An interesting observation made by Jevon is that:

It seems at times that blogging is becoming the domain of those people who still have something to say. I am now subscribed to more blogs than I ever have been, but at the same time I would say that I am getting real value from fewer blogs than ever.

There are two ways to address this statement.

As a blogger, it has become more challenging to say something unique or interesting on a regular basis because there are just so many other voices in the mix, many of them saying the exact same things about the same same events. After awhile, everything starts to blur together.

By the time you’ve got your thoughts together about offering something with a different perspective, the story and the audience have moved on. Then, the question is do you wade in anyway with your post even though few people are paying attention, or do you just forget about it?

Over the past few months, it’s something I’ve considered a lot in contemplating whether MET should continue as a new-sy blog or morph into something more analytical with fewer posts.

Another issue - at least for me - is blogging hasn’t evolved much over the past five years. It’s still mostly a text-based medium, even though it’s pretty easy to create podcasts and video-casts. As Jevon suggests, there needs to be a way for blog content to be easily reshaped and repackaged so you can distribute your thoughts in different ways to different audiences.

The other side of the coin is blog readers like Jevon, who don’t find that blogs offer much insight. Maybe it’s because blogging has become more about traffic and monetization, and the more posts you have, the more traffic you can generate. At least, that’s the theory.

It could be that the amount of noise and the lack of really good blog discovery engines makes it difficult for insightful writers to attract much attention. Think about how many new and interesting bloggers you’ve discovered recently. I would hazard to guess not many.

Like Jevon, I believe blogging needs to evolve. It’s had a great run and become an entrenched publishing/media platform. The challenge is making sure new tools and services are created to keep things vibrant and engaging.

Technorati Tags: blogs

The ability to personalize the iPhone and extend its functionality is the iPhone’s “killer app”. I do wonder, however, how many of the applications that people happily download onto their iPhones are actually used on a regular basis.

I suspect most of the applications people install are akin to those little mints that restaurants give away: they’re free, sweet but only last a short period time if you actually eat them. From how I’ve used my iPod Touch over the past couple of months, there’s about 20 colorful looking applications sitting there but, to be honest, I only use one of them - Twitterific - on a regular basis.

Of course, there’s no cost involved because many of iPhone applications are free, which makes sampling penalty-free.

For more, check out TechCrunch, while Charles Teague has a post that does a great job breaking out what’s in the App store.

Technorati Tags: Apple

It’s not surprising given Mr. Tweet is all about helping you find new people to follow on Twitter - something Twitter doesn’t do at all. And while there are a few services trying to solve this problem, none of them has really nailed it yet.

After waiting a few days to gain access to Mr. Tweet - they were pounded with requests after glowing reviews on Mashable and other many other blogs - I finally got to use it earlier today.

The verdict: two thumbs up!

You can read my review on Twitterrati, a blog I recently launched on Twitter and microblogging.

Technorati Tags: Mr. Tweet, twitter

If the deal does go kaput, it will be the best thing to happen to BCE and its customers.

How come?

Well, if the deal is consummated, BCE will $32-billion of debt to service at a time when competition from cablecos is wickedly fierce. Despite this competitive landscape, BCE would still need to jump-start cash flow to pay down debt. One tool already being used by BCE to boost cash flow is raising prices for existing services - aka squeezing customers.

Of course, this approach won’t work because the cablecos are only more than happy to position themselves as more affordable/better options, while also being able to raise their prices. At the end of the day, BCE just pisses off even more consumers, while giving them yet another excuse to jump ship to a cableco.

The highly-leveraged deal a shaky idea from the beginning, and it’s even more so now when the global credit crisis. If the deal goes pear-shaped, there will be lot of embarrassed people and pissed off investors but, in the end, it will a positive for BCE as it scramble to remain competitive.

FACTBOX: Too much debt puts big BCE buyout in peril

THE PROPOSED BUYOUT

- Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with U.S.-based private equity firms Providence Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, are offering C$42.75 a share in cash to take BCE private.

- Under terms of the deal announced on June 30, 2007, Teachers Private Capital will hold a 52 percent stake in BCE, Providence 32 percent, Madison Dearborn 9 percent, and other Canadian investors 7 percent.

- BCE would pay a break fee of C$800 million in certain circumstances, while the buyer would pay C$1 billion fee.

- The buyer has commitments for facilities to support ongoing liquidity needs for the company, BCE said when it announced the agreement.

- The deal has received approval from Industry Canada and the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission. It was backed by Canada’s Supreme Court in June. The top court overturned a lower court decision that sided with some bondholders who claimed the deal was unfair.

www.reuters.com

Technorati Tags: bce, bell canada

The move comes a few months after Twitter was forced to shut down SMS service for U.K. customers.

It’s comes down to simple economics: it costs Twitter too much money, which is a challenge for a company that generates no revenue.

“We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).”

For Canadians, it means they can send Tweets via SMS but can’t receive any Tweets using SMS. Of course, there are lots of cool tools out there to use Twitter on mobile devices without having to resort to SMS.

The sad part is Twitter’s move is yet another illustration how Canada is becoming a digital peasant. With carriers more intent on squeezing customers for revenue (aka ARPU) than providing innovative, new services, Canadians end up looking at the raging party going on without being able to participate.

Of course, it would also help if we had access to online services such as Hulu and Pandora but that doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon.

Twitter held out hope it can revive SMS outside the U.S. “There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world),” a post on Twitter’s blog read. “We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.”

For more, check out CNet.

Technorati Tags: twitter

But according to the Neilsen Co.’s “A2/M2 Three Screen Report”, the average person in the U.S. watches an astounding 142 hours of TV a month.

What I want to know is what are these people watching? It may be a 500-channel universe but there’s a lot of crap coming being broadcast. So clearly, there are a lot of non-discrimminating couch potatoes with nothing better to do than waste time on bad programs.

Now, I could be all dismissive and make a bunch of couch potato jokes but that would be like the tea pot calling the kettle black.

How come? Well, most of the TV watching I used to do has been replaced by spending time online - be it surfing, watching videos, blogging or e-mail. I certainly don’t spend eight non-work hours a day on the Web but the hour or so of post-work time I do have is usually spent online as opposed to the TV.

So, the question is whether surfers are any better or different than couch potatoes, or are we just the same screen-obsessed creatures?

The truth is the Web is as addictive as time-consuming as watching TV but it has more utility has an entertainment, communications, retail and educational tool. Does this make the Web better than TV, or just different?

Another twist is watching TV on the Web is becoming easier than ever, which suggests TV/video watching may even increase given you can do it just about anywhere. The newest player on the scene is Sling Media, which just launched a video portal to compete against Hulu and Joost. TechCrunch reports Sling’s offering is off to a good start.

What’s interesting is even though people are apparently spending more time than ever watching TV, the amount of money spent on TV advertising is flat. This suggests advertisers are spending elsewhere, including Web, although spending on online video advertising has yet to catch fire.

www.emarketer.com

So, what’s happening out there. Here’s one explanation:

“This precipitous drop reflects not only the poor economic conditions, but fundamental changes in the way television advertising is being bought and sold,” says Carol Krol, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Television’s New Picture: Seismic Shifts in the Digital Age. “Fragmentation and declines in viewership have made it more difficult for advertisers to reach audiences.”

www.emarketer.com

More: The graphic and eMarketer quote were pulled using a new service called sni.ps - more on it later. For more thoughts on how much television people are watching, Mitch Joel looks at how advertising is going to be affected.

Technorati Tags: television

As a result, I was using Thunderbird. It was an unorthodox decision because it’s not like Thunderbird plays as nice as other e-mail clients such as Outlook and Entourage. But as an ardent Firefox user, it seemed to make sense to support Mozilla’s e-mail efforts.

Unfortunately, my faith in Thunderbird has gone unrewarded. As much as Firefox has become a vibrant and useful tool, Thunderbird has been stagnant. Firefox has an amazing add-on ecosystem, while Thunderbird’s is almost non-existent. Firefox plays nice with all kinds of other technologies; Thunderbird not so much, including my Blackberry.

Meanwhile, GMail continues to push forward with some cool new wrinkles such as video chat and themes. There’s also an interesting group of companies developing GMail extensions such as Xoopit.

So, I finally took the GMail plunge by making it an e-mail portal for my professional and e-mail accounts. With the help of labels, it’s looks and acts really organized even with thousands of e-mail sitting in the inbox.

It is interesting that Mozilla has dropped the ball when it comes to Thunderbird. It wasn’t until recently that Mozilla gave Thunderbird some much-needed love by spinning it out and providing it with $3-million in start-up financing.

The problem is that it may be a case of too little, too late - at least for me.

Technorati Tags: gmail, thunderbird

A different - and perhaps better - question is who’s right buyer. For whatever reason, Facebook doesn’t seem like right choice to carry the Twitter to the next level. My fear is once Twitter is within the Facebook fold, whatever je-ne-sais-quoi it had will disappear to the point where Twitter will stop being Twitter.

But the reality is Twitter’s in play. It’s entertaining offers, and waiting for the right deal to come along.

Putting aside price, which the market will determine, who’s the best buyer?

Is is Google, which already has Jaiku, although it doesn’t appear to have done much with Jaiku since it was acquired?

Is it Microsoft, which missed the blogging boat but wants to be a major player in social media?

Is it News Corp.? Rupert Murdoch scored with MySpace so why not take a shot at Twitter?

What about an unorthodox choice, the New York Times, which needs something dramatic to jump-start its online operations?

Who do you think is the best buyer for Twitter.

Technorati Tags: google, microblogging, twitter

What is particularly interesting when looking at the newspaper business and the blogosphere is how much bloggers still rely on newspapers for content. The New York Times, for example, is perhaps the most cited source because its reporters write great content.

The NYT’s business section, for example, writes excellent, must-read technology stories even though there’s no lack of places to get tech news on the Web.

Unfortunately, the NYT is a broken business because the Internet is driving advertising dollars away from it, and its online properties can’t offset the print loses.

Amid all the handwringing about the NYT’s future, Seth Godin has a fascinating blog post looking at what the NYT’s shouldn’t have done or could do to reverse its fortunes. As I read it, I found myself nodding along with many of his points.

For example, he wonders why the NYT doesn’t own Zagat or Yelp.com. Or why it doesn’t have it own version of Wikipedia given the NYT’s amazing content.

Hindsight is 20-20 but Godin’s main assumption is what the NYT could have been and what it is has much to do with the difference between:

senior management playing defense, supporting and protecting the status quo and avoiding offending the elders upstairs vs. using existing momentum and clout to build assets for the next business.

Truth be told, you could say that about a lot of businesses (e.g. music, movies) being disrupted by the Web.

Update: This may be a crazy thought but what about the NYT acquiring Twitter now that Twitter appears to be in play? With three million unique users and a growing reputation as a tool to distribute and consume content, could there be a fit between the NYT and Twitter?

Twitter may be one of those strategic opportunities that many companies may kick themselves for not pursuing. Look at how much News Corp. has gotten out of its MySpace deal? At the time, many people thought Rupert Murdoch has overpaid but now…

Technorati Tags: new york times, seth godin

The silver lining was it gave me an excuse to test the Harmony One universal remote, which lets you control a wide variety of devices using a single remote control. Harmony, which was started in Canada before it was acquired by Logitech, has a reputation for being a top-notch device.

Certainly, the Harmony One remote has not disappointed so far. The installation process, which takes about 30 minutes, is fairly intuitive, although you need to provide detailed information about the devices you want to control. You program the remote by connecting using your PC or Mac, which has to be connected to the Internet.

After that, you’re pretty much off to the races. The remote works right away, which is a huge consideration for anyone who just wants technology to work. Although there are plenty of features, it’s easy to get started without digging into the manual.

If you haven’t used a all-in-one remote before or used one that is a few years old, the technology has really changed. It’s much more advanced, easy to configure and feature-rich.

One downside is the Harmony One is not inexpensive, going for about US$250. But if you’re into electronics and need a high-quality all-in-one remote, you won’t go wrong with the Harmony One.

Even when my old remotes re-appear, there’s no way they are going replace the Harmony remote.

The only criticism I would have with the Harmony One is the amount of packaging. After unpacking the remote, there was a mound of plastic. It leaves a little bit to be desired given the green times in which we live.

Technorati Tags: harmony, television