| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Eric Schmidt | ||||
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Eric Schmidt made an appearance on “The Colbert Report” last night to talk a little bit about his company’s algorithms, what it’s like to be a billionaire, and his “Want privacy? Change your name!” joke that no one on the planet seemed to get. It’s a funny, sort of awkward interview.
Wait, what? That was exactly my response when I first read the news that JetBlue was introducing new technology for in-flight Wi-Fi service, a new technology called a satellite. For those of you who can’t detect sarcasm, satellites aren’t new. They’ve been around a very long time. For some reason, it has taken this long for an airline to use satellite signals to deliver Wi-Fi access on a plane. Airlines currently offering Wi-Fi services get their signal from the ground.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that this is becoming more widespread. I don’t fly often, but when I do it certainly would be nice to keep up on some reading or even do a little bit of work. This serves to prove, though, just how in-the-box many industries are when it comes to modernizing their services. You’re 35,000 feet up with a clear shot at the upper atmosphere – why in god’s name would you use anything other than a satellite?
Over the weekend, news broke that a college journalism student had a little pissing match with Steve Jobs via email. The student, Chelsea Isaacs, emailed Jobs after Apple’s Media Relations department failed to return a phone call Isaacs made, essentially requesting an interview for a course paper. Jobs was curt with Isaacs, responding, “Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry,” and ending the conversation with, “Please leave us alone.”
So was Steve in the wrong? A lot of people are calling it some sort of PR tragedy, calling Jobs a dick (which he’s notorious for, anyway), and raising all sorts of hell. I know this won’t surprise you, but I’m with Steve.
First off, it’s called a “Media Relations” department for a reason. As a college student at Long Island University, Isaacs, you aren’t media. You’re just one of thousands of people calling Apple every single day with stupid questions that hold no bearing on the company’s ability to make money. Secondly, as a journalism student, you should know people won’t always call you back. In fact, people will rarely call you back, and though in this case it’s gotten a lot of press coverage, your name just made the “annoying bitches I shouldn’t talk to” list. Good luck getting those future phone calls returned. You can only write so many stories about how such-and-such company sucks because they wouldn’t call you back for your story. Your job is to get the story. You don’t get the story, you’re failing at your job. It’s pretty simple.
Isaacs, in all her wisdom, had this to say: “Under no circumstances should a person who runs a company speak to a customer that way. I’m just enraged and I want people to know this was done.” Again, I disagree. A lot of companies make enough money to alienate a few people, and frankly, I wouldn’t want her as a customer. This is exactly the circumstance under which a CEO should be politely telling a person to fuck off – when that person is aggressively trying to waste company time.
Data milestones can get a little, well, boring. While it is amazing that there have been billions of downloaded songs, and millions of Facebook accounts, and kajillions of whatever else is out there, the zeroes are getting a little overwhelming.
That said, services like Flickr, which are free and provide some very cool features to their users, deserve a bit of celebration. I could never have so clearly imagined the lives of close family members as I can because I can see pictures of where they live, work, and play. That’s why I’m willing to celebrate Flickr’s five billionth photo.
According to the Flickr blog, user “yeoaaron” uploaded image number 5,000,000,000 yesterday. Here’s to 5,000,000,000 more!
It’s been more than a year since Apple pulled Google Voice off the iPhone, but there’s finally reason to celebrate for Google Voice fans. Apple has approved at least one native app for the iPhone.
What does that mean? That means no more jailbreaking, no more hacks, no more ridiculous excuses from Apple about feature duplication and whatnot. It means you can use GV Connect – the app that was approved – to make calls, transcribe voicemails, send SMS messages, record conversations, star conversations, and notes to conversations and messages, and basically provide everything you want from Google Voice right on your phone.
All I can say is it’s about damn time. This is a solid year overdue. I almost understood Apple’s reasoning, especially when Google Voice was sort of new and confusing. A couple months after the initial rejection, though, and this thing should have been back in without question. Really, it probably never should have been pulled, but this wait has been long.
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