Nicht nur neuartige Bedienungsweisen bremsen den Spieltrieb und das Kenenlernen des neuesten technischen Gadgets, nein auch das noch nicht Vorhandensein der Programme und der Kontakt zu anderen “Leidensgenossen”.

Kann man inzwischen in freier Wildbahn doch durchaus den einen oder anderen Besitzter eines I-Phones antreffen und die aufgekommenen Fragen gemeinsam durchhecheln und/oder lösen, so stellt sich bei mir als Besitzer eines Palm Pre gerade das Gefühl ein, allein auf weiter Flur zu sein; bisher habe ich zwar immer ein interessiertes “Ahh, so sieht das aus; …”  oder “iss’ ja cool wie das funktioniert” zu hören bekommen, aber ausser einem anderen Twitter- und Cache-Kollegen noch niemanden getroffen, der auch schon ein Palm Pre sein eigen nennt.
Und so verbringt man seine Abende anstatt gemütlich vor dem Kamin in einem Buch schmökernd und an einem schönen aromatischen Tee nippend, damit, vor dem Computer zu sitzen und alle möglichen Applications zu suchen, um endlich die vielen Dinge, die man mit einem Mobiltelefon dieser Klasse machen will, auch endlich in die Tat umsetzten zu können.

Was ich so alles mit dem Palm Pre machen will?

• QR-Codes/Barcodes lesen
• Navigation im Gelände und Verarbeitung der Daten
• Office-Programme nicht nur lesen, sondern auch damit arbeiten
• mobile Seiten erstellen und testen
• Podcasts mobil erstellen; Mikrofon ist da, nur keine Anwendung

Das ist so mal die Wunschliste für die ersten Tage, wenn also unter den Lesern jemand ist, der Abhilfe schaffen kann…… bin für jeden Tipp dankbar.

I might be one of many; however I have always considered myself to be an early adopter of most technology and gadgets. For instance, last fall I completely gave up cable TV and decided to find out what it would take to rely solely on my computer. So instead I opted to purchase a Mac Mini connect it to my TV and through the use of web sites such as Hulu, TV.com, Boxee and Netflix, I set out on my discovery of this brand new media. One year later I am totally hooked and apparently so are many others. The number of US households watching TV online has increased 20% since last year. This goes to show how freedom from the traditional media viewing is growing in importance. But I do question the decision makers in the desks of Hulu as well as the advertisers that purchase “air time,” do they really know how to fully use this media?

I have just spent some weeks seeing seasons 1 & 2 of Arrested Development, (if you haven’t seen this show yet, I highly recommend it!) and I need to tell you, I am sick and tired of the “My name is Laurie, I’m still a PC and I love my HP” spot that seems to repeat over and over and over again during every commercial break. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind being forced to watch these commercials at all, heck I am getting free On Demand TV in exchange. What I do mind is the fact that I am forced to see the same commercial 5 times during one show. If I were to conduct an IAG interview after the show all my questions would be perfectly answered yet I am NOT a PC and I hate HP!

And that’s just the beginning. Lets turn to the advertisers now… WHY WOULD YOU PLACE A 30” SPOT MADE FOR TV ON THE INTERNET? The Internet is not a TV so why treat it as such? There is no level of interaction at all from a flat 30” spot. If I am being forced to see your spot for 30 seconds at the very least make it engaging. If you want me to love your brand the last thing you should be thinking of doing is force feeding me a traditional media spot. There is a reason why 30s are on TV, they were made for TV, we have studied and researched for years how to best reach our audience through the TV set using these spots. But computers and the Internet is a completely different monster.

You cannot expect to generate the same type of results from streaming your spot on Hulu as you do through TV. If you want to turn me into a PC then show me how, allow me to interact with the product. Give me a reason why I should be clicking all over the screen and why I should follow it to your web site.

Now lets go back to Hulu and the other providers. The key to your success as an advertising medium is segmentation. I will happily register to your site, you provide me with the content that I love and I will provide you with very juicy information about who I am and the type of shows I love. Why not add a small section in your registration which would be used for segmenting your advertising. The more information you find out about me the better you will be able to sell yourself to other advertisers. You are not a mass media, you could be an extremely segmented tool that marketers would love to use. “Hey you, 28 year old Hispanic living in zip code 10021, I have this awesome new product that I want to show you!” This could really be the beginning of a new era of advertising directly one on one.

So please stop telling me that Laurie is still a PC and Loves her HP when I am not even remotely close to being interested. Hulu and others you need to see the full potential of your service and cater to me. You can do it, learn from Google’s long road of misses and homeruns. Engage your viewer, learn who they are and marry the advertiser to the consumer. And please, I am begging, do not repeat the same commercial 5 times in the same show!

Apple (s aapl) did pretty much everything they could to steal some of Windows 7’s thunder by announcing some pretty major hardware changes earlier in the week, but Thursday is here nonetheless, and that means Microsoft’s (s msft) latest OS is on store shelves now, ripe for the picking. Question is, will Mac users be helping with the harvest?

I’m getting a copy (might pick up a burger, too), but for me it’s a legitimate business expense, so the decision, even without an upgrade path (I’ve just been using the Windows 7 RC on my iMac, and don’t have an existing retail license), it makes financial sense for me to have access to a Windows machine. Maybe you’re in the same boat.

The question isn’t really whether Mac users are also Windows users, since recent research on the subject seems to indicate that yes, there is in fact plenty of crossover. I’m wondering whether it might be the case that Apple fans not only buy Windows, but that we might also represent a big chunk of the early adopter crowd for this new incarnation.

Everyone I know who is buying a copy of Windows 7, upgrade or otherwise, uses a Mac. It may not be their primary machine (yes, that does actually happen), but they have one nonetheless. Most of those people are planning on installing Windows 7 on a boot camp partition or a virtualized PC using Parallels or VMware Fusion.

I know you’re thinking that I probably surround myself with like-minded people, and as a result have a lot of Mac-using friends, but that isn’t the case. The majority of people I know are exclusively PC users, and not a single one that I’ve talked to plans on upgrading today, or even in the near future.

As Mac users, we have a tendency to also be gadget addicts. I’ve found we’re more interested in all tech, not just our own, perhaps because we consider ourselves connoisseurs in the area thanks to our impeccable taste. For me, and for many others that I know, that interest translates into a pretty heady case of gadget-lust, one of the symptoms of which is early-adopterese. And also a willingness to acknowledge when a company besides our beloved Apple releases a smart, well-designed product.

Fact is, Windows 7 is a huge improvement on its predecessor. I say that as someone who’s been using preview versions since the first beta was released. It’s not Snow Leopard, don’t get me wrong, but that won’t stop me from being among the first to jump on board. Anyone else making that jump today? If you are, what are your reasons? Do you consider yourself an early adopter with tech in general?

Recently I came across a blog posting about Web 2.0 advising people, that this technology isn’t going to go away and that if the audience’s excuse for not getting with the program was that they didn’t feel they were “the target market”, that they should get over it. 

Now, I am a lover of technology (I hear the “No Duh” out there).   I want the latest gadgets and play with things to learn them before resorting to opening the manual – and to be honest I have only a passing interest in target markets – but this one statement caught my attention and I have been pondering it for a day or so… it stuck with me so much that I am writing to share my thoughts on this concept.

First – where technology is concerned, I believe the “target market” is slim… we “early adopters” pave the way for mainstreaming technology and an “early adopter” in this field is either a young person or a seasoned tech person – there is a very narrow available demographic with the mindset to embrace the tech changes and nuances. 

Second – once something is mainstreamed it is no longer leading edge, and the people who use it just want it to work – they don’t really care why or how it works nor do they want to do much to make it work. 

Third – technology changes. If you wait long enough (and the wait time is getting shorter and shorter) something better, faster, simpler-appearing will show up.  It is the nature of the beast. 

What doesn’t change, as much, is the demographics of the people in the Target  Markets – the market segments may inflate or deflate but the specifics are fairly steady.  What does this mean?  Basically, if a person declares that they are not in the target market – take them at their word.  Which is really good manners anyway…

The Scenario: A small, struggling urban private liberal arts school wants to begin offering distance learning within 12 months. The school has limited experience in distance learning and convenes a cross-functional committee to write an e-learning plan. The goal is to offer two e-learning courses by fall semester.

As an Early Adopter (EA) and member of the committee, I would embrace the effort and give it my full support. In fact, I would be excited about it. On the committee, I would be highly supportive and would always volunteer ideas and thoughts to help develop the plan. I would suggest logical steps to follow in order to meet the goal of offering two e-learning courses by fall. I would be both cheerleader and organizer for the project.

To help the committee, I would consider the due date for final course materials, including advance communication/promotion and administrative details, and work backward to the current date in order to build an effective, step-by-step strategic plan to meet the goal. As Stephen Covey says, “Begin with the end in mind.” By knowing where the committee must go and by when, we could build an effective and efficient strategic plan to get us there.

In order to have the courses ready and students enrolled, there must be  simultaneous development of the courses and the communication and promotion of them for enrollment purposes. The administrative details must also be handled, such as coordination with the Office of Technology, Enrollment Services, etc. Course syllabi and materials must be planned and printed, so the teachers must be selected early so they have time to do their necessary course development.

As an EA, I would offer to develop and teach one of the courses. I would begin immediately and share my work with all concerned. I would provide my syllabus to others, and I would volunteer to conduct sessions to help others develop e-learning courses. As an EA, I would serve as coach and mentor to anyone who was struggling with the adoption of the new e-learning innovation.

I would maintain a comprehensive three-ring binder of course development materials and details, including step-by-step development procedures, to help future instructors and administrators develop their own e-learning course offerings without having to “reinvent the wheel.”

I would write blog posts and perhaps an article for publication about our efforts.

I would use Twitter and Facebook to create  a buzz about the new e-learning courses in a planned effort to create word of mouth (WOM) excitement, or in other words, viral marketing support for the two new courses and our school in general.

I would offer to develop and teach orientation sessions for new faculty and administrative support on developing and maintaining e-learning courses.

The wave is upon us… but no one seems to see it coming! (Updated – some people can see it coming, and will pay for it)

Dave does a good job of describing the issues with wave and he really touches the nerv – HOW exactly will it work?!

The other nerve is of course – 100 000 people (or so) will get an invitation – I’m surely not one of them, and then it will spread by word-of-mouth and invitation. Presumably this is what will happen, and it will create a “need” for the wave.

Only problem – I need it NOW! I needed it in may… I already know how I want to use it, and the buzz won’t work much longer for me. Although for others – they haven’t even heard the buzz yet, they will most certainly want wave by the time they can actually have it.

Gmail worked like this. I heard about it, how great it was and a week later a friend sent me an invite. I was so late in the game I never even used my invites!

Spotify… we’ll they’ve just taken it to the next level. They’ve been in beta for oh, 2-3 years now. I have an account, of course – but truth is, if I hadn’t gotten it a year ago, I would probably not be interested anymore.

Buzz can just live for so long in my mind

A Swedish professor at Stockholm School of Economics has actually written a good book on the subject of anticipation, called Nextopia.

The longer the wait, the greater the happiness is and the more people are willing to “pay” for the expectations.

Iphone is of course the best example. It was “THE best mobile phone ever” before anyone had even held one in their hand.
The first batch sold out in a blink of an eye and the price was lowered with 30% in 3 months – but that didn’t matter since “everyone” had already bought it anyway. It was a new take on “early adopter”.

And Micael Dahlén is right – I’m willing to PAY for Wave! Unlike some people, I’m not willing to pay in money – as Google’s products are “free” – but I’m willing to pay in time, in blog posts, in discussions, in selling their product to my co-workers (read forcing them to use it). The momentum has been building from the first time I saw the developers preview and now it’s time!

For some, it’s time to use and evaluate Wave
For me, it’s time to go and read another blog post!

Does this mean I won’t use Wave whenever it’s publicly released? I seriously doubt it! But I guess it depends on if they do a Spotify or not – after all, the Iphone hype totally played over before I even thought of buying one, and now, it’s just too late

Feel free to comment on your experiences of Wave – or your expectations!

Rolling sustainability into business development isn’t just a marketing ploy.  In the CRM arena it’s an effective way to communicate with more customers and prospects at a lower cost.

Last summer, when a gallon of regular peaked above four dollars per gallon, Beagle Research published a white paper on sustainability and CRM.  I am happy to report that there are many signs in CRM and elsewhere of industries taking the first steps toward more sustainable business.

We began to see changes in the ways we organize our society and work when gas hit four dollars — Americans drove more than a hundred billion miles less in the year ending in November 30, 2008, for example.  But, too often, reducing travel frequently means falling economic activity.  Airlines were nearly crippled when businesses began curtailing travel.  An economic recovery and unrestrained demand will likely mean that the price of oil, and the gasoline and jet fuel from which they are derived, will again rise — beyond four dollars.  With global demand rising and supply peaking it’s hard to see otherwise.

All this went into our thinking last year and one of our conclusions was that front-office business processes needed to become more energy efficient.  Face-to-face sales calls would be curtailed and replaced by greater reliance on Web-meetings and Web-conferences, and enhanced reliance on in-house produced video.

Our ability to make documentary-style (Ken Burns) videos using desktop technology has accelerated very quickly in the past year or two.  While there is no set standard for these clips — and there shouldn’t be — there are numerous examples of CRM-oriented videos coming into the market.  We believe that video production needs to reach down to the sales and marketing departments in the same way that desktop publishing has. Why?

Giving marketing people the ability to produce professional looking video will not replace the need for travel or product slicks, brochures or even white papers.  But video will begin to provide valuable content in a format that is easy to absorb supplementing sales by conventional means.

There are numerous examples of CRM vendors already turning to video as another way to get a message across.  Microsoft, SAP and Oracle all have produced video content that touts their products.  It’s very effective, especially if it is kept short and moving.  A short video might not replace a brochure or a white paper with all the additional detail that only print can provide.  But video can deliver a message quicker and more clearly when an impression is what’s needed.

Video can exist independently on the Web and it is a medium better suited to viral transmission than print.  How many times each day or week do we get some clip passed along to us?  The number might vary, but our experience says it’s increasing.  And what are you more likely to do, read a white paper or watch a video?

The next step is for CRM customers — in all industries — to become fluent in desktop video development, a big step for sure.  We’ve grown accustomed to building and sitting through PowerPoint presentations, most of which are not that good according to Garr Reynolds.  In his book, “Presentationzen,” Reynolds writes about what’s wrong with what used to be called slide shows — too many bullet points, too few pictures to engage the mind, droning voices, and dark rooms.  Worst of all, Reynolds says, is when someone sends the slides or a printout expecting you to derive meaning from all those cryptic bullets.

Better to build a documentary video out of stock photos and voice animation, and then stick it on your Web site or on a public sharing site like YouTube so that the video can sell for you when customers are receptive.  A simple condensed URL or “turl” makes a video viral in ways that slide shows will never be.

I work on a Mac and all of the tools I need are on my computer.  I have not checked Windows lately, but perhaps the latest version has similar tools, if not, they are available and inexpensive for Windows users.

Some might object to widespread video use because letting salespeople develop video can take away too much selling time.  I agree.  Video should be the province of the marketing team and it’s a great way for them to reclaim responsibility for message creation and maintenance.  When salespeople got the ability to make slides, it inevitably led to message degradation — time for marketing to reassert itself.

Out of the last recession we got on-demand computing and Web meetings, each of which became great successes because they save their users a lot of money without degrading their ability to do business.  From this recession Web conferences and in-house video are showing good signs of life.  In a recovery, the high cost of travel will demand alternative solutions.  Video is the next marketing frontier, a natural content carrier for ideas that have to stand on their own.  Early adopters are already engaged; it’s time to familiarize yourself.

Now electronic stores and stupid impulse purchases go hand in hand, and as all nerdy men of a certain age know, these can often result in mishap.

Indeed, one sometimes takes the plunge with an ill-advised purchase with the full knowledge that the lack of prior research is going to result in the ownership of a white elephant.

At such moments one enters another mental realm in which judgement and reason are suspended and a wild devil-may-care spirit infests the credit card.

I have a cupboard full of the fruits of such hasty transactions: incompatible instruments, mismatched machinery and extra equipment, much of it broken or damaged in the kind of orgiastic bouts of Luddite violence that often ensues when an impulse buy goes wrong and no amount of hammer work will make a square USB plug fit a round DIN socket.

Well, I’ve gone and done it again.

Yesterday I was loping around the Mac section of Hiroshima’s main purveyor of electrical wonderment, gazing at the latest iMacs with a mixture of envy and anger.

See, I was an early adopter of the Intel-based iMac, getting one in late 2007 and finally escaping the horror of Windows.

As I wanted my new machine to last, I opted for upgrades to hopefully give it a life longer than the average 3 years of my previous computers. For this I paid around $2,300.

Today, of course, a mere 20 months later, the same machine would set you back only $1,300, and to add insult to injury, a far better version still retails for under $2,000. Such is the perennial fate of the early adopter.

So there I was, wondering if I shouldn’t buy a new one and try to flog the old to some unsuspecting cohort to offset the bill.

But try as I might to get the mad impulse buying snowball in motion, I could not get past the fact that given an impoverished future heaving into sight and that my current machine does all I require of it adequately, it just didn’t make much sense.

However, I consoled myself with the idea of an upgrade. Why not soup up the old warhorse with a dab of RAM?

Aha! Here was a way I could satisfy my desire to buy something nerdy I didn’t really need, but make it all seem plausible. After all, you can never have enough RAM, right, lads?

Now I had actually researched this a bit, and had the correct specs noted down in the old iPhone, and it wasn’t long before I had found the right gear.

PC2-5300 SO-DIMM SDRAM 667khz 200 pin, to be exact.

So, I bunged a couple o’ 2GB sticks down on the desk, wincing slightly at the $170 price tag, but then the helpful clerk suggested another brand which was only $140 – sweet!
I double checked all the numbers on the box, and noted to my satisfaction that it even had the word ‘Macintosh‘ emblazoned upon it.

However, I now realise that this moniker must have referred to a certain type of rainwear, since it certainly could not have pertained to a well-known Cupertino-based computer manufacturer.

For, having installed the new bits, as per instruction, and firing up the machine, all that could be heard was a sad wheeze, a depressed whir, and an unmistakable atmosphere of general non-functioning.

Since neither maniacal laughter nor banging the cranium against the plaster work helped rectify the situation, it was with great regret and a little wry amusement that I was forced to haul my sorry bottom back to the shop this afternoon, there to do battle in the linguistic arena and try to get some functioning replacements.

Those ex-patriots with an incomplete mastery of the local patois always dread such moments, and the following description of the exchange will illustrate why.

1. I approach small female clerk who looks likely to be sympathetic to my woes.
2. I begin to explain situation in pigeon Japanese.
3. Small female clerk seeks to escape entanglement by looking for other clerks to intervene.
4. Male clerk takes over.
5. Conversation ensues in Japanese in which I state that the RAM doesn’t work, and that I want to exchange it for some that does work. The clerk’s response can only be partially understood, and doesn’t seem to be offering any kind of resolution. I restate my case in what to my interlocutor must appear to be the language of a 3 year-old. He restates his case in full Japanese, making no concessions to my obvious inability with the tongue. I fail to grasp the point. This cycle repeats itself about four times.
6. Clerk suddenly switches into fluent English. I feel like an idiot.
7. Clerk orders the correct RAM, currently not in stock.
8. It costs another $110 making a grand total of $250 for something I didn’t really need.
9. I leave the shop, dressed in sack cloth, ash smeared on my visage, flagellating myself repeatedly with a large branch, for had I known the infernal bits were going cost that much, I’d never have bought them in the first place.

The funny thing is, just a few months before an acquaintance had done exactly the same thing with his iMac, and I had thought to myself then that I would never be caught out in such a way.

Will I learn from this costly experience? Will I buggery!

Tom McMillian - President of Techtao, LLC

Enabling advocacy is a killer marketing application. The fate of businesses and their brands depend on cadres of advocates. Smart companies need to be nurturing and empowering advocates.

There has never been a time in history when so many social marketing platforms have been available to so many people. People are listening to – other people, people in the know, and people they trust (just by the virtue of being part of the same community). If companies do not participate in the conversation then they will wither. Small companies with their speed and passion are uniquely suited to harness the power of influencers and encourage them to become their advocates.

In years past, companies with large media budgets dominated and created barriers of entry for smaller brands and businesses. Large companies with robust media budgets controlled print, radio and television with their marketing messages. Companies spoke and consumers listened. Now, even though companies are speaking to consumers using traditional media, consumers are not tuning in or they are listening to marketing messages with skepticism.

Entrepreneurs, small businesses, and companies who want to prosper, need to learn how to sincerely join the conversation. They need to be able to recruit, nurture and empower every satisfied customer. Moreover, special attention needs to be given to recognizing Influencers and providing these special folks with the tools to become your advocates.

Remember, the first rule of success with empowering advocates is to first provide a quality product and service. Then share the passion you have for your business, Brand and service. Recognize it in others and nurture it.

Make connections with your customers where ever you can – on the phone, in person and online. Listen to customer concerns. Spend time going to places online where folks are talking about your category and listen.

At every opportunity build your database. Collect phone numbers, email address and home address. This is the lifeline you will use to educate your customers about what is new and exciting with your business and how your customers can benefit from this information

To engender advocacy you need to education delighted customers and ask them to share this new information with others. Remember to say ‘please’ & ‘thank you’. Enable your customers to be in-the-know with breaking new information. Moreover, customers have opinions and they like to share them. Sincerely ask for input into how you can improve their experience with your product. You will learn a great deal.

Seven Steps to enabling advocacy

1. Quality — First produce a quality product and service. Encouraging advocacy is not the way to sell an inferior or a ‘me too’ product or service. Be committed to ongoing excellence. Provide a combination of product and service that is better than the competition.
2. Attitude — Have passion about your business. Share it with others. And when you see this passion in others fuel it!
3. Connections – Make sincere connections and build upon them. There is no more powerful driver for your business than a delighted consumer talking to their friends about your business and product or a disappointed customer whose problem has been quickly addressed.
4. Knowledge — Scout out the digital landscape. Learn where folks are talking, the ‘customs’, and the communication norms.
5. Listen – Listen and respond to consumers’ questions, concerns and ideas. Revel in the opportunity to learn. This is not the place to spout out your canned marketing message. It is the place to listen and learn and if appropriate contribute to the conversation.
6. Database — Whenever possible, create a database of consumers and get their contact information – street addresses, phone number, opt-in email address. There will be a time when you will want to send these interested folks new breaking information about your product and service. These communications will educate your customers on your business and in turn will enable them to be your advocate with others.
7. Engender Advocacy – The ultimate goal of all of your marketing and communications to customers and potential customers should be geared towards turning the relationship into one where the customer is your advocate. Giving delighted customers the news, information, inside “scoop” which enables them to be your advocate.

Published in the June 2009 New Jersey Entrepreneur

Tom McMillian
President
Techtao, LLC
techtao@mac.com
www.techtao.com

Steve Rubel, uno de los bloggers más influyentes en el mundo de la comunicación digital, anunció recientemente que abandonaba su blog… aunque no exactamente: en lugar de seguir publicando micropersuasion “se ha mudado” a steverubel.com. Su nuevo hogar está basado en posterous, una plataforma de publicación muy similar a un blog pero que se caracteriza por la simplicidad extrema con la que se puede publicar cualquier tipo de contenido (simplemente enviándolo por e-mail) y distribuirlo además a herramientas sociales como Facebook, Twitter o Flickr. Steve llama a este tipo de servicio “lifestreaming” por lo fácil que es publicar ideas, fotos, vídeos, etc. a lo largo del día y de forma rápida y frecuente.

En España, Fernando Polo se ha subido al carro de posterous, aunque sin abandonar su excelente y ya clásico blog abladías.

Por mi parte, por ahora prefiero seguir el consejo de Jeremiah Owyang y seguir con mi blog. Pero hay que tener en cuenta que no soy un early adopter, sino algo así como un “early finder” (me lo invento y encima en inglés): durante años he ido creando y enriqueciendo mi “colección de flujos de información” para estar siempre al día, y pruebo continuamente nuevos servicios y herramientas; pero prefiero esperar y observar antes de lanzarme a apostar de verdad por un producto. Me pasó con el blog, con Twitter, con FriendFeed… me llevó a descartar un uso activo de Facebook… y ya veremos qué pasa con posterous

Pre-ordering: it's what all the cool kids do.

Before we get into any of this, note the title. Yeah, that’s witty; it even references an earlier post, which is always fun.

Okay, down to business.

I pre-ordered Windows 7 today for $49.99. Fine, $55.97 if you want to get technical and include shipping.

It was good. It was lovely. And for a few hair-raising minutes, it looked like it wasn’t even going to happen.

Newegg didn’t officially show it as in stock, and just had the auto-notify button up. Office Depot was out of stock. Microsoft’s online store crashed every time I tried to access it. Enter my hero: Amazon. Ordered, confirmed, and scheduled to arrive on the day Windows 7 officially releases.

Before any of you go off into some sort of anti-Windows / anti-early adopter / anti-other stuff rage, let me make a few points:

1. Other than resorting to piracy (which is illegal, I’ll have you know), this is by far the cheapest way I’ll be able to get Windows 7 onto my current machine.

2. Yes, the $49.99 option is only for an upgrade disk and not the full retail version, but check this out: you can opt to do a clean reinstall. From XP, which is what my main rig currently uses, you HAVE to do a clean install. Upgrading isn’t even a choice, and that’s fine with me – I wouldn’t have wanted to in the first place. Upgrading on top of current operating systems is generally a messy process that leaves you with an install that isn’t as quality as simply doing a fresh one.

3. OEM copies are great, and I heartily recommend them typically, but there are no indications right now as to how much those will cost.

4. Windows 7 is new. I realize that. I also realize that for all the praise it has garnered, it won’t be without faults. The dolts out there writing trojans, worms, viruses, and all manner of nasty stuff will begin targeting 7 specifically, and my computer may end up on the receiving end of that. Regardless, it’ll still be a net improvement over XP, which by now has patches for its patches, hot fixes for its earlier hot fixes, security revisions for its… you get the picture.

5. DX 10 & 11; have you heard of them? Technically my current graphics card supports DX 10, but XP doesn’t. By moving to 7 I’ll be making new graphical possibilities available to myself. DX 11 isn’t available yet, and DX 10 has a tendency to hurt performance as much as it helps, but there’s no reason I can’t just be a little discerning from game to game.

6. I’m not a die-hard early adopter, but I will do so when it suits my purposes. Other technologies I give five or six years before buying into. Windows 7 is coming at the right time, at the right price-point to make it worth my while. If Vista was a well-intentioned but half-baked product, then 7 is what happens when you give that cookie time to cook through properly. Also: I like baked goods.

Tasty.

All that being said, you can expect a nerdtastic post on the 22nd or 23rd of October about my lovely install process. There will be an abundance of Mountain Dew and Cheetos if anyone in the area wants to make a party out of it.

I’m not sure how much longer this pre-order sale will last, as Microsoft has explicitly stated that supplies are limited, but who knows – you might get lucky. Go hit up your online retailer of choice (or e-tailer, if you prefer, but I hate that non-word with a passion) and see if you can still get a copy. If not, you can always do a deal with the devil.

a. 0:00 Trend setter / leader.
b. 0:51 Early adopters (those who aren’t afraid to not be “normal”).
c. 1:13 Crowd acceptance sets in resulting in wild popularity.

It works this way in every area of human life if you think about it. Business, fashion, music, etc.

Would it be uncool if Jimi Hendrix, 66, joined Facebook?

If you remember the 1960s and ’70s, chances are you view(ed) it as a time of tectonic upheaval, as forces of peace and love sought to displace the power of The Man, squareness, conformity, bigotry, oppression, Nixon, LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, those who couldn’t dig it, and all music recorded by or under the influence of Frank Sinatra.

With the passage of time and the Baby Boomers now staking their place toward the end of the generational queue, we’ve come to realize that a generation gap is not a near-mythic abyss, but merely a socio-biological phenomenon, as predictable and benign as the phases of the moon.

So the criticisms of us from the other side of the generational divide rankle less: Boomers are selfish, Boomers are Social Security hogs, Boomers are conspicuously environmental. And the latest, asked almost redundantly: “Are Baby Boomers Killing Facebook and Twitter?“

“When the Baby Boomers … arrive, they tend to do so en masse. And when they set up camp, they invariably change the dynamic of the social network itself,” Robert Shrohmeyer writes in PC World, and goes on to blame the horde-over-50 for bringing with them “everything from increased political activity to a proliferation of spam.”

I don’t know what fits between those two extremes. But as extreme as it sounds, remember that this is not a replay of Woodstock — the young seeking to push aside the old — because Woodstock was not Woodstock.  This is merely about social demographics. Plus, they’re not going to push us aside.

Instead, these Millennials might run away, abandoning the current social media mainstream for the next hot young thing.

(I’ll just note there’s a new Woodstock website, which I found out about from a blog called The Sixties. The Woodstock festival took place 40 years ago in August. When I clicked on the Woodstock site, there were two ads for the Ford Fusion hybrid.)

My own Facebook friend list is multi-generational, and I admit that I communicate with my younger friends differently than those who are my age. Then again, I don’t treat my close friends the same way I treat those who know me nominally, no matter what their age.

I’m curious — how do you handle generational differences on Facebook, Twitter and other social media?  And “you” is anyone of any age or generation.

Wired has some juicy comments that address my question, including this one:

“Once older people began to like something we like, it just loses its luster. It happens with everything. Before you know it, we will have to ditch facebook and crete another site and that will be invaded. Please just stop. Why doesn’t someone create a social site just for baby boomers so you’ll leave us the hell alone.”

You can hear the basement door slam, can’t you?

Lets discuss this soon, before the tide goes out. A blog and BizReport suggest that Boomers are abandoning Facebook. Even if true, we can be sure that the generational struggle will continue someplace else.

(Just to clarify, Jimi Hendrix, born in 1942, was not a Baby Boomer. Only 7 percent of Jimi’s generation “have online social-networking profiles,” according to this informative article on CNN.com.)

Wax on: This radio has a turntable for recording broadcasts.

Once upon a time, the FM band was not where we now find it, but between 42 and 50 MHz. That was before the end of World War II. In 1945, the Federal Communications Commission moved the band to 88-108 MHz to accommodate the television spectrum.

I learned these facts during a family visit to the Radio and Television Museum, a little gem in a reconstructed farmhouse in Bowie, Maryland, about an hour from where we live.

Instead of wandering the two floors, we took the guided tour and were amazed at how much history the little house contains – from the earliest wireless sets that played only Morse code, to cabinet-sized black-and-white TVs like the kind we had when I was a kid.

But something struck me about that switch in the FM dial. Something that happens with such regularity now, but must have come out of the blue for radio owners. Obsolescence. FM was not the powerful medium it became in the 1970s. Still, there were 15,000 FM receivers in use in 1941, Brian Belanger, the museum’s executive director, writes in “The Rise of FM Broadcasting.” And those owners had paid for an expensive product – the equivalent of thousands of today’s dollars.

As America entered the war FM was on the rise — 50,000 FM sets were sold in January 1942, according to Belanger. Then production was halted. By the time FM radios were being built again, the FM band was not where it once was, and those radio owners, those early adopters – unlike today’s TV owners who have a box to unscramble the new digital broadcasts – were out of luck.

What change in technology was the biggest adjustment for you?  What has gotten lost in the rapid technological shifts?

Back in the day, when I was just earning my first development fees as a baby producer, I bought what has always been called the Big Ass TV.  A 32-inch Sony tube television.  Nirvana for a movie geek living in an apartment.  It was my big media equipment purchase that felt like total luxury and proved to me and all my fellow broke-ass filmschool refugee buddies that I had Arrived. 

Ten loooong years later, I’m still using that TV.  See, this is the part where I justify what’s about to come after by showing how fiscally responsible it is for me to make a large capital purchase because I will truly use the asset through its full lifecycle. 

Which leads me to… the Big Ass Kindle.  Sleek.  Oversized viewing screen.  Built-in wireless.  No more clutter.  Nothing to store. No more sad hubby pulling his hair out over all my stuff.  I’m trying to save a marriage here, people not just gratify my early-adopter trendy instincts!!  This even lets you search Google! And Wikipedia!  And did I mention it would save space from all those books and magazines laying around the house??

The only thing stopping me from cashing out my bonds and buying one is that I just know that this time next year there really will be a fully touch-screen competitor from Apple that does everything I need.  I can just feel it in my bones.

Twitter posted news on its blog today, and briefly on the service, that they are removing one of the settings for @replies.

Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

What Twitter reads as “most people” is clearly not the power users, who are using Twitter actively to build networks and reach out to people. That group of power users–a persona, perhaps–is distinctly vocal, and so within moments of this change being announced, blog posts from heavyweights like TechCrunch to personal (but busy) blogs from industry veterans like Whitney Hess all lambasted the move immediately.

How can a company with a clearly scoped, profitable product like Twitter not understand this? (oh, wait..) I believe Twitter is victim of its own hype, and doesn’t know its own location in the product lifecycle. In terms of the diffusion curve, I would estimate Twitter is somewhere in the “early adopters” stage. Until about 6 months ago, it was used innovators only–and heavily dominated by the power user persona who would be offended by a setting like this being removed. As a few celebrities and news networks have jumped on board, the media thinks Twitter is now “mainstream,” but try this test: Go ask 10 of your non-technology friends whether they use Twitter. Even better, whether they understand it, and whether they access it from a mobile device. I bet you get less than 2 who answer yes to the last 2. Twitter is NOT mainstream.

Given that, Twitter should be focused on those power users who make up the innovator and early adopter group–people who like to tweak the experience to their tastes. Instead, they chose to not only remove a useful option, but even worse phrased the rationale as removing an “undesirable and confusing” option. Way to talk down to your user base!

Very bad move, guys.

UPDATE: Turns out there was a technical limitation, so the rationale given was bogus to begin with. So not only did they insult their most technical users, but they lied to them about a technical problem.

Is Twitter on the way out? I’m asking because I’m still on the fence about it (see my thoughts about cell phones) and this post quoted another post that raised the question.

” ‘Early adopters like a product as long as they are the early adopters for it. Once it reaches that majority status, early adopters start looking for something else to adopt . . . early.’  This is an interesting thought. Is Twitter getting too big? Is it starting to grow too much?” one or both of them wrote.

There’s so much pro and con about Twitter out there. Like here and here. Here. Here. Even here. Here’s a video called “Real Life Twitter.” And here’s a post that argues Twitter has jumped the shark. (And let me point out that the phrase “jumped the shark” itself jumped the shark long before Twitter was invented.)

The people who seem to be abandoning Twitter are the so-called early adopters. They’re the folks who, when you find out about the party and show up early, are there and already sloshed.

Early adopters are the people who dropped their gas lighting service and wired their house for electricity before anyone else. They’re the ones who decided they didn’t have to walk to the next farm to borrow an egg because they could buy a car and get there faster. And after being the first on the street with a telephone, decided there would be some worth in not depending on people calling back, and bought an answering machine so they’d never miss a call.

You see what I’m getting at? There’s still no reason they installed 8-Track players in their cars.

But the deeper questions are: how do you early adopter types see what I don’t see, and what are you seeing right now?

Cindi suggested time travel might be next, but she was joshing. I suppose. I’m curious, what’s the next big thing? What are you the first person doing? What gets you “early adopter” written all over your face?

We live in an age of too much new technology .. too many choices … take iPods for example .. the world has never seen such an effective tool for carrying around more music and videos than you will ever listen to in one life time … There are too many choices … and yours is better than your mates one because , yep you guessed it , yours has more capacity … so while he can only carry 10 000 songs at a time, you can carry 20 000 …

Some of you may have never carried the Sony Walkman or even the Discman … but for those of us who did they were cool pieces of kit … freedom, battery life and a great music selection (or about 10 tapes or discs) and you were mobile .. from commuting to traveling to diving trips to ski runs … music was everywhere and it was cool … now one iPod carries as much music as an entire ski village had during those days, including all night clubs, all skiers on the slopes, all the cars and all the bars … that be a lot of tunes !

So it’s about choices .. are we happier or more content with all that choice on tap at any time should we find the need or desire ? …My contention is actually not… I have recently relegated my 80GB iPod to my safe to act as a backup disk for my iMac data …

I travel now with my 8GB Nano (1st Generation, which interestingly enough is the design that Apple has returned to for the Nano) … it is not filled to the brim with music, but has a travel backup of all my work files (about 2-3GB worth), also my contacts and calendar, should my phone go missing … and then the balance in music … I would say a good 5 GB worth … this is plenty for any trip of a month or less …

My theory is that if you are sitting around all day listening to music you don’t have enough action in your life !

The other benefit of loading an iPod up for a particular trip is that it forces you to go through your collection and find music that you really want to listen to … it avoids invariably invoking of the shuffle button in the larger iPods as you run out of patience with continuous song finding…

Or have I missed the point of carrying around all this choice? … as an avid techno early adopter I find myself pulling back from the technological arms race as we are getting less and less incremental bang for our upgrade bucks … the old Nano still works a treat, has a few travel scars but has never let me down … the new one is cheap enough for me to buy one with no big deal, but will it give me a better experience … I doubt it … enlighten us with your views … till next time …