Archive for July, 2007

Davis Turns 2.0

Jul 11

Posted by Davis in Uncategorized, Web 2.0 | 7 Comments

When Opportunity Knocks

It’s hard to believe, but today was a bittersweet anniversary for me. Secretly, I never thought I would make it, but it was a year ago that I made my first post on DavisFreeberg.com. Before starting the site, I had been covering digital technology periodically, on Thomas Hawk’s excellent blog, but after getting a taste for blogging, I took Tom’s advice and used this opportunity to help find my voice.

During the last year, there have been times where I have been right and there have been times where I’ve been wrong, but through it all, I’ve tried to do my best to call things how I see them (regardless of the details available.) Looking back, I have few regrets, but do wish I would have posted more.

The technological revolution that we are experiencing will be an important part of history. I have so many thoughts about the renaissance that we are in, but struggle getting them all down in writing. There are so many companies and stories and mind blowing things that deserve more attention, but sometimes I get lost in the details. Over the next year, I’m hoping to write more and explore new topics, that my readers are interested in.

I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts over this past year, but it’s been my readers that have made this such a special experience. Whether you’ve commented or linked to me or just stopped by and liked what you’ve read, thank you for participating. Your feedback is what has shaped the site and it plays an important role in the future of this community. Thank you to everyone who has put up with my ramblings over the last year. I hope that the next 12 months will be just as exciting, as the first.

Constellation

Jul 11

Posted by Davis in VOD | Comments off

Nintendo, Wii Have Liftoff

Jul 9

Posted by Davis in Media, Technology, Video Games | 8 Comments

WiiThis weekend I was driving through the East Bay, when I noticed a Gamestop store nearby. Normally, I would have kept driving, but I wasn’t in a hurry and having canceled my Gamefly membership, it’s been a while since I’ve checked out any new games, so I decided to stop in and see what they had.

I usually buy my video games from whatever store is closest to me, but Gamespot is one of those rare stores, where I actually enjoy shopping. Normally, when I go shopping, I just want the employees to leave me alone and let me get in and out with the product I’m interested in, but at Gamespot, the employees are the best part of the store. I don’t go there to buy things, I go there to graze. Unlike the employees at Best Buy or CompUSA, Gamespot employees are usually working there because they love video games.

I’m not sure if they get free rentals or discounts or if it’s just that Gamespot attracts employees who like playing every game that comes out, but every time I go in their store, the employees give me customized game reviews on any title that I’m interested in.

Because these employees tend to be hardcore gamers, I have to be careful to not always pick the games that they are fanatical about, but I still listen to what they have to say and more than once, they’ve saved me from buying a bad game.

When I dropped into Gamespot this weekend, I wasn’t planning on buying anything. I just wanted to know if there were any new games coming out. Once I started to talk with the clerks though, one of them pulled me off to one side and in hushed tones, told me that they had one more Wii tucked away in the back of the store.

By the way they told me about the Wii, you would have thought that they were selling illegal fireworks left over from the Fourth of July, but when a console has been this hot, for this long, I can understand why they would speak about it with a strange sort of reverence.

Apparently they had gotten a shipment just the day before, and the Wii they had in stock, was the last one left from the batch. Even before I went into Gamestop, I had toyed with the idea of buying a Wii, but had not made a decision about whether or not I really wanted one. Since I knew that the Wii’s were still pretty hard to come by and because they told me, it was the last one, I made a quick decision to buy it and figured I could always flip it on Ebay, if it didn’t live up to the hype.

When I took the console home, I was eager to try it out. I had read a lot of the reviews on the Wii, but nothing had prepared me for what the experience would really be like.

When I was a kid, my parents used to take me to Zuma beach in Southern California. Even though, I didn’t know how to surf at the time, I must have been born with a pair of extra flippers or something, because they could not keep me out of the the water. From the moment we would arrive until the moment we left, I would spend the day splashing about the water, just about as happy as I could be. Whether it was body surfing through the waves or just swimming along the coast, no matter how cold and shriveled I was, I never wanted to get out.

After I would go home for the day, I would be dog tired, but when I would lay down, I could still feel the up and down motion of the tide. I’m not sure what the medical name for this effect is, but the sensation would stick with me for a night and would go away until my next trip to the Pacific Ocean.

Since moving to San Francisco, I haven’t spent anytime in the ocean and had almost forgotten about this sensation, but after spending all day Saturday playing the Wii, I was surprised when I closed my eyes and felt the same sensation creep over me.

Instead of an up and down tide motion though, I felt like I could fly. Something about the visual aspects of playing the game, combined with the physical exertion required to control the characters had burned the experience into my sub-conscious and made it feel like I was still playing, even after the console had been shut off.

The one big downside (or upside, depending on how you look at it) of the Wii, is that because it’s such a physical process to play, you can’t play for 12 hours straight like you can other consoles.

When I was a kid, I would have friends over and we would play the Nintendo all night. Eventually, someone would pass out from too much caffeine or red vines. If I try to play the Wii all night though, it’s not a caffeine overdose that makes me stop, my body eventually goes kaput and my muscles say no more.

While I’m sure that owning the Wii will help to improve my conditioning, when you can barely lift your arms over your head, it makes the thought of playing another quick game less appealing, than some of the less active forms of gaming.

Overall though, I’m really pleased with my new console. My only legitimate complaint, is that the graphics aren’t very impressive. Of course, I knew that this was the case going in, but I still expected them to be a little bit better than what they really are.

It could just be that the Wii isn’t designed to be played on a big screen TV, but when you play the console on a big screen, you can really see how rough the pixels look. It’s still way better than the original Nintendo, but the graphics do make me feel like I’ve taken a step back in the evolution of my video gaming.

When the Xbox 360 came out, they made a big deal about the HD graphics that they had, but I never realized how important this was, until I saw the quality of the Wii. What the games lack in graphics though, they make up for it with the fun factor.

When playing Zelda, instead of mashing buttons to make your way through the fighting scenes, you use the joystick like a sword. I can’t over-emphasize how much fun this is. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a monster will jump at you and you have to dodge, twist, turn and slash, all in real life, in order to dice your way through each level. This adds a dimension to gaming that is way beyond 3D. It’s like you are out there by yourself, fighting to save the princess.

While I’ve only been playing for two days and I haven’t gotten to try out many games yet, I can already tell that this will be my new #1 console. As much as I like the Wii though, it still won’t be able to replace my Xbox 360.

If a game is especially dependent on graphics or if it’s exclusive to Microsoft, I still plan on buying it for the Xbox, but if a game involves a lot of physical characteristics, than I’m likely to buy the Wii version instead. I am especially excited about trying out John Madden’s football game on the console. It’s been a long time, since I’ve seen any real improvements to this title, but Madden on the Wii, will be like a whole new game. I just hope I don’t get so excited, that I end up breaking my TV, throwing touchdown bombs to Randy Moss.

Davis Freeberg’s Site Of The Week

Jul 9

Posted by Davis in Site Of The Week, Technology, Video Games, Web 2.0 | Comments off

Cat Catches EagleThe winner of this week’s site of the week contest was Cat With Bow Golf. Cat Golf is an unusual, but highly addictive Japanese flash animation game that was created earlier this year. While I wasn’t able to understand all of the Japanese instructions, the game is pretty easy to figure out, just by playing it for a few minutes.

Basically, you control a cat with a bow and arrow. The goal of the game is to hit a target with your arrow. The only catch is that the cat is connected to the arrow, so everytime you shoot at the target, you also go flying across the screen. As you are flying, you can fire a second shot and it will change your trajectory.

The levels in the game are a lot like the courses you’ll find at your local miniature golf course. There are obstacles that you have to go above or below and there are times where you need to think beyond just one shot.

The further you get in the game, the harder the levels get. I played the game a lot over the last week, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t finished the game with a par score or better. For every Eagle my cat caught on early levels, I had plenty of triple bogeys at the later levels.

Overall, Cat Golf won’t make your internet surfing any more efficient, it won’t give you access to special information or provide any unique insights into technology. It’s not the type of site that will save you money or provide a tangible benefit from using it, in fact, if you go to the site, it will probably be a waste of time, but from an entertainment standpoint, it’s a great way to waste time.

I’m not sure what is is about the game makes it so playable, but there is something about the Cat Golf that makes it easy for one quick game to turn into a marathon gaming session. While the graphics aren’t going to compete with Halo, the combination of the easy rules with it’s unique game play, makes Cat Golf a lot of fun.

Congratulations to Cat with Bow Golf on winning this week’s site of the week award. The nominations for next week’s site are listed below, you may vote in the sidebar. If you know of a good site that should be considered, feel free to send it to me and I’ll be happy to consider it for a nomination.

Desktop Blues

Save The Bunny

Podcast Alley

Reunion by The Stars

Jul 6

Posted by Davis in VOD | Comments off

Illustrated Cliff Notes For The Series 7 Exam

Jul 6

Posted by Davis in Web 2.0 | 5 Comments

Series 7 Cliff Notes
Every summer, Wall St. performs an annual ritual. As if it’s shedding a layer of it’s own skin, the investment banks throw out the old and bring in the new. Along with the nice summer weather, a whole new crop of young naive interns show up, eager to learn more about a potential career in finance.

There will be some, whose hearts were never really in it, who will wash out early and will actually get to enjoy their summer. There will also be those who stick it out, but still return to school in the fall, shaken and questioning their decision to pick business as a career. Somewhere out there though, there will be a few crazy workaholics who thrive in the environment and who will want to keep coming back again and again for more abuse.

If you want to work in finance, chances are that sooner or later, you’ll need to get a series 7 license. The license allows you to sell securities and must be sponsored by a firm. Getting a company to sponsor you, isn’t always easy, but if a company likes the work you are doing, they will often agree to sponsor you, with the hope, that you’ll return as a full time employee.

In order to get your license, you must pass a test on all the different pieces that make up the securities industry. These include everything from how the back office works, to understanding more complicated option strategies. You don’t need to get an A+, in order to pass, in fact, all you really need is a 70% or better, but when your job is on the line, 70% can be a lot harder to get than you realize.

Recently, a friend of mine was misfortunate fortunate enough to take the series 7 exam and after she passed the test, instead of tearing up her notes and setting them on fire, she forwarded them to me in an email. The notes are really amazing. If you click through the photo at the top of this blog post, you can use Zooomr’s portals, in order to page through her illustrated series 7 study guide.

Hidden in it’s 13 pages is everything you need to know, in order to become a stock broker (or at least 70% of what you need to know, in order to pass.) A lot of it will not make sense, if you are not familiar with the material (they may not even make sense if you are familiar with the material :? ), but if you need to cram for the test the night before, these notes may prove to be quite helpful.

What I loved most about my friend’s notes, was the artistry that she put into them. Sure my own notes would have also included small illegible writing and plenty of coffee stains, but I never would have taken the time to use things like using a poker hand to illustrate hedging strategies or a bull and bear icons to illustrate when options go in and out of the money. Not only are the notes educational, but they are fun too.

While these series 7 cliff notes, aren’t detailed enough for someone to get away with not actually reading all of the material beforehand, they may prove useful, if you will be taking the test and need a good refresher on some of the concepts covered. It won’t replace the thick study guides that they normally pass out to the new recruits, but at least you won’t look so nerdy when you bring your study materials to lunch.

This Post Is Trademarked For Your Protection

Jul 6

Posted by Davis in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, DivX, Microsoft, Netflix, Slingbox, Technology, TiVo | Comments off

Breakfast With VaderI’ll never be enough of a legal expert, to be able to tell the exact differences between copyrights, trademarks and patents, but I do know enough about each, to know that each level, involves a different amount of paperwork, as well as different legal protections.

While, I may not be able to fully appreciate all of the subtle differences between the three, what I do know about trademarks and patents, is that in order to get one, you have to make them available to the general public. This makes the US Patent and Trademark site, a gold mine for trying to find information on companies.

A trademark application won’t always tell you what’s going on at a company, but every now and then, there are morsels of information that leak out. You can also learn a lot about a company’s past, by looking at trademarks that they used to hold, but have let lapsed.

Recently, I was doing some research at the USPTO website and while I was there, I decided to put in the names of a few of the companies that I follow. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find, but knew that there would be at least a few interesting trademarks out there. While I didn’t discover any earth shattering revelations, I did find a few highlights, buried in all of the paperwork.

Netflix

Not a lot of surprises, when I ran Netflix’s name through the database. They own the trademark for their domain of course, as well as a trademark on their Friend’s feature. They also used to own a trademark for the terms, Mr. DVD and Cinematch (although these trademarks are currently listed as having been abandoned.)

I know that Netflix has named their movie recommendation system Cinematch, so that makes sense, but from reading the trademark filings, it sounds like Mr. DVD may have also been considered as the name of their recommendation engine, at one point.

DivX

DivX has several trademarks including OpenDivx, Stage6, and most recently DivXConnected. On the trademark website, they also include several of the logos, that they will use for DivX Connected, including the one that they blurred out when they announced the launch of their private beta for the connected program.

Under their dead trademark listings, the USPTO lists the terms, Dr. DivX, Mastermind and Carpe Visum, as abandoned trademarks. Even though these terms are listed as dead, I wasn’t entirely clear on what this meant, because I know that Dr. DivX is still in use. It could be that it’s just a logo that is expired or it may be that like, ProjectMayo, DivX is migrating away from the Dr. DivX trademark.

Movie Gallery

If Movie Gallery can’t figure a way out of their most recent situation, their trademarks may soon belong to their bond holders instead of the stock holders, but I did find it interesting to see that, Movie Gallery recently trademarked the term True Choice. True Choice is supposed to be their new program, that may or may not include MovieBeam, online dvd rentals and/or in-store rentals.

I also found it interesting that they own a trademark on a logo that reads “NC-55 No Children Under 55.”, as well as the term Gameapalooza. I’m not sure how Perry Farrell would feel about them using the lollapalooza name, but at least Movie Gallery has something for the whole family, in their trademark filings.

Some of Movie Gallery’s dead trademarks included VideoGallery+ and TradeZone. I’m pretty sure that VideoGallery+ was a company the Movie Gallery acquired a long time ago and that TradeZone is the name of a service where you can buy and sell pre-owned DVDs.

Sling Media

Sling didn’t have any dead trademarks, but they’ve already managed to rack up a few live ones. Two weeks ago, the trademark Slingstream and SlingPlayer were opened up for opposition and last January, they filed for a trademark application for the phrase Sling Clip, Sling Catcher and Sling Projector. These are all new technologies that they’ve announced.

Sling also owns a trademark on the phrase, “Where do you want to watch your TV?” I’m not sure if they are still using this phase in their advertisements, but pretty soon, they’ll also be able to ask, where do you want to watch your internet?

TiVo

TiVo has a couple of interesting trademarks, including one for the term Mevo (or MiVo), as well as a dead trademark on the ominous sounding, Viewergraphic Profiling System.

Some of my favorite ones were for the term TiVoMatic, the expression “Primetime Anytime” and an abandoned claim on “You’ve Got TiVo.” While TiVo wasn’t fast enough to get the trademark on the iPhone (like Cisco did $$$), they did manage to secure a trademark for the less lucrative term iPreview. While normally something like this would get me all fired up for another Apple + TiVo post, unfortunately this trademark was filed in 1999, so if it did signal that any hanky panky was going on, it’s safe to say that the relationship has cooled since then.

Blockbuster Video

A search for trademarks on Blockbuster brings up 341 search results. A lot of them are past marketing campaigns or are from companies that they acquired. There were a few trademarks though, that hinted at how Blockbuster might end up marketing their digital strategy.

Over the last year, they’ve been award three trademarks for the the phrase “rated D for _______ (download, digital or deliver).” Interestingly enough, I also found a trademark for the term “Circus Fresh”. I had thought that Blockbuster only sold pre-packaged candy, but the trademark suggests that Blockbuster might be selling their own brand of cotton candy in their stores.

Among some of Blockbuster’s abandoned terms were the name Clockbusters, Kidmongous & Blockbuster on Demand. I can see why they gave up Clockbusters, but I think they should have stuck with Kidmongous. It’s a great description for all of the energy that kids seem to have.

iRobot

Most of iRobot’s trademark terms were very familiar to me. There was the Scooba, the PackBot and of course the Roomba, but they also had one trademark that I had never heard of before.

It was for the unusual term LOOJ and was filed last March. I’m not sure how they plan on marketing a name that I’m not sure how to pronounce, but the trademark describes the LOOJ as “remotely controlled cleaning devices”. I’m not exactly sure how to interpret this, but it would be really cool, if I could use a wireless remote to tell my Scooba where it needs to be cleaning. This would make it more like a traditional vacuum than a robot, but there are times where it would be nice to be able to direct iRobot’s cleaning missions.

Apple

A search for Apple trademarks, yields over 1900 different results. Unfortunately, the search includes any company with Apple in their name, so it’s not an accurate count of how many they actual have. Apple has a trademark for just about anything you can think of. They have things like iPod of course, but I had never heard of the Storpod? They have even trademarked the use of the word Keynote at conferences.

Microsoft

Microsoft came back with a little over 1,800 trademark results. I guess when you’ve got as many lawyers as they do, they hand out trademarks like candy. As a digital TV enthusiast, I couldn’t help, but notice that their Microsoft TV trademark came back as abandoned. I doubt that this signals that Microsoft is giving up on the living room though, because they had a number of active “media room” trademarks.

Some of the more creative trademarks that I saw were for a mobile phone service that they are testing right now, called Deepfish. There was also one for some kind of a strange board game named Carbonated Games. I’m not sure how you play, but I suspect that the game may have played a large role in the initial creation of Microsoft’s source code.

Microsoft also recently submitted a trademark for the term Spynet. I’m sure that this is just some kind of anti-spyware technology, but it’s name sounds even more disturbing than TiVo’s Viewergraphic monitoring system.

It’d be a lot easier to monitor these things, if the USPTO offered RSS feeds, but I don’t mind checking back once in a while for an update. While, my post only covered a few of the trademarks on companies, I follow, I would be interested in knowing what else is buried in that massive database. With so many companies and so many catch phrases, I could probably spend all day at the site, and would still be able to find out about programs or marketing campaigns that I had never heard of.

Disclosure – I own stock in TiVo and Netflix

Posters Of A Girl

Jul 2

Posted by Davis in VOD | Comments off

Davis Freeberg’s Site Of The Week

Jul 2

Posted by Davis in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Search, Site Of The Week, Technology, TiVo, Web 2.0 | Comments off

When I Grow Up I Want To Enter A Demolition Derby

This week’s winner of this site of the week contest was Indeed.com. Indeed is your typical job search engine, except on human growth hormones. Instead of of restricting their search to one job site, they aggregate many different jobs listings into one easy to use interface. This can be helpful in many ways.

If you are looking for a highly specific position, you can put in certain skills or keywords that describe what you are looking for and instead of focusing on one set of search results, you can compare a more diversified pool of options. I learned long ago, that different businesses react to technology in their own unique ways. Some businesses would rather advertise in the paper than on Monster.com. As a job searcher though, why pick one site, if you don’t have too?

I also liked Indeed.com for the data mining features it provides me as a blogger. There have been plenty of business decisions leaked through careless job listings and it’s something I check regularly on many of the companies I follow more closely.

A quick look at the results for TiVo, reveals that they have a partnership with Solectron and that they are looking for more people in their call center. I’m not exactly sure how their relationship with Solectron works, but I did think that this was interesting, even if it wasn’t front page news.

One downside to Indeed.com is that I did not see any Craigslist listings on their engine. I’m not sure if this is related to licensing agreements or their business model, but the more sites that they can include, the better the results will be for job searchers. A lot of people think that content is king, but when there is so much information out there, sometimes it’s the companies that can make sense of it all, that succeed.

Congratulations to Indeed.com for winning this week’s site of the week contest. If you know of a good site, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to consider it for the pool of nominations. The nominees for next week’s award are listed below, you can vote in the sidebar.

Darwin Awards

Stair Fall (h/t to TDavid)

Cat With Bow Golf