Verizon's Big Year Is Much More than Just iPhone

After years of living in the barren AT&T wilderness, iPhone fans and desperate would-be switchers are eagerly awaiting the widelyreported planned announcement that Verizon will finally make it to the iPhone 4. Depending on who you read, it's thought the availability of iPhone in CDMA wearing a new carrier's clothes could boost Apple by another 10 million units. A good number of those will no doubt come from existing iPhone users switching to AT&T, while many more could be net new - a patient bunch who kept their loyalty to Verizon, and avoided AT&T, no matter their curiosity into the iOS. Part of me wants to be skeptical that this will goose sales as much as anticipated, but I've long learned to always pick the "over" when it comes to Apple.

That said, the iPhone is just one bit of good news for Verizon, which is becoming a go-to partner for some of the more intriguing devices elsewhere in the early adopter tech geek ecosystem. The ChromeOS-based CR-48 notebooks from Google come with a bundled Verizon 3G card, which offers freeloaders like myself 100 MB of bandwidth a month before even paying a dime. More costs extra, of course. Additionally, Verizon is going to be the go-to-market partner for Motorola's new Xoom tablet, which I saw demoed at CES this morning, and was awarded best in show.

CES was draped in banners from Sprint touting their 4G experience. It's what I use on the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Samsung Epic 4G as well. Sprint has done well for my family, after we switched from AT&T and iPhone simultaneously this summer. But Verizon looks like the much-desired partner for the elite products, and when exclusives come up, Verizon is there.

Following up on my introductory post last week to the CR-48, I gave the notebook a run as being my primary device all of CES. I turned on the 3G access from Verizon yesterday morning, and took the laptop everywhere, avoiding power plugs, to test the battery, and disabling WiFi. Unsurprisingly, the laptop gave at least 8 hours of use without a charge, and the 3G speed from Verizon has been plenty fast, from the hotel, from the otherwise-congested CES event, and now at the Las Vegas airport.

Obviously, the CR-48 trial units are early days for the device. One would assume that if Google wanted to provide a strong experience for users, they chose partners carefully - as did Motorola. Verizon will also be there with the new Droid Bionic, which is expected to ship after the iPhone hits stores, possibly as soon as the end of the month.

My experience with Verizon on the CR-48 has been nice. While I haven't tested out a wide variety of geographies, I've never suffered for coverage, and the CR-48 is smart enough to tell me just how much data I have left on the free plan before I'd be asked to pay up. I've managed to crank out 75 MB of use in two days, so I have 25 left. If I were to turn off WiFi permanently, and just use the device over 3G, obviously, I would need a bigger plan and would be sending some dollars Verizon's way. The convenience of anywhere high-speed Internet can't be understated, of course. Behind Diet Coke, it's probably my #1 addiction.

We've learned to live in multi-vendor homes with tablets and phones and laptops everywhere. But for the most part, I think folks are sticking with a single carrier. Is it common to be paying out to T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon each month? Probably not. If Verizon manages to continue as the go-to partner for Android, and can add on its share of tablets and notebooks, as well as the iPhone (finally), you could be seeing the kind of subscriber and revenue growth for them that AT&T has been getting the past few years thanks to Apple's exclusivity.

As for me? I've still got 24 MB on this free plan, and once I hit zero, it's either WiFi, or I add Verizon to my list of monthly bills. My wife will love that.

There Are No iPad Killers, Only iPad Alternatives

Tomorrow I will arrive fashionably late to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Arriving ahead of me have already been a number of tablets, including new additions from Samsung, including a WiFi-only Galaxy Tab, and Motorola's much-anticipated Xoom, running Android 3.0, Honeycomb, designed for tablets, not phones. The new devices, especially the new Xoom are being talked up as serious iPad alternatives, or "killers" if you're crazy. But guess what? None of them are going to kill the iPad. In fact, it's more than probable that Apple is not only going to end 2011 as the unit leader in tablets sold (from any one manufacturer), but will set quarterly sales records for the company - which has been on an incredible roll, potentially poised to be the most valuable company in the world, ranked by market capitalization.

As any tech watcher knows, sheer specifications and feature counts do not "kill" anybody or promise a "win". I personally really enjoy the Samsung Galaxy Tab and have been using it much more than my iPads. I also think Android is great on both phones and tablets, and the Honeycomb preview shown by Google today is impressive. But there's something special about Apple that ensures people remain loyal, and the iPad has defined the market, with others following their lead. John Gruber of Daring Fireball called it "emotion". I simply call it preference. Many people have a very strong preference toward Apple, and this will continue in the face of larger screens, thinner bezels, and faster CPUs.

One of the major features listed regarding the Xoom is its dual-core 1 GHz processor. Do you even think the average iPad user knows the speed of their device?

Despite my public switch to Android, I'm not blind to Apple's continued advantages in some areas and fantastic successes. There's no secret that Apple does some things better than any other company on the planet. One of the most important things they do best is the no-hassle user experience. Apple devices make it incredibly simple to synchronize digital media libraries, including music and photos, address book contacts, Safari bookmarks and much more. When you plug one Apple device into another, you expect it to be recognized, and for the data to be easily accessible. That's one of the benefits of their closed and controlled ecosystem, which doesn't, like alternative platforms, need the carrier and manufacturer to all work together and sing Kumbaya. The simplicity, combined with high quality hardware and software, is extremely compelling to a good portion of the buying population.

Sales reports from the most recent quarter said the Galaxy Tab, with its non tablet optimized OS, sold a solid 1.5 million units. That's pretty good! But analyst predictions are pegging the iPad to sell as many as 30 to 65 million units in 2011, and rumors are already buzzing about the features in iPad 2, which is assumed to trail CES and steal away thunder from this week's announcements.

Here's a fail-safe prediction for 2011. There are no iPad killers, just like there were no iPhone killers or iPod killers before them over the last decade. Apple has carved out an extremely lucrative niche focused on good products. The iPad was required to carve open the market for tablets, which had gone practically nowhere until Apple jumped into the fray. With all the different Android tablets (and yes, some Windows tablets as well) out there, 2011 is going to see a lot of comparisons of market share and unit counts. The iPad will probably see its share eroded significantly, just like iOS has flatlined, under assault from a flotilla of Android phones. But Apple is going to continue selling millions of iPads every quarter, and they are going to be preferred by a ton of people.

I am excited about the innovation in this space, and the speed of which we are seeing the Android-based iPad alternatives compete. I expect to see some fantastic hardware starting tomorrow and Friday at CES that doesn't sport the Apple logo. Competition will absolutely push both sides better and further than they would on their own. But like I said ten days ago, it all comes down to preference, and the specifications of the new devices at CES aren't going to make most iPad owners blink. The war is not to convert those who are already drinking from Cupertino's vat of holy water, but instead, to persuade those who haven't yet adopted tablets to consider something else.

There are no iPad killers, only new choices and choice is a fantastic thing.

We Need a Tech Intelligence Bubble - Value Going Viral

One of the more interesting things, at least to me, that came to mind when highlighting the top ten Web services I used last year was how boringly mundane and adult some of them were. You'd think my highlighting sites like Mint.com, Zillow and Redfin, along with discovery staples like Google Reader, Twitter and Icerocket would prove me to be an old man with responsibilities, not a fun-loving hipster out to have a good time and be sure the world had photos to show how much less fun they were having. But the issue is not so much that I've gotten old and stodgy, only that in a recursive state, sites that have value deliver value. I think we have practically reached a saturation point on the Web with enough places to play games, enough places to share photos, enough places to engage in public or private chats and enough places to find new people.

What is needed now is a doubling down on intelligence, or at least a way to improve our abilities to be better people, better employees, or simply better educated. The promise of something like Quora is not that it's another social network to chat, but that it has the potential to be a valuable resource for discovery, presuming the community allows it to do so, instead of a slip to mediocrity through popularity. The value of Redfin and Zillow is that I can be a smarter homeowner or buyer. The value of Mint.com is that I can budget my money in a better way. Just tonight, my wife and I tapped into our Mint.com history to build a shared Google Docs spreadsheet and track our expenditures versus income, to see if we were on track. (Diagnosis: day to day)

I understand the fun of niche products like Instagram and Path, which have seen incredible traction, even if they are not for me. I see the ballooning of Zynga and cringe at how many -Villes the game factory can cook up, at the expense of its users' productivity and money. I have enjoyed Foursquare, even if I am still waiting for the "aha!" moment that transitions it from novelty to resource. I watch others debate apps like Foodspotting and think maybe I'd rather go hungry. I watch the buzz around Groupon, and can't say I've ever used one of their coupons, as their page asks me to commit to twice the fun at half the price.

The question is - what can we do to better ourselves and become even more efficient and knowledgeable, rather than building an improved time-waster with increased virality?

I use Google Reader and Twitter to find news relevant to my interests and to take in as much information as possible so I can make smarter decisions or insight. If sources become less useful, they get cut. The initial attraction to FriendFeed way back in 2007 was the same deal - get all updates in one place in the name of efficiency. The site became even more intriguing due to unfiltered discussions from early Googlers before becoming the much more casual network it is now. Facebook is what it is. It's humongous - a practically unstoppable force of people's actions and likes. The challenge comes from staring into the stream and finding the pieces useful to me. That's part of what Ev Williams told Om Malik when he discussed the challenge of an infinite Web of information and a major UI challenge that Google's Marissa Mayer mentioned when speaking on "contextual discovery" at LeWeb, finding a way to have the best stuff come to you without your even searching.

Often Google is maligned for its bungling in social relative to the success at Facebook, Twitter and Quora, for it's not seen as being part of the company's DNA - the focus being organizing the world's information. I can see them getting their HP graph calculators out and algorithmically determining that Farmville and baby photos are a waste of time. Often, they are. So did they make a mistake in not being the best at something they determined was not a good mission? I am not sure.

I've enjoyed using Buzz and the social elements of Google Reader, but just because there is a successful company in one market doesn't mean you have to be in that market. Apple never launched as an ISP, despite many Mac fans hoping they would several years ago. They just partnered with Earthlink. Dell made a bunch of crappy iPod wannabes when they felt pushed, and we're going to see a lot of bad iPad competition at CES. What I mean by bringing this up is that companies should focus on what they do best, especially if it is noble and intelligent. The thought that Google (or others like Google) would have to make a side deal with Zynga to bring games to the platform just to get users seems like a white flag.

I don't want more places to play games. I don't want more places that I can share photos with an increasing array of effects. I do want better filters so that the best stuff comes to me, from all networks, without my having to sift through the noise. That's important to me, and part of what I am working to do.

I want to see an aggressive push for quality. I look at the work SimpleGeo is doing and it is impressive. Not the exciting stuff you can expect to see on CNN, but the smart and hard work to provide content to players in a growing industry. I look at the growth in QR codes and voice search as moves forward to get us information even faster and applaud. I look at all the hard work done in hardware to create faster networks, wired and unwired, to make our disks ever more dense and our data safer, and this provides value. But I think we have over-corrected on social. Social is fun and great, but it is not everything. It is one factor in the world of discovery, not the final world. So if we could, let's find those people creating great companies of real and permanent value and let's make them go viral.

Facto.me: Oversharing of Mild Secrets Made Simple

In the spirit and vein of Formspring and Three Words comes a new service, built practically overnight, that begs for you to share with your social graph something they might not know about you. Designed in less than 24 hours by Kyle Bragger @kylebragger, Facto prompts users to share facts about themselves and get a reaction from friends. Share what you like, big or small, and fill out the small corners of your social profile people didn't already know from your online activity.

With Facebook practically cornering the social graph with your past connections, and Twitter and others vying for your day to day real time updates, Formspring has become a platform to take anonymous questions, while Facto! turns the process on its head, as you supply the answers to questions unasked.

Some Early Facto Entries on Me

What you share is up to you, of course. Kyle, for example, explains that he often dreams in German. AJ Vaynerchuk admits he can't ride a bike, while Spencer Schoeben says he has seen Zoolander at least 15 times. I've only added a few items thus far, but have attempted to keep the same level of triviality.

By sharing a random fact about you, your connections are requested to say what they thought, by clicking one of 7 potential button choices, including "I knew that!", "Didn't know that", "Me too!", "Awesome", "Whoa", "Weird!" and "Boring". Theoretically, you want to stay off the boring list, but thus far, no stats are being kept to prove how truly boring you are, so far as I can tell. And if you do click any of those buttons, the avatar you've selected to use on the site is displayed, so your answers are not exactly anonymous.

Social feedback on Facto.Me

If the rapid rise and viral nature of Formspring and Three Words is any indication, Facto.me could see thousands or hundreds of thousands of people quickly signing up to tell you things about themselves you probably didn't know. The simpler an app and lower the barrier to entry to participate, the better it seems these days.

Want to get facts about yourself out there so you can control the rumors? Start off at http://facto.me. My light profile is here: http://facto.me/louisgray/.