Really Zune HD? Really? I was prepared to write a rocking review, espousing my love for you and what a wonderful little device you are. I do, however, have some issues with the software on the PC, and our relationship has been made slightly more complicated by the fact that you feel the need mock me and let me know I have no friends. Nice.
Worse, there’s no real explanation of how to fix this little problem. A little contextual help would be nice here to point me in the right direction. You’ve got plenty of UI with which to work. Any other day of the week, Microsoft software has no compunction whatsoever about using up UI for the sake of using up whitespace. Not this time. Lots of blank space, and the simple call out – you have no friends. Thanks.
Jokes aside, a more thorough review of the Zune HD will come at some point, but I am completely blown away by this product. I have made no secret of my love of the iPod Touch. In many conversations, I have flat out stated that the iPod Touch is the pinnacle of computing, engineering and design. No longer.
The weight and screen of the Zune HD are incredible. However, what’s so remarkable about the device is how pedestrian the Touch now seems in comparison. I have been using the Zune HD for about a week and I went back to use my iPod Touch for something, and I was flabbergasted at how clunky the UI felt. I had to check myself on that one, but it’s true. The Zune HD UI took a little getting used to, but now that we are acquainted, I’m quite happy. The volume up/fast forward/back screen feels like an “oops, we forgot something” bit of UI, but other than that, it’s top notch, and *fun*.
Yesterday, I sent an email to my circle of co-conspirators wondering how on Earth it was that we (Microsoft) weren’t getting more credit for the software experience of the Zune. I can’t speak to the client software pre-Zune HD, but the software I am using right now is amazing. Finding music is easy, the listening experience is great, lots of meta data, and the Zune Pass…ahhhhhhhh, the Zune Pass. Like Amazon with their Kindle-straw inserted into my wallet, the Zune Pass will be absorbing additional funding from my stash. The software is a little confusing at first, so there’s certainly room for improvement, but wow, what a great experience.
It was a very happy birthday indeed last week when my wife surprised me with a new Amazon Kindle. I have more or less been lusting after this product since it was announced. I even went so far as to do some phone interviews with the Kindle team about a year and a half ago. I was that in love with the idea of what this product represented.
Due to my book buying habits, I always have about 3 or 4 “new” books that are still unread. Given the investment I had in unread books, I always managed to convince myself not to buy a Kindle. Well, that, and it is most assuredly a luxury purchase. I guess it’s good I have such a wonderful wife who got the hint after two years. <joke!>
There are more than enough reviews of the Kindle out there that I don’t have to waste your time with my own thoughts. However, I will assert this claim. If you want to read more, get a Kindle. The reason? I have a few that I noted over the weekend.
First, Amazon has inserted a straw into my wallet. Any book I think I want, I can pretty much get. Without having to get up. Groan. There goes my budget.
Second, because of the form factor, I can bottle feed my daughter and continue to read. That’s a big deal.
Third, the font size doesn’t change book to book, and neither does the length of the line of text. What this means (guessing here, as I’m not a doctor) is that my brain can train on consistent spacing, font, pitch and type. I found that I am moving through the text faster and faster, and I have barely had the unit a week. Perhaps this is imagined, but it feels real.
Last, there’s no fatigue associated with reading for long stints. This is one that I cannot explain, but I don’t get tired in the eyes when reading on the Kindle. Again, perhaps I simply haven’t had it long enough, but I have yet to find my eyes getting droopy. This might have to do with the paragraph above. No clue.
Net out? I blew through some books this weekend. I mean *blew* through them. Now I just have to work through that pile of actual books on my bed stand so I don’t feel guilty about those purchases.
What does a guy have to do to get his StackExhange site set up and running? I put my submission in a while back, but I am probably way down on the list. So in a creative attempt to convince Joel and Jeff that I am worthy, I figured I would give them something to read. I spent this past week at the TechCrunch50 conference listening to developers talk about why they don’t use the Microsoft stack. It was a great set of conversations, but I also spent a good bit of time talking with some of the business guys. Many similar topics of concern came up over and over again, and I really want to help solve those problems. Q&A for founder types anyone? Let’s get this thing started already. I will be a tireless promoter, and I can bring a pretty powerful ally to the table in making sure the site is funded and gets promoted. Jeff, Joel, I beg you…please get my site rolled.
I am still trying to catch up on sleep, and process all of the great interviews I did down there. I was humbled that so many developers and entrepreneurs would speak on camera with me and allow me to listen to why they aren’t using .NET. There was plenty of love on the the Twitter stream, and I even managed to impress one Robert Scoble. I am now officially a two-time Scoble impresser. Where’s my XBox Achievement for that?
One of the things that I have been loving about being back at Microsoft is working in the Developer Platform team. I have always been a geek, and have this latent developer hiding inside of me. I love designing interesting applications and services, and love to roll some code when I can, though my close friends will tell you that it’s not a good idea to let me have a compiler handy. I wish I had more time to work on those projects.
I have a very, very strong outside-in view on the developer platform. My last company was built on Ruby on Rails. I think Python is a beautiful language. I want nothing more than for developers, all developers, to be able to excel at their jobs. Part of my role now includes bringing that passion for customers and developers and focusing it on reaching out to the community of developers who doesn’t use any Microsoft products.
It’s strange for me to consider that there is an entire generation of developers who have never used a Microsoft product. I still remember using Microsoft Word for the first time after using WriteNow on the Mac for all of my papers in high school. To really date myself, ask me about my love for BankStreet Writer on the Apple II.
Thus begins my quest to speak to as many developers as possible to understand their development environments and hear their reasons why they aren’t using .NET. I am sure to get some flippant answers, but I want to listen and process and really try to solve for X, where X is “how can Microsoft better serve this community of developers?”
This brings me to the mini-campaign at the TechCrunch50 conference. I will be wearing the shirt in the photo here throughout the conference, and walking around with a Flip Mino HD talking to as many developers as will let me, with only one question: “If you do not use .NET, can you please tell me why?” I am not going to say one word about any of Microsoft’s products; that’s not important. What’s important is listening to this large and growing group of developers building amazing products using Ruby, Python, Django, Rails, Scala, Struts, Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, etc. My top line goal is to listen, process, and then figure out what we can do to help those developers.
For anyone who wants to avoid the camera, you can always tell me on Twitter. Why Twitter? Because I want this to be out the open – the start of a conversation we haven’t been having. Why my account? Because I want people to know they are connecting with a person, a Director level person, at Microsoft, and not some alias. This is a very un-Microsoft thing to do, and I have to give credit to my management chain for letting me go about this as if I were running a small startup. Let the conversation begin, and remember: @BrandonWatson is listening.
This afternoon I was sitting in a meeting discussing a potential upcoming marketing campaign to target developers. It’s a great concept, and I am looking forward to seeing it come to fruition. However, during the course of the discussion, it became clear that ad buys would be the primary driver of traffic.
My chief concern was that the developer audience uses ad blocker software at a higher rate than the general population. We don’t have data on it, and no one was sure how to get it. I asked the community at Hacker News, and was pointed to this posting about the downloads of AdBlock Plus. That was a good start, but to really get an answer about which we could feel happy I came up with this hack to get quick and dirty numbers.
This is the part where I learned the following formula:
To get started, I created a survey up at Survey Monkey. Unfortunately, the basic account has a cap at 100 responses for any survey. I pinged Scott once I had the bit.ly link set up, asking for help from his tweeple. I set up the bit.ly link so that I could track clicks on the survey, versus just knowing how many people took it. Within, and this is not a joke, a few minutes, I had hit my cap. Whoops. Within the time it took me to get a credit card into the system, I lost about 150 to 200 clicks. I would never have known about the survey being closed had @BrianGorbett been on the spot to point it out.
Really Zune HD? Really? I was prepared to write a rocking review, espousing my love for you and what a wonderful little device you are. I do, however, have some issues with the software on the PC, and our relationship has been made slightly more complicated by the fact that you feel the need mock me and let me know I have no friends. Nice.
