venture Capital, NextNY, Notches

• T-Mobile doesn't know how to treat its customers

  It looks like T-Mobile dropped their data plan from $29.99/mo to $19.99/mo. I originally thought this was related to the new unlimited rate plans and losing the Starbucks account , but it was actually back in September (on my birthday no less). I must have missed it at the time, given that whole wedding thing. And worse, it turns out you have to actually ask for the new rate . After reading Kevin's post, I logged in to My T-Mobile today to adjust my plan. To add insult to injury, check out the options I'm presented with. For the past 5 months, I've been paying $10 more than I should have for this service. T-Mobile should have adjusted this for me automatically (as Kevin said, you can be sure they would if the price went up). At the very least, they could have told me about it via a pamphlet or during the time I spent talking to a T-Mobile representative as I was trying to get my phone unlocked for the honeymoon. They did neither, and were quite happy to let me pay $10 more a... Posted Feb 24 2008, 10:16 AM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Gadgets, Things that bother me, Business, Marketing

• DHL Sucks

  I ordered a package from Amazon and noticed they now have an option for Saturday delivery with Prime. Excellent... What I did not realize at the time is that this ships with DHL. Every single time something has been shipped to me via DHL, something went wrong. Once, a Bluetooth module for my M200 showed up in a padded envelope that was quite literally shredded and missing half of the screws. Last time I had something scheduled for Saturday delivery it just never showed up. And of course, today was no exception. First, I noticed that the package was shipped to Melville, which is about 40 miles from where I live. I called up to find out the status and was assured that, even though the tracking system was not updated, that the package was indeed with the driver. (This was around 2pm EST - the times below are PST). Needless to say, the package never showed up. I just called up irate after waiting all day for a package that never showed up and the customer service rep told me that there was... Posted Mar 03 2007, 05:22 PM by Tim with | with 15 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Things that bother me, Business, Marketing

• Steve Jobs and Apple telling half-truths about DRM

  This has already been covered ad nasuem , but I thought I should mention Apple's denouncement of DRM last week. Steve Jobs summarily dismissed Apple's DRM as a result of demands from the record labels. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices. I have no doubt that the record labels are concerned with putting unprotected music out there, but Apple is also in no rush to do away with DRM... Posted Feb 13 2007, 04:20 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Intellectual Property, Rants, Music, Copyright, Business, Apple, Law

• A look at Apple and Microsoft strategies

  I've been thinking about some of the interesting strategic decisions that Microsoft has made lately. I already discussed their curious IP licensing strategy , and their choices with Zune and Windows Media Player have me similarly baffled. In many ways, these moves have been something I expect more from Apple than Microsoft. Apple has always been known for delivering closed systems, controlling the experience from end to end. Apple software runs on an Apple OS on Apple hardware. Conversely, Microsoft has thrived largely because it has recognized the value in delivering not just products, but platforms. Office and Windows are both successful not just because of what they do as a product, but because they leave room for third party developers. It is those developers, not just Microsoft itself, that really enable a true ecosystem. Even the Xbox 360 has been a platform, not just for the media content providers, but now for the independent game developers. Given their history, it should come... Posted Jan 01 2007, 02:42 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Gadgets, Things that amuse me, Music, Innovation, Business, Microsoft, Apple, Audio

• Trying to Cancel Office Live

  I signed up for the Office Live beta earlier this year in Feb. I never actually used it much - it didn't add much value for me over Sharepoint and I preferred hosting my own site considering there were somewhat private things on there. Now that the beta test is over, my account was transferred over to an Office Live Essentials package priced at $19.99 a month. Obviously, since I'm not using the service, I decided to cancel such to avoid this monthly fee. Unfortunately, there is no way to just close the account. Instead, you have to fill out a web form which gets sent to Office Live Customer Support. A little over a week after I submitted the form (granted this was a holiday week), the fun started. The first response came from Obo, who told me I couldn't cancel because I didn't provide an alternate email address. Tim, are there issues that made you want to cancel your subscription with Microsoft Office Live Beta? If there are, please let us know and we will be more than willing to assist... Posted Nov 28 2006, 07:48 AM by Tim with | with 19 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Things that bother me, Things that amuse me, Business, Microsoft

• Google bought the brand, not the technology

  Scoble says Google bought YouTube because it "realized it couldn’t make its own video service look as cool as YouTube." As I said before, Google was buying YouTube's audience and/or employees, not the technology . After listening to the Google-YouTube conference call, it definitely sounds like Chad and Steve were a big part of the purchase. Eric Schmidt gave them very high praise, comparing them to Larry and Sergey. Though I have to wonder if Larry and Sergey were this giddy when Google went public. (Mind you, I can't fault them too much, because I probably wouldn't act too much differently if I just made that kind of money). Posted Oct 12 2006, 05:23 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Rants, Web 2.0, Business, Google, YouTube

• You can either fight change or embrace it

  ABC's President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw would love to disable the fast forward button on DVRs . He reasoned that most get a DVR to time-shift and we don't really care about fast forwarding. Of course, Mike Shaw has a vested interest here. This is yet another example of businesses trying to resist change and preserve their cash cows instead of embracing and innovating around the inevitable change. Adapt or die. Some companies get this. Honda is launching 5-second ads to leverage the "jump-back" that most DVRs implement after fast-forwarding (via Dave). Clever indeed - they are paying for a fraction of the time and end up being the only ad that people actually see. (Of course, this doesn't really really help Mike Shaw and the suits at ABC much). Another way to "disable" fast-forward is to improve advertising. How many people do you know that fast-forward through the Super Bowl commercials? Tags: Advertising , DVR Posted Jul 12 2006, 04:07 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Business

• Gartner sends a cease and desist to remove a link

  Scoble passes along that James Governor, an analyst for RedMonk, received a C&D from Gartner for a link . Wow. I obviously haven't seen the letter, but I'm trying to imagine what possible legal recourse they have to linking to a publicly visible URL. Obviously there's no copyright infringement and there are standards you have to adhere to protect something as a trade secret. (Hint: putting something on a publicly visible server is not enough). Oh, and someone should tell Gartner that you can "redact" all the links you want but the Internet is forever . Here's the link - maybe I'll get my first C&D too. This is even worse than C&D'ing someone who is trying to help you . Tags: Gartner , RedMonk , CeaseAndDesist , Stupidity Posted Jul 11 2006, 01:15 PM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Rants, Things that bother me, Things that amuse me, Copyright, Business

• The Lost Mac Ads

  Perhaps in light of the Apple ads that don't make sense , Best Week Ever unveiled the Lost Mac ads this week featuring Christian Finnegan and Nick Kroll. PC: "Right, but a podcast about your favorite hoodies and independent films won't help you pay for that vacation." Mac: "No, that's what my trust fund is for. But that's a pretty sweet idea for a podcast." And if Microsoft is going to continue to use really long names for software programs, it should take some lessons from this PC. Tags: Apple , Mac , OSX , Microsoft , Windows , Advertising , Apple Ads , Ads , Get A Mac , Best Week Ever Posted Jul 09 2006, 07:47 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Rants, Gadgets, Things that amuse me, Business