GM is in a hole. What can they do to get out of it?
Stop producing Fast, Expensive cars and build a line of new cars.
1) Hybrid electric
2) Models that are small, medium and even semi-large
3) Quality cars that will last! A car should still be running at 300K km.
4) Include accessories such as an iPhone charger and player and one for Blackberry too.
5) Offer extended warranty to 200 K km
6) Make them reasonably priced for the value.
7) Offer GPS/theft tracking
Any other ideas?
MSN Groups only have two more weeks left. 
The published end date is February 19. I expect Microsoft will stick to that since we haven’t heard anything to the contrary. 
(For those that never want to forget, here are the MSN discussion emoticons)
Have you migrated yet?
By looking at the # of posts in the groups I used to frequent, activity has slowed down on the busy groups and I’ve noticed that they have moved over to new homes.
Some have moved to Multiply, some to Yuku and some to Lefora. Some moved to other platforms and started their own sites. I don’t think very many moved to Windows Live Groups as it really doesn’t fulfill most group’s needs.
It’s sad. All of these people came together under one umbrella. They may not have known each other but they had a connection through MSN Groups. Now everyone has scattered to the web. There is no big community any longer.
The question is … was MSN groups really still needed? After all, people connect through Facebook and MySpace these days and use Twitter to chatter with each other. Did MSN groups really outlive itself? Did it just fail to evolve or was it time to kick the children out of the nest and have them move on? 
I think it is a little of each really. MSN Groups still fulfilled a purpose but it was lacking features and functions that would have allowed it to continue to keep going. There was no RSS support. You could not subscribe a group from another ‘client’ nor keep up to date via sites like FriendFeed. You could not share your pictures very easily nor could you integrate with Windows SkyDrive and other new content sharing options. The Web 2.0 features were completely missing – although I must say that too much Web 2.0 has probably resulted in people avoiding Multiply and going for a traditional bulletin board type site as offered at Yuku.
For me, I’ve found my fix in a mix of RSS feeds, a Yuku site, a Lefora site and Windows Live Group along with Twitter. It’s not the same, but it is what we have so we’ll move foward with what we’ve got and remember the good old days of MSN Groups.
Could we have avoided the global economic recession if we locked all the journalists, bloggers and financial analysts up somewhere?
Of course not … but think about it …
If the world relied on just press releases for information, most people would think that companies and countries were doing great!
A company might have a very bad quarter but they’ll just focus on the good news and report that! Imagine if we all did that!
Instead of saying “I can’t pay my mortgage this month” you’d say “Here’s $25 for my house. I expect to be able to pay 10% more next month and another 25% in 6 months!”
If the bank didn’t bother to look at the actual numbers, they’d be happy. We’d be happy.
OK, so we’d all end up bankrupt and our entire economy would collapse.
Maybe we should just lock up all the people who write press releases then! 
Well it seems that the US Digital Television switch-over might be about to be delayed. According to news reports, President-elect Obama is recommending delaying the switch-over.
This is due, in most part, to the fact that the government has run out of money, for now, to cover the coupons that were provided to get home owners to buy the necessary converter boxes.
In the article, Neilsen Media Research “estimates that 7.8 million households, representing 6.8 percent of homes with television, were not ready as of December because they had not upgraded any of their television sets”.
With that many people not being able to watch TV, after February 17, it makes sense to delay the transition, right?
I don’t agree, for the most part. Here’s why.
People procrastinate. If you extend the deadline, say by 6 months or a year, I bet that you’ll still have 5-6 million people who haven’t upgraded.
How long has this transition been going on? Well over a year and even close to two years.
I’m sure some people don’t even know about it. Would an extra six months help them to know about it? Not likely.
For those who have not yet upgraded, why haven’t they? Not because the program ran out of money – that just happened. They haven’t because they haven’t needed to do it.
The only reason I would agree with delaying the switch is if there really won’t be any money available to cover the rebate coupons OR if the inexpensive boxes were not available due to high demand. If people can still get the boxes and still get their rebates, don’t delay this for those 7.8 million people. Chances are those people will be running to their local stores on February 17 or 18 to get their boxes. There is nothing like a kick in the pants to get procrastinators going.
Now the same process is going to happen in Canada for 2011. Let’s hope our government does a good job at promoting what is happening and in helping people to buy convertor boxes as well.
What do you think? Should the transition be delayed?
If you are still undecided on what to do with your MSN Group, you are running out of time. The door closes on February 19. I expect Microsoft to put up a generic redirect for all pages that will tell them the site is closed and they won’t allow anyone to access it at that point.
So if you are still undecided, has the landscape changed much since the news broke? Back in November I blogged about some options.
Out of all of those options, my recommendation for Yuku still stands as number 1. It is not perfect, but I think it will be the best tolerated for most people.
Yesterday I was informed of another contender, Lefora.com which is offering to “move” your MSN group. However, upon reading the details, it looks to do exactly what Aimoo is offering and that is to “archive” your site for you. So if you want to preserve your existing site and march forward with either of those two options, go for it. However, you should do it quickly as Lefora says it can take a week to migrate a group. Without having any personal experience in migrating in either case, I would lean towards Lefora as they at least have a polished site with cleanly worded instructions.
For a much larger list of alternatives, take a look at what “Community Feedback” has come up with. If you have specific needs, their chart might be just what will help you narrow down your choices.
Should you still think about going to Live Groups? Uh uh. Not unless your group only had 5 members or so.
I lament the passing of MSN Groups. The fact is that there is NOTHING like it out there. There is no where to turn to really keep what you had. It is truly the end of a great period in Internet history.
Chances are whatever solution you go with may not stick around for 10+ years like MSN Groups did. But hopefully these new services store their data in a way that will make it easier to move to another site.
So, we are now all scattering to the wind. In a time when social networking is becoming common, it is a shame that that is what is breaking us all up.
When last we left 2008, the global economy was in a recession but technology was still moving forward. There have been some signs that “limping” may be ahead. What is likely to happen in 2009?
If the recession continues well into the Spring and no recovery is visible, I think we will start to see a major impact on technology.
As job losses widen, people will chop their cable TV packages and reduce what channels they get. They might drop their Internet service down a notch or two (Rogers EXTREME … to Rogers EXPRESS or maybe lower). In the cell phone arena … those value packs that give you 5 features for one ‘low’ price will go away (Caller Ring Traxx? Who Called? Buh-bye).
Blu-Ray? Those facing a financial crunch won’t want to buy a Blu-Ray player when they have to pony up an extra $5-$10 for the same movie they could easily buy cheaper on DVD.
Who stands to benefit from this? Easily the companies that stand to benefit, in the short term, are the ones who sell cheap LCD TVs. As older TVs have problems, people are not going to fix them if they can get a cheap LCD for a few hundred dollars. I’m already seeing some really cheap HD TVs going on sale (too bad most of them are 720p). Once the market starts to fill up on those cheap models, the expensive SONY, SAMSUNG, LG and PANASONIC TVs will be left on the shelves.
I’m sure newspapers are going to be hit a little harder now. I can read most of the Toronto Star online now (if I am willing to navigate through the site). Why would I pay $30 a month for a physical paper? Perhaps this reality will actually see the newspaper sites begin to walk away from the free content arena?
What are you doing to tighten your belt? Is it something that many people are likely to be doing? Who could be the ones who do well in the recession?
I opened my email today and what do I see? I’m so fortunate! I have an Amazon UK gift certificate!
The email says that “Unc Terry” sent the certificate to “Nep Terry”. At the bottom it says “For graduating. We expected none less!”
I looked all around the email for phishing attempts but I can’t find anything.
The email LOOKS legitimate but it can’t be. I don’t have an “Uncle Terry” so that part is bogus. And the fact that it says “Unc Terry” and “Nep Terry” (I assume that means “Nephew Terry”) tells me it has to be written by spammers in another country.
Anyone else getting this? I can’t find any trace of this being known spam by Googling it. But it has to be!
Well, Windows Live Groups is now LIVE. I’m not sure that it has been announced with a fanfare because the main Live home page doesn’t list it yet, but it is up and running.
My first impressions are somewhat favorable but that is taking a look at it on it’s own. It is definitely NOT meant as a replacement for MSN Groups and if you’re hoping to move over to this service, I’d think again.
This new service is really for small groups of friends to collaborate and share thoughts, pictures and make plans. It is an ideal site for a family to keep in touch by sharing pictures, planning dinners, talking about things.
The service offers a “Calendar”, “Discussion” and “Photos”. That’s about it. You can use the new “SkyDrive” service to share various file types as well.
There’s no “pages” and very little UI customization (just some themes). There is only one message board and it is more like a blog.
So for it’s intended purposes, I’d say it delivers. Give it a try!
I’ve had my iPhone for 2 weeks now and I’ve quickly found some apps (all free, except 1) that I use daily:
Google App – I love the voice search option – great for when you don’t feel like typing in multiple words. So far it has worked great. I also use this app for use with the Google Reader. It allows me to keep up on my RSS subscriptions, wherever I am and it auto-syncs with the real Google Reader.
Facebook – I use this many times a day. Although it doesn’t give you everything, it is a quick glance to see what my friends and family are up to.
Twitteriffic – A great way to keep up with Twitter when not at a computer.
WeatherEye – Far superior to the built-in weather app, this gives you more detailed info about the weather and even includes links to weather alerts. Great!
Sol Free – a similar little Solitaire app that just works. Too bad I can’t win that much!
Bejeweled 2 – not much to say here, but I love the game. Worth the $2.99 price!
I also love visiting canada411.ca which has a mobile version. It hot links the phone number so your iPhone will call the number.
I love that if you put an address into the contact list, you can get a map and directions for that location.
Complaints about the iPhone? I wish you could keep multiple windows open. It is annoying if you launch a browser within an app and the app closes. Copy and paste would be nice too!
MMS would be really handy!
When Microsoft put up the notice that MSN Groups was shutting down, they also announced that Windows Live Groups would be available around November 17. That day came and went with nothing announced other than that Windows Live services were launching “soon”. I heard that December 1st was the new date for the launch.
It is now December 3rd and still no word.
For those waiting to see if the new Groups will provide a service similar to MSN Groups, I wouldn’t hold my breath. I have heard that it will only be useful for small groups of maybe 10 people.
But for now, keep your eye on the Windows Live site and you may see Groups come alive soon.
