Bill Watt’s Blog

So- Alice has to ask me to enable the Tivo preferences so she can record the Olympics. Huh? So I log in and apparently I have to change my privacy options to enable this. Apparently this is part of the “guru guide” tools.

On one hand I can see this from the business side… smart to use such a stunt event to encourage use of this feature. On the other I hate having to give up personal usage stats (even though I understand it allows for better targeting / recommendations). But ultimately I assume Tivo is logging everything and my privacy is a myth anyway.

Yesterday and most of this week were excellent examples of suckness but also plenty of good stuff happened and that the suckness was a good reminder that I have nothing but first world problems.

Case in point… yesterday was full of stress over an impending release and a bunch of dropped balls. Still… I was able to work from home, attended several conf calls, and still managed to squeeze in Korean BBQ for lunch where I burned myself on the pot while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my shiny new iPhone. Rough life, right?

So, at one point I was looking for a little humor and a sense that I’m not alone in this big world of Product Management pain. What did I do? Why, I googled “day in the life of a product manager” and came across more than a few gems. Check out this post from “The Cranky Product Manager” and you’ll see the kind of mood I was in.

The nice thing was how the day ended. Release issues (the most important ones anyway) are nearly resolved with a light at the end of the tunnel and I was able to go to Gary Dillabough’s going away party at eBay and see many of my favorite old time eBay folks.

Note for Hima and Ramya- I think I’m actually a hugger after all. Never fear- your protected status is still in place.

It was quite comforting in a way I really really needed yesterday to see good folks and wish Gary well. Two notes to Gary…

1. Thanks for telling the FAIM acquisition story. Even thought it hurts on some grand spiritual level for me to think about how close we were to being a Web 1.0 success story with your parting the number of people that even remember FAIM dropped to about what I can count on two hands and the number of execs who know it dropped to 2. I’m sure in 6 months they’ll rebuild the large merchant strategy and not even realize what they’ve missed out on.
2. Keep me in mind in your future projects. I’d happily clean your pool.

So many people have written much longer and better posts than I have the will to do. Suffice it to say that I love the iPhone with the exception of the battery life and the keyboard being worse than what I had on the Blackberry.

In early July I was sitting there watching TV with Alice and I have to tell you… I don’t think I’m watching live TV again. Good lord… as if the commercials weren’t painful enough the whole Bachelorette show is now one commercial mixed with little pregnant pauses and uncomfortable situations.

What do I want in a TV show (a short list anyway):

• fun or at least something with a story
• watch it when I want
• sometimes I want to take it with me (for the train or when I know I need to fill some time)

What don’t I want:

• dramas or silly reality like the Bachelorette (older Real World seasons were better than this last round in Hollywood)
• shows where commercials are 75% of the show content (pick any number of examples from Idol to any special episode of a normal show)
• awkward and manufactured setups that show the worst parts of the people featured
• Pseudo-celebrities manufactured involving vapid nouveau riche socialites who want their faces on TV (just look at the new Bravo show Date my Ex or Real Housewives of NYC (my previous post on a new show idea)

Ok… just a quick note to let the world know how vindicated I feel! Alice is on her “sabbatical” and every day I come home or time I call she is in the middle of using the AppleTV, the Roku. the xBox 360 to watch HD DVD’s, or using her iPod touch at the gym. I’ll continue to be excited about this right up to the day when she’s playing Warcraft.

Reviews and observations later today

Oh boy… I love new toys and the iPhone ranks right up there on things I look forward to buying.

Why am I transitioning:

• I’ve had an iPod touch since they came out and I like the interface.
• The enhancements they’ve made (sync to corp email and 3g speed enhancement) make the timing feel about right.
• I’m going to get it setup so I can use it as a connection for my laptop to the internet so I can work while on the train or when I travel.

Why ditch the blackberry that I have loved for about 9 years?

• Interface hasn’t changed much and we’re in an innovation world
• Things like always connected email as the norm. Even as blackberry continues to be the best at that… there is so much more going on. I find myself looking up Twitter posts, going for directions, and all kinds of stuff that are easy on the web and annoying (yet possible) on hte blackberry.
• My job has changed from eBay and FairMarket where I was primary contact and needed to type long responses. At Current there is a team that handles the support and I just dabble with answering escalations. As I learn more I’ll do more but we don’t have much in the way of off hours support that I can be helpful in answering. (Alice likes the change where the pager is not going off at 2AM)
• AT&T was already charging me the same price to have a Blackberry so it will be a lateral cost move to get the iPhone.
• One last thing that was outside the control of RIM - my company has done a miserable job getting the blackberry to work with Exchange (frankly, all of our email functions blow) so working with the iPhone can’t be worse. Seriously.

I’ll let you know when I get it and if it improves my life. But mark my words… they better not come out with a 32GB model 1 month after I buy the 16GB model. Grrr.

As much as I love and crave physical world interactions I do have most of my day to day connections via the web, email, IM, twitter, facebook, and on and on. Unlike many people I actually love that. It isn’t that I’m replacing people with virtual connections but instead that I’m extending ability to interact with folks using all these tools. The interesting thing is how many new relationships this has opened up. People I would never have known I know follow through twitter. I interact with celebrities and presidential candidates in ways my grandfather would never believe. And staying in touch or reconnecting with people from my childhood is now as close as a super poke (or tossing a cow at them!).

Anyway- I posted earlier about watching Teri Garr on Dave Letterman and how amazing she is. When I got home tonight I found a very nice email waiting for me from a woman who had seen my blog post appear in a Google Alert for brain aneurysms. She thanked me for posting because she doesn’t get a chance to watch Letterman often (neither would I if it weren’t for DVR’s) and let me know she had added the clip to her blog for others to see. Check out her post about the Teri Garr interview.

I would encourage you to check out Heidi’s blog(s).

I’m assuming we’ve all had the experience where people find out we work at a place, belong to a club, or know something about something and as soon as people find out they start to associate you with the experience they had with the thing. Working for eBay turned out to be the single biggest generator of those experiences I ever had. We’d be at Starbucks and people would see the work badge and want to talk about a problem they had on eBay. Going to a wedding in Pittsburgh, PA I ended up having a round table with users about their experiences on the site. (Starting to see why Alice thinks all I do is work?)

So, it isn’t a big shock when I open up the laptop this morning to find this IM:

[09:56] friend: i had possibly the worst experience i’ve ever had trying to do something online yesterday
[09:56] friend: trying to sell something on ebay
[09:56] friend: i hold you personally responsible
[09:56] friend: i would like those hours of my life back please

Which is a pretty funny version of what I hear all the time. So, as funny as that is on a personal level it is pretty annoying considering eBay has been doing this for so long.

And here’s the real issue… as eBay moves to compete more directly with Amazon (based on all the news I’m reading this is the direction they’re heading… good luck with that) the seller experience is going to matter and the buyer experience can’t stay the way it is either. There have been posts and discussions for the last couple years about this (see this interview with Andre) but I think the world has changed quite a bit since then. We’re Web 2.0 now and customization by vertical or by experience is likely quite a bit easier than it was in 2004.

I shop eBay when I want a deal. I shop Amazon when I want something of higher quality, when I’m looking for a suggestion or thoughtful product comparison, or want the thing immediately. eBay is still for the bargain hunter while Amazon has done a better job of providing me the best retail experience without needing to talk to people.

Also, if you were to believe Ryan Spoon then Amazon became the 2nd coming as soon as they figure out how to get him his razors and toilet paper.

OK… day 1 with the new toy is done and here is my review:

It rocks!

Setup was incredibly easy.  It really does take about 3 min to unpack and connect and another 3 min to enable including a firmware update. It is silent because it has no hard drive or fans or anything like that so I think Alice is going to love it too.

Now, when I first turned it on I was sitting at the end of the bed and was very close to the TV. It was a little rough given the 480 resolution and all the other things that are hooked up are at least 780 but generally 1080. I sat back, closed my eyes, reset my expectations, and when I opened my eyes it was all good. I am looking forward to the day they offer HD content but this will certainly do for now.

So- if you have a Netflix account with at least an $8 / month account then I will suggest that you consider spending the $99 and buying this toy. You won’t get all the movies ever but it is wonderful for those weekends when you want to watch something spur of the moment without all the crap from Comcast.