Who exactly does Jolicloud compete with?
by Tony Hung on November 28, 2010
Don’t get us wrong, we love the Cloud-based operating system and there’s nothing quite like it out there right now (well, at least until Chrome OS arrives), but when you consider that most netbooks with Windows 7 Starter cost around £229 (or $299 in the US) and that you can download the Cloud OS for free the value proposition isn’t all that great
Tried Jolicloud a little while ago myself and ‘lo — here are Jolicloud netbooks. Very stylish. Very stylized. I don’t think I’m the target audience … I still found it rather limiting even if the boot times were zippy. To be honest, in retrospect it seemed to try and occupy the same space that tablets do — light, portable devices mostly for media consumption and a little light editing. Trouble is that a netbook isn’t a tablet, and can’t be tablets at those features (and by tablet, I mean the iPad, really).
Google’s imperfections
by Tony Hung on November 27, 2010
It’s all part of a sales strategy, he said. Online chatter about DecorMyEyes, even furious online chatter, pushed the site higher in Google search results, which led to greater sales. He closed with a sardonic expression of gratitude: “I never had the amount of traffic I have now since my 1st complaint. I am in heaven.”
There are many reasons why Google’s ranking algorithm isn’t perfect, and this unfortunate tale in the New York times is a perfect reason why. However, what’s really unfortunate is how people aren’t just gaming the system to merely line their own pockets, but who are doing so at the expense of others. The delicious irony, of course, is that Google’s own reputation for service is beyond atrocious, one of the causes of these issues (can’t complain to an algorithm) leading Google to end up on the same complaints 2.0 websites as the one above.
On More or Less Permanent Hiatus
by Tony Hung on August 11, 2009
Well, after another brief shpurt of blogging, I’ve decided to kind of suspend things on DJI in more or less permanent hiatus. The reason? Not that I don’t have anything in particular to say (which I do, at times), so expect the odd post in an irregular fashion.
No, the reason behind things is that I made a decision about a month ago, after looking at a picture of myself in the mirror, that, to be blunt, looked very different than the person I was 10 years ago.
Residency and medical training takes a toll, and having just completed a whole whack of it, I really have no excuse but to start living the advice I sometimes tell my patients.
Long story short: between parenting, work, and trying to deliberately live a healthier life – exercising, sleeping, and eating with intention and purpose– I find there’s not much else I have time for.
I guess there are probably a lot of reasons to whip myself back into a healthier version of myself, but like other people who have accomplished this, it doesn’t matter what the reason is as long as you do it.
I may return to blogging regularly at some point, but its hard to say when that will be. Thanks to everyone who have stuck around for 3 years, I’ll be sure to keep in touch.
Tony.
Teens Not Twittering? Absolutely. Here’s the Evidence.
by Tony Hung on July 13, 2009
No, I didn’t conduct the research myself, but as astutely pointed out by Ben Parr, the recent report commissioned by Morgan Stanley regarding one teen (and his friend’s) internet / technology related activities may seem the sweeping generalizations of a small group of individuals … but they do have some roots in evidence.
Well, that bit about teens not twittering anyway. Earlier last month, Caroline McCarthy pointed out an interesting study from Pace University and the Participatory Media Network.
What’s kind of interesting that isn’t mentioned in the original CNet article, is that the survey is made of 200 individuals who were members and consumers from the Participatory Media Network. I take this to mean that these are individuals who already have a bias to be tech-friendly and social-media minded.
And yet, out of those 200 individuals aged 19-24, only 22% of them were on Twitter.
However, in keeping with the Morgan Stanley report, which talks about teens being on social networks, 99% of those surveyed were also on social networks.
And I’m sure this is all just the tip of the iceberg (in a Pew poll conducted last year, only 19% of teens / young adults were on Twitter). In my anecdotal and non-scientific polling of friends and family this is entirely consistent. Most teens and young adults I know aren’t on Twitter, and if they have heard of it, just don’t “get” it to any degree.
Even as Twitter continues to explode, one wonders how sustainable it is, if it doesn’t have the power of demographics on its side. Or, perhaps, if it will, perhaps like Facebook, inevitably skew to an older individuals over time, safety issues or no.
WolframAlpha, Where Are You?
by Tony Hung on July 13, 2009
Time will tell if it was Bing’s inherent abilities or Microsoft’s deep-pockets spending that caused the initial bump of 8% in unique users after the first month — but its clear what is suffering from a lack of Buzz … Wolfram Alpha.
About two months after its initial launch, there’s been thundering silence from the blogosphere / socialstream on WolframAlpha’s computational awesomeness. And now, even with some buzzworthy stuff, it seems like its wholly underwhelming [not being a stats nut, I will take WebWare's take on VORPs for example].
While WolframAlpha was never meant to in any way replace Google, its got to be a little disappointing to see a 50% drop off in traffic and an almost complete drop off in buzz.
With its growing community, some pretty fantastic stuff with its development in frameworks, astronomy, and other eggheadedness awesomeness, I’m not sure if the problem is a piece of software which is inherently lackluster — Cuil, I’m looking at you.
Maybe buzz isn’t important. Maybe traffic isn’t important. But, I suspect that for WolframAlpha’s investors, and as a means to ultimately monetize things, both metrics probably *are*important to some degree.
Here’s hoping that the WolframAlpha team continues to improve its marketing outreach. Its not that Google needs more competitors, because WolframAlpha really isn’t about Google — its about developing a unique piece of computational answer-ware which deserves to live and thrive in its own right.
Still Suspended On Twitter. No, I Don’t Have a Koobface Infection.
by Tony Hung on July 11, 2009
So, as Louis Gray discovered (to my shame), my Twitter account has been suspended. I understand that I’m in some company, and it probably predated a human-related error that occurred several days ago. I have no idea why this is the case, and apparently my case is still pending review by someone with the handle “delbius”, and who looks like this picture:
Delbius — I’m still waiting for my account to be resolved. I’m not a spammer. I don’t have the Koobface infection (be careful of which links you click on, especially if they’re shortened) I don’t even have bad breath (most days). Please don’t make me like Friendfeed more than Twitter (than I already do).
UPDATE: I guess this is delbius …. Hmmm. I wonder if there’s somewhere else I should get satisfaction on this issue?