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Monday, May 15, 2006
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 Monday, May 15, 2006
started 5/15/2006; 1:28:00 PM - last post 5/19/2006; 7:28:56 PM
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Doc Searls - Monday, May 15, 2006 
5/15/2006; 5:28:00 PM (reads: 6198, responses: 3)
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Anals of marketing, cont'd 
| | "Message discipline = message bonding bondage." That's up on the backchannel (not IRC, which is a mistake) here at the Personal Democracy Forum. |
| | [Later...] Dean Landsman, sitting next to me, asks, "Anals of marketing.. Is that bottom up?" |
All for Al
Ruminations
| | Last night at dinner we were talking about how important it is to get past the belief that a free market is "your choice of silo". This is when Britt dropped the expression "free entry", which Adam Fields talks about (along with much more) in his report on the same dinner. A sample: |
| | In a certain sense, this concept defines the growth of disruptive web services - if the current provider isn¹t doing a good enough job, they should be replaced by someone who¹s selling what people want to buy. This goes right to the heart of why lock-in legislation to protect antiquated business models is a bad bad bad idea. It doesn¹t protect competition, it¹s not an incentive to develop, it¹s simply ³protection² for companies to foist bad products on consumers who want something better. Disruptive business models work, because they¹re good for the consumer. |
| | It was great meeting Adam for the first time, and getting to hang out a bit. His is a rare combination of geek and gourmand, not to mention his smarts about business and much more. |
| | I also covet the Canon 5D camera he used to take the pictures on that last link, under remarkably low light. |
Better garden, same walls
| | Among the 2000+ spams drowning my inbox this morning is one from palm_product_newsletter promoting the new Treo 700p Smartphone. I've been a Palm customer a number of times in the past (going back to the first Palm Pilot), and have been thinking about getting a Treo 650 to replace my failing Sony Ericsson T637 cell phone. It's on sale at the local Cingular store for around $300 or something. I've been leaning against it, however, because a) it's too big and complicated, and b) the guy at the store says it won't work as a bridge to the Net for Linux or Mac laptops. Only Windows. |
| | Anyway, the list of features looked interesting enough to visit the URL. |
| | Until I got to the bottom line: |
| | The new Treo 700p smartphone -- coming soon on the Sprint and Verizon Wireless networks. |
| | Excuse me, but fuck that. |
| | Not because I'm a Cingular customer (actually a former and perhaps future AT&T Wireless customer), but because being a cell phone customer in the U.S. means living inside some carrier's walled garden. And, in the vernacular of my home state, that fucking sucks. |
| | As long as the Net remains a premium feature of cell phones (or cable or telco service), rather than the natural habitat for every form of electronic communication, we'll remain stuck in a world of walled medieval city-states. |
| | Which, by the way, is what the carriers have always wanted, and will continue to want (bullshit to the contrary notwithstanding), until The Market (that's the rest of us, including clueful employees inside the carriers) decide otherwise. |
discuss
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Bill Koslosky MD - Mr. Searls, tear down this wall
5/15/2006; 8:05:26 PM (reads: 864, responses: 0)
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Hello Doc:
I'm not talking about the wall your carrier has erected, I'm talking about the $1400 it would take to hear you speak here in NYC tomorrow.
Such a premium! I would think that you would want to open this presentation up the the public. What a steep price to enter your garden--and for just one day! I guess a feudal lord of the blogosphere can demand such exclusivity. Why couldn't you have a meet-up?
Anyway, the next iteration of the palm os is speculated to be a form of linux.
Bill K.
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While generally the carriers are sucky, in this case it's a technology /
competitive thing. Verizon and Sprint are one technology (CDMA), while
Cingular is a completely different technology, and therefore a different
radio inside the device.
Palm actually has been good when it comes time to consider GSM phones (ala
Cingular, soon to be AT&T). You can get the "tied to Cingular model 650"
cheaply 'cause they subsidize it, or you can buy an "unlocked" GSM model for
more moolah. eBay is your friend.
When I traveled through Africa and Europe last summer, I had the 650
unlocked model, bought specifically for that purpose. I normally use the
Sprint version here.
In your note to me, you mentioned that carriers are silos. I'd argue that any time you make a choice that isn't interoperable (and having a different radio in your phone, because the technology is different falls directly into that category) you are going to have silos.
When it comes to GSM phones, where the radio is the same worldwide (more or less) then carriers do try to create silos. But the customer has the choice in this case to pay more (because he or she isn't being subsidized) and get a phone that isn't locked to a specific carrier.
Also, because of government intervention, in this country we have number portability, even if we don't have device portability between carriers. And while I hate stranding my investment in hardware, it's even worse to strand my investment in my telephone numbers.
I think, fundamentally, that I want carriers to compete hard to provide the best technology they can. And if that means that I must make a technology choice that strands me if I'm wrong, I think that's worth having the competitive pressure.
BTW, I'm on my fourth or fifth Palm cell phone, and I'm anxiously awaiting the newer model. So all of this theoretical stuff aside, have fun with your new phone.
Lastly, whether your're a customer or a consumer, remember to do your shopping via iGive.com, where each purchase helps your favorite cause!
Rob
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Allan Karl - Re: Monday, May 15, 2006
5/19/2006; 11:28:56 PM (reads: 882, responses: 0)
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