Sony Actually Listens To Customers?!

After all the hoopla that the "fresh start" charge from sony has sent buzzing around the interwebs today it is nice to see a company (and Sony of all people!) actually responding to customers disgust at the idea that they should have to pay companies just to not throw poo in our faces.

Want your PC to be more like a Mac?: $50 Dollars Please...

Everyone knows that Apple touts themselves as having no bloatware, no needing any drivers etc. right out of the box. But what about wanting that same cozy technology feeling on the PC side? Dell has offered the options to not have trial software and other craptastic software on their Vostro line for a while now but Sony has the audacity to want to charge you $50 dollars for the privilege of a "fresh start".
So far this "feature" is only available on the TZ2000, but who knows where else Sony may see fit to extend this wonderful "offer" for the rest of us to feel just a little more loving with the Redmond code.

New Apple Products Coming?

Let the fanboys get rolling. The apple store is down. Time for a tuesday update?

Free Legal Downloads Lands Reznor $750,000

We have all heard of the Radiohead experiment where they let users pay what they thought the album was worth. It was a valiant effort and a good idea, but with a few flaws that many were quick to point out. There was no sampling of the music to decide what it might be worth and the bit rate was noticably low for any download source on the web. Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor saw this model but applied a more business oriented approach to free downloads with variable pricing and packages available, while the free downloads were always just that - free.
The free music offered itself as more of a gateway to his music Ghosts where there we also premium offerings featuring a bluray disc, dvd of the music etc. at $300 (qty. 2,500 sold out) and simply tiered down from there. The important thing here is Reznors vision beyond the blessings of the recording industry to see that music is more about an "experience" rather just raw content. Gone are the days of one product sales (see: Album) and incoming is the time where free to premium offerings will net you the biggest profit - what an idea! Much like every other business has been doing for decades, Reznor had the not only the forsight, but more importantly the ability to put together such an experiment that proved to be very successful.
It only took Reznor 3 days to pull down his astonishing $750,000 which is a good ROI (Return On Investment) for any business venture. He helped building buzz by actually putting the free downlaodable version of his work onto Torrent sites etc. It is good to see artists using technology in a way that works with the public's interest and still provides a substantial income for the fruits of their labor. Good job NiN, Great job Reznor. Hopefully we will see more artists following suit. Adios DRM? Hello free downloads? Let's hope so!

Facebook adds Friend Suggestions

Just in case you couldn't find and/or were too lazy to find everybody you know that is currently on facebook, your exisiting friends can now bug you about old friends or introduce you to new ones. With friend suggestions, facebook labels it as "friend x thinks that you should be friends with friend y, and suggets that you might know them as well".

While the idea seems great in intention, we will see if this becomes a spam problem similar to what MySpace had with porn oriented profiles spamming your inbox constantly but hey don't lie, you clicked on the hot chicks picture too right?

The University + Mac Love Affair

A recent survey shows that Apple has finally edged out Dell for being #1 in "higher education" U.S. market share. These numbers are no surprise to anyone in a college setting as just a quick glance around you see drones of Macbooks amongst Dell's and HP's..... maybe a few rogue Toshibas and Sonys, but a class of white Macbooks is no big shocker these days. A lot of people on the web are stating how these numbers don't mean anything when the overall market share is still so low globally.
The real take away out of this is not Apple's current global market share, but the fact that today's college students who can aptly learn technology are favoring the OS X interface. What do you think will happen when roughly half of graduating College students prefer Mac's? If you think for a second that Windows was any different at one point, you are wrong. Apple's marketing engine understands that if you can get college students on a Mac today, that might put their place of business onto a Mac tomorrow.
With Steve Jobs apparent goal to keep a torrent of Apple announcments this year there is apparently no end in sight for their buzz machine rolling through the U.S. Some colleges are even offering free iphones and macbooks to new students and a trade-in program for those running Windows based systems.