derekville.net

Sorry for the Sprint emphasis early on, they are a local company that is always a center of  attention around here.

Sprint, as a brand, is pretty much dead. I can’t believe how badly Gary Forsee crippled that company. They purchased Nextel for $35 billion just three years ago, destroyed its network and fractured its customer base, and are now trying to sell it for a measly $5 billion while the FCC says it must relocate to a different spectrum, likely costing billions. Meanwhile, their landline services have since been spun-off as Embarq, and this latest move to offload its future 4G operation to Clearwire is an indication that the end is near.

So now they’ll turn around and sell Nextel, crippling that poor brand even more and leaving it as a shell of what it once was. At that point, all “Sprint” will have left is a backbone ISP operation, a dying wireless brand that will likely be sold to T-Mobile, investments in all of the spin-offs, and an arena that still doesn’t have an NBA team. (Humor for the KC readers)

Goodbye “Sprint”, I’m not sure what you’ll be in 5 years. 100+ year old companies don’t just dissapear into thin air, but I don’t think you’ll be very recognizable. Again, I’m talking about “Sprint” the brand.  Sprint the stock ticker is a great investment right now as I’ve been preaching the last couple months.  If you do still have your wireless voice services, I’m sure it will be under a commodity / white label brand until the current technology dies and eventually you’ll sell your shares in all your spin-offs to pay off the debt you racked up.

But, having said that, I think the move makes perfect sense and is a well played strategy. Sprint & Clearwire’s WiMAX project has great potential, but they have no money to fund it since Clearwire is only 4 years old and Sprint is $20 billion in debt, so they absolutely needed to join forces. Along with the new merger, they will also get an influx of much needed cash from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner, & Google, who are throwing in a $3.2 Billion investment.

So, the landscape is now set for The Great Wireless Broadband War of 2008-2014 (can I trademark that?)

Side A
A) Sprint - Owns a large chunk of the back-end of the internet
B) Google - Owns a large chunk of the front-end of the internet
C) Comcast & Time Warner - Owns cable television & residential internet in the US
D) Intel - Owns the processors that will power everything
E) Skype - Assuming Google buys it

Side B
A) AT&T vs Verizon - Dominant telcos in US who are launching their own 4G network sometime next decade.
B) British Telecom - Dominant telco in UK
C) NTT - Dominant telco in Japan
D) Deutsch Telecom - Dominant telco in Germany
E) Unnamed Skype Killer they are rumored to be working on to run on their closed networks.

So who will win? That’s a tough one, but here are some suggested investments; CLWR, S, GOOG, & INTC. Openness wins in the digital world.

written by Derek

Link to article on The Wall Street Journal: Sprint Mulls Separating Nextel Unit

Considering how many customers they’ve lost due to outages since the merger, it’s clear that move was the worst idea in Sprint’s history.

So, their stock is up ~75% from where it was since I told you to buy it a few weeks back. Hopefully you listened to me. If not, it’s still not too late, Deutsche Telekom is looking to buy them which would give it quite a boost.

Best scenario would be for Sprint to dump Nextel somehow, in turn making themselves more attractive for a Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile purchase, then merge the two and become the #1 US cell carrier. Whose network the customers go to doesn’t matter, T-Mobile’s more compatible GSM would be preferable though. Sure, you won’t have any offerings to compete with AT&T and Verizon’s wired internet and cable TV offerings (FiOS & uVerse), but who cares, you’ll have a great headstart over them in the wireless broadband market, which is obviously where the future is. Finally, embed Sprint Xohm chips in everything from laptops to VoIP phones to toasters, and print money uncontested. But most importantly, differentiate the labels, market the voice service as T-Mobile and the data as Sprint/Xohm because both are used for very different purposes.

Glass half empty says Sprint is fucked. Glass half full says the worst is over, your current model sucks, so time to move on to something new & innovative.

written by Derek

Thanks to this blog post on Mickipedia, I just discovered the joy that is Charlie the Unicorn. The first one is good, but the second one is hilarious. Anyone else notice that Charlie is pretty much Carl from Aqua Teen?

Part 1: Candy Mountain

Part 2: The Banana King

I was really hoping some giant banana would trot out at the end and say "I AMA BA-NANA!" Rejected.wmv, anyone? Anyone? K, nevermind.

P.S. I’m trying out the (free) Qumana blog editor for OSX.  Looks good so far.

written by Derek

So a friend emailed today and says:

Gas $10/gallon? At least one analyst sees that in the next two years.

My Response?

Then that analyst is worthless & needs to be fired. Fear-mongering networks throw anyone on as “analysts” nowdays. It is just like anyone in the IT world is a “consultant” now days (raises hand). I see a 70% increase in gas prices every year till 2010, when it has been at an insanely high (historically speaking) 20% over the last 5 years, as absurd.

So, before anyone freaks out, I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but the economics of gas prices rising 70% / year doesn’t quite work out with inflation still at an average of 4%. If that actually did happen, being unable to drive my car would be towards the bottom of my list of worries, topping the list would be getting access to food and not being killed in the riots that would inevitably follow.

The price of fuel has to come close to mirroring inflation for the oil companies to maximize their profits. Entire business models & industries are based upon this assumption. The oil companies can’t increase their profit margins if the price goes beyond what people, and especially companies, can afford. It is quickly approaching that mark and we’ll see a pretty sizeable drop soon. For comparison, there was a 20% drop a little over a year ago, and within the next couple months, my guess is we’ll be back under $3.

Longterm (the next couple years), the mortgage crisis will balance out, the economy will stabilize, we’ll be out of the middle east, fuel-efficient cars will be more prominent, and thus… gas prices will stabilize again. In two years, this “analyst” gaurantees the average gas prices will be under $7, and I would expect to see it under $6. Yes, oil will eventually run out, but that trend is something that will be felt over decades, not months.

This energy “crisis” is even more reason to tell McCain and his “no gas tax” to fuck off and quit trying to buy votes. Let things fix themselves. The more you muck with it, the longer it will take it to stabilize.

written by Derek \\ tags: , economy, gas, Politics

This is a test from Textmate’s Blogging bundle. This is really cool.

written by Derek \\ tags: Blogging, textmate

Twhirl is a relatively new Twitter client that packs just about everything you need for twittering into one Adobe Air based application.  While Twhirl of course handles all the basic things you need out of a Twitter client, I feel it really shines when you start using the additional features and usability enhancements.

Some of these features include:

• Runs on Windows (200/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX
• Ability to connect to multiple Twitter accounts
• Ability to simultaneously post to Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Extremely easy to install and configure
• Embedded services include Tweetscan, is.dg, Snurl, TwitPic, and Terraminds
• Timeline filtering
• Automatically checks for new version
• New tweet notification windows
• Localized to English, German, Italian, and Spanish

Installation

To install Twhirl, visit Twhirl’s website and on the right side you’ll see links to download Adobe AIR and Twhirl.  If you don’t yet have Adobe’s integrated runtime environment (AIR) installed, follow the instructions you see to install it.  Once AIR is installed, click the download/”install now” link and you should see the AIR application installer begin to download and install the Twhirl application.  Follow the on screen instructions to complete.

Configuration

When you load the application for the first time, you’ll need to set up your Twitter account(s).  Enter your screen name, and another box will prompt you for your password.  You will also see a few additional tabs.  The first being “Colors” which allows you to modify Twhirl’s visual theme.  The second is “Language” where you can select between English, German, Italian, and Spanish.  And the final tab being “Update” where you can check if a newer version exists.

Sending Tweets

99% of your time using Twhirl will be spent looking at the main Twhirl screen after you successfully connect.  From this screen you will see the “river” of new tweets rolling down as they arrive.  You can also post tweets by typing your message in the input box.  Please make not of the TwitPic and “Shorten URL” icons on the right of the input box for a couple very useful tools.

Additionally, you have 9 view types that you can choose from in the drop-down.  These views range from the standard “Timeline” view with is the tweets from those you are following, viewing the archive of your own tweets, viewing your followers’ bios, searching tweetscan.com, and a few more very useful views.

Gripes & Suggestions

I’ve already covered many of the upsides to using Twhirl, but I do have a few gripes and suggestions that I hope the developer can address in future releases:

• When you lookup profiles inside Twhirl, you should be able to at a minimum, click a link that takes you to the user’s Twitter account.  Optimally, I’d like to have the information on how many followers the user has, and how many people they are following.
• When starting up the application, only notify me of direct/reply tweets I haven’t yet read, not all of them.
• Add TweetBurner.com to the list of short URLs.
• Add a Quotably link to each tweet.

Conclusion

Twhirl is my 5th Twitter client over the past 4-5 months, and really, the majority of that time has been spent on Twhirl because it has been my favorite, by far.  I have stuck with it because it offers all the essential functionality I need out of a twitter client, and then some.  It also happens to be the first Adobe AIR application I have actually had a good experience with and it gives me hope for the future for this platform.

Also, check out these reviews for other Twitter clients

• Twitterfox: A Twitterfox Review
• Twitterific: A Review of Twitterific
• TwitterBerry: TwitterBerry, combining BlackBerry and Twitter
• Twitterfeed: A review of Twitterfeed
• Twitbin: Twitter and TwitBin - Microblogging Made Easy
• The Guide to Being a Drunken, Debaucherous Twit
• Netvibes: Using Netvibes for SMO

written by Derek \\ tags: adobe air, twhirl, twitter

So I had my ‘Mahalo moment’ yesterday, but, is it what Jason & Mahalo expect?

For those looking for a good place to get an idea of what Mahalo is good at, here are some pages to get you started that I stumbled across or others suggested.  Please add some more links to pages in the comments to help people, like myself, who were completely clueless at what Mahalo was good at or useful for.Good Mahalo links

• Social Media
• How to Write a Resume
• Auschwitz
• Phantom of the Opera
• Maya Angelou

In conclusion. I think Mahalo, in it’s current form, has a purpose and an audience, and that happens to not be the tech-savvy crowd who is serviced very well by Google right now. In time, I think Mahalo will have the content tech-savvy users will want, but, will they provide an intelligent mechanism to get to it? Hopefully. Google & Wikipedia need some competition.

written by Derek \\ tags: mahalo

Some people have been wondering how much having Jason Calacanis link to your blog in his twitter feed (twice) and his blog?  Well, some initial numbers from the last 24 hours…

• About 70 new Twitter followers.  With each of his two tweets directed at me, I instantly gained about 15 new followers, and then the rest scattered in throughout the rest of the day.
• 910 new visits to my blog with 1.36 pages/visit
• The viddler video now has 650+ views from my blog, and another 600+ views on the viddler site.

Any other statistics people were wondering?

written by Derek \\ tags: jason calacanis

The journey continues…

So, I think I have a pretty good idea of what Mahalo can/can’t do at this point and I have a theory as to why the ‘TechCrunch 100,000′ (as Jason calls us) have such a problem with the site.  That’s a post for later though.

written by Derek \\ tags: mahalo

After railing on his site enough, I promised Jason Calacanis I’d take a fair look at his latest startup (Mahalo.com) and say something nice about it, well… once I was actually about to find something.  So here’s the first video of my experience hunting around Mahalo.com for a “positive” and not just looking at it as polluting the internet with more spam.

As you can see, the hunt will continue for yet another day.  By the end of the week, I’m determined to at least find something.

P.S. This is my first experience using Viddler and wow… Much nicer than YouTube.  YouTube certainly has its purpose on the internet and I think there is room for both.

written by Derek \\ tags: mahalo viddler