Google open source Andriod phones are coming

As confirmed by the NYT blog yesterday Google expects up to 18 Android phones to be available on the market by the end of the year. Developers can get their motors running and download Android 1.5 SDK stack and you business types can start marketing. Apparently the open system is going to have 3 working business models and they are already are offering several working applications.

First: The obligation-free option: where manufacturers can download a free version of Android and load it onto their devices and provide access to as few or as many apps as they want. But the manufacturers cannot pre-load popular Google applications, like Gmail or Google calendar. Which seems sort of limiting if you ask me but will keep big brother out.

Second: The small strings option: Basically this is is the same as Option 1, but the manufacturers need to sign a distribution agreement to include on the phone Google applications. Of the 18 to 20 phones coming out this year, 12 to 14 will more than likely subscribe to this option according to Mr. Andy Rubin the director for Mobile Platforms for Google. Remember when your PC always had to come with IE. Same idea.

The Third: The bigger strings option or the no-censorship version: These phones Google calls “The Google Experience.” They are differentiated by having the honor of the “Google” logo on the device and will include a range of Google applications that the carrier and handset maker agree to leave on the phone. They also must not to censor access to the Android open developer market. The risk being that if the shaken baby is suddenly recreated by some dumbass developer it must not be forcible removed. It must remain as part of the applications available for consumers. This is not about taste. 5-6 manufacturers are going to go for this relationship model.

How Clients are in real life situations with Vendors

This video short called The Vendor Client relationship - in real world situations is very painful to watch and all too familiar. Negotiating more for less is one of the things that is ruining our technology economy. Similar to the issues associated with outsourcing everything. Chipping down your vendor all the time is not the way to go. I've been in this situation where you have to explain to some Clients that you indeed can't always get what you want for the same price. Just because they either F'd up or want more service for whatever money they have in their ill conceived budget or crap they changed their mind half way through the meal and ordered a new entree for the price of one meal. Time is always your best defense in these situations along with some pre-budgeting or allocating hours for the unknown. Let them know that you'd love to do something but we've run out of time or will need to devote more time because of their cascading changes. Now what makes it worse is in our job market with hundreds of well qualified candidates selling themselves for the same job these days there is a potential and the risk of underselling. With glut of great talent, I fear there is a lot of under bidding happening, with the same sort of self deprecating mentality. This is the opposite problem post 911 where folks were totally overpaid and had zero experience. So for the duration its a once again a buyers market, not a sellers market, where people will be perceived as effective individuals even though their requests are so ballsy it's hard to imagine them being able to sleep at night, and forget about having them understand caveats or roadmap for their requests. That's when the client turns deaf too!

Facebook updates their insight profile analytics

If you have a "public profile" as a Artist, Brand or organization on Facebook and if you click view more and then view insights a whole bunch of new stats will come-up that are much like your basic web site analytics but now you can see the age demographics broken down by how many wall posts, comments, sex and like flags. You need some action on your page for the whole display to work by real users other than just yourself. I think the bar is low but definitely needs to be recent so you can see weekly metrics according to FB. The old insights page was ok but in an effort to encourage self managed advertising this tool was destined to evolve and it has.

The idea seems to be geared to give you the controls to spend money to promote your public profile. I had no clue this was here but then again I was not paying that much attention. Then again ignoring my millions of fans would be bad especially if you have access to them all in one place! This whole marketing ploy is starting to make sense just when everybody is getting ready to jump the shark to tumblr, blip and twitter. I'm still a fan because the masses seem pretty happy and it's simple to participate and not as cluttered as that myspace of a eyesore. I just need to figure out the meaning of post quality score and I'm also digging into the active fans stat and see what that is about. If anything this info will just reconfirm some of the info you might already have know beyond the very high-level info like number of fans. This gives your fans "activity". Lets see how we do over the next months as we prepare the slow wire and eastern anchors to play some shows this summer. Now if Last.fm, which I am a huge fan of as band litmus test, or if the big black box known as myspace did this we would have a real competitive landscape and give the artists more power.

We're also giving Sonic Bids a test drive over at the HeadPhone Music HQ. I've never been too keen to fork out money to get noticed so that is the only thing that is keeping me on the fence. A open commerce market model might be better for the little guys but sonic bids does aggregate your last.fm and myspace friend counter which is a good start but the google buzz tool they include is pretty insignificant as it contains a bunch of unspecific noise. Now if they can tie the user interactions into video plays and song/video plays this will all be rocking info to have. The only thing it does not do is help you write good songs and make the folks listen and like your music. That's the hard part about marketing music ain't it?

Sample some Headphone Music Tracks:
Crossed Wires by The Slow Wire
Release the Dogs by Eastern Anchors
Bradley Wake-Up By Aviso'Hara from Our Lady of the Highway

Westfied Memorial Day Parade 2009

This years parade started around 9:45 and lasted what seemed like a whole 25 minutes. We got there way early so if you get there around 9:30 that's plenty of time to get a decent spot. If you like short parades this one is good for the kids. In fact it seemed that all of the kids were in the parade with the Cub Scout, Brownies and Marching Band, etc. There was a strong show of the police force marching with machine guns which I did not think was appropriate at all but over all the crowd was not too bad. There were no vendors either which was also good so you had to go support the local merchants for your breakfast foods.


Waving Flags



There were even pirates?

The Slow Wire is playing this summer!

Listen to some music by The Slow Wire on last.fm. Catch this new jersey indie rock band as they come out of hiatus. There is a whole untapped batched of new songs coming...

Fri June 19th @ The Crossroads, Garwood, NJ 8pm early set
Fri June 26th @ Automata Chino, Jersey City, NJ

Enjoy some Free # One Hits:
Super Glue - from Analog.living on AmCITY!
You've Got Moxie - from the Golden Age of Treason - Headphone Music

Fan The Slow Wire on Facebook | Myspace

Summertime summertime mexican food and beer

Nothing beats a cold brew and a simple pork, rice and bean meal in the summer time. When sun is out and you add some rocknroll to the mix like the cherry blosom clinic on wfmu.org and you are golden. Seriously looking forward to hearing THE DAMNED live on the radio today.

The social network access stratrosphere

Are you confused as to what to tools use for what for all these social networks? Why so many widgets and sites to help you manage your life in virtual life? What? I know you thought you already had a handle on life post DOT COM but why not just download another piece of waste (software). It's free to try it kid.

Well you are not alone and quite frankly we predict this wild wild west to continue growing like the crazy weed; as the business verticals (business, sports, entertainment, news, technology, etc) figure out how to get your money. When a clear dominance is re-established and the footing is set we'll all continue to get sucked in like we did with the early days of television and radio. Well ladies and germs we are getting there and the train is moving fast as rapidly as language will permit early adopters and tastemakers to speak and give their opinions. Separating the old business paradigm and connecting life and work in new and innovative ways is what is being created here in this entangled but awesome intraweb.

There are many ways to look at the confounded paths of web trends and analytics. The first is by site traffic which clearly depicts in the graphics how we are using the paths and who has the largest audience but what does it mean to you? The information architects are using the analogy of a crazy train system to define these web trends. Go over there and download the whole map it really is very impressive. Each node with it's own business model. The slice I like the most is the key right below which breaks down all the different social factors that help define success of a trend. Not as straight forward as the concepts are mostly opinion based but the way they did it expresses scale and levels of success. Not monetization necessarily, as that is the end game, but the relationship between all the different properties in the web stratosphere. I tried to get at the issue by thinking of life in terms of the taxonomy of people in my FB notes a few months back and when everybody was posting random photos. Enter social networks to help you organize these ideas and abstract concepts any which way you like to add to the confusion. Everybody would like to tag and categorize stuff but not everybody is good at it.



This key is not everything you need of course but just a understanding of the different types of the intellectual capital that is exchanging at such a phenomenal rate. I'm thinking interactions should work just like a coupon so you can buy something or get something out of the "free" exchange of traffic. You see it happening subtlety on blip.fm where you can give points to users that you can then pay forward or rating videos on youtube. The credit is meaningless of course but what if it weren't? What if that were real money? Would it retain it's value and become virtual spam? Of course it would. The challenge would to figure out how make a smart algorithm to filter a thinly veiled popularity contest or paid linkage. Which is why I like being able to accept friends like on my last.fm itunes playlist or FB account. Not a lot of meaningful interactions happening on last.fm that I can tell. The site is mostly for playlist junkies. Although, I'm sure that is going to change as destination commerce types integrate more with middleware (twitter, tumbler).


As a side bar see the review stalker post that asks the question what if music were free? Which is just one of the verticals that is trying to organize commerce like we have been used to since the invention of buying music not renting for live performances. Basically somebody invented a additional layer just like a new product or brand you can buy at the grocery store.


While these ideas are being exchanged and traffic is being counted by the man (google & yahoo). They are the deciders as to what gets counted for your point of entry in a search. I'm seeing regular advertising running so fast to get intertwined and in front and become a part of the audience building and point of entry process it's scary. This must scare google a little bit being that twitter recently passed on a very large offer. What is curious is that for a lot of start-ups there are no blatant adverts yet mainly because they they have the luxury to be in their audience building mode 44 Million goes a long way. Although 1 Billion sounds good. Think of how many hamburger have been sold?

Which brings up a issue with so many people asking you to take action. Do you really care? How do you measure that effectively? You would think they should know what you like and why shouldn't they? They know people need to work and shop to eat and if the marketeers are not there making noise nobody is going to visit their store. But the question becomes how is having a tumblr account going to help me help them? Ok it is yet another aggravation to figure out but that is half the fun but lets think. What is your in point? What is in "it" for you?


Music to help you understand social Media:
The Thieving Magpie - From Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange
How to skin a cat - Husker Du
Me & You, Remembering - fIREHOSE
Lost in the Supermarket - The Clash
Drug I need - Poster Children

Join My Brute Dojo

Interesting Flash Game called My Brute that lets you create a character then you can go fight other users on the site. I don't think you can control how you actually fight by pressing the keys the action just happens. Sort of weird but fun none the less. Go ahead and join my dojo and get your aggression out.

What would Darth Vadar do?

What would Darth Vader do to get the economy back on track? We know what he would do to if he happened to interrogate you or some swine of an executive. He might even consider water boarding. Doubtful he would give you a million dollars like this Star Wars parody. He's not into paola. He is known for having longer tail strategies some would say would not float in this fast paced technological world but then again this is what we need. We need folks to think long term. Short term get rich quick schemes got us where we are today. We need a hero and to stop giving tax breaks to big corporate business. It's not like they are socially responsible anyway.