News Panel with Rafe Needleman and Peter Horan #213

Friday

Dec092011

Friday, December 9, 2011 at 03:28PM

News Panel with Rafe Needleman and Peter Horan #213

Click here to stream the audio version of this episode.
Click here to stream the video version of this episode.

Join our new mailing list and be the first to learn about upcoming guests!

On the News Panel live from San Francisco's CNET studios with Rafe Needleman and Peter Horan, our guests unpacked everything from Amazon's secret store plans to the difference between blogging and journalism. Also on the table were PayPal's shady practices, Google's newest social reader offering and Twitter's splashy update.

0:00-1:30 Welcome everyone, to TWiST live from the CNET/CBS Interactive studios in San Francisco!
1:30-2:15 Welcome to our guests, CNET editor Rafe Needleman and Halogen Media Group’s Peter Horan.
2:15-3:30 Thank you to GoToMeeting for sponsoring the program--they help make trips like this possible!
3:30-5:15 First story: Amazon is said to be opening big-box style stores selling their own branded merchandise. What will the stores look like? Rafe, what do you think?
5:15-6:00 Is it true that if you use Amazon’s scanner and buy that product that you get 5% off?
6:00-6:45 Peter, have you heard anything about this?
6:45-9:45 Jason demonstrates how he searched for a USB car charger and Amazon’s own product didn’t appear in the search results.
9:45-11:30 Will Amazon have a brick and mortar store in the next three years?
11:30-12:30 Tyler: If they already know that they’re going to ship to a major market, why not go ahead put a store there?
12:30-14:00 Will we see Amazon come out with smartphones, TVs, etc.?
14:00-16:45 Is there a way the consumer will lose in this scenario?
16:45-18:15 Rafe explains a scenario in which a friend tried to get a book published and was told to come back when he had 10k friends on Facebook.
18:15-20:15 Next story: Twitter has gotten a major redesign that compartmentalizes its major elements and gives brands more creative control over their page. Rafe, have you played with this at all yet?
20:15-21:30 Jason: If you look at the #Discovery page, it’s curated, it has a human touch.
21:30-23:30 If you’re a business and you can only build on Facebook or Twitter, which one do you choose?
23:30-25:45 How many people accidentally tweet you, Rafe, thinking you’re someone else?
25:45-26:30 Peter: Think about Google’s miraculous scaling over the past five years.
26:30-28:30 Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring the show! Everyone please thank @squarespace for providing such an awesome product.
28:30-31:30 Next story: Evernote’s new Hello app is designed to let people to physically swap phones to enter one anothers’ contact info. Is this product too weird to go mainstream?
31:30-34:45 Jason: I think they’re having a little bit of fun, letting their developers run wild and see what new input devices they can come up with.
34:45-38:30 Next story: Zivity’s PayPal account was shut down (and later restored) this week after the payment giant claimed that Zivity violated obscenity laws. Was this an arbitrary decision or was there any merit to it?
38:30-40:30 Jason: All this will serve to do is create PayPal alternatives. (See: Dwolla.)
40:30-40:45 Jason: What if we put a couple of billions of dollars a month to paying people to maintain local farms to provide food to schools?
40:45-44:30 UP maker Jawbone apologized this week for defects with their product and offered customers a full refund. Did they offer a mea culpa quickly enough to regain consumer confidence?
44:30-47:00 Jason: If you don’t treat customers in an exceptional manner, they will exercise their myriad of other options.
47:00-49:45 Rafe: If Amazon does open a retail store, the issue of customer service could be a real challenge. Who do they get to work there?
49:45-50:30 Jason: Would CNET talk to me about what I’ve said on the program today? Would I get kicked off the air?
50:30-52:15 Peter: A lot of startups are founded by incredibly smart people who think that’s enough, and it’s not. (Customer support counts.)
52:15-55:30 Peter: Remember the old AOL unsubscribe number?
55:30-58:00 Is it possible to charge more for a Windows computer and get people to buy it?
58:00-58:45 Rafe: The right model for today is app stores and vertical integration.
58:45-1:00:45 Next story: Google has launched a new social reading platform called Currents. Peter, what do you think of this product? Why is Google doing this?
1:00:45-1:03:00 Peter: I think this makes the most sense for small-to-midsized publishers.
1:03:00-1:05:00 Jason: I think that there’s a model for micro-payments to content publishers.
1:05:00-1:08:00 Peter: Publishers have to focus on value-added content and they have to take content out of the free stream.
1:08:00-01:09:45 Rafe: If the New York Times stops writing content, then Business Insider will have nothing to link to.
1:09:45-1:14:15 Last story: This week Time Inc. brought in former Digitas CEO Laura Lang to run the company. Will bringing in someone from so far outside the publishing world work in this instance, Peter?
1:14:15-1:16:45 Jason: If you give people only dim sum, at some point they want the entree. That’s why I started doing an email newsletter.
1:16:45-1:19:45 Rafe, how much work was doing Catch of the Day? How long did you do that for?
1:19:15-1:21:15 Peter, thank you for joining us. What exactly is the Halogen Media Group?
1:21:15-1:22:00 Thank you to Squarespace and GoToMeeting for sponsoring the program. We’ll see you all next time.

Support This Week in Startups and independent media by joining the TWiST Producer Program at TwistList.co!

Multilingual? Translate this episode of TWiST into another language and email the transcript to translate@thisweekin.com

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Tyler: @steepdecline
Rafe: @rafe
Peter: @peterchoran
GoToMeeting: @gotomeeting
Squarespace: @squarespace

Check out the latest from our sister company LAUNCH:

Special thanks to the members of the TWiST Backchannel Program!

Executive Producers

Producers

Associate Producers

Brad Pineau
Kat Ganesan
Nicholas Christian
Mau Frontier
Kyle Braatz
Serena Ehrlich
Nathan Hangen
JD
Ian Gerstel
Julian Hearn
Alex Lotoczko
James Kennedy
Benoit Curdy
Asher Nevins
Mike Kaltschnee
Paul Higgins
William Doom
David Lee
Jake Kerber
Sarp Coskun
Giuseppe Taibi
Tyrone Rubin
Keno Vigil
Paul Peters
Jamal Waring
Nick Ostroff
Alex Binkley
John MP Knox
Zon Petilla
Bryan McCormick
Marcos Trinidad
Allen Cordrey
Daniel Mich
Joshua Rosen
Grant Carlile
James Smith
Christopher Rill
Elliot Myhre
Nihon Giga

Supporters

Ryan Hoover
Michael Cranston
Josiah Thomas
João Fernandes
Petrus Theron
Michael Wild
Dale Emmons
Tim de Jardine
Alejandro Vasquez
Milan Babuskov
Chris Rowe
Nelson Melo
James Dawson
Toddy Mladenov
Daniel Torres
Chris Macke
Piotr Zuralski
Armand Konan
Brian Vogel
Paul D
Jennifer Sun
David Kolb
George Gecewicz
Sue Marrone
Eugene Granovksy
Will Blackton
Ryan Dodds
Brett Arp
Jason Cresswell
Edwin Orange
Daniel Bradley
Shawn Daniel
Priidu Kull
Patrick Desroches
Alex Lam
Paul Secor
Ryan Urabe
Madhu R.
Paul Ardeleanu
Ian Thomas
Edwin Orange
Sarp Coskun
Manny Alarcon
Charlie Osmond
Christopher Smitley
Roshan H.
Barcy Cordrey
Greg Dickson
Brett Arp
Hello24 Ltd.
Ian Gerstel
Taphon Maddison
John Bradley
Liron Shapira
Luigi Armogida
Dave Ferrara
Janus Lindau