Disclosure
I have been meaning to write about the new blogger disclosure rule that was news a few weeks ago. Since I occasionally review products here, I thought I should address the disclosure issue. This is a very low-profile blog that typically gets around 20 hits a day. However, my most frequently-read posts are my reviews. As you can see, I have no advertising here. I do not get paid in any way to write this blog. I also do not get any free products to review. Every product that I have discussed has been paid for with my own money, purchased through normal retail channels. In the extremely unlikely event that I am provided a product or service for free, it will be clearly stated in the blog entry. Since I regularly discuss mapping, GIS, GPS, and geocaching, I will disclose that I am a shareholder in Garmin. I have other investments, and should I ever discuss products made by those companies, I will make note of my investor status.
Search Trends for My Blog
I had to laugh at this. Somebody got here yesterday by searching for “delorean pn40.” They managed to blend the name of a defunct car manufacturer with a model of GPS receiver. I don’t know how they even got here because a Google search for delorean pn40 doesn’t pull up this site. By the way, the person was likely looking for a DeLorme PN-40. Somebody who looks for a “delorean pn40″ needs a lot of GPS purchasing help.
Lately my construction rants have been getting regular hits. I think more people are getting fed up with the construction on US Route 20 and IL Route 25. Apparently the construction on US20 is bad enough that people are using IL19 as an alternative, which is screwing up traffic at the intersection of IL19 and Shales Parkway.
Another post that gets regular hits is my comparison of sub sandwiches. Some weirdo searched for “description of biting into an italian sandwich” Um, it’s like biting into any other sandwich that has meat and veggies between two pieces of bread.
McKenna Commercial
I noticed Andy McKenna, GOP gubernatorial candidate, has started airing TV ads.
Who does he think he is kidding? An outsider? Not part of Springfield? He is the former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party. How can someone be a political outsider and not part of state government when they were the state chairman of their party?
As if that alone wasn’t reason enough to peg this as a bad commercial, we have the final scene with McKenna and Matt Murphy (presumed running mate) standing side-by-side with the words McKenna & Murphy on the screen. This part of the ad looks more like a law firm ad than a political ad.
I am leaning toward Dan Hynes for governor at the moment, but that could change on a whim. I’m sure as hell not voting for Quinn though. Hope it’s not just those two on the Democratic ballot in the primary.
Overhyping Google’s Free SatNav App
News came out today that Google will offer a free GPS navigation app for phones running their Android 2 operating system. This announcement resulted in shares of Garmin and TomTom dropping. Garmin stock closed down about 16% today. (Remember, I own shares of Garmin.)
The response on tech news sites and forums was ridiculously enthusiastic and irrational, writing off traditional navigation hardware. I bought Garmin at a low price, so despite the 16% drop, my shares are still worth more than I paid. In fact, Garmin’s share price is simply back to where it was 2 months ago and double what it was in February. People were acting as if the death knell for Garmin had sounded and they were about to go out of business. Preposterous. Garmin investors are doing just fine. And it is likely the company will do fine for the forseeable future.
A writer at Computerworld has his opinions on why Google’s app isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread. I will give my opinions below.
First, it is for Android, specifically Android 2 (not out yet). Americans haven’t embraced Android. I see far more BlackBerries, iPhones, and “dumbphones” than I see Android-powered phones. Unless Google ports this app to iPhone OS, there will be very few users. Second, you have to have a smartphone. Smartphones are proliferating, but there are also a lot of people who pay $70/mo for their multi-line family plan who won’t stomach paying $70/mo just for one smartphone and its data plan. I’m one of those people. So the requisite Android phone and data plan preclude a large part of the cell phone user base. Traditionally, cell phone navigation has been hampered by screen size and battery life. Google’s cradle triggering an automotive mode for the phone is a nice touch. That may actually make their app usable while driving. It may help overcome the stigma that cell phone navigation stinks.
Google has done a nice job leveraging all of their technologies (crowdsourced traffic, StreetView, voice recognition) and data sets. I’ll give them that. But all the forum commenters, bloggers, and tech geeks are wrong about Google pwning Garmin and TomTom. Yes, it is a nice app. Yes, it will force competitors to innovate and compete. But for the reasons I touched on, I don’t see mass adoption of Google’s navigation app and the wholesale ditching of standalone GPS devices.
