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Category: economics

Amazon’s MP3 Store Rocks

Published September 26, 2007 by cgerrish

I’m an iPod and iTunes user. While I know how to drag files to a player and manually manage them. I find it easier to let iTunes do the work. The great part about Amazon’s MP3 store is that it integrates seamlessly with iTunes. It does require the download and installation of an application, and for some people that will be a bridge too far. But for those able to overcome that hurdle, if you’re already an Amazon customer, that’s about it.

Find a song or album and download it. It shows up in iTunes. Make a playlist and sync it with your iPhone or just sync it to your iPod. Nice. It’s the beginning of competition in the digital download market. It’s the first serious competition because it works well with Apples products. Some think this is a big problem for Apple, personally I think it’s exactly what Apple needs. They’ve had no competition. Competition will be good for both Amazon and Apple. Perhaps they can show the rest of the industry what the user experience needs to look like.

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Getting Paid

Published September 25, 2007 by cgerrish

I’ve been looking at various online payment systems. None of them are really made for the Web. And PayPal is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake. To some extent we need a company to start from scratch with the Web in mind. Is Revolution Money the solution?

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iPhone & Spam

Published September 11, 2007 by cgerrish

I’ve been setting up my new iPhone. There’s a lot to like. But the lack of spam filters on the email client is a major problem for anyone who’s been using email for a while. There are hacks, but that’s not what’s needed.

The email ecosystem has been trashed. It’s a system in crisis.

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Google Apps: Classic Innovator’s Dilemna

Published September 10, 2007 by cgerrish

I suppose this has been noted before, but Microsoft Office overserves its users. It has too many features that no one uses. It has features that no one even knows about. If an MS Word feature falls in the woods, and no one hears it, does it make a sound? This is a classic Innovator’s Dilemna.

It’s easy to say that Google apps is not as good as Microsoft Office. But that’s an answer to the wrong question. The question is: is it good enough, for a lot less money. The folks at CapGemini seem to think so. It’ll cost a company $50 per year per employee for Google Apps. Microsoft will counter with Microsoft Live, but they don’t what to cannibalize their own product. Which means they leave the field open to Google Apps and Zoho. Speaking of Zoho, you’d think Yahoo or somebody would buy them.

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