Not On Google's Chrome Netbook List? There's Always eBay.

Even for Google, this week was a big one in terms of announcements. In the first two days, the company unveiled its new Nexus S smartphone, running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), powered by Samsung, and also introduced the new Chrome OS, running on custom Google hardware, along with the much awaited Chrome Web app store.

Interestingly, the distribution of the CR-48 netbooks looks to be limited to about 60,000 units to the bleeding edge early adopters who don't mind things being a little wonky. Unsurprisingly, one of the devices is already on eBay, sporting a price tag of nearly $600.

One more exclamation point, and I'll bid $1,000.

You can't log into an RSS reader or view your Tweet stream without bumping into a tech blogger or influencer who was in Google's good graces and managed to get early access to the first deployment of Google's Web-centric OS with the Chrome Web browser at its core. Shortly after the announcement, many more said they had received e-mail notification they would be soon getting one, and other fans flooded the company's pilot program to fill out a form claiming why they would be worthy to act as a willing beta tester for the Mountain View giant.

The CR-48 Lacks Stickers and Branding. It's Stealthy.

Given the demand and intrigue in the CR-48, it's no surprise those on the outside looking in would want to find a surefire way to try out the netbook, without crossing their fingers and waiting for a blessing from Google proper. On the flip side, it is a little surprising that at least one of those who somehow qualified as a trusted tester is instead trying out the gray market to make a buck.

A few hours into the five day auction, the first two bids have pushed the price up to $560, with $50 shipping in the US. This compares to the price for a new 14-inch Dell Inspiron with 4 GB RAM, a 500 GB Hard Drive, and a 2.4 GHz Intel chip, running Windows 7 Home, on Amazon, retailing for just about $600. There's obviously a premium for getting something first, even if you are getting a netbook with no local storage and an unproven OS.

If you aren't worried about the price and just want to get yourself a new CR-48, take out your credit card and head to eBay. If you think it's a scam, maybe you'll be comforted by the seller's 88 previous sales, and 100% feedback rating. And no, I'm not bidding. I can wait.

eBay No Bargain for Nexus Ones, Pricing Well Above Market

In the wake of Google's Nexus One introduction on Tuesday, many tech writers were abuzz not just about the company's new self-branded Android model, but the ease of how the product was being sold, at http://www.google.com/phone, and with the option to select an unlocked model, one with a T-Mobile contract, or soon, bundled with contracts from Verizon or Vodafone. Some saw the move as Google's big step into e-commerce, letting you buy the phone direct from them, and not through a carrier. But this hasn't stopped some aggressive folks from flipping the phones on eBay, where excited buyers are ignoring the sticker price, and plowing well beyond the $529 offering (for an unlocked phone), resulting in no bargain at all.


Google Will Give You an Unlocked Nexus One for $529
It isn't much of a surprise to see Nexus Ones springing up on eBay so soon after the launch. Be they phones from Google employees themselves, from those who attended the press junket, or just fast buyers, it's common to see people send them to the popular auction site in a chance to make a few bucks. But bidders who see the price crest toward $529, should they be savvy enough to know about the Nexus One, probably should be savvy enough to know they aren't getting a great deal.

If you look at Nexus One offerings on eBay, you can see many phones offered to "Buy It Now" for about $750, but those aren't getting a whole lot of bids. In fact, most are at zero. But you scroll a bit lower, to the $650 level, with time remaining, and you can see bids happening, as folks are paying premiums of $100 or more for the privilege of buying on eBay instead of from Google directly.

Just $810 Gets You a Nexus One on eBay

No... it doesn't make much sense to me either. I even found one auction that closed this evening where the final price for a Nexus One soared to $810, a premium of nearly $300.


Or You Could Pay Almost $700 In A Different Nexus One Option...
Google has also made links to the Nexus One phone visible on the Google.com home page. Some are noting the new "ad" on the site, which in conjunction with the Chrome dropdown if you aren't using their browser, makes two house ads. But it looks like even this promotion isn't getting to those who don't know they can go direct and save themselves some cash. That's what happens when a hot product hits a market and people want to get their hands on one fast, to be first in line. Forget rationality. They just want it ASAP.

Meg Whitman's eBay Resume a Target In CA Governor Race

Although there is a full month left before the calendar flips to 2010, candidates for next year's gubernatorial candidacy in California are already lining up to take the state's top spot when Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves office. Among them is Silicon Valley notable Meg Whitman, whose years at the helm of eBay are being made the centerpiece for much of her promotional advertising, including radio spots and a good part of her online presence. Early polls have her tied with repeat runner Jerry Brown at 41% in a hypothetical matchup. But as great a story as eBay has been, the company's focus just lends itself to creative opponents and speechwriters.

Start with the tagline... Will Meg Put Your Children's Future Up for Auction?

Of course, replacing "your children's future" with "your business" or "your home" or whatever your favorite buzzword is still works.

And don't forget what auctions are all about... Selling out to the Highest Bidder. Without saying I think Meg is any better or any worse than Brown, in a world of politics where lobbyists are frowned upon and outside influence is distrusted, one could spin Meg's approach to politics or issues as doing just that.

After all, can't you just name a "Buy It Now" price at eBay? What is the price for a politician?

Whitman's bio, an impressive record including her education at Princeton and a Harvard MBA, floats through her work with Bain & Co., Stride Rite, Procter and Gamble, FTD, Hasbro and Disney - talking about her taking what ended up bring a dream job, when she joined eBay in 1998, and delivered an "unparalleled business success story", saying she "revolutionized the way goods are bought, sold and paid-for on line."

There is no question eBay changed the game online - managing to fight off competition from Amazon, Yahoo! and others - an unquestioned success. But if I were in politics, I would highlight the fact that eBay is the place to take old junk you don't want any more, or a place to find last year's models today. Meg Whitman's audio ads are talking about "change", just like every other politician talks about change to elicit voter interest, even as eBay's current campaign says things like "This season's shows still look great on last season's HD TV."

While it's easy to anticipate GOP opposition targeting Brown, who served from 1975-83 in the role of governor, as recycling old ideas, being tied so much to a company that champions this very thing doesn't exactly put Whitman in the driver's seat in terms of next generation forward-looking thinking.

Additionally, during Whitman's tenure at eBay, at 2005, the company very visibly purchased Skype for $3.1 billion. While the company also purchased PayPal on her watch, which has been a fantastic success, the majority of Skype was sold from eBay earlier this year, with a valuation well under that mark, after the deal never really made sense after years of stalling. Brown and other opponents' handlers could see the Skype buy as a costly billion dollar gamble that distracted eBay from its core business. With California being in such budget peril these days, it's a story that almost writes itself.

Regardless of your political leanings, it is clear these kinds of comparisons are going to come up. And lest you think we have moved on in politics away from soundbites and taglines, we haven't. If Whitman becomes the GOP candidate, or a front-runner, eBay could be as much a hindrance as it ever was a benefit. Her opponents should be dreaming of fun taglines, and her team should be getting ready to respond when they do.

My 2008 Tech Predictions Look Bad As Year Nears a Close

It's a year-end tradition for many media, blogs and individuals, to predict what will happen over the next year. Some prefer to make their guesses fairly straight-forward in an effort to be right (Example: Apple will release new notebooks with a faster processor at MacWorld) and others will make their guesses seemingly outlandish, so that if they're right, they're seen as virtual psychics. Others, somewhere in between. At the conclusion of 2007, I made ten predictions that I thought would be fun, and as we're coming on the one year anniversary of that post, it's a good thing you didn't bet your home mortgage on my list. (What? You say there are other issues with your mortgage? Oh.)

See: 10 Predictions for 2008 In the World of Tech

In the spirit of reducing my ego, here are how those ten predictions in the world of tech stand:

1) Google Will Trump Both TechMeme and FeedHeads

Wrong. I expected that Google would start to tabulate its shared items and most popular feeds via Google Reader, and that using this data, Google could provide a democratic version of Techmeme, or at least pull Feedheads outside of Facebook. Instead of Google doing this however, it was ReadBurner, followed by RSSMeme and others, including Feedheads, who started a site at www.feedheads.com. Later in the year, Google Blog Search did introduce the option to show hot topics in tech, but it's largely been a stale effort. At this point, Techmeme is still more important than Google in this regard, and Google Reader has declined to show most popular feeds or shared items.

(Disclosure: I am an advisor to ReadBurner and took the position in August.)

2) Facebook Will Buy Digg in an All-Stock Transaction

Wrong. I thought Facebook would use its expensive stock and buy up some smaller companies. Digg continually sounded like it was shopping itself, but it never sold, and the company's CEO often denied talks were occuring with anyone. Also, given the stock market crash, Facebook is no doubt valued much lower these days, making a stock transaction less likely.

3) eBay Will Sell StumbleUpon to Yahoo! or News Corporation

Wrong. So Far. In September, TechCrunch and others reported that eBay planned to sell StumbleUpon, but no sale has taken place yet. At this point, also, with Yahoo! crumbling, they are less likely to take on the service.

4) Twitter Will Add Video, Photography Support

Wrong. Twitter focused on growing and not crashing this year. Still just text.

5) Apple Boot Camp Will Morph to Be Like Parallels, VMWare Fusion

Wrong. I hardly hear anything about Boot Camp these days, likely because VMWare Fusion and Parallels have become entrenched, and nobody cared about Apple's "restart" alternative. My comment that Apple would "slowly take over the market" in this space also looks quite dumb, as did the expectation that Windows applications could boot alongside Mac apps. The question is, why not?

6) At Least One Major Browser Will Embed Ad-Blocking

Wrong. And it's too bad! Sure would change things a bit if somebody could figure out how to check a box and have graphical ads or text ads disappear.

7) Assetbar and FriendFeed Will Gain Early Adopter Audiences

Wrong and Right. AssetBar, in its attempt to replace Google Reader, failed fast. FriendFeed, however, did much better than I could have guessed at the time I wrote the post. Obviously, I played a small role in evangelizing FriendFeed through it coming out of beta in early 2008, but it got bigger than even I expected. My comment saying that "neither would be acquired by the end of 2008" did manage to be true.

8) Video Blogging Will Remain Unpopular, Unprofitable

Right. While there are some bloggers who prefer video and are using it, from Robert Scoble at FastCompany TV to Loic LeMeur at Seesmic, it hasn't become as second-nature as standard blogging or mciroblogging. And so far as I know, nobody is making money on this in a consistent way.

9) iTunes Video Rentals Will Decimate Netflix, Blockbuster, Hurt Box Office

Mostly Wrong. Netflix didn't blink against iTunes' charge. They instead branched out with their "watch instantly" feature and partnered up with TiVo and others. Blockbuster is still a disaster, and I certainly am not going to the box office thanks to so many alternatives. But iTunes video rentals cannot be said to have hit Netflix and others all that much.

10) Fast Company Will be a Fast Stay for Robert Scoble

Wrong, So Far. Robert joined FastCompany at the beginning of the year, and is putting up some interesting content. That said, FastCompany has seen changes in focus and leadership, and I am curious to see how his show evolves in 2009. Scoble continues to be a mainstay on the social Web and at industry events of course, so even if 2009 sees him somewhere else, it won't be far from the limelight.

So wasn't that fun? Now you see you can largely ignore my predictions, or maybe, I should try harder to be right. Maybe, if I'm good, I can put a 2009 prediction list up by the end of the year...

30 Different Uses for RSS

By Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed)


I'm making an effort to become less reliant on visiting websites for the data I need. Spending a majority of my time in Google Reader, I decided RSS could help me accomplish this task. I no longer have to visit Yahoo to read my horoscopes or sports scores. I now track my Ebay auctions from Google Reader. These are some of the ways I started to recently use and rediscover RSS.

This post touches on 30 different ways RSS can be used.

1) Tabbloid is a "hatchling" project that comes to us from Hewlett-Packard. It's a very simple and useful utility that turns your RSS feeds into a personal magazine via PDF format. You can generate your PDF files on the website, or have them emailed to you.

2) Track deals for hotel and airline fares at Expedia,Travelocity,Orbitz and Kayak.

3) iTunes music store RSS generator allows you to set up notifications based on your genre for new releases, top songs, top albums, featured albums and exclusives.

4) Track your favorite sports team news and game scores at Yahoo Sports. Basketball | Baseball | NFL | Hockey

5) Simpletracking.com lets you view the latest tracking information from all the major US shipping carriers. No need to go directly to the carrier's website anymore. Get notified when your package tracking information has changed directly from your feed reader.

6) Create customized news feeds and track specific keywords. You can get a feed for any search you do on Google News. First do any search on Google News, then simply use the Atom or RSS link on the left-hand side of your search results page to generate the feed. Here is what my FriendFeed Google news feed looks like.

7) Track your favorite online comics strips. Tapestry Comics maintains an RSS directory of comic strip feeds. Dilbert, xkcd and several hundred more feeds can be found here.

8) Create customized Ebay auction search feeds. Keep track of Ebay auctions with ease.

9) Set up custom feeds for job searches using the Indeed job search engine. As with Google News, the process is the same. RSS job feeds are automatically generated on the search results pages.

10) Get real time reports about current traffic incidents in your area. Traffic.com delivers RSS feeds of traffic information for most major U.S. cities.

11) Be notified of severe weather warnings and advisories for the United States, issued by the National Weather Service.

12) Get notified of the latest movie and dvd releases courtesy of Movies.com.

13) Get notified of current airport delay courtesy of Flightstats.com.

14) Listen to the President of the United States radio addresses.

15) Get the latest NASA news articles and press releases.

16) Read your Daily Horoscopes.

17) Send RSS feeds to Twitter using TwitterFeed.TwitterFeed is a simple utility that will check an RSS feed for updates and send them to Twitter accordingly.

18) Get notified of RSS feed updates via SMS messages sent to your phone.

19) Convert RSS feeds to audio recordings. You can also subscribe to them as podcasts via iTunes, and download your recordings as an mp3 file.

20) View the latest public pictures being uploaded to Flickr. You can also generate custom RSS feeds based on a multitude of parameters detailed here.

21) Generate custom Picasa RSS feeds for your family pictures. You can also generate feeds from public pictures. All search result pages will generate an RSS feed for that keyword. Here is one I set up for "Dogs."

22) View the real time public Twitter time line. You can also get your Twitter account time line by going to your Twitter profile page. Scroll to the bottom right of your profile page and you will see an RSS link located there.

23) Keep track of your recently played Last.fm tracks. Replace mfruchter with your Last.fm user name. ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/mfruchter/recenttracks.rss

24) Keep track of what you and your friends are bookmarking. If you wanted to find out what Louis Gray has bookmarked recently, you could go to his FriendFeed or Delicious url. Better yet you could check your Google Reader. To find yours or a specific Delicious user's RSS feed, simply goto their Delicious profile page and scroll to the bottom right of the page where you will see an RSS icon. You can also generate custom RSS for specific keywords/tags. All tag search result pages will have a corresponding RSS feed option. Here is one I set up to track of all recent public bookmarks tagged "twitter."

25) Watch the most viewed YouTube videos of the day. You can also customize this to your liking based on this criteria.

26) Keep track of new products on Amazon.com. Never miss when new items become available. You can generate an RSS feed for just about any product category Amazon has to offer.

27) Try an RSS feed matching service to find new feeds based on your interests. One that comes to mind is Toluu. Toluu allows you to upload your existing OPML file to their service, they in-turn will match you to new feeds and members who share similar preferences in feeds.

28) View all of your publicly shared RSS items on one web page. This is a great built in feature of Google Reader. Any item you star or share is automatically saved on a public html page that Google generates for you. Here is what my shared page looks like. To see the public page containing your shared items, click the "Shared items" link in your Google Reader. You'll see a list of everything you've chosen to share, along with a link to the page where they are displayed.

29) Use Google Reader as a new tool for microblogging. With the ability to “share” or “share with note" option in Google Reader, you can leave comments and invite conversation on posts you publicly share. Aggregate Google Shared items into a site like FriendFriend, so others can voice their thoughts as well.

30) Get the best of FriendFeed without ever going to the actual site. FriendFeed generates RSS feeds for almost every user function of the site. You can view your mainfeed as well as your, comments and like feeds in Google Reader. Have you created any topical lists? You can get RSS feeds for your lists too. I have found this function particularly useful as I can now track my "social media whales" list in RSS. Often I spend more time in Google Reader then I do on FriendFeed. RSS gives me a backup and safety net, so nothing goes under the radar.

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.

Get the Google Chrome Comic Book, Support Two Great Charities

Earlier this week, Google launched their new Web browser, Chrome, in a unique way - explaining what's a very technical product in the most user friendly way they could, by using a comic book. While the Web version of this book has been linked to time and again, print copies of the book are very rare, distributed to those who Google determined were top press targets, both online and off. The Inquisitr's Duncan Riley received one, and rather than put the book on his mantle, he's auctioning off the potential collectors' item for charity, in what has to be seen as a win/win scenario.

You can bid on auction yourself via eBay, and Riley has offered the full proceeds to be split between Beth Kanter and Beyond Blue.


A frame from the Chrome comic
More details can be found on Riley's post on the subject, but he has said he'd be delighted if the two charities could split proceeds greater than $1,000. It's an interesting opportunity to get your hands on a piece of Web history and provide aid to those who need it. And if you're not interested enough to bid up the auction, maybe my own initial bid will stand up. You see... I'm not big enough for Google to have sent me one, so I'm headed to eBay for Duncan's copy. See if you can outbid me here: http://bit.ly/ebaychrome.

10 Predictions for 2008 In the World of Tech

1) Google Will Trump Both TechMeme and FeedHeads

Amid the discussion of Google's sneaking in a social network, little has been said about Google Reader potentially tabulating and reporting the most commonly-shared items and most popular feeds. I believe that in 2008, Google Reader will start reporting the most popular feeds, clicked items and shared items. By the end of 2008, it will become equally important for bloggers, if not more so, to be atop this list, instead of on TechMeme. Google will also integrate this information for both Facebook and iPhone, competing head to head with Mario Romero's excellent Feedheads application.

2) Facebook Will Buy Digg in an All-Stock Transaction

With the company being valued at $15 billion, Facebook can offer around 5 percent of the company to Kevin Rose and team at Digg and net them pre-IPO shares of what's sure to be a white-hot 2009 offering. The all-stock transaction would value Digg above $500 million, the highest possible exit for the company. Public companies, including Microsoft, will counter with $300 million of real money and be rebuffed.

3) eBay Will Sell StumbleUpon to Yahoo! or News Corporation

eBay has done absolutely nothing with StumbleUpon since the service's $75 million acquisition. Unlike PayPal, which was a natural fit, StumbleUpon has no fit within the ecosystem of eBay. A more acquisition-savvy businesses, like Yahoo! or News Corp, will end up with the property by the end of the year. Expect this to accelerate alongside management changes at eBay and continued fallout after the Skype disaster. What it will do is pocket eBay some serious cash. This time, StumbleUpon goes for north of $200M.

4) Twitter Will Add Video, Photography Support

Moving outside of its 140-character niche, Twitter will enable bored microbloggers to show exactly what they are doing with still photos and 15 second video clips. Despite the novelty wearing off, many will continue to do so, gaining us precious photos of the window over their computer desk, overexposed facial closeups and pictures of their breakfast. The service will be integrated with Picasa, Flickr and Photobucket.

5) Apple Boot Camp Will Morph to Be Like Parallels, VMWare Fusion

Some time in 2008, Apple's Boot Camp application will no longer require a restart to run Windows applications. Users will be able to natively run Microsoft Outlook, Project, Access and all other Windows-only applications alongside their Mac OS X applications on any new Mac. While developers may decry the competition to Parallels and VMWare Fusion, Apple will remain quiet, and slowly take over the market.

6) At Least One Major Browser Will Embed Ad-Blocking

By the end of 2008, either Firefox, Safari or Opera will natively ship with the ability to block all ad banners and Google AdSense. Publishers and bloggers will make a lot of noise about it, while secretly avoiding ads themselves. A significant percentage of early adopters will change browsers solely for this feature.

7) Assetbar and FriendFeed Will Gain Early Adopter Audiences

Early adopters always looking for an edge will move away from Bloglines and Google Reader in search for something more cutting-edge. Many will turn to FriendFeed and Assetbar, following the latter's launch, to find a rich feed reader with social networking features. However, neither service will enjoy a significant market share prior to the end of 2008, and neither will be acquired by the end of 2008.

8) Video Blogging Will Remain Unpopular, Unprofitable

Despite advances in video capture and broadband speeds, Web users will not gravitate toward long-form video blogs, choosing instead to stick with text and photography. Only the rare extreme niche businesses will find any success with utilizing video for blogging.

9) iTunes Video Rentals Will Decimate Netflix, Blockbuster, Hurt Box Office

The introduction of video rentals on iTunes will not only force a dramatic subscriber exit for Netflix and reduced rentals at Blockbuster, but will also further slow attendance at movie theaters nationwide, as consumers find the service good enough, and much less inexpensive than a night out.

10) Fast Company Will be a Fast Stay for Robert Scoble

After joining FastCompany in early 2008, Robert Scoble will be at first jubilant, have initial success, and then plateau. While he will remain tremendously popular, there will already be discussions by the end of 2008 as to where he will end up in 2009, giving ValleyWag and Uncov, among others, plenty to gossip about.

Other 2008 predictions:
Jeremy Toeman: Technology Predictions for 2008
Paris Lemon: The Year Ahead 2008: 17 Predictions
The Economist: Technology in 2008
Mahalo: 2008 Technology Predictions
Center Networks: 2008 Predictions from CenterNetworks

eBay Locks Me Out for My Own Good

I must receive dozens of fake phishing scam e-mails a week, from spammers who think I'm dumb enough to log in to their fraudulent Web sites to enter my login and password, whether for eBay or PayPal, Amazon or Wells Fargo. I even get junk e-mail asking me to update my information for banks I've never had anything to do with, including Bank of America, Washington Mutual, and others. That's why when I received a note from eBay on July 31st saying my account had been compromised and locked down, I deleted it. Obviously spam.

So last night, I tried to log in to eBay and it didn't work. And it wasn't an issue with my memory. I've used the same login/password combination on eBay since 1998, and I was sure I had it right.

I hit the "Forgot Password" button, and eBay asked me to get two of three things right, my mother's maiden name, my zipcode, and my primary phone number. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Mother's maiden name I got right away, but if you keep in mind I registered my eBay account almost 10 years ago, I've moved a few times since, from my shared apartment in Berkeley to Belmont, Palo Alto and now, here in Sunnyvale. So I had to try a few zip code combinations, not to mention phone numbers. Those changed too.

Eventually, I figured it out, and luckily, the e-mail I had on file at eBay was current, or that would be yet another mess. Now back in eBay, I had a note that said "It appears the password for your eBay account may have recently become compromised. As a result of this, we have reset your password and secret question." That's why I had been locked out. But I didn't see any odd bidding, so I have no idea what triggered the issue.

Now, I have a new password. And now, unfortunately, this just may make me look at the phishing e-mail scams as if they might actually be real, and that's not an improvement. Although I have the utmost respect for Web leaders like eBay, Paypal and Amazon, I have to imagine the fraud business dramatically impacts their ability to do e-mail marketing and customer service, and that must be incredibly frustrating.