Apple's New Macbook & Macbook Pros... And?

I confess: I wasn't excited going into today's Apple announcement... for a slew of reasons actually: - larger macro issues (economy, election) are far more serious and interesting

- the Apple announcements seem to be available on Techmeme long before Jobs takes the stage (I've called it Gadgetmeme before)

- Apple hasn't wowed me with anything game-changing other than the iPhone App Directory (and we knew that was coming). In fact, ever announcement seems to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

And with the 'major' announcements now past, I actually found the rumors juicier than the result - and the more interesting reading is what the economy's impact on Apple's enhanced line will be: will the new $999 entry point benefit suddenly-cost-conscious buyers (as UBS and PiperJaffy ponder) - or will they be less inclined to purchase evolutionary and still-comparatively-expensive laptops (as I contend).

Introducing the all-new MacBook and MacBook Pro. New design. New features. New technologies. All engineered to standards that don’t even exist yet:

Precision aluminum unibody enclosure. Machined from solid aluminum, the new MacBook and MacBook Pro are thinner, greener, and more stunning than ever.

Ultrathin LED-backlit display. With seamless glass and instant full screen brightness, everything you see is flat-out spectacular.

Advanced NVIDIA graphics processing. NVIDIA delivers faster, more powerful graphics performance to the new MacBook and MacBook Pro.

All-new, smooth glass Multi-Touch trackpad. The spacious new Multi-Touch trackpad gives you even more room for clicking and for Multi-Touch gestures.

Loic Le Meur Discusses Seesmic Layoffs; Community Response is Fascinating

Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, laid off over one-third of the company as the economy continues to weaken and start-ups continue to be affected in various, meaningful ways. Seesmic is certainly not the only company to be affected in this manner (more will occur)... and, in and of itself, I typically wouldn't write about this. But I was struck by Loic's decision to cover the changes via a Seesmic video - a controversial, but admirable decision. It is clear that Loic was troubled by the decision and, for a usually upbeat / engaging personality, the video is hard to watch - whether you are an entrepreneur, colleague, investor, etc.

After watching the video, I scrolled down to Loic's comment system (powered by Disqus), and was blown away by the discussion.

There are dozens and dozens of thorough comments. Some text, some Seesmic replies. This is a result of the deep issue, Loic's following and the power of a communal / distributed comment system like Disqus + Seesmic.

Also striking was the quality of the replies. Most are well thought out and reflective of the economic situation (see Jeff Clavier). Others are clearly angry for a variety of reasons (high sense of bitterness). And others are opportunistic (ie offering readers blogging jobs for their companies).

I am not sure what to make of all of this - but the levels of interaction and emotion are fascinating.

Tough times. Tough decisions.also read my blog post http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/10/tough-times-tou.html

InGameNow iPhone App Ready for Beta Testing!

We've been hard at work on the InGameNow iPhone Application and got great assistance from a collection of beta testers. We have just released the 99% complete first version of the app (a couple changes coming) and are ready for full beta testing. So if you are an avid sports fan and an iPhone user, please email me directly for beta access. The application should be available in iTunes shortly (knock on wood).

Core components of the app:

- Live integration with InGameNow: seamless posting and pulling - Automatic scores / posts updates - Dashboard of games that are "InGameNow" (screen shot below) - Full schedule and browse accessibility by league and team - Ability to set and monitor favorite teams

Half of Social Media Campaigns Fail Because Half the Problem is Being Solved

Atop Techmeme is the CNET blog post "Analyst: Half of 'social media campaigns' will flop". It's a gloomy headline clearly written to grab the eye and drive traffic (it worked - after all, I found it on Techmeme); but despite the strong title, the article's guts are actually quite insightful and on-point. The core arguments by Gartner analyst Adam Sarner is that half of social media campaigns fail because advertisers only deliver half of what needs to be delivered in social media campaigns:

- a medium to convey and promote your brand - a medium for social interaction and engagement

I've written about the three elements of compelling, engaging widgets before - and it echoes this point:

1. Give Users a Reason to Come Back 2. Make it Customizable 3. Market Softly and Carefully

"(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won't have a mutual purpose, and they'll fail," Sarner said. By a "mutual purpose," he means a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it: finding that balance is not easy. The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don't go over as well with the public.

He cited the Facebook craze as an example. The social network is "more for the community than it is for the bottom line," and it's tough for marketers to get their message in on a site that's focused on communicating with your friends rather than finding stuff to buy...

... There's obviously no universal solution to social-media advertising and marketing, because every company is different. But Sarner offered a preliminary tip: to make sure that there's a clear reason why such a campaign is instituted, and "get people talking" isn't enough. "Are you discovering what's going to be the new black next season?" he suggested as an example of a trendspotting-focused strategy.

Once you've answered that question, it's time to pick and choose: whether to use existing technologies or build them in-house, whether the focus should be video or discussion or Digg-like yes-no voting, ad nauseam.

I Love Google Chrome, But...

You would think that Chrome wouldn't return errors on Google properties... right? I get the following error when trying to access my Google AdSense account (which I find laughable):

This is probably not the site you are looking for! You attempted to reach google.com, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as www.google.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration on the server or by something more serious. An attacker on your network could be trying to get you to visit a fake (and potentially harmful) version of google.com. You should not proceed.

Who Won the VP Debate? Ask Google

America tuned into watch Sarah Palin debate Joe Biden... and now they are turning to Google to ask, "who won the vp debate?" According to Google Hot Trends - t's the #1 search query on Google. The results, however, are far from satisfying and prove just how difficult indexing - and more importantly, ranking - fresh content from the blogoshpere and media is. Proof: If you are asking who won the debate, the best results likely were published after the debate. Right? Well here's a breakdown of the seven suggested sources:

- two articles published at 11am pst... long before the debate occurred - two articles from big media companies (Forbes and iReport) that are asking for user commentary - one AdSense affiliate reposting the top search queries - two timely critiques of the actual debate: one from WSJ and one from RightPundits

Introducing New Blog Design... Thoughts?

When I first started this blog, it was on a whim and I built it over a weekend on a hosted version of Wordpress. The theme I implemented and hacked-together worked well but didn't scale well with increased amounts of content, advertising, etc. And while much of my readership is via RSS and email, I was bothered by the overflow that become my blog.... so I finally mustered up the time and courage to hack a redesign together over the past few nights. So here it is: a new theme that is more of a "magazine" template. It is based on Arthemia and is very flexible / customizable. There several great features which aren't turned on because I haven't had the ambition or confidence to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress (any help welcome!).

Lots of blogs are moving away from the old top-to-bottom styles and into more organized, magazine styles (see TechCrunch and Mashable's new looks)... much of this is the ability to better scale, feature advertising / promotions and increase pageviews. As I test out the new theme, I will report on any changes and trends that occur, particularly within:

- pageviews - navigation - SEO - eCPMs / engagement rates

I'd also love your thoughts - like it? Hate it? Improvements? Know CSS and want to help!?

InGameNow Sports iPhone App Coming - Beta Testers?

We are very close to making a public launch of the InGameNow iPhone App - delivering real-time scores, news and interaction to your iPhone. If you are a sports fan and an avid iPhone user - we'd love to have you beta test the InGameNow App before it officially hits iTunes.

Please email me directly or leave a comment if you are interested in beta testing the App. Here's a screenshot to whet your appetite:

The other exciting news is InGameNow's growth - which is marching towards 200,000 monthly uniques. We believe that the iPhone App will significantly change the way that fans are able to stay connected on multiple devices: computer, mobile and chat.

How to Conserve Battery on iPhone 3G: Fetch Rather Than Push

I spent the last few days in Las Vegas at the BlogWorld convention and was certain that my iPhone wouldn't make it into the afternoons (after all, that is the norm considering how frequently I use it). In an effort to conserve its battery, I made one simple switch: I turned "push mail" off.

While this may be obvious to others... that one change kept my phone running without charge the entire day (and with plenty of juice remaining). Yesterday I really put it to the test with regular Safari usage (trying to keep tab on some NFL games that I had a 'vested interest' in).

To extend battery life, most people switch off 3G (which kills the phone's usability) and location awareness. In a bind, I would much rather run on 3G and get email alerts every 15 minutes or on request.