OurielOhayon

iShanaTova

10+ random thoughts on Ping and iTunes

Apple introduced yesterday a new version of iTunes. iTunes 10. It is a better software and it is going social. But it's raising so many questions and observations in my mind

 

1. Ping is the first social network to exist only in a software (iTunes). Can a social network exist out of a browser? Can a social network exist in a place where most of the usage is about transaction and download? 
2. Popular social networks became popular because they were built as a platform, not only as a destination (think Facebook connect, Last.fm distributed graph, Flick widgets,..). Will Apple consider an API?
3. Every user has a Ping profile URL (here is mine) : Apple made them as friendly as iTunes songs URL. meaning unfriendly. Maybe they should use my friend loic's ping.fm shortener
4. Do people really care about the taste of people they don't know? Is music a strong vertical enough to build AGAIN your social graph? Isn't your "taste graph" just a sub graph of your existing "social graph".
5. A lot of people seem to indicate that apple made the right choices in terms of privacy settings. Actually i believe most people don't care
6. What's really missing in ITunes is a out-of-iTunes broadcasting mechanism. There is Share with Facebook/Twitter but it is painful. Apple has all the assets to create the very best sharing experience (think about cross app sharing for example). They did not do it. Because Apple's DNA is not social and is not about sharing.
7. I said it in the past, will say it again. iTunes "rebranding" to iTunes 10 is a missed opportunity to assess iTunes as the leading media store (video, podcast, games, apps, shows AND songs). They should have rebranded it iStore
8. Real names, connected to Ping will now be used in Reviews. Since your name is associated to a credit card, you'd better watch out to fake reviews :)
9. Lady Gaga who is #1 in Twitter follower is probably also #1 in Ping. I am afraid Ping will be good for mainstream music discovery only. Eg: Keith Jarrett is not even an artist to Follow...The problem of discovery is not about hits, it is about the long tail
10. Ping will come to other media (podcast, movies, apps). But not until it makes its way on music. Maybe.

Bonuses.

1. iTunes has not solved the biggest pain to discovery: the browsing, speed/experience and search. More than a social network they should have started there.
2. Example to point 11: iTunes search engine does not work holistically with Ping's user. You can't be searched in iTunes own search engine...
3. Ping's execution is awesome and simple: but it looks so much like Facebook feed that i wonder why Apple did not give more credit to that and even if Apple did not build Ping out of a missed opportunity with Facebook.
4. Some people seem to indicate the death of last.fm and spotify. I seriously doubt it. Those 2 services provide a way better discovery experience and are built as platforms, not just softwares.
5. Apple has nnot enabled notifications on ping. no way to know when you have a new friend following or a new artist feed mention. You need to actively go and discover it
6. I really want to thank Apple for making our life easier at Appsfire: social discovery is the key to apps, more than advertising. people start to understand that what we make, makes sense :)
7. you can't share your own library on Ping. A smart move would have been to prepopulate my profile with my existing library. Since everything is already there. you can only share what shows up in iTunes Store!

Sending AND receiving a fax for free via your computer in Israel [really free]

Some paleolithic institutions like Banks are still using fax and refuse to adapt themself to the modern world using emails with their customers.

The problem is that no one is really using a fax anymore. Even those multi function printer are a pain to use [printing, putting the doc in the tray, dialing,....]

So i started to look for services to send and receive fax for free in Israel. I called netvision. After 6 sales representative, they figured out they had such service but 1. it is ridiculously expensive 2. you need to use their Paleolithic own email system

I started to look on the web. you can find plenty of so called free email to fax service. But they are not free. And force you to buy a monthly subscription.

I really found 2 services for sending and receiving faxes from your computer (meaning sending files directly from your computer)

• FreeFax.co.il [make abstraction of the endless number of google ads] Works great TO SEND ONLY
• MyFax.co.il Works great to RECEIVE FAX on your email. they will provide a temporary fax number routing to your email [take the right blue option]

I used them both and they work great. and are really free. BUT...

There is no single service doing all of it (send + fax) in a clean way. Fax is a commodity, like Voice. I am sure there is space to build a killer free iphone app that will do all of that using a stupid fax server. Sending a fax is not more expensive at cost than a min of voice.

The first guy to do that, will end up #1 in the App Store. I guarantee

[israel] is it a bad time to buy an apartment? What do you think?

The more i visit apartments, and the more i understand how the real estate market works, the more i am confused.

• I don't understand how prices can be so high, and keep getting high: i am told there is no apartments to buy, but on the other side they are an endless number of new projects.
• I don't understand how a 4 bedroom, to be totally rebuilt, in the center of tel aviv, can be more expensive than a house with garden 50km from tel aviv.
• I don't understand how an average family with decent revenues can buy something those days, without having to eat pasta and humus 3 times a day for the rest of their life.
• I don't understand how banks are so bad at providing mortgage services (i could write a post on this) - banks are bad in general, but specially in this.
• I don't understand how most real estate agents are guiding their own business by not even calling you back when you are hot on a deal
• I don't understand why our government believe that by limiting the amount of money you can get from banks, they will stop prices from going up (since those who buy never need to borrow money)

For me all of those unanswered critical questions are the sign this is not the right time to buy. This market is just insane.

Is it stupid to think a real estate bubble is about to explode in Israel? Are prices too high? Should i wait? Should i go?

What do you say?

[jazz] Brad Mehldau: Goodbye storyteller

Amazing composition by one of the best pianist in the world. Extract from his second (maybe one of the best) album, Elegiac Cycle

Could be a jazz tune, or classical music. Does not really matter. it is just awesome

[jazz] Brad Mehldau: Goodbye storyteller

Amazing composition by one of the best pianist in the world. Extract from his second (maybe one of the best) album, Elegiac Cycle

Could be a jazz tune, or classical music. Does not really matter. it is just awesome

La noyee

superb song by Gainsbourg. A french composer. a genius in it own right (some probably know the late version by Carla Bruni)

Man, that's a trailer

Last time i saw a killer trailer like this, it was for Seven, by David Fincher. The same one behind the social network. 

You bet i will watch this

This is how i would have loved Lady Gaga to stay

This video by Stefani Germanotta (her original name) is simply impressive. Far from the crap she's making today.

There is no doubt she's highly talented. Too bad she did not go that way a bit longer!

!

Why i stopped reading Daring Fireball

I arrived late in the run, but i discovered about a year ago Daring Fireball a hugely popular blog by John Gruber about, mainly Apple. It is brilliantly written and so well informed you wonder if the guy is not working in Steve Jobs' office. But after about a year of reading it i decided to stop. The reason? It is impossible to interact with its writer (which he explains here). 

At least from my modest point of view. And for me interacting means having the possibility to drop a comment and participate in a conversation, something i can do on all the great blogs i love to read (like avc.com )

The content, most of the time creates the desire to react and provokes the spark of a conversation but it is killed on the spot by not letting users comment on site. I don't know any better way to make a blog a conversational media. Otherwise this is just a good old tribune behind a (Daring) Firewall.

So i could deal with it right? Well no. I don't like to be provoked and not having the possibility to react. I am sure a lot of John's readers feel frustrated and probably used to this.

When i was writing TechCrunch France i was handling up to 100 comments per posts. I was reading every single one of them and most of the time answering them. Frankly the most interesting part of blogging is the interaction with the users in a close to live conversation in comments. I can understand some people prefer to kill the noise and don't have the time to deal with it (although there are ways to manage this efficiently if you have the right commenting system, like disqus or intensedebate with moderation and email interaction)

Anyways. No comments on a good blog is not a deal for me. This is why i am also stopping reading many newspapers.

The value is not in the information or the point of view but the conversation. And even in Chaos, i prefer a living organic publication rather than a singled-voice site