Mark B. 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (45) comment rss

  • On the post: Yahoo adds a wallet.

    Mark B. ( profile ), 11 Nov, 1999 @ 01:24pm

    Stuck

    Now, *that's* sticky.

    Too bad it's US-only right now.

    MB

  • On the post: MS vs Playstation Rumors

    Mark B. ( profile ), 26 Oct, 1999 @ 12:01pm

    It takes three

    The X-Box has been rumoured for a while now. I heard about in the spring. It's one of those pseudo-secrets. You can't possibly keep it *that* secret because you want to have developers develop for it (and I don't buy the theory that existing games will run properly on it - not a chance). Also, MS will not be selling it themselves, they'll probably just provide a reference implementation and then try and sell it through their existing channel.

    Prediction; it will be a huge flop. Everybody knows it takes them three tries to get anything right.

    On the other hand, I do agree that it makes a lot of sense for them to do this. I wish more corporations would take gaming seriously, as it's such a great way to ship platform in volume. Besides, it should be well recognized by now that gaming and porn drives so much of today's tech innovations. If porn is not in your corporate culture, you better damn well be into gaming in some way.

    MB

  • On the post: Auctioning Beautiful Children?

    Mark B. ( profile ), 26 Oct, 1999 @ 09:43am

    My prediction

    This is just a rouse. The site will reveal its real self (porn!) real soon now.

    My friend says (yeah, yeah, that's the ticket 8-) that one of the models looks curiously like a porn starlet from the early 90s. The picture of her was seen on the website as shown on CNN, but then removed recently. Hmm...

    MB

  • On the post: Internet Access in Your Car

    Mark B. ( profile ), 25 Oct, 1999 @ 11:52am

    Invert, examine

    I wonder why it is that nobody ever looks at this the other way around; not of having internet access from your care, but of having internet access to your car. ie. a webserver in it so that you can track it, monitor it, etc.. A much more compelling model, IMHO

  • On the post: To WAP or not to WAP

    Mark B. ( profile ), 14 Oct, 1999 @ 02:47pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    iMode is (Compact)HTML & HTTP, which means that much existing content can be rendered as-is. It's not TCP/IP yet, but DoCoMo has made public their intent to go that route. As the article mentions, that drastically reduces the barrier to entry for both carrier and content producer.

    The Palm requires client-side installation of a PQA (analogous to a style sheet). In the web model, which hopefully DoCoMo will continue to follow, that's done on the server (transcoding). Yet Another Barrier to Entry.

    MB

  • On the post: Wireless IM

    Mark B. ( profile ), 13 Oct, 1999 @ 03:25pm

    Full story

    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-851560.html?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.1005-200-851560

    This must be iDen-targetted. Doing it over WAP seems silly since WAP's use of SMS in 1.0 is notoriously lame. I can't imagine them using anything else for the inbound message.

    IM over GPRS is gonna be a lot more fun. No need for WAP at all then, it'll all be IP (UDP).

    MB

  • On the post: eBay gets tough

    Mark B. ( profile ), 10 Oct, 1999 @ 09:47am

    My prediction

    I hope AuctionWatch wins this. eBay doesn't own the fact that a particular item is up for auction, just the rights to a commission on the sale. If somebody comes up with a business model that aggregates this information, more power to them.

    I think eBay's just pissed that they didn't think of doing this themselves.

    My prediction; eBay will acquire AuctionWatch early next year or sooner.

    MB

  • On the post: Amazon Sets Up Gift Registry

    Mark B. ( profile ), 08 Oct, 1999 @ 08:34pm

    Stickiness

    IMHO, gift registries are an amazingly simple and effective means for creating stickiness for a web site. I'm surprised they weren't around long ago. I think there's a lot more to be done there though, like making gift suggestions based on a description of the person (sucking in more valuable information), collecting dates for integration with an IM system (or just email) so that if this registry is for a birthday, you're reminded to use them again next year. etc..

    Somebody should pay me for coming up with these ideas. 8-)

    MB

  • On the post: Colored notebooks

    Mark B. ( profile ), 30 Sep, 1999 @ 12:32pm

    Lockin!

    I'm surprised that nobody (not just here on Techdirt, but anyplace that I've looked) has
    mentioned the obvious reason why colours matter; colour coordination.

    Look at audio components as an example. You can get them in black, but more and more manufacturers are adding customized colours (my Marantz SR-18 is "Champagne"). No other manufacturer that I know of has this same colour, so if I want to buy an amp, colour suddenly enters the equation and Marantz has the advantage.

    Maybe the question to ask is, are colours patentable?

    MB

  • On the post: Paying People to Create Word of Mouth Buzz

    Mark B. ( profile ), 28 Sep, 1999 @ 09:24am

    Cool

    Anything that makes us more suspicious of strangers can't be all bad.

    MB

  • On the post: Techdirt vs. Wired and Slashdot

    Mark B. ( profile ), 26 Aug, 1999 @ 10:03pm

    The good old days...

    Yup yup yup, I remember when posts from Mike and Prash would arrive and nobody would comment on them ... ah, the good old days. 8-)

    MB

  • On the post: Instant Gratification

    Mark B. ( profile ), 18 Aug, 1999 @ 07:26pm

    They've got it backward

    I'd like to see somebody aggregate the services provided by the *existing* variety of to-the-door delivery mechanisms; taxis, runners, man-with-a-van, take-out, grocery, etc.. basically, anybody with a fleet of vehicles in use or not. Mercata for suppliers of atom-bandwidth. 8-)

    Only problem; scheduling it. Yuck. I guess you could start with just taxis - that should make it easier.

    MB

  • On the post: Netscape Browser Losing More Ground

    Mark B. ( profile ), 10 Aug, 1999 @ 03:11pm

    Natural monopoly?

    At what point do you think it becomes worth it for content developers and authoring tool vendors to stop testing against Navigator and go for IE-only?

    And then how long after that until I, as a browser developer, have to start paying MS for source licenses to IE so I can figure out how to render & process all the extensions that are being used? And what's the chance they'll let me have it given that I write a Java browser?

    I *really* hope somebody's got an answer for this, because I sure don't.

    MB

  • On the post: Sun Promises Another Java Chip

    Mark B. ( profile ), 03 Aug, 1999 @ 09:37am

    It's not a Java chip

    It's something very very different. Wait for the specs in a couple of weeks, and give the analysts who know what they're talking about a couple of weeks to mull over the implications.

  • On the post: Who Would Waste Their Time Finding Cool News Stories?

    Mark B. ( profile ), 03 Aug, 1999 @ 09:18am

    Re: PR Guys?

    Mike, you need to get your project manager on this role-confusion thing. 8-)

  • On the post: 3Com to support WAP

    Mark B. ( profile ), 03 Aug, 1999 @ 09:17am

    Oops

    Should be UP.browser, not UP.Link.

  • On the post: 3Com to support WAP

    Mark B. ( profile ), 03 Aug, 1999 @ 09:15am

    Got a browser?

    3Com/Palm has just licensed Phone.com's UP.Link WAP browser. That was fast.

  • On the post: Wireless Data Services

    Mark B. ( profile ), 29 Jul, 1999 @ 08:49am

    Open source

    They handed out a press release at the last WAPforum meeting saying that they're going to open source (not sure what definition they're using though) their WAP gateway software. At least they understand the value of commodity infrastructure.

  • On the post: AOL doesn't want to share

    Mark B. ( profile ), 26 Jul, 1999 @ 08:41pm

    Re: Selfish? No!

    What difference? Well, the ICQ client has stickiness built in in the buddy list. If somebody upgrades Windows and gets the MS client, they still want to use ICQ/AIM because their buddy list is there and it's a pain in the ass to re-enter everybody. If AOL opened up the protocol, MS would have free rein to do this. If they don't, MS could still reverse-engineer the protocol and file formats, but AOL can then just wait until after the Windows CDs ship to tweak it.

    Doing the "exact opposite" has been their MO for their entire existence. "Embrace and extend" starts by embracing. A wolf in sheep's clothing, for sure.

    MB

  • On the post: AOL doesn't want to share

    Mark B. ( profile ), 26 Jul, 1999 @ 08:07am

    Re: Selfish? No!

    > AOL could have left that on and fought the standards battle seperately. Yes?

    Only until MS bundles their client with the next version of Windows. Then it's AOL playing catch-up to try and replicate MS's extensions, and MS doing the tweaking of their servers to lock out AOL people.

    MB

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