Blue Helm

Slimy movie villains don't get much better than Julian Assange.

Hello world! The Blue Helm team is finally back from New Zealand and much, much tanner, so everyone wins. Now a look at some interesting news of the day:

– Apparently Julian Assange, founder and chief-defender of the notorious WikiLeaks website, got the crap beat out of him in high school and is now taking his pent-up frustration out on the people of the free world. Just today WikiLeaks released a long list of locations of highly sensitive pipelines, communication and transport hubs vital to United States national security. (Merry Christmas, terrorists!) That’s in addition to last week’s release of thousands of useless diplomatic cables that did nothing but embarrass world leaders, many of whom are American allies. But don’t worry. All of this is just to pursue the cause of free and transparent government! Or, according to the Wall Street Journal, is it to undermine the American government/people and create world anarchy in a twisted personal vendetta that Assange has with the CIA or George Bush or Santa Claus? Here at Blue Helm we support internet transparency and free speech. But we also think Julian Assange is a weasel that doesn’t really care about free expression. WikiLeaks will no doubt hurt innocent people, and Assange will have the American people (a.k.a. Chuck Norris) to answer to when that happens.

– Bill Gates is injecting some chaos in the Apple-Microsoft War of the Worlds…apparently the Microsoft chairman released a photo featuring a Mac computer and an iPod on his blog with the title, “What’s been on my mind lately.” Of course the tech nerds and consumer analysts are probably reading too much into the photo (Gates was writing about access to technology in classrooms), but it’s still noteworthy when the King of Microsoft is subconsciously (or consciously?) promoting evil Apple products on his personal blog. It’s as crazy as spotting a Red Sox cup holder on the late George Steinbrenner’s coffee table.

– This is an older story (12 days is very old in the social media world) but a good one: apparently an Australian journalist has been getting emails for a few years from a Florida family inviting him over for Thanksgiving…the problem was the emails weren’t really for him. They were meant for someone else. But that didn’t stop James West from creating a web series about how much he would like to experience an American Thanksgiving with the Tran family in West Palm Beach. He finally asked if he could join them and they happily accepted his offer. Ah yes, one more member of the international community that could revel in the glorious gorging, over-sleeping and endless football games that make up the greatest holiday ever invented by hungry Indians and Pilgrims.

Stay tuned for more news and tips from Blue Helm on our nifty blog. And please comment below if you like our words of wisdom.

Google is an internet giant, duh. They have dominated the online world for quite some time. So if Google is so deeply entrenched in the Net, why is it making televisions? An even more intriguing question is why in the world is Google making cars that drive themselves?!

There are a lot of reasons, but one sticks out to me. Google wants to be in front of you all day. Google wants to be there when you wake up and look at your phone. It wants to be there when you turn on your TV. It wants to be there when you’re commuting to work. It wants to be in your face as much as possible.

Google’s main competitors aren’t Yahoo, Microsoft or Apple. Google’s competitors are activities like driving, watching TV, going to the movies or anything else that takes you away from their products. So what does Google do? They come up with ways to insert themselves into the areas of your life they don’t yet have access to. Genius? Yes.

I love that Google has invested in making a car that drives automatically. Getting stuck in traffic no longer becomes a source of much rage, but becomes a time to catch up on work, to read, to talk to old friends, to plan a date, to think of a new business, to innovate, to relax, to catch up on sleep, to be free.

So keep it up Google. Keep innovating and trying to insert yourself into my life. If you make an awesome product that solves a problem in my life, then I’ll buy it.

So this post comes down to the real question: Is Google trying to take over the world?

Why is Google Chrome growing like crazy and Internet Explorer slowly losing market share? Speed and the consumer are the answers.

You might think I’m just saying Chrome is faster when I mention speed. While that may be true, that’s not the kind of speed I mean. This is not about Chrome or Internet Explorer per se. It’s about Microsoft.

Microsoft is a great company. It’s full of genius people creating marvelous new technologies and products. But why is Internet Explorer losing market share? Why is Apple, a major competitor of Microsoft, growing so quickly? Why are people projecting that the Windows mobile operating system will be all but gone within the next 4 years? The main problem is Microsoft’s lack of company speed and disconnect from the consumer.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about: About nine years ago Microsoft started developing a revolutionary technology now known as Microsoft Surface. They were developing the first multi-touch multi-user computer! This was before cellphones where being used by the masses. At this point only cool people like Zack Morris and his Dad had them. This technology was unheard of, and is still really cool. Click here to check it out in this 2008 video demonstration.

That video is two years old! So what the heck happened? Why is Apple the golden child of phones, tablets, and MP3 players? Because Apple released their technology quickly and in a format where average customers could consume it. Microsoft had the technology, they had the money, they had plenty of smart people around, but they just didn’t have the foresight or the speed to be the first to come out with a product that could be used by the masses, a.k.a. the iPad.

This brings us to Internet Explorer and the recent reports of its continuing loss of market share. Internet Explorer has been around for a long time, and for a while was the only real browser you could realistically use, which resulted in a poor product. Now we have Firefox, Safari, and Chrome (my favorite) which have improved on an otherwise slow and annoying experience. Internet Explorer 9 may have improved its speed and a few other issues, but it’s too late. The brand is broken. People who have abandoned Internet Explorer, like myself, have left IE forever and will convince as many people as they can to get away from it. Why? Because Internet Explorer only improved when it had to, not because they cared about developing a quality product. If they were connected with the consumer they would have improved their product long before other browsers corrected the problems.

The point of this post isn’t to rail on Microsoft. The point is to drive home the importance of understanding the consumer and getting your products or services out as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality. If you don’t provide what people can use when they need it, then you will lose sales to your competitors. It’s simple economics.

By now you’ve probably heard about Twitter’s big announcement. Basically Twitter is overhauling its website. All I have to say is that it’s about time! I’ve always thought Twitter was a messy website with many needed changes and it sounds like it may finally be fixing a lot of those problems.

One thing I’ve heard a few times is that Twitter is trying to be like Facebook. If that’s true, I hate to break it to you Twitter, but you’re not Facebook. That’s ok! You don’t want to be Facebook. We already have a Facebook. Twitter is valuable the way it is. Really this conversation boils down to what Twitter and Facebook are.

Facebook is a network for friends. It’s a much more intimate network. In general, people don’t want to be friends with complete strangers. On Facebook people are more willing to share personal updates and expect to converse with those they’re close with. Yes, Facebook has features like pages, questions, and the public posts feature that allows your posts to be seen by the world, but in general people on Facebook want to be more private.

On Twitter people can connect with pretty much anyone. They can connect with industry leaders, celebrities, random bloggers, and anyone else you can think of. You may have a conversation with a complete stranger or even someone you admire that otherwise you would never be able to connect with. It’s a wonderful way to network, get your name/business/project out in the open, to promote yourself and your product and to connect with the world. Twitter provides opportunities that, at the moment, are impossible on Facebook.

In the end, I really don’t think Twitter is trying to be Facebook. I think Twitter is finally trying to get their product up to snuff. Don’t forget how far Facebook has come over the years.

This woman is dangerous.

I’ve been particularly distracted today by some really interesting tech/science news, so I thought I would share some of the day’s most fascinating “nerd” reports as my requisite blog post.

Cameron Diaz is the world’s most dangerous celebrity. That’s according to McAfee, the antivirus software and computer security company. Apparently, searching for Cameron Diaz’s name on the Internet leads to more harmful spam than any other celebrity name on the planet, beating out Julia Roberts and Jessica Biel. Parents, lock up your children!

Everyone’s freaking out over Facebook…again. The social network wants to unveil its “Places” feature, allowing mobile phone users to disclose their exact location to friends. Of course privacy is a big issue, and critics are blasting Facebook for asking for too much information from its users.

The Moon is shrinking. Its tectonic faults are literally contracting due to the interior’s cooling. Scientists say there’s no need to be alarmed, but I’m concerned the little people that live in the Moon will soon become too cold or too cramped. This leads to irritability….and a potential attack on the Earth.

iPods may be killing our hearing. A recent study suggests that one in five American teenagers now has some hearing loss, perhaps due to iPods and MP3 players. Turn down the volume, folks!

Driving with animals in the car is more dangerous than texting while driving. I mostly like this Fox News article because of the picture they used with the story (you like it too), but it’s a disturbingly interesting news piece too. Someone once told me that texting and driving is worse than drinking and driving. Using that logic, having Fido in the car with you is worse than driving plastered.

Twitter, eBay and MySpace are hitting the big screen?! Well, no. But I love these parodies of the upcoming Facebook cinematic drama, The Social Network. Enjoy.