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HTC One phone delayed as parts suppliers focus on other customers
At a time where HTC needs a smartphone sales hit, the company is facing a new challenge. Its new flagship phone, the HTC One, may be delayed in some markets, mainly because HTC can’t get all the components it needs for the new smartphone. According to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday, the issue isn’t because the parts aren’t necessarily available; the problem is that HTC is no longer considered a top-tier hardware customer.

HTC specifically stated to the WSJ that the camera parts and metal frames are hard to come by. And to an extent, these parts are relatively unique. The HTC One touts “ultrapixels” in the camera, which use sensors with larger pixels for better clarity and low-light performance. And the phone’s metal frame is all new.

It appears, however, that if hardware component makers had more confidence in HTC’s ability to sell smartphones — and thus increase component orders — HTC would have the parts it needs. Instead, component makers may be focusing production line efforts on partners such as Apple and Samsung, which continue to outsell all others in the smartphone market.

Indeed, HTC’s sales woes have been a sore spot; it recently has had a string of months with decreased sales growth and reduced future expectation. In turn, this hurts the company’s component demand forecasts, which can’t make hardware partners happy.

Per an HTC executive speaking to the WSJ: “The company has a problem managing its component suppliers as it has changed its order forecasts drastically and frequently following last year’s unexpected slump in shipments.”

By repeatedly reducing component orders, it’s simply a safer bet for companies that make smartphone parts to focus their production lines on companies that are selling more smartphones than before in a consistent manner. It’s all well and good to create an innovative new smartphone; my limited hands on time with the HTC One suggests it’s a solid step forward for HTC. But if markets have little confidence in the company behind the product, making a sales comeback becomes a much tougher road to tread.

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March 19, 2013
Canon’s New, Much Smaller Entry-Level DSLR Gets Pictured And Detailed In New Leak

Canon is said to be working on a new smaller DSLR called the EOS-b (or Kiss X7 in Asia), according to a series of recent reports, including one today from Japanese blog Digicame-info (via Canon Rumors). The new much smaller entry-level body will also come with a new kit lens, a version of the EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 complete with STM, Canon’s new AF motor that’s designed to reduce or eliminate AF noise when shooting video, as well as produce smoother incremental zoom.

The camera will have an 18 million pixel APS-C sensor with a Digic 5 processor, as well as a fixed 1.04 million dot 3-inch LCD display. The camera overall seems to borrow a lot from the recently released Canon T4i, but it has a much smaller physical footprint, as you can see from the side-by-side comparison pic below.

Some advantages the camera will have include what looks like a new hybrid CMOS AF system with a wider range than the one introduced on the T4i, and it also looks to use the LP-E12 battery pack Canon introduced for the EOS-M mirrorless interchangeable lens camera system it introduced last year.

The big advantages are the extremely small body size, which also weighs around 30 percent less than the T4i in addition to taking up less space. At only 370g body-only, the so-called EOS-b would be a small carry-anywhere camera without the compromises of a mirrorless compact (slower AF, manual focus-by-wire, lack of a true optical viewfinder, etc.).

Canon Rumors says this new DSLR will retail for around $799 for the kit when it debuts in the U.S., which could happen sometime in May. If true, it might be a very attractive option for anyone looking for a cheap and portable entry point into DSLR photography, though Canon’s decision to keep introducing new products into its lineup without really removing any does seem a bit perplexing. Lackluster performance of the too-compromised EOS M might be behind the development of the EOS-b, but it’ll be interesting to see if a super-small DSLR entices them more than a strong ILC competitor.

March 19, 2013
The debate about Rupert Sheldrake’s talk

At TEDxWhitechapel on January 13, 2013, Rupert Sheldrake gave a provocative talk in which he suggests that modern science is based on ten dogmas, and makes the case that none of them hold up to scrutiny. According to him, these dogmas — including, for example, that nature is mechanical and purposeless, that the laws and constants of nature are fixed, and that psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible — have held back the pursuit of knowledge.

TED’s scientific advisors have questioned whether his list is a fair description of scientific assumptions — indeed, several of the dogmas are actually active areas of science inquiry (including whether physical ‘constants’ are really unchanging) — and believe there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake’s more radical claims, such as his theory of morphic resonance, and claim that the speed of light has been changing. They recommended that the talk be should not be distributed without being framed with caution. Accordingly, we have reposted his talk here, with the above cautionary introduction. We invite scientists, skeptics, knowledge-seekers and supporters — and Sheldrake himself, if he’s willing — to join in a conversation over this talk.

Is this an idea worth spreading, or misinformation? Does Sheldrake accurately describe scientists’ beliefs and are his theories credible? What’s the evidence for either position?

There’s only one rule for the conversation. Comments need to be phrased in respectful terms. Those that are intemperate or unnecessarily insulting will be removed.

Join the conversation here, where it’s possible to upvote comments, sort by recency or rating, and see all comments in one page. We look forward to the discussion.

March 19, 2013
Chromebooks Are Now Available In Six More Countries

Chromebooks are slowly making their way around the world as Google introduces more consumers to its idea of what personal computing should look like. Now consumers, schools and businesses in six more countries can take advantage of the affordable computing provided by Chromebook.

Google announced today that Chromebooks are now available for purchase in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and The Netherlands. Consumers can go ahead and pick up a new Chromebook from Google itself or a licensed reseller today.

The Chromebooks available for purchase today include those from Acer, HP and Samsung. It’s not immediately clear if the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel will be available in these countries as well.

As for schools and businesses, Google expects that those organizations may have some questions. For schools, Google in Education will be hosting a number of Hangouts next week to address any questions or concerns schools may have with the Chromebooks for Education program:
Australia – Event on March 28th at 10:00 EST
Canada – Event on March 28th at 14:00 EDT
France – Event on March 29th at 16:00 CET
Germany – Event on March 28th at 17:00 CET
Ireland – Event on March 26th at 17:00 GMT
The Netherlands – Event on March 27th at 17:00 CET

Most of today’s news may be focused on Europe, Oceania and our neighbor up north, but Google has a small announcement for the U.S. Chromebook market as well. Starting today, Chromebooks will be available in 1,000 more Best Buy stores around the country for those who prefer to still buy computers at retail stores.

March 19, 2013

Affordable Care Act at 3: Abby’s Story

Ed. note: This post was first published on the official blog of healthcare.gov. You can see the original post here.

I remember the day the health care law passed three years ago. The law made history as one of the most significant pieces of health related legislation since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. On a personal level, it fundamentally changed the course of my life. At the time, I was 20 years old, a college student, and facing the reality that I would be kicked off my parents’ high-quality private insurance, on my twenty-first birthday. I would have limited, if any, options for health insurance and it put me face to face with my own mortality.

I was born with a serious, rare disease. Without high-quality health care, or health insurance, I would suffer potentially fatal consequences. Most children who are born with my disease, toxoplasmosis, have profound side-effects that can include organ failure, blindness, and intellectual disabilities. Throughout my childhood, I was fairly healthy. But during high school I began to face the realities of what it meant to have this disease. I had neurosurgery to replace the 16-year-old shunt that was installed to drain spinal fluid collecting on my brain, and I lost vision in my left eye when the parasite attacked my eyes. Since then, I have struggled to remain healthy and have had several shunt replacements and eye surgeries.

Knowing how stressful, painful, and scary these experiences were with health insurance, as I got older, my family and I went into a panic. We knew I would no longer be eligible for their insurance, and we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would be denied coverage due to my multiple pre-existing conditions. This was where we were in March 2010.

But everything changed three years ago, when President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act.

March 19, 2013

The Case for Crafting a Big Data Plan

There’s a growing appreciation among executives that the returns from big data are real indeed. But that doesn’t make moving forward any easier. The investment, both in dollars and management commitment, can be large. CIOs stress the need to entirely remake data architecture and applications. Outside vendors hawk the power of black-box models to crunch through unstructured data in search of cause and effect relationships. Business managers scratch their heads — while insisting on knowing upfront what the pay-off will be from the spending and the potentially disruptive organizational change.

The answer, simply put, is to develop a plan. It may sound obvious, but in our experience, most companies fail to put in the time required to create a simple plan for how data, analytics, front-line tools, and people can come together to create business value. The power of a plan is that it provides a common language that allows senior executives, technology professionals, data scientists, and managers to talk through where the greatest returns will come from, and more importantly, select the two or three places to get started.

There’s a parallel here with the history of strategic planning. Forty years ago, only a few companies developed well-thought-out strategic plans. Some of those pioneers achieved impressive results, and before long a wide range of organizations were harnessing the then-new planning tools and frameworks. Today hardly anyone sets off without some kind of strategic plan. So too, we believe developing a data and analytics plan soon will be seen by most executives as the essential first step toward harnessing big data.

A good strategic plan highlights the critical decisions, or “trade-offs,” that a company needs to make, and defines high priority initiatives: what businesses will get the most capital, whether to emphasize higher margins or faster growth, and what capabilities are needed to ensure strong performance. In these early days of big data and analytics planning, companies need to address analogous issues: choosing the internal and external data they will integrate, selecting from a long list of potential analytic models and tools the ones that will best support their business goals, and building the organizational capabilities needed to exploit this potential. Successfully wrestling with these planning tradeoffs requires a cross-cutting, strategic dialogue at the top of the company that will build high-level confidence in the plan, which should focus on three core elements:

Data. A blueprint for assembling and integrating data is essential. Companies are buried in information that’s frequently siloed by business unit or function. Some plans may highlight the need for massive reorganization of data architectures over time, as well as large investments in new data capabilities to incorporate information from outside the company such as social network conversations.

Analytic Models. Integrating data alone does not generate value. Advanced analytic models are needed to enable data-driven optimization (of employee schedules or shipping networks, for example), or prediction (for instance, about what customers will want or do based on buying histories, weather, or Web site behavior). Critically, a plan must identify where models will create additional business value, who will need to use them, and how to avoid inconsistencies and unnecessary proliferation as models are scaled up across the enterprise.

Tools. Modeling output will only be valuable if managers and, in many cases, front-line employees understand and use it. What’s needed are intuitive tools that integrate data into day-to-day processes and translate modeling output into tangible business actions. To animate this transformation companies will need new organizational capabilities. In the same way that some strategic plans fail to deliver because the organization lacks the skills to deliver on them, so big data plans can disappoint when they lack the right people and capabilities. Companies need a road map for assembling a talent pool of the right size and mix.

By assembling these three building blocks, companies can formulate an integrated big data plan — which, of course, will get adjusted as big data and analytics reveal business elements not visible before. Here, too, there may be a parallel with strategic planning, which over time has morphed in many organizations from a formal, annual, “by the book” process, to a more dynamic one that takes place continuously and involves a broader set of constituents. A data and analytics plan, in similar fashion, should engage the entire enterprise. The sooner executives understand this, the more likely they are to make data a real source of competitive advantage for their organizations.

March 19, 2013

Five companies that want to break up your cable bundle

Tired of paying $100 for hundreds of channels if you only watch five of them? You’re not alone: An increasing number of companies is also looking for alternatives to the traditional cable bundle. The alliance of companies pushing for unbundling contains a few unexpected candidates — one of them may even be the very company that charges you for that bundle.

Pay TV providers have long complained that TV networks force them to carry channels they don’t want. But in recent weeks, those complaints have turned into action, with Cablevision suing Viacom to break up the network’s bundle, and Verizon starting to talk about paying programmers based on their performance, as opposed to a flat fee for a bundle of channels.

So who is trying to break up the bundle, and how? Check out our list:

Verizon: Putting its money where your eyes are

Verizon execs have been talking for some time about changing things up, to the point where director of consumer video services Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, who is responsible for the company’s FIOS TV service, said last year that cord cutting wasn’t growing fast enough for the company. The logic behind those remarks? If consumers cut the cord, then programmers are going to be more willing to rethink the deals they’re having with Verizon.

Verizon sells bundles – but it would like to change them.

Looks like this is now beginning to happen, at least on a smaller scale. The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that Verizon is pressing smaller channels to pay them based on their actual performance, as opposed to a flat fee per subscriber. The result wouldn’t actually be a pick-and-choose TV lineup. Instead, Verizon would potentially distribute even more channels — but only pay the ones that are actually attracting eyeballs.

Making this model work won’t be easy for Verizon, especially when it comes to the biggest cost drivers, which are sports channels like ESPN. But some smaller channels might be eager to sign on. This could potentially lead to some cheaper bundles that offer actually more content, save for some of the most expensive fare.

Cablevision: Suing to get rid of the duds

Cablevision has chosen to take its attack on the big bundles to the courts: The company sued Viacom last month to get out of a contract it struck just two months earlier, arguing that Viacom is forcing the company to carry a number of channels its customers don’t want. The lawsuit is about a total of 12 channels like MTV Hits and VH1 Classic, but it could ultimately threaten the whole concept of a bundle — which is why it will likely get settled out of court.

Aereo: A new kind of bundle

Aereo is circumventing the cable bundle altogether with an offer that’s squarely aimed at cord cutters: The company offers streaming of broadcast networks like ABC, CBS and NBC for as little as $8 a month.

Aereo’s tiny antennas could have a big impact on bundles.

It’s undercutting the cable companies through the use of a legal loophole, which involves an elaborate setup of miniature antenna farms, and resulted in a lawsuit brought against the company by those very broadcasters. However, the company won a first round last year, and is now looking to expand to close to two dozen cities this spring.

To learn more about Aereo and the company’s take on the future of television, check out our upcoming paidContent Live conference, where I’m going to chat with the company’s CEO Chet Kanojia about these very issues.

Boxee: Unbundling the DVR

Boxee’s new Boxee TV device comes with a promising proposition: The device won’t just let you watch major broadcast networks without paying for cable, it will also upload any show airing on those networks to a cloud DVR with unlimited storage and streams them not only to your TV, but also to your iPad or computer. Boxee’s cloud DVR is currently only available in limited markets, and the device itself has been met with mixed reviews – but the idea behind it is definitely disruptive, because it’s essentially TV Everywhere without the expensive cable price tag.

Netflix: Showing that you can succeed without a bundle

Netflix has long shied away from discussions around cord cutting and cable bundles, with execs insisting that that wants to be complementary to cable, and that it will eventually just be another channel that consumers subscribe to, just like HBO.

Netflix’s House of Cards is like a cable show, but without a cable bundle.

However, the big difference is that you can only get HBO as part of a premium cable bundle. Netflix, on the other hand, is available to anyone, no matter whether they pay $50, $120 or nothing at all for cable.

That strategy has been working well for the company: Not only does Netflix now have 33 million subscribers, investors have also given the company a thumbs-up on its original content strategy, with stock roughly doubling since the beginning of the year. And with new, original shows about to debut on Netflix every month this spring, the company seems to demonstrate HBO that you can, in fact, succeed without being part of a bundle.

Image courtesy of Flickr user HarshPatel;Photographer.

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March 19, 2013

ABC Reportedly Working on a Live Streaming App

ABC is reportedly working on a live streaming app that will be the first of its kind from any of the major U.S. broadcasters.

According to the New York Times, the new app is currently in development. It would allow users to live stream ABC programming – daytime, primetime, and more – to their mobile devices and tablets. All users would have to do is log in through their cable provider.

The app could launch as early as later this year.

Considering that Disney already has other streaming apps called Watch ESPN and Watch Disney, is wouldn’t be a shock if this new app launches as Watch ABC or something similar.

With this move, ABC would be on the cutting edge of content distribution. Of course, one of the main reasons for any network to develop streaming apps is to attempt to create a space where they can broadcast more ads.

ABC isn’t the only major network that’s looking to expand their reach to more mobile users. Last week, CBS launched a new app that features full-episode streaming of much of their daytime, primetime, and late night content. But that app only streams shows on a delay – a far cry from what ABC is reportedly trying to do with a truly live app experience.

Speaking of Disney-owned properties, Hulu just tapped a new acting CEO. SVP of Content Any Forssell will fill the vacant seat, left by Jason Kilar when he steps down later this month.

March 19, 2013

The Boy Genius Report: Apple’s billion dollar mobile payment magic trick

Apple (AAPL) shares have fallen more than 35% since hitting a record high last September. The tech press has declared that Apple is doomed. On the defensive. Unable to compete with Samsung (005930). Never mind that the company only pulled in $13 billion in profit last quarter, and only has $140 billion in cash, and that Apple has the best-selling smartphone in the world. There is one thing that Wall Street analysts have forgotten in their reports, models, and projections — Apple has 500 million iTunes accounts with credit cards.

Continue reading…

March 19, 2013

Bill O’Reilly Divorce May Involve the Catholic Church

Bill O’Reilly is best known as Fox News’ headlining prime time pundit and isn’t a stranger to controversy (loofah, anyone?). Though individuals may disagree with his politics or views about the world, it’s clear that O’Reilly is a passionate man. Over the years he has demonstrated his passion about his politics, his religion, his ignorance of physics, and doing it live.

It serves to reason that O’Reilly is equally passionate about marriage, and, now, is very passionately involved in a post-divorce custody battle.

Gawker this week reported that O’Reilly and Maureen McPhilmy divorced in 2011, but that the pundit couldn’t let go. He allegedly tried to get the Nassau County Police Department to begin an internal affairs investigation into his ex-wife’s new boyfriend, who was a Nassau County detective. There are also allegations that O’Reilly hired the couple’s court-appointed “neutral therapist” to be nanny for the couple’s two children, who are part of a shared custody arrangement.

Beyond these alleged infractions, the report also states that the couple’s battle has been taken up by the Catholic Church. McPhilmy is reported to have received a formal reprimand from the church, stating her divorce and second marriage preclude her from receiving the sacrement of communion. O’Reilly is reported by Gawker to be seeking an annulment of the couple’s marriage, which would invalidate the marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

March 19, 2013

12 talks about the future of cars, planes and rockets

On March 1 — just two days after Elon Musk appeared on the TED2013 stage — a SpaceX CRS-2 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on a resupply mission for the International Space Station. Two days later, after the righting of a glitch, its Dragon capsule delivered a half-ton of supplies for the astronauts on board. And four days after that, the SpaceX Grasshopper had its most successful test to date. This reusable rocket launched 80 feet in the air, hovered for about 34 seconds and returned once again to the center of its launch pad.

Elon Musk: The mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity …So how did Musk, the cofounder of PayPal, get involved in space travel?

“It was from the standpoint of: What are the things that need to happen in order for the future to be exciting and inspiring? There’s a fundamental difference between a humanity that’s a space-faring civilization — that is out there exploring the stars and on multiple planets — compared to one where we are forever confined to Earth,” Musk says in today’s TED Talk, a conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson. “The goal of SpaceX is to try to advance rocket technology, and in particular to crack a problem that I think is vital for humanity to become a space-faring civilization: to have a rapidly and fully reusable rocket.”

Musk’s company has slashed the cost of rockets by, they say, up to 75 percent, nudging us toward the idea of human life being multiplanetary. But this isn’t his only endeavor that could change our relationship to travel. Musk is also the mind behind Tesla Motors, which builds electric cars, and SolarCity, a solar-power firm.

“I think it’s extremely important that we have sustainable transport and sustainable energy production. The overall sustainable energy problem is the biggest problem that we have to solve this century,” Musk says in today’s talk. “You have to come up with a really energy-efficient car, which means you have to make it incredibly light … We actually applied rocket design techniques to make the car light, despite the large battery pack.”

To hear more about Musk’s vision for the electric car, solar energy and commercial space travel, as well as his thoughts on how his divergent companies actually make sense together, watch this intriguing conversation. And here, more talks from visionaries in the field of transportation on what we might see in the not-too-distant future.

Watch the TED playlist “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” »

And see 5 fascinating cars of the future »

Elon-Musk-on-TED-stage

March 19, 2013

Is Email Your Business’ Answer To The Loss Of Google Reader?

Businesses have had the idea that “content is king” pounded into their brains for years. If you want to thrive online, you have to have compelling content that people want to read. The other side of that coin, however, is that you have to be able to get that content in front of them, and there are certainly plenty of ways of doing so. The problem is that not all of these ways of getting content in front of people is all that easy. RSS, even if it has not gained mass mainstream adoption, has long been one of the easiest ways of getting that content in front of the people that truly want it. If someone subscribes to your RSS feed, you can rest easy knowing that the content is going to be pushed to the subscriber without any algorithmic filtering obstacles.

Do you intend to encourage customers and readers to subscribe to your updates by email? Let us know in the comments.

As you probably know, Google has dealt a major blow to RSS by announcing that it will shut down Google Reader this summer. Also, as you probably know, a variety of other services are stepping up to the plate to try to become your next reader. Still, there is some debate about just how much longer RSS will continue to thrive, because when a major Internet force like Google calls it quits, how can we really know what to expect?

For a while, it looked like Google Reader wasn’t the only piece of the RSS puzzle that Google is killing. The RSS Subscription Chrome extension disappeared for a time, but apparently that was just a mistake, and it’s back up. Still, it’s clear that Google is actively trying to make people use RSS less (and Google+ more), and unfortunately for a lot of users, they’ll probably succeed. That doesn’t mean that many of us die hards won’t continue to use the format for as long as it’s around, but you have to wonder how many will use the Google Reader closure as a stepping stone to a completely alternative means of consuming content. Many casual users will probably take some time to better optimize their experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and other social services, and completely stop relying on RSS. Maybe that’s for the best (some think so). Maybe not. Either way, for a lot of people, it’s not going to be an easy transition.

Some of us are wondering if Google will continue to support RSS for Google Alerts, another important tool for bloggers.

“I have multiple alerts set up to alert me through Google Reader,” writes bradnod on reddit. “I do not want to change it to email because I have enough emails in my inbox already. I was just curious is Google is going to phase this feature out or allow the RSS feed to other feed readers.”

You don’t have to use Google Reader for this feature, but the question remains: will Google continue to support RSS for alerts? The odds seem a little better that they will keep the RSS option, now that the Chrome extension has come back, but we have asked Google about it, and so far, they haven’t responded.

The only other option for Google Alerts, as of right now, is email. Email. The time-honored method of online communication that just won’t die, no matter how many social services come out of the woodwork. Email continues to thrive, and doesn’t appear to be in much danger.

Email, like RSS, doesn’t rely on one company to continue working, which is probably one of the main reasons it has lasted so long. Some think this bodes well for the future of RSS too, and maybe it does, but RSS doesn’t have anywhere close to the user adoption that email has. RSS, while a fundamental part of the web for some of us, just isn’t required for the rest of the web and user identity like email is. Long story short, email has a lot more going for it, and it’s not going anywhere.

Could a significant percentage of Google Reader users turn to email as their alternative of choice?

“I think email alerts have been growing in popularity anyway, since they create a true one to one connection between the blog and reader with a daily use platform that is unlikely to ever go away,” TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden tells WebProNews. “Also, there’s very little competition in the RSS to email space, which is also growing. I’d be surprised if several of the RSS reader platforms don’t jump in to fill the inevitable void of FeedBurner’s RSS to email or at least to meet the growing demand.”

“The popular theory seems to be that people will move on to another RSS reader, and life will go on as usual,” writes Michael Surtees at Mashable. “I’m not that optimistic. RSS is not going to evolve, and I doubt it will get better. It’s basically dead now that Google has decided to stop supporting its Reader.”

“I’m looking for an option that doesn’t rely on RSS but can still tell me when a site has been updated,” he says. “The ideal service would then let me organize those sites into specific lists.”

Is it possible that email could be what he is looking for? Interestingly, he doesn’t mention this at all in his article, and the truth is, I totally get why. Many of us already have tons of email, and don’t want to add to that with all the content that is entering our Google Reader interface (even if that’s possible, which it probably isn’t). Still, email is the RSS alternative that works for virtually all Internet users. The only alternative. Why do you think it’s the only other option for Google Alerts? Not everybody is on Facebook (and certainly not the web’s other social networks), but just about everyone has email. You need email to sign up for the social networks.

It could be cumbersome, particularly if you’ve set up a lot of folders in Google Reader, but could it be possible to migrate to an email-based habit of news consumption? It’s not as if the concept is new or foreign to most. There’s a good chance you’re probably already subscribed to some email newsletters, but expect to see publishers and bloggers more heavily push for newsletter and alert subscribers with Google Reader going away. And don’t be surprised if a lot of blogs that don’t currently have newsletters suddenly start offering them.

Some of the most authoritative voices in social media and content marketing view email as a major piece of the alternative strategy. Chris Brogan had this to say on his blog:

“Turns out Google Reader is going away. As a user, I’m very sad. As a provider of content for you, I have to make sure I’m helping you. So, if you’re getting me via RSS, could I invite you to subscribe to my email newsletter? It really is where I share the best ideas I have.”

Copyblogger’s Brian Clark tweeted this after Google’s announcement:

Move your Google Reader people to email. That is all.

— Brian Clark (@copyblogger) March 13, 2013

Copyblogger’s Jerod Morris elaborates in a post on the site, “What you need to do is — by being awesome — sell your readers on why now is the best time to subscribe to your email list. Not for you, for them. And it’s precisely because of Google’s decision to drop Reader. All Google Reader users are feeling an immense lack of control right now. I know this, because I am (was) a user of Google Reader.”

Clark responds in the comments to a skeptical reader, “You can’t coerce anyone to do anything. But you can ‘invite’ them into your email channel. What would make it worth their while? What additional incentive would make them allow your content into their inbox while others are excluded?”

That’s truly something to think about. Now might be a good time to step up to the plate and give readers a little something extra in return for becoming part of your mailing list.

Morris adds, “And the idea here is not to coerce customer behavior. It’s to offer solutions to the problem and let people choose the one that works best for them. A lot of people will like the security and certainty of email, especially right now, but they may not consider it an alternative if not reminded that it is.”

In the same comment thread, Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone chimes in, “Opponents of email are vocal (and I hear you, I get too much email too), but bloggers who provide the opportunity to subscribe via both methods report that their email subscribers are consistently much more responsive. RSS is a great tool for many, but you want to make sure you’re providing both options.”

Bloggers have already been encouraging users to sign up for email newsletters since Google’s announcement, and not just Brogan. There are plenty of examples out there. Graham Cluley from Sophos writes, “Our stats tell us that many of our readers choose to follow Naked Security’s RSS feed via Google Reader. Of course, there are alternatives to Google Reader which you may want to try out – but if you want to ensure that you never miss a story from Naked Security, can we suggest that you sign-up for Naked Security’s daily newsletter? Our free daily email newsletter gives you access to all the stories we’ve written in the past 24 hours, and ensures that you never miss a thing.”

That’s just one of a many possible email formats – the one-a-day. Expect to see more options from more bloggers and publishers.

One major advantage of gaining more email subscribers is that you’re not relying on any one company to continue to support them. Email is universal. It’s going to be interesting to see how RSS gets along without an Internet giant like Google supporting it. Some feel there is plenty to be optimistic about – not just the resurgence in interest in the medium and the sudden rush for superior products from companies offering alternative feed readers, but the fact that one company isn’t dominating the landscape any longer. This is certainly one way to look at it.

Either way, I don’t think anyone would recommend that bloggers and publishers stop offering RSS feeds anytime soon. That doesn’t mean you can’t give readers a better email option or at least give them the option to consumer your content that way if they so choose.

By the way, email open rates were up year-over-year in Q4. For that matter, recent research shows consumers are growing more accepting of email marketing.

Is email a viable alternative to RSS for your needs? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Image: Chris Brogan’s blog

March 19, 2013

Google’s RSS Subscription Chrome Extension Is Back, Sans Google Reader Support

Shortly after Google announced that they would be killing off Google Reader, angering a significant amount of users, they dealt another blow to RSS by yanking the Google RSS Subscription Chrome extension. More anger ensued. Why must you destroy everything that we love, Google?

Well, here’s a bit of good news: The extension is back.

Finnur Thorarinsson, the author of the extension, announced its return on a Chromium issues thread. According to him, it was removed by mistake.

The extension has been updated to remove Google Reader and iGoogle from the lists of supported feed readers, “to prevent [new users] from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time,” according to the extension’s author.

Here’s what he had to say:

I’m the author of the RSS Subscription Extension (from Google) and I wanted to provide a quick update on what Peter said.

My RSS extension was removed by mistake but it is now up again on the webstore:

It was not _tied_ to Google Reader, per se, since you choose which feed reader to use — but I’ve now removed the Google Reader option for new users to prevent them from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time.

Also, please note that even though clones of my extension exist in the webstore, some of them were copied a long time ago and have not been updated since. They might therefore be vulnerable to security issues and can not really be recommended without making sure they’ve kept up with the times.

The RSS Subscription extension allows users to quickly add RSS and Atom feeds to a variety of feed readers. That functionality still remains, minus the ability to subscribe via Google Reader.

So, Google, burned down the house and spared one small possession from the fire. For what it’s worth, Thorarinsson himself is just as upset about the whole Google Reader shutdown as the rest of us.

“I’m an avid user of Google Reader and am pretty unhappy about the Reader situation as well,” he says.

[h/t CNET]

March 19, 2013

We’ve Reached Peak Infographic, and We’re No Smarter for It

If I were to chart the evolution of my attitude toward infographics over time, it would start with a soaring arc, dip and rise, then drop into a steady flat line. My personal interest in data visualizations has waned, but demand is higher than ever — and I’ve devoted much of my career to propping up that demand. For three years, I’ve distilled data into graphs and illustrations that I’m proud to call my own. But I’ve also scratched my head at more slickly designed, low-info infographics than I care to count.

Infographics may seem like the design trend of the moment, but they have a long history. In 1920s Europe, Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz launched “The Isotype Project,” pioneering the use of simple visual methods for conveying critical data. Neurath, a social scientist, wanted to create an “international picture language” that could explain important political and social issues to people who couldn’t read. With designer Arntz, he created 4,000 pictograms to communicate information necessary to ordinary lives. Many of their original icons still grace our bus stops and government buildings.

Neurath and Arntz were designing for an audience that couldn’t read. Today, many people just don’t want to. There’s never been more data at our fingertips, but most of us have trouble making sense of that glut of information unless it’s shaped into cohesive nuggets. Enter the modern infographic, which has moved away from the elegant simplicity of the Isotype icons in favor of communicating entire data sets in one smartly designed package.

Our data is growing more complicated just as readers are getting less patient. Even the best illustration can’t bridge the comprehension gap. Sometimes, good design even enables mental shortcuts. Glance at an infographic, and you can feel like you’ve processed massive amounts of information. Share, tweet, or like the infographic online, and your friends can see just how much you’ve learned without even looking themselves. Designers (and the outlets that commission them) have figured out that they can emphasize pretty and clicky over useful and interesting, which means Neurath and Arntz’s work has taken on an exploitative new dimension.

Ever peered deep into the belly of an infographic and wondered, “Is there anything connecting these numbers other than this illustration?” You’re just beginning to see the Matrix, Neo. The model of simplicity executed by Neurath and Arntz has mutated to become more about design than data, creating a glut of attractive imagery with little reliable or even compelling information. Isotype worked because it collected relevant civic data and distributed it using functional design. Today, the goal is to make infographics viral, regardless of the story they tell. This practice has broadened the definition of what we refer to as an “infographic.”

I’ve been part of the problem. Once, I was asked to create an infographic using some weak data on marijuana. I pushed through a design that amounted to three weed-joke illustrations, no charts, and almost no numbers. Forgive me, Otto, for I have sinned. May this joint light the way to my redemption.

It’s time we acknowledge the shortcomings of infographics as much as we celebrate their upsides. That’s harder to do now that infographics have exploded as a cottage industry within design. The boom began in 2006 with the launch of GOOD magazine, my former employer, which emphasized infographics from the start and was named a National Magazine Award finalist for its work in 2008. Fast Company and Wired entered the game. Today, entire design studios are dedicated to creating these illustrative data dumps.

Since leaving my job earlier this year, I’ve had the opportunity to create infographics on a freelance basis for several publications. When I speak to potential clients, I often realize that they’re more interested in churning out the form than in telling a story. An idea without supporting data; a list; a business plan; a resume — none of these are infographics, no matter what they’re labeled. And even if the data exists, just because you can create an infographic doesn’t mean you should.

Worse yet, private businesses are increasingly controlling the form. Companies looking to illustrate their capabilities and showcase their potential collaborate with a “media producer” to present the facts as the company sees them. There’s nothing wrong with a business leveraging visual vocabulary to tell its story. But potential customers tend to view an infographic less skeptically than an ad.

These visual interlopers haven’t undercut the form entirely. There are still honest-to-goodness data visualizers out there, like Bloomberg Businessweek’s Jennifer Daniel and Facebook’s Nicholas Felton, and other talented artists pushing infographics in new directions, like New York Times contributor Andrew Kuo. But more and more infographics are starting with questions like “Will this blow up on the internet?” or demands such as “I want an infographic! About what? Whatever!” And these so-called information graphics threaten to undermine even the most shining examples.

Infographics can evolve by transcending cold data-breakdown, and combining data visualization with more human narratives. Some publications have begun to present well-designed information in tandem with deeply reported pieces online, and the future it represents is thrilling. I’m not ready for an infographic about the death of infographics, but I’m sure someone somewhere has already assigned that piece, and is just waiting for us all to click.

This article first appeared in TOMORROW Magazine and was reprinted with the author’s permission.

Visualizing Data
An HBR Insight Center

March 19, 2013

It’s Time to Retire ‘Crap Circles’

Every time I encounter a crap circle my heart sinks. I first wrote about these contemptible “information” graphics in HBR in 2005, and since then they’ve only seemed to multiply. You know what these are — you may have even used them — though you may not have had a name for them. I aim to change that. These pernicious circles-and-arrows diagrams infest PowerPoint and other business presentations, purporting to clarify an idea while actually obscuring it.

As I wrote back then, when you find yourself about to drop a crap circle into your slide deck, stop. And the next time a presenter trots out a circle to make a point, call him on it.

Here’s the original article. I urge you to forward it to violators, and submit examples in the comments below of the worst (or best?) crap circles you’ve encountered.

The most dubious business plan can look solid — even smart — if it’s cast as a virtuous circle. “See, we invest our profits in innovation to create delightful products that customers buy — which generate profits that we invest in innovation!” Who could argue with that? Indeed, the merit of self-reinforcing systems seems so obvious that businesspeople instinctively describe their strategies as cyclical activities that magically fuel themselves. Meanwhile, audiences demand snappy-looking, easy-to-digest graphics that, almost by definition, strip away nuance. It’s no surprise, then, that business communications are lousy with circle-and-arrow diagrams that range from the dumb to the deceptive.

Though you’ve seen a million of these, you’ve probably never thought much about them. That’s because, like optical illusions, they play on your expectations and trick you into seeing something that isn’t there: If one arrow leads to the next, then of course the steps follow. But once you start examining these ubiquitous diagrams, you’ll be amazed by what you don’t see.

Consider these examples:

The circle below, from a global accounting firm’s website, is used to illustrate the company’s consulting services for owner-managed businesses. It shows the business life cycle “maturity phase” leading, inexplicably, into the “conception/ start-up phase.” This company’s clients should ask whether they really want to be guided in circles.

With the next design, a Boston-based software company helpfully illustrates the stages of its application management life cycle. Through some trick of causality, termination leads to deployment. This may be a good model from a consultancy’s standpoint — when a client’s projects end, they start again — but if you’re paying the tab, you probably want the project to actually end when it’s terminated.

The friendly-looking sunburst that follows, captured from the website of a solar energy advocacy group, shows how to create an unlimited market for your product. Here, as the supply of solar energy increases, so does the demand — in an apparently endless cycle. If these folks are right, we’re all in the wrong business.

And this one, from a Canadian enterprise-content-management company, is notable for its sleight of hand. Circles rotating in opposite directions (in which, among other oddities, “publish” gives rise to “search”) link through arrows whose origins and destinations, on close inspection, are obscure or completely hidden. Maybe the intent of this diagram is to make prospects too dizzy to ask questions.

Kudos, though, to the author of the disarmingly honest graphic below, from a U.S. safety engineers group — a refreshing bit of out-of-the-circle thinking. He seems to have had an epiphany as he created the diagram, realizing that the development of safety processes doesn’t always chase its tail — that “management review” needn’t slavishly feed into “strategy and policy” in the service of “continual improvement.”

By fighting the impulse to think in circles, he’s set an example for everyone who has uncritically accepted or, worse, actually constructed a crap circle — and that’s most of us. The next time you find yourself preparing a circle for a presentation, ask yourself if the process you’re describing really works the way you say it does. And the next time a presenter trots out a circle to make a point, find the bogus links and put him on the spot. We could all benefit from a little more linear thinking.

Visualizing Data
An HBR Insight Center

March 19, 2013

The Power of Visualization’s "Aha!" Moments

Amanda Cox has been a graphics editor at the New York Times for eight years. Trained as a statistician, Cox develops visualizations across platforms, from simple print infographics to highly complex online interactive data tools. The Times is a visualization leader, but Cox believes the best is yet to come from this discipline, which she calls “both young and not young.” I spoke to Cox about the Times’ approach to visualization and the power of “Aha!” moments.

Do you think data visualization is entering a time when it’s becoming a core communication tool?

I wish there were more examples in the high-end data viz world to back that up. I wish there were more examples where data viz actually mattered. The case studies for us to lean on are sparser than they should be. On the other hand, you can argue it’s a young field and people are doing all kinds of crazy interesting things, and that’s a good thing. There’s that classic idea that it’s useful for people to do crazy theoretical things even if they don’t know what they’re useful for. Like with origami. Folding patterns turn out to be really useful for many applications, including surgery. But it wasn’t clear when people were documenting origami patterns that they would eventually help save lives. I want applications that actually matter. Actionable results.

It seems like there’s more focus on trying to get data viz to go viral than to make it “matter.”

There’s a lot where not much actionable comes out of it. I don’t know if the ratio is different from the ratio of bad writing to good, or bad restaurant openings to good, but I think it’s an important idea to focus on. There’s a strand of the data viz world that argues that everything could be a bar chart. That’s possibly true but also possibly a world without joy.

Nicely designed posters with a few numbers on them aren’t really data viz.

What is the right skill set for building good data visualizations? Seems like the right person is a unicorn, someone who knows some design, some programming and some statistics?

Here, anyway, I’ve heard us described as very liberal arts. Those skills you list are useful but we start with curiosity and skepticism. Most people here don’t come from statistics, graphic design, or programming backgrounds. We have journalists, biologists, urban planners, mapmakers. The ability to ask good questions is really what we start with. I come from a statistics background, and I’m finding statistics students’ portfolios are crazy weak compared to the computer science students, even though they’re playing with the same problems. I think it’s because comp sci students are encouraged to play, whereas stats majors it’s, “here’s your rule book, now make things.” I don’t think that’s the good model for making better visualization.

But surely you have to have some of those three core skills?

In bigger projects, we put together teams where those skills are reflected, but it’s not like we all need to know how to program. I bring a statistical background. But I’m not a designer by any means.

That’s surprising that, as a graphics editor, you don’t consider design a strength.

When I first started, I thought design was ten minutes of ‘make it cute’ at the end that I could talk someone into doing for me. Now I know that design thinking needs to be involved from conception. And after a while you see the math behind it. How do I minimize eye movement on this infographic? Something like that, now I know how to do that because we have design principles. Design and typography do matter. It’s about hierarchy of information and how people perceive information. Done properly, that clean up work really matters. On the other hand, it’s easy to believe that it matters more than it does. If you make a fantastically interesting chart and some poor design decisions, the data will still come through. If you make a bad chart with a beautiful design, what have you done, really?

Is there resistance to data viz at the Times? Does anyone think it’s a lot of work for not much reward?

Not a ton of resistance here. Editors and reporters rightfully question why we might want to do a visualization. It’s not always immediately obvious to them the journalistic value, and sometimes they’re right. The parallel to me is there’s room in a newspaper for quirky text stories too. Most everyone here would agree the best way to tell some stories is through data. Some think very rarely, some think most of the time, but they would concede telling the story with data is accepted.

What about the cost-benefit part of it? Data viz is still somewhat new and sometimes it seems like it’s a lot of work to make a simple point.

We might be different than a non-news organization but the criteria for us is how interesting or newsworthy is this, just like any story. Also, when people ask us “how long will it take?” our answer is “how long do you have?” We know how to scope based on how much time we have. We rarely kill projects. We’ll scale them back, but that’s often good, like taking off earrings but making sure you’re still well dressed. As far as ROI goes, I’d argue there are lots of times that when people see it, they process information differently, better, than if they were reading bullet points or text. How you measure that return though is a tricky calculus.

Do you have an example of that reaction?

There’s an “Aha!” moment sometimes. Even on the most obvious things. Take Matthew Bloch [and Shan Carter and Alan McLean]’s census maps.

Click to see larger image. View the interactive version here.
source: New York Times

I’m just seeing what I basically know: New York neighborhoods are segregated. But I felt it in a way I never had before. You can feel a good data visualization.

Do you have other favorites working in the field right now?

There’s a group out of Harvard doing interesting stuff on how doctors interpret blood flow in heart diagrams. That kind of work to me is interesting. And whenever Eric Fisher publishes a new map, it’s usually more interesting than average.

Do you worry about data viz being used to misrepresent data? Sometimes visualizations can feel like “the answer” even if they’re based on flimsy data.

I think that’s a problem. Coming from a statistics background, when I first got here I thought my big contribution would be to help us account for uncertainty in data viz and that turns out to be very difficult. But I also think we have the power to make people more data and visualization literate. One thing we did was take a very simple unemployment chart — your most basic visualization — and we let people choose a Democrat or Republican interpretation of the data.

Click or touch to see larger image. View the interactive version here.
source: New York Times

You can literally see the visualization change based on whose point of view was highlighted. It would be silly to interpret any data viz as truth. They are interpretations of truth.

Part of what’s driving this focus on data viz is the democratization of the tools needed to create them. Are you positive about the direction of technology to enable this kind of communication?

Yes. You saw a slow period a couple of years ago. Before then, most work was being done in Flash with ActionScript. Then there was a period where I felt like we couldn’t do interesting data viz because we had moved away from flash but we didn’t have any kind of great replacements for it. Then some of the more tech competent people starting using D3 javascript and now we’re having fun with data again. In some ways it feels of the web in the way that the Flash stuff never did. Now, when someone does something interesting, how they did it is really just sitting out there on the Internet, so you get this great sharing and building off of each other.

What gets you most excited about what’s happening in data viz right now?

Data viz is both young and not young. It’s still rapidly changing, so I’m hoping it gets more awesome rapidly. But we’re already at a place where we can make people understand what they didn’t understand. Now we want to make people understand what no one has understood before. The best visualizations cause you to see something you weren’t expecting, and allow you to act on it.

Visualizing Data
An HBR Insight Center

March 19, 2013

Your Business Needs Insight, Not Just Pretty Pictures

In 2007, if you were a Starbucks shareholder and you opened your annual financial report, the first meaningful information you encountered was this:

And if you read the “narrative” annual report from that year, the first thing you saw was this:

Last year, if you were a Starbucks shareholder, you only received one annual report, and the very first page after the cover began with this:

The evolution of annual reports represents a broader trend in business communication: Data comes first, and it’s incresingly visual.

Welcome to the Visualizing Data Insight Center, where for the next month we’ll explore the broadening role data visualization plays in business communication. We believe this is not only an inevitable trend, but one you must embrace if you want to effectively communicate with all of your stakeholders.

Data visualization is taking hold now because of two trends. The first: big data is here, it must be analyzed, and one of the best ways to make sense of it is with visual representations. And two, the tools to create good data visualizations are being democratized, which has led to a growing community of programmers, designers, and statisticians who can apply their analytical and intuitive powers to creating meaningful visual stories.

We’ve already declared the data scientist to be the sexiest job of the 21st century. Those scientists will need visualization experts the way writers need editors.

While we’ll be sharing some stunning visuals over the next month, this Insight Center is not just focused on pretty pictures. Our aim is to get you acquainted with this burgeoning discipline, emphasizing how and when you can practically apply visualization in order to be a more effective communicator. We’ll cover everything from the basic — how you can improve PowerPoint slides using visualization — to the advanced ways graphics can make sense of big data sets.

We’ll also share our contributors’ and editors’ favorite visualizations with explanations of why they find them so useful. And, of course, we’ll share some all-time bad examples as cautionary tales.

We also want to know what your favorite — or least favorite — data visualizations are. You can email me, or post links in the comments.

We’re kicking the Insight Center off today with a good mix of introductory content. Designer and art director Dylan C. Lathrop explores the growth of data viz, and the positives and negatives that have emerged during this period. I interviewed Amanda Cox, a graphics editor at the New York Times, to talk about how they create their stunning — and stunningly useful — visualizations. How do they decide what’s worth doing? And how do they staff against it?

And for fun, we’re re running one of our most popular features on “crap circles,” which explores the world of remarkably awful PowerPoint cycle graphics.

Thank you for joining us, and jump in with your ideas, insights, and visualizations as well.

Visualizing Data
An HBR Insight Center

March 19, 2013

Indiana Man Arrested On Charges Of Fowl Play

Have you ever seen a guineafowl? They’re like an ugly chicken so it’s hard to see how a member of its own species would find them attractive, let alone a human male. Unfortunately, one man has proven that love is blind, and apparently lacking in taste and morality.

The Post-Tribune reports that Michael Bessigano, 42, of New Chicago was arrested after it was found that he had his way with a guineafowl. To make matters worse, Bessigano killed the poor creature and tried to hid the body in a trash barrel. He was arrested at his home where police found bestiality porn, a “large rubber wolf head mask,” and an altar surrounded by candles.

It’s reported that Bessigano has a history of bestiality related crime with his last arrest being in 2001. At that time, he was caught in a hotel room with a chicken. Based on this prior crime, we can only assume that he has a thing for ugly birds.

Beyond the bestiality issue, I think I’m more concerned about the wolf head mask and the altar. That just screams sacrificial ritual. I don’t even want to think about it.

[Image: Sun-Times Media]

March 19, 2013

Being No.1 just isn’t enough for Apple anymore

Being the most profitable technology company in the world with the best-selling smartphone on the planet just isn’t enough for Apple (AAPL) anymore. The company’s stock is down more than 35% over the past six months as investors continue to worry that the company can’t possibly maintain the unprecedented growth rate it has seen in recent years. All hope is not lost, however, and one industry watcher has outlined three phases of a recovery plan that he says will reverse the soured Apple sentiment and initiate “sustainable Apple stock recovery.”

Continue reading…

March 19, 2013