Martin Hofmann

a personal blog about technology, communications and other stuff that interests me

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Don’t be afraid, upgrade to simplicity! – Ars Electronica 2006

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Simplicity is the theme of this year’s Festival Ars Electronica which is held from August 31 to September 5 in Linz, Austria. A blog about the festival program will be launched in May. Last year’s festival featured 450 particpating artists and scientists from around the world, and 33,000 vistors came.

The challenge of the future will be to make complexity comprehensible and manageable. Thus, simplicity in a positive sense means developing intelligent strategies to facilitate access to technologies, to make them more convenient, and to enable users to see what actually happens with the information moving through them.

Gerfried Stocker, artistic director, Ars Electronica

What is the quality of all this knowledge?

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What do you think about blogs and wikis?

I think, in principal, it is good because people share information and share knowledge, which I think is always good. The question is, however, what is the quality of all this knowledge? This is something I watch from a distance. Somebody has to be accountable. If it becomes too much into the areas where it is critical for customers, then I think it is better that they rely on the office resources.

SAP CEO Henning Kagermann in The Brains behind SAP (via CNET News.com)

Pandora vs. Radio Paradise

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rp1.jpgAfter reading about it on Mark Evans’ blog, I’ve been trying out Pandora for a few days. It is a great idea to let listeners create their own music radio station based on their favourite artist(s) and then provide recommendations of ‘similar’ music. 

The intelligence behind the recommendation engine is still a work in progress, though. For example, how I got from my selections Buffalo Tom and Heather Nova to a recommendation of Def Leppard is still a mystery to me.

I did like some of the songs Pandora came up with and it is definitely a site I will return to. But Radio Paradise is still my favourite Internet radio station. Bill and Rebecca at Radio Paradise put together a program that I prefer to my own Pandora selections. They have introduced me to many artists that were new to me, and some of them I would have never come across on my own – even with a recommendation program.

Maybe it is a little bit like the chess matches between Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue. It is fascinating to see what technology can do. But I always wanted Kasparov to win. When it comes to Internet radio, I’m still in Bill and Rebecca’s corner.

Opportunities for IT Vendors

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According to an IDC 2005 survey of medium and large businesses that is mentioned in IDC Canada’s April 2006 IT Matters newsletter, 70 per cent of large companies agreed that they’d be “open to dealing with new IT vendors”. That’s good news for vendors who are trying to get their foot in the door with Canadian enterprises.

My guess is that the openness varies considerably depending on which part of the IT system the new vendor is targeting and how big the pain is that the solution addresses. IDC says that “addressing less glamorous business challenges” may help close the sale.

JAlbum update

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I love JAlbum. I downloaded it a few weeks ago because I wanted a better way to put photos on my website. Now I finally got around to trying it out. It is a fantastic program. And it is free (users can donate money if they like). JAlbum comes with the option of choosing different skins for the albums, and there is a whole “ecosystem” of people who design skins.

I have used the Fotoplayer skin for my new galleries (to see an example click here). Fotoplayer.com has a free trial version and can be upgraded to a Lite version and a Pro version, which even includes online shop capabilities for professional photographers. For a snapshot photographer like me, the trial version is enough, although I may upgrade to Lite at some point.

I keep reading about Flickr and Bubbleshare, which are easy to use and have great blog integration. What I like about JAlbum are the features, flexibility and design options. Blog integration would be nice. The Fotoplayer skin already comes with an RSS feed, so who knows what features may get added next. I also like that I can keep the photos on my own website, and don’t have to store them on Flickr or Bubbleshare. But I can see the attraction of their services. Now if the people behind Fotoplayer and JAlbum got together and offered a hosted online version… well, just a thought.