There's Always Room for Jell-O and Beer

Seth Godin takes a philosophical look at a packaged food slogan:

Think about your schedule... is there room for an emergency, an SEC investigation, a server crash? If you took a day off because of the flu, is your business going to go bankrupt? Probably not.

So, if there's time for an emergency (Jello), why isn't there time for brilliance, generosity or learning?

Reminds me of an anecdote that made the email rounds when I was in college. You've heard this one: a teacher fills a large jar with rocks and asks the class if it's full. Of course, they say yes. Then, he pours sand into the jar, filling the gaps between the rocks. Again, he asks the class whether it is full. He then opens two cans of beer and pours them into the jar. They soak in, filling the jar to the brim.

The moral? In between the important things, there's room for a lot of little things. And there's always time to meet a friend for a couple of beers.

Protesting too much

I liked Jeff Jarvis' post comparing the new-media and old-media responses to Michael Jackson's death and the Iran election outcome. That distinction (new-old media) may not be meaningful for much longer, but as long as it is, thoughtful comparisons like this are welcome.

However, there was one paragraph that sounded a little shrill:

Since its birth, cable was the only way to stay constantly connected to a story as it happened, or allegedly so. But in the Jackson story, there really is no news. He’s still dead. All that follows is discussion and wouldn’t we really rather discuss it with our friends than Al Sharpton? Once the supernova of news explodes – taking down Twitter search and YouTube and jamming GoogleNews search – we probably to seek out TV, but it quickly says all it has to say and the rest is just repetition. If the Iraq War was the birth of CNN could Iran and Jackson mark the start of their decline in influence? Too soon to say.

I've worked for a handful of underdog publications, and one thing the underdog always has to do is - whether he's Pepsi or the Boston Herald - trumpet his own successes and call out every time the top dog stumbles. So if you say tut tut when Howie Carr mocks the Globe, what do you say when Jeff Jarvis, interactive journalism's spokesperson, mocks cable TV for something it hasn't even done yet?

-GM

Blogs are dead, and so is news

In the early days of web 2.0, bloggers wore their distinction from stodgy news organizations as a badge of honor. The news organizations are proving the bloggers were right by keeling over. As they die, the blog/news distinction has lost its meaning. Today, after WaPo exec Katharine Weymouth yesterday said she wished Post ed's could write headlines like the Huffington Post, USAToday.com ran the flip headline, "Obama says nation needs more nerds."

News outlets are trying to be more like blogs, and good bloggers are building credibility by acting like news men and women.

But Google and other search engines persist with the distinction. Today, if you ran a Google Blogs search on Eric Hjerpe's move to Kepha Partners, you'd find a link to XConomy's story, but not the post I broke the news with in Mass High Tech early this morning. Conversely, a Google News search picks up our article, but leaves off the XConomy post.

So blog readers miss our article with news on Kepha's strategy, and quotes from Hjerpe and Kepha founder Jo Tango. News readers miss a link to an incisive column Hjerpe contributed on XConomy last summer.

Why shouldn't it be easy to get a quick look at both sources? When will Google discontinue their disservice to readers, and drop the meaningless blog/news distinction?

The Best Racket Ever

Last week, for the first time in my life, I mailed off a mortgage check instead of the rent. It felt pretty good. At night, I can see the Citgo sign from my front porch. It's an orange smudge between the trees, but I can see it. Two years ago, Leigh and I probably couldn't have afforded to buy the Jamaica Plain condominium we now call home.

But there's something in this that's been bothering me ever since my wife and I applied for the home loan last month. For at least the next five years, we'll pay about $1,100 in interest alone. By the back of the envelope, if we sell the place in 2014, the bank will have made over 20 percent return on its investment in the property and our credit.

Well, that's not so bad, I thought. The alternative is to pay rent. But then I realized: it's the landlord's mortgage that makes the rent so high.

In short, the banks had going the best racket ever. Investing in real estate - a low-risk investment by normal measures - they made venture fund returns.

Now, I'm asking, Who got greedy on that? Who decided that goose wasn't laying enough golden eggs and wanted to go back up the beanstalk for more?

The joys of radio

What kind of rube would browse a record store (chuckle), listen to the radio (what?), or trek through snow to a video store (sniff). The magic of the Intertubes can find all this stuff for me - and not only that - tell me new stuff I'm going to like, for free!

Last.fm and Pandora are awesome because as soon as you hear something you like, with a click you can find out what it is, see the cover art, read a bio of the artist, and file it away for later consumption. But in terms of discovering new music, the services aren't good for much better than exploring musical genres I know nothing about. I still think the best place to hear new music is always on the radio. Looks like a lot of people agree with me.

CBS Radio's network of radio station Web sites saw its total number of unique visitors increase 30% in December 2008, compared to the same month in 2007, according to Web analytics service OneStat.com, reaching an all-time high for CBS Radio. The online measurement company also noted that unique visitors grew 7% between November and December 2008. (via MediaMemo)

Patrick Bryant, the music director on MIT's college radio station WMBR (full disclosure: I used to have a show there) told me the iPhone app Shazam can correctly identify less than 15 percent of the music he plays on his program, Subject to Change.

I have a question for any Web 2.0 acolytes who have predicted the demise of radio and records. Did you really think a robot could pick good music?

If only the Globe were this good every day...

I just want to give credit to the good people at the Globe for a great paper yesterday. I didn't get a chance to read the print edition, but I just spent about 10 minutes reading it before I put it in the recycling bin. The Metro page was great too, with stories on T ridership up, problems in the medical examiner's office, DiMasi's (then likely) reelection, and the third arson in as many years to hit a Jamaica Plain beauty shop. All this ranged around great photos of people jumping in frigid water nearly naked. (Admittedly, these last went with a relatively silly article that rehashed an earlier AP story.)

A Nation of Gameboy Addicts

There was a time when every parent I knew had the same problem: how to manage their kid's gameboy addiction. As with candy, Saturday morning cartoons and comic books, some level of control was needed. But kids became so attached to the things that parents risked a Nintendo 64 Freakout if they attempted to withold the device.

I now hear people say their smartphone has changed their lives, and I'm beginning to realize how far ahead of the rest of us the 12-year-old Gameboy addicts really were. MG Siegler writes on VentureBeat about a hidden "bells and whistles" feature on the iPhone's Google application:

...while it may not look like there is anything below the “About” selection, swipe your finger upward to go below. See anything? You probably don’t yet — keep swiping.

It takes a little bit of effort, but eventually a “Bells and Whistles” menu appears below the “About” menu. Clicking on this takes you to a new screen with even more options for the app including the ability to change its color to anything you want, the option to have the app’s default sound replaced by monkey or chicken noises, an option to see live waveform show up as you talk....

It reminds me of games I played as a teenager - Mario, Zelda or Mortal Kombat, for example - and the word-of-mouth tips and tricks I'd pick up from friends - like pressing an elaborate series of buttons crack open hidden stuff.

Smartphones have hooked us on our office email and news feeds, now they will make a nation of shivering gameboy addicts out of us all. I can't wait.