This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

by Larry Magid

During its quarterly earnings report last week, Netflix admitted that it had lost 800,000 customers since it announced a price increase in June, but I’m not one of them. I continue to find plenty of great programs to watch on Netflix and, for the time being at least, I’m happy to pay $7.99 a month for access to thousands of movies and TV shows.

Apparently I’m not alone. As awful as the 800,000 number sounds, it’s important to note that Netflix ended the quarter with 21.4 million streaming subscriptions and 13.9 million DVD subscriptions. Despite the subscriber loss, a lot of people are sticking with the service.

I’m not uncritical of the company. Netflix’s decision to add 60 percent to the cost for those who wanted to both stream and get DVDs was clearly a boneheaded move. As a landlord of a one-unit rental house, I learned a long time ago that if you’re going to “raise the rent,” you do it gradually over time. You don’t hit people with a sudden whopping price increase.

The next major PR bungle was its decision to rebrand the DVD business as Qwikster and make people go to separate websites for DVDs and streaming. Maybe it should have instead called the new service “QuickSand,” because the dumb move caused the company to sink even further.

While the company has lost maybe 4 percent of its subscribers, it lost nearly 75 percent of its stock value between its peak in July and its depths last week.

Starting in March, Netflix will no longer be streaming content from Starz, which provides it with lots of movies including titles from Disney. But as CEO Reed Hastings pointed out, there is plenty of other content available. In his letter to stockholders, he said that Starz accounts for “6 percent of viewing hours.”

The reason that the Netflix price increase didn’t bother me is because I had already stopped using it for DVDs. A lot of people may forget that until November 2010, the company charged $8.99 for unlimited streaming and one DVD at a time but then started offering a $7.99 streaming only service with an extra $2 a month charge for that DVD.

Like a lot of customers, I happily “downgraded” to the streaming-only service because I found myself hardly ever watching DVDs. Those red envelopes would sit around the house for weeks and even $2 a month was too much for a service that I just wasn’t using.

I’m not suggesting that Netflix has all the content I want to watch. I sometimes rent newer titles from Amazon or iTunes and I occasionally still rent DVDs from that kiosk at the grocery store or the one remaining video store in my neighborhood. I also go out to movies now and then and watch movies on airplanes, where I spend far too much time.

I spend relatively little time watching “TV,” and often it’s when I’m exhausted and just in the mood to zone out for awhile. Netflix might not give me the widest or even best selection, but there is always something worthwhile. In fact, some of the programs on Netflix (like terrific documentaries from PBS, the History Channel, Discovery and National Geographic) might actually be more worthwhile than the flicks I might otherwise have watched if I had an unlimited choice.

The big question for Netflix is whether it will be able to continue to provide compelling content. It’s not as if Netflix gets to pick anything it wants. It has to negotiate deals with content owners who, of course, want to extract as much money for the rights as they possibly can.

Part of the problem is that Hollywood is trying to hang on to its old models. Studios like to control their distribution “windows.” They keep movies in theaters for as long as they can get paying customers before dolling out the content to other distribution channels, including DVD and a variety of pay-per-view services before releasing it to premium channels like HBO or unlimited streaming services like Netflix.

Netflix is also battling Internet service providers, some of which want Netflix to pay them to carry video traffic to consumers. According to Sandvine’s Fall 2011 Global Internet Phenomena Report, “Netflix eats up 32.7 percent of peak downstream traffic in United States.”

Overall it accounts for 27.6 percent compared to YouTube’s 10 percent. Last year Comcast demanded that Level 3 Communications, Netflix’s Internet provider, pay a recurring fee to transmit Netflix content to Comcast customers.

Another problem is that Internet service providers are increasingly putting caps on how much data users can download. So far, it’s not a big issue for most home users, but it’s a major issue for the rapidly growing number of people who use mobile carriers to stream video to tablets, laptops and even smartphones and handheld media players.

And, of course, Netflix has some pretty powerful competitors, including Amazon, which offers a far smaller selection of free content to its Prime customers who pay $79 a year and also get free two-day shipping.

Here is a sound effect download site from WFMU.

Here is one of many sites where you can listen to sound effects
Here is a video from CNET on how to add sound to anything — costumes, goody bags, etc.

Sound effects from YouTube

At is Nokia World Conference in London, phone maker Nokia is showing off a concept phone that you can control by bending and twisting. You can twist the device to control the volume or bend it to zoom in or out.  Whatever you do, don’t try this with your phone. It may break, but it won’t bend.

I wasn’t in London for the event, but this video tells the story pretty well:

A couple of days after she first appeard on the iPhone 4S, I  conducted what I suspect is the first radio interview of Siri.  You can read about it and listen on my CNET News “For the Record” podcast or you can listen here.

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

by Larry Magid

For the past several months I’ve been on a “social media diet.” No, I haven’t been refraining from using Facebook, Twitter and other social media. I’ve been on an old-fashioned food diet with a 21st-century twist. I’ve been using social media and other technologies to help me lose weight.

Larry Magid

The diet began on a Saturday morning in February — the day after I gorged at the Poor House Bistro, which bills itself as “San Jose’s New Orleans Joint.” There’s nothing wrong with moderate amounts of blackened chicken wings, Cajun popcorn or fried seafood, but in excess they can definitely add to your bloat. But the real problem wasn’t one meal — it was months of too much food and too little exercise.

So, I when I got on the scale and saw that I weighed 186 pounds, I vowed to take off at least 21 of them and, thanks in part to my use of technology, I accomplished that goal.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a diet. Ten years ago I dropped my weight from 200 to 155 pounds and many years before that — when I was in my early 20s — I dropped from 230 to 150 pounds. And there were a few other gain-and-loss spurts along the way, which makes me an expert when it comes to weight loss — I’ve lost hundreds of pounds during my lifetime.

Until this last diet, every successful weight-loss program I’ve been on has involved a human diet counselor. Either I would use the services of a company like the Diet Center or I’d work with a nutritionist. These weight-loss professionals would not only provide good advice but plenty of motivation.

At this stage, I don’t need a lot of advice. I’m well aware that if you consume 3,500 calories more than you burn, you gain a pound and if you burn 3,500 calories more than you consume, you lose one. I also know what foods are low in calories and have a pretty good idea of what is good for me. My problem has always been motivation. Without a counselor or nutritionist to “report to,” it’s too easy to abandon my diet. I have to admit that I need external validation.

But instead of hiring a counselor this time, I decided to rely on public exposure of my weight loss by using Twitter, Facebook and my fitness blog (NobellyPrize.com) to share my progress and setbacks. And to help me keep track of food intake, exercise and progress I used LoseIt.com, which is both a website and an iPhone app that allows you to set your goal, log your food and exercise and track your progress. The site gives you the option of sharing your progress with other LoseIt users and it has links to Twitter and Facebook, allowing you to automatically share the information with your friends and followers.

So as not to spam my Twitter followers (who care more about my tech postings than my fitness regime), I set up a special Twitter address at @NoBellyPrize. I posted to Facebook on a selective basis — occasionally but not every day.

I’m not suggesting that LoseIt.com is necessarily the best weight-loss site and app. There are plenty others out there, including SparkPeople, CalorieKing and of course WeightWatchers.com. But LoseIt, which is free, served me well. Its search engine makes it easy to locate foods by ingredient and brand name. It allows you to create your own foods, like my 275 calorie “Larry sandwich,” made of whole wheat bread, tomato, pickle, mustard and avocado. And in addition to its database of foods, it knows how many calories a person of any weight, gender and age burns per minute for most exercises.

For those of us who need a little help from our friends, the best thing about LoseIt is its “motivators” that allow you to automatically post your progress on Twitter and Facebook or email reports to others. My diet isn’t medically supervised but if it were, I’d probably send results to my doctor.

Another tool I’ve employed during this diet is the Withings Wi-Fi body scale ($159) which can be configured to automatically record your weight on a password-protected website and, if you want, can pass that information on to LoseIt.com, Twitter, Microsoft HealthVault or you can embed the information on any Web page. You can track my progress at NoBellyPrize.com but, truth be told, my data is incomplete and not necessarily up-to-date for a number of reasons, including my frequent travel.

In addition to its Wi-Fi scale, Withings also makes a blood pressure monitor ($129) that connects to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to take your blood pressure and — at your discretion — share it with others. Even though my blood pressure is normal (and lower since my weight loss), I’ve decided not to share it. But for those who need close monitoring, it’s a great way to keep their health providers or loved ones up-to-date on how they’re doing.

Of course, the only way my “social media diet” will work is if I stay with it. Just as with human diet counselors, it’s easy to find excuses to disengage, which is one of the reasons I’ve had a lifelong battle with my weight.

What?Gravity Mobile Phone Holder (photo by Larry Magid)

It’s hard to get excited about a stand for a mobile phone but I am pretty impressed by What?Gavity Mobile Phone Holder from Sheffield, UK-based ideasbynet.com.

The stand, which claims to have “guaranteed compatibly with all mobile phone designs,” has an affixed 2 1/2 by 4 1/4 inch rubber mat which grabs whatever device you place on it and keeps it from falling.  It worked fine with my iPhone 4S, Blackberry, Android phone and iPod Touch. The company says it will also hold an iPad which is sort of true. The rubber surface is able to hold an original iPad but the stand itself falls over unless you anchor it with a weight capable of offsetting the weight of the iPad. I didn’t try it with an iPad 2.

Ideasbynet is a promotions company that sells in bulk — pens mugs, mouse mats and other things that companies typical slap their logo on and give away.  The pricing for the device starts at 4.84 UK pounds ($7.64) in per item in quantities of 100 with an imprinted company logo.  I have no idea if they even offer single unit pricing nor do I know what they would charge to  ship to the U.S.   If I find out, I’ll update this post.

In the mean time, check out the company’s promotional video:

My role on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show was to point out that the reason Steve Jobs may not have given much to charity (we don’t know for sure, he could have given anonymously) is that he was a very busy guy. Not only was he running Apple and Pixar, he spent the past several years fighting for his life. Sure, he could have written checks, but Jobs was the kind of guy who would want to be sure that his money was going to the right places and that takes time. Of course, we can’t be sure, but that’s certainly a possibility

Here’s the video:

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

by Larry Magid

As far as I can tell, Google engineer Steve Yegge never intended to become famous for criticizing the company he works for. But if you use his company’s search engine to google his name, you’ll find plenty of references to his recent Google+ post in which he called the company’s new social media service a “pathetic afterthought,” a “knee-jerk reaction” and a “study in short-term thinking.”

Those are harsh words for someone to write about his employer, but in a follow-up post, Yegge said that he had never meant for it to be public. He intended it to be “visible to everybody at Google, but not externally.”

Yegge, who referred to himself as “not what you might call an experienced Google+ user,” posted his rant at midnight and made it public by mistake.

I’m not sure what he did wrong. In his follow-up post he said “by the time I figured out how to actually post something I had somehow switched accounts.” But one thing is for sure, if a Google engineer can mess up on his Google+ privacy settings, so can the rest of us.

Whenever you post something on Google+ you have the option to post it to the public or restrict it to specific people that you enter by name. Or, you can select a group or groups of people called “circles.” Directly below the text box is an area where you can “add circles or people to share with.” Once you make a selection and click “share,” your post is seen only by those people.

There’s a catch to in-line privacy settings

But there’s a catch. Whatever option you select will remain the default until you change it. So if you generally post only to specific circles but decide you have something to say to the public, you had better remember to go back and change the setting the next time you post.

To be fair, the icons that represent your choice are big, bold and in plain English. But that wouldn’t necessarily prevent someone from forgetting to check their last setting. If you found that you have made a mistake, Google+ lets you delete or edit the post and change the audience but — as has been said many times before — once something is “out there,” it’s out there.

Facebook recently adopted similar “in-line” privacy settings. It now lets you decide each time you post whether it should be seen by the public or only by Friends, specific people you specify or a list of people. Lists can be ones you’ve set up (like Google+ circles) or “smart lists,” which Facebook generates based on things you may have in common, such as work or school.

With Facebook, you need to look for a small indicator just below the update box that might say “Public,” or “Friends” or perhaps the name of the list of people you’re sending to. As with Google+, anytime you make a change it remains in place until you change it again, so it’s very important to glance down at that indicator to avoid sending something to the wrong people.

But even if you’re very careful in how you use your social network’s privacy settings, I still urge caution when posting something that could cause problems if seen by the wrong people. There is nothing to stop someone from copying and pasting what you post. You can delete something from your profile but you can’t prevent others from posting it to theirs or sharing it via email or other means.

Email too

It’s also important to be cautious when sending email.

Several years ago, when I was writing for the Los Angeles Times, I got a worrisome email from my editor about a column I had submitted. Upset, I forwarded it to my wife with the comment “I don’t think he likes my work,” but instead of pressing “forward,” I clicked “reply.” The good news is that he wrote back saying that he loved my work but just had a small problem with that particular column.

And when you do forward, be careful about the “thread” of messages you’re sending on. A couple of years ago my wife forwarded an innocuous Gmail message to my daughter but she didn’t realize that the message was part of a longer conversation that included a plan for my daughter’s surprise birthday party.

Also be careful when you type names in the “to” box. Some email programs and Web services (including Gmail) have an auto-complete function that saves keystrokes but makes it easy to select the wrong person. If President Barack Obama were using Gmail to write a message to his wife Michelle Obama, he could easily direct it instead to Michele Bachman.

Another common error is responding to people on lists. I’m part of a Google Group listserv and when someone posts to the list, the “from” field shows their name. So if you want to respond privately, it’s natural to just click “reply.” But if you do that, the reply goes to the entire list as several of us have discovered when we accidentally broadcast what was meant to be a private response.

In 1968, Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” The future is here, but with the wrong click, that could easily turn into 15 minutes of infamy.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety organization that receives support from Google and Facebook. 

Listen to Larry’s 1-minute CBS News segment where he and Siri have a chat

I’m falling in love with someone named Siri. She’s smart, she’s sassy, she answers my questions and she mostly does what I tell her to do.  Siri isn’t a person – I wouldn’t dare expect the real women in my life to follow my commands.  She is the personal assistant built into Apple’s new iPhone 4S.  And, largely because of Siri, I just put my Android phone on the shelf and switched to the iPhone 4S.

While Android also has voice applications, they’re not as smooth or well integrated as Siri. Press the iPhone 4S home button, ask a question and there’s a pretty good chance that Siri will find an answer. There is also a good chance that Siri will carry out your verbal commands like “set an alarm for 7:00,” find me the nearest sushi bar or give me directions to Susie Smith’s house (assuming Susie’s address is in your contact list). You can also use Siri to dictate a text or message. It’s not perfect – there were a few times when it misinterpred my voice – but it was mostly pretty accurate.

My first photo with the iPhone 4S was the Apple tree in front of the late Steve Jobs' house which I passed on way home from Apple store

Fit and finish

Another reason I made the switch is just the fit and finish of the iPhone inside and out. Like the physically identical iPhone 4, the 4S just feels good in the hand – a testament to the late Steve Jobs keen sense of design. But the operating system is equally refined. Unlike Android -which is powerful but a bit clunky – iOS 5 does what it does elegantly even though it might not have the potential to do quite as many things as Android device.

Of course the iPhone S also has some hardware improvements over its predecessors including a faster A5 chip and a much improved 8 megapixel camera. I’m not much of a game player but – for those who are – the faster chip definitely improves performance. What I can feel is a snappier response compared to the iPhone 4 and most other touch screen phones, including recent Android phones I’ve tested.

iCloud is another plus. True, Google had cloud services long before Apple, but I like the way iCloud makes it easy to sync music between my PC and various IOS devices. Before I left the Apple store the music I had purchased on iTunes was wirelessly and automatically transferred to my new 4S.

Although setting up the new iPhone 4S went smoothly, I can’t say the same for my experience upgrading my iPad and iPod touch iOS 5. Like a lot of other users, I had some initial problems which – with the help of Apple support – I was finally able to work out.

Network choices

It’s now possible to use an iPhone on Sprint in addition to AT&T and Verizon. While all three networks have pretty good coverage I chose Sprint because of its pricing plans which include a $99 a month “Simply Everything” plan that covers unlimited voice, data and messaging. Also, the iPhone 4S is able to work in Europe and other countries that use GSM phone plans and I’m told that Sprint will unlock the phone for “customers in good standing” so that it will be possible use to less expensive local phone services when overseas.

I could switch back

With technology nothing is forever. While Apple’s may have the latest and greatest right now, there is certainly the possibility that I might change my tune depending on how rich and creamy Google’s upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich Android operating system turns out to be. The good thing about competition is that all players have an incentive to outdo the others and — with its enormous resources — I have no doubt that Google will do all it can to outclass Apple.

In a blog post, Google announced that it is killing its much maligned Buzz service to “focus instead on Google+.” As PC World points out, Buzz turned out to be a privacy nightmare for Google and Gmail users, exposing people’s lists of most commonly contacted email contacts. Buzz was launched in February 2010 as Google’s answer to Twitter and Facebook.  Google+, launched this fall, is the company’s current social media offering.

In case you don’t remember Buzz, this video will refresh your memory