 Hello! Hello and welcome! Welcome! Bruce and Ed, live from New York. I'm Bruce. And I'm Ed. And... We're happy to see you here today. Live from New York. Yeah. Good morning. Today's show, today's special guest is, give us a little intro. He's a multi-talented musician and creative artist. And his name is Steve Weissichs. And you probably know him from TV and from music. And he's with us this morning. Welcome! Hey Steve! Cheers! Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Looking all bright and ready to go. Bright and wishy-washy. Freshly showered. I'm beginning the caffeine ritual right here. Yes, we are too. Great. Hawaii! Cheers! Yeah, I saw in your blog you just got back from Hawaii. Aloha! You've been daydreaming every day since, right? Come on over here. Yeah, I'm trying to keep the aloha thing going in the big city, if I can, at all. Because it really seemed to help out the old noodle. Yes. So it's kind of hard to come back because I really, really love it out there. That should be an obligation, everybody. I think it should be a law. Every six weeks, you have to take one week in Hawaii. One of the islands. Any kind of island, any kind of beach place where you don't have to wear real shoes. Yes. You don't have full length pants. It has to be some short type of pants. Totally. And Manhattan doesn't count as an island or city island. No, no. No, you gotta run away from here sometimes to get that. They should do that. They should put a little lake down there. They should put a little beach and some palm trees and make a little tropical island beach right here on Manhattan. The Paparazzi beach over there in Brooklyn. But it seems like that's just a real great place to catch some hepatitis, as opposed to some rays. Yeah, right. It's a nice idea. I don't want to rip on them, but it's, you know, it's a little hectic. Have you guys been out there? Nowhere? No. You're talking about where they have concerts and music, all kinds of stuff? I got concerts. They import sand. If you just look across the East River, you can see it. It's right there just, I think it's just, it's kind of around between Greenpoint and Williamsburg, I think. Hey, honey. Williamsburg. Sorry. That's okay. I'll find out where it is. What's it called? A volleyball stretch. It's Long Island City. Oh, Long Island City. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's where Costco is. Yeah, that's where our Costco people are. We know, oh, the beach at Costco. You're talking about the Costco ferry, you know. It's like, you know. They have like beer and barbecues and you go out there and just, you know, put your feet in the sand and it's kind of nice, but it's still, you know, just this side of getting him. If you, if you put a blanket down, lay in the sun and close your eyes, you can almost be at the beach. Almost. Until you hear the sirens. Yeah. That's so, that's funny. So you, how long were you in Hawaii? I was out there for seven days and then spent two days in Los Angeles, which is pretty much where I'm from. So I got to go out and see my friends, do a little bit of business. And then me and the fiance went out to Oahu for seven days. We hiked around and jumped off cliffs and kayaks, the little islands off the coast. It's just, I really underestimated how cool Oahu is because it tends to get, it tends to get disrespected for having Honolulu and Waikiki, which are really kind of, you know, metropolitan cities. Right. And so, but it's really, really beautiful. There's so much to do on the island. Yeah, there really is. People are kind of some geeky looking for lost locations, which was kind of fun. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. The cast is there. Well, that's over now, but right. But they were, they were often seen there, of course. Yeah, they filmed almost the whole show there, apparently, even though the show, all the flashbacks that happened, the show happened all over the world. Korea and Los Angeles and all over the world, Saudi Arabia. Everything was actually filmed on Oahu. So they had to reproduce Korea in Oahu. What's that? They had to reproduce Korea in Oahu. Yep. That's amazing. They found places that actually look, because on Oahu, in Hawaii, it actually has every climate on Earth in those islands, which is kind of amazing. There's desert. There's snow. There's obviously jungle, tropical. It's crazy. Yeah, that's amazing. And people always say, you know, tourists always talk about, you know, Maui and all the other islands and how beautiful they are. But you're right, that Oahu can't, if you get outside of the city, it's just as beautiful. Exactly. The rainy side, right? The other side where it gets all the rain that hits, you know, one side, it's much more green and lush. And the North Shore with all the surfers and with that whole kind of culture, it's really undeveloped. It's still very country. We spent most of our time up there. It's really fun. But I love Maui too. I've spent a lot of time in Maui. Yeah. You know, I found a nude beach, sort of, in Oahu. Really? There was this place. Yeah, yeah. I found it from some guidebook. And you have to go up this main road. It's like right up from Waikiki. You just go up the hill, up the mountain. And then there's this one spot. And it identifies it in the book. There's some kind of a sign, no parking sign or whatever in 300 yards past that. It's like a treasure hunt. And then there's a sign right there that says, danger, do not enter. Dangerous rocks falling, something like that. And it says, go right past that. And then climb down the trail. And it was exactly right. It's like you go down this trail and it's like all these trails going right down to this totally exclusive beach that nobody knows about. It's like, you know, 10 feet deep. And I mean, wide the beach or deep, I guess. Anyway, and it's like they're all laying out nude. It's crazy. I found one of those in Maui. It's the same kind of situation. You go to the main beach and then there's like some rocks you have to climb up. And then you look over and boom. There it is. Hundreds of naked people. We climbed down this little rock. Not a big climb, but just we have to, you know, walk down these little rocks. And the first thing we see when we look left is about a 70 year old naked Hawaiian guy with long white hair on a surfboard surfing away into the beach. A visual that I will never easily be able to erase from my mind. I hope you already had your McMuffin for the morning. McGriddle, I saw that on here. McGriddle, yeah. You're famous now with your McGriddle. By the way, what else are you famous for besides the McGriddle? Not much. I've done a bunch of stuff, but fame isn't one of the things I'm not familiar with. No, but you were, Ed was telling me that you were MTV. You were an MTV VJ? Yeah, MTV is a cable channel. Really? That plays, that used to play music. Used to. They got the M in their logo. And a lot of people don't know that, but it's true. It used to play music. And that was a really long time ago. And that's when I worked on there and I introduced videos and I hosted the Top 20 Countdown and hanging with MTV, Daily Root Awakening. There's about like five different shows I did. Are you serious? People don't know that. People really fun for a young dude that just got moved out from LA. It's come to New York. I remember seeing you. This was in the 90s or early 90s? Yeah, this time. And I was like long hair wearing shorts on the air and wearing Doc Martin boots. That was kind of like it. Yeah, I remember seeing you. Because I remember the name when Bruce... Well, you and Bruce know each other from Twitter and he mentioned your name once and I was like, that name sounds really familiar. But yeah, I remember you. I think you did great. So are you serious or are you joking? Some people don't know MTV comes from music television. I'm joking, but I mean when you think about it... 20-somethings don't know. Yeah, but really if you're... The kids today. They're all kind of shot for this late teens audience. Really it's like when you're in that pre-post-pubescent haze of hormones. That's who they're really focusing on. It's a really high turnover audience. So they're programming. I think sadly reflects this really kind of... It's almost like trying to exploit the hormonal craziness that everyone has as they're growing up. I think they've done a lot of good programming but largely they just don't. It's some of the worst stuff on TV. I haven't even watched MTV for so, so long because we don't... You don't watch Jersey Shore? No, that was good. Yeah, that was MTV. Yeah, that was good. We only watch television through internet. It's really bad. We canceled our cable service completely. We only watch TV through internet. Using Boxy and Putio and all that stuff. So we don't have any of those cable channels. But I still see the best shows. We can watch Jersey Shore whenever we want. But I never actually tune into MTV itself. I don't know. The last thing I remember on MTV besides after the music videos were over was the real people or something. Real those reality shows. Real world. Real world. People are looking polite and things start getting real. Yeah, because real people aren't polite. That was the first reality show seed that was planted anywhere on popular media. That was actually right when I was leaving MTV. Right when I was at MTV was the first season of real world. And boom, this whole reality television now that's where it all came from. So what's on MTV today? Thank God I don't really know. Largely, reality shows about 16 year old pregnant girls. And pretty much that kind of milk. It really bugs the hell out of me when I turn it on. It sounds like Jerry Springer. And they and E Entertainment Television are really straight in the bottom of the barrel. Wow. It sounds like Jerry Springer. The Jerry Springer network. Yeah, pretty much. But your real passion is music obviously but performing it, right? It was. I'm kind of retired from music. I put out an album with the guys from James Addiction with an album called The Panic Channel on Capitol about three years ago. But right after we toured and it looked like they wanted to go back to James Addiction and I met a girl out here. I met a beautiful bottle service waitress at Marquis of all places on tour. And we fell in love and I decided to move from Los Angeles to LA. So since then I've just been focusing on my internet creative direction and internet marketing advertising, digital interactive stuff. Which is kind of my other twin love. You mean social media marketing? Consulting with people who want to market themselves through? Pretty much. I worked for three years at a company called DeepFocus where I was creative director and we did all of the HBO marketing and all of the Mad Men on AMC. Yeah, I saw some of the work you did with them. That's great. My gig was to have a new movie or a TV show or product or a brand and to come up with any kind of interactive social media, any kind of digital execution, any kind of fun thing that I could come up with. That's pretty much what I'm doing right now, freelance. So I bounce around to different companies. They have some kind of idea, TV show, brand promotion and then I come up with ideas. So I'm kind of a digital idea guy. Cool, very cool. I did that. What is it called again? Something Me? What's the show called again? Mad Men? Yeah, Mad Men. Mad Men Yourself? Yeah, I did that. That was my idea. Yeah, I made a little caricature of myself. That was fun. That did really well. We got tons of coverage on that. I'm pretty happy when millions of people are doing this one thing. They don't have to spend any money for it. They love that. It's like a video that goes viral. It could be a little applet like that that goes viral that everybody wants to go and try, very cool. And every client is trying to get that, catch that lightning in a bottle. There's no way to do it. You just have to give it your best shot and do a bunch of research and go with something that you think you'd like to enjoy and then hopefully people grab onto it. Yeah, you have to be creative, come up with great ideas. Then you have to be able to, I don't know, maybe make a prototype to try it out on people and see which ones people go, oh, that's cool. No, because that would sink a bunch of money and time. You really just have enough time to build the thing, to do the best thinking and then push it out there. Yeah, because if you're going to build it to try it on people, you may as well just build it and put it out there. Unless you're like Coca-Cola or some gigantic brand and you can bring it a bunch of kids off the street, focus group them like guinea pigs. They've got money forever. I'm sure they do stuff like that with really big executions. Yeah. But for a show like Mad Men, which a lot of people like and a lot of people in, you know, a certain like the New York demographic and a lot of professional people and digital people love Mad Men, they only get about like 1.2, 1.7 million viewers a week, maybe in the twos for a season premiere finale. It's not a big viewership to the show, but it's really influential in a specific demographic that's really prized by advertisers. Right, that's cool. That's cool. Plus it rules, but it's not a big show. Yeah. So what, you're saying it's like a higher income demographic or just sort of near needs? My income, more college educated. They spend more money and they have a lot of, you know, these are the people that like Mercedes-Benz wants to put their ads to. You know, Mercedes-Benz is going to put an advertisement on 16 and pregnant on MTV because it's not a good idea for their money. But on Mad Men, those people that are watching that show, that's that group that would buy that car. Exactly. So you can have a smaller audience, but a much more prestigious demographic. Yeah. A much more valuable audience to certain brands that have a lot of cash, frankly. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's awesome. Cool. And what are your thoughts like on Twitter? I mean, because I know Bruce is all over Twitter and seems like you are too. I see you're tweeting a lot. Twitter's over. Twitter's good. What is your take on it? No, I love it. I actually warmed up to it, in my opinion, late, because I'm really an early adopter with technological products, with social media stuff, with basically anything. I give it a really healthy shot right at the beginning and get into it. And Twitter, I got into right away and it just felt really clumsy. I didn't like how cryptic the tweets were with the hashtags and with replies. I didn't think they really set up the service that great. And I thought they were pretty lucky in the beginning that it didn't capsize. I was a big fan of friend feed when it came out. I thought it was elegant. I thought it was clear. And I really liked the community there. I was a big fan of friend feed. But Twitter, it was undeniable. Once they figured out their server problems and their uptime, it became something that just, there's such a broad range of people communicating that anybody can jump in and get into a, not a conversation, because Twitter sucks for conversation, but they could get into a dialogue but they could get into the experience with any type of person that they might enjoy reaching out to. So I think Twitter is, it's still the golden child of social media. That, you know, that in Facebook, they serve totally different masters. But yeah, I love Twitter. I get an awful lot out of it. I think that, similar, I mean, I think Twitter has kind of succeeded in spite of itself. In spite of its, like, thoughtless design. I mean, they kind of know that. They didn't want to change much because they didn't want to jinx it. They were on our, they are on a success ride that hasn't stopped. And so in a way, it's kind of smart. They didn't want to screw with it because so many companies, they make one, they keep trying to improve it until it goes right into the grave. But they just did nothing, basically did nothing to it at all and just let it grow and grow and grow and grow. And that it's, the form factor has, I think is what's caused it to succeed because just the simple fact that it's short and that everybody can join it and that it interacts with everything else. So, and like you said, they have completely different purposes than other things. So the trick to Twitter, I think is, like you said, it kind of sucks for conversation, but it's great for making connections. So I think of it as a broadcasting tool. Well, it's dual purposes. One is a broadcasting tool. And the other, actually three, three huge services. One broadcasting, two is reading, like almost like reading like an RSS reader. So there's, there's those 10 people that you really care about what they're saying. You can follow those 10 people. So that's my secret. I have two Twitter accounts. Use one for posting, you know, profound thoughts or whatever. And then use the other one for reading because you can't read 10,000 people. You can only read 10. So I follow like 10 people on one. And I have, on the other one, I have like 11,000 people who follow what I say. So I use two different accounts. And then the third thing that people, the most often neglected and probably the most powerful part of Twitter is the search. I use Twitter search. I use Twitter search as much as I use Google search. It's that powerful. So a lot of things you can't find on, on Google, you're going to find blog articles, news articles. But on Twitter search, you find people who are, like I want to know about this particular software and maybe in conjunction with this particular hardware, I can do a Twitter search on that and I can find people who are using it right now. And I can start. Yeah. And I can start a conversation. You can start a conversation with an at reply or two and then take it offline to email and then have a, or phone or whatever, Skype and to, and have a real conversation. And so I connect to people in very, very specific genres, people who are using this software on that computer or whatever. And for this purpose or that, you know, like the accessibility community, you know, people who are using Ubuntu Linux that are blind or vision impaired. Real, real splinter segments. And I can connect to those people and really make a one-on-one connection. So it's brilliant for finding real special purpose things like that. Yeah. And a medium that supported some kind of robust discussion. Yeah. But obviously it's not now no matter what anybody says. Yeah. You can't have a discussion on Twitter. But you can reach, yeah, like you say, you can push information out and you can pull information back in such short, easily accessible bursts. Yeah. But I don't see it really like, I don't necessarily think it's peaked. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. It could definitely be absorbed into other mediums at some point, but still it does what it does better than anybody else has been able to do better. Yeah. What do you find the best use of it? Like, are you pushing information and taking information out or? I do everything. I also find that Twitter, I think part of what has become the genius of Twitter, I don't know if it's what they've set out to do. I don't really care, but at this point, they've basically fixed a lot of their server problems unless you want to tweet about the damn World Cup and it just, the whole thing explodes, which I don't want to do, but it's kind of wrecking my Twitter right now, to be honest. But I think it can really be whatever you want it to be. If you like comedians, you can have a list that's just comedians and that's, you can just source that and read jokes all day and it makes you happy. Like you said, you can treat it like a personally driven computer and you can use it as an immediate news source that's 10 steps faster than any blog. And it's human, it's human edited. It's almost like a news feed that's edited by smart humans. You pick the smart humans and, you know, if you really love what Kevin Rose says or something, you follow Kevin Rose and he has already, you know, assuming that you don't find an automated one, you weed it out so that you only follow the real human ones. He's read 20 things and he tweeted one and so it's really, really high quality. Plus, you can see the discussion. That's another thing that it's hard to get for people when they first get into Twitter and when I help people get into Twitter, you know, it's the reaching out and replying to people is a really big component. It seems odd at first. But then, if you like Kevin Rose, for instance, and his opinion, the people that he's speaking with or replying to about that topic, those might be people you want to follow. Absolutely, absolutely. I got a couple of Twitter, like get started with Twitter videos, that a lot of people seem to get a kick out of and that's one thing I really try to hammer home is it is what you make it. You have to give it some time and my first advice is to follow 100 people. It doesn't matter. You can unfollow and follow. These are not friends. This is Facebook. This is a one-to-one relationship. It's an asynchronous relationship where it's your broadcasting and you're taking in information. If you want to follow somebody, no harm done. Don't worry about it. Follow 100 people and see how it feels. I think the most important thing is to first get a rich stream of information and then it starts to be fun, I think. You know, it's so interesting too, like you mentioned that. I remember hearing or it's the people who don't understand Twitter that are trying to educate other people about Twitter that really screws things up. For example, you get somebody who gives you some snide snarky remark about, I'm following you. Why aren't you following me? Because they think it's friending. It's almost like they think that they're on Facebook and I've friended you. Why aren't you friending me? And it's like, you're not my friend and this is not about friends. It's not friends. It's following. So it's reading. I'm reading you. You know, I think actually I'm just totally thinking out loud off the top of my head and I just had an idea. I think one of the smartest improvements Twitter could do is to not show who you follow. I mean, in a way, it's really good because if I really love what you say, if I follow you, I love seeing who you follow and that's really cool the openness of that. But if you didn't show who someone followed, they wouldn't know if you're following them or not. Like if I follow your RSS speed, you don't necessarily know. You may know how many, like maybe they should show how many but not who. Because then people are not offended if you don't follow who you want and you don't have to follow someone back. It's like this, they're coming from this Facebook MySpace mentality where they think follow means friend and it's just, it's very confusing to people. It's so simple and it's so powerful and it has, to me it has these at least three, probably like five major uses. Like I said, reading who you want to read, broadcasting to the entire world because you broadcast, you're not only broadcasting to your followers obviously. You're broadcasting, if I broadcast about Ubuntu, I am actually broadcasting to everybody who searches on the word Ubuntu, whether they follow me or not. So it's real wide reach. When you say something, you're going to get, you know, and anybody who's ever tweeted about a product, you tweet about a certain product and the company will reply to you. That's what I love about it. And now tweets are being seen as citizen journalism and are being picked up by journalists, bloggers, you know, online journalists and I mean CNN, the Today Show. So like what you're saying, if you make that 140 characters really encapsulate generally what's happening with Twitter searches to someone who's running a broadcast TV show, they'll pull that tweet and make it represent the people. That's right. That's a powerful thing. What happened to me? What happened to me? My name was in the New York Times because of a tweet and they showed my tweet my name. Actually two, two different things. One was OMFG, a plane just crashed outside my window into the Hudson River. And boom, you know, I mean, you know, obviously right away within a minute or so, I got a call from a TV station in Toronto and a newspaper in Charlotte and all that. Can I use your photo? And then, so that's one. And then the New York Times, subsequently a couple of weeks later did a story about real-time, real-time internet and journalism and all that. And they actually mentioned my name as one of the original tweets about that event. And another, yeah, right? And then another one related was, oh, I was tweeting about a product. What was it? I think it was the Motorola Droid. When it first came out and I got it in November and I was saying how I love typing on the Droid better than my iPhone and so on. And they called me, I guess it was the ad agency for Motorola called me and asked if they could reproduce it and so they did an ad like a full-page ad in the Washington Post and used my tweet in the ad with my permission. It's like, talk about reach. I mean, it's amazing. You really are, it really is broadcasting in a sense. And it's like, it is like blogging. It really is blogging. It's really, really short blogging. I got quoted a couple of times. I'll give it to you right now. Adweek quoted me and I said, every time I click through to a MySpace page I feel dirty just like I took the subway and I really need some hand sanitizer. I like to think that's one of my classes. I got misquoted by CNN and they didn't quote me quite right. They took out the word, they took out the word Christ. So, but I said, this was before the iPad came out. And I said, breaking, Apple tablet to feature screen made from real unicorn horn and powered by the magic holy kisses of Jesus Christ. Oh my, is that true? Well, that's my scene. It was like, you know, people like, you know, chill out for a little bit. It's called the Isoc. No. No, he's Yeah, he's, yeah. That's one thing I want. It's my main computer now. Yeah. I wanted to ask you. I know. I know. Ed told me, Ed warned me that you're an Apple fan. Yeah. And how do you like it? By the way, I wanted to ask you. I'm obsessed with it. I'm obsessed with it. I love it. I got it. It's funny because like I said, I'm an early adopter. I'm on like line waiter. You know, I got the droid on 34th street. I was out there at midnight. I get things the day they come out because I, at this age, I've realized that I'll be obsessed with these articles and thinking about it until I just buy them. Yeah. My own opinion. And these days, there's so many different products and there's such a rapid rate of innovation. Yeah. And I've learned like you can buy the product, try it out for two weeks and then give it back. Yeah. You know, service contracts. I mean, I think that we're completely constrained by this weird contract, contract mentality. I'd rather tell a company like AT&T to go screw themselves. And if they're going to charge me 120 bucks, screw it. I just want to be done with it and try something fresh. You know, you're absolutely right. I'm getting the thing on the day that it happens and I wasn't going to do it with the iPad. I wasn't because I'm like, I don't need it. I've got plenty of stuff. But I did. You did. And I absolutely love it. You're going to resist. Well, you know, it's interesting. These are a lot of interesting topics that I like to talk about. I'm not going to talk too much about Apple because I'm not a fan. But I mean, I'm sort of an early adopter like you. And I, you know, trust me, you know, I just a little teeny background. I was in, you know, IT forever. I'm only 29. But you know, like 30 years ago, I was a director of IT for a Fortune 400 company. And we had, this was before Windows. Okay. Everything was IBM. The whole entire company was IBM, OS2, you know, PC DOS and all that. OS2 was mainly. 29. That doesn't make any sense. All right. Shut up. Anyway, so anyway, that was a math test and you passed. So anyway, no, but we, I introduced the company. This is a Fortune 400 company. I was director of information systems R&D, right? For this company. And I introduced them to this new thing. I said, it's Microsoft Windows. And I said, this is going to take off. Trust me, people are going to be using Windows. And I was obviously right. Well, I like introduced it to the whole entire battle, but I was an early adopter of Windows. The first, one of the first Fortune 400 companies to actually adopt Windows and we got it implemented corporate wide because of me pushing and pushing and pushing. Anyway, obviously, prior to that, the first Macintosh, I had one of the very first Macintoshes off the assembly line because I worked at an Apple dealer, you know, and we got an employee deal. So I got one of the very first ones ever made on the very first, before they called it the classic, the classic. I've always been a fan of the ease of use and all that. Of course, then Windows tried to, you know, copy that and so on. But now my issues with Apple are about, now I'm a real fanatic for free open source, non proprietary open standards and so on. And Apple is, you know, Steve Jobs is absolutely a thousand percent opposed to that. So is AT&T. And so, you know, they make a lot more money doing it their way where you have to, you can't use it and you have to have an Apple cable to plug into an Apple product to another Apple product and you have to buy it from the Apple store and Steve Jobs decides what software you're allowed to run on your computer that you paid all that money for. There's no flash gating. There's no stopping. I mean, yeah, voice is one thing and the iOS is a whole other thing. Yeah, but they're talking about making. I mean, I hate to say because I love iPhone and I hate AT&T. I had to get rid of my iPhone and Android and I was really happy to jump, give the finger to AT&T and see where Google was actually a huge cool fan. Interesting. But I gotta say after a year being on Android I'm really disappointed in the openness should have by now engendered a much better product in the app marketplace and it hasn't. It just hasn't. I don't know why. I don't know why it's taking so long when you pick up an iPhone or an iPad even if Steve Jobs is cock-blocking flash and just forcing objective seed development is creating incredible frankly a lot of rich developers a lot of innovation and every time we're looking at the app store there is really good product and I'm almost never disappointed. Yeah. If I create a dollar or five dollars which by the other thing Bruce you gotta think about that we've grown up with an internet and a computer culture that's used to saying like Bruce I like you I'm gonna give you that app I'm gonna give you that movie what the iOS is kinda given developers as a real pretty sincere gift is it's changed the marketplace to let customers feel okay about buying software like I don't like that I can't give somebody a copy of software that I bought on the iOS but I barely even think about it because they've created this purchase stream where people go okay I'll throw down three bucks for this Twitter client I'll throw up nine bucks for this game it's probably gonna be awesome yeah I don't think you can totally easily dismiss that as that's bad and open development is good it's just a lot of good stuff and a lot of quality that's being developed in fact the other day I bought my first app for the android yeah you know they do sell they do sell apps in the android market as well most of of course well actually it's better than any app I ever used on the iPhone for this it's called tape machine and it's brilliant and I'm getting I'm in direct communication like we email and send voice messages to each other like every other day the developer in Paris who wrote this app so they give it he's giving amazing support to the thing I noticed that better than any iPhone app or yeah I haven't I haven't tried I mean any any iPhone app that does this that's your what is that that's the nexus one okay okay cool cool cool I went drawing the nexus one drawing the nexus one I had I think Motorola made a bunch of really buggy products the first run and I got really sick of it yeah and now yeah but it just it just was constantly hardware and software bugs yeah there's I mean the thing is don't forget that iPhone's been around for three years right it's it's had a three year head start now droid came out in November I mean you know we can't expect them to be at the same place of maturity especially in the app market on all that so I mean it's but it's happening very fast every time I go into the market there's a lot more to choose from there's a lot more apps there so just numerically because Android will rule everything just because the amount of carriers the openness yeah it will you know it will it is another like Apple versus Microsoft or yeah a different platform yeah and the apps have to get better they are though they are and they first of all the quality of the apps is driven by the number of users and now they said Google well back at Google IO a few months ago or something they said that they were what was it 100 no was it 100 that yeah 100,000 new Android activations per day you know they're talking about the future maybe but the Android is activating 100,000 per day today now and the other thing is that the whole entire smartphone market is exponentially it's just exploding so the numbers are a little bit misleading because all and all smartphone sales are going up up up right now it's something like what do we read 17% of the phones are actually smartphones so the vast majority of phones I know well that's because we're so sophisticated but the thing is that normal people in Ohio and I'm from Ohio I can say that I'm from Ohio but normal people just use the phone for a phone but as those die when their batteries wear out and it's cheaper to get a new one and all that stuff they're all being replaced by yeah it's not even going to be an option like the only phones we carry are smartphones they're all Android and by the way you know Linux you realize that right because nobody calls it Linux I try when I tweet I always say Android Linux it's Linux Tivo is Linux Android is Linux you know Google everything Google is Linux inside and outside the corporation every Google service Google search Google maps Google everything Gmail everything they do is Linux so it's really important that people understand Ubuntu is Linux and has much better hardware driver support and so on easier to install than Windows or Mac any version ever has been and we use them all so I'm telling you I'm going to have to have you over so I can demonstrate it to you but Linux Linux rules and this is the this really is a classic war between closed and open because there is no operating system more closed than iOS and there's no operating system more open than Linux so it's really interesting to me to watch the two battle you talk about Mac you know in this talk there's rumor that you know Steve Jobs wants to make a basically an iOS you know the difference between OSS it's Linux too I mean don't forget well no it's BSD it's from a way back yeah it's a branch way way back early on when they had a license that allowed Apple to completely I won't say steal I'll say completely take it and call it Apple and close it and say no and if you use my Apple operating system I'm going to sue you that's exactly what Apple's done they took something that they didn't create they called it Apple and then and now and now it's evolved they've evolved it themselves they took free BSD called it Apple kept you know they've improved it and changed it and modified it themselves but which is not necessarily good but whatever and then if you use it on hardware you bought from somebody else I'm going to sue you out of business and that's what they've done so it's completely closed almost as if but they haven't the OS and all of the thousands and thousands of work by that's not not everything is free if you want to use Ubuntu use it you know I completely disagree that it's the easiest to have the best driver support I can't believe you could say that but I don't want to get into that but my life is sourced I used to be a Windows guy I gave up on Mac for four years when XP came out I thought XP was a superior product thought OS 10 was a joke all of a sudden I couldn't print the OS went to shit and can we swear on this? yeah yeah it's internet okay cool you can do porn if you want and I became an actual like peace jump a shark but I after four years of it I came back because it just to me it's not pretty pictures and marketing it's about actively trying to get to a task doing it cleanly having the OS be relatively invisible and not messing with DLL errors trying to like negotiate my hardware and software you know like it's there's a certain grace that you get in the back experience that is implicated nowhere it's true no but the reason I think he's he's not saying that like the iPad from the get go it wasn't like this is an open computing platform no it couldn't be more closed it doesn't even have a USB port exactly see should expect it to be I wish I didn't have to go through iTunes to update things I can't do over the air Google's cloud method with Android updating things I think it's much quicker smarter everything will be but I can't deny how rock solid this machine and the symbiotic relationship the hardware that's right see the thing is the reason that it's stable and it works really well with the hardware is because it's only made for that one hardware and that one software they're made for each other and so that's well not necessarily a bad thing right but it the nature of the fact that the software is written for the hardware and the hardware is designed for the software and they're designed by the same company and they're you're completely locked in it's true you don't have to think about it it just works you turn it on and it works and there's no messing with it everything shouldn't be like that we should have open and we should have experiences like that or because Apple's really trying to do this one experience and they've kept on this horrible horrible service AT&T if they open it up things would really open up yeah there's room for everybody I mean I think the worst thing for development and for moving forward as internet culture has been has been that Microsoft was really the one thing on the block for a really long time everybody there needs to be an Apple there needs to be a Linux there needs to be a Microsoft because the thing is the nature of the hardware software lock-in thing is like for example I could I could start a company and call it the Bruce computer right and I could say now you get the choice of model the black model or the blue model that's it that's it and you have to buy this hardware and then I'll put Windows on it or it could be Linux it could be anything but I put this software on this computer and that's it you get the window and that's it and it's going to work absolutely 100% flawlessly so it's really not because the operating system is better or the technology is better or the hardware is better it's by this simple fact that I lock you into this hardware and this software I can make it work and say I only sell this hardware with this software and if you use anything else you avoided your service contract you know I mean if I could do that so in fact I kind of have done that with I don't think that's simple I see what you're saying but that's I think it's one component of what makes something easy to use but you know it's the the energy they put into the design of the product isn't just you know it's not just pretty glass it's you know the new iPhone 4 I haven't used one but that metal rim around the iPhone 4 that's actually the antenna yeah and you talk about Apple just having reputation for just using proprietary cables and if you have the cable breaks you have to go to the damn Apple store and you have to pay 29 bucks and get this thing true that's bullshit but they also have they are the company that pushes the consumer to change their mind about what they're using and that's really helped the industry I mean they they were the first ones to mass market USB USB it used to be serial ports serial ports were pain in the ass they just didn't work they were clumsy yeah you could get the 3.5 inch floppy disk in the first Mac and then they killed it with the iMac in 1998 so I mean they've done a lot of things that seem crazy but they push that thing in the marketplace because they thought that that would inevitably be the long move and a lot of times that's been right and that's a risky thing for a company to do and I think that that appetite for risk the beauty of the design I think really like matches a lot of the elegance of the software design and give their software riders huge amounts of credit so I'm not saying that everything they do is great no I know I do give you that the point of it just being in the OS to a certain type of development that's the one ingredient to the ease of use of Apple that's the that's the ingredient for the stability of it for the driver support and all that there's absolutely never going to be a driver issue when you plug Apple software into Apple hardware that's why they have the stability that they do and of course it still does crash and it still does get viruses but it's much much more stable than Windows no maybe not but it is much more stable than Windows and it does get a lot fewer viruses than Windows but I've never had a virus and I've never had virus software how do you know you've never had a virus if you don't have virus that's the thing people say well my antivirus software told me I don't have a virus anyway that's another issue but the other but the design the design in ease of use now that's a different matter and I do credit Apple for that Apple has and but I but I have to lose a little bit on the risk taking I don't think it's a big risk when you have locked people in you completely locked them into your hardware your software your platform and you have a fan base then you can take any risk you want you can say guess what we're going to the new four pin whatever we're going to go to the new standard it's that Apple only standard you can change all the standards all the rules anytime you want because they're going to be buying your hardware your software they're locked in I think you're underestimating the intelligence of consumers they're not fish I mean Apple almost went out of business as long as I've been alive into the past few years since the since the iMac came back out in 98 and they started doing this for a long time they were doing this but if people don't want and plus Apple have the money or have the experience they'll Apple fanboys will get old and get gray hair and die away and they'll buy this amount of stuff and they just won't have any new users you know kids go into college kids having their first computing experience all that will be Windows or Linux or something else unless Apple was doing something right and right now they're I think clearly doing something right the most positive thing I can say about Apple is they have been able to and they continue to make huge advances in what I would call disruptive technology they complete game changers like when they came out with the iPhone that was completely changed I have a whole touch screen interface and all that stuff that completely changed all phones when the Mac came out the first Mac the mouse changed everything the iPhone changed everything as far as interfaces go it had maybe a little bit I mean there's always been tablets but you know they may be changing what people expect but they kind of like are the cutting edge of new change like you say you know the new iPhone where it uses the case as an antenna obviously every phone will be doing that if they're not already if it's better if it turns out to be better if it works so they're on the cutting edge but everybody else follows then with open standards behind them and that makes it afford it really changes because you won't be able you know you'll be able to go and get a phone for $29 and you won't have a choice it's going to be almost exactly the same as the iPhone 4 in a year you know so it really they're on the cutting edge and you yeah you're right you pay a huge premium because they're on the cutting edge you've paid for that development it's not that huge it's $199 for an iPhone and it's $199 for Android X at the moment I have you well obviously I haven't joined in this conversation because I'm not that typical but I have you both be because I got the new Evo so I feel good I'm among you yeah come on over and you can play with it it's amazing 720p video camera HDMI out it's got an HDMI port to plug it right into your flat screen TV it's incredible but no it's not incredible it's beyond the incredible I generally like Sprint as a company too I really don't like hardly any of the the servers of the services but I think Sprint's pretty good I got one of those Wi-Fi or Mi-Fi's for the iPad and it didn't work for me I didn't take it back this one you know it has the new version of Android that comes on the Evo it's called Froyo it has the Mi-Fi built into the operating system I thought that yeah I've got Froyo on my Nexus did I tether to the mobile solution now I mean I can set up in a deli with Froyo I don't pay anybody any extra money as it cost me an extra 20 bucks please may that stay great so far is Froyo on the Evo? yes yeah it is yeah but you can't use it until they get 4G in New York which will be at the end of the summer like I can't use the tethering in other words until the 4G comes along because it's structured that way or something you can use tethering you have to use an app like you use an app for your tethering right no it's built in you're using the Froyo okay yeah we're still figuring out the settings but it has tethering and it also has Mi-Fi and it's built into Froyo tethering is I don't know if that's Froyo are you sure it is? well I think so it's in there if it's got look at the what's the see this is the other part about Android that's really frustrating it's different every phone has a new version it's like I used to have a grip on it and I just gave up it's just amazing but then also what each so this is the way this is a Google experience obviously but this is when you see your app your app tray and your phone and that that's Froyo at least for me but I think that the Evo runs well it has SenseUI right but it still it's SenseUI on top of Froyo the SenseUI is just like an additional user interface thing on the like a home screen like front end it's just a UI but it's Froyo underneath and it does have it has the artwork factor and Sprint says no you can't use MiFi unless you have 4G and we don't have 4G in New York City yet but we will by the end of summer and you have to pay $30 and they're charging $30 extra that's a bummer unless you jailbreak it you know you can it's open so it couldn't be any easier to you know to these guys are already hacking all that stuff so there's and also there's an app there's something called in the Android Marketplace called another light or tether free or something like that that people say works great but you know so there's many ways to do it and it depends on the version of Android I'm running a search I don't mean to be contrary but I don't think it's 2.2 yet because I see I follow a lot of Android forms and a lot seems people are really pissed off that I mean 2.2 to be honest isn't even on the Nexus yet I just downloaded an early build and put it on myself so it's actually not even commercially released but mine is like a you know kind of relatively early build I don't think that the Evo is 2.2 yet we're such tech geeks we have to actually look okay I've got it right here sorry I'm not trying to be contrary no it's okay it's interesting we were all kind of like really waiting for the final final 2.2 we should know this let's see about about system and then software information here we go and then 2.1 update 1 there you go 2.1 it's still that's not for you 2.2 it's for you right yeah oh well it does have MiFi it has Sprint MiFi and it has tethering built in I think it's a thing specifically with Sprint and Evo that it's a separate I think that's why they charge the money because it's something that they had to pay the money maybe it's some kind of variation of not sense UI but some kind of proprietary Sprint HTC software that's making the tethering possible okay but you know the OS and when that goes to 2.2 I'm really curious what Sprint's going to do because they're going to have customers who are going to say whoa why are we paying 20, 30 bucks for tethering and we just flipped the switch for Froyo and other people on Froyo get to tether for free yeah doing so I'm curious how they're going to play that they're going to have to make it free or else they're going to have to or else people are just going to have a backdoor they're just going to app you download the bypass Sprint or something or they think tether with 4G which is pretty valuable and I can see a lot of customers wanting to pay for that because 4G is supposed to be super sick fast when it happens yeah well we already are paying for 4G even though it's not available here you don't have an option you have to pay that when you have an Evo you pay for 4G ten dollars extra on your rate plan even though it's not available in New York how's the battery on that because the screen looks so beautiful and bright how's the battery I would say that's the biggest problem personally I've had it for a little bit over a week and yeah I'm already shopping for a new battery because I can't go too far without it just completely draining well but you know to me everybody talks about battery life but to me it's the least important issue to me you know why because what I do I never ever buy a phone well first of all I never buy an iPhone anymore so I never buy a phone that doesn't have a removable battery and I never buy a phone without buying the only charger so I always have a battery on the charger I always have a full battery in my left pocket and then there's a battery in the phone so it never ever ever goes out I mean if I swap the battery with the one in my left pocket then I have a whole other day's use it's crazy and I put the dead battery in my right pocket and as soon as I get home I take the battery off the charger put it in my left pocket and cycle the three I'm going to go run to a power socket and I'll bring you back what I use hang on okay power supply I thought that we had Froyo but I guess you're right it's not 2.1 is not Froyo I probably told you that I tweeted it about that saying that it's Froyo because I told you that and I was mistaken see I do make mistakes mmhmm yeah somebody must have told me that that's how rumors start all this time I thought we were on Froyo with that anyway I got a little thing at the airport which I love it's called an air box all the battery bag yeah use as a charger for your phone but you can disconnect the USB card and like when you're in an airport for instance it sucks to have to charge your phone and stand there like a douche just yeah I'm charging my phone it's a little box and you can just plug it in a wall and go do your stuff or you know go and buy a magazine and come back to the power socket and pull it out and it's got a full charge I keep one of those in my pack all the time for the for the lady I can charge her phone up if somebody a lot of times people are like damn I'm out of juice and I'm like whoa what kind of phone you got and boom I can just hook them up to my thing which is kind of it's kind of neat the modular charger that is nice you plug it in the wall go buy a magazine come back and hope it's still there well I think people are afraid it's like an explosive device they're going to call 911 there's something suspicious in this outlet pack specifically for iPhone though it doesn't work with anything else and in fact there's a different model for each iPhone but you slide the iPhone right into it and it's like a it's like a really thick case for the iPhone and it's a battery back up too so that works really well too well when we were both on iPhone we couldn't walk out I mean my iPhone the battery only lasted a year because I'm crazy obsessive user of these things so the battery didn't last long and so of course when the battery dies the whole phone the trash dumpster because the battery costs the same to replace the battery is to buy a new phone of the same model so that's why I always say Apple's the least green company of all the electronics companies because when the when the battery wears out the whole computer and the iPhone is a handheld computer goes in the trash dumpster sadly I swapped batteries before because Apple batteries are historically crappy I mean like the quality of their batteries had to take a lot of you know iPods, iPhones back but they typically swapped the battery you know you have to go to a genius bar which sucks we have to send it to Apple which I agree sucks but aren't they charging $99 when I had it they told me it was $99 they sent it factory they sent it to the factory to change the battery they were going to charge it to be $99 or you could buy a new iPhone of the same model for $99 either way you want a new iPhone or a new battery you know it's like a choice that's a throat in the dumpster so then what it becomes I call it an AC cell phone it only runs on AC power with a six inch cord and so I had to I had to keep the iPhone plugged into an extent a lamp extension cord you know a six foot extension cord so that I could have power and then I could use it as a remote control for my boxy on the sofa but that's pretty much the only use of the iPhone I used to take pictures of Bruce like sitting at Macy's or something by huddled down squatted down outlet charged piece a power outlet yeah because I had to make one more text or one more phone call so I'd be squatting on the floor with the you know that stupid cord is like freaking eight inches long you know so I'd have to like be literally sitting on the floor with the phone plugged in to make a call or whatever oh my god anyway we're almost out of time here but I wanted to ask you really quick since you're in New York what are some of your favorite things to do in New York and there's so many great things in New York like as far as like what do you like to hang out or eat it doesn't matter I love the East Village I love the East Village and I do most of my kind of foot traffic around here and a lot of the agencies that I work for luckily are down here I don't have to go to Midtown too much for work even though I dig Midtown I love all of New York there's a lot of Brooklyn I don't give a crap about really overrated Brooklyn thanks you and then but I'd say you know it's hard to it's hard to oversell the food here it's basically a lot of like food exploration a lot of looking for bars a lot of my favorite stuff that I've done in New York it's kind of a boring answer but it occurs from just waking up on a Sunday and deciding to walk in a certain direction and boom there's a street fair or there's a demonstration happening in Union Square or you decide to walk up to Central Park and that's like a frigging movie every time you walk through it totally it's there's just a whole bunch of new when I lived in Ohio and I had a lot of friends who lived in New York and I used to think they were so damn arrogant all they talk about is New York New York New York is better and everything but the fact is that it really is the most amazing place to be and it's not just because I live here it really is like walking out the door it's like people take a weekend in New York and I told him I said we just walk out our front door and we're we're on a vacation in New York we're in New York City it's amazing let me ask you like you guys live around yes yes we're like 8 minutes is this your view oh that's it that's very similar that's actually not our view that's a friend of ours who lives right there in Columbus Circle absolutely we're at a time we gotta pick up tomorrow we'll pick up not tomorrow but sometime soon anyway it was great fun chatting yeah it was good time alright we'll do this again really soon yeah we'd like to get together sometime you know when we're in New York see all those views it looks nice yes absolutely alright thanks a lot take care man