Is à la carte cable really the answer?

Posted on January 19, 2011 by

There’s a growing demand for “à la carte” cable pricing — i.e. the ability to pick and choose just the individual channels you want.

After all, why pay for stuff you aren’t using?  You don’t want the electric company forcing you to keep your lights on when you’re not home.  Paying only for the TV that you plan to consume makes sense.  More choice and lower bills?  Sign me up!  Right?

Wouldn't it be nice to order cable like we order dim sum?

There’s just one problem with that line of thinking.   There isn’t a direct correlation between the bulk of your cable bill and the number of channels your receive.  Choice is definitely good, but we could wind up paying more for less.  A lot less.

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Why is Sprint still airing their “first” Evo commercial?

Posted on November 6, 2010 by

I saw this commercial again just last night.  I get that when the HTC Evo came out in June, Sprint wanted to really play up its “first” status among 4G cell phones, which was a great idea back when it was the only 4G phone.  But all Sprint’s doing now is reminding people the Evo is the oldest 4G phone out there.  Not sure that’s the message they want to be sending.

Side note: Does anyone even remember what the first 3G or 2G phones were? Nope. I don’t, and I actually pay attention to these things. The commercial pretends like being the first 4G phone is as iconic and groundbreaking as being the first rotary phone or the first rocket into space, but as far as I can tell, only three cell phones have officially reached icon status:  the first iPhone, the Motorola Razr, and Zack Morris’s grey brick mobile phone.  That’s it.

Though it helped make Zack popular at school, it also lead to his fatal brain tumor.

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Sony’s Google TV remote is a handful. Literally. And not in a good way.

Posted on November 5, 2010 by

Sony's Google remote has way too many buttons

I tried out Sony’s Google TV solution at a Sony store today.  No, make that:  I tried to try out Sony’s Google TV solution.   I wanted to write a quick post today about my first thoughts on it, but I can’t, because I spent more time trying to figure out the darned remote than I did actually using it.

The remote is a perfect example of “too much of a good thing.” 90% of the buttons are only needed very occasionally, which means for most basic tasks (like, say, watching TV) it’s just a lot of wasted and confusing space.  And when you do need to use one of the extra buttons, it’s not-at-all obvious which button is the right one to press.  I had to **gasp** ask a sales guy for help with something as simple as moving the cursor when using the Google TV web browser (the answer: the large round button on the upper right doubles as a mini touch-pad — cool, but not the least bit intuitive).

I still want to try Google TV at home at some point, but based on my five minutes with Sony’s solution, I’m now leaning towards giving Logitech’s Google TV box a try.  Its remote interface has to be better, right?

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Not all TV viewers were created equal…

Posted on October 29, 2010 by

Some viewers are simply more valuable than others. No, I’m not talking about the precious 18-49 demo. CBS has been doing just fine going after all the eyeballs they can, even those with cataracts. I’m talking about the fact that how you choose to watch a TV show significantly affects your power as a viewer. Here’s my list, from the most powerful way to watch to the least:

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Who knew Fantasy Football analysts could be so fickle?

Posted on October 28, 2010 by

Actually, I should’ve known that.  Anyone who plays fantasy football knows that.  Fantasy Football analysts are fickle.  They’re inconsistent.  Their criteria for grading players changes from week-to-week.   How many times have you read a column from a FF analyst where they ragged on Player A, only to see them use the same logic a week later to praise Player B?   How often do fantasy experts qualify their advice with so many conditional words like “but” and “if” that the advice offers you no help whatsoever?  (Side note: My least favorite pundit expression is “I wouldn’t be surprised if…” It’s a complete non-statement that allows the “expert” to basically have it both ways — if it happens, they can say they saw it coming, if it doesn’t, they can say they saw that too.)

The answer to both those questions is “too often to count.”

Anyways, my attempt to actually gauge and compare the quality of advice given from the most reputable analysts (plus Dr. Juan) was a resounding failure.  Merely looking at their weekly lineup recommendations and trying to assign point values to how good it was turned out to be quite frustrating, to say the least.  Worse yet — I kept losing subjects, either because they couldn’t even keep their jobs or because they just didn’t offer enough consistency in their advice.

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The Great Prognosticate-Off Continues (But Should it?)

Posted on October 9, 2010 by

Week 4 is well in the books.  How did the prognosticators do?

First, let’s look back at how they’ve done the first 3 weeks.

Matthew Berry, ESPN – He’s the heavyweight on the list.  A mini-empire of sorts.  He’s made 72 recommendations over the last month in his weekly Love/Hate column, with 42 being good ones (or, at least, ones that wouldn’t piss you off if you followed it).  That’s 58.3%.

John Halpin, FOX – His “Wide Write” column exists rather fittingly at Foxnews.com, though his bio claims he also contributes to Foxsports.com and the Fox News tv channel.  He makes just 9 start/sit recommendations every week.  Of his 27 recs so far this season, 17 have been good.  That’s 63%.  He’s also about to be dropped from this contest (more on that below).

Matt Pitzer, USA TODAY – He’s part of the Fantasy Joe team at usatoday.com, one of the most circulated newspapers in existence, which I’m guessing makes him one of the most read fantasy advice columnists on the web.  He makes 15 start/sit recommendations a week, and of his 45 recs so far this season, 19 have been good.  That’s 42.2%.

Dr. Juan, thefastertimes.com – He’s the only amateur on the list, a guy who doesn’t have access to the sports department at a major publishing enterprise.  He doesn’t get inside info from GMs or coaches.  He doesn’t even get inside info from people who get inside info.  He reads things like everyone else, then makes up his mind, and in that regard he represents the common fan.  He’s made 90 start/sit recomendations so far, with 51 having been good.  That’s 56.7%

David Sabino, SI.com – Disqualified.  Actually, disqualified isn’t the right word.  He lost his weekly starting advice column last week, so maybe “fired” or “demoted” is more appropriate.  I dunno.  All I know is that he started the season doing a sit/start column at SI.com and now he doesn’t.

For more about this survey of mine, and why I picked these guys, check out the week 1 recap.

So how did they do this past week?

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The Sports Guy’s latest column is silly

Posted on October 2, 2010 by

First, I like Bill Simmons. Read all his columns, listen to most of his podcasts, I definitely think he’s got a place in society, and I’m glad he exists.  In theory, I even like his latest column on why he’s rooting for Michael Vick’s comeback.  I agree that legitimate reasons do exist for why someone could root for Vick. The problem is… Bill’s reasons aren’t any of them.

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