Category: Technology

Best Buy: Devil Patrons…

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Kurt MacKey on Best Buy’s attempt to use technology to weed out their least profitable customers:

dage “the customer is always right” goes, Best Buy doesn’t buy it. The massive retailer is being vocal about something that at first might sound a little uncouth: frankly, they’d rather not have 20% of their customers as customers. In an age where it seems like everyone casts their nets as wide as possible to bring in more eyes, feet, and wallets, Best Buy is doing the opposite. They believe that a small portion of their customers are bad for business, and they’re looking to shut them out. Of course, Best Buy loves their “angel” customers who buy things regardless of price, and load up on high ticket items. The problem is that the details are about the devils.
The devils are its worst customers. They buy products, apply for rebates, return the purchases, then buy them back at returned-merchandise discounts. They load up on “loss leaders,” severely discounted merchandise designed to boost store traffic, then flip the goods at a profit on eBay. They slap down rock-bottom price quotes from Web sites and demand that Best Buy make good on its lowest-price pledge. “They can wreak enormous economic havoc,” says Mr. Anderson.
Some see this as Best Buy trying to “have its cake and eat it too,” by wanting to keep rebates, loss leaders, and massive promotions going, but exclude those who make routine use of them.

Slashdot discussion.

Best Law Money Can Buy – Lessig @ Bloggercon IP Discussion

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Click to view additional Bloggercon photos.
Larry Lessig opened Bloggercon with a useful statement:

In normal times, people come to univerisities to learn things, these are extraordinary times: Universities (such as) Chicago, Harvard, Northwestern don’t have a clue – we need to go out and find things, bring people here who are doing interesting things. (I’m paraphrasing)

I had the great pleasure of participating in his lively Law section. Lessig provided a very useful overview, including a color coded slide of the current copyright morass and mentioned Creative Commons as an alternative universe for creative folks. He also mentioned that our “fair use” rights from the RIAA/MPAA perspective generally means that we have the right to hire a lawyer (!). The session also included some very informative comments from Hummer Winblad’s Hank Berry, an active participant in the Washington lobbying wars, including the recent induce act madness.
Berry mentioned the following points (check out the video (127MB – about 60% of the session) and listen to the forthcoming mp3’s for more details)

  • Utah Senator Orrin Hatch visited Microsoft 3 weeks before he, along with Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy introduced the induce act (I find this rather ironic as Hatch was a proponent of breaking up Microsoft).
  • Yahoo evidently refused to discuss the bill, which killed it. Hank said that this was the first time a Silicon Valley firm refused to deal with the RIAA/MPAA folks (kudos to yahoo)
  • We also discussed the WinTel “trusted computing” – an oxymoron – scheme. A number of folks expressed concerns that Microsoft and Apple could pull the plug on MP3 support via a software update and thereby kill fair mp3 use…..

Lots of great stuff at Bloggercon. Kudos to Dave Winer for making it happen.
Later: I asked Larry: how do you like the west or east coast approach (He was at Harvard before)? “This is better, people talk…” (vis a vis harvard, nw, chicago, etc.)
9.4MB MP3 | 127MB Quicktime

Windows, ATM’s & Viruses

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Microsoft’s Windows everywhere strategy comes home to roost. Mark Ward looks into the growing use of Windows in cash machines (!) and the virus risk thereof.
This is a recipe for disaster. Windows was never designed for this, yet the marketing machine rolls on. I recall being stuck in a line to purchase a salad at a Phoenix cafe a few months ago, all due to their cash register crashing (powered by Windows…)

Kudos to the Post Office

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Stopped into a west side post office this morning, expecting to stand in line….. Much to my pleasant surprise, they now have a slick self service kiosk where one can weigh a package, enter the destination zip code, pay with a debit/credit card and generate a label. Very slick and fast. (There was still a line, as most people opted for traditional service).

Google’s Eric Schmidt on the Internet’s 35th anniversary

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Eric Schmidt:

We allocate about 70% of our resources to our core business and 30% to “other” because we never know what that other will become. We also ask our employees to spend 20% of their time on exploration, and those tend to be complementary to our core.
Our agenda tends to be driven by a bottoms-up process not so much traditional strategic planning. Google is trying to solve the next problem not the last problem.
[ Question: Was it serendipity that made google what it became? ] I think the word is luck. The principles from which Google was built do exist in other indstries. Ours is a reproducable model, and others may end up reproducing it and solving other problems. We’re just seeing the beginning of this.
Good management is not that complicated, it’s about leadership. Some managers need to micromanage everything, but that doesn’t produce creativity. If you can figure out a way to tell a story, that’s how people learn. they have a beginning middle and an end. if you have the right kind of people and the right kind of values, that can work. The great thing about high tech is that labor is very mobile, and if you want to deal with other people, you are forced to deal with them as peers and equals.
There are many uses of the net that are not touched by Google. Peer to peer, and the majority of email traffic. It’s very important that people work on internet monitoring, internet scaling, all of the next generation projects — I don’t think any single one is of dominant importance.

Via Xeni

The Great Circle: Wisconsin Manufacturing Jobs, Leadership (or not) and Competition

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Yesterday’s news that GM would temporarily idle five SUV and pickup plants in early 2005, including Janesville amplifies the importance of:

  • People that run large organizations thinking and planning ahead. The era of large pickup truck based SUV sales & profits is apparently drawing to a close (not a big surprise with high gas prices and a recent change in the absurd large vehicle tax deduction).
  • The Japanese have a years ahead leadership position in the emerging hybrid vehicle market (gas/electric powered vehicles such as the Prius, Accord and the Toyota based Ford Escape (!) Hybrid components will likely not be coming from Wisconsin companies….
  • Peter DeLorenzo reports that Porsche has approached Toyota to purchase/license hybrid components for their 5,000lb SUV.

    From the “Hell Freezes Over” File, Automotive News Europe reported that Porsche is considering building a hybrid version of the Cayenne – using a Toyota powertrain. Readers of this site know exactly what we think about the Cayenne, but it’s clear that this is a new low in Porsche history. The company that was founded on building lithe little sports cars that bristled with innovation and the visionary thinking of its founder has now openly admitted that they have given up on the innovation game altogether.

  • Wisconsin subsidizing some of these large businesses may not pay off at all…. Jim Doyle supported $5M in state training dollars for GM Janesville recently.

Once again, the big three are behind the curve, with broad implications for Wisconsin jobs….. (it should be noted that the big three have all invested in hydrogen power, which still seems to be a long way away).

Nearly half of Americans are Going Online for Political News

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Latest Pew Internet Life Study:

Nearly half of Americans online have used the web to get information about the upcoming US presidential election.
That is double the number who used the net during the 2000 campaign according to research group, the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Americans are increasingly going online for political news and commentary, its report found.
It suggests that the web is playing a positive role in democratic debate on a wide range of issues.

Hardly a surprise. The internet provides vastly deeper and more accessible information than traditional tv, radio and print media types. I’ve posted some candidate information here. Visit Wisconsinvote.org for additional data.