*michael parekh on IT*

ON ONE AOL JOURNEY FROM PAID TO FREE

YEARN TO BE FREE

(Updates:  See below at end of the post).

It's done. 

After almost a dozen years as a paying subscriber of AOL, I'm now a free user of AOL's core services. 

Following yesterday's official Time Warner announcement of the long-awaited move to go from paid to a free, advertising based online service, I wanted to see how long it would take me to switch my account to free.

First I went online, to see if AOL had implemented an easy way for paying subscribers with their own broadband access (cable or DSL), to transition to a free account.

No immediate joy to be had.

This was going to be a series of steps.  I started hesitantly on my journey to save $14.95 a month.

1.  First you had to click on an "AOL is changing..." link on aol.com.

2.  Then you see a link at the end of that page that addresses existing AOL users (all 18 million of them).

That page then leads to a page explaining the big announcement, but no immediate link or number to transition from paid to free.

3.  Instead the user then has to click on a "Frequently Asked Questions about new AOL" link.

This link then gets you to a page with a dozen questions.

4.  One then clicks on question number 7:  "When can I get AOL for free?"  Here's the answer to this burning question:

"If you already have an alternative way to connect to the Internet, either by dial-up or broadband, you can move to the free AOL plan and continue to access your AOL e-mail, software, and security features. To change your current AOL plan, simply call Member Services at 1-800-984-6207."

After following this long chain of links, AOL wants the subscriber to call an 800 number.

An online company that doesn't allow you to do the switch online!

I guess I wasn't surprised, given the company's long, controversial history of not allowing subscribers to cancel online as well.

But this toll-free call was likely to be different, I thought, as I started to dial the number.
Will I be talking to someone in the same AOL customer service department that was likely to see large, wholesale layoffs a short while after the company transitions from subscription to a free, ad based model?

If so, the employee morale and willingness to help a customer who wants to transition to a free account should be great.

This wasn't going to be as easy as I thought.

My mind immediately went to the recent incident when a user that wanted to cancel had to face an aggressive telephone rep from the "customer retention" department who was trained to "save" the account.

5.  "It's going to be that kind of a process", I thought, as I finally dialed the number.  After a few rings, the phone was answered by an automated, perky female voice that cheerfully that most of us are all too familiar with from dealing with BIG media/cable/telco company "Customer Support" lines.

I sighed...so that's how it was going to start...

What a great opportunity missed to instill good feelings amongst existing members and "welcome" back new members interested in the new, FREE AOL. 

Instead the recording goes on to tell me, and I'm paraphrasing a bit here, that due to the response to the company's recent announcement, they may take a little while to get to little old me.

6.  The VOICE then asks you to "SPEAK" your home phone number and screen name, which I dutifully gave her.

7.  The system then offers you TWO choices:  press #1 to sign up as a new subscriber, or press #2 to sign up for AOL Broadband.

No #3 for "existing subscribers who'd like to transition their account from free to paid"

8.  At this point, I was stuck in a loop.  Just two choices to choose from, neither of which I wanted.

I then had to do what one does with these infernal voice recognition "HELP" systems that are designed really NOT to help.

I had to figure out the keyword that would get me transfer me to a human being.

So I cycled through the usual choice of words that went through my head, starting with "HELP", "OPERATOR", "CUSTOMER SERVICE" etc. 

The system paused and then asked if I wanted to speak to a "Consultant".

Of course, that's exactly the person I wanted to speak with...now, why didn't I figure that out?

9.  The system than put me on music hold while I waited for a human picked me up.  It promised me a wait of no more than two and a half minutes.  How optimistically precise, I thought.

10.  A tad over 7 minutes later, a human being picks up the phone. 

A distinctly Indian accent, which I was able to understand (but then, I was born there).  At least I wasn't going to have to deal with the regular AOL customer service people who were facing an uncertain employment future.

The gentleman politely asked how he could help me.

I said in as firm a voice I could muster that I was a long-time paying subscriber, who wanted to take advantage of the offer for a "FREE" AOL.

He calmly assured me that he could help, but first would I be interested in an offer to pay $4.95 a month to get "Customer Service" AND 10 hours of dial-up when needed?

"No, thank you", I replied, telling him also that I had a meeting in ten minutes (I did) and needed to get this transition to a free account done as quickly as possible.

No problem, he replied, as he continued to read from a script.  He assured me he had all my customer information in front of him, and it would take a few entries to make the change.

A few moments later, he informed me that my free AOL services were activated.  They took effect immediately, and they did not include dial-up and customer service.

The script then informed me that I was agreeing to waive pre-paid dial-up charges that I'd already paid in for the month, and that I remained responsible for any other charges.

He also informed me that I could get additional support help.aol.com.

He then asked me if he could help me with anything else.

"No", I said. 

The rep then asked me while parting if I was interested in a video lesson from video professor, and a "free" video camera.  If so, he could helpfully connect me with a representative who could help me.

That was the second attempt to sell me an additional service.

Again, I politely declined, and hung up the call.

The whole thing had taken almost 40 minutes, 16 of which were spent on the phone.

It'd probably be a long longer for most mainstream folks, who may not be as determined in their quest to follow the trail of links, and solve the guessing puzzles through the voice recognition system gauntlet to get to a human operator.

So, there're still a fair number of friction points to try "retain" paying customers as passively as they can.

Two attempts to up-sell me to additional revenue producing services.

That's why they were making millions of customers call a toll-free number rather than facilitating a simple online transfer from paid to free.

What a lost opportunity to get existing and/or new users excited about the new, ad-supported AOL.

Instead, it was more of the same old attempts at telemarketing. 

Old habits die hard, I guess.

I'm now a free AOL user, waiting like millions of other users to see if the new AOL is any different from the old AOL.

Not holding my breath though.

Overall, I'd give AOL a "B-" in this one person's anecdotal journey from paid to free.

It would have been an A- if the initial, automated telephone response had mentioned key word "free aol services for existing members" as the third option.

Or an A if they'd allowed members to do it all online.

An A+ if they'd given concrete examples of how the new, free AOL was going to be exciting and really different from the old AOL.

I must say that I was surprised to be able to actually make the transition from paid to free on the day of the official announcement.

And I'd expect the process to get simpler and hopefully easier over time.

I was expecting to give them a C going into the whole thing though, so they did better than expected.

Curious to hear if your experience is any different.

DISCLOSURE:  I remain a long-time, increasingly frustrated Time Warner shareholder.

Update #3  AUG 4, 2006

Reader Dave comments to the above post:

"It's easy online

Get on your AOL account

Enter AOL Keyword "change plan"

on click on the free plan on the next screen and you are done

Posted by: dave | Friday, August 04, 2006 at 03:30 PM"

Dave,

I should have clarified in my earlier post.  I did all of the above going to AOL's website since I don't use the AOL client on any of my computers anymore.

Having said that, I went back to www.aol.com on the web, and typed in the keyword "change plan".

It got me some search results, and a link to review various AOL price plans.

Clicking on that, as of right now, Friday, August 04, 2006 at 3:47pm EST, I get a description of the three AOL paid plans, at $24.95, $14.95 and $19.95 a month, along with buttons whereby I can switch to those plans. 

Nothing at all about a transition to the free plan.  And this is two days after the announcement.

It may be different on the AOL client, but it's still not doable on the aol.com web site, which is to be the future of the company.

Even if it's possible to switch it easily on the AOL client, I'd maintain that most mainstream folks won't be able to even think of typing in "Change Plans" without some overt help on the main welcome screen.

Again, I'm sure the company will get around to making it easier on all it's platforms, but it's still harder than it needs to be as of now.

Thanks for the comment.

    Michael

Update #2:  August 4, 2006

I have a new post here on AOL's new transition.

Update #1:  August 3, 2006

AOL did announce one differentiating feature for it's new, free AOL a day later today, offering members 5GB of free online storage. 

The lack of a "Wow" feature was something I highlighted in yesterday's official announcement of the new, free AOL.  With this announcement, AOL trumps Google with it's pioneering 2GB Gmail offering, by offering a broader, online storage solution, ahead of it's long-rumored "GDrive". 

The offering is a result of it's year-old acquisition of XDrive. 

Online storage is a topic I've been very focused on in the past.  See earlier posts here, here, here, and here).

ON RE-FRAMING THE LATEST MID-EAST CRISIS

THE BIGGER STORY

(Update:  The AP has a story providing additional details on the attack on the Israeli missile cruiser.  Via memeorandum).

I'm not always in agreement with The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, but in the context of the current Israel vs. Hezbollah/Syria/Iran via Lebanon mid-east crisis, I do think he offers a different context than a lot of mainstream media reports.  Specifically, he says:

"WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars? Because it's not an Arab-Israeli war. Most of Israel's traditional Arab enemies have checked out of the current conflict.

The governments of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are, to say the least, indifferent to the fate of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah) isn't a player. The prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war is a non-Arab state, Iran, which wasn't involved in any of Israel's previous wars.

What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States."

One might say that this is just a shifting of labels. 

But clarity in the underlying political motives of all the parties involved, is potentially helped by this particular re-labeling.

In the meantime, one can only empathize with the plight of middle-of-the-road ordinary Lebanese caught in the middle of all this, with literally nowhere to run.  This post in the Lebanese Political Journal expresses the local anger against Israel with poignancy:

"Where am I going? Syria. Didn't want to, but I have to. The people we marched against are the ones you sent us begging to. The people who assassinated our leaders, kept us from having an operating democracy, and who armed Hezbollah are laughing it up because they've won the game because of you."

The New York Times, while echoing the world's sympathy with the situation Israel finds itself on it's borders with Gaza and Lebanon, urges it's leadership to "Not Play Hamas's Game":

"Israel needs to be careful that its far-reaching military responses, however legally and morally justified, do not end up advancing the political agenda that Hamas and Hezbollah hard-liners had in mind when they conceived and executed the kidnappings of Israeli soldiers that detonated the fighting."

One can only assume the Hezbollah/Syrian/Iranian orchestrators of all this thought through the chess moves when this game got started by the kidnappings.

How else to account for their ability to have ready to fire Chinese silkworm missiles OR unmanned aerial drones armed with explosives, with which to hit Israel's most modern warship off the shores of Beirut, killing Israeli sailors and damaging the ship enough for it to return to Israel?

A bad situation all around, with limited, bad, "lose-lose" choices for Israel, the United States, and the "West" broadly and globally defined.

The mainstream media continues to frame this crisis in the US in terms of upwards shocks to world oil prices, missing the broader political machinations.  The focus is either on how higher oil prices are hurting the US consumer, or how countries like Iran are benefiting from these increases.

For instance, noted global authority on oil matters, Daniel Yergin, explained on MSNBC earlier today that a ten dollar per barrel increase in world prices  translates into $170 million per week for Iran.  I'd dare say while the extra money is nice icing on the cake, the broader political stakes are more the motivating factors for Iran's leaders in this particular proxy war.

We need better mainstream reporting of the second and third derivative political motivations of the various parties not just in this crisis, but other situations like North Korea. 

And not just focus on tit for tat attacks going back and forth, pictures of explosions and burning buildings, missile animations, and scenes of mayhem on the ground.

It's a  chess game, not Pong.

All the politicians and mainstream media representatives involved should continue to keep that in mind, regardless of the short-term political and economic incentives to play Pong.

ON NBC vs. YOUTUBE, KICKING OFF THE WEB-VIDEO WARS

SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE

(Update 2.20.96:  The New York Times has a good article today on this story, and Jason Calacanis has an impassioned post arguing the case for NBC)

BoingBoing notes that YouTube, the rapidly growing video uploading service yesterday reported getting a "Cease and Desist" letter from the suits at NBC, asking them to pull the virally popular "Lazy Sunday" music video from Saturday Night Live (SNL).  Techdirt also has a good story on it. 

Like millions who've enjoyed the video  on the internet, after missing it on SNL, I too, will miss viewing it over and over again on YouTube when the mood strikes.

It's a loss for YouTube, with "Lazy Sunday" being it's "most watched" video of all time on the service until yesterday, with over 3 million "Views".

YouTube noted on it's blog:

""Lazy Sunday
Hi Tubers! NBC recently contacted YouTube and asked us to remove Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: Chronicles of Narnia" video. We know how popular that video is but YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders. You can still watch SNL's "Lazy Sunday" video for free on NBC's website."

This confrontation has been long expected.  As I noted in a post a few days ago, copyrighted videos on these free video distribution services will:

"...probably have the traditional media industry come down on it like a ton of bricks, much like the traditional music industry did in the original Napster."

In fact, the last few months have been kind of like the period just before World War I broke out in 1914.  Everyone knew that war would come...but nobody knew when the first shot would be fired.

Well, Crazy Sunday is playing the role of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, and YouTube is standing in for Sarajevo, the site for the assassin's shot that was heard around the world.

A bit dramatic, but the point remains the same.  We're now in for a period of fierce trench warfare, as the mainstream media companies feel compelled one by one, to join the fray, in order to "protect" their video content assets from being shared liberally on the Internet, courtesy of burgeoning services like YouTube, Vimeo, and the like.

And if you think they're not burgeoning, take a look at the next statement by YouTube on it's blog, following the announcement of the nasty-gram from NBC above:

 "Some good news: we are happy to report that YouTube is now serving up more than 15 million videos streamed per day- that's nearly 465M videos streamed per month with 20,000 videos being uploaded daily. Keep broadcasting!"

Those are scary, and fighting words for the keepers and purveyors of mainstream video content.  They're going to want to smack it down hard.

Ultimately, both sides will see their view through to win-win business models, much as we're starting to do for music, as I hoped for in the aforementioned previous post.

But in the meantime, we're going to burn through a ton of time and resources that are going to be the unnecessary casualties of war.

ON MICROSOFT'S "OFFICE LIVE" DEAD ON ARRIVAL?

A THORN BY ANY NAME

Microsoft released it's previously announced "Office Live" as a beta offering today, and the reaction on memorandum is less than resounding.  Office Live is something I posted on back in December, and it's a promising first step. 

As Infoworld reminds us:

"Microsoft introduced its Office Live service last November when it announced its strategy to provide more Web-based services branded under the "Live" moniker. At the time, there were scant details about what Office Live would exactly offer."

Well, now we know, as ZDNet explains:

"With Office Live, Microsoft is offering e-mail, Web domains, Web site hosting and other services for free during the beta...

the most basic package of services will remain free. Microsoft will sell other packages on a subscription basis."

The market opportunity is the small/medium business market, as ZDNet elaborates:

"The company is targeting businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Although nearly nine in 10 such businesses have Web access, only about half have their own Web site, Microsoft says...

"That's a lot of small businesses without a Web site," said Dean Nicolls, senior product manager for Microsoft's information worker services group. In one sign of the demand, Nicolls said, more than 100,000 businesses have signed up for the test. All of those companies are being included in the test of Office Live, while additional companies can sign up on Microsoft's site."

That's a pretty big beta already.

It's a market opportunity that Yahoo! already addresses in part and Google has also been focused on of late as Phil Sim reminds us in this excellent post, titled "The REAL Google Strategy":

"...as I’ve said in numerous posts this month, I think Google get it too. Let’s take a look at what Microsoft is going to offer via Office Live and then see how Google has or will respond.

Office Live Basics: Free e-mail accounts under your domain. Google: Just this past week, went into beta with its own equivalent.

Office Live Basics: Website with a drag and drop design tool. The Valleywag blog revealed that Google was building an Ajax website editor called trogdor. Also said a GMail calendar was on the way, which would bring it up to par with the latest Microsoft Live Mail.

Office Live Basics: Microsoft Office Live Site Reports. Not only do we have Google Analytics, we’ve now got MeasureMap.

Office Live Collaboration: Includes CRM, sales and marketing management, collaboration and project management tools. Google. Nada.

 Yet."

So what are folks upset about?  Well, the most obvious point is the confusing marketing strategy.  Calling a web-hosting services package "Office Live" is confusing given that most people would expect some sort of a web-hosted version of Microsoft Office.  This is why Jupiter analyst Joe Wilcox titles his post "What Office Live is Not".

Greg Linden puts it pretty well:

"Why is it called Office Live then? Taking a strong brand name, Microsoft Office, and adding a modifier to it, the word Live, would lead most people to conclude that Office Live should be some nifty "Live" version of MS Office. It is not."

In other words, if Office Live is not Office Live, what will Microsoft call Office live if/when they roll out the "real" Office live?

And if Office Live is not MSN Live, what will Microsoft do if/when they roll out MSN Live?  I mean MSN is already "Live" by virtue of being an online service, right?

Pretty confusing stuff.  The best description of the service comes in a comment by the always entertaining Christopher Coulter, to a post on the launch by Robert Scoble:

"OfficeLive SAYS hosted Office, you are dead in the water with that marketing. If you even have to pose the question, it’s game over. But what REALLY is OfficeLive?

Just Ray Ozzie playing collaborative tiddlywinks with webby tricks on a ad-sponsored binge-fest, with a small unfocused team, as Microsoft got all uppity Google-spooked."

So in the end, is Microsoft Live is Microsoft's version of Ray Ozzie's Groove Networks fused with it's recent Foldershare acquisition grafted on top off an amalgamation of MSN and Hotmail-derived services?

Wherever the components come from, and however they're branded and marketed, the real answers will unfold as the beta progresses (the blog here) and competes head-on with whatever Google, Yahoo! and other companies bring on.  Fasten your seat-belts.

ON YAHOO!/DEL.ICIO.US NEWS OVER-COVERED BY TECH/MEDIA BLOGS?

ALL TOGETHER NOW

Seeing the Yahoo!/Del.icio.us acquisition story re-surface at the top of Memeorandum again today two days after the fact, made me think of Brad Feld's thoughtful post from yesterday.  He eloquently put in words thoughts that had gone through my head as well:

"I just finished going through everything and was stunned by the amount of discussion about the Yahoo / del.icio.us deal. I’m very excited and happy for everyone involved, but as I read through post after post after post saying “Yahoo bought del.ciou.us” I started to feel something was wrong. 

I checked on Technorati – “delicious” is the number one search this hour (and Yahoo is four; Delicious Yahoo is six).  I checked NewsGator’s Latest Buzz – the first is Joshua’s post and the second is Jeremy Zawodny / Yahoo’s post...

...there is a huge content imbalance when everyone is writing about the same thing.  There was a very large and interesting deal done on Monday last week that arguably has much greater importance to the structure of the tech / media business than Yahoo / del.icio.us and it had extremely little coverage by the tech bloggers.  Can you name that deal? Liberty Media acquired Provide Commerce for $477 million (PRVD was public – $33.30 / share – 50% valuation increase in the past 60 days). "

He goes on to respond to a detailed rebuttal by Jason Wood in the comment section:

"My biggest concern was that the RATIO of discussion was out of balance. Let's be generous and say I had saw one post about the L / PRVD deal. That's 1:200. That doesn't make sense to me.

Or - let's use Technorati. A search on "liberty" and "media" and "provide" and "commerce" and "liberty media" shows 45 posts in the past 4 days. A search on "Yahoo" and "del.icio.us" is 7200 posts. That's 1:160."

He's right...I'm guilty of it as well, having had two posts on the Yahoo!/Del.icio.us deal, although making hopefully two different, relevant points.  I did spend some time researching the L/PRVD deal, but did not blog about it at all.  Certainly the fact that Yahoo!/Del.icio.us are more familiar, accessible and damn it, more sexy to readers, probably had a role to play in it. 

Does this mean we bloggers are getting unfair and unbalanced, just like mainstream media?

I'm not sure what the answer to this imbalance is, whether it's on terrific services like memeorandum or the broader universe of blogs discussing tech and media issues. 

That blogs, on an aggregated basis are taking on the almost claustrophobic myopia of mainstream media, is something that I guess shouldn't surprise us.  Let's just hope it's more the exception than the rule as it is with TV news in particular.

At the very least, it's probably a manifestation of an eternal aspect of human nature, behaving the same way with microchunked media as it has with mainstream, general media.  We like the stuff that sizzles.

But I do think it's important to be at least AWARE of this imbalance, particularly as the mainstream media and users are paying greater attention to these new services.

For highlighting the issue alone, I'd rate Brad's post one of the best blog reads of the week.

ON MYSPACE MAKING THE COVER OF BUSINESSWEEK

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Well, MySpace made the cover of BusinessWeek (via memeorandum), a publication that I generally like, respect, and read. 

However, everal questions raced through my mind as I saw this:

1. "MySpace Generation??" Do the editor realize how corny and trite that title really sounds?
2. When the sub-title says "They live online. They buy online. They play online. Their power is growing", does this mean that anyone outside that "young, Generation @ or X" demographic is NOT doing any of those things in large and significant numbers?
3. Does this mean the beginning of the end for MySpace and Rupert Murdoch's $680 million big bet?
4. Does this mean social networking is REALLY over?
5. Does this mean Web 2.0 is over?
6. Do the BusinessWeek editors realize how off-the-mark  a cover story like this usually comes across, especially in hindsight?
7. Did BusinessWeek not learn it's lessons from running and hyping similar glowing cover stories about the "Information SuperHighway", Netscape, and other Web 1.0 related hoopla a decade ago?
8. How long before BusinessWeek's competitors here and overseas feel compelled to run similar stories?
9. Do  cover stories like this REALLY help circulation in the short run? In the long run?
10. How long before BusinessWeek runs a cover story on how hyped the social networking/Web 2.0 space became and/or refer negatively to the MySpace acquisition by News Corp.?

Any more questions come up your end?

ON THE NEW YORK TIMES' TIMESSELECT HELL

CIRCLING THE WAGONS

UPDATED BELOW*

Back in February, I expressed some pessimism on the New York Times' decision to buy About.com for $410 million as a price of admission to learning about the power of Internet business models.  Specifically, I said:

"I'm not optimistic that the Times will change their walled garden approach.  Note that they charge long-time subscribers to the print edition like me $2.75 an article that I try to retrieve from their on-line archives a few weeks after I've received the physical newspaper, and thrown it away.  I can more than likely get similar content on that subject on the web via Google, or even About.com for free (although possibly not as eruditely and eloquently written as it would be in the Times), 

In a world where even the once mighty AOL is struggling  while still trying to protect "valuable" and revenue producing content behind a walled garden, but losing the battle due to an increasing lack of differentiation with "free"content on the web, albeit internet advertising supported revenue, it's about time for the New York Times to give these issues a deep, hard think, and maybe $410 million is the price of admission."

Well, over half a year later, we see that things have not changed.

Yes, this is the umpteenth blog post criticizing the New York Times' recent decision to move its op-ed columnist content behind the subscription wall, and brand it NY TimesSelect.  Jay Rosen, Associate Professor of Journalism at NYU has a particularly informed post on the decision.
 

Call it my mild-mannered version of Jeff Jarvis' Dell Hell campaign, which I posted on a few weeks ago.

The letter by Leonard Apcar, the editor-in-chief of the NY Times.com, explaining this move, is worth a gander (via a great post by Brian Storms).  A highlighted benefit in the his letter to readers:

"TimesSelect subscribers can also engage with our columnists through video interviews and Web-only postings."

Yes, right...what a truly compelling benefit.  I'll be sure to add it to my list of compelling things to do daily. 

As a two decade plus subscriber and loyal fan of the company's print product, I was irked by the initial announcement, but understood it, given the financial difficulties the paper has been having on the circulation side.  The accompanying two-year stock price chart from Yahoo! Finance tells part of the story.

So I didn't like it as a user, and didn't agree with it as an outsider, arm-chair strategist, but understood why they might have felt they had to do it.  If a $50/year subscription is their price for their content, so be it.

Although I dare-say they might get equal or more from paid-search type of advertising on the web.

What bothers me is the utter lack of execution finesse in getting paying readers across the wall.  As a subscriber who gets home delivery of the paper, I thought it'd be a simple matter to get "subscribed" to TimesSelect online.

Before we get there, here's a sub-rant.  Why do I have to subscribe to TimeSelect in the first place if it's already supposed to be available to me as a home subscriber?  They have all my information, my credit card data, my address, my log-ins...why can't they just make the TimeSelect section automatically available when I log in next?

The answer most likely are disparate internal IT systems that don't talk to each other.

So I did go online to subscribe, and the first thing it asks for is my NY Times account number, with a picture of where to find it on the address label.

Of course, since my paper is delivered in a plastic bag, it didn't have a label, so no account number.  And since I've never gotten a statement from the company, I have no easy way to access it.

Putting in my credit card info didn't help either.

Next step was to revert to the 1-800 number customer service number, which took a few minutes to find on the obtusely designed web-site. 

After waiting for almost 15 minutes, an operator comes on, and I tell her that I'm a subscriber and want to activate the TimeSelect feature.  There's a pause on the line that makes it painfully clear that she hasn't the foggiest of what I'm talking about.

So I calmly explain the situation about how her company has announced this new "service" and I'm trying to get access to it.  "Oh, it's an internet thing...you'd be best to activate that by going online sir", she says.

Don't you love talking to "customer service"? 

So I ask her for my account number, which she gives me after a few more verification questions.  I eagerly type in the dang thing into the form, submit, long spinning wheel, then a page comes up "sorry, our system is not available at this time, please try again later".

Maybe after I calm down after a few weeks I'll get around to doing it again.

Apparently, I'm not alone with this type of experience.  As this piece by the Slate's Mickey Kaus describes it:

"I'm getting lots of complaints from paid Times subscribers along these lines:

[O]nce you do register, a laborious process, there's no log in to get the columns. And you can't register twice. So I'm shut out. ...You'd think, after months and months of planning, they'd at least satisfy their readers who went through the proper channels. ...

It's not reading my cookie right! ...

As a Times home subscriber, I get free access to Times Select, right? Well yes, but it took me a couple of 15 minute head scratching sessions to figure out how. First, you have to validate your subscription by entering your account number (which I don't know) or the credit card you're having billed for the subscription, which I did.

Then, you are still in trouble if you're already a registered reader of the regular free Times online—because you have to harmonize that registration with whatever you put in for the Times Select—the latter sign up isn't geared to start the process with the information from the former."

Ditto. 

In the meantime, I'm on a NY columnist strike, at least until I calm down (maybe this post will help).  No Thomas Friedman for me for a while, along with the rest of his august peers. 

I can't imagine they're too happy about this state of affairs also...their readership has likely plummeted, and they have to do far more work "engaging" with the company's subscribers than doing their jobs writing interesting columns.  As Brian Storms puts it so well:

"Actually, I doubt the engaging with columnists will be useful or interesting. It almost never is. Columnists are busy. How are they suddenly going to have time to engage with readers? I'd rather engage with them through their blogs. Oh. You don't let them have blogs, do you, Leonard"?

You can already see it anecdotally from the company's "most emailed" daily list, which used to be chockful of their op-ed columns.  Now the lists are as bare as trees in winter.

It'd almost be interesting to start a pool here...how long before TimesSelect is deselected by the company?  A few weeks, months or years?  I mean if the once-mighty AOL has to bring down its walled content gardens, how is the New York Times going to be able to hold out?

UPDATE*

After finishing the above post, I decided to give NYTimes' customer service department another opportunity and called them again on the toll-free number.  Guess the process of writing the post was therapeutic and calmed me down a bit from my rant stage.

Again, after a six minute wait, an operator came on...I explained the problem...she asked me for my user name and password for the online site...I gave them to her...she said she'd put me on hold briefly while she attended to my request...hold music comes on...stays on...goes on to the next track...and the next...17 minutes later, the music abruptly stops...no one comes on the line...I check...no voice, and no music...next second the line disconnects.

Leaving of course to dial again and go through the whole thing over again...

My frustration level goes up again...and my boycott of TimesSelect continues...

ON THE MYOPIA OF TV EVENING NEWS

NO NEWS BEFORE IT'S TIME

This is anecdotal I admit, but scanning through the evening news shows on TV tonight, from 6 to around 8 pm, I'm struck again by how the national TV news shows (ABC, CBS, NBC), along with the cable news channels (CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC et al), are captivated only by the big news story of the moment, to the detriment of all else. 

It's about nothing but Katrina (the politics thereof and the regurgitation of the same old "recovery" news), and the upcoming Hurricane Rita.

No mention of Iraq (I guess the number of dead were way below a handful, which is what it seems to take to get even 15 seconds or so on the subject).

Nothing on the post-election standoff in Germany, only the third largest economy that mainstream US audiences should know something about.

I know that this near-sightedness is nothing new, but it never fails to bug me, every time.

As someone once said, the TV news folks are like 9-year olds playing soccer...everyone gleefully piles onto the soccer ball whichever new direction it's kicked in, with no thought to strategy and perspective.

Just had to vent a bit...thanks for being there.

ON SONY PSP AS A WEB BROWSING PLATFORM

SO MUCH PROMISE...

Regular readers know of my never-ending quest for the perfect, on-the-go wireless web tablet/PDA, that can be used for regular internet activities anywhere in the house, and preferably on the go, using Wi-Fi, EV-DO and/or Cellular networks.  (For earlier posts, see here, here, and here).

So I've had my eye on Sony's Playstation Portable (PSP) ever since reading mobile gizmo A-list blogger and Yahoo! wireless guru Russell Beattie's post on the device titled "The PSP Platform" back in July.  I even posted on the device back in July.

My interest was particularly whetted by the great pictures he put up in his posts, like this one here (picture on left with Yahoo! site is from Russell's site) on the latest 2.0 software upgrade that updates the internet browser on the PSP.

I've had a PSP in the closet for months now, but hadn't opened it since I was waiting for some new games, and the updated Internet browser to be released in the US (see picture on left).  Well the latter occurred a few days ago, so I eagerly cracked open the PSP.

The out of box experience of the PSP is pretty good and relatively straightforward.  Plug in the battery and the 32MB proprietary Sony memory card (more on this later), and the A/C adapter, turn the thing on, and you're ready to go.

The most seductive thing about the device in my view is when it recognized my home wireless (wi-fi) network pretty quickly and got connected.  I can imagine this is what may have gotten folks like Russell excited about the potential of the thing as a web tablet.  Also, it does have a killer, relatively big, vibrantly colorful, screen.  It is a Sony, after all.

But then things go downhill pretty quickly from there.  As I commented on Russell's above-mentioned post today:

"Just got my PSP updated with the official version 2.0, and the new browser.
Eagerly tried to enter my favorite sites.
Several problems:

1.  Interface sucks, mostly because I don't know how to use all the buttons and combinations yet, and don't have the time to do so.

2.  It gets really old typing in a letter, then scroll up to "enter", then the next letter, then "enter", etc.  This thing needs a keyboard so bad, it hurts...
of course, a keyboard accessory is coming "SOON"...it'll probably cost another $50-100...more moolah for Sony from the early adopters/suckers like moi.

3.  Typed in my Bloglines user name and password...eagerly await my list of blogs, so I can read them on the fly with this gizmo as Russell suggests...suddenly get message "out of memory"...no option to save the bloglines page with my user name and password that I spent 10 minutes typing in...just close the browser...AND I have a 256MB card!  What do I need? a gig, 2 gigs?  Given Sony's predilection for pricing their precious proprietary memory cards, that'll probably cost a couple of PSPs at least.

ANSWER:  just get a cheap laptop for $700 bucks to use as a "tablet" device around the house.  At least for now."

So the key problems:  no keyboard, cryptic interface, and memory hog.  Let me address each one separately.

1.  Keyboard:  I'm surprised Russell likes the PSP as much as he does given that he panned the upcoming Nokia 770 "Internet Tablet" (see my post on this here) in this post this past May, saying specifically:

"The most popular devices lately are those with little keyboards. Pens are so mid-90s. Dear Nokia: Welcome to the Read/Write Web, if I can’t post to my blog easily from a device, it’s useless."

The PSP also badly needs a keyboard, and the accessory providers have been slow to provide one...there is one coming any day now apparently, from Logic 3, pictured here, priced around $50 or so.

I'm sure when the ball gets rolling there'll be a bunch of these things out there, but it's surprising there isn't one out, even from Sony, given the obvious need for one. 

I mean there is a solar charger out for the PSP already!

Well, I guess it's useful for people who play, I don't know, games on the device...

...for a long time.

2.  User Interface:  Maybe I'm just lazy, but I really don't want to learn another interface to surf the Internet.  Or maybe I'm just fed up having had to learn several for my Blackberry phone, my Motorola Razr phone, and any other new cell phone I end up getting.  The Sony's interface commands to use the browser are especially cryptic, and not noted anywhere in the instructions that I could see.

Fortunately, another one of Russell's PSP posts came in handy, but I had to get my eye/hand coordination just right...you'll see what I mean:

"The browser seems very okay from my few minutes of testing it, actually! The pages load relatively fast, the fonts are anti-aliased and look good, and the controls are reasonable - even URL entry (the secret is the shoulder buttons!).

Holding down the square key allows for fast controlled scrolling with the arrow keys or analog stick, otherwise the analog stick moves a cursor like a mouse and the arrow keys jump from link to link.

There are several view options (which took me a minute to find) which allow for “Normal”, “Just-Fit” or “Smart-Fit” views, as well as the ability to change font size. Definitely not bad for what I paid for it! :-)"

It took me a while to find all the buttons on the diagram and then practice for a bit to get the hang of it...it does work, but so does an abacus for calculations.

3. Memory:  I think 2 Gigabyte is the maximum size (for now) for Sony's proprietary, and thus very expensive Memory Stick Duo...and I wasn't far off in my comment above on the price...it seems to be priced around $400 as you see here...but wait, it likely DOES NOT WORK with the PSP as noted at the PSPUpdates site:

"That 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo (High-Speed) has been released today. We’re serious this time — apparently we weren’t earlier. It will set you back 50,000 yen (some $461), but imagine all the Emulator ROMs you could put on your PSP pictures you could take with your digital camera! Unfortunately, “High” speed (80Mbps, actually) is only supported in certain devices, and the PSP is not one such device."

Maybe you're paying all that extra dough for sophisticated Sony technology, like this bit of "MemoryGate" software architecture that puts different types of digital files into specific folders for pictures, video, etc.

Well, there's always the Sandisk 2GB card that's out at under $200, but no guarantees that it'll work with the PSP.

Final point on the memory front. 

Russell, in his above-mentioned post, also mentioned the possibility of using the PSP for video off and on the internet:

"Wow. Think about that for a second! This could *easily* become the video equivalent of the iPod, and thus could make Video Blogging the Next Big Thing after Podcasting… PSPCasting anyone?"

The PSP is fine for playing videos off the built-in mini-cd drive (Sony calls it the UMD disc), but playing videos off the internet may be a bit taxing on the device...who knows, we may need at least 4 Gigabytes of onboard RAM memory to do it in even a tolerable fashion.

The lesson in all this?  Well it takes more than a village to have a a hip, buzzing metropolis...it's called a CITY.

It takes a lot of add-ons to make the PSP a viable internet browsing device, and by the time you do so, you've got something like the Pepperpad, I talked about recently, that's to be priced around $850 (with a much bigger, comfortable screen for web browsing).  So you might as well get an inexpensive laptop and be done with it.

Or you could buy the PSP for $230, add a keyboard when it's out for $50, then add 2GB of memory, assuming it works, for another $200, and you've got a barely passable internet surfing device for around $500.

What else to do with the PSP?  Well, lemme see...maybe I could watch some expensively priced movies on it on the Sony proprietary UMD mini-disc (see my post here), which of course I can't play on any of my DVD players.

Or maybe we can just play games...which is where all this started anyway.

But as an internet tablet?  Not yet.

ON SONY PSP A VIDEO IPOD...A HYPOTHETICAL CASE

COME PLAY IN MY SANDBOX

Yahoo! wireless evangelist Russell Beattie's enthusiasm for Sony's handheld game and video player, the Playstation Portable, aka PSP, is infectious.  Following his posts for a while, it was this over-the top review by Brandon Watson, pushed me off the sidelines to pick one up at the local Circuit City.

It's sitting unopened in the closet while I wait for the one upcoming game I want to play on it, Coded Arms, something Russell has also been enthused about.  As I've mentioned before, my issue isn't my passion for this stuff, it's finding the right balance between playing these games and doing everything else I like to do as well.

Reading his most recent post on the PSP today, it struck me as an interesting hypothetical case of what a company that we admire, could do if they put their mind to it.  My last "hypothetical case" was on an Amazon.com blogging service a few days ago.

Anyway, Russell makes a logical case in a post titled "The PSP Platform", for why the gadget, with a little strategic and adroit execution (my words) by Sony, could potentially head Apple off at the pass on the road to claiming video and "vcasting", as they've done audio and podcasting to date.  I agree with Om Malik that Sony's relatively expensive and proprietary memory stick storage is a potential issue, but that too can be tweaked as part of the corporate strategy (holding my breath).

All things are possible, and the most important thing here is Sony's will to do any of it.  Almost a decade ago, in my role as an Internet analyst, I often made the case for Sony releasing a "Webman" in my presentations around the world (including relevant spots in Tokyo). 

The hypothetical idea back then was that it would be the natural evolution of Sony's vaunted "Walkman" franchise into a digital world, as the then nascent Internet evolved into a broadband future.

Of course Steve Jobs had some other ideas, and the rest is history.

Russell makes a valid point that the PSP is potentially a second shot opportunity for Sony to address a missed opportunity.  It would take a fair bit of hustle, but it could be done.  This whole thing is so very, very early but Sony also has a lot on its plate.  But Apple is definitely thinking these thoughts too.  Perhaps Sir Howard is thinking harder.

But none of the things that Russell is suggesting are particularly hard, technically or otherwise.  The core issue, remains the verticalization that most traditional consumer electronics, media, telecommunication and wireless companies have adopted as a core trait over the last few decades.  I touched on this in a post back in March:

The next ten years of the Internet is going to be unlike the last ten...where each new application and content service will have to painfully slowly bore through the walled gardens of multiple vertical industry silos to reach the consumer.  Whereas the last ten years, due to the wonderfully horizontal nature of the PC hardware and software industries, seeing companies launching new applications or content service was like watching dolphins race each other across the waters.

Generally, the forces of technology, along with eventual consumer demand, win out with the verticalized industries becoming more horizontal.   However, the cost in terms of time, fewer start ups, lost opportunities and jobs, and national wealth creation is painful to contemplate.   And these verticalized silos are not just across industries, but also  in terms of  legal and regulatory silos (FCC etc.) within and across countries and different types of intellectual property.

The silver lining to all this might be that while these vertical industries (cable, telcos, wireless carriers, traditional media, etc.) are playing a defensive game as long as they can, hoping that their customers get "used to" paying high prices, they are creating a high pricing umbrella for newly emerging horizontally oriented startups that are exploiting  emerging technologies and standards as soon as they can be nailed down.

In my view the inevitable result of these technological and content creator forces will be the decreasing verticalization of the media industry, and the increasing creation of horizontal layers that allow each layer to do its thing best.

We saw how the forces that drove the horizontal PC industry into record global user adoption, followed by a similar trend in the narrow-band Internet. 

This next drove the on-going defensive consolidation in the phone and wireless industries, which will be followed by the steps outlined above.  Verticalized companies will go through the stages of going from defensive to offensive, with Sony's recent management moves being the most recent example.

Sony is particularly conflicted with the PSP.  While they may have sold over 4.5 million units of the new Sony PSP CD disks (aka UMDs), as Russell points out, initially most of the titles came from the Sony movie catalog.  Given the early signs of success of the platform, other movie studios are slowly making their content available in UMD format, but holdouts remain like Time Warner.  In general, a rival content provider has to balance their support for the next, great content distribution platform with supporting a content rival.

If they had their druthers, they'd rather partner with an Apple, who has no content ax to grind, or even prefer to do nothing and wait, than support a verticalized rival.  It's an open secret that Apple is on the cusp of announcing a video iPod soon.

While 4.5 million UMD movie titles sold may seem particularly remarkable at first glance, consider the following.  With over 5 million PSPs sold, and with a fairly narrow range of games and other content to play on it, it's not surprising that people may pick up a movie or two as an experiment, and as something to do with their shiny, new toy. 

I know I picked up a UMD movie with my PSP, just for that reason, even though I'd seen it already.  It was just something to test the screen and the device out with.

We need to wait for the more normalized numbers after the PSP is launched in Europe, and once the novelty of the PSP wears off, to make a better judgment.

In particular, it remains to be seen how content providers evolve their strategies vis a vis the PSP once one or more neutral alternatives appear, Apple or otherwise.

These decisions are all about the economics and business strategy, and very little to do with technology.  It's when the calculus makes sense for all parties involved and on the sidelines, that magic starts to happen.

 

	the PSP