The Jeff Beckham Weblog

This week’s Economist looks into the field of open-source hardware: “an emerging class of electronic devices, for which the specifications have been made public, so that enthusiasts can suggest refinements, write and share software improvements, and even build their own devices from scratch.”

Owners of open-source devices benefit by owning something that doesn’t go out-of-date or become antiquated quickly, and makers of the those devices can get their products to market faster and respond to their customers’ needs in a more timely way. Such advantages, the article says, outweigh the drawbacks of exposing what are usually seen as corporate secrets. It’s another example of how “open” beats “closed”.

One such open-source device is the Chumby, a coffee-cup-sized, soft-sided, Web-enabled puff that can be used as an Internet radio player, a digital picture frame, an alarm clock, weather station, and more. It’s got a touch screen and can run off AC or battery power.

Experts quoted in the article disagree on whether open-source hardware appeals to the tinkerer or the everyday consumer, but it also correctly points out that everyone benefits from open-source collaboration — the choices and improvements made in an open-source environment lead to better products all around.

Wired News reports that even though cellphones in Japan have become increasingly difficult to use, and that their owners only use 5 to 10 percent of the functions available, the complexity of the devices remains a positive to buyers.

When the iPhone hits Japan later this year, it’s possible that the simplicity of that device would be a turn-off to consumers there.

“It doesn’t have 3G, the camera is only 2 megapixels, and it lacks fun little features like mobile wallet functions and an LED flashlight,” journalist Nobi Hayashi said. “It may sell modestly as a smart phone or as an upgraded iPod, but it’s not quite cutting it as a competitor in our mobile-based culture.”

It’s an interesting look into the Japanese culture, where people experiment with different key combinations to kill time during long commutes and discover cool features hidden deep within the phone’s complicated menu system.

While there’s a sharp contrast between the Japanese fondness for technical specifications and complexity and the U.S. trend toward simplicity, there is another angle that the two cultures share. A shiny new device serves as a social object — a conversation piece that draws like-minded people together.

“Cellphones are always part of any conversation,” Daiji Hirata, an executive at News2u Corporation said. “People are always using them and holding them, even in the middle of a meal, so they might not think you’re hip if you’re carrying an old one.”

Casting a vote for simplicity in today’s gadgets, it turns out that only 5 percent of electronics that are returned are actually defective. Customers say (or think) that they’re broken, when actually, they’re either too hard to use or don’t meet their expectations.

A report by Accenture says that 68 percent of returned electronics fall into that category, while an additional 27 percent are returned because of buyer’s remorse. That means only 5 percent of returns were items that were defective.

Terry Steger of Accenture says making products easier to set up and use would reduce the return rate significantly. The report cited a 2006 study that determined that the average U.S. consumer spends only 20 minutes trying to make a device work before giving up and returning it to the seller.

For years, Texas Monthly has been at the top of the list in the City and Regional Magazines Association contest, consistently winning for writing, design, layout and photography. That was the case again this year, as the magazine won first place (or gold) awards for general criticism, writer of the year, excellence in writing, and cover.
The even better news is that this year Texas Monthly won a gold award for excellence online. The magazine’s website has been getting better and better after bringing on Eileen Smith as site editor last year. Congratulations to the TM staff on some well-deserved honors.

Sure, awards are subjective — they subjectively good when you’re included in the finalists and winners, and subjectively bad when you’re not. But there is an interesting commonality running through many of the media websites nominated for 2008 EPpy Awards, the top interactive contest put on by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek.

For news web sites, the winning strategy is clear — focus heavily on local content and make the most of the web, don’t simply take the stories from the morning print edition and make them available online. The best of this model can be found at sites that are, or have been, run by folks from a very small pool — people like Rob Curley, Dave Toplikar, and Adrian Holovaty, who worked together at one time or another at the Lawrence Journal-World.

Looking at the nominees for Best News Web Site (fewer than 1 million monthly visitors), there’s the Las Vegas Sun, LJWorld.com (the Lawrence newspaper site), and NaplesNews.com from Florida. All of those are places where these guys have worked. And Curley’s current site, WashingtonPost.com, is up for Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site (1 million + monthly visitors).

Texas Monthly’s May issue features a celebration of Willie Nelson’s 75th birthday. If the amazing cover photo is any indication, the story inside should be terrific.

Over on his Long Tail blog, Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson takes a more optimistic view of the financial situation the newspaper industry finds itself in. The recent news that advertising revenue had taken its biggest drop in 50 years set off the latest round of doom-sayers calling for the end of the newspaper era.

There’s no doubt that newspapers find themselves in increasingly tight times - in addition to advertising revenue, readership of the print version is also down in several areas. But as Anderson points out, the current drop in revenue still leaves the industry “just ten percent off its historic highs (much like the stock market) and is still twice as big as it was twenty years ago.”

Newspapers are still at $45 billion business, but to remain that way, there are clear strategic changes that have to take place:

• Moving from the producing-a-product mindset to an offering-a-service mindset
• Embracing the web and not just pushing print stories online
• Hyperlocal stories that focus on neighborhoods
• Applying a voice and a viewpoint to the stories of the day, rather than reprinting wire service stories

For sports fans, one of the can’t-miss sites on the Web is Deadspin. I’d say I get 90% of my information about national sports from there.

Today I’m honored to have a small piece I wrote appear there as part of the site’s NCAA Tournament preview. I took a look at the Texas A&M Aggies in preparation for their first-round matchup with BYU.

In other Deadspin fandom, I’m midway through reading God Save the Fan by editor Will Leitch. It’s hilarious and insightful, and worth reading even if you’re not a die-hard sports fan.

The New York Times is reporting that this week, Sports Illustrated will take the wise move of making its entire 53-year archive of stories and photos available for free online.

The new feature, called the Vault, will also contain video clips and all of its material will be searchable by athlete, coach, team, sport, decade and year.

The real benefit, according to executives, is in the additional visibility SI.com will get from search engines, a topic I wrote about in the context of TexasMonthly.com some time ago.

“The real hidden value of this is what it does for search,” said John Squires, executive vice president of Time Inc., the Time Warner subsidiary that publishes Sports Illustrated. The move quadruples the site’s volume, he said. “We’ll have to work our way up the search algorithms over time, but eventually, someone searches Johnny Unitas, and SI.com is going to pop up.”

At South by Southwest, the “Future of Corporate Blogs” panel talked about some issues companies have faced in launching blogs, and how they can be used to benefit the business.

The panelist whose story most closely matched with my employer’s was Lionel Menchaca of Dell, who created the Direct2Dell blog 18 months ago. That site now gets a million page views per week and has helped reduce the negative perception that Dell was battling among its customers.

In addition, Dell has created IdeaStorm, where people can suggest ideas for Dell products and services, have others rank them, and then Dell takes the best ones under consideration.

The panelists agreed that the first step in meeting (and exceeding) customers’ expectations through an online tool like a blog is to listen first to their problems, then analyze that feedback, then take action. Taking action, of course, is key, but it’s also meaningless without having real feedback from customers to act upon.

Companies often express fear at jumping in to the social media arena, but the alternative (doing nothing) allows the conversation to go on without any attempt at having an impact. Becoming a part of the conversation with your customers almost always decreases the time between their problems and a solution.