The article is terrible and I have no idea why anyone has linked to it (and, frankly, why Businessweek published it). It does little more than briefly summarise the situation at Sony over the past decade. Critical analysis is kept to the bare minimum. This despite the fact that it’s over 3,000 words. Where do all those words go? Partly into laying out Sony’s problems (or, to be more accurate, the problems identified by the apparently sole source for the story: Howard Stringer) and partly into just talking about Howard Stringer and his background. Don’t know who he is and can’t be bothered reading his Wikipedia entry? Don’t worry because the boffins at Businessweek have you covered. Want actual analysis? Well, shit.

As I was reading it, two things gave me pause to wonder how well the story had been researched. At one point, the authors Bryan Gruley and Cliff Edwards (as difficult as it is to believe, this piece of reporting required the efforts of two people!) point out that relations between the hardware engineers at Sony in Japan and the content guys in the U.S. were so strained at one point that Sony’s U.S. movie studio had difficulty getting Sony products for use in its movies. It contrasts this with the ease with which Samsung could put its phones in blockbusters like The Matrix.

By Samsung I guess they meant Nokia. Which, you know, is an easy mistake to make: one being a South Korean electronic behemoth and the other being a Nordic mobile phone manufacturer. I for one am constantly confusing Koreans and Finns (the ears are how you tell them apart).

Later in the article, Stringer uses the phrase ‘Lehman shock’ to refer to the global financial crisis that began with the failure of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. The article says that this is Stringer’s ‘shorthand’ for the GFC. This should be setting off warning bells. Have the writers of this piece done any research about Japan? ‘Lehman shock’ is not Stringer’s shorthand; it is the way that Japan refers to the global financial crisis. Shouldn’t you have, like, asked someone what this term meant if you hadn’t heard before? Maybe it would have cropped up in all the background interviews you did with Japanese people?

It’s then that it hits you that there is a remarkable absence of any reporting involving Japan.¹ Sure, Sony’s a global company, Stringer himself is Welsh-born (which the article duly notes) and Kazuo Hirai (the article suggests he is likely to succeed Stringer) divides his time between the United States and Japan but Sony is still a quintessentially Japanese company. What do its problems about combining hardware with software say about Japan’s problems combining hardware and software? What do its problems about embracing the Internet as a delivery platform say about Japan’s problems embracing the Internet as a delivery platform? What do its problems about adapting to change, particularly that brought by a foreign CEO say about Japan’s problems adapting to change, particularly that brought by a foreign CEO? I don’t know because these questions are never even asked, let alone answered.

Sony is a company of engineers, we’re told, and that’s the reason software sucks. Memo to Businessweek: Google? Chock full of engineers. Microsoft? Ditto. Apple? It’s engineers all the way down (to Jony Ive).

Now granted they’re a different type of engineer and maybe what you meant were hardware engineers. Maybe this says something about the problem besetting Sony. (Ooh, an avenue for inquiry!) Any reason to believe that’s changed? All these new whizz-bang products from Sony like tablets and phones and laptops, I guess they’re all going to be running same great new Sony software now that Stringer’s reoriented the ship? Oh, what? They’re running Windows and Android? Software written by someone else? That Sony has no relationship with? Did you ask Stringer (or indeed any Sony executive) about whether they consider the outsourcing of their software to third parties an issue? That it prevents them from adding anything unique to their products that might differentiate them from cheaper ones from Samsung and other manufacturers? Oh. No, I guess not. I guess you were too busy admiring the Central Park reservoir.

There is a great article to be written about Sony. This is not it.

Jim Dalrymple is also not a smart phone analyst. He is also not a technology analyst. He is a professional blogger, focusing on Apple. I think he does a good job when he writes about Apple but he shows his ignorance in this post about what RIM did wrong.

Dalrymple suggests that RIM’s problem was that they didn’t ‘innovate’. This is wrong. RIM’s problem was that their product was dependent on a network for its value and they didn’t control the network. I had a BlackBerry and it was great. It was particularly great at email. You know who really cares about email? Business people. Business people live and breathe email. The BlackBerry cleaned up in that market.

You know who else really loves email? Everybody. The problem for RIM is that while business people could get BlackBerries, safe in the knowledge that the office was going to cover that data charge, consumers couldn’t. Consumers were left to fret over how much it would cost (surely too much) and what the pay off would be in additional convenience (surely not enough).

RIM tried to create consumer phones but they couldn’t get the interest of a public that had been taught to fear data charges. The original iPhone didn’t have this problem because: a) Apple negotiated a sweet deal for customers with AT&T; and b) even if you had just used your iPhone like your Nokia 6100, it at least got rid of needing to carry around an iPod and a phone.

So RIM’s problem wasn’t innovation. RIM’s problem was that it didn’t control the part of its business where the value came from.

As it is, we now live in a world where this is the reality. RIM has to beat not only that but Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Google and Microsoft. They have no hope.

Those seemless updates have a downside, though. I use Google Maps three or four times a week. I also live in Japan. Until Saturday, when viewing Google Maps in English, the application displayed placed names in both kanji and romaji. On Saturday that feature was turned off in favour of what Google trumpets as single-language labels.

Bryce Stout, the Product Manager, proudly writes:

Using a single language can help users by making the map easier to read.

Really? Did any users ask for this feature to be enabled? Was it tested with users? Was it tested with users that actually use Maps in those countries? Surely there’s at least a good reason for why you did this:

We hope this change makes it easier to browse, explore and discover the world around you.

So the rationale behind this change is so that those playing at home can be virtual tourists? That’s great but I actually live here and was using Google Maps to, you know, get around.

Japanese kanji are notoriously difficult to read. This is particularly the case for place names. That said, names will often be written in kanji in addresses and so on. For those of us living in Japan whose language isn’t at native levels, Google Maps was a godsend for showing both kanji names and their transliterations. What Google seems to think made Maps easier to use has in fact made it more difficult.

Google allows you to switch native labels on but why is there not an option just to display both? Why am I being told what’s easier for me? And why is existing functionality being removed?

This is the world of web software. You are renting time. If you like something and it changes, tough. File a feature request and hope (pray?) that it is answered. I’ve written before about the impotent rage a user can feel when a software company makes a change to software you use and depend upon. I suppose it is a feeling to which we should become accustomed.

In all of this Google hate, I would like to note the helpfulness of Google’s Maps Twitter account. After realising the complete uselessness of Google’s Help Forum from my previous encounter, I decided this time to take to Twitter. My blasts of fury provoked sympathetic tweets from my friends and followers and (much to my surprise) an actual response from Google! In fact, two responses!

As grateful as I am that Google’s employees took the time to respond to my pleas (and I am grateful), it’s still frustrating to have a feature just removed without warning. That this came basically the day after Google changed the behaviour of Google Instant felt like a classic one-two. A reminder that web software is theirs, not yours.

There is no substitute for hard work and no short cuts to success. You want to build a business? Great. Be prepared to put the time into it. Don’t believe someone who says that, for $100, they’ll show you how to do it in 48 hours.

Well, the other day I signed up to, and was invited into, Stellar. Stellar is kind of like an automated curation service. It can automate your own curated stream of content and it can expose you to curated streams of content from others.

In terms of automating your own curated content, basically you hook Stellar up to the various services it supports (currently Flickr, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube) and Stellar then checks those services and copies the content you have starred/favourited into your stream (called your ‘flow’).

The immediate benefit of this is that there’s no special toolbar or extension to install, you just use the starring/favouriting tools that are already provided by these services. Consequently, it’s super easy to start curating and, in fact, if you’ve already been starring/favouriting items, Stellar will pull that data right in and you’ll have a flow of content without having to put in any additional work.

However, the real value of Stellar comes from the curated flows of others.

Stellar uses the same follower/followed mechanic as Twitter meaning that you can easily follow as many Stellar users as you want without requiring them to follow you. In this manner, you can curate your own group of curators. When you view this combined flow, you see a stream of different content being presented to you.

I’ve been using Stellar for five days and so far I love it. It has a great work to payoff ratio. It feels like I do very little and yet when I periodically check it throughout the day, a collection of interesting content is there for me to browse.

So, since I’ve been using it for all of five days, I must have a lot of ideas for how to improve it? Not really, actually. Jason Kottke (he of kottke.org fame) has put in a lot of thought and there’s no a whole lot that jumps out at me. But there are two things.¹ Two things that I’ve come across so far (to be completely honest I’m not 100% certain that one of them is a good idea but I’ve put it here for good measure).

The idea I’m least sure about is allowing Stellar to incorporate retweets into your flow instead of just favourites. What I’ve found myself doing the last couple of days when I see something on Twitter that I like is retweet it (so that my followers will see it) and then favouriting it (so that it goes into my flow). It would be less work if retweets (which, at least in my usage, indicate that this is content I think others should see) were incorporated directly into the flow.

I say I’m uncertain about this idea because, to an extent, I can see the benefit of Stellar’s approach. A retweet isn’t a favourite and, while retweeting might work well in the fast-paced world of Twitter, it might not work so well for Stellar where you want something a little more considered.

The one I’m more certain about is filters. It’s only five days in and, although I haven’t had a problem yet, I can see that I’m going to get to the point where the amount of content coming into my flow is overwhelming. What I need is the ability to create filters.

I’ve chosen the word ‘filter’ rather than ‘list’ because I think Twitter’s lists are great example of how limiting lists can be. I don’t just want to collect together certain people into lists because, well, certain people don’t always post the same type of content. Instead what I want is a filter.

Imagine that I have a photo filter. It only shows content that’s obviously a photo (say something posted to Flickr) or links to a photo (like a tweet). If I’m wondering what photos have been posted then I can easily check my photo filter. Ditto with video and links generally.

Maybe I only want to see content which has been liked by a certain number of people that I follow, or a combination of those people. You can see that, when you start thinking about it, the possibilities feel limitless. Indeed, the more I think about it, the more disappointed I become that it’s not already there.

Still, overall, I’m super happy with Stellar. If it sounds like something you’re interested in, I highly recommend signing up. Unfortunately, it’s not the type of service that grants beta users invites but put in your email and try your luck. Hopefully, you’ll get in quite quickly.

Oh, and if you want to see what I’m pulling into Stellar, check me out.

You’d think it’d be fun, wouldn’t you? Writing about “The Simpsons” and such for money. It’s every slacker’s dream job. And I was making $35,000! I remember that I crossed a certain threshold, soon after I got my new job: I stopped buying “Sensor” brand razor blades, and upgraded to “Schick Quattro” brand razor blades. This was exciting. The “Quattro” had four blades instead of the measly two blades of the “Sensor,” plus a sideburn trimmer on the back, plus it vibrated to supposedly aid the shaving process. This was the big time.

(via Justin Blanton.)

But today I’m spitting chips¹ because today I spent some time looking into the transitioning of Google Apps accounts into ‘regular’ Google Accounts.

For those not aware, previously Google had (and for a month still has) two types of account. The first type was a Google Personal Account. For most people, this is your Gmail account. However, Gmail is not required to have a Google Account and if you sign up with a non-Gmail domain you will still get access to every Google product except for Gmail.

The second type of account is a Google Apps Account. If you use Google to provide certain services to a domain for which you are responsible, you are able to have some services (such as Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Docs) provided to users under that domain name.

Some people, such as me, have used one email account for both types of accounts. I use my Google Apps Account for Google Mail, Google Calendar and Google Docs and my Google Personal Account for just about everything else (eg. Google Reader, Blogger, Picasa, YouTube, etc). I do this because I just want to have one email address associated with Google’s services.

Turns out that that ride is coming to an end. Google has decided that it would be better if there were just one type of account. In the future, your Google Account is just your Google Account and if you’re using Google Apps, you get Google Mail and if you’re not using Google Apps, you get Gmail.

Now none of this is a problem so far. I have no problem with the idea as a concept. The problem is entirely in its execution. You would think that what would happen would be that you would be able to merge your Google Personal Account into your Google Apps Account and that would be that.

But no. No, what Google gives you the option of doing is to rename your Google Personal Account. That’s it. That’s the option. But what if you don’t want two accounts? What if the reason that you did this was precisely because you did not want two accounts? Yeah, tough luck for you.

Why can’t you merge? I don’t know. Is there anyone you can talk to about this? No (it’s Google). The best you can do is post a message to the Google Help Forum. It is, as one might expect, unlikely to help.

All of which acts to remind you that, with a lot of these mega-corporations, you really don’t matter. See Apple and Final Cut Pro users. There is the majority of the population and then there is you. You can’t change that no matter how mad you get. It is the very definition of impotence.

This is what Google + feels like, a competitor to social networks of last year, not now.

I like Brooks but it’s because I like him that I feel a need to call him out (see all my posts referencing Gruber).

Brooks says he’s not using Google+ at the top of the piece and then makes a pronouncement about what it feels like? What it ‘looks’ like maybe but surely you’d want to have used the network for a bit before describing what it feels like.¹

If you don’t want to use a social network by the Big G, that’s fine, but don’t then offer an opinion based on reading other people’s opinions.

In order to answer these questions it seems to me we need to first understand why people want these devices in the first place. It’s when we understand the tasks that someone is trying to achieve that we’re able to understand which device (or devices) is likely to fit the bill.

Let’s consider the original iPod. What do (or did) people want to do with a portable music device? It’s tempting to reply just ‘Listen to music.’ But listening to music is a deceptively simple response that masks the fact a number of different tasks need to be accomplished. I’d argue there are actually three different task people want to do when they say ‘Listen to music’:

1. manage music (both on the central repository and on the portable device);
2. transfer music between the central repository and the portable device; and
3. play music (both on the central repository and the portable device).

It’s not uncommon to refer to Apple’s products in an almost derogatory way as ‘fashionable’. But Apple’s products are first and foremost ‘usable’.¹ What made the iPod so universally popular is that (together with iTunes) it was the first, and for most of its run about the only, portable music player that did all three of the aforementioned tasks well.²

Turn now to the iPhone. What do people want to do with a smartphone? I’d argue they want to do at least seven things:

1. make and receive phone calls;
2. send and receive text messages;
3. access email;
4. use mapping software;
5. access the web;
6. play media (including photos); and
7. run apps.

When laid out like this isn’t not hard to see why Android is able to be successful in the phone space. Android is arguably as good as the iPhone (if not better in some cases)³ at the first five of those tasks. The fact that it’s not very good for media playback⁴ or running apps⁵ is not a problem for a number of Android users because it does basically what they want.⁶

So let’s turn to the iPad. What do people want to do with a tablet? I think there are four tasks:

1. access email;
2. access the web;
3. play media; and
4. run apps.

The problem is that Android tablets are good at only two of these four tasks. But the problem is worse than it may at first appear. On a phone, the importance which people attach to the tasks they’re trying to accomplish is far more pronounced. Being able to make and receive calls is not a little bit more important than being able to run apps; it is critical. On a tablet, the ability to access email is important, but it’s not that much more important than being able to play media or run apps.⁷

This is why Android can be successful as a phone but not as a tablet. It’s also why, for a serious tablet competitor to emerge, companies have to start making tablets that either do all of these tasks at least as well as the iPad or do one of these tasks so much better that it redefines the importance which people attach to that task.

Surveying the tablet landscape, it doesn’t appear as if anything that’s out there really meets that criteria. It’s also why a tablet from Amazon is the biggest threat to the iPad. Of all the companies making (or, in Amazon’s case, suspected of making) tablets, Amazon seems the one most likely to be able to produce a tablet that can play media and run apps as well as the iPad.

I bought a Samsung Omnia 7. I generally like Samsung. To me, Samsung feels like Sony felt in the 80s: they make solid, generally well-designed products at acceptable prices. The Omnia 7 is probably not one of these.

This quote really isn’t representative of Lukas Mathis’ excellent review of Windows Phone 7. I have truly picked the worst line in it. I did so not because it was an attack against Microsoft but because I think he’s spot on about Sony. The only thing I’d say is that I think Sony had more class than Samsung.