Posts by Category: opinion piece

It’s my party and I’ll talk if I wanna!

opinion piece December 26, 2006 posted by

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 5 – Vox For Skype

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No 5 – Vox For Skype. We’re only at the start of the global communications revolution, and leading the pack is the VoIP skillz of Skype and its family of add-ons. Vox For Skype gets our vote as a Product of the Year 2006 because it is the most complete version of the many Skype for mobile phone products on the market right now. It runs on any cell phone (no downloads) and gives you…


Continue Reading »The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 5 – Vox For Skype
opinion piece November 29, 2006 posted by

Is MySpace broken beyond repair?

Is MySpace broken beyond repair? I ask because a quick look at the November Help pages shows a non-stop catalogue of serious problems with the underlying technology. ‘Can’t Add Friends’, ‘Messages/Inbox Down’, ‘Can’t View Friends’, ‘Home Page Down’, ‘Events are Down’ and so on. Not just once, mind you, but on and on and on. I know that these could be simple routine issues, but so many? And in just one month? [Update: Hmm..just done a Google search and it looks as…


Continue Reading »Is MySpace broken beyond repair?
opinion piece October 7, 2006 posted by

The sad MojoPac saga continues…

…or how NOT to launch a product. I gushed about the new MojoPac product a while back, and for good reason. It’s a brilliant implementation of a virtual PC environment which you can carry around on any USB enabled device. So far so good. What’s not so good is the fact that the company appears to be shooting itself in the head over a series of launch decisions which are going drastically wrong. I see the issue has now reached the…


Continue Reading »The sad MojoPac saga continues…
opinion piece August 14, 2006 posted by

Top 5 differences between the Sony mylo and Nokia 770…

…and why they matter. The Sony marketing machine swept into action last week with the announcement of the new mylo personal communicator. The big deal is its WiFi and Skype capabilities, which many are claiming will make it a ground breaking product. Not everyone has bought into it, though, as Alice shows on her blog. And to be honest I have to agree. It’s a typical Sony lifestyle play without a lot of strategic marketing thought. In contrast I’ve been playing with…


Continue Reading »Top 5 differences between the Sony mylo and Nokia 770…
opinion piece June 27, 2006 posted by

Bada Bing, Bada Boom?

I was just leafing through my old email archives and I came across a piece that I wrote in January 2000 but which I didn’t pitch to my editor and so was never published. It was inspired by a friend of mine who told me he was setting up an online estate agency. He had no clue about property, not much more idea about business, but was determined not to get left behind in the IPO frenzy of the dot…


Continue Reading »Bada Bing, Bada Boom?
opinion piece April 6, 2006 posted by

Guitar Hero.

Guitar Hero for Playstation 2. Got a PS2? Bit of an air guitar rocker? Run, don’t walk, to nearest games store and pick up a copy of Guitar Hero with the SG controller. Lock doors, unplug phones, pull shades, stop eating. Rock!  Strap on your Guitar Hero SG controller, plug-in, and CRANK IT UP. Guitar Hero creates all the sensations of being a rock star, as you rock out to 30 of the greatest rock anthems of all time and more….


Continue Reading »Guitar Hero.
opinion piece November 16, 2005 posted by

Chinese takeaway.

There was a movie called Evolution a while back which featured an alien species that evolved at a phenomenal rate from single cell to hominids. Without wishing to be at all patronising – honestly – I am now getting that same kind of feeling watching the Chinese industrial machine get to grips with the Internet and global commerce. Witness this Shenzhen company website that landed in the Ferret inbox yesterday morning. Instead of the usual photos of factories and boring production…


Continue Reading »Chinese takeaway.
opinion piece November 14, 2005 posted by

Hysteria in the media.

This poster is dotted round London at the moment (click on thumbnail for larger size). What bugs me is not the drive against dvd piracy per se, but the fact that they’re peddling an hysterically exaggerated set of facts,  cloaked in a sinister pseudo-official veneer (note the violent staged police arrest), in order to drive their economic agenda. Do these people care a jot about crime on our streets, or is it all about profit? What do you think?


Continue Reading »Hysteria in the media.
opinion piece November 11, 2005 posted by

Lord Lichfield, RIP.

The Earl of Lichfield, photographer and a cousin of the Queen, died of a stroke early this morning. I was fortunate enough to spend a day with Patrick earlier this summer on a consultancy project, and I found him to be a genuinely nice fellow, in that quintessentially English way that is hard to describe. He had a fabulous sense of humour, a treasure trove of hilarious anecdotes and through it all no hint of any airs or graces which you might…


Continue Reading »Lord Lichfield, RIP.
opinion piece November 9, 2005 posted by

My Chinese factory tour.

In honour of President Hu of China’s state visit to London this week, I thought I would share with you peeps a short photo show of a recent visit I made to a Chinese printer factory in the booming Shenzhen economic area, an hour or so from Hong Kong on the Chinese mainland. Hopefully you may find it interesting to see how your electronics are being created at source. I found it genuinely fascinating.


Continue Reading »My Chinese factory tour.
opinion piece October 26, 2005 posted by

Worst press release, EVER!

A while ago I received what is unquestionably the worst official press release I have ever received in all my years as a journalist. A release so bad that it actually transcends dreadful and moves into the realm of something beautiful. And so, in the way of things, I must now bring it to your attention, especially since I know that a number of colleagues in the ‘trade’ read the Ferret and may appreciate it. Just be thankful that this is not your company. Click to read the…


Continue Reading »Worst press release, EVER!
opinion piece October 24, 2005 posted by

Why Microsoft should be a little worried…

Linux works. So the wife’s laptop hard disk blew on the weekend. Plop. Dead. Since she uses it for emails and a fair amount of surfing I needed to get her up and running again as quickly as possible. Dug out an old Live Puppy bootable Linux CD banged it into the CD Drive, powered up and a few minutes later, glory; a working, living, breathing, useful laptop computer. It would have been even quicker but for the fact that the…


Continue Reading »Why Microsoft should be a little worried…
opinion piece October 13, 2005 posted by

Of rabbits and rings…

Hmm…went out to a press bash last night, launching the new Series 60 Nokia E range of business phones. Two things. First, go and see Wallace & Gromit’s Curse of the Were Rabbit if you get the chance. It’s excellent (and I’m not particularly an Aardman fan, didn’t really like the chicken thing). Second, the E61 looks like a very neat handset indeed. Played with an early build model for a while, and it was really interesting surfing on a half…


Continue Reading »Of rabbits and rings…
opinion piece October 7, 2005 posted by

Google Desktop update

Hmm…just removed Google Desktop from my PC. Why? Well basically Copernic does a better – much better – job of searching my emails. Google’s integration is nice and all, but when it comes down to it I mostly just want to locate an email from last year instantly, see where it is and read it or abstract the address. Simple with Copernic, a bit of a chore with Google (too many clicks, not enough information). And what I’ve realised is that…


Continue Reading »Google Desktop update
opinion piece June 29, 2005 posted by

Citizen reign.

The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism. Required reading for old media trying to renew?  This article is designed to help publishers and editors understand citizen journalism and how it might be incorporated into their Web sites and legacy media. We’ll look at how news organizations can employ the citizen-journalism concept, and we’ll approach it by looking at the different levels or layers available.


Continue Reading »Citizen reign.