Scott Porad

Via TechFlash:

Microsoft has engaged in talks with media companies for a new subscription-based online TV service, one which could allow consumers to access individual channels such as HBO and Showtime…essentially allowing consumers to “cut the cord” on their existing cable company [via the Xbox]

Is it possible someone over in Redmond was reading my posts on this topic?

Following up on my ideas about how Microsoft could revolutionize TV with the Xbox…

Something I didn’t say in that post, was that the Xbox would also need to provide DVR (i.e. Tivo-like) capabilities.  Technically this is not an issue, and cost-wise it might add another $50.  Honestly, it blows my mind that the Xbox doesn’t already have this baked in.

Last night, I was over at my brother-in-law’s house, and he was showing me his brand new video setup.  His setup is awesome, but it is also mind-blowingly complicated.  And, it’s all Microsoft products, to boot!

• Upstairs he has an HP All-in-One computer with about a 30-inch screen.  This computer runs Windows Media Center, so he has Comcast cable plugged into the back of it, and he uses it as his DVR.  He primarily uses this as TV, and light web browsing…definitely not what we think of as “computer usage”.
• Of course, the upstairs computer is connected to his home network.  I say this casually, but 99% of people have no idea how to operate their home network.  If you’re one of the people who I refer to as the “friends and family IT guy” then you know exactly what I mean.
• Downstairs he has a sweet 50-inch TV.  No reason to get into the specs on this, but let’s just say I do have some TV envy.

So, he explains, how content is streamed from his upstairs computer through his home network, downstairs to his TV.  ”Cool,” I said, “so, your TV is connected to your network too, and can read from Windows Media Player?”

“No, I have to run it through the Xbox,” he replies plaintively.  ”And,” he says with a little irritation, “let me tell you, it took a lot of time to setup.”

URGH!!!!  This is so frustrating to hear.  Why, oh, why, Steve Ballmer, can’t you make this more simple?

Look, an Xbox is just a computer in fancy clothes.  So, by the way, is a DVR.  All of them are just a computer on the inside.  A plain old computer, just like the one I’m typing this on.

Why, then, does Microsoft make the user buy two computers, do a bunch of fancy networking and such nonsense, when it’s not necessary?  Why can’t they make it easier for us?

The obvious reason would be to say, well, Microsoft is able to sell twice as many computers, so they’re making more money.  If that’s the case, fine…I dislike it, but they’re choosing to leave a market opportunity open for others to exploit at their own risk.

I tend to be more inclined to think that this is a case of Hanlon’s razor.

A quick missive on Microsoft…

People are talking about the Goldman Sachs report on Microsoft.  Long story short, Goldman says that something needs to change at Microsoft.

The original mantra of Microsoft was “a computer on every desktop”.  That goal has been achieved.  What’s next?

In my view, it should be “a computer on every set top“.

What is a “set top”?  It’s a TV.  In other words, a computer connected to every TV.

The thing is, Microsoft was almost there, but couldn’t put it together.  At one point they owned four household “boxes” and three of them were on the “set top”:

• desktop computer
• Ultimate TV
• WebTV
• Xbox

But, they missed the boat on this stuff.  The problem with the whole darned thing is that Microsoft suffers from a strategy tax—in their world, the desktop computer is the hub, the centerpiece of the system from which everything else emanates.  Phone, Zune, tablet, everything…they all sync to the desktop.  But, that’s 1990 thinking in a 2010 world.  The desktop is sitting in a corner now, relegated to work-duties.

So, here’s what Microsoft could do:

First, make the Xbox the centerpiece of your consumer solution.  Make it so that people do all their computing through the TV.  Read the Internet through the Xbox.  Stream media to the Xbox.  (Do you know how disruptive it would be if TV networks could do an end-around on the cable companies to get their content in homes?  I’m giddy just thinking about it!)

Next, push Xbox as a centerpiece further by making the existing devices—Zune and Windows Phone—sync to the Xbox, not the computer.

Then, develop a viable tablet that syncs with the Xbox and not the computer.  Some computer-ish things, like reading e-mail, will be somewhat harder on the TV, so a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard can solve that problem.  (The keyboard will also connect to the Xbox).

Of course, Azure would back all this stuff up, so that users could keep all their shiznit in the sky.  And, Windows Online plus MSN plus Hotmail (or whatever they call it these days) could provide the basic productivity services that 99.99999999% of home users need.

Finally, bundle all of these up for $1000 and sell them as a package.  Imagine if you could get your entire “home computing package” for that price.  If it worked seamlessly, it would be a slam dunk!!

Personally, I’d take all these things and spin them off into a separate company.  Keep Windows and Office and the server technologies inside of Microsoft to service the corporate business.  Send this stuff out on it’s own to service the consumer.  I guess there’d be a little overlap with the Azure and Windows Online pieces, but those are implementation details…

…the point here is a “a computer on every set top”.  That’s the winning strategy.

My grandfather is 94-years old.  (Actually, 94 1/2, but he doesn’t think he should start counting halves again until he’s 95.)  He’s lost a step, but his mind is sharp as a tack.  As he often says, “if I knew I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself”.

The really sad thing, though, is that he’s losing is vision.

Losing one of your only five senses is tragic regardless, but the vision is especially difficult because my grandfather is a reader.  A Reader with a capital R.  That man reads everything.  Literally, everything, down to labels on the ketchup bottle at a restaurant.

Sometimes, when I call over to his house, and I’m talking to my grandmother, so I’ll ask, “what’s Grandpa doing?”  And, she’ll respond, “oh, I don’t know, he’s probably reading something.”  That makes both of us smile, though.

Anyhow, being me, I couldn’t just let Grandpa not be able to read, so I borrowed a Kindle from a friend to see if that could be the solution to our problems.  Based on some limited testing, here’s the feedback:

The good news is the font size increases to a size large enough that he can read it.  That was our main goal, but it turns out there’s more to it than that.

First, the navigation screens don’t adjust font size, really only the book pages.  So, he could sort of make it work with a magnifying glass, but it was tricky.

Next, the keys are too small.  There really isn’t a way to use the Kindle without typing, the most common use being searching for books in the store.  But, he couldn’t read what the buttons said, and even if he could, they were hard to press with his creaky, nonagenarian hands.

Finally, and this applies to folks old and young, you can’t skim through a book on a Kindle.  That really bugged him.  (I guess, when you’re his age, you feel like you need to get through things as quickly as possible.)

Quite honestly, it was the size of the keys that made it a non-workable solution.  Amazon, do you hear that?  Make a Kindle with big buttons and you’ll sell a whole bunch.

Postscript

Now, a few people suggested looking into the iPad.  I stayed away from iPad for a few reasons, all having to do with complication.

My grandparents don’t have a computer (nor do they want one).  The iPad requires a machine with which to sync.

Also, the iPad has a whole bunch of other stuff on it that I believe he would enjoy…have you heard of a little thing called The Internet?…there is sooooo much to read on that thing.  But, it and the other stuff is scary (seriously, computers are genuinely intimidating to most people) and would probably just confuse and frustrate him.

For this use case, a huge benefit of the Kindle is WhisperSync.  He could have bought a book on the Kindle and it would have magically just shown up.  There’s no having to deal with any network connectivity of any sort.  My plan was to simply setup an Amazon account for my grandparents…I’d create a Gmail account that forwarded to my e-mail, and put their credit card into the Amazon account.  After that, they really wouldn’t have to know anything about “Amazon.com, the web site”…they could just buy and enjoy!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Google lately, or more specifically GOOG.  I would be interested in knowing your thoughts…leave them in the comments.

As I understand it, the hottest things in technology these days (besides lolcats) are mobile and social (and geo-location, but humor me and ignore that).

With respect to mobile, primarily the battle is between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.  I see a lot of analogy between Google and Apple at present with mobile operating systems, and Microsoft and Apple about 20 years ago with desktop operating systems.

In other words, Google is Microsoft with the more open operating system, and Apple is Apple (again) with the more closed system.  Even though AAPL is high-flying now, it’s pretty obvious that Microsoft won that war.

On the other hand, Google can’t seem to tell its knee from it’s elbow when it comes to social.  Apple doesn’t really have a dog in the social fight, but Google is being defeated by Facebook and Twitter (and, to some extent, Bing who seemingly has better relationships with each).  Adam Rifkin wrote a fun piece about Google and why they’re not optimized to succeed at social, haven’t succeeded at social, and won’t succeed at social.

So, in the question of GOOG, it all boils down to this: which is going to be more important for Google in the next 5-10 years—owning the leading social applications or owning the leading mobile operating system?

To me, it’s pretty clear that Google is placing it’s bet on the mobile OS.  Is that the right bet?

What happens if Google wins the mobile OS battle, but loses the social ground to Facebook et al.?  What about the opposite?  What if Google somehow, magically, wins social, but loses mobile?  (Obviously, winning both is good, and losing both is bad.)

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but find them very interesting.  What do you think?

Last week I promised you some data about why reducing HTTP requests the most important thing for improving page load speed.

• Shopzilla: reduced page load time by 3.5 seconds and all sorts of good things happened…the highlights: conversion increased by 7%, page views by 25% ⁽¹⁾
• AOL: 3x improvements in page views per visit based on page load times ⁽¹⁾
• Google and Bing: increasing page load time by as little as 200 milliseconds causes measurable declines in usage ⁽¹⁾
• Google Maps: decreasing page size by 20-30% resulted in 10% increase in traffic ⁽²⁾
• Amazon: increasing page load time by 100 milliseconds decreases conversion by 1% ⁽²⁾

The data shows unequivocally that reducing HTTP requests is really important for improving site performance and key business metrics.  And, I would argue, that 75% of developers think this type of work is a lot of fun.   So, here’s the funny thing about this: why can’t business people and technology people get aligned?

This is one of the things that always drove me nuts at back in the heyday at drugstore.com: the business people would want to grow, so they’d advocate for new ideas.  Those ideas were unproven and uncertain, and the majority of them failed.  That’s okay…the nature of new ideas is that most of them fail.  Just check out small business success rates.

Yet, here’s the thing: right in front of every business person is a proven, certain and quantifiable project that can improve critical business metrics.  It’s called “Improve Page Load Speed”.  So, if you’re a technical type, perhaps you should forward a link to this blog post to the business folks in order to get a site optimization project on the schedule.

Sources:

1. Nicolle Sullivan‘s AEA Seattle presentation [excerpt]
2. Andrew King, Website Optimization, Page 148

I’ve read in many places that the number important thing for improving page load time is to reduce HTTP requests on a page.  However, sometimes people say if you set an Expires header far in the future it doesn’t matter because it will be in the browser cache.

I wanted to be sure I understood how the Expires header in the future worked because at CheezHQ we’ve been discussing how aggressive we should be with images sprites.  As part of my research, I found this performance research from Yahoo:

40-60% of Yahoo!’s users have an empty cache experience and ~20% of all page views are done with an empty cache. To my knowledge, there’s no other research that shows this kind of information. And I don’t know about you, but these results came to us as a big surprise. It says that even if your assets are optimized for maximum caching, there are a significant number of users that will always have an empty cache. This goes back to the earlier point that reducing the number of HTTP requests has the biggest impact on reducing response time. The percentage of users with an empty cache for different web pages may vary, especially for pages with a high number of active (daily) users. However, we found in our study that regardless of usage patterns, the percentage of page views with an empty cache is always ~20%.

Like the researchers, that surprised me too.

Now, they made the caveat for “pages with a high number of active (daily) users”.   I wondered if that was us because we have a high percentage of users who visit the site every day.

After digging in some analytics data, I determined that unless you’re a very frequent visitor to one of our sites, you’re visiting us with a cache that is effectively empty—downloading many or all of the objects on our homepage.  Why?  Because we update our pages multiple times per day.

Even sites like ours with a very high segment of users who visit daily (or more than once per day!), still have a high number of visits with an empty cache.  The reason being that even if you were on the site just a few hours ago, the all the content on the pages is new and therefore needs to be downloaded.

In other words, the frequency of visits as a factor in reducing empty cache visits is counteracted by the frequency that a site’s content is updated.  Of course, this makes sense because unless a site updates it’s content frequently users don’t have a reason to return frequently.

The bottom line: reducing HTTP requests continues to be most important for improving site performance.

Just how important?  Great question!  Stay tuned: I have some data that I can share with you that illustrates just how valuable improvements in page load times can be…I’ll post it soon.

Update: Data Illustrating the Benefits of Improved Page Load Times

I wrote a post for Seattle 2.0 about my thoughts on why conferences are worth attending, and in particular SXSW.

The money graph, as they say, is:

All that being said, when someone asks me, “Should I attend SXSW?” I tell them this: the sessions will be valuable and interesting, some better than others. But to get the most out of it, you have to go there with people in mind. If you’re willing to be social and friendly, to stick your hand out and introduce yourself, and focus on developing relationships as opposed to developing business, then you’ll come home with something money can’t buy.

You can read the whole post by clicking here.

UPDATE: A loyal reader pointed out that I’ve written before about the value of attending conferences.

Often I am asked about search engine optimization (SEO), so I’ve asked Joel Gross, a search engine optimization expert based in Los Angeles, to write a guest post that goes beyond the basics of SEO.

As an search engine optimization expert working in the industry for four years now, I have come across quite a few tidbits that only professional SEO’s are privy to. The blog post you are about to read will share some of the strategies and tactics that I have found many web designers, businesspeople and even some marketing people don’t know about or overlook.

Clickthrough & Bounce Rates

Links and copy might be the two most important factors in where your website ranks in Google search results, but clickthrough & bounce rates are quickly becoming the third most important factor. If users don’t click on your page in the search results or if they go to your page then quickly bounce out, that is a clear signal to search engines that your page is not meeting the users query. Google makes 99.9% of it’s revenue from its advertising system that uses Quality Score * Max CPC to determine where to rank ads (the Sponsored Listings area of search results). Quality Score’s chief component is clickthrough rate. Clickthrough rate is very important for both advertising on Google and for ranking well in organic search. Monitor your clickthrough & bounce rates closely and do what it takes to help increase each one.

Calling for Links

Many people think they can reach out and get links from people with bulk emails or personalized emails requesting partnerships. I have discovered that the best use of time though for getting great links from authority websites and your competitors is by picking up the phone and calling them. Response rates on emails about links are very low since people have been spammed to death. I have followed this strategy on my LA math tutoring website and have had really great response rates. 40% of people I get ahold of on the phone agree to put a link to my site on theirs and about half of those actually follow through. Compare that to emailing for links 2-3% response rate with maybe one in ten of those people actually putting your link on their site. Calling and making a personal connection is far more successful than sending bulk email to get ignored. Strategies for a successful call:

• Talk about building a “partnership” instead of just asking for the link right away
• Tell them how linking to your site will benefit their customers/readers
• Offer a link in return from another website (to avoid reciprocal links)

Use WordPress

WordPress is not only free to use, easy to develop on and supported by a large community of developers, but it has had the input of tons of SEO experts and web designers and is the best optimized CMS package out of the box. It is also easily customizable and you can find tons of cheap developers to build on it. You are also able to safely allow people with no web experience to create & add new pages with impunity by giving them an author/contributor role. I used WordPress + a few plugins to build my online marketing blog into a powerhouse with 80,000+ unique visitors each month. Even highly professional non-blog websites such as the Beverly Hills cosmetic surgery site and the guide to Los Angeles site use it.

To quickly set up WordPress, go to this page and follow the instructions to install on your host. 1and1.com has good cheap web hosting, more advanced users with heavy traffic should look at mediatemple’s hosting packages. Once wordpress is installed, choose your theme (make sure it allows html text for your title and not just an image) and install these plugins in order of importance: Akismet (no comment spam), Google Analyticator (measuring & tracking performance), Feedburner Feedsmith (more tracking & some publicizing), Yet Another Related Posts plugin (auto generated links at the bottom of each post), aLinks (auto placed links in text on certain keywords), Dagon Design Sitemap Generator (important for crawling), Google XML sitemaps (crawling), All in one SEO pack (not really necessary anymore), Increase Sociability (call to action for certain types of visitors).

Pay for Copy

During the last year, I have had outsourced copywriters produce over 3,000 pages of keyword-optimized 500+ word articles for between $4-7 per page. Copy is one of the major cornerstones of SEO and you can never have too much of it (unless you use copy generators which search engines can spot). Having unique articles written for your websites by outsourced copywriters will far outstrip your abilities to write alone and gives you a major leg up on your competitors in search rankings. It enables you to specially target many long tail terms that otherwise you would be forced to overlook and provides readers of that content valuable information that pertains specifically to what they had searched for. All of the copy on my Carpet Cleaners Bellevue website was written for $40 total. Not the best copy, but a great price to help me quickly get up a site & test the market.

Outsourcing copy on the cheap can be done using Elance.com to find inexpensive copywriters. You will have to carefully screen their work to find good ones, but when you do it can be very profitable for both parties. Ask your writer to send you the first five articles they write for you so you can check and make sure it’s a good fit before having them run off 50 or a 100. Many books have been written on how to write good copy, but a favorite resource of mine is Copyblogger. If I was you, I would come up with a list of instructions for how you want your copy written & add to it with each new writer. Eventually you will have a very effective document to help them get started. To write keyword-optimized articles, you need to use the keyword in the title tag, meta description tag, page title tag, multiple times in the page copy and in anchored links pointing to the page. You can do research on long tail terms using the Google Adwords external keyword tool and selecting “exact” phrase matching.

If you are interested in other general SEO tips & tricks, please feel free to ask in the comments section!

Thanks for reading,

Joel Gross

After my deification of Microsoft Excel, I was thinking that there is one feature I wish Excel had that it doesn’t.  Note: this is a serious power user feature.

Why can’t an Excel Workbook be queried with a SQL Query Tool?  A workbook is a database, each worksheet is a table, and each row is a record.  Isn’t this obvious?

I often find myself importing an Excel Worksheet into Microsoft Access, so that I can then run queries against the data.  In fact, I do this regularly.

Does this tool already exist?

It doesn’t seem like this should be very hard to build, and I’m certain there are all sorts of people out there in the business and academic worlds that benefit from it.