planet sab

The One with Occam's Razor

Okay, I am exaggerating. This one is just about electric razors, and a kind of Seth Godin/Malcolm Gladwell problem, less of Occam. About variety and choices.

Yesterday at the store I passed the shelf with electric razors and had to stop and ponder: 40+ electric razers in all shapes, colors and even sizes. Some closer to a regular wet razor, some close to a fullly grown blow dryer.
(I came from the isle of microwaves, waiting 15 minutes for a clerk to explain to me the difference between two models which were 10 bucks apart but seemed be identical otherwise. He never materialized of course.)

Now back to the razors. How on earth can I decide between 40 different razors without help and without testing them all? Facing the same situation in the yoghurt isle I can say, "let's try this one" – if I am wrong I can throw it away or feed it to the cats, 50 cents wasted.

But those electric razors range from 20 to 200 bucks and I practically cannot make a decision without prior research or a personal recommendation. But that's not even my point.

I'd be willing to bet that the store would sell more electrical razors in less time if only five different models/makes were on display. And the customers would be happier as well, spending much less time on a purchase and more likely, much less frustrated and worrying whether he bought the razor he needs. I just don't see electrical razors as a long tail item.





Technorati Tags: razor

Fatblogging/Fattwittering: Let's get this started

It took a while and it wasn't me who solved the problem but now there is a way.
The solution came via Eric Rice and is provided by Allen Joyce.

It goes like this:

1. add the fatblogging twitter-account as a friend to the twitterers you are following
2. each day (or how often you'd like), send your current weight in a "@fatblogging" message
(example)
3. the fatblogging account will auto-publish your message (example).

We could discuss, whether there should be a progress indication, e.g. "173 (-2)". Still, I think somebody should write a script to turn the data from the fatblogging account into graphs.

Note: Of course, there will not be many answers to other messages of course...

Jason, Joseph, Oliver, and everybody else, let's go.

Technorati Tags: fatblogging, fattwittering, weightloss, community

The Social Media World is not just a game: Some words on Trust and Friends

I had planned this post earlier, but Lee Hopkins' words in his FIR-segment on Monday reminded me to finally write it.

I started blogging in 2005. I am a PR consultant and needed to see what this blog stuff was all about – the best way to do this was to join in, which I did. I didn't aim to become a "blog consultant" or something like that, but the more I got immersed, the less I minded being online, engaged, and listening.

What I have experienced in the time since can best be described by the dilemma we face when joining one of the new services: You have friends you would like to share the service with, or you would like to be in the same space as they are. Sure, there may be different kinds of friends, the closer ones, the ones you've met, the ones you have corresponded with, enjoyed their content or those you only know because they listen to the same show as you do. Some of them you know really well, because you read their blog, and if they read yours too, you end up having lots of conversations and often making things happen to meet in person.

Why am I writing this?

During what used to be my day job I have to deal with journalists and I learned early on that there is no such thing as off-the-record. And although I could be perceived as coming out of that corner – and have a publishing tool at my hands – I was part of some conversations lately which dealt with confidential information.
What I am trying to say is that I just feel humble that people who in some cases have never met me in person tell me details with the addendum "but please don't tell anybody yet". I do the same, but the fact that it actually works – that during the last 2 years we (you and I) have been able to establish a relationship we value and in which we trust each other, just by being in the same community, is inspiringly awesome.

PS. And by the way, this also shows that hanging in front of the computer does not necessarily mean one is isolated, lonesome, or depressed :-)


Technorati Tags: blogosphere, friends, community, socialmedia

Buy Blog Comments (100 Blog Comments for only $19,99!), just another word for SPAM

Wow, after his work on PayPerPost and Squidoo, Jason will have a field day with Buy Blog Comments dot Com. In short,

What BuyBlogComments.Com does is pay people to write quality blog
comments on quality blogs. They are hand written by excellent english
speaking people in America and Canada. We have a really great system
here at Buy Blog Comments. When you order one of our packages, our blog
specialists look through the huge database of no nofollow tag blogs and
then pick only the blogs in your niche. Then, they go through and
comment on the most recent posts. They read the whole blog post so that
they can leave a valid comment on the bloggers blog, so that your blog
post wont get deleted. This way you save time and money.

At 19,99 per 100 Blog comments, this is a steal, of course...




Technorati Tags: buyblogcommentsdotcom, payperpost, calacanis, squidoo, spam

Gillmor is back

I know you know. Gestures all over the place. When I saw the still I thought, oh lame, he's just posting the video from the Benioff show, one of the last episodes of the Gillmor Gang. But apparently it moves on. I'll check the iPhone version on my N95. Just out of curiosity Steve, apart from being involved with Attention Trust, you are now a silent evangelist for Apple, or are you ? ;-)
Oh, to spell it out: "Steve Gillmor has returned to podcasting, with a video podcast called 'Bad Sinatra'."
Jumped to the Techmeme front page without a problem.

Robert Scoble gives a mixed review, Kevin Marks didn't like it (because as always, Gillmor didn't edit), the author of The Last Podcast is just as happy as I am to see Steve back producing content. Of course, I am just glad he posted it as one film, not as multiple parts. Oops, I hope I am not giving him any ideas...



Technorati Tags: stevegillmor, badsinatra, gillmorgang

Blognation Germany is live

Nicole Simon, one of the most prolific German bloggers on the international circuit, has started writing Blognation Germany today. Blognation takes a look at the German Web 2.0-sphere to uncover gems and other companies to the interested international audience. Consider me subscribed.


Technorati Tags: blognation, germany, blogging, international

Google is reading my thoughts! Now you can edit GMaps

So on Friday I told my colleague, wouldn't it be a killer feature for GMaps if you could actually move the line in directions mode, so that somebody giving me directions could alter the advised route if he sees fit.
What do you know (I didn't), on Monday the feature is there!


When you hover the mouse over the line you can drag it.


Super cool, and one more reason (can you say speed and usability) to favor Gmaps over others.


Technorati Tags: google, maps, gmaps, directions, route, routenplaner