Category: Storytelling

Amazon by Joe WilcoxFeb 4, 201612:06 am

From Amazon’s Bookstore Risk Can Come Great Rewards

There is collective head-scratching across the InterWebs about a Wall Street Journal report that Amazon will open as many as 300, or even 400, stores selling books. The company’s massive success selling ebooks and the cost and selection advantages of warehousing their physical counterparts make the concept seem nonsensical. I contend that it’s brilliant.

Amazon is in process of expanding online services into the purview of local retail, which biggest competitive advantage is immediacy. In conjunction with the $99-per-year Prime program, the online retailer offers faster shipping; same day, and within hours, in some locales. The company increasingly contracts its own carriers, as well. Immediacy requires presence. What better location than a bookstore that also warehouses other goods and provides customer service operations? That’s all without considering the branding opportunities, which, as Apple Store demonstrates, can be huge.

Gear by Joe WilcoxFeb 2, 20163:13 pm

If You Can Vote for American Idol on Smartphones, Why Not Presidents?

Over the weekend, my 94 year-old father-in-law asked what I would do to assure that every American who could vote would do so. That was an unexpected question, but one I addressed gingerly. This post is my answer restated for a public venue.

Simple answer: Smartphone. According to PewResearchCenter, nearly 70 percent of Americans own one of the devices, but the number among voting age adults tops 80 percent, according to other estimates. Surely a program could be in place by the 2020 Presidential race, and if lawmakers were truly serious about universal suffrage, a Manhattan-like project could make it happen by the next Mid-terms.

Google by Joe WilcoxJan 24, 20169:35 pm

What If: Google Drone Street View

There is no shortage of online blabbers making predictions about the future or bloggers pining pageviews with rumors about the next thing (usually from Apple). I rarely join the chorus of new year prognosticators—and won’t now. Instead I make a wishful what-if aimed squarely at Google. Watching the blizzard blast the Washington, D.C. metro area, once my home and for most of my adult life, I got to thinking: Wouldn’t a live feed, something like Google Drone Street View, be fantastic way to experience the storm?

Why shouldn’t this be the next wave in drone deployments? If not from Google, then from newscasters? The low-flyers could go where snow would stop motorized vehicles; and, connected in real-time to Google Maps, provide contextual viewing experience. You can be there, too, even if living one-thousand kilometers distant. Newscasters could use drones to give a more immersive watching experience.

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 23, 20164:01 pm

Blizzard 2016 Weather Voyeurs

I grew up with snow. Hometown Caribou, Maine, typically ranks in the top five cities for annual average accumulation—280 centimeters (110 inches); ranked No. 4 for winter 2015. However, I spent most of my adult life in the Washington, D.C. metro area, where snow is nowhere as frequent but where whiteouts or ice-rages can be more severe. My wife and I are weather voyeurs observing the blizzard blasting the District this weekend. Washington is more home than San Diego, where we live to assist my 94 year-old father-in-law. The blizzard and memory of past storms there beckon me.

Anne has followed the storm online, posting to Facebook this morning a delightful video of panda play at snow-covered National Zoo. She also watched CNN, which coverage is sensational and sporadic. We needed something more like home, so I switched HDMI ports to Roku Stick, started the NewsOn app, and watched the live feed from WUSA. What a treat!

People by Joe WilcoxJan 12, 20169:30 pm

Thank-you, LG

Generosity given during trying times is not forgotten. You remember. In November 2015, my youngest sister’s LG smartphone shattered and could no longer be operated. The handset was a lifeline, as she stayed far from her Connecticut home in a Massachusetts hospital with her husband, who underwent cancer treatment. Vision impaired, he accidentally knocked the handset onto the floor.

Laurette was about one year into her 24-month cellular contract, and the local Verizon store showed little sympathy for her personal family crisis. Ineligible for another upgrade, out-of-pocket cost for a new LG G4 would be about $600. Medical expenses had already cleaned out the till. What the Hell, I contacted LG directly, and the response surprised—no shocked.

People by Joe WilcoxJan 11, 20168:01 pm

A Legend Leaves Us

The seeming suddenness of David Bowie’s death yesterday cannot be overstated. He hid his liver cancer from most everyone, and he left this world with remarkable dignity—externally living normally as could be nearly up to the end.

The singer celebrated his 69th birthday on January 8th—yes, two days before his departure—when his last studio album, 7-track “Blackstar” released. The song that surely will be a meme is “Lazarus”, which issued as digital download the week before Christmas; in my listening to the song is epitaph to all the people he leaves behind. From first stanza to the last, unrequited fate is transcendence.

Apple by Joe WilcoxJan 10, 201610:09 am

Hehe, This is How You Report About the Consumer Electronics Show

Engadget features editor Joseph Volpe buries the lede, so I fix it for him by posting over at my new project, Frak That!, headline: “Steve Jobs calls Apple Watch a ‘Joke’“. Oh, the clickbait accusations will fly from some, and the Apple Faithful will fling rotten fruit for my irreverence, but the post fits the site’s core editorial principle of pointing out the absurd—in this case the otherwise lack of original reporting about the Consumer Electronics Show, to which the somewhat oddball Engadget story affronts.

Joseph rises above the CES 2016 public relations cluster-fuck to write something really original. He consulted a “higher source” to get the lowdown on the year ahead in tech: Las Vegas psychics. Brilliant! And it’s something I actually read in all the dribble designed to self-flagellate corporate egos.

News Media by Joe WilcoxJan 6, 201610:48 pm

Valleywag May Be Gone, But Its Spirit Lives On

I follow few bylines. Matt Taibbi tops the short list, which also includes Gawker writers Sam Biddle and John Cook. I read them for their biting style and searing sarcasm. But one of the vehicles for their content is gone, and I should have seen the end approaching.

The New Year left behind Valleywag, the snarky insider rag that over the course of 9 years shamelessly scorched Silicon Valley’s power elite. But no more. On December 31st, John posted “R.I.P. Valleywag, 2006-2015“.

Critters by Joe WilcoxJan 1, 201610:09 pm

Remembering Bubba

When I started Flickr a Day one year ago, I envisioned a photographic storytelling project, That was 2015. For 2016, I shift storytelling to broader venues but can’t promise daily delivery. Our first installment time travels 10 years to June 2006, when our family inherited lost baby bunny Bubba.

While walking our Kensington, Md. neighborhood on the evening of the third, we came across a couple clasping a tiny rabbit; their cat caught the bunny a day earlier. They desperately sought someone to care for the animal. As house-rabbit owners, we obliged, with the intention of taking Bubba to a wildlife rescue center the next day. He didn’t live long enough to be rescued,

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 30, 20156:30 am

Flickr a Day 364: ‘Mr. Lonely’

I picked the second-to-last pic in the series for capturing my mood: somber. I enjoy curating the photos and end satisfied in completing the task: 365 selections, one a day, each from a different Flickr […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 29, 20156:30 am

Flickr a Day 363: ‘My Wonderful Cole’

Grandparent with a camera can be any child’s worst embarrassment. “OMG! He tagged me on Facebook”. Blame the family, which reignited the photographic passions of Jimmy Brown with his “first digital SLR, a Canon Rebel as […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 26, 20157:19 am

Flickr a Day 360: ‘The Leaving’

The series winds down with a dramatic change in curation. From the first day forward, I prepared posts in advance—sometimes as many as 10. But with six selections remaining, I prep the next to follow the current one; for emphasis and care choosing.

First up, street photographer Tuncay Coşkun, who shot self-titled “The Leaving” on June 6, 2014, using Canon EOS 60D. Vitals: f/13, ISO 200, 1/125 sec, 50mm. I picked the pic for clever composition and character. Need I even explain why?