When the iPhone battery charges are used up, users will soon notice of considerable lack of battery sustainability with a “full charge” lasting only several hours and getting progressively worse. As an example, my 9 month old iPhone 3GS currently lasts about 3 hours after a full night’s charge. I spent some time with Apple support – luckily my one year factory warranty is still in place. Apparently this is a very well known issue and Apple has the solution for you – BUY THE $69 PROTECTION PLAN when you purchase your device… or, if you don’t have it go add it to your account now. Apple informs me that those who possess the protection plan with their account can receive a “free” replacement battery, although I believe that by replacement they actually will replace your iPhone with a new one and discard your old device – after-all, the battery is not swappable so simply replacing the battery is likely not an option.

I’m guessing that with the new, iPhone 4 this issue will likely continue and even get worse (not confirmed) the reason – multi-tasking. With iPhone iOS4 users can run several tasks simultaneously, thus adding to the drain on power and result in the need for more frequent charging. And so I urge you to grab yourself the extra $69 protection, otherwise the cost will be $100 when you eventually have to address this matter… and you will! Hey Apple, thanks for telling us.

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After all, can you imagine what would have happened if the iPlayer only worked on Macs?  So in that sense, the claim of Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of Future Media and Technology, rings true.  Also, Highfield has indicated that increased compatibility is on the way.

“By Christmas we will have a streaming solution for Mac and Linux users,” he told Andy McCue.  The outlook for a download solution is also good, yet Highfield stated, “The point is, I’m not going to be able to commit to it until we’ve got our sticky mitts on it, tried it, tested it, worked out the cost implications.”

If the BBC were a normal company, we could probably leave the matter at that.  But due to license fees and a Royal Charter, “The BBC is run in the interests of its viewers and listeners,” according to its own website.  As a result, concerns that its iPlayer can’t be used by everyone might have greater validity.

Highfield was quite clear, though, on the fact that the BBC is not in cahoots with Microsoft.

Direct marketers understand this. Every time you open your mailbox and get a letter offering you yet another credit card, every word in that letter has been tested to evoke the maximum response for its target market. Direct marketers don’t write one letter and send it to a million people—they write dozens of letters and send them to a small list of people to test the response rates. They send the winner to the rest of the million on the list.

Web marketing is no different, except you can do even more testing for less money in a shorter amount of time. You may not need to subject every word on every page to testing—I know that you have a life—but most companies don’t do any testing at all.

Put the page up. We’re done.

Well, yeah, you’re "done" but in a different way than you intended. You’re cooked. Your page won’t work. Because it never does on the first try.

So, yes, use all the tips you can to do a better job of creating the right words. But remember too that the most important tip is to get feedback on your customer’s response and try something else. Over and over again. Eventually you will get something that really works. (And then you keep tweaking that, too.)

So stop the "one and done." Pick just one page on your site designed to convert (no, not the home page). Pick a page that you know the purpose of—maybe the latest special offer for your top product. Come up with several versions of that page and use multivariate testing to test them all. You’ll find that some of your new ideas are undoubtedly better than what you have on the page now. Some companies report 30% gains in conversion rate after a year of multivariate testing.

So what are you waiting for?

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]]> http://www.webpronews.com/the-secret-of-writing-good-copy-2007-10/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/fake-steve-jobs-have-you-heard-of-option-2007-10 http://www.webpronews.com/fake-steve-jobs-have-you-heard-of-option-2007-10#comments Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:59:40 +0000 WebProNews Staff http://www.webpronews.com/?p=41453 The Secret Life of Steve Jobs endured the bitter challenge of the SEC probing Apple for impropriety, while negative energy spilled around the faux CEO. How's a genius supposed to instill the world with a childlike sense of wonder under these conditions?

The Secret Life of Steve Jobs endured the bitter challenge of the SEC probing Apple for impropriety, while negative energy spilled around the faux CEO. How’s a genius supposed to instill the world with a childlike sense of wonder under these conditions?

Fake Steve Jobs: Have You Heard Of oPtion$?

By hanging out with Nippon worshipper and fellow tech titan Larry Ellison, spooning with Sting, cruising with Bono, and firing people, of course. It’s all part of a day’s work in the three act play that is Options, the novel by Fake Steve’s alter ego, Forbes senior editor Dan Lyons.

The novel stems from the exploding popularity of Fake Steve’s blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Once an under the radar blog churning away in relative silence, it began attracting a higher profile audience, thanks to the ersatz CEO’s witticisms and scathing observations of the tech industry at large.

The real Steve Jobs, as well as Bill Gates (affectionately known as ‘Beastmaster Bill’ on the FSJ blog), both count among its readership. After interest in the blog hit a high note, Options began taking form, but not before New York Times reporter Brad Stone outed its anonymous author.

Throughout the fun 248-page romp, in which the more tech-inclined should recognize the real people behind some of the fake names, FSJ throws tantrums, works his Zen mastery on slavering Apple fanboys, and ponders the deeper meaning of the iPhone’s inner workings.

But real life intrudes, as vicious investigators for the feds, and a traitor in Apple’s midst, seek to undo Apple’s, and Fake Steve’s, resurgence as a tech industry titan. Improperly backdated stock options and the celebrity status of Apple’s leader have the forces of government allied against him.

Can he outlast the probe, the betrayal, and a frightening loss of confidence, to get the iPhone to the Apple faithful? You think you know the answer to this, based on real world events, but until you’ve read every word you really don’t.

As a bonus for our readers, we were able to secure some answers from FSJ about the book, himself, and people in his life. Enjoy this exclusive Q&A session with the legendary inventor of the friggin’ iPhone (and iPod) – have you heard of it?

1) The black turtlenecks you wear – humble article of well-made clothing, or a divine right conveyed upon you by the higher power that inspires gadgets like the iPod and the iPhone?

The former. I view my outfit as a form of monk’s robes. The idea is to abolish vanity and express my humility so that I can focus completely on my art. All I want to do is create beautiful objects. That is the only thing I want to think about. Not trivial things like clothing.

2) Which situation would you rather see happen to former US Attorney Kevin V. Ryan: a slow devouring by an endless supply of fire ants, or being subjected to hours of video of Woz and Kathy Griffin in flagrante delicto?

The former. I’ve seen the Woz videos and I swear to you, nobody deserves to see that, not even Kevin Ryan.

3) Hypothetical solution: Richard M. Stallman is drowning. What do you throw to him, and does it matter if what you throw to him instills a childlike wonder in horrified onlookers?

I would throw him a 24-inch iMac. It won’t save him but at least he’ll get to see what a real computer looks like before he goes under.

4) In oPtion$, you noted your management style uses fear and tantrums to get results. How many interns need to be in tears before you reach a higher level of consciousness for the day?

Half a dozen is an average day for me. Anything less than that and I get so antsy that I start firing executives. That’s why we’ve got so many interns at Apple. Phil Schiller calls them cannon fodder. Or, actually, "cannon foddah," because he’s from Boston. Phil has more interns than anyone, purely for sacrificial purposes. He keeps them lined up outside his office like captives on the steps of the great temple of Tenochtitlan.

5) You coined the acronym, Siooma. Why hasn’t this been added to the Oxford English Dictionary yet?

Have you ever dealt with anyone in the book publishing business? One word: Slooooow. It will be there eventually. Give them time.

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First up, for those counting stats such as Darren Rowse, Robert Scoble and Techcrunch here are my numbers.

Google Reader is currently showing 3 different feeds that are all providing the same content, which you might think would be better served as a single number as appears in Feedburner.
Hopefully that will never, ever happen, as those split numbers are incredibly useful.

Why Are There Split Numbers?

It is vital to understand why split numbers occur to fully appreciate how useful this is.

There are 3 main ways people subscribe to your RSS feeds using Google Reader.

1. Using A Subscription Button

   My subscription buttons point to andybeard.eu/feed/ and this is the URL used by feed readers to collect my feed, even though that redirects to Feedburner using the Feedsmith plugin.

2. Autodiscovery

   This is that little orange icon that appears in your browser alongside the URL for RSS subscription. It is handled in different ways by various feed readers. Google Reader evaluates any redirect before you actually subscribe, thus you end up at feeds.feedburner.com/Exploring-Niche-Websites before making a decision. Historically speaking this isn’t a very good thing to happen, because as a feed publisher you "lose ownership" in some ways of those subscribers, as they are not subscribing to a page on your site that can be moved to somewhere else.

3. Javascript Bookmark

   This again uses the autodiscovery URL in the header of your blog, but for some reason, maybe my own oversight or mistake my autodiscovery URL is andybeard.eu/feed – notice this URL doesn’t have a trailing slash.

RSS Feed Subscription – Evaluation

This is where we gain a unique perspective on Feed Subscription

1. 580 people are subscribed to http://andybeard.eu/feed/ – those people used a subscription button to subscribe to my feed.
2. 196 people are subscribed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/Exploring-Niche-Websites – those are either very long-time subscribers from my time on blogspot, or they used RSS Autodiscovery to subscribe using Google Reader
3. 146 people are subscribed to http://andybeard.eu/feed – those people most likely used a javascript based subscription button in Firefox to subscribe to my feed.

Now if you are very smart, you could use this method to split test subscription methods, and rely on Feedburner for your aggregate data.

This isn’t an attempt to get on a list of SEO blogs or back-slapping.

In this post I am trying to highlight some unique information that no one has ever revealed before, and could be extremely useful.

This isn’t the same as tracking RSS subscriptions, in many ways it is better because the tracking only gives you a click on a button, and doesn’t give you anything from autodiscovery, losing half of the data.

I for one hope Google doesn’t "fix" this "problem" with aggregated feeds, because it could prove to be very useful.

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Originally published at AndyBeard.EU

WebProNews has been covering the Podcast and New Media Expo taking place in Ontario, California. You can catch our conference interviews at the WebProNews Video Blog right now.

McMahon emphasized a number of approaches that can help the modern podcaster emerge from the shadows and become a star. There isn’t a magic elixir one can take, unless one considers lots of work a tasty beverage.

A podcaster can’t stay inside the bubble of the podcast, according to McMahon. One’s target market should be the world, and not just those who own an iPod or other type of media player.

Podcasters who want more attention have to work for it. As they build their networks, it’s important to take advantage of what’s out there, without being consumed by spending too much time inside the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world.

McMahon said a targeted promo trade with a podcast show on a similar topic could have more impact. That impact will be needed for the podcaster with dollar signs in his eyes, along with stars.

Money making has to be a mission, but it can’t detract from the content creation side. McMahon suggested delegating the accounting and sales, so one can stay focused on the podcast.

That focus needs to include showing what separates the podcast from others. Middle ground is a harmful place to occupy; McMahon thinks the fans should love or hate the podcast.

(We’ll suggest this is the "Rush Limbaugh theory" in effect. Like or dislike him, he still makes a ton of money every year, but it’s the passion that makes even his detractors listen. – David)

Podcasters need to be driven, tenacious, and unafraid to promote themselves. McMahon said having a visual identity is crucial, as it provides recognition. It’s worth having a professional photographer do a shoot to get that image.

McMahon’s website demonstrated this, with a few images present in the content area and the sidebar of his blog. That recognition will help with community building for the podcast. Bigger audiences let the podcaster take more chances.

Even so, content has to come before marketing. People tune in for content. If their numbers rise or fall, the podcaster should never take that personally; metrics are best observed in a detached, professional manner.

Whatever their numbers, the audience should see one’s work emerge as a brand, and not just a show. That show can focus on a niche, or go very wide with its appeal. Be passionate, work hard at being a go-to expert, and gameplan for success.

Without a plan, one’s podcast endeavor will probably come to a stop. Just like this article.

WebProNews anchor Kara Ratliff contributed to this report.

Fake Steve Outed As Forbes’ Daniel Lyons

I’m pretty sure no one in the blogging world suspected Lyons of taking up the ol’ Blogspot editor and cranking out the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, also known as Fake Steve Jobs or FSJ. But the New York Times put two and two together and added them up to “platform of an online lynch mob, spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel, and invective.”

Lyons recently updated the FSJ blog to confirm the findings by the Times and reporter Brad Stone:

Now you’ve ruined the mystery of Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of childlike wonder. Hope you feel good about yourself, you mangina. One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag. I really, really enjoyed seeing those guys keep guessing wrong.

Meanwhile, the Times described how the old world of print media, clued in by the forthcoming FSJ book, managed to dredge up a secret that had been the cause of much speculation for about 14 months:

The book, in part, led to Mr. Lyons

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/fake-steve-outed-as-forbes-daniel-lyons-2007-08/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/google-has-more-secret-public-meetings-2007-06 http://www.webpronews.com/google-has-more-secret-public-meetings-2007-06#comments Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:35:25 +0000 WebProNews Staff http://www.webpronews.com/?p=38523 Google has historically been pretty secretive about what the company is working on – that's typical in the corporate world as it keeps competitors in the dark. But more interesting than that are Google's Not-So-Secret-Secret-Meetings with hundreds of attendees agreeing not say anything about what they heard.
]]> Google has historically been pretty secretive about what the company is working on – that’s typical in the corporate world as it keeps competitors in the dark. But more interesting than that are Google’s Not-So-Secret-Secret-Meetings with hundreds of attendees agreeing not say anything about what they heard.

This isn’t new. Google’s been having these public-secret meetings since at least 2005, when 400 A-list journalists, bloggers, and corporate bigwigs were filled in above and beyond what the general public is and asked not to talk about it.

Much to our surprise, they didn’t – at least, as far as we know.

The most recent collective hush comes out of New York where Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist and TCP/IP pioneer Vinton Cerf gave a presentation. Those invited were given these instructions, according to Nathan Weinberg:

In order to support the free and open exchange of information at our speaker series events we ask that attendees refrain from recording or reporting on these meetings, their content or Google.

Virginia Tech professor Jeremy Hunsinger didn’t get that message, and in a blog post titled "I drank Google’s beer, then left," he explains why a vow of secrecy moved him out the door:

Google said that if i wanted to blog or publicly discuss the event, I had to get their permission. If I’d have known, I would not have attended or been affiliated with the event in any way. I am a professor, was and still am, and by the very nature of my job, i cannot guarantee that I will follow their rules about publication or blogging. I couldn’t consent to them, so I had to leave.

Just what was Cerf talking about? Well, again, nobody’s talking, either like good sheep, out of commitment to their agreement, or fear of not getting invited again. Asking one person to keep a secret is one thing, but asking hundreds to drink your Kool-Aid and them do it – well, that’s borderline frightening.

As Danny Sullivan points out, these rules don’t apply to CEO Eric Schmidt, who is always on the record. 

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/google-has-more-secret-public-meetings-2007-06/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/dodgeball-guys-the-latest-to-quit-google-2007-04 http://www.webpronews.com/dodgeball-guys-the-latest-to-quit-google-2007-04#comments Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:58:35 +0000 Andy Beal http://www.webpronews.com/?p=37019 Be warned, if you decided to sell your company to Google, don’t expect to actually enjoy working for the world’s largest search engine. While the money would be nice, judging by the number of resignations Google gets from its acquired companies, the money may be all you get out of the deal.

]]> Be warned, if you decided to sell your company to Google, don’t expect to actually enjoy working for the world’s largest search engine. While the money would be nice, judging by the number of resignations Google gets from its acquired companies, the money may be all you get out of the deal.

Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert, co-founders of Dodgeball, are the latest acquirees to find out the hard way. Dodgeball’s SMS-social network was ahead of the pack, when acquired, but since then, nothing has really been done with the company, and the founders have had to watch the likes of Twitter and Jaiku pass them by.

Here’s part of Crowley’s announcement to the world…

It’s no real secret that Google wasn’t supporting dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us – especially as we couldn’t convince them that dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space. And while it was a tough decision (and really disappointing) to walk away from dodgeball, I’m actually looking forward to getting to work on other projects again.

And here’s what they have planned next…

So, what’s next? Starting today (Monday!) I’m joining the kids at area/code who are knee-deep in building all sorts of Big Games (remember PacManhattan? ConQwest?). Alex is moving on to IconNicholson where he took a gig as a Creative Strategist focusing on mobile and emerging technologies. (And sorry, but I don’t know what Google has planned for dodgeball going forward.)

So, be warned. Google needs your technology. It may actually only need it, in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of a competitor, and it has enough PHD’s on staff that it unlikely needs you.

Via Om Malik.

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