Zune opens at No. 2 in portable media players

It'll be a while before the real sales trends are clear 

Zune won 9 percent of the U.S. market, measured by unit sales, and 13 percent of the dollar volume for the week ended Nov. 18, the market research firm reported. The numbers reflect Zune's first few days on the market. Microsoft released the device Nov. 14.

The iPod represented 63 percent of unit sales and 72.5 percent of dollar volume.

There have been signs that Zune's market share may have slipped since those initial days. One widely cited indication: The player debuted in the top 10 among Amazon.com's best-selling MP3 players but has since fallen lower in the rankings. As of Wednesday morning, the top-selling black Zune was at No. 17 on the Amazon list.

Source: Zune opens at No. 2 in portable media players

Yahoo Rebuffs Google on Digital Books - New York Times

More Google/Yahoo adventures 

Yahoo has rebuffed Google’s attempt to learn more about its efforts to create digital copies of books, dealing Google another setback as it prepares to fight a copyright infringement suit.

In rejecting Google’s request, Yahoo adopted the same stance taken last month by the Internet retailer Amazon.com, and called Google’s request a brazen attempt to pry into its trade secrets.

Source: Yahoo Rebuffs Google on Digital Books - New York Times

Google yields to Yahoo on query service - The Boston Globe

 Back to the drawing board?

Google Inc. doesn't have all the answers -- a fact underscored by the Internet search leader's decision to abandon a four-year-old service that hired researchers to field questions on everything from school homework to sports trivia.

The retreat, disclosed in a notice posted on Google's website late Tuesday, represents a rare victory for rival Yahoo Inc.

[...]

"Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users," software engineers Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher wrote in the closure notice. "We'll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want."

Source: Google yields to Yahoo on query service - The Boston Globe

Novell no longer does the Hula

Novell reality check 

Showing how not all open source roads lead to gold, Novell Inc., of Provo, Utah, has stropped contributing to the Hula project, an open source project the company itself initiated.

In early 2005, and with much fanfare, the company donated the e-mail and calendar functions of its NetMail enterprise collaboration server software to the open source community, calling the project Hula.

Source: Novell no longer does the Hula

For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate - New York Times

The debate continues 

The detractors include two computer industry giants, Intel and Microsoft, pushing alternative approaches. Intel has developed a $400 laptop aimed at schools as well as an education program that focuses on teachers instead of students. And Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and a leading philanthropist for the third world, has questioned whether the concept is “just taking what we do in the rich world” and assuming that that is something good for the developing world, too.

Source: For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate - New York Times

Listening Post: DVD Jon Agrees: Zune Getting a Bad Rap

 Another Zune perspective

I'm not the only one who thinks the Zune isn't all that bad, and even that it might be good.  "DVD Jon" Johansen of DeCSS fame debunked a few of the myths surrounding the Zune that appeared in recent articles from the Chicago Sun-Times, SF Chronicle, and TechTree.

Source: Listening Post

The Mossberg Solution -- Battle of the Boxes: PlayStation 3 vs. Wii

 More bad news for Sony/good news for Nintendo

Yet, in our tests, we found the more modest Wii to be the more exciting, fun and satisfying of the two new game machines. We and our four volunteer testers were impressed by the rich, realistic graphics and intricate game play in some of the half-dozen PS3 games we tried. By contrast, we all agreed that the graphics on the Wii ranged from dated to cheesy.

But the Wii won our hearts for one reason: It uses a wireless controller that can detect your arm and hand motions and transfer them to the screen, so that you can physically control the action. This opens up huge possibilities. In sports games, you can actually swing a baseball bat or tennis racket or golf club. In adventure games, you can slash a sword through the air or throw a punch. You make pretty much the same motions, using your full arm and hand, that you'd make with the real objects.

Source: The Mossberg Solution -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft patent filing: Mobile phone + TV = PC

Interesting... 

Two Microsoft researchers, Kentaro Toyama and Sean Blagsvedt, are seeking a patent on technology that would essentially create a makeshift PC by connecting a mobile phone to a television. It would use the phone's processing power and wireless connection, in conjunction with the TV display, to access the Web and do other basic computing tasks. The application describes it as one alternative to traditional computers in developing nations.

Source: Microsoft patent filing: Mobile phone + TV = PC

Consumers Uninterested in Zune

More stark analysis from Paul Thurrott. 

FWIW one of my kids bought a Zune and has been very pleased with it. 

In the months leading up to the Zune's release, Microsoft handled its PR as if it were a badly-made movie. Rather than seed the technical press with pre-release Zune units, Microsoft's PR company decided to provide Zunes only to music bloggers and four mainstream news agencies in advance of its release. Others wishing to review the Zune didn't receive Zune devices until the day before its public release, making effective reviews virtually impossible. Since that time, Microsoft hasn't received a positive review yet: Everyone who's gotten their hands on one of these devices has declared it an abject failure, including, not coincidentally, yours truly: My review is now available on the SuperSite for Windows. It ain't pretty.

Source: Consumers Uninterested in Zune

Google Watch : Google's Inconvenient Truth

Glad to see this 

Also today, Google took out a full-page ad in USA Today to promote ideas for combating global warming. The ad is the product of a collaboration between Google and Global SchoolNet. Google invited teachers and students to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets to brainstorm ideas. One of the ideas -- put light sensors in all office and school buildings so all lights go off when the rooms are empty -- is displayed on the full-page ad (PDF).

Source: Google Watch : Google's Inconvenient Truth

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: The worst Billion dollar Internet acquisitions

A handy list from Microsoft's Don Dodge. 

James Nicholson compiled a list of the 10 worst Internet acquisitions. There were lots of bad acquisitions so it is hard to keep the list to just ten. But, here are my nominations for the worst Internet acquisitions of all time.  To get on my list the acquisition must be at least a Billion dollars, must have disappeared from view or lost the market share race, and must have been acquired at least 18 months ago. It takes a while to really know if an acquisition was a success or failure.

He also points to another useful reference:

Tom O'Keefe maintains a pretty comprehensive list of Internet Acquisitions on the ResearchConnect.com site. I used this list in compiling my worst billion dollar acquisitions of all time.

Source: Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: The worst Billion dollar Internet acquisitions

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Microsoft Zune Review

Stark Zune reality check from Paul Thurrott. 

Overall, the Zune is absolutely decent. It's got a nice, large screen, a simple menu system, and intuitive controls. It gets good battery life, and does provide the most basic functionality that most people expect. It is, in other words, completely average. But since you can buy a lighter, nicer-looking, and more capable iPod for exactly the same amount of money, and can find other iPod models that meet different needs at different price points, you should almost certainly avoid the first generation Zune. It just comes with too many compromises.

The bottom line is that Microsoft should have waited until it had a more compelling product to sell. I can't imagine what they were thinking.

Source: Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Microsoft Zune Review

YouTube Coming Soon to Cellphones - New York Times

I suspect the phones will be ones running Adobe Flash Lite. 

YouTube is coming to mobile phones — or, to be more precise, a small slice of YouTube is coming to some Verizon Wireless phones.

While its explosively popular Web site is free, YouTube’s phone-based version will require a $15-a-month subscription to a Verizon Wireless service called VCast. And instead of choosing what to watch from a vast library of clips, VCast users will be limited to an unspecified number of videos selected and approved by the companies.

Source: YouTube Coming Soon to Cellphones - New York Times

Microsoft says "Gears" sells 1 million copies | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com

 Not bad, at $59.99 each...

Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday it had sold 1 million copies of its game "Gears of War" in two weeks, making it the fastest-selling title for its Xbox 360 video game console.

On a related note, charts from the recent BW cover story on Microsoft:

 

Source: Microsoft says "Gears" sells 1 million copies | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com

Italy investigating Google over bullying video | CNET News.com

See a trend here?... 

Google's policy bans the uploading of violent content, but with thousands of videos posted every day on the Internet the search engine relies largely on users to ensure that is adhered to, Whetstone said.

Source: Italy investigating Google over bullying video | CNET News.com

Barron's: Google shares set for fall | CNET News.com

Or, in Bubble 2.0, perhaps Google will do a 5:1 or 10:1 split and continue climbing. 

Barron's said Google is overvalued because it trades at 37 times next year's expected earnings and because its growth rate is slowing. It also noted that Google now has the 15th largest market capitalization among U.S.-traded shares, and its price-to-earnings ratio is two to three times higher that of similarly sized companies.

Source: Barron's: Google shares set for fall | CNET News.com

Telling Tales Out of School, on YouTube - New York Times

Sign of the times... 

Two students who attend the equivalent of Grade 9 at a school in Gatineau, Quebec, a city across the river from Ottawa, were sent home last week after officials learned that they had posted a videotape of a teacher losing his temper on YouTube. The episode was not spontaneous. A girl, who has not been identified, provoked the teacher while a boy secretly taped the encounter with a compact video camera.

Source: Telling Tales Out of School, on YouTube - New York Times

Online advertising | Trouble clicks | Economist.com

Click fraud article in this week's The Economist.

But as pay-per-click advertising has grown into a huge industry, concern has mounted over so-called “click fraud”—bogus clicks that do not come from genuinely interested customers. It takes two main forms. If you click repeatedly on the advertisements on your own website, or get other people or machines to do so on your behalf, you can generate a stream of bogus commissions. Click fraud can also be used by one company against another: clicking on a rival firm's advertisements can saddle it with a huge bill. Bogus clicks are thought to account for around 10% of all click traffic, though nobody knows for sure.

[...]

A few months ago Mr Gross pioneered an alternative to the pay-per-click model. In February Snap, a search engine backed by Mr Gross, launched “pay-per-action”, a new model in which advertisers pay only if a click on an ad is followed by an action such as a purchase or a download. Google is testing a similar model and Turn.com, another ad network, adopted the pay-per-action model a few weeks ago.

Source: Online advertising | Trouble clicks | Economist.com

Face value | The universal diarist | Economist.com

Six Apart snapshot in The Economist (no subscription required for access to this article) 

These days, however, the Trotts are most excited about their newest product, Vox, which was launched last month. For if a blogging service can have a personality, then Vox has Ms Trott's. Like Ms Trott, Vox is unpretentious and accessible. By contrast with rival services, users need not worry about having to understand technical matters, such as the HTML formatting language in which web pages are encoded, in order to incorporate whizzy features into their blogs. They can upload pictures, video clips and songs with just a few clicks on a simple, colour-coded page.

Source: Face value | The universal diarist | Economist.com

Web 2.0 and Tim O'Reilly as Marshal Tito | The Register

A provocative perspective, via Nicholas Carr, who notes "Thompson's critique of the reigning Web 2.0 ideology deserves a close reading and, one hopes, will spark some constructive debate." 

Ajax is touted as the answer for developers who want to offer users a richer client experience without having to go the trouble of writing a real application, but if the long term goal is to turn the network from a series of tubes connecting clients and servers into a distributed computing environment then we cannot rely on Javascript and XML since they do not offer the stability, scalability or effective resource discovery that we need.

There is a massive difference between rewriting Web pages on the fly with Javascript and reengineering the network to support message passing between distributed objects, a difference that too many Web 2.0 advocates seem willing to ignore. It may have been twenty years since Sun Microsystems trademarked the phrase ‘the network is the computer’ but we’re still a decade off delivering, and if we stick with Ajax there is a real danger that we will never get there.

Source: Web 2.0 and Tim O'Reilly as Marshal Tito | The Register

A Wii Workout: When Videogames Hurt - WSJ.com

Interesting times... 

The new console has been wildly successful, selling out at stores and winning high marks from critics and game buffs. But as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game's controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion -- resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed "Wii elbow."

Source: A Wii Workout: When Videogames Hurt - WSJ.com

The Soul Of A New Microsoft

 BusinessWeek cover story on J Allard, Zune, and other Microsoft dynamics.

No one leader will replace William H. Gates III, the iconic software geek who came to define an era and plans to leave the company in June, 2008. But a cadre of execs is positioned to step up. Steven Sinofsky, the longtime head of the Office unit and onetime Gates technical assistant, has been put in charge of speeding up the Windows product cycle. Ray Ozzie, a relative Microsoft newbie and computing industry icon, is working to Web-ify many of Microsoft's products.
The soul of the new Microsoft, though--its Geek 2.0--may just be Allard, the vice-president for design and development at its Entertainment & Devices unit. Allard looks and acts nothing like the prototypical Microsofty.

Source: The Soul Of A New Microsoft

More use podcasts, but very few do so every day

Another Pew reality check 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday that 12 percent of Internet users have downloaded a podcast, an increase from 7 percent earlier in the year.

However, only about 1 percent said they download a podcast on a typical day -- unchanged from the survey earlier this year. The rest do so less frequently, perhaps only once.

Source: More use podcasts, but very few do so every day

WinInfo Short Takes: Thanksgiving 2006 Special Edition: Google Share Price Hits $500

 I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is insane

From the "capitalism can be stupid" files, we bring you the latest bit of Googlemania: This week, Google's shares actually crossed the $500 mark, increasing the company's market capitalization to $155 billion. That means that Google--which earns virtually all its money from online advertising--is worth four times as much money, at least on paper, as Yahoo!, its closest competitor. Google is now the 15th largest company in the world, and if I understand things correctly, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin can now be considered replacements for Colonel Sanders in "The Star Chamber." I just want to make sure this is perfectly clear: These guys sell thumbnail-sized text ad placements on Web sites. That's what they do.

Source: WinInfo Short Takes: Thanksgiving 2006 Special Edition

WinInfo Short Takes: Thanksgiving 2006 Special Edition: Microsoft/Novell Pact Already in Tatters

 Not very surprising

Why can't we just get along? Oh, right, one of us is a drooling, monopolistic superpower and the other is a New Age hippy convinced that we can all make money by giving away software. This week, it became clear that the Microsoft/Novell pact was made with a lot of false assumptions on both sides, apparently, with Microsoft claiming that Novell must pay it $40 million to cover Linux violations of Microsoft's intellectual property. Meanwhile, Novell says it never agreed that Linux violates Microsoft's intellectual property. But it gets worse: The Free Software Foundation (FSF), which owns the Linux license, says that Microsoft should pledge not to sue all Linux users over this problem; otherwise, Linux companies shouldn't work with Microsoft. The problem is that the Microsoft/Novell pact violates the GNU General Public License (GPL) under which Linux is licensed. "We have agreed to disagree," a Microsoft representative said. You know, wars start over disagreements such as this one.

Source: WinInfo Short Takes: Thanksgiving 2006 Special Edition

Microsoft says Office unfazed by Google threat - Yahoo! News

I tend to agree 

"The simple argument that 'this is good enough for 90 percent of what we do' has fallen on its face over and over and over again," Leblond told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "When it comes to mission critical things and key pieces of how people run their businesses, the threshold is higher."

Source: Microsoft says Office unfazed by Google threat - Yahoo! News

Apple shares close at all-time high | News.blog | CNET News.com

But still only a mkt cap of ~50% GOOG... 

Apple Computer shares reached an all-time high Tuesday, rising $2.13, or 2 percent, to close at $88.60.

Investors seemed to be responding to analyst predictions that 14 million iPods will be sold in the current fiscal quarter. They could also be anticipating the announcement of the oft-rumored Apple cell phone, nicknamed the "iPhone" and lately the subject of much speculation by bloggers, analysts, and more recently, gamblers.

Source: Apple shares close at all-time high | News.blog | CNET News.com

MercuryNews.com | 11/21/2006 | Google stock hits $500

Also about $14B ahead of IBM in mkt cap, at the moment 

Today's stock price left Google with a market value of about $154 billion just eight years after Page and Brin started the business in Brin's dormitory room.

The company is now Silicon Valley's second most valuable business, behind Cisco Systems, eclipsing the likes of Intel, the world's largest computer chip maker, and Hewlett-Packard, a high-tech pioneer that also started in a garage 67 years ago.

Source: MercuryNews.com | 11/21/2006 | Google stock hits $500

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog

More glove removal mode... 

But a very different, and much more aggressive, Eric Schmidt appears in the Economist's new "World in 2007" issue. Schmidt contributes an article titled "Don't bet against the Internet," in which he makes a striking prediction. Next year, he writes, "we’ll witness the increasing dominance of open internet standards." These standards "will sweep aside the proprietary protocols promoted by individual companies striving for technical monopoly. Today’s desktop software will be overtaken by internet-based services that enable users to choose the document formats, search tools and editing capability that best suit their needs."

Source: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog

A Weekend Full of Quality Time With PlayStation 3 - New York Times

More bad news/reviews for Sony... 

And so it is a bit of a shock to realize that on the video game front Microsoft and Sony are moving in exactly the opposite directions one might expect given their roots. Microsoft, the prototypical PC company, has made the Xbox 360 into a powerful but intuitive, welcoming, people-friendly system. Sony’s PlayStation 3, on the other hand, often feels like a brawny but somewhat recalcitrant specialized computer. (Sony is even telling users to wait for future software patches to fix some of the PS3’s deficiencies.) The thing is, if people want to use a computer, they’ll use a computer.

Source: A Weekend Full of Quality Time With PlayStation 3 - New York Times

Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search Engine Technology

This is a timely and ambitious book, addressing the past, present, and likely future of search engines. Recommended reading for anyone looking for a single-volume overview of an increasingly influential resource. See the authors' site for a description, table of contents, and the full first chapter.

Link to Amazon.com: Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search Engine Technology (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Multimedia and Information Systems): Books: Ian H. Witten,Marco Gori,Teresa Numerico

The Dark Side of Second Life (BW)

Can anyone really be surprised by this? 

Excellent reference in this context: Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games

The fuss? Many wanted to know what Second Life's creators planned to do about a new program, nicknamed CopyBot, that enables users to quickly copy characters, objects, and buildings, potentially eroding the value of people's virtual property. Others wanted to know about viruses with the alleged potential to steal members' identifying information. Still others were worried about the growing menace of mafias and gangs that are forcing members out of public areas. "These groups are very threatening and frustrating to deal with," wrote Eric Erskine in a Nov. 16 post on a Second Life community discussion group. "They took over the SoulMates dance club and ran every AV (avatar) off except mine…permanently ban mobs, gangstas, and mafias!"

It would seem the virtual world is facing a very real-world problem: crime. As more people have joined the global virtual community—it now boasts more than 1 million members—residents are grappling with how to secure property ownership and ensure public well-being. The difficulty of that task was underscored Nov. 19 when a worm attack called "grey goo" forced Second Life to close down for a short time. The worm installed spinning objects in the virtual world that slowed the servers as users tried to interact with them.

Source: The Dark Side of Second Life

Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows ReadyBoost

Jim Allchin on a cool Vista feature 

I should be clear that while flash drives do contain memory, Windows ReadyBoost isn’t really using that memory to increase the main system RAM in your computer.  Instead, ReadyBoost uses the flash drive to store information that is being used by the memory manager.  If you are running a lot of applications on a system that has limited memory, Windows ReadyBoost will use the flash drive to create a copy of virtual memory that is not quite as fast as RAM, but a whole lot faster than going to the hard disk.  What is very cool here is that there is nothing stored on this flash disk that isn’t also on the hard disk, so if you remove the flash drive, the memory manager sees the change and automatically goes to the hard disk.  While the performance gain from ReadyBoost is gone, you don’t lose any data and there is no interruption.  And because the Windows Readyboost cache on the flash drive is encrypted using AES-128, you don’t need to worry about exposing sensitive data if the flash drive is stolen or lost.  Also, the memory manager compresses the pages before writing them into the cache on the flash disk, which means you’ll get more mileage from each MB.

Source: Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows ReadyBoost

Novell disputes claim by Microsoft on patents

So it was simply an early holiday gift to Microsoft? 

"Importantly, our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property," Hovsepian wrote in a letter to the open-source community, posted on Novell's Web site. He added, "When we entered the patent-cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents."

Source: Novell disputes claim by Microsoft on patents

Microsoft Statement on Novell Agreement: Microsoft and Novell provide additional perspective on IP issues in landmark November 2nd agreement.

More from the lawyer full-employment act zone... 

“We at Microsoft respect Novell's point of view on the patent issue, even while we respectfully take a different view. Novell is absolutely right in stating that it did not admit or acknowledge any patent problems as part of entering into the patent collaboration agreement. At Microsoft we undertook our own analysis of our patent portfolio and concluded that it was necessary and important to create a patent covenant for customers of these products. We are gratified that such a solution is now in place."

Source: Microsoft Statement on Novell Agreement: Microsoft and Novell provide additional perspective on IP issues in landmark November 2nd agreement.

Google Mapping an Offline Course - New York Times

Timely reality check -- read the full article 

Google’s name in the ad community frequently brings up visions of doomsday. At an ad design and production conference last month, ad executives mused about how advertising would be different in 2010. Paul Lavoie, chief creative officer of Taxi, an ad and design agency, predicted that Google would be the largest advertising agency by then. The audience laughed, but Mr. Lavoie, reached later, said he was serious.

“Let’s look at the facts: They have the best data to understand consumer habits, they can track your search, they know how much time you spend on certain sites,” Mr. Lavoie said. “They’re doing much more powerful work than some of the work being done by some of the more traditional agencies.”

Source: Google Mapping an Offline Course - New York Times

IBM Software - The Future of Enterprise Collaboration (Lotusphere session)

I'm speaking at Lotusphere in January.  I last spoke there ~11 years ago, when I was running Notes product management.  Hope to see you in Orlando...

The industry is poised for a communication/collaboration renaissance phase, despite some turbulent times during recent years, with both IBM and Microsoft  making sweeping changes to their ommunication/collaboration product lines, and with the (constructively) disruptive influence of blogs, wikis, and assorted types of "social software." This session includes an overview of the past, present, and likely future of enterprise collaboration, focusing on IBM's role in the broader market landscape.

Source: IBM Software - Conferences

Wired News: Second Life Will Save Copyright

More Second Life dynamics 

Businesses in Second Life are in an uproar over a rogue software program that duplicates "in world" items. They should be. But the havoc sewn by Copybot promises to transform the virtual word into a bold experiment in protecting creative work without the blunt instrument of copyright law.

Source: Wired News: Second Life Will Save Copyright

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Yahoo under pressure after leak

So maybe not an intentional (at least not top-down) leak...  The Wall Street Journal published the full memo. 

Terry Semel, chairman of Yahoo, is set to come under heightened pressure this week following the leak over the weekend of an internal memo that amounts to a stinging indictment of his leadership of the flagging internet company.

The memo, written by Brad Garlinghouse, a senior vice-president, paints a picture of a company that lacks a cohesive vision, has become beset by bureaucracy and has lost the edge to compete with faster-moving internet companies.

Source: FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Yahoo under pressure after leak

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Worm' attacks Second Life world

Go figure 

Players treated the attack with a mixture of mirth and anger.

"Can this game get any more unpredictable and exciting?" asked one user, Loretta Lurra on the official Second Life blog.

As users interacted with the rings they replicated, resulting in a slowdown on the servers used by Second Life's creators Linden Lab, in California.

Source: BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Worm' attacks Second Life world

'Second Life' hit by worm | News.blog | CNET News.com

 Sign of the times

A self-replicating worm Linden Labs dubbed "grey goo" overtook online game Second Life Sunday, forcing the game's owners to block all logins but their own for about half an hour.

[...]

The worm may well be the largest of its kind to hit an online world.

Source: 'Second Life' hit by worm | News.blog | CNET News.com

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: A first look at Vista, good and bad

Useful high-level snapshot. 

I've been using Vista for several weeks, and my XP PCs now seem fairly primitive in comparison.  I plan to upgrade several PCs to Vista (and Office 2007) before the end of the year. 

Like it or not, you'll probably be using Windows Vista before you know it.

Microsoft expects to sell 200 million copies of the new operating system within 24 months. By comparison, Windows 95 sold 67 million copies in its first two years.

Source: The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: A first look at Vista, good and bad

The Kid With All the News About the TV News - New York Times

Sign of the times 

When people in the television news business want to find out what’s going on in their industry, they turn to a blog called TVNewser. But while the executives obsessively checking TVNewser are mostly high powered and highly paid, the person who creates it is not: he is Brian Stelter, a baby-faced 21-year-old at Towson University here, a few miles north of Baltimore.

Source: The Kid With All the News About the TV News - New York Times