LB's Rambles

Another Convert to the Droid

That may be overstating it somewhat. But it's encouraging to me, as a Droid phone user, to find a digital wise man like Shelly Palmer using the Droid - and being enthusiastic about it. That's what he says at MediaBizBloggers today. It's not a can't-live-without-this type of review - but it's a solid recommendation, at least for people who actually might want to use their new smartphone as, you know, a phone.

To me, AT&T has always been the stumbling block that keeps me away from an iPhone. AT&T is useless in and around my home, in suburban New Jersey. Palmer makes it clear that they ain't much to brag about in New York City either. Like Palmer, I love the looks and style of the iPhone - but looks and style won't get me connected. The Droid and Verizon will.

If you're thinking about a new phone, take a look at what Palmer has to say. The Droid could be the right choice. So could an iPhone. It all depends on you and how you use it.

Black Friday

I'm still not sure I know the etymology behind calling what is traditionally one of the year's businest shopping day "Black Friday." But the day after Thanksgiving certainly has become a major day for retailers, at least in the US. So let me put in a plug for myself:

As I've said before, I get a small amount (really small!) of money from Amazon whenever somebody uses my link to their site to buy anything. It doesn't have to be books (and I'd just as soon you get your books from a favorite local bookstore and mystery dealer) - anything Amazon sells qualifies: electronics, music, cameras, Swiss Army knives, Kindles - anything. If you go to their site through my search box - at the top of the right hand column on this page - I will get credit for anything you may buy.

This week, Amazon is running specials leading up to Black Friday - if you use this link, you will see their offers. Anything you buy that way, again, I'll get a small percentage. It ain't much, but it can help pay for the blog costs, anyway. Thank you for your consideration - it is much appreciated.

Cross-posted to Classic Mysteries.

"The Continental Op"

On our Classic Mysteries podcast this week, you'll find a review of a series of short stories by Dashiell Hammett, featuring his detective, "The Continental Op." This detective without a name prowls the streets of San Francisco in the 1920s. The op - short for operative - is the epitome of a Hammett private eye - tough, but fair; preferring to use his brain, but quite willing to use his fists or a gun. You can hear the entire review here.

Given his enormous influence on detective fiction in the U. S., it is amazing how few novels and stories he actually wrote. The Continental Op was featured in a number of short stories, and this collection from Vintage collects seven of the best. They're not so much puzzle-type mysteries; rather they're excellent, fairly hard-boiled private eye pieces. It's a collection that ought to be on your mystery bookshelf.

For more discussion of this book and other mysteries, please visit www.classicmysteries.net - and join the conversations there.

Harsh Realities

Let's face it. Marketing through social media isn't easy. You can't just hire an agency and tell them to make a viral video, because that's not the way it works (no matter what the agency tells you). And your enthusiasm for the product or service you are marketing most likely isn't matched among the consumers out there.

That doesn't mean social media marketing isn't necessary - it is - or worthwile - it is. It means, as Sonia Simone writes at Copyblogger, that there are some harsh realities about marketing through social media. And the sonner you understand them, the sonner you'll be able to use social media more effectively.

Hat tip: Ragan's PR Daily.

In Praise of Low VMLTs

I never realized it, until the estimable Peter Shankman, of HARO and GeekFactory fame, crystallized it into a fine blog entry: I too have a low VMLT. Which is to say, Voice Mail Listening Tolerance. I dislike voice mail - and you can add in those awful "automatic answer" systems which keep me punching telephone buttons in an effort to find a live human on the other end.

But Shankman's low-VMLT is aimed at people who leave him voice mail, when he doesn't or can't answer the phone, or who expect him to leave a voice mail message when he has tried to call and failed to reach his intended target. Like him, I vastly prefer either SMS or email. But don't take my word for it - you really have to go to that link above and read what he says. The snark is richly deserved.

We're Mature

Oooh, I have a lot of friends who are going to like this. Today's MediaPost Research Brief cites a new study from the CTAM Pulse report that show seniors aged 65 and over are prolific users of the Internet, using email (94%), shopping online (77%) and generally giving the lie to those who claim that older citizens are tech-ignorant cave people.

But what I like best is the designation of those 65 and older as "Matures." That's as opposed to the "Boomers" (45-64) and the Gen-X and Y and Millenials coming up behind us. "Matures." Yup, that's the word for it. "Old f..." may be more colorful, but I definitely prefer "Matures."

Oh, by the way, marketers, take another look at those numbers. You may still be looking for the 18-49 crowd, but the Boomers and Matures have a lot of disposable cash on hand...  I'm just sayin'...

100 Ways to Measure Social Media

I suspect that most of us have been involved in conversations with clients, agencies, reps, friends and colleagues about how to measure the impact of social media. What numbers are meaningful? Where do you start measuring? For that matter, where you you begin the discussion about which ones are meaningful?

Writing at MediaPost's Social Media Insider blog, David Berkowitz, the Senior Director of Emerging Media and Innovation at 360i has come up with an excellent list of 100 possible ways to measure the impact of social media. It's not meant to be all-inclusive, by any means. But it makes a terrific starting point for those conversations.

Sony Gets Back in the eGame

What with Amazon's Kindle eReader and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, Sony must be feeling a pretty fair amount of pressure on its eBlook product. I posted an entry last year complaining that Sony's proprietary format for eBooks was making it hard for me to get much value from their product.

Sony apparently has seen the light. I received an email from them this week advising me that they are updating their older eReaders - including mine - with new firmware. Free. They're doing this because they are dropping their proprietary format in favor of what has become the industry standard ePub format. If I don't want the free update (it does require sending the reader to Sony), I can buy one of their new models at a fairly significant rake-off.

Good for Sony. I think this keeps them alive in the eBook competition - and it's the right thing to do for those of us who have their older readers and had been wondering what to do with them. Now...where did I put mine...

(Cross=posted to Classic Mysteries and LBs Rambles)

"The Labors of Hercules"

The mythical Graeco-Roman demigod, Hercules, had to perform a dozen seemingly impossible tasks. His modern detective counterpart, Hercule Poirot, also found himself investigating twelve quite distinctive mysteries, each with a parallel to one of the original labors, in "The Labors of Hercules," by Agatha Christie. This excellent collection of short stories is reviewed on today's Classic Mysteries podcast, which you can listen to here.

Christie's stories are excellent. Not all deal with murders, but all prove to be very much worth M. Poirot's time - and yours as well. While it appears that Amazon.com isn't shipping new copies at the moment, the link above will take you to a page with a great many different editions available through Amazon's dealer network. I find also that Barnes & Noble does have copies of a mass market paperback version. And, of course, your own favorite mystery bookdealer should be able to locate a copy for you quite easily. It really is one of Christie's best collections.

The Etiquette of eMail Signatures

Just about all of us use email pretty regularly. How do you sign your emails? Do you have an elaborate signature? A graphic of some kind? Is it longer than the message? These aren't just random questions - your clients and potential customers, not to mention your friends, may well be judging you on your digital signatures. Shelly Palmer, who writes and broadcasts about living and working in the digital world, has some sound advice about the etiquette of email signatures.

He does have one line I have to question, though: "However, do everyone a favor and lose the, 'Typing with my thumbs' line. It’s the 21st century; everyone types with their thumbs."

Maybe. But there's a reason why the expression "I'm all thumbs" denotes clumsiness...

Say the Secret Word

Let's face it: passwords are important. If you bank on line, or shop on line, or register for secure sites, or log on at work, or sign in to your office computer from home, you need a decent password. If you don't think there are people out there trying to steal your secret words, take a quick look at a lot of the spam caught in your spam filter folder. Identity theft matters, and sometimes a decent password can be your only protection against it. Using your dog's name can be a lot less secure than you may think.

So how do you come up with a decent password? One that will be virtually impossible for others to guess - but easy for you to create and remember? Writing at Slate, Farhad Manjoo has a surprisingly easy two-step solution which could solve your problem. Highly recommended before you start your online shopping for the holidays.

Hat tip: Steve Rubel

Flying the Wi-Fi Skies

I'm seeing a lot of tweets and status messages from surprised and happy travelers over the past couple of days: Google and Microsoft are both providing free Wi-fi services to some airline passengers and airports. Oh, there's a price of sorts: usually the users have to sit through some brief promotion from the sponsor. But that seems a very small price indeed for a service which can make flying time more productive - and, if not productive, certainly more entertaining.

Om Malik has the details. He thinks it's a smart marketing move, and he's probably right. Seems like a nice holiday present for many of us. Or, as the irrepressible Gizmodo puts it, "Holiday season air travel just got a little less crappy." That's really saying something.

Hat tip: MediaPost (which calls it a "freemium." Not bad!)

Interpreting the Numbers About News

There are some very interesting statistics about the news media, from the points of view of news providers and news consumers, contained in a new report from MediaPost's Daily Research Brief. The report, based on the results of a study by the American Press Institute, is focused on the question of paid online content, a topic of considerable discussion these days. And, as you might expect, news providers and news consumers have quite different viewpoints.

But what I found most interesting was some revealing numbers contained in the report. For example, there really is little difference between users and providers when it comes to considering online news and information very or somewhat valuable: 95% of users and 93% of providers. So far, so good. But when asked how easy it would be to replace online content if a particular news site chose to put it behind a subscription wall, only 31% of the providers thought it would be very or somewhat easy to replace - compared with 52% of their readers. That's a pretty significant disconnect, and it ought to be a warning bell for providers.

It gets worse: when asked what they thought would be a likely alternative source if free online content disappeared, 75% of providers said they expected readers would turn to their print editions. Only 30% of the readers agreed. If those numbers are at all accurate, those print editions could be in serious trouble.

All this comes just as News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch is making noises about blocking his websites from Google's search engines. That strikes a lot of us as suicidal; I recommend this analysis from Mashable to explain why. Murdoch is a very smart man, but if you want to get an idea of how boneheaded this move would be, go do a Google search for the Wall Street Journal (which is mostly behind a pay wall, but is indexed) and imagine what would happen if all those listings were to disappear. Would you go out and buy a hard copy of the Journal, based on intuition? Or would you simply go to the next search result on Google?

How to Help a Veteran

With Veterans' Day coming up this week, it's a good time to remember that we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude towards this country's service men and women. (Disclosure: that would include my younger daughter and her husband.)

USA Today has a list of ten specific actions you may take to show your support both for troops on active duty and veterans. Some involved contributing money, some for contributing time. However you choose, your participation will be most welcome - and most necessary. Thank you.

Hat tip: @Remind_org via Twitter.

"Smallbone Deceased"

It is distressing when members of a prestigious English law firm cannot find one of their prominent clients, the trustee of a charitable foundation. It is more distressing when that client turns up - quite dead - inside an oversized safe deposit box, or deed box. That's the situation in "Smallbone Deceased," by Michael Gilbert, which is reviewed on this week's "Classic Mysteries" podcast. You can listen to the complete review here.

Gilbert was a much-honored writer of all kinds of crime fiction, and "Smallbone Deceased" is widely regarded as one of his best books. It is a classic puzzle mystery, with the major clues made available to the reader who will be challenged to solve the mystery before the detectives can do so. First published in 1950, it is one of the few Gilbert mysteries available in print. If you're a fan of these puzzles, you'll enjoy it.

For more discussions about this and other mysteries, please visit www.classicmysteries.net and join in the conversation.