Pepperdine, which according to Business Week (who apparently really really dig MBAs cause they spend about 50% of their editorial calendar blowing and fluffing the MBA programs of the world.*) is not a top tier business school. They sadly fall into what Business Week labels the “Second Tier”. Second tier in MBA programs is as appealing as being a Grenada based medical schools.
The problem in Pepperdine’s integrity goes as least as deep as its marketing department and its inability to write a survey. And writing survey’s is kind of thing one at a business school. Kind of the med school equivalent of stitches.
Yet at the end of their survey they ask this question which is nothing more than scum sucking attempt to either force an honest person to lie or they can choose to tell the truth and sign up for either the Presidential spam package or the Executive.
“* Would you like to learn more about Pepperdine MBA programs
PRESIDENTIAL MBA
Executive MBA
No, thank you. I have an MBA”
The correct thing to do would be to offer a fourth option, something like, “No thank you, I’m not interested in your marketing materials.” No need to debase those confused few who do not have MBAs and have yet to discover the many study’s that show that an MBA is as wise an investment as multi-level marketing or making deals to help the daughter of the ex-president of Zimbabwe free up some of her father’s cash which is unfortunately held by hooligans.
And apparently my one reader was too busy to drop me a note and let me know so that I could be part of the hue and cry in a vain attempt at pulling myself closer to the dreamy digerati. Apparently someone at WP central had trouble with the “Core Router”.
In fifteen years of running sites nothing good has ever come of monkeying with anything labeled “core router“. If the site is running then just don’t touch that thing. Walk gingerly around it and speak in light tones. The one guy who understands it stopped coming in to work years ago and now just plays WoW in his Mom’s basement. He’s a level 72 warrior and a level 60 faerie named Elf Friend. He’s not handy with light social chat and no longer sees the value of fixing everyone else’s shit when there are real dragons to be slain. Leave it and him alone!
Failed core router companies
Axiowave Networks
Allegro Networks
Avici Systems (changed name to Soapstone Networks in 2008 and no longer making core routers)
Which is to say big and loud and fast and it’ll piss a lot of people off.
Ironically it’s those in the Netbook world who look shocked and say, “look how much more we give for half the price?” I’ve got bad news for Netbookians…your computers suck. They’re slow and painful and cramped. But oh yes, they were cheap. And we love cheap.
But the iPad isn’t a nicely done Netbook. It isn’t a Kindle with color. It’s not an iPhone that met a steam roller. It is the the next fom of computing and it’s beautiful. Yes, as always, it’s missing some things. But it’s not like a boat missing a motor. It’s more like, well, an iPhone that launched without cut and paste. We suffered along while we all worked to change the world.
The truth is we carry 100X the computer we need in our laptop most of the time. Buried in a slow loading inconvenient poorly designed behemoth. The iPad can accomplish 95% of what we need our laptops for. Oh, we won’t get rid of our laptops. That five percent is crucial. We will just add the fourth form of computing to our lives. And it will be beautiful and we will wonder in two years how we ever ordered off a menu that wasn’t pre-loaded in our iPad with our built in payment system.
The iPad is our wallet, portfolio, memory, communication, calendaring…well it’s our life. It’s just not our phone replacement. Our bags got lighter. We’ll take the laptops home one the weekends for heavy work.
Desktops? How cute…they’ll be good for towing behind cars or some such anti-world recreation. But the iPad will be our center.
And yes Android will follow and it will be good. It will be the Chevy 3/4 ton to the beautiful Pininfarina like lines of the iPod. Change is good and at first it will look effete and snobbish. But soon it will be real. And Microsoft and RIM and others will head for other shores, other businesses where they don’t have to compete with such smart people.. Most of our computing is simple and can even be fun. and it’s always better when it has location. The world continues to change whether we bought a two pound Droid with a worthless keyboard or not. The iPad makes me happy.
I’m way off the back on this but I had to to jot it down. UStream launched their iPhone app recently and it’s simply one of the coolest and scariest pieces of technology I’ve ever seen. The app turns your iPhone into a realtime broadcast device. Your camera films and transmits whatever lies in front of it.
You have to see it function to feel the impact and realize how our lives have changed forever with this one application. Lets say you get pulled over and are concerned about how you are going to be treated. Flip on the app, spin the phone to face the side window and broadcast in real time your experience. Officer Friendly is, unbenknownst to him on live TV.
When you visit their site it is astonishing to see what streams are currently live. Endless litters of puppies under heat lamps…and and audience of 25 people watching them sleep. And the watchers happily chat with each other.
The scary side is that, even though the technology for video phones has existed since the 60s, but most people don’t want to be seen most of the time. Broadcasting our lives is uncomfortable and yet you no longer get to decide whether somebody’s iPhone UStream camera feed is catching you at any given time and broadcasting it to the world. Giving up your privacy is scary. Giving individuals the power to broadcast is amazing. The world will never be the same. Rictus.
Oh, and the application is beautiful and works seamlessly, shouting out to (I can’t say the sill word tweeples) twitter, broadcasting your location and allowing you to chat with your audience at the same time. Truly brilliant development.
As a relative newbie in much of the spam world I find myself Mayberry-like ignorant in the massively abusive world of bulletin board attackers. I naively ran my comments section on this blog, pretty open because nobody comes here but my son, who’s four and…only then when he’s sitting on my lap.
So I was surprised that 2,600 spammers were doing everything in their power to help the world get rich quick and do so with astonishing manly prowess. It took me about an hour to ding all the spammers and in doing so I lost the fifty excellent comments from my reader(s?).
And I then I started dorking around searching for a something that could handle the spam load without the word Barracuda in the title. I’m sure that there are many happy ‘Cuda users but it must be a world that is Windows 3.1 centric.
And then I found WP-SpamFree and it’s amazing. I have no idea how it works (first sign of a great product…it’s none of my business how you get rid of spammers, the less I kn0w the better) and yet it hums along dinging would be mass marketers left and right. I’ve rarely been so happy with a product. And this one was, I think, free or one of the many excellent flavors of open source that passes for free. Or maybe I’ll get a bill in 30 days, fine with me. Nice work over there at H6 Web Geek.
Cool, Google’s new UI only shows 39 characters on the screen, including logo, TM and spaces. And I probably counted that wrong. Until you roll your mouse and then the regular UI reappears all Harry Potter and the Invisible Map style. Credit Veruus for pointing it out.
Image doesn’t relate to the article…I just knew this guy back in the day and Zemanta thinks that “O’Reilly” and “Reilly” are somehow related in its really cool suggest an image tool. Oops. Whaddup Tony?
An O’Reilly reader asked the question, “should I dump my iPhone for an Android?” and it seems to be a question that is being asked more and more. The simple answer is no, unless you are a very early adopter with a massive tolerance for behaviors like your phone crashing. There is much criticism of AT&Ts network and the occasional dropped call. I, being a pathetic dork, carry both phones at the moment. I lose one or two calls a week due to AT&Ts shoddy network. And my iPhone crashes maybe once a month…maybe less. And that’s the thing with my phone, it’s like a light switch or a car, you want it to work every single time you turn the key or flip the switch.
A crashed OS and a bad network leave you with the same result…no phone. That’s not okay. AT&Ts network seems to be improving faster than the next version of the Droid will arrive.
And the Android crashes constantly. They use nice words like “forced restart of search application” or some such thing, but the truth is I have to sit and wait for my basically beta version phone to settle down and begin working again. I am confident that by version 3.0 things will be rock stable. But right now the Droid is the crash-o-matic.
The question is kind of a, “should I buy an Acura or a Maserati?” thing. One of them is cool and works beautifully all the time and the other one doesn’t look nearly as cool ’cause it’s in the shop several days a month. But Maserati’s are cool in their own way. If you want a second phone, Droid it up.
Phonegap is a new open source multi-environment development tool. One of my biggest fears around the incredible race between Apple and Android has been about the cost of doing dual application development. Mobile feels a scary enough jungle when you are looking at Apple development, but add in the multi-verse of Android phone builders with a myriad of screen sizes and other strangeness and it looks like a massive amount of friction. Thankfully the software world is filled with the smartest people in the world who perceive problems beyond the horizon time and again and rush to fill the coming void.
My guess is that the Apple Tablet will be an overwhelming hit which will change personal computing once again…but add yet another layer to development. And my guess is that Phonegap will be there quickly as well. So thanks Phonegap. Read about it on CNET
At Backcountry.com the Gearheads have great latitude in resolving problems and doing whatever they can to make the customer happy. But this example is like no other I’ve ever seen. Follow the link to see the customers full post on her blog FoolsandSages.com. Here’s a small excerpt.
“After I placed my order, I sent their customer service folks a mail telling them how much we loved their site and asking for the shipping to be adjusted to reflect our original wish to combine shipping. I fully expected for them do graciously do so, but was absolutely not expecting the response I received:
‘Hi Andrea,
Thanks for contacting us at Steepandcheap.com. We love you, too. We would marry you if you weren’t already married. And we weren’t a company, but rather a young shy boy lost in the throes of love, yea, a misty-eyed dreamer looking towards the future, still unscathed and unpolluted by the hardships of mid-adulthood. We would ask your housemaid to deliver white flowers to you, with an anonymous note that read “Heaven nor hell could provide me the joy and pain your approval or lack thereof might impose upon me.” Then, that very night at midnight we’d stand outside your window playing a love sonnet on the violin–a heartfelt ribbon of swaying notes and flittering string plucks. You could get out of bed and come to the balcony to listen. Instead of saying anything, you might drop a single white handkerchief slightly soaked with your tears.
But none of that could ever happen, so instead I just gave you a full refund on your shipping costs. I think it was like 8 bucks. Thanks for the love.’”
“National Geographic Adventure will cease operations, it was announced today, a victim of the down economy and systemic changes in publishing. The final issue is December/January.”
Bummer. That about covers that. No need for me to do any clever editorializing. I’m sad to see it go; it’s been a solid bastion of true adventure journalism amongst the thick weeds of men’s magazine’s that offer editorial breadth of a weightlifters glutes: Endless teasers which claim they can make any desired body part either grow or shrink, depending on the need.
Steve Casimiro was the west coast editor…a title that seemed odd for an adventure magazine that covered the globe. It didn’t seem the title stopped him from taking a bevy of hot models to Ibiza to test “30,40,50 SPF – We Tell You the Truth.” Steve has lined up the finest jobs in the magazine world as the most well known editor of Powder magazine and the co-creator and first editor (with Rob Story) of Bike magazine. Casimiro is a man who knows the soul of adventure. I’m hoping his next beat will be another great step in the life of one of the finest adventure writers and editors in the world. He’s also handy with the Cannon Snappy.
The iPhone is the most beautiful design and business exercise I’ve ever seen. I am happily humbled by Apple for their vision and incredible operational excellence. They saw and created a future of which I hadn’t even dreamed. The iPhone set me free.
And yet…so did Compuserve in its day. Compuserve and the Mosaic browser let me run about the web as fast as my 14.4k modem would allow, from one Star Trek fan site to another. And it became both my vocation and avocation. The iPhone, ten years after I first started working on the mobile web finally delivered on the promise of the richness of the web combined with dynamic community and localization. Thank you Apple.
When we take our first timid steps in a new technology we seek safety, familiarity and comfort; and the iPhone delivers. It lets us safely download apps that have been approved and search around the well lit corners of the nice part of Internet town…but it’s a bit like a cruise ship. You can’t ever really get in trouble. It’s kinda fun for a while, but the captain never invites you up to steer it or do donuts with the thing. And eventually you want to see the whole ocean.
And the Droid…well, it’s like Netscape 1.0. It crashes more than I did in high school, which is to say, a lot. And it lets you get the full unfettered internet, location and community access. Want to download an app that steals your private data…go ahead. Want to download an app that instantly violates federal wiretapping statutes…it’s one click. Seeking something really unsavory, it exists or is in development right now. I don’t even dare to imagine the things that are to come.
The world of Adult entertainment has often been the north star of the internet, showing us where web business is going. Take a look at the origins of most video streaming software or even internet traffic tracking companies.
And trust me, the iPhone’s bevy of bikini girl apps is really not going to satisfy the seemingly insatiable cultural appetite for prurient content. And in that part of the world the Droid wins hands down. The porn world has gotten a seat back in the game.
In the 90s Yahoo failed when it couldn’t keep up with the endless requests for sites to be added to its directory. It was excruciating to wait and see if your site would get accepted and practically business death if you weren’t. And Yahoo was unblinking as they ignored every request for information on how or whether you would get in. Even when they started charging $300 to get guaranteed placement it still didn’t really satisfy a webmasters desire for instant inclusion. Which is why DMOZ came about and eventually things like Wikipedia. The community does a better job policing massive amounts of content then a small group of censors with unclear by-rules.
And the four week wait for a developer to see if their efforts to fly in the Apple world just isn’t going to work. In the Web3.0 world we are being trained to expect real time in absolutely everything.
Android delivers the vicious one-two punch of instant inclusion and boundless content. And that is too mighty for Apple to beat. In the late 90s we ran as fast as we could from AOL into the arms of Earthlink and Comcast so that we could get the full web and not the pre-chewed variety. In 24 months or less the iPhone will be the choice of fussy Meerschaum pipe smoking ascot wearing professors and the rest of the world will be carrying Android 4.o phones that allow us full unfettered access to the world of content and applications.
It seems likely that a wikipedia of applications will come to fruition with a community of trusted testers and a standards body run by the community will come about. And when we see that BBB of mobile web, we will find trust. Until then, buyer beware.
But it’s going to be a cool winding road getting there…filled with missteps, crashes and eventually government intervention.
And Google will become a bevy of little Googlets, split up by the privacy fear mongers. This is the coolest movie I’ve ever not seen and I can’t wait.
I tried to grab one more day on my KTM before the snow took over for realzie but unfortunately I was beset with personal mechanical failures.
Y’see I’m not real handy around the house. I replace a light bulb if it isn’t over shoulder high but after that I’m hiring someone who understands things like why smoke detectors beep for years after the battery is removed.*
So I attached the KTM to my new UltimateMX Hauler and within fifty feet it popped a wheelie like a circus freak and looked at best unsecure and even more likely that it would do a full el rollo before cartwheeling down I-15 until some Suburban cleaned it out like a gnat. Of course I didn’t discover that until my first refill.
I didn’t exactly follow the directions. I don’t generally. I think if a product is any damn good it shouldnt’t need a book to tell you how o use it.
I have never heard or seen anyone read the directions on a urinal. It’s designed in such a way that we all figure out how to make it go. So I assumed the MX Hauler would be much the same. But I was wrong and it was past midnight and time to give in. Now I have to figure it out while my neighbore makes comments like, “wow, you put it on all wrong.” Yeah, I got that. That’s why I’m in Ranch Place instead of ripping to the top of Wile E’s favorite Mesa.
*(Handy tech tip when a smoke detector just won’t shut up; detach the offending smoke alarm and remove the nine volt battery (it won’t do anything but makes it lighter.) Take the smoke alarm and put it inside three large freezer Ziploc bags. Then drive the largest car you have over it back and forth at least 20 times. This won’t have stopped the noise but it is now half the volume and has a backbeat that could make it a hit for Bjork on the laughable improbability of man.
Open the bags and fill with pumpkin pie filling, carnation concentrated milk, and beets. These ingredients do little to stifle the noise, maybe 25%, but at least you have used only items from your pantry that you wouldn’t eat unless it was a full-scale thermonuclear war. Put these bags in the freezer. It’ll still beep every once in a while, but muted to such a level that it’s livable. Wrap them at Christmas and send them to your least favorite cousin.
Don’t get me wrong, slide rules are cool. We never would have gotten a man on the moon without them. I’m always envious of anyone who can run a slide rule or an abacus or even the classic Texas Instruments 12-C. Tools like these are amazing, deeply layered and powerful. They are often the engines that true scientists use to change our world, innovation by innovation.
As I slowly get to understand the Droid I realize that it is a far more layered and powerful machine than I realized at first glance. It is rife with problems but even more deeply loaded with innovation and promise.
The App market is the wild west, with every download a gamble; many of them crashing right out of the gate. And I wonder if I’m giving login information to hucksters. I just don’t have the faith in the Android marketplace that I do in Apple’s App store. But it’s cool.
There are physical aspects of the Droid that are wonderments, like the haptic touch screen keyboard. And there are physical aspects that are embarassingly bad, like the slide out QWERTY keyboard. It’s wholly unnecessary due to the excellent software.
The more I explore the more I learn to love the Droid. But it does not make me love my iPhone any less. The iPhone just works and it works beautifully and when it comes to communicating, be it text or voice, I want something straight forward that never crashes and has the usability of a simple light switch. In mobile simple is great. But the Droid, while overloaded with stuff, is a fascinating device.
What’s a content blob? Oy, well, it’s just one of those made up terms that I use as a placeholder in my head for how dynamic content should work on ecommerce sites in the future. The best example I can see of one right now is on NFL.com.
Any page should be a live application, constantly changing as the world changes…with advertising melded in in such a way that it doesn’t ruin or distract from the experience. The NFL has at least started down the road.
Finally the US cellular world is settling down. It used to be a mishmash of companies and technologies; Analog, TDMA, CDMA, GSM, UMTS, EVDO, EDGE, GPRS, CDMA2000, etc. ad infinitum. But reall it was a silly mishmash of acronyms that brought no value to the consumer other than confusion.
Now we have settled into a simple world that seems to be summed up something like this:
1. AT&T – Its network sucks but they have the iPhone and it’s so much better than anything else that its customers are willing to suffer two dropped calls a week and the insufferable rudeness of not offering tethering.
2. Verizon – It begged borrowed and stole to create the largest network and it would have stomped or assimilated AT&T if it weren’t for those meddling kids at Apple. Its strategy appears to be to throw so many iPhone-like things at its customers that they will be tricked into trying something touch-screeny and that’ll lock ‘em down for another two years until it can build an actual user friendly mobile internet phone. Remember people, it’s not like thunder dome, “Break the deal, face the wheel.” All that happens if you abandon Verizon is usually a $100 charge that you can often talk AT&T into paying. Don’t be a droidiot.
2.1 Yes, I know about the Droids. I’ve got one sitting next to me but Verizon doesn’t have much coverage in Paia so I can’t use it. It’s got some cool features but overall it’s just a heavier dumber iPhone with a much worse app store. Version 3.0 of Android will be an iPhone beater if Apple sits still. And that’s what they’re known for, just kicking back in Cupertino and resting on their laurels.
3. Cingular – Really? Are they still around? Does anyone use them? is gettig a Cingular phone like getting a tattoo when you’re drunk? You wake up and realize you have a symbol for the devil on your ass, but damn, what are you gonna do. It’s gonna take two years of laser treatments to get it removed.
4. Sprint/Nextel – Push to talk? Wow, that still makes me laugh. I had push to talk when I was 10. I used it a a communication technology that came right after my tin can and string communication phase. It was excellent in walkie talkies in my boy scout tent…on the floor of my bedroom for sleep overs. But it’s hardly the basis for a global communication strategy. I haven’t seen whether Sprint is growing or shrinking but I don’t know anybody with a Sprint phone. Do you?
5. Blackberry users– Okay, it’s not a wireless provider but it is cult like. Blackberry’s are like some disease that we know the cure for but it’s just going to take a while to stamp out. They spread like wildfire through the business world and ironically business thinkers are not real leading edge folks. It’s so painful when some Blackberry user shows me that he can too browse the web. And then on his itty bitty little screen he shows me Google with a proud expression like dog bringing you a bone when you get home from work. You pat them reassuringly and say, “good boy, yes, you’re on the mobile web, good boy.” And then you look away awkwardly.
6. Microsoft –Okay, we’ll save the hardware vendors for another post but simply: BAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA!
Here’s a video about how we used to market at Backcountry.com circa 2007. It’s kind of a B- performance. Sorry. There is some good data in here though:
Wow. When Goliath finally decides to step up and kill David you expect some fireworks. I mean Motorola isn’t exactly new at cell phones. They practically invented the Bat phone and those huge things that Crocket and Tubbs lugged around on ‘Vice. So when Google and Verizon and Motorola teamed up for the wireless Malachi Crunch I expected something really cool. Unfortunately the first go round with it suggests that it kinda sucks.
I remember my two year-old son was able to operate my iPhone and unlock it on his own. He was quickly navigating through the interface without any help. I was able to make the iPhone work without resorting to a manual. I was annoyed by the touch screen typing but I got used to it in a few weeks. Already I’m jonesing for my touch screen QWERTY. The Droid is confusing and awkward and lacks, well, UI. As the CTO at my company often says, “soft is hard”. And boy the User Interface just plain stumps someone with my room temperature IQ.
The hardware is okay. The flash on the camera is nice and the speaker is better. There’s a nice use of vibration/haptics in the interface that I like. And it’s got a nice heft to it so when I finally get annoyed enough it’ll go clear through the window as opposed to bouncing off as the iPhone might.
I will say it’s better. The iPhone has forced the rest of the world to raise the level of their game. But all you Verizonites who can’t seem to understand that it’s only about $100 to break your contract will be happier on the Droid than on the DOS like Blackberry. But it’s no iPhone. The droid is the Corvette of phones…which is nice if you’re into that kind of thing.
I came across this text on one of our sites last night..in the cart:
Sorry the item(s) in your cart are unavailable. The item(s) have been removed from your cart.
Ouch! The previous text is in red for those who are RSS readers. I think red text is as offensive as the blink tag. It actually makes me nostalgic for the blink tag.
Lets just never use it again. And lets stop using plural(s) like this…oy.
Ten years late mCommerce has arrived. Due to our convoluted quilt of 12 wireless technologies like the laughably bad TDMA (AT&Ts previous technology that could manage only eight calls per cell) we find ourselves arriving a decead after iMode revolutionized Japanesepop culture.
Apple’s iPhone strategy has been the most beautiful business ramp in the history of technology. The OS is, despite some minor flaws, excellent. A year ago it became the one material possession I would save with me if there was a fire (pardon the duh factor of grabbing a phone). In the past my laptop was my most vital possession and yet quickly my iPhone has supplanted. Yet convergence is just as far in the distance as it ever was. I use my laptop just as many hours a day…it’s just the the iPhone has eaten up all the space that comes between. Even a pause in conversation is enough to have me idly unlocking the phone, considering a spin through the app store. Divergence is alive and well as it always has been.
Much of the business world is still grappling with what kind of opportunity the iPhone really represents. Often the thinking goes that mCommerce should be like the Tommy Hilfiger web model. I believe that is the wrong tack, taking traditional eCommerce and just shrinking it to a smaller form factor.
What needs to exist is the notion mobile is leading us to a new model for computing that I’ll call for the moment, Better than Web.
Better Than Web is, well, just like it sounds. eTailing always runs a few years behind the content revolution and generally also just doesn’t do things as beautifully. There isn’t an ecommerce site in the world that has anything like Facebook’s beautiful UI and phenomenally layered business logic. I dream of an eTailer that hits even 70 percent of the Facebook mark.
And in the world of Apps the gap between the A players and the eTailers is larger. I have yet to se
e an etail example using GPS, shared browsing, haptic interface, audio, accelerometer and more. With GPS, turn by turn navigation and some simple work Walmart could have every one of their store’s guide you through a real map your current stadium like store. Add a list function and it could walk you to each product you need while offering you coupons on nearby or similar items. Average cart could climb and time in store could go down. Need a clerk. Hit the big panic button and scan the bar code and have an instant call back…from the call center in Mumbai.
And for us rare pureplays the world just gets rosier. Show only reviews from my state, current location, in the last fifteen minutes, from my friends, etc. No longer need a person in Naples Florida be greeted by puffy down coats on the homepage. We could actually personalize. If it’s a ski site like ours and we’re able to track vertical skied in one day then we would know much better what skis to recommend.
Simply put, in eTailing your retail App better not be a slimmed down dimmer retail store with itty pictures that works in conjunction with your web site. It instead needs to be the next generation or etailing offer much much more. The move to dynamic localized and personalized content just moved up a few years. Ebay is averaging $89.95 per download in revenue and we haven’t even hit the holidays. Mobile is the future of etailing, duh. And Better Than Web is the future of mobile.
Two billion downloads. You can’ t really say that enough. It’s hard to appreciate the magnitude. Most of my life growing up I watched the Mcdonald’s sign change from 10 Million Hamburgers Sold to 100 million and finally a billion. Then one day they gave up and just said, billions of hamburgers sold…but that took me from the 70s to the 90s. And yet Apple served up two billion iPhone apps in less than a year. It can’t be overstated, this is the fastest consumer growth the world has ever seen. It’s amazing.
Aren’t you a little bit tired of the green’ocrisy. The shameless annoying hypocrisy of the greenies. I can say with some certainty that the cloying phrase, “social responsibility” has jumped the shark. Check out McDonalds.com’s post reminiscing about the spirit of Woodstock. Awesome.
Well thank God for a movement on the wane. Yes, lets save the planet; duh, we live here. It’s like putting put up banners that say, “save the living room!” It’s a given. We need to do it with every bit of energy we can get from a supersized #2 meal…which, in it’s day was two cheeseburgers, fries and a coke; back before the notion of supersizing.
The hemp wearers can quibble amongst themselves and they might disagree as they see their one career avenue going up in smoke, but the simple truth is that when McDonald’s co-opt’s the phrase “social responsibility” you can be certain that it’s days of hipness are over. Shane McConkey called it when he ended the life on the term Extreme Skiing. He did it when Taco Bell launched it’s “Extreme Value Meals”. He was right and Freeskiing was born. How about it Max?
If you don’t have an iPhone then you are one of the teeming masses of the world that has missed yet another crucial juncture in technology. I don’t want to love Apple. They’re smarmy and pretentious in an icky way. Were they on the island in Lord of the Flies they would have been Piggy and that’s no way to get ahead in a uptight society. But the truth of the matter is that Piggy made fire with his glasses. He was damned handy to have around.
And in this world Apple is quite simply the best product company on the planet. They make beautiful brilliant products. Okay, they kinda suck at customer service and their web site is oh-so hip circa 2005. But when it comes to stamping out a product you can hold in your hand it dwarfs all others…whatever the category. *For all you sad wannabes toting your BoysenBerry Crescendo and saying, “it has a touch screen too”, please, please just shut up and click away on your miniscule QWERTY keyboard. I know, it costs you $150 to get out of your contract…yawn again. It’s worth $150 to stop the bleeding and join the world. Simply put Apple is five years ahead of the nearest competitor in wireless. It’s like Icarus boasting about having Greek bees wax with a one degree higher melting point while Daedalus is kicking it in a G5.
Rather than get your dander up and say things like, “there are 11,000 apps in the Android app store”. Yawn. Apple has sold or given over 2 billion apps. The competition is laughable. It’s like Manchester United taking on my sons team, the Condors. There is no competition in wireless smart phones. It may burst to life again in a couple of years, but I haven’t seen signs of it.
And it’s the App store where the love resides. It’s so good that I check it at least daily. And when I find a new app; in whatever category; my life becomes instantly better in that way.
The momentum behind apple is enormous. They have created a better UI, a better way to navigate the web, a mobile eco-system that works and ultimately the one portable computer that we must all own.
I had a Blackberry for quite a while. And it had as much in common with Apple’s communication platform as my first tin can and string phone. Good luck wireless world. You’re going to suffer for a long while.
*Apple, you suck at mice and that is inexcusable. The Apple TV is cool, but not cool enought to bear your name.
I’ll be there this year no matter what. Come hell or high water. Nobody’s crazed delusional self-stories will keep me from an event that is about healing and love.
I’ve spent a lifetime watching new dotcoms launch with incremental improvements in user experience. And I’ve tried to copy the best of it for Backcountry.com and our associated sites. And then along comes Mint.com and it humbles me completely. The site works so beautifully and seamlessly that it leapfrogs all other interactive design. Almost everyone is nervous about sharing financial data on the web and yet Mint tackles by pulling in your data so quickly and efficiently it almost happens before you know it. And then it’s all parsed into instantly useful information. It’s so brilliant in its simplicity.
The first rigid frame tent Dad bought was a tan three-man from LL Bean back when they were the cool gear company. Dad was in awe of its ability to hold itself up just by flexing a few aluminum poles. When the coastal winds of Maine ripped the tent off the beach and flung it skating across the ocean surface Dad just said, “wow, look at it float, look at the way it holds its form.” He watched until it sailed out of sight.
Last night I spent eight hours gear testing a Tent Cot—the unholy mating of a hunting cot and a boy scout tent—and thinking semi-deep thoughts about tent design and tent life. Any time I was tempted to stray to a different topic another drop of water would form on the nylon ceiling above my forehead and, water torture style, get me back on track.
I remember the Bedouin-style tents Dad would erect every summer on the coast of Maine. The gargantuan center pole was as heavy as an I-beam, surrounded by four stout pig iron poles at each corner. The trick was to rig a series of high-tension guy lines all around the tent—and in the full dark of the first night Dad would swear a blue streak as he rigged these origami like structures. The lines functioned like crafty trip-wires and at least once every trip I’d bring the homestead tumbling down when I face-planted over a line. Our clan of seven lived in these circus domes for three weeks every summer. Dad called it vacation.
The best-designed tent I ever spent the night in was on a bitterly cold -26º Vermont night, with winds peaking at over 50 mph. We were students of Sterling College on a four day winter hike and the only tent materials we were allowed were two sheets of cheap plastic and some rope. My hiking partner Steve Bastress channeled MacGyver as he bent a 12-foot sapling over, sheared off two downward facing limbs, and made stakes out of them. Then, using 18 inches of line, he staked the tip of the tree to the ground, forming an arch. Over the top of the arch he strung one plastic sheet. The limbs of the tree splayed naturally to form the perfect frame of a dome tent. All night long we heard our teammates’ two-stick-poles-and-a-plastic-sheet tents whipping about and collapsing.
In the morning the instructors seemed to feel we’d bent the old “leave only footprints, take only artifacts” commandment when we hacked into the virgin sapling. Apparently it was okay for them to teach us Swedish limbing techniques in class, but it was not so kosher to practice it in the field. These outdoor instructors, so fussy.
Last night I lay in the badly leaking Tent Cot and looked enviously out on The North Face Vector that I had foolishly loaned to a friend. Throughout the pounding hail and rainstorm I watched my loaner tent sit unperturbed. In the flash of lightning I could see the Unobtanium poles–as light as a muon–hold the shape of the tent just so and send the water packing.
In the morning I was wet in that eight-hours-in-a-completely-soaked-sleeping-bag kind of a way. My buddy hanging in my TNF continued to saw logs as I glared in his direction. To fail at Warm and Dry 101 is a quick Darwinian slap, a reminder that in many ways we are lamer than those who came before us. Dad would have rigged up some line and oil skin to keep himself dry. Steve Bastress would have built a log cabin. Me? I’ll be getting my Vector back.
After I interviewed for the Managing Editor position, this is thank you I wrote. Huh….
John Bresee • 1104 Ashton Ave. Suite 204 Salt Lake City, UT 84106
• 801-486-1388Fax 485-2735 • wcr@xmission.com
June 26, 1997
Steve Casimiro
Surfer Publications
PO Box 1028
Dana Point CA 92629
Dear Steve:
Thanks for the day at the Powder offices. It was both challenging and fun. I mulled your interview questions over on the way home, and couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “What makes you snap?” Is roughly equivalent to “have you stopped beating your wife? Answer yes or no.” In an interview situation it is never easy to jump into a topic as awkward as the last time I snapped. Yet in the face of questions like this, and “rule breaking” one is left with two alternatives, the truth, or a bald face lie so transparent as to be pathetic. “I, sir, never snap!” was the obvious, yet unacceptable answer. At any rate, I enjoy mentally awkward situations, and in retrospect it was fun.
The group at Powder seem like a great team, and it was good to meet with everyone. I appreciate your effort in putting the day together.
I rudely neglected to thank you for lunch, so please accept my belated thanks.
Let’s be honest, no gear will ever equal the pure excitement of a new pair of 1. Keds. That one week when your new sneaks could actually make you jump higher and run faster was the best week of the year. The feeling of added power and performance became my desire—whether the improvement was real or not.I remember running down the sidewalk outside the shoe store and leaping with every ounce of spring I had to try to tag the low hanging signs. Smacking just one finger on the No Parking sign was scientific evidence of the higher jumpability of new Keds.
Twenty-eight years later I’m still making my gear purchases with the hope that they will give me that same thrill. Here are the ones that did:
2. Motobecane Nomad Sprint 10 Speed—Mountain bikes didn’t exist when I was a kid. Everything was a 10 speed…except for my bike. I was riding a three speed Schwinn that might as well have had a flowered basket on the handlebar. My parents never understood that one lame Wicked Witch of the West-style bike could ruin a kid for years. So when that Motobecane was sitting underneath the tree one Christmas, all sleek grey and red pinstriped, I knew my ship had come in.
3. Teva Sandals—That first leap off an improbably high cliff into deep green water was the first sign I was onto something cool. My feet spanked water with a sound like a dominatrix at a Weight Watchers convention. But the souls of my feet were blissfully pain free. I wore that first pair of sandals every moment I was awake until they fell from my feet in worn rubber shreds.
4. Webbing for my first harness—The first time I tied the narrow blue webbing into a climbing harness was a victory like no other. I think it was about three hours and 30 false starts before I got something that my instructor would allow me to risk my life on. Still, I loved the way that webbing looked coiled purposefully in the bottom of my backpack, as if it were saying, “Yeah, I could climb El Cap, I just choose not to…”
5. Patagonia Fleece Sweatshirt—What happened to that heavy thick fleece they used to make? My favorite hung on me like the pelt of a synthetic bear. It’s been with me on almost every hike, every peak that mattered to me, descents, insane powder days, one horrendously bloody car crash and been “borrowed” by two errant girlfriends.
6. Ortovox Dual Frequency Avalanche Beacon—It remains the coolest piece of gear I have ever owned despite its early design flaws. With the Ortovox strapped on, I stopped being a wayward college student avoiding a first job and instead became a backcountry skier.
7. Dynastar 4X4 Big—These skis were a true testament to the power of gear. They added an easy 20% on the top end and made me feel like a god on snow. Ullr, watch out. I regretted selling them the moment the deal closed and I’m still looking for the skis that can replace them.
8. The North Face Mountain Bibs—I was too poor to afford decent outerwear; dishwashing at Snowbird isn’t the bling job that it appears. My sympathetic brother kicked down the crazy $300 to get me the bibs. Forty bucks to hem them for my stumpy legs, and 12 years later they still make the scene each winter. Every time I pull them on I hear Mike Hattrup laughing as he says, “going lobstering?”
9. Kelty External Frame Backpack, Red—I mean bright red like a cherry. I was 13 years old heading out for five days on The Long Trail North when I first overloaded my Kelty. A big block of Cabot cheddar cheese is heavy, it turns out. But the Kelty hung tough. By the end of every day it was like a mill stone strapped on my back, crippling me. But every morning it packed up beautifully. I would hike it onto my back, cinch the waist belt down and feel tight. Canteens jangled off the outside like a one man band; where I hiked wilderness would cede into the background, animals fleeing for their lives. But when I got the groove going with that big pack everything was just alright.
10. Sea and Ski sun lotion—Slapping on the thick goozle with that sweet coconut smell remains the sign that something good is about to happen. You don’t often put on sun lotion to clean the house or scrub pots. Pretty much it means you are heading to the hills or the ocean, and those remain the places where life actually happens.
LoveSac wins Ernst & Young Entreupreneur of the Year Awards
HEBER CITY, Utah (Draft) – In a lopsided victory LoveSac beat the stuffing out of BackcountryStore.com to become the 2003 Entreupreneur’s of the year. When asked for his reaction BackcountryStore.com CEO Jim Holland said, “Dang.” Co-founder John Bresee’s reaction was “Once again we’re standing in the shadow of Love.”
The upside was that the BackcountryStore.com execs finally had a reason to have a dress code, even if it was just for an evening. They knew the awards ceremony would be a glitzy affair, broadcast to a live audience of 1,200 on abig-screen televisions and attended by the governor–the pair decided that the GORP-centric attire they sell on-line wouldn’t be appropriate apparel in which to accept their award (bahahaha-jokes on them…there’s no award for second place). Bresee and Holland donned formal garb and neck ties for the first time in the companies history. BackcountryStore.com employee number two, Bob Merrill, quickly labeled them as “sellouts” and “corporate suck ups”.
However, when the winners of the respected awards were announced, and LoveSac, a Salt Lake-based manufacturer of beanbag like furniture, was named the winner in the emerging category, the web-based purveyors of high-end outdoor equipment knew they had underestimated their competition. “We got beaned by LoveSac” said a dejected Bresee. LoveSac has been a corporate rocket ship, achieving $5 million in annual sale in only two years of business and signing up new franchisees at a rate of one every two weeks.
“In truth”, said Holland, “I’m incredibly impressed with everything that LoveSac has accomplished and we’re very honored that Ernst and Young included us in their competition. It’s an honor to be in the same room with such a talented and brilliant field of entrepreneurs.
BackcountryStore.com was one of 24 finalists for the 10th annual Utah 2003 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, which are co-sponsored by Utah Business magazine. The finalists were chosen from approximately 50 nominations, and the “emerging” category focuses on relatively young businesses.
BackcountryStore.com – which was named one of 2002’s top 50 e-commerce sites by Internet Retailer Magazine – sells high-end, specialty gear for backcountry adventures, including skiing, snowboarding, climbing, trail running, camping and hiking. The company was founded in 1997 by Holland, a six-time U.S. National Ski Jumping Champion, and Bresee, former Powder Magazine Editor. For more information, visit www.BackcountryStore.com.
Ski shops rule. I’m not talking Sports Authority’s generic pile O’ crap, but the real deal ski only ski shops. The kind of shop that smells of funky burnt p-tex, shuts down when summer rolls around and is filled with the pure love of sliding on snow. As a kid I spent hours hanging around Omer and Bob’s Ski Shop in Hanover, New Hampshire; dreaming of when I would get my first new pair of skis (Kastle) or when I would be able to ditch my lame Salomon 101s and get a sweet pair of Burt Bindings (never happened).
Fast forward 20 years and I find myself launching a ski shop. Hopefully the ski shop. For some reason shops on the web seem to lack the passion of brick and mortar shops. Instead of purely focusing on skiing they seem to veer off and sell any damn thing. Wooden summer chairs, fanny packs, and butt ugly one piece powder suits.
Not in this house. At Tramdock we are selling the best ski gear on the planet backed by the best service. We have a room, somewhat stinky, filled with full-on 100 day tram riding fanatics, sitting by the phone waiting for you to try and stump them. When the phone isn’t ringing they are picking and packing boxes or writing reviews of the gear. Our catalog manager hit Alta’s slopes at 6 am this morning and skied 24” of fresh Charmin smooth pow. Alta doesn’t open for another 20 days.
This company is an offshoot of Backcountry.com, the hardcore outdoor gear fanatic’s site. Tip of the Toque to the hippy’s across the hall…we love ‘em but we’re over the patchouli lovefest and wanted our own patch of the Internet. I’d been bitching at my business partner, Jim, for the last three years about this idea. Saying, “we can build the most core ski site on the web…just kick down the cash you motherless tightwad.” It’s understandable that it took him awhile with that kind of cajoling. At any rate, it looks like a goer. By this time next year the Tramdock crew will have several thousand more days under their belts, millions of feet of ‘vert and be running the Best Ski Shop on the Planet: Tramdock.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=04e0f59a-0c75-48d2-9fd2-3d9eb2d2beb2)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=90b928b2-2f8a-49d7-96d6-68760feea5ff)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f68b38e8-25d9-465e-a8c6-ff8498f7ea2b)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=41505d21-3b9d-44f2-bb2d-a5dd6fd99252)
