Four (or Five!) Reasons Why

…The “Reply All” Button Must Die

1. In a recent survey by Randstad USA, colleagues who press “reply all” rates as one of most annoying office habits. 22% of respondents pegged ”colleague spam” as a major office nuisance. It’s particularly annoying when everyone has to read “Thanks”, “OK” and “Great job!” Do we really need mass validation?

2. Take the number of redundant emails. Multiply it by the time it takes to read and delete them. Add on an annoyance premium. Then multiply that by the number of employees in an office. While I don’t know what the answer really is, I do know that it’s wasted time…and wasted time is unproductive time.

3. Almost as bad a the BCC (or Blind Co-Conspirator), “reply all” creates a “cover your ass” culture. A single email filed in one’s archives should serve as adequate back-up should any issues arise. While informative, it’s probably not necessary to have everyone know how good a job you’re doing (or that you’re doing your job in the first place).

4. By unintentionally pressing “reply all”, what was supposed to be a private email turns into a public event or PR nightmare. Sprint Airlines learned this recently when its CEO, Ben Baldanza, mistakenly included a customer in a response to the same customer’s complaint, stating, “Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.” Oops…

5. By replying to everyone on a mailing list, pressing send doesn’t result in one email being sent. It results in an email for every person on the list. Duh! But did anyone stop and think about the excess load on IT systems from all this additional email? Did you know that by killing “reply all”, a 1,000 person company can eliminate approximately 5,700 emails per day. That’s almost 1.5 million emails per year!

Related Posts

….Year-End Lists are Boring

….This Blog Should be Rockin’

….People Go to Work When They’re Sick

….Why Twitter is Inane

1. Who really cares about “what are you doing”? Does anyone really care if you’re waiting in the dental office or eating a bad sandwich or watching the snow fall?

2. For all the growing concerns about online privacy, there are people using Twitter who more than happy to share everything - both personal and professional - with just about anyone. These people are anti-privacy because they clearly believe everything should be public. Strange, very strange.

3. It’s mostly a ego-driven, vanity exercise because you think whatever you’re doing is worth the time to write about it. Strange, very strange.

4. You can only write 140-character messages so Twitter is, at best, communications “lite”. At worse, it’s just digital burps - falling short of an instant message or far below an e-mail.

5. Twitter has no business model. It’s a free service that, nevertheless, attracted venture capital based on the idea if that eyeballs are valuable, which is so Web 1.0.

For good, objective look at Twitter, check out twopiearr, who explores the “Twitter hate” phenomena. TimvanderWiede provides some insight into how he “effectively uses Twitter”, which seems like an oxymoron.

Update: Scott Karp, a well-known media/tech blogger, has a post on why he quit Twitter. It turns out there was too much “noise”. Ha, told you so!

Technorati Tags: Twitter

Related Posts

…Twitter Is The Next Google, But Better

….Year-End Lists are Boring

….You Need to Get on Facebook

…The Wii Is Saving The Video Game Industry

1. While the whole industry was moving toward increasingly complex games, Nintendo pulled a 180 and did something truly innovative - simplify. Rather than create games that require a Ph.D. and hours of study, the Wii is designed around putting the fun and ease back into video games. Even John Riccitiello, EA’s CEO, agrees. He was quoted this past summer as saying, “We’re boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play.” Consumers also agree, judging by Wii sales.

2. Not only did Nintendo simplify game play, the company also simplified the hardware. As games got more complicated, so did the controllers. From Atari’s one button/one stick controller, we have moved to a world where the PS3 has 20 inputs! Looks like you’ll need an Engineering degree in addition the Ph.D. Or a whole lot of time. The Wii takes a refreshing step backwards and the result is an elegantly designed, relatively uncomplicated controller - a perfect match for its games. (For those totally tech-minded, click here for a teardown of the Wii and other consoles.)

3. After years of sitting on the couch and watching our asses get fatter, the Wii has revolutionized the living room…and the retirement home…and school gym classes. With simple games, simple controls and game play that involves moving more than our thumbs, the Wii has turned the industry on its head. Video games are no longer passive, but action oriented. Visionary, some might say.

4. While “professional” reviewers have offered middling reviews of many Wii games, gamer reaction would suggest that developers may have an easier time of it in the future. Sales of some of Wii’s simplest games, like Wii Sports, Bowling and Tennis, have been off the charts. It’s great that developers are skilled enough to produce highly complex, yet highly expensive, games, but it is clear that there is a market for something easier and cheaper.

5. Adults seem to be the main focus for Microsoft, Sony and game producers. But what has Nintendo done? They’ve thought of the children. And we all know that children really are the future. Talk about seeding the market! It almost brings a tear to the eyes.

Bill Harris, from Dubious Quality, has a great essay courtesy of Newsweek on the industry and the Wii’s impact on game play. As an aside, it’s hard not to agree with Devin Coldewey at CrunchGear that Pac Man is still one of the best games of all time.

Update: According to Wired, there’s going to be a Wii shortage this holiday gift-giving season even though Nintendo has increased monthly production to 1.8 million units from one million units.

Related Posts

…Nintendo Is Helping Us Age Better

…Kids Should Learn How To Golf and Play Tennis

…You Should Know Who Lois Maxwell Is

….This Blog Should be Rockin’

1. Everyone loves lists - they’re the crack of the blogosphere. You write a blog using entitled “XX reasons why….”, and traffic spikes. People can’t help themselves when it comes to lists. Look at the longevity, for example, of David Letterman’s Top-10 List, which is usually not terribly funny.

2. They’re a quick read. Unless someone goes overboard, a list usually takes about a minute or so to read. It’s quick and simple yet so guiltily satisfying - kind of like those mini ice cream sandwiches that you eat when your kids aren’t looking.

3. Lists can be great fodder for water-cooler conversations, or those long, slow walks to Starbucks that slash corporate productivity while driving up Starbucks’ profits.

4. They can be written quickly, often with little or no research. Hey, why do you think this blog is devoted to lists?

5. Lists are “sexy” - so says Aiden Henry, among the other things he had to say about lists. We take issue with his contention lists are link bait because if that was true, Four Reasons Why would have hundreds, no thousands of RSS subscribers; we’d be the next Boing Boing; and we’d be cashing in huge AdSense checks…or something like that.

More: superblogging suggest lists are popular because people who read them are lazy, lists look organized so they’re easy to read, and it looks like the writer worked harder than they really had. They sound like reasonable assumptions to us. Actually, the first point is probably inaccurate because we would never call Four Reasons Why readers “lazy” - at least not in public.

Technorati Tags: Lists

Related Posts

….This Blog Exists

….Year-End Lists are Boring

…It’s Time To Spring Clean Your RSS Reader

…Apple TV Should Be Thrown On The Junk Pile

1. It’s expensive. Starting at $299 for a 40 gigabyte version, and $399 for 160 gigabytes, Apple TV is a glorified iTunes extender - a costly means to link up the home office to the living room. Unless there is a significant change to the hardware offering, maybe the addition of a DVD player, a volume control on its remote and no HDTV requirement, the Apple TV will be relegated to the status of an expensive trinket for people who have run out of Apple products to buy. Go buy yourself a Wii and get everything you need, including a built-in browser and direct Internet connectivity.

2. It’s confusing and complex. While technophiles will understand Apple TV’s purpose and role within the digital home, the average consumer won’t “get it.” Unlike the iPod, whose beautiful simplicity and impeccable design appeals to just about everyone, Apple TV is not a product for the masses. Even its niche appeal is extremely slim, with predictions that total unit sales are well below expectations.

3. Total lack of content. As the system is tied to iTunes, which has a embarrassingly limited selection of TV shows and movies available for download, there is currently limited use for an Apple TV. This has only been exacerbated by the big networks and movie studios moving away from iTunes to their own platforms, such as Hulu.com.

4. While Apple seems to have (strategically) ignored Apply TV hacks, unlike those of the iPhone, Jobs has created a system that is essentially locked down, with limited support for file formats beyond what is available on iTunes. Yet another obstacle for mass appeal.

5. Jobs has referred to the Apple TV as a “hobby,” effectively relegating it to the back burner in Apple’s product line. A recent breakdown of the input costs for the system suggests that Jobs isn’t making the margin that he is accustomed to, which may provide some insight as to why this is happening. That is unless he has something else up this sleeve…

For a dissenting view, Carl Howe thinks the Apple TV is due to become big business.

Update: CNet’s Crave blog follows on our lead with a story on how Apple TV has failed to resonate with consumers.

Related Posts

…Apple Is To Blame For Everything

….Steve Jobs is a Marketing Genius

…Google Will Never Be “Apple” Cool