Bob Russell

Member since: May 7th, 2006

Bob Russell's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
Engadget	2 Comments
Download Squad	1 Comment
Engadget Mobile	1 Comment
Blog Maverick	8 Comments

Recent Comments:

iRex: something awesome this way comes (Engadget)

Sep 18th 2008 10:45PM More details are out... http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29389
(Forbes via MobileRead.)

Quick facts from the article:

* Name: iRex Reader 1000
* 10.2 Inch Screen
* eBook (Mobipocket?), PDF, Word, and html support (probably others)
* Stylus input (wacom?)
* 60-70 hour battery life
* 3 Versions
* Base - $650
* Touch Screen - $750
* Touchscreen + Bluetooth, Wifi, and 3G, $850
* 16 levels of greyscale

HTC Touch Pro gets handled, keyboard better than X1's? (Engadget)

Jun 27th 2008 2:09PM The extra width of the Sony will make a big difference if you want to use software to control your phone with a laptop/tablet. (Eg when there is no wifi available, and you want to use the phone to remote desktop to a full PC)

But the Touch Pro is supposed to have TV Out...

The Ala Carting of Video on the Net - Will it lead to disaster ? (Blog Maverick)

May 5th 2008 4:01AM Revenues will not drop as drastically as suggested because the value of the remaining ads will be high. I haven't paid any attention to ads on TV for a long time. But the ads on Hulu have my attention. I'd say 2 x 15 secs of ads on Hulu during a show have more contact with me than 15 mins of TV commercials, and advertisers will pay for that.

The future of the music business...again (Blog Maverick)

May 29th 2007 12:48PM Top four ways the music industry will ruin your idea, even if they try to implement it:
1) Low-quality MP3s, the the hope of selling it all over again to you at better quality compression
2) No provision for re-downloading files that get lost
3) DRM on the audio files that make it unattractive to purchase
4) Lack of selection - only a portion of recordings will become available, so anyone not in the mainstream market will not find their music

Only after they lose the battle will they regret the approach of holding tightly to the past instead of being a visionary as you suggest. I don't think that the music industry cares about meeting customer needs in order to increase revenues. They are much more interested in increasing their control of how and where content is used, so they can perpetually license it to people. As a result, both content owners and the public all lose.

You Go Viacom ! (Blog Maverick)

Mar 14th 2007 6:22AM Looney Tunes (Warner Bros Online) is using YouTube exactly as you suggest. They post short cartoons, package them up with info about the web site and use them to whet everyone's appetite for more. Here's an example... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ndm1v-juJQ

Best Buy admits it has two websites: Could be misleading customers (Download Squad)

Mar 3rd 2007 10:07AM I remember the same thing happening to me, and naturally assuming I had made a mistake. Dual sites with dual prices was completely beyond anything I could have imagined.

Most likely, there were originally two sites for another reason (e.g. additional info for sales teams on there). But over time some deals didn't show up at the store version. No incentive to fix that if they believed it caused people to pay a higher price. They likely weren't thinking of it as fraud, if indeed these accusations are true.

Executive Pay and stock prices (Blog Maverick)

Jul 22nd 2006 10:40PM A payment plan for execs that only pays on a company sale or payment of dividends would also mismatch incentives. There is already an unhealthy emphasis on short term results. Paying execs on dividends would exacerbate the problem at the cost of long term investment. Even a mature industry (where the value is primarily producing dividends, not planning for the future) needs to maintain that investment in the future. Interesting ideas as always, but I think this one needs to be refined a bit to make it work.

A quick note on Click Fraud (Blog Maverick)

Jul 10th 2006 6:29AM The only way that click fraud is adjusted for properly in the market is if the amount of click fraud can be reasonably estimated, and estimated for each advertiser reasonably accurately. A global spread of unknown levels of click fraud is not compensated for properly by the market, or at least leaves a lot of uncertainty about the value of ads. But Eric Schmidt is smart to say the market compensates because, first of all, it helps (falsely) sooth advertisers. And more importantly, it moves the argument from one of the validity of per-click advertising models to a discussion of what the price adjustment should be for fraud. Now the main goal can be identification of fraud levels rather than elimination of fraud in the first place. That's much more palatable to advertisers. I've written more here, that is too long for this BlogMaverick comment, "Why Dr. Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) may be wrong and right about click fraud"... http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=6957

Dang its humid... (Blog Maverick)

Jun 13th 2006 6:42PM You should get a Treo so you can blog anywhere.. some of us are getting addicted to your posts, especially live from the finals! ;-)